Pasquolli's page

I don't - and have never - run modules, so I put this here ran than one of the Playtest forums. On Wednesday I ran Session 1 with my regular group of players with the PF Playtest rules. I let each of my players make 2 characters so we could experience more of the new classes; that meant six total characters.

We had:
- Skree; a goblin paladin with the criminal background (and an interesting backstory)
- Ikey; a dwarven druid with the acrobat background (and the reason for the name of the first session)
- Selekiir; a half-elven alchemist with the noble background
- Armnik Hjolgron; A dwarven rogue with the farmhand background
- Tybilt; a gnomish bard with the entertainer background
- Skratch; a goblin monk with the warrior background

I set the game in the Realms, on the Dragon Coast. The 3.0 FRCS is one of my favorite books ever and I run most of my D&D and PF games there. I think I've even run GURPS in the Realms. I've even considered running SotDL and WoD there. Anyway.

The heroes each arrived separately in Elversult and saw a help wanted poster to clear some vermin out of a warehouse. Having spent all of their money on traveling expenses, this seemed promising to them.

Skree, the goblin paladin, had a conversion that morning under mysterious circumstances. He was a paladin of Girru, an Untherian god who had been killed some 300 years prior in the Orcgate Wars. So quite mysterious indeed. When he arrived, he tried to seek out the highest authority in the area (his MO). He also tried to ascertain whether his new Code of Conduct allowed him to burn things. In general he was rather grouchy about suddenly being LG.

He asked the wrong guy for directions to the closest authority. The guy, a grungy vagabond, followed him with the intent to pounce him in a dark alley. The player's other character, Ikey, saw the interaction and sent his pet dinosaur to stalk after the ruffian. The paladin finally turned around and saw the hoodlum, and then the dinosaur. The villain likewise turned and saw the dinosaur. It was a comical situation. He fled. After that Skree and Ikey ventured on together. The office of the local authorities was closed.

Selekiir and Armnik arrived at the warehouse first, Robillard's Brewing and Shipping. Robillard had been a successful brewer and bar owner in Teziir but decided that crime was too rampant there, so he moved to Elversult and started a brewing and shipping business. He had a large warehouse full of kegs and other goods directly next to a large pub. The warehouse was infested with giant rats.

Robillard explained that the last batch of "heroes" who'd come to eliminate the squeaky pests had met an untimely demise. He suggested that Selekiir and Armnik go in the bar and have a drink on him until more folks arrived.

Tybilt and Skratch arrived next. The player playing these two characters isn't big on backstories. We decided that Tybilt, the gnomish bard, is a herald for Skratch. So the other characters eventually got to hear all about Skratch's supposed heroics. The two wanted to dive right into the warehouse, but after noting their short statures, Robillard suggested they go wait in the bar as well.

Skree and Ikey arrived last. In the bar there were also two scraggly locals who'd seen the posters, so there were a total of 8 people ready to venture into the warehouse. Robillard explained that the rats had sneaked in via a tunnel they'd burrowed under the floor and that they were drinking his beer. He offered 1 gold coin per dead rat.

Skree attempted to order ten cocktails at once. Robillard told him not to abuse the free drinks. Besides, he didn't think a goblin could hold his liquor. So Skree took his one cocktail and... held it. For most of the session.

Both Selekiir, the alchemist, and Skree asked if fire was OK. The barrels were fire retardant, but Robillard preferred they didn't test them. This didn't stop either of them in the least later on. While they were talking the two locals, chagrined at having to share the pot with so many, sneaked out and went into the warehouse by themselves.

The characters got to enjoy listening to their death cries as the locals were devoured by rats. On that promising note, they headed in themselves.

I had intended for the players to search between the crates and have the rats jump in and out of the shadows to attack. However, with six characters, and half of them readying actions on their turns, the rats would've been killed before they could run off back into the shadows (they each only had 8 hp). As well it would've been too much of a hassle moving in and out of encounter/exploration mode. It's something I would've been more comfortable doing in PF1E. One of the drawbacks with the new 3 action system is that I don't want to deprive the players of the opportunity to use all 3 actions meaningfully.

As a result, after the first rat leapt out, the remaining rats came on fast and furious (staggered somewhat). I did take advantage of their climb speed to put them on top of the stacks of kegs, making it a little more challenging for the melee characters.

Some on this forum have complained that the monsters have too high of a to-hit bonus. However, I was glad that the monsters hit often and gave the players a reason to fear. In previous versions, a pile of giant rats would have been too easy. I was also happy to see that none of the characters could one-shot the rats, despite their low hitpoints, except for the monk, who managed to punt a rat off the top of the barrels for 12 damage.

Half the damage the characters took was splash damage from the alchemist's bombs, which I thought was hilarious. At one point we thought he'd just cursed two of the characters to a horrible death by dissolving acid, until we rechecked the book and saw that the splash damage is not ongoing. Phew!

Several of the characters caught filth fever, which is delicious. One of the characters fumbled his save. I put him directly at Stage 2 of the disease. One of the players argued this, but he changed his mind when he saw Filth Fever didn't have an onset (as some of the poisons do). In any case I think the rules should clarify this point (on the very first save). They finally managed to kill all of the rats.

They searched the warehouse and looted the bodies of those the rats had killed. They also discovered the tunnel. It had existed under the warehouse before, and the rats had only had to do a little bit of digging to get in. Skree climbed down and lobbed his cocktail down the tunnel, then blasted it with a Fire Ray (champion power). BTW, it took me forever just now to figure out how to find the champion powers.

I had more planned for the session, but we ran out of time. The combat took a long time. Part of that was due to the three action system; the players spent more time considering what they could do. Hopefully it'll get faster with practice. Other fun things happened throughout the session but this is enough.

I asked the players for their comments about the new system:

- They remarked that multiple attacks seemed pointless, due to the large penalties. With 3 actions per round, sometimes the only option was to keep attