Huh, curious. Before I did not see the whole "Your Stealth init roll is also your Stealth hiding roll", esp. with how you are supposed to be able to Take 20 when Invisible, but now that you outline the text I see that. I feel like that is an unintended interaction. That or Invisible characters should be able to Take 20 on Init. XD
That’s what we have been doing in Starfox’ group. The initative doubles as your sneak roll, and Invisibility allows you to take 20 on your sneak roll.
Invisibility heightened to 4th level is one of the best buff spells available, we’ve found. Not for sneaking around, but for the miss chance and for the above take-20 on initative. It has allowed us to get most opponents frightened and prone before their first action.
Edge93 wrote:
Also small note, Frightened from Dirge and Sickened both impose conditional penalties, so they would not stack. There is merit to using both, as they have different durations and cure methods, making it harder to shake both than it would be for just one.
Necerion was also prone, and that is Circumstance. :)
But as Starfox has mentioned elsewhere on several occations, the words ”Circumstance” and ”Conditional” are easy to mix up when you are dyslectic.
Is used often, average once per scene or more.
* Assist
* High Jump
* Long Jump
Actually, it is Aid and Leap we use a lot. (I’m one of Starfox’ players)
Assist is when you improve someone’s ”to hit” or AC in combat, and it has a bad critical fail. Jump is simply too complex too use with its odd DC mechanism, compared to Leap, especialli if you have Powerful Leap.
One problem with Survival that makes the Survival rolls in the scenario extra difficult: The difficulties are taken from table 10-2. Table 10-2 assumes you have magic items that boost your skill. There are no items that boost a straight Survival roll; there are items that boost particular subsets of Survival, but no items that help when you roll a generic, unspecified Survival, like there are e.g for Athletics and Diplomacy.
I've previously written reports on our playtest of The Lost Star and Sombrefell Hall. We've played Pale Mountain's Shadow too, but I have not had time to clean up my notes from that.
Note: There may be mistranslations: My GM translated the scenario on the fly from English to Swedish as we played, and I translated from Swedish to kind-of-English as I wrote notes on what happened.
== Characters ==
Due some unfortunate stuff, we were unable to start with our initial three players, so us two remaining players are running two characters each, and we got a very late start on doing the playtest.
The characters were:
Arami, Cavern Elf Maestro Bard. Trip specialist with a Master's rank in Athletics, and armed with a whip, which allows her to use its finesse trait to trip with dex.
Deena, Cavern Elf Cleric of Honey, passion domain. Honey was a previous character that ascended after Rise of the Runelords. Honey is a patron of the performing arts, and for those with a generally bohemian hippie “flowers in your hair” lifestyle. Here we decided to translate Honey into the Playtest rules as a diety with the Performance skill, Fist as holy weapon (as Irori) and Domains and Spells as Shelyn.
Frag, Dwarf Fighter. Yes, that *is* an authentic Old Norse dwarf name, taken from the Völuspa of the Poetic Edda - same place Tolkien got his dwarf names. With an Adopted Ancestry: Elf, he fits in a group that otherwise is purely elven.
Keyt, Cavern Elf Rogue. Demoralization specialist, with a Demon Mask and Master's rank in Intimidation. Unfortunately, that tends to collide with the bard's Dirge of Doom.
All characters have Darkvision to allow us to sneak around easily without revealing light sources, and all are fast, thanks to Fleet, Nimble and Bounding Boots. The bard and rogue have a speed of 45, and the fighter and the cleric have one of 35.
Our playtest game has been transplanted to the World of Greyhawk, in order to tie into our GM's past and future campaigns. This means that such things as the names of deities and places have been changed.
== Setup ==
So, given that we were in Greyhawk, we met up with Keleri Deverin in the city of Rook Roost in the Buff Hills, between the Duchy of Tenh, The Rovers of the Barren, and the Bandit Kingdoms, and she gave us some background information:
We knew that The Night Heralds have been looking for Doomsday Clocks. The Dominion of the Black were somehow involved, and a wizard named Ramlock was somehow associated.
Ramlock was an Ur-Flan from the old days when Flan wizardry flourished under Vecna himself, and one of the first wizards to research the Dominion the Black. He grew up in a place called Moonmere, and the Night Heralds were now looking for it. And if it was important to them, it should be important to to us.
Keleri gave us a map, and indicated that Moonmere ought to be somewhere on the map, at the source of one the small river tributaries. She wanted us to search the area, find resources, and form alliances.
We gathered some rumours:
There were supposed to be rocs to the north, a dragon to the southeast, a monster in the lake in the centre, and most fey had left the forests, but some might still be there. Also, in the north forest, there were supposed to be a secret village of gnomes, and south of it a displaced tribe of cyclopses.
The basic rules of the mini game were explained by the GM, with Treasure Points, Ally Points and Research Points, and how Treasure Points could be exchanged into magic items. We were to start at the point marked "E", and the GM had calculated how fast we would travel using either on foot or using level 4 phantom steeds. The GM was a little irritated over that the scenario did not mention which terrains counted as "difficult", but he had assumed that mountains and forests were difficult, while the other terrains were not. As the GM's travel times were presented, Deena got some in-character teasing about being as slow as the dwarf: "only" speed 35...
Checking on the bulk calculations, we came to the conclusion that Arami and Deena could double up on a Phantom Steed, so those days we traveled using those, Arami needed to spend only three level 4 spell slots. The bulk of the equipment would go into Keyt's Bag of Holding, while Deena would use a level 2 slot to create food everyday.
After some negotiations and rules quandaries we agreed on the exploration tactics we would use:
A DC 30 Perception check or a DC 27 Survival would allow us to explore a hex in one day, otherwise it would take two days. We would roll the second day too, but then only critical successes - i.e. natural 20s - would count for extra information. A Stealth check versus an appropriate DC would give us stealth advantage when meeting whatever was in the hex. The rolls would be open.
Both Arami and Deena used their Ancestral Expertise to temporarily become experts at Survival for this mission.
== Journey Begins ==
-- Day 1 --
On foot, direction east: Grasslands and river.
What we were heading for was the gnome village, which we thought was *in* the north forest. We avoided the lake, since we thought it unlikely that a lake monster could contribute either Ally Points or Treasure Points.
-- Day 3 --
On Phantom Steeds, direction northeast: Forest.
The GM took mercy on us, and allowed us to roll a Society. Arami rolled a natural 20. This gave the GM an opportunity to point out that we had misinterpreted the gnome village rumour. It was north *of* the forest, not north *in* the forest.
The GM allowed us to roll some Know Nature to gain a hint.
Arami: natural 20. Keyt: natural 20. Now we got the 20s we needed... Hint: "Rocs live in mountains". It was nice of the GM, but we had kind of already assumed that - we were looking for the gnomes.
The GM allowed Keyt's natural 20 to reveal that the Roc's were in the next hex upriver, even though it was a on a stealth roll, not a survival or perception one.
More nature rolls on the nature of Rocs: Frag: 26 - Roc's hunt prey the size of elephants. They are not interested in puny humans.
-- Day 14 --
We knew where the rocs were, but they were animals; we wanted intelligent allies, so we turned back at speed.
On Phantom Steeds, directions southwest, southwest, southeast: hills, joining of two rivers.
We found some dead bodies, and got to investigate the scene:
Arami: Occultism 32 - These seemed to be Night Herald cultist, trying to set up a metal net over the river to trap magical energies for some kind of ritual.
Deena: Survival 34 - They seemed to have angered the rocs and been killed by them.
Some loot by the bodies:
* Lesser spell duelist wand
* 2 moderate healing potions
* Scroll of Locate
* Vial of dust of disappearance.
Since we had a day, the GM thought it unnecessary for us to roll to identify these.
-- Day 16 --
On Phantom Steeds, directions southwest, southwest, west: forest
Deena found some gnome tracks! Following them we found the gnome village in a ravine. This was 3h and 5 mins since we started this session...
The gnomes were very happy to see us - they had not had any visitors for a long time.
Keyt warned them for some bad humans skulking around this area, but they were more concerned about the rocs, which they had had problems with since a month ago.
Deena rolled perception 32 - crit. Frag rolled perception 33, also a crit. They noticed that three houses were missing, and there were some damage to others that looked roc-caused.
We managed to get a talk with their mayor.
Long time ago - a hundred years - one of the gnomes went fire-crazy and burned down most of the forest in the area. Since then they had hidden here in the ravine and gotten left alone, until the rocs came and started stealing houses.
Arami used some diplomacy to gather information about the Moonmere: 34. It was supposed to be far south, but now a dragon lived in the mountains there.
If we solved their roc problem, they would become allies, and they claimed to be good at all kinds of magic - except fire.
-- Day 18 --
On Phantom Steeds, direction northeast, northeast, east: mountains.
Nothing interesting in the surrounding hexes, but we saw the remains of the missing houses, dropped from high up. Fortunately the gnomes had managed to evacuate them before they were taken.
-- Day 19 --
On foot, direction east, east: mountains, tributary source. Presumed home of the rocs.
Thanks to the stealth rolls we spotted the nest without being seen, and got a good look at the rocs.
The rocs were orange, and when we recalled the orange tiles on the gnome houses, we realised that the gnome roofs looked like roc wings.
There were lots of whale bones around under the nest, but they did not seem recent.
Frag: know nature 22 - If there were no more whales to fish, then perhaps the rocs had changed hunting grounds and spotted the gnome village.
But what had happened to the whales? Frag: know nature - nat 20: "perhaps they were overfished by rocs?"
Arami was very reluctant to attack the rocs in cold blood, and bemoaned the sad fact that we had no way to talk with them and save the gnome village that way. The others managed to persuade her with the argument "We have to save the whales!"
== Fight 1 ==
We climbed up to the nest while the rocs were out. As we could see them coming in, Arami and Frag hid in cracks in the rock, while Keyt and Deena received last-moment level 4 invisibility spells from Arami.
Just as the rocs landed in their nest, we triggered initiative.
(As all started invisible to the Rocs, either by spell or by rock walls being in the way, the GM ruled that the got an automatic 20 on their rolls. With Roc 1's perception beating Deena's stealth in spite of this, Roc 1 sensed Deena's presence.)
-- Round 1 --
Keyt: Delay.
Arami: Crawl out of her rock crevice. Stand up. Dirge of Doom.
Keyt, invisible next to Roc 1: Backstab: 27 - hit, 24 damage. Backstab: 31 - hit, 23 damage. Backstab: miss.
Roc 1: Fly up to 15 ft height. Try to pick up Keyt: flat check ok, 21 - miss. Wing Buffet vs Keyt: 32 - hit, 13 damage, pushed 10 feet.
Frag: crawl out of his crevice. Stand up. Strike Roc 2: 21 - miss.
Roc 1: Stand up. Wing Buffet vs Arami: 27 - hit, 16 damage, pushed 10 feet. Wing Buffet vs Keyt: 32 - hit, 14 damage, pushed 10 feet. Wing Buffet vs Frag: 25 - miss.
Frag: Power Attack vs Roc 1: 35 - crit, 57 damage. Roc 1 died and fell off the mountain. Intimidate versus Roc 2: fail.
Deena: Ray of Enfeeblement vs Roc 2: 18 - miss.
Roc 2: Fly. Strafe vs Frag: 22 - miss. Strafe vs Arami: 23 - miss. Intimidate Frag: 18 - fail.
-- Round 3 --
Arami: Dirge of Doom. Leap - up on the shoulders of Frag: "How hard can it be?" GM, looking at the acrobatics examples in table 10-3 determined: "Incredible 2" - i.e. DC 17. Roll: 22 - success, and Arami got an extra hero point. Trip vs Roc 2: 29 - success.
Keyt: Climbs up cliff.
Frag: Strike vs Roc 2: 34 - crit: 49 damage. Strike vs Roc 2: 23 - hit, 22 damage. Strike vs Roc 2: nat 1 - miss.
Deena: Ray of enfeeblement vs Roc 2: 30 - hit, Roc 2 fort save: 17 - fail, enfeebled 1.
Roc 2: Stand up. Frag: Attack of Opportunity: 23 - hit, 28 damage. Beak vs Frag: miss. Wing Buffet vs Frag: 24 - miss.
-- Round 4 --
Arami: Move around Roc 2 to outflank. Dirge of Doom. Trip vs Roc 2: 35 - crit, 2 damage.
Fight over. Arami had taken 16 HP damage, and Keyt 27 HP damage. The other two were unhurt.
== Session over ==
4h 53 mins spent.
Hero points used: 0
Death saves: 0
Consumables: 0
Resonance on non-investment: 0
During this session's 19 days did we roll Survival or Perception 67 times.
20 were failed 2nd day "fish for a 20" rolls.
11 were critical failures,
21 were failures
14 were successes
1 was a critical success.
One of the common complaints about spellcasting is that the accuracy is low. I think that there is a very simple way of handling this: Rather than having a separate proficiency for spellcasting, use one of the skills to determine attacks and save DCs.
Let wizards cast spells with Arcana, Clerics with Religion and Druids with Nature. Let Bards use Performance, and Sorcerers use Deception, Diplomacy, Intimidation or Performance depending on bloodline - BAM! Instant flavor difference.
With the better skill proficiency, and the opportunity to get item bonuses, this will improve accuracy, something I understand people asked for in the survey on magic.
I came to think of it when I leveled up my Bard to 9th level for Mirrored Moon (yes, we *are* behind in the play test) and compared my options for debuffing opponents: Trip is Master with a +3 item bonus (Armbands of Athleticism) for a total of +5, while corresponding spells are Trained with no item bonus for a total of +0. +5 vs +0 is a *lot* of difference in this system (not to mention the difference between one action and two to use). My co-player's rogue has the same setup with Master Intimidation and Demon Mask. No wonder spell accuracy feels so bad...
Besides, this gives Bards a very good use for Performance, rather than the very contrived one in Lingering Performance and Inspire Heroics. :)
Note: There may be mistranslations: My GM translated the scenario on the fly from English to Swedish as we played, and I translated from Swedish to kind-of-English as I wrote notes on what happened.
== Characters ==
The characters were:
Arami, Cavern Elf Maestro Bard.
Deena, Cavern Elf Cleric of Honey, passion domain.
Elise, Cavern Elf Cleric of Honey, passion domain.
Keyt, Cavern Elf Rogue.
The characters were played by two players, each playing two characters. All characters had Darkvision, Fleet and Nimble.
As it only was a few days since we played session 3, we did not need to do any intro or recap, but proceeded with immediately placing our characters on the map.
* Keyt went into the dining room.
* Arami and Deena into the study, together as Deena had just cast Restoration on Arami.
* Elise stayed in the hall.
Arami was given the opportunity to roll an open Perception check: 20 - nothing.
Action kicked off by someone outside sending us a taunting and threatening telepathic message. The message made us believe the final attack was imminent, so we immediately gathered again in the Hall, in order to cast the buff spells we had hoarded so far.
Exploration mode did not seem to suit the situation, but we had not really made contact with anything yet, so rolling initiatives felt premature. So, we fell back on what we've done before in other editions and games: "round-by-round play in whatever character order seems suitable".
-- Pre-combat round 1 --
We heard someone read a spell out loud outside.
Arami: Cast invisibility, heightened to lvl 4, on Keyt.
Elise: Circle of Protection on the Professor.
Keyt: Occultism to identify spell: 26 - "Telekinetic Haul".
Deena nothing.
-- Pre-combat round 2 --
Door is thrown open with great force, clearing the rubble inside it.
Arami: Cast invisibility, heightened to lvl 4, on Deena.
Elise: Cast sanctuary on herself, while making a pearl from her Necklace of Fireballs ready. (Somewhat contradictory, yes, I know)
NPCs: Move into the dining room
Keyt: Move to just beside the now empty doorway.
As we could now see the enemies just outside the doorway, the GM decided it was time for the fight proper to start.
== Fifth Fight ==
Initiatives:
Keyt: Stealth 34 (Automatic 20 on the roll, as per the invisibility rules.)
Deena: Stealth 27 (Same as above, as she was also invisible)
Arami: Perception 27
Elise: Perception 25
Ilvoresh: 16 (natural 1!)
Vampire Spawns: 21
Illvoresh started with Mirror Image running.
-- Round 1 --
Keyt: Delay
Deena: Delay
Arami: Dirge of Doom. Move to encompass all enemies in the aura. This required some rule lookup to determine the effect of a wall with a doorway between us and them, but apparently an Aura does not need a line of effect, making it go through a wall OK. The move made Arami the closest visible character to the enemy.
Elise: Throw a 4d6 Necklace of Fireballs pearl. More rules argument about whether the damage should be upgraded as per upgrade 1.5 or not. As the item stated it did damage as the spell, we allowed the item to get the spell's damage upgrade, so the "4d6" pearl actually did 6d6, which turned out to be 20 damage when rolled.
Ilvoresh: Save 17 - fail.
Vampire 1: Save 22 - success.
Vampire 2: Save 20 - success.
Ilvoresh: Cast paralyze on Arami. Arami: Save 18 - fail, paralyzed for one round. Move into contact with Arami.
-- Round 2 --
Deena: Cast Divine Wrath on Ilvoresh, damage 26. Ilvoresh: save 17 - fail, Sick 1.
Arami, paralyzed: 3 x Know Occultism rolls. The GM postponed the rolls until later. No, we never got around to resolve them.
Elise: Delay.
Keyt, invisible and next to Ilvoresh, decided to use an old trick versus Mirror Image - close her eyes and use Blind-Fighting to find the right target.
Backstab vs Ilvoresh: flat check ok, strike: 30 - crit, damage: 38. Ilvoresh: save versus brain loss: 21, fail - enervated 1. Backstab vs Ilvoresh: flat check ok, strike: 19 - miss. Backstab vs Ilvoresh: flat check fail.
Vampire 2: Sneak: 31 - success. Move. Move.
Ilvoresh: Bite vs Arami: 30 - hit, 20 damage + venom. Arami: save 29 - success. Claw vs Arami: 25 - hit, 17 damage + energy drain. Arami: save 18 - fail, enervated 1. Claw vs Arami: 21 - miss.
Elise: Move. 1-action Heal 4 + Healing Hand on Arami: 37 HP, Arami back at full HP.
-- Round 3 --
Deena: Delay. (Waiting for the second Vampire Spawn to return.)
Arami: Draw rapier. Strike vs Ilvoresh: nat 20 - crit and Mirror Image bypass, 30 damage - Ilvoresh killed.
Vampire 2, no longer controlled by Ilvoresh, immediately turned and fled.
Fight over.
== Cleanup ==
With Ilvoresh dead, The Professor thought himself cured from his affliction and he would be more than willing to help.
About here, Keyt's player discovered that blind-fight apparently only worked against opponents of a lower level than you, and was much incensed. As important fights tended to be against higher opponents, not lower, that would make that feat worthless.
== Session End ==
Time Spent: 1h 5min.
Death saves: 0.
Hero points spent: 0.
Total party damage taken: 37.
Consumables used: 1 fireball bead.
Resonance used on anything other than daily investments: 1 for fire ball bead.
Spell points used: 0.
== Scenario End ==
Time Spent: 2h 11min + 3h 20min + 2h 42min + 1h 05min = 9h 18min
Total party Death saves: 0.
Total party Hero Points spent: 2 on a reroll.
Total party damage taken: 91.
Total party Consumables used: 2 holy water as material components, 2 fireball beads.
Total party Resonance on non-investments: 4 (2 fireball beads, 2 staff charges)
Total party Spell Points used: 0.
The rest of the allotted session time was spent starting to level up our characters for Mirrored Moon.
Note: There may be mistranslations: My GM translated on the fly from English to Swedish as we played, and I translated from Swedish to English as I wrote notes on what happened.
== Characters ==
The characters were:
Arami, Cavern Elf Maestro Bard.
Deena, Cavern Elf Cleric of Honey, passion domain.
Elise, Cavern Elf Cleric of Honey, passion domain.
Keyt, Cavern Elf Rogue.
The characters were played by two players, each playing two characters. All characters had Darkvision, Fleet and Nimble.
== Introduction ==
We played this session just after update 1.6 had dropped, so we started this session by discussing whether we should convert the characters to that update in the middle of the scenario. After some arguing back and forth, the GM decided he wanted us to stick with the 1.5 update, not change in the middle without giving us opportunity to change memorised spells.
After that, we made a recap of our defensive situation:
* Two sanctified ground were running, one versus Undead, one versus Aberrations.
* Rather than barricades, we had difficult terrain rubble strewn over the hall, with some caltrops at strategic squares. We wanted to lure the opponents in while slowing them, not keep them out.
* We had made dummies from left-over clothes and bedded them down in the upper bedrooms.
* The windows in the dining room and in the study were broken after fighting off the wights who tried to enter those ways.
* The remains of the chandelier added to the rubble just inside the front door.
* The front door had not been repaired again, and was broken at the moment.
== A Brief Calm ==
We started the session proper by splitting up the party so that we had a watcher in each direction. As the bard and the rogue had 40 speed, and the clerics 35 speed, we expected to be able to reinforce each other when trouble came, especially as looking out the windows with darkvision would give us advance warning.
* Arami went north, looking out over the lake from the recreation room.
* Keyt went south, trying to repair the front door while keeping a lookout in that direction.
* Deena went east, looking out through the broken study room windows.
* Elise went west, looking out the dining room windows.
Here we ran into problems with the Exploration rules as written (again!). How *do* you keep active lookout using them in a way that rewards us actually taking precautions, rather than just rolling the usual initiatives as soon as the monsters appear? Sigh.
Our GM allowed us to squeeze in some minor activities while we waited for the next attack.
The Professor spilled the beans to Elise: He had secretly suffered memory loss, dissociation and other possession-like stuff. The episodes usually happened after midnight (quick time-check with the GM - no, we were not at midnight yet). When asked about the vampires being able to enter, he sheepishly agreed that he might have given them permission during an episode.
Elise also asked about what the Professor thought about the undeads' behaviour. He thought they looked controlled. Could there be a master vampire controlling them?
Keyt rolled 20 on her repair of the front door, and it regained two dents.
Arami, with Lucvi's assistance, piled a pair of sofas on top of each other, to make it easier to jump up to and down from the balcony in the centre room.
GM: "Are you trained in Crafting?"
Arami: "Um, no..."
GM: "I'll let you roll for it when you actually use them in a hurry..." (evil grin)
Returning to her post, now one floor up at the centre top floor bedroom window, Arami got to roll a perception: 17. This was actually a critical success versus the six zombies crawling out of the lake. The GM ruled that the crit meant that they were approximately a minute away.
As Arami had line-of-sight to Keyt, she waved her over. Keyt came running and jumped up. The sofas held.
The GM rolled a secret roll for Arami: Nothing.
The GM rolled a secret roll for Keyt: "Something is strange with the shadows".
Arami got a new perception roll, open this time: 20. Nothing.
Keyt dragged Arami out of the room by her neck, and both jumped down from the balcony. The sofas held again.
With plenty of warning, we did set up for a fight: The NPCs hid in the kitchen, while the PCs retreated to the Consecrated Ground in the hall, two at each side of the doorway to the library.
GM: "Once again you have the used the exceptional tactic of looking out the windows, which the scenario is totally unprepared for."
We heard window glass shatter, as the zombies entered the bottom floor windows.
Elise: Know Religion: 28 - The shadows were Greater Shadows; Incorporeal, immune to precision damage (Rogue: awww), don't like light. This info made Elise cast a Light cantrip at the top of the bookshelves in the Library, spreading light over the choke point where we expected to fight.
Zombies 1-6: Moved through their different bottom floor bedrooms and opened the doors in to the library.
-- Round 2 --
Keyt: Draw shortbow. Shoot Zombie 2 with a sneak attack 26: 13 damage - bloodied.
Elise: Delay
Arami: Delay
Shadows: (something secret)
Elise: Level 4 Summon Monster: Animated Armor. This lead to a *lot* of rules lookup to figure out how it worked, especially: could it act immediately it was summoned or not? We finally decided that it was not, so it had to stay where it was summoned until Elise could spend a concentration action on it.
Arami: Dirge of Doom. Cast Haste on Keyt.
Zombie 1-6: Move + Move, barely reaching the PCs.
-- Round 3 --
Keyt: Haste move to Deena. Reposition to place her in the center; Lots of argument if you could reposition an ally or not. The GM finally let Keyt roll for it. Athletics 25 - Keyt moved Deena two steps. After this, Keyt shot Zombie 2: 27 - crit. Killed.
Deena, now in the center in front of all the bottlenecked Zombies: 3-action Heal 4: 24 damage.
Zombie 1: Crit fail - dead.
Zombie 3: fail - dead.
Zombie 4: fail - dead.
Zombie 5: fail - dead.
Zombie 6: fail . dead.
Shadow 1, peeking out of the ceiling above us: Cast Shadow. Time for rules lookup again. Apparently, the heightened level of the Light cantrip in place made the shadow spell fail to penetrate. Retreat out through the ceiling: Hide - fail against all PCs perception. So, we know it was there, on the other side of the ceiling, but we could not reach it.
Shadow 2: (something secret)
Elise: Delay
Arami: Fearing the hidden Shadows were doing something nefarious to the professor, Arami rolled a series of Know Occult rolls to analyse their behaviour: 18, 19, 14 - nothing.
-- Round 4 --
Keyt: Know Occult 20 - nothing. Know Occult 21: Believed the Shadows were focused on us first, and not going for the Professor. Draw shortbow.
Deena: Half-cast, half-ready Disrupt Undead. (Yes, I know, readying the second action of a spell is under some discussion on the forum, but with incorporeal undead that can use their three actions to move out of a wall, attack, and then move back in again, it would be a *very* slow and boring fight without the ability to ready something.)
Elise: Concentrate on the summon. Half-cast, half-ready Disrupt Undead.
Shadow 2: Sneak 28 - success. Shadow Hand vs Arami: 28 - hit, 9 damage. Deena's Disrupt Undead triggered: 13 damage. Shadow saved for half damage. Shadow Steal vs Arami: enfeebled 1.
Shadow 1: Move out of ceiling. Elise's Disrupt Undead triggered: Damage 7, save fail. Look around. Regular attack vs Elise: 24 - hit, 12 damage.
Arami: (Gave up concentrating on Haste.) Dirge of Doom. Move. Trip Shadow 2 with Ghost Touch whip and Master Assurance Athletics: automatic success, no roll, thanks to Dirge of Doom.
Arami cast Soothe 3 on Elise for 18 HP, and a Soothe 3 on herself for 26 HP, which took care of their HP damage.
Deena started casting Restoration on Arami.
Elise started casting Restoration on herself.
Keyt cleaned up after the zombies.
To our relief, the GM announced that we would have time to finish our Restoration spells.
== Session End ==
Time spent: 2h 42 minutes.
Hero points spent: 2 on a reroll.
Death Saves: 0.
Total damage Taken: 54 HP.
Consumables used: 0.
Resonance used on anything other than daily investments: 2 for the healing staff charges.
Spell Points used: 0
As an aside, I don't mind some of the restrictive nature that comes with heavy armor - there should still be a place for the non-DEX-heavy fighter type. I think the bigger problem is that there's less defensive benefits to wearing them (AC gains seem low with the heavier, slower, more encumbering armors). When Studded Leather is AC 2, losing 10 points of speed, adding 3 bulk, losing 4 max dex, penalizing skills by 4 more points, just to gain 4 points of AC (in Full Plate) seems like too much loss for too little gain.
Add to this the fact that Fighters and Paladins gain better proficiency in heavy armor than in light or medium, and the ridiculousness stands out fully. Paizo had to shoehorn fighters/paladins into heavy armor, or no-one would ever wear it. If heavy armor is supposed to be better than it is, make it so, don't put weird compensations into class designs.
In many systems, you can have a mechanical rules difference between a "slinky" and a "brick", i.e. someone who dodges damage and someone who can take the punishment - think e.g Spiderman vs The Hulk.
D&D-style systems have the problem that AC kinds of cover both alternatives. You could sort of go either way in earlier editions by going for Con or Dex, and with their permissive rules you could go to extremes that expressed either alternative.
With the narrower, more restricted math of the playtest you cannot really mechanically express the difference between a Slinky and a Brick, and I think Heavy Armor suffers from not being able to express a Brick build in a maningful way.
(I wish I could remember which Superhero RPG it was that coined the "Slinky" and "Brick" terms...)
My co-player in our two-player playtest campaign has a rogue as primary character.
That rogue has started to carry a big bag of old bent nails to use as improvised lock-picks. At negligible cost each, a critical failure basically no longer cost anything, except time. And even if using an improvised pick carries a penalty, a natural 20 is still always success.
Lock-picking is a one-action activity. Doing three attempts per round for 10 minutes, i.e. 300 attempts, would be fatiguing under the current Exploration Mode rules. But if you stop short, let's say at 299 attempts, and then rest a little, it is not.
My co-player's reasoning is that if he just keeps on rolling, he will sooner or later get three nat-20s sufficiently closely grouped to unlock the lock. He just has to keep trying... "I've got a big bag of nails and I am not afraid to use it."
My GM caved. He did not want the player to try 299 times, agreed that he would probably succeed, and let the rogue unlock the lock in a ten-minute Exploration Mode period without rolls...
...
So, if you can get rid of the failure penalty for an activity, you can go natural-20-fishing for automatic successes in Exploration Mode. You just have to be willing to spend time to roll a lot.
I’m delaying typing up my notes from Pale Mountain in order to catch up with reporting, as we are behind already. My previous reports from Lost Star are here and here.
Note: There may be mistranslations: My GM translated on the fly from English to Swedish as we played, and I translated on the fly from Swedish to English as I wrote notes on what happened...
==Character Creation==
We are down to two players, so we play two characters each. As my primary character from previous scenarios is a bard, I could bring her into this scenario too, which the other player thought unfair. He is also the one player whose character was particularly interested in the Countdown Clocks during our Mummy’s Mask campaign. So our GM allowed the other player to bring his primary character, and we created a cleric each as secondary characters. With two high-charisma clerics and a bard, we thought we would bring sufficient magic healing to make the scenario work, whatever it was.
So, the characters were:
Arami, Cavern Elf Maestro Bard.
Deena, Cavern Elf Cleric of Honey, passion domain.
Elise, Cavern Elf Cleric of Honey, passion domain.
Keyt, Cavern Elf Rogue.
As we’ve relocated the scenarios to our GM’s version of Greyhawk, tying it into the meta-plot threads connecting his different campaigns together, places and gods had to be changed. Honey is an old character that ascended in the events following our run of Rise of The Runelords. She is a patron of the performing arts, and for those with a generally bohemian hippie “flowers in your hair” lifestyle. Here we decided to translate Honey as Playtest Deity into: Performance skill, Fist as holy weapon as Irori, and Domains and Spells as Shelyn.
All four characters were Cavern Elves, as both players are very fond of the combination of high movement and Darkvision, and nobody wanted to get stuck with the one character without these two properties. Of course all four had both Nimble and Fleet.
Equipping the four characters took forever, as it was hard to find a satisfactory combination of items using the “X of level Y” rules, especially as we tried to co-ordinate the items over all four characters. Fortunately we could pool the money part - that made things a bit easier.
== Introduction ==
Our GM introduced the letter from the Esoteric Order with the mission, and described where in his campaign world he wanted to set the scenario. Sombrefell Hall ended up at the edge of a swamp just east of the City of Greyhawk itself, near Cairn Hills and its many haunted graves. Apparently the aristocracy of the city once liked to build large villas in the area because of its sombre ambience, making them feel darkly poetic and expressively emotional - or something.
After the intro, we decided to pick memorised spells for the two clerics. This proved to be a severe speed bump, as we argued a lot on how much meta-knowledge we could use in the spell selection, especially knowing that the scenario called for magical healing - and what that implied. Finally we solved it with deciding that as we knew that we were travelling into an undead-infested area, it would not be unnatural to pick a lot of anti-undead spells.
== Entering the Hall ==
We all got delivered to the Hall in style - in a black carriage, care of the Esoteric Order. However, after ushering us out the driver sped off, obviously relieved to be able to leave the area, leaving us to stare at the massive oak door and its iron knocker. We knocked… and knocked… and nothing happened.
Investigating the door while we waited started a long discussion on what you could and could not do with the playlist’s version of Detect Magic, and what heightened meant in that context.
Finally, this out-of-character discussion got interrupted by the door getting opened by a dark-haired woman in a green dress, Lucvi. She did not want to let us into the house, and asked what our mission was. This immediately triggered a “We’re on a mission from God!… I mean, our Goddess!”. Keyt got to roll an intimidate for this line: 30. A stunned Lucvi let us into the hall.
(Here the GM revealed the map of the house)
Keyt immediately spotted the chandelier (obvious on the map) and noticed the levers that could be used to lower and raise it - and make it crash to the floor.
The professor came out to meet us, and we started to discuss our mission with him. He only came with excuses and faint justifications for avoiding the task. When we pressed him on this, he claimed we did not have sufficient knowledge for understanding the situation. Arami immediately proved him wrong with an Occultism roll of 24, to persuade him that we indeed knew what we were talking about.
Reluctantly, the Professor revealed that he feared he was pursued by an agent of the Dominion of the Black. When we asked what kind of agent he got vague again: “I’m unsure, some kind of dream being…”
Well, we argued that for who could be better at coping with supernatural threats than clerics, and we offered divine protection until his immediate concern was dealt with and he could accept the mission we wanted to give him. Also, as we seemed to know our stuff, we were allowed to stay in one of the guest rooms, and prompted by us, we also got permission to investigate the house to spot any threat.
Of course, the first thing we wanted to investigate was his study…
== The Professor’s study ==
We all entered the professor’s study together with Lucvi and the Professor - and spotted all the interesting notes strewn around the room. After some out-of-character discussion on how to do this, we decided that Deena and Elise would engage the researchers in conversation to distract them, while Arami and Keyt tried to surreptitiously read the notes.
Third attempt:
Keyt rolled a natural 1 on occultism before we had a chance to roll the distracting diplomacies - and the GM decided this was reason enough for us to get thrown out, with the Professor and Lucvi staying in the study.
But we still had permission to investigate the house…
(Here we asked how much time we had to investigate the house: 2h 40 mins until nightfall, and we could use up 10 mins for each room we did a “normal” search in. We gave the GM a note with our perceptions on, so he could roll secretly for each of us for each room we searched.)
== Storage room ==
A lot of leftover junk. Search gave nothing. On a direct question if anything could be used to defend the house: “Well, you could always build a barricade out of it.”
Hmmmm…..
== Kitchen ==
Place looked messy but had no food: “Typical student cooking.”
Search revealed some silver knives:
“Silver kitchen knives?”
“Yes, big ones.”
“Tableware can be made from silver - but kitchen knives? Something is fishy.”
Well, Arami and Keyt decided to take a knife each.
“Oh, and the knives are of expert quality.”
“…”
== Dining room ==
Floor to ceiling glass windows. Search only revealed that the big kitchen table was bolted to the floor. Why?
Food trolleys were moveable.
== Pantry ==
Search revealed preserves, bread, sausages, four flasks of olive oil, and seven braids of garlic.
“Seven braids?”
“Yes”
“Somebody must love garlic…”
Out of character: “Barricades, silver knives, garlic. This feels like an old-style computer text adventure where you pick up the stuff you find, to use later…”
== Library ==
Attention was immediately drawn to the immense block of marble drawn on the map. We refused to believe you would build such a big thing as just a decorative pillar, and insisted that it had to hide a secret room or something. To stop us from derailing, the GM had to retcon it to a marble floor with a smaller column in the centre, with the bookshelves standing on that marble floor.
After that change, we spent double time searching here, with Arami and Keyt searching the bookshelves, and Deena and Elise “searching” the sofas.
The double search allowed Keyt to find a handwritten note in a book, with ramblings about transformation. We fruitlessly tried to draw conclusions from the book the note was found in, and why anyone (obviously the Professor) would write such a note and then place it in a random book…
== Bottom floor bedrooms ==
We quickly looked into each of the bottom floor bedrooms to try to decide what room belonged to whom, no searching.
“Man, woman, not a bedroom, apparently the professor, apparently Lucvi.”
“Ok, lets’ investigate the Professor’s bedroom. We *do* have permission…”
== Professor’s bedroom ==
It was surprisingly clean, and the bed was made. We searched.
Keyt found a book under the pillow in the bed.
Out of character:
“Wait a minute. Under the pillow? That’s the most obvious place to look ever… Just to satisfy our curiosity: what was the DC to remember to look under the pillow?”
“DC20”
“DC20 to look under the pillow?”
“Yes.”
“That is so stupid”.
The book ended with torn out pages. The last ones not torn out were six weeks old, and contained ramblings about a Ramlock, whose voice the professor apparently could hear.
== Professor’s Walk-In Closet ==
Old clothes and a carpet on the floor.
Before deciding to use 10 minutes to search:
Sarcastically: “Ok, a carpet on the floor. Is it also DC20 to remember to look under the carpet?”
“Actually…. it is DC26.”
“!!!”
“But as you specifically mentioned looking under the carpet, you don’t have to search and it won’t take 10 minutes. You find a trapdoor.”
“Could it not have been an intricate puzzle of sliding parquetry tiles or something? It’s a regular carpet - this is stupid.”
== Unlocking the trapdoor: The big bag of nails! ==
This will take some explaining. This is something my co-player has figured out, so I hope I get this right.
Rather than use regular lock picks, Keyt has a big bag of old bent nails to use as improvised lock picks. That means a lesser chance to succeed, but you eliminate the cost of a critical failure, as you only need to sacrifice an old nail when that happens. As long as you still have any chance of success, you will eventually make it - and remember, a natural 20 is a success unless the GM says the task is impossible.
So, all you need is that big bag of nails, and the patience to roll *a lot* of checks. It is in exploration mode, so you would be fatigued after 300 attempts, but 299 is ok, as long as you rest a little before the next 299 rolls…
Of course, Keyt just *had* to ask for Inspire Competence rolls from Arami, i.e. me. But as Inspire Competence is a reaction, so you can only use it on every third attempt…
Arami: Inspire Competence 27, critical success
Keyt: Thievery 27, success
Keyt: Thievery 23, fail
Keyt: Thievery 21, fail
Arami: Inspire Competence 20, success
Keyt: Thievery 22, fail
Keyt: Thievery 25, fail
Keyt: Thievery 25, fail
…
I think you get the idea. After four more Inspire Competence and twelve more Thievery checks the lock was unlocked… Total of 24 rolls.
This is why we think the absence of take 20 together with having success on a natural 20 is bad.
== Cellar ==
Cot, chains, bizarre writings on the walls.
We tried to identify the language of the writings:
Arami: Society 18 - fail
Keyt: Society 21 - fail.
Here our GM reminded us of the “nail tactics” above. As Recall Knowledge is a single action, and nothing forbids retries, we can roll 299 times before getting fatigued. He did not want us rolling 299 times, so he just gave us the answer: “The Language is like Aklo, but it is not Aklo”.
More out-of-character discussion: This is just mood-setting information. Why is the DCs to reveal mood-setting stuff so high? It’s not like “it’s similar to Aklo” is of much use to the characters…
The chains looked well used.
Players OOC: “This is like the standard props from a werewolf movie… The main character always tries to lock himself up when he turns into a werewolf.”
The person wearing the chains could unlock them if calm - some kind of safety for psychotic episodes.
== Attic ==
Looking over the map we noticed the stairs to the attic (even if they were shaded to look descending).
Even the simple padlock on this door was DC26. So…
GM: “Let’s just skip the nails and the scores of rolls and say you open the lock.”
We decided to take 10 minutes to search the attic.
“Well, this might be another pick-up-needed-items-room. Let’s look for anti-mummy powder!”
Deena did not find anti-mummy-powder, but the corpse of a dead zombie in a corner. Well, a deader zombie. Somebody had stuck a letter-opener with the Professor’s initials into the remains of its brain, and it was not moving any more.
The GM rolled three secret Medicine rolls:
Deena: It has been here a few weeks.
Keyt: It has been here for years.
Elise: It has been here a few weeks.
Oh, well.
== Upper Floor Guestrooms ==
We decided to all stay in the same upper floor guest room. A search revealed a closet of old clothes. We used these to make dummies to put into the beds of the other guest bedrooms.
== Dinnertime ==
After all this searching we were hungry. We decided to cook something good out of the stuff in the pantry. Keyt cooked, and Arami inspired.
Arami: Inspire Competence: 26, crit success.
Keyt: Craft: 27 (I assume this was some kind off crit, due to the effect)
The wonderful smell of the cooking drew everyone to the kitchen and the dining room, even the cranky Professor.
During dinner, we tried to make conversation about the area - i.e. gather some information.
Elise: Diplomacy natural 20.
We found out that the lake contained a village that had been flooded, drowning the inhabitants, and that the area was known for its vampires. Cosy.
Here somebody started pounding on the front door. Time for a cliffhanger ending of the session.
== Session End ==
Time spent: 2h 11 min
Hero points spent: 0
Death saves: 0
Consumables used: 0
Resonance used on anything other than daily imbuements: 0
Spell Points used: 0
Spell Slots used: 0
Not only are our playtest group behind in the test schedule, but I am also very late in typing up my notes. But I promised my GM to do it, so here goes.
We lost the third player in our group; first he had scheduling problems and then he had to quit due to health problems - genuinely so, no hidden rage quit or something like that.
Down to just two players we pondered what to do. First we tried doing a society scenario with two characters at a slightly higher level than the scenario was written for, but then we decided to play two characters each, and continue to work our way through Doomsday Dawn as far as we could.
So, our Gnome Barbarian was retired, and two new characters created. Also, the new Heritages had just arrived, so the half-elf rogue and the elf bard were both turned into cavern elves. The new party line-up was:
* Arami, cavern elf maestro bard.
* Keyt, cavern elf rogue.
* Shimmer, svirfneblin gnome primal sorceress.
* Frag, dwarf fighter. Yes, that *is* an Old Norse dwarf name, taken from the Völuspa of the Poetic Edda - same place Tolkien got his dwarf names.
Common theme? Well, due to the race changes in update 1.4, we all now had darkvision, making sneaking around in dark dungeons a cinch. Our GM was less than amused, especially as he had already worked out a way to sneak around with a torch during our previous session.
Our game is set in the World of Greyhawk and tied to our GMs other campaigns, so the name of gods etc have been changed.
=Continuing the story=
The party had left the dungeon to procure some holy symbols of Selene, which we hoped would take us past a statue trap. Visiting the Selene temple, we decided to make a full report to the clergy there in order to gain their favour. Our GM decided that getting their attention was a trivial level 5 diplomacy task. With a roll of 21, we succeed neatly, and even got a blessing: a +1 conditional bonus on attack and defence versus undead.
=Return to the Dungeon=
Arami and Keyt took point with Shimmer and Frag following as we sneaked back into the dungeon, now without any torchlight. When we reached the big gallery where we had killed several goblins earlier, we got a nasty surprise: Six big centipedes had crawled out of a side room and was feasting on the goblin corpses.
As the two point characters had declared a Sneaking tactics, our GM decided that our Stealth rolled for initiative would decide whether the centipedes had seen us or not. (Yes, we do find scouting under the given Exploration rules very confusing, and our GM has changed his mind on how to interpret them several times.)
Shimmer declared that she would bolt one of the centipedes with a cantrip to start the fight, luring them into the rogue's caltrops and the fighter's attack of opportunity. The GM decided that this meant that she would roll Nature for initiative.
=Centipede Fight=
Initiative:
Keyt, rogue: Stealth 27 (got to take 20 because of wall between her and the centipedes)
Arami, bard: Stealth 24 (also got to take 20 for the same reason)
Shimmer, sorceress: Nature 10
Frag, fighter: Stealth 15
Centipedes: Perception 21
Our plan had suddenly failed - not only did Shimmer end up last even though she was supposed to start the fight, but she had also been spotted by the Centipedes since their perception was higher than her nature, as well as having misjudged the distance - the centipedes were 35 feet away, longer than the range of her cantrip. Did we say we thought the Exploration rules were confusing?
-Round 1-
Keyt: moved forward, spread caltrops in a choke point.
Arami: Inspire Courage, then hid: Stealth 20.
Centipede 1: 2 x move to close, which triggered Frag's attack of opportunity: 23 to hit, crit for 17 damage. Centipede killed.
Centipede 2: 2 x move. Entered caltrops, failed save and took 1 damage + 1 bleed. Bit Frag: Nat 20, crit, 4 damage + venom. Frag saved successfully versus the venom.
Centipede 3: 2 x move. Successfully saved versus the caltrops. Bit Shimmer: 20 to hit, 2 damage. Shimmer failed to save versus venom and became flatfooted.
The rest of the centipedes found conditions too crowded and kept eating goblin corpses.
Frag: Tried to hit centipede 2: nat 1 - miss. Tried again: 10 to hit, miss. Tried a Brutal Shove: crit fail.
Shimmer: Moved to the rear. Took out an antidote. Drank it. Took 6 damage from the venom, then rolled 12 vs the save DC of 13, which moved her to affliction stage 2.
-- Round 2 --
Keyt: backstabbed and killed centipede 3. Hit and then missed centipede 2, which was left at 2 hp.
Arami: hit and killed centipede 2 with her whip. She then cast Soothe on Shimmer for 10 hp.
Centipede 4: now noticed there was room to reach the fight. 2 x move, which triggered an attack of opportunity from Frag: miss. Bit Frag: 18 to hit, 3 damage. Frag successfully saved versus the venom.
Centipede 5: 2 x move. Bit Keyt: 22 to hit, 3 damage. Keyt successfully saved with a 14.
Centipede 6: 2 x move into outflank vs Keyt. Bit: nat 20, 6 damage. Fort save failed, which brought Keyt to affliction stage 1.
Frag: struck outflanked centipede 5: 24 to hit, crit, killed. Brutal shove versus centipede 4: miss. Struck centipede 4: 16 to hit, killed.
Keyt: struck centipede 6: miss. Struck again: 11 damage, killed, which means all centipedes had now been killed. Drew an antidote. Took 3 damage from the venom, then failed her save, which took her to stage 2.
Shimmer: took 4 damage from venom. Rolled 12 on the save, which kept her at stage 2.
-- Round 4 --
Keyt: Drank antidote. Tried Treat Poison: critical failure. took 3 damage, and then saved with a 17, which brought her to stage 1.
Shimmer: 2-action Heal on Keyt for 9 hp. Took 2 hp from venom. Failed save, stayed at stage 2.
-- Round 5 --
Keyt: Move. Treat Poison on Shimmer: fail. Treat Poison on herself: success. Took 5 damage from venom. Save 12: fail, took her back to stage 2.
Shimmer: 2-action Heal on Keyt for 5 hp. Took 3 hp from venom. Saved, taking her to stage 1.
-- Round 6 --
Keyt: Treat Poison on Shimmer: fail. Treat Poison on herself: fail. Treat Poison on herself: fail. Took 6 damage from venom. Save: fail, stayed at stage 2.
Shimmer: 2-action Heal on herself: 7 hp. Took 1 damage from venom. Failed save, but effect ends.
Arami: Soothe on Keyt for 9 hp.
-- Round 7 --
Keyt: Treat Poison on herself: fail. Treat poison on herself: success. 1 damage from venom. Failed save, stayed at stage 2.
-- Round 8 --
Keyt: Treat Poison on herself: fail. Treat Poison on herself: fail. Treat Poison on herself: fail. 1 damage from venom, effect ends.
-- Fight Over --
The fight is over after 3 rounds of fighting and 5 rounds of bouncing up and down along the affliction track. The latter was not exciting at all, only *incredibly* tedious.
After this we rebelled and decided to cheat a bit, giving Frag the medicine skill in case anything like this ever happened again. With his assistance the party was fit for fight again the next day. I'm *not* going to write down the rolls that was required!
== Next Day ==
After all that it was nice to see that the chapel room had improved since last time we visited it. The water was shimmering and shining and altogether pleasant.
The door that went in the direction we wanted, according to Talga's map, had already been unlocked by Keyt the first time we were here, so it was no trouble. Keyt approached the Selene statue with the holy symbol she had been given by the Selene temple, and nothing happened - the trap did not trigger. We all passed by the same way without incident.
Keyt checked the next door for first traps, and then to see if it was locked. She realised that it was simply stuck, which meant it was a job for Frag.
Frag tackled the door with a mighty Athletics roll of 22, which means it was a crit. Looking up the effect of a Break Open
crit, we found that this meant that the door was "not destroyed", which gave us a good laugh.
Our GM ruled that such a good roll meant that Frag could keep it and use it as his initiative roll, and that the others got to roll their Stealth because of surprise. (Still trying to puzzle out the transition from Exploration to Encounter mode.)
Frag: Moved, closing with Drakus. GM read up if Drakus should get an attack of opportunity here, but decided that by the room description Drakus would still be unarmed, especially as we surprised him with that crit Break Open roll. Frag struck Drakus with a Power Attack: nat 20, 32 damage. Drakus became bloodied by the first strike.
Shimmer: Move. Cast Fear on Drakus. Drakus saved and became Frightened 1.
Drakus: Rose up, which triggered an attack of opportunity from Frag: Nat 1. Drew weapon. Struck Frag: 18 to hit, 7 damage.
Keyt: Delay.
-- Round 2 --
Frag: Step. Power Attack: 19 to hit, 12 damage, which killed Drakus.
-- Fight over --
Arami tried Occultism to identify Drakus: 7, fail.
We examined the altar and found some possible loot: an expert longsword, two potions, a silver holy symbol and an expert studded leather - but not the jewellery we were looking for.
Arami cast Soothe on Frag for 7 hp.
== Small Chapel ==
The first door out of the room could be opened with a key Drakus had. Keyt looked for traps, but found none.
After some stairs going up, we found a little chapel, spotlessly clean - even suspiciously clean. There we found a book, a magic dagger, and a silver bowl with holy water.
Arami rolled a 19 on Occultism and realised that the funeral prayer in the book could be used to cleanse the altar in Drakus room.
Looking in the bowl gave a vision of us looking older ("But we are elves, can you really see that? - Hush!") and the stars going out ("Oh, like in the Nine Billion Names of God!")
Arami cleaned and cleansed the altar, while Keyt and Frag impatiently kept guard. Shimmer got to make a secret nature roll, which the GM then stated failed...
When the cleansing was done, we saw a vision of happy souls passing through the room, and our GM informed us we had received Selene's Blessing, and that we should remind him if we ever were dying.
== Cave ==
The other exit from Drakus room led to a rough cave that smelled of blood and sweat. In the room was one open and one closed chest - and everybody immediately started looking at the closed one. Frag immediately saw a trap on it.
Once again our GM was frustrated as the scenario did not say if multiple successes were needed or not to remove the trap and unlock the chest, as has been stated elsewhere.
Keyt tried to remove the trap:
Thievery 17 - fail
Thievery nat 1 - critical failure. Trap rolled 26 versus Keyt - hit. Keyt saved: nat 1 - poison stage 2.
Here everybody groaned, remembering the affliction ordeal from the centipedes. At least now Frag was trained in Medicine.
-- Round 1 --
Frag: Treat Poison on Keyt: success.
Arami: Handed Keyt an antidote.
Keyt: Drank antidote. Damage 4, drained 2, save successful, which took her to stage 1
-- Round 2 --
Frag: Treat Poison on Keyt: 3 x fail.
Keyt: Treat poison on herself: success. Damage 2, save failed, which took her to stage 2.
-- Round 3 --
Frag: Treat Poison on Keyt: 2 x fail, 1 success.
Shimmer: Heal on Keyt for 11 hp.
Keyt: 5 damage, save failed, now stage 3.
-- Round 4 ---
Frag: Treat Poison on Keyt: success.
Arami: Soothe on Keyt for 6 hp
Keyt: 8 damage, then effect is over.
-- Affliction roll-off done --
Finally, Keyt was able to have a go at picking the lock on the chest. Keyt has a tactic. I'm not sure I understand it, but it hangs on switching between improvised and regular picks depending on how many accumulated successes you have. She has run computer simulations on it until she was satisfied.
So Keyt started with her improvised picks - a big bag of nails.
After 32 rolls (yes, thirty-two) she had her first success, which according to her tactics meant she could switch to her regular lockpicks.
After two rolls, she got a critical fail, which would mean back to the bag of nails.
Here we gave up, and let Frag go to town on the chest with a crowbar: and he immediately got a natural 20 on Athletics to Break Open the chest. The chest opened nicely without damaging any of the contents.
Here the GM revealed that the same key that opened the door to the small chapel would have opened the chest. This stunned Keyt. "How can a key that opened an original ancient door also open this regular chest - the locks ought to have been made separately!?" The GM could not really answer that.
Inside the chest we found a lot of stolen goods, including the jewellery we were looking for. We decided that we would return the stolen goods to the rightful owners, and the Selene relics to her temple. As a reward we got a free 3rd lvl item pick. As we had what we came for, we left the dungeon.
We finished with a big data dump of background info that I will not repeat here.
== Conclusions ==
Appx 2 h 45 mins used for session.
No Hero Points used. No Death saves. Nowhere near running out of resonance.
Making an all-darkvision party is very tempting for dark dungeons.
The massive dice-rolling for poisons and opening locks are just long boring slog where you grow impatient to continue with the story.
I will not agree that athletics, for example, let fly breathe underwater or dig underground. I will not allow Acrobatics to permeate through the walls. The spell must be prepared. it's a big difference
With 10 mins Quick Prep and a 3rd level slot, my 16th level Wiz can outperform my friend's Legendary Athletics Skill Feat of choice with a quick Fly spell using a slot 5 levels lower than max - that doesn't seem a little bit problematic?
I've played climb/jump specialists next to people with fly spells in both Skull&Shackles and Mummy's Mask, and what I've found is that by the time they've cast their Fly spell/activated their Fly item, I've already climbed up the rigging/up the dungeon wall and engaged the problem... You don't need to take time to activate climb. :)
A very nice system designed by Starfox, my GM, for a D&D 3.5 level 1-20 campaign using the Savage Tide AP:
Spellcasting did not exhaust the slot, but "locked" the spell level instead, prohibiting you from casting any other spells from that same spell level. At the end of your turn, you rolled individually for each of your locked spell levels to unlock them. Once a level was unlocked, you were free to cast any memorized/known spell of that level again. The DC to unlock levels increased, so higher levels were harder to unlock. Classes that originally were spontaneous casters got a bonus on the unlock roll.
E.g. cast a 3rd level spell, like Fireball, and you won't be able to cast another 3rd level spell such as another Fireball or a Lightning Bolt until you've managed to unlock 3rd level spells.
This system effectively eliminated the 15 minute adventuring day, stopping spells from being exhausted, while simultaneously eliminating "going nova" and overuse of spellcasting in a single combat. Cast too many spells, and soon you'd end up with all your available spell levels locked.
It was also easy to tune how much spellcasting you wanted to have by adjusting the DC you needed to unlock a level. If I recall correctly, we used 8 + spell level as unlock DC, so you needed to roll 9+ for the first level if it had been locked, 10+ for 2nd, and so on.
It often tended to encourage "creative" spell use, as the level you really wanted to use stubbornly refused to unlock. :)
So maybe like turn a lot of utility spells into rituals using the skill tree's maybe?
Have rituals been touched at all in the playtest? Any groups found them useful in the scenarios, any surveys asked about them? Any discussions on the forum? Any playtesting at all?
Otherwise, if they are looking for something that can be cut to make room for stuff that are actually used...
(Not really fair to compare, but rituals in our 4E campaign were unused and a dead weight until my GM cut casting time *severely* and we got to a level where monetary costs were negligible.)
The problem of limited spell slots and nerfed utility spells is that it makes it very hard to justify a 1st level slot on something like Unseen Servant. Not when you could prep a Burning Hands in that slot. Those spells are not equivalent in any way.
It’s weird seeing the design team understand that you can’t just use a single resource pool for combat and utility by separating out skill feats and general feats, but then completely miss it in combat spells vs utility spells and the utility spells are all but useless in exploration mode.
Indeed; the survey could have done with some questions about the balance between attack/control/buff/utility and encounter/exploration/downtime when it comes to magic.
To me, magic items has very much been an opportunity to step outside the class bonds and gain new abilities that makes a more varied and interesting character, not necessarily increase the power level of what the class already gives.
I find +X items way too essential in the Playtest.
The devs assume you pick items for power, so they design the difficulty curve so you have to pick items for power, making it a self-fulfilling prophesy. ;)
"Magic items are a critical part of determining a character's overall power and ability"
"Selecting gear for a higher level character by spending gold resulted in a more powerful character"
I so wish that would have asked questions about "fun", "interesting", "exciting", "varied", and so on, rather than fixating on "powerful".
To me, magic items has very much been an opportunity to step outside the class bonds and gain new abilities that makes a more varied and interesting character, not necessarily increase the power level of what the class already gives.
I like that Positive Gating would speed up play, would take care of assurance, and that it could be used on a case-by-case basis in a scenario. ”This lock can be opened by a Thievery Master, or by a DC19 check if Expert or lower.”
Furthermore, the lack of buffs to damaging cantrips is baffling. They could easily be changed to "1dX+Stat w/ a Heightened (+1): +1dX" (a damage buff of +100% in most cases), and still be far worse than any real spell.
Earlier in the Playtest, I still had players talking about picking up a bow over using any cantrips. To me that means cantrips aren't doing their job at being a 'filler' spell.
I'd suggest spamming Intimidation over using your cantrips, especially if you are a Cha-based caster, such as a Bard or Sorcerer.
With my own Bard, I've found Intimidation plus Trip using Assurance(Athletics) to be a very much better combo than any cantrip, especially with an attentive Rogue with Dread Striker in the party.
The former is that issue where fighters are the only class where the class abilities are insufficient to fill their role. Fighters are supposed to be weapon masters, and yet they need to rely on wizards to actually deal large amounts of damage. If you make damage runes less common, though, and grant bonus damage dice for higher proficiency levels, they would be self-sufficient. Granted, that would lead to the interesting mental image of a fighter being able to pick a branch up off the ground and murder people to death with it, dealing more damage than a greatsword could in other people's hands. But to be honest, I don't have a problem with that. As an example of that trope in fiction, it would let you build Jason Bourne. Meanwhile, if damage runes still existed, they would let other people upgrade one weapon to be as good as the fighter, or let the fighter go from massive damage to obscene amounts of damage.
It isn't just fighters. Its Barbarians, Monks, Paladins, Rangers, and Rogues. All need magic weapons of the appropriate plus or are next to useless in combat.
Well, it is not really that far from the skill DC table assuming you get the appropriate skill boost magic items at the designated levels, and that monster to-hit assumes a certain AC and saving throw progression through magic armor.
Key item acquisition is simply assumed to progress steadily and smoothly according to plan, with the required items available at the designated levels. That this actually occurs in a natural and smooth manner is unfortunately not something tested in the playtest, as the PCs simply gets a fresh pick of items for each scenario.
Back in the 1E AD&D days in the late 1980s we regularly ran 200+ rounds fights with a party of 13-14 players + several followers and henchmen.
When your initiative was up, you were supposed to already have picked your target(s), have rolled both to-hit and damage in advance, and be ready to just present the finished numbers to the GM.
With quick rounds, it was worth it to e.g. take 3-4 rounds to circle around to attack the enemy in the back (remember, in 1E AD&D facing mattered).
Also, my GM was an avid wargamer, and he thought it unrealistic to have unlimited amounts of high-level opponents available, so we tended to meet larger and larger armies of low-level opponents. (He had a box of 37 numbered and painted goblins, and encounters tended to be measured in how many times this box was re-used. Such as "this is a ten-box encounter".)
On the other hand, as he was a wargamer, the enemy tended to have pre-defined lines of communication, alert levels, troops in reserve, and reinforcement routes.
Together with the large number of combattants on both sides this meant that genuine military tactics worked: Concentration of fire, rolling up the flank, cutting lines of communications, blocking reinforcements, etc. Quite different from "tactics" in the "pick power A to counter power B" sense. More like AD&D Squad Leader.
Especially rogues had the important job of cutting communications, whether it was taking out couriers or physically cutting threads connected to signal bells, thus preventing the enemy from calling in reinforcements.
All of this meant that entire dungeon complexes tended to turn into a single encounter - and thus we had 200+ round encounters.
I must agree that this is a serious potential issue. I didn't think so upon looking at the chart for all the good and logical reasons presented by defenders of the chart, but the module design thus far makes me seriously concerned.
Almost every DC we've seen so far in all adventures is on-level, and often in circumstances where that makes little sense. It can be argued that's specifically for playtesting, but it sets an unfortunate and, frankly, dangerous precedent.
If the advenures does this (I cannot check myself, I'm intend to play these adventureses when we get to them) I would not say "trap" as the OP. I'd say "bait and switch". with 10-3 through 10-6 as windowdressing bait and 10-2 as the switch.
I find statements like these terribly misleading. When you're trained at your job you may not fail 40% of the time, but you're also not put against 'Even Level Challenges' on a regular basis. When you think about it.. like seriously think about it how often does your job put you up against something that you haven't done so many times it's a rote action?
My old job.
Or heck, my new job that I start Monday.
Welcome to software development.
Oh yes, software development...
Having management every two weeks give the customer the promise that this time you will deliver the Full and Final Version of the Program for half a year's time, with the corresponding guilt trips and feeling of inadequacy every time you fail to deliver, even though you work 60h-70h weeks doing your best effort. And every time you fail, they promise the client more functionality as compensation to avoid a contract fine...
That's one of the reasons why I hate treadmill DCs with a passion. I want to be able to put up intermediate benchmark goals for my character's competency and feel I've reached them.
I'm not the first to notice, but a search came up dry. Inflammable goblin gives you fire resistance. Inflammable doesn't mean fire resistant, it means the same as flammable because English is a goofy language. It should probably get a name change or change the mechanics to give the inflammable goblin some kind of bonus when on fire.
True.
From https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/flammable-or-inflammable
Merriam-Webster.com wrote:
In English, we think of in- as a prefix that means "not": inactive means "not active," inconclusive means "not conclusive," inconsiderate means "not considerate." Therefore, inflammable should mean "not flammable."
That would make sense—if inflammable had started out as an English word. We get inflammable from the Latin verb inflammare, which combines flammare ("to catch fire") with a Latin prefix in-, which means "to cause to." This in- shows up occasionally in English words, though we only tend to notice it when the in- word is placed next to its root word for comparison: impassive and passive, irradiated and radiated, inflame and flame. Inflammable came into English in the early 1600s.
Things were fine until 1813, when a scholar translating a Latin text coined the English word flammable from the Latin flammare, and now we had a problem: two words that look like antonyms but are actually synonyms. There has been confusion between the two words ever since.
The game needs more variance in build choices (all builds currently feel samey and pigeon holed)
Well, right now the build options are kind of like those adventures where you may go east or west, you may chose to take road A or road B, you may chose to climb the mountains or swim the seas, but you will still end up in the Mysterious City of Y'r Questiz'ere. :) :)
It's not said. By current RAW, it goes directly from bright light to complete darkness, and dim light exists only via a couple specific sources (eg candles). I have been using GM Fiat to provide dim light from things like moonlight or away from the bright zone of a torch, but this isn't actually supported by the rules.
Similar to this, my GM use:
A) Bringing a bright light source into a room will cast the rest of the room into Dim Light, partly due to realism (see the Mythbusters' "mirrors into an egyptian grave" episode) and partly to the description of Dim Light: "Areas in shadows [...] are in dim light."
B) Creatures with Darkvision will not necessarily notice such dim light. Since they see perfectly for an unlimited distance, introducing the dim light would just add faint colours to what they see, and this might not be obvious depending on the situation.
These rulings were made to avoid making a PC ancestry with Darkvision an absolute requirement for a scout character.
Actually, Assurance on Expert/Master level Athletics is pretty good for ignoring multi-attack penalties etc in combat maneuvers vs. equal- and lower-level opponents.
Theory-crafted here and verified in playtesting here. (The playtest link contains spoilers for "Rose Street Revenge".)
Investigate and Search being separate tactics does make my head hurt.
Stealing is another one. If you fail to steal something in ten minutes, you're fatigued? That would sure make the average heist movie boring...
The whole thing on what is fatiguing and what is not makes my head hurt.
Combining Stride and Seek into Search isn't fatiguing because you are "alternating". Why not combine Sneak and Seek the same way?
When I've played, we've solved fatigue by never exploring for more than nine minutes running, and doing arbitrarily complex actions during that time. Easy when exploration is just a matter of moving into the next room.
When we come to longer stretches, I'll imagine that we will just say that we are "alternating". :)
Agreed. It was not uncommon in Pathfinder First Edition to have one character nova and burn all of their character resources ending an encounter in one turn...
Anecdote: The most memorable case of Rocket Tag I saw in PF1 did not involve any resouces at all.
Spoiler for Skull&Shackles:
Endgame in Skull&Shackles. The PC barbarian runs into one of the final major enemies - another barbarian. Both have high dex and thus lots of attacks of opportunity. Both also have the feat "Come and Get Me" from Advanced Players Guide.
So one barbarian hits the other, which triggers an AoO in return, which triggers an AoO in return to that, which triggers an AoO... a nice little intense causality loop, lasting until one of the barbarians runs out of AoOs or goes down.
Thanks to our group's tradition of always buffing our martials to the gills and make them MVPs, our barbarian is the one left standing, even though it was an "appropriate for an entire team" enemy.
But nobody else than those two barbarians got any actions during that fight . :)
As the GM in this game, I have to add that I used the "automatic 20 on Stealth rule when not visible" in the kobold encounter. The PCs had scouted out the kobolds' position and were behind a corner when initiative was rolled. This is RAW works decently as an ambush rule (almost guarantees you win initiative) but I wonder if using this on initiative is RAI.
Ah, that's where it came from!
So it is like this: "Being invisible gives you an an automatic 20 on stealth. When you surprise the opponent you get to use stealth. Thus you get an automatic 20 on initiative."?
I think I just enjoyed the result without questioning how we arrived there when we played that scene. :)
And lastly, the premise that an exploration action is equal to one action per encounter round is flawed, as all actions also include a stride.
Well, the rules say:
Page 329 wrote:
A tactic like wandering or sneaking, which doesn’t cause fatigue, consists of a single action repeated roughly 10 times per minute (such as sneaking using Sneak 10 times) or an alternation of actions that works out similarly (such as searching’s alternation of Stride and Seek).
Searching avoids being fatiguing by "alternating". The question is: Does also e.g "Following Tracks" avoid being fatiguing the same way? And can you make arbitrarily complex tactics just by claiming they are "alternating"?
Well, anyway, the method to do complex tactics currently seem to be to do them in 9-minute intense rushes interspersed with rest.
* Trading levels for numbers this way gave us a very comfortable success rate. The game felt more stable.
* Assurance for Expert Athletics ruled when it came to combat maneuvers versus lower-level opponents - something we had theory-crafted beforehand.
* Outflank did not give a bonus for combat maneuvers, which felt wrong. On the other hand, raise shield did not give a bonus to defense versus such maneuvers.
* Also felt odd that Wennel did not have a vulnerability to holy water.
* The very different mechanics for Leap and Jump were confusing. Leap gets a bonus from speed and not athletics, while Jump gets a bonus from athletics but not speed.
* None of us two players were really interested in consumables and trinkets. What we purchased saw little use.
We will probably try to repeat this with two level 7 PCs versus a level 5 scenario.
...and what *is* the effect of caltrops on oozes? :)
3) Skills-This is a major sticking point for me, and what makes the bard lose its feel. 8 Skills in total at the beginning seems like a lot, and it is. The problem is you get no more resources then other classes to increase these skills. Beginning its not a problem, as you are not expected to have these resources, but as the DC's go up, your going to have to focus on certain ones and let other skills fall. Now with the 1.3 update, it has helped with this problem somewhat. However a lot of the classic skills of a Bard {Diplomacy, Deception ect) are not affected by this new update, as these skills were not decided by a DC, but contested by the creature it is being used on.
And because of the way Bard feats are structured, you are either have to focus on "Performance" and or "Occultism". Out of the 24 current bard feats, 15 of them either rely on one of those two skill, and or have one of those skills as a perquisite, including all three beginning bard feats. These means at least one of the skills your focusing on is already earmarked, in a class that's desperate for skills increases, and you are holed into only a certain set of feats if you do not do both. This is made doubly so with Performance as the skill itself in many ways is a weaker Lore, and the class feat of Versatile Performance to help strength this does too little and causes to many problems.
-To sum up, the Bard does have the bones to be the Jack of All Trades class, but as the levels increase, they find themselves lacking the resources to upkeep this, and are generally forced to specialize in certain areas, often decided by class itself, leaving the other aspects that were payed for in the balancing of the class behind. In doing so, they slowly lose the ability to be a little bit of every class, and ironically lose that which made them unique.
With the Tight Math, it does not matter how many different capabilities you start with; what matters is how many you can keep up to par as you level up, considering number of available feat picks, skill and attribute increases, and magic item picks from the loot pile.
With Assurance, expert in Medicine, and level 20, you can take an automatic 35. For only 200 SP you could get an expert healers kit and never have to roll again.
Actually seems too easy, now that I think about it.
That's not how assurance work. The result would simply be 15 no modifiers.
People keep misinterpreting Assurance. I think it is a problem with the feat, rather than the readers.
I twitch a little every time I hear the phrase "treadmill" use to deride PF2e. Pathfinder has always, always been designed as a treadmill. EVERY game system that uses levels is by definition a treadmill. A level-appropriate challenge will always be roughly as hard regardless of your level; that's why it's level-appropriate.
A treadmill is more than things just being level-appropriate.
To make a combat analogy: A treadmill is not fighting goblins, then ogres, and then dragons. A treadmill is fighting level 1 goblins, then level 8 goblins, and then level 16 goblins.
That is why I (and others) are arguing that you need firm benchmarks. In the combat analogy above you get the benchmark by having (A) different monsters at different levels, and (B) the levels these monster occur at are clearly defined. It is this clear definition that skill DCs currently lack.
Look at e.g. the treadmilling of the Performance skill in Lingering Performance. It's not figuratively going from goblins to ogres to dragons. It's goblins all the way.
I'm just willing to accept skill items as a solution as long as they are readily available and usable without onerous requirements (like high Bulk or wasted actions).
Looking at existing items, I'm afraid of bulk, wasted actions, and incompleteness.
I'm not sure I agree there. Those mundane stat items tend to have pretty hefty bulk. So having more than one or two gets prohibitive.
I was thinking most skill items would be generic ala Masterwork Tools and probably have a generic Light Bulk (to match the 1 lb weight Masterwork Tools had in PF1). If they're generally heavier it definitely becomes a problem, I agree, but while I wouldn't expect existing ones to get lighter, I would generally expect new/generic ones to generally be Light.
As Starfox points out above, not all skills are created equally when it comes to use in Encounter mode versus use in Exploration mode (Survival versus Athletics, for example). Having a skill buff as a separate tool that has to be retrieved and stowed rather than something continously worn (like a magic ring) matters a lot more for a skill that is more used in Encounter mode, and this inconvenience does, in my mind, exclude such a tool from being considered in the DC table for encounter-use skills.
I'd rather get rid of item bonuses to skills as such, and allow the characters to increase their skill training with the corresponding amount.
The problem the PF2 rogue still has, that it inherited from 3E, is MAD (multi-attribute dependency). As the skill monkey, they need good bonuses in all attributes. This problem is actually worse in PF2, since there are no longer escalating costs for higher attributes. Together with the too high standard DCs, this means that rogue is now a "master of none", as real skill ability requires that you are skilled AND have a high ability bonus.
This gets a little better at level 5, where the lower ability scores rise.
Most will probably have Con as one of the four attributes you raise when you get that option. That means you raise three skill-carrying attributes, and two skill-carrying attributes will be left behind. Hopefully you don't care for any skills attached to those two attributes.
Also, besides being skilled and having a high attribute bonus you are also expected to acquire the appropriate magic item(s), such as e.g. Boots of Elvenkind or Healer's Gloves, to keep up with the increasing DCs.
So, as a skill monkey, how many of your skills can you afford to keep up-to-date as you level up?
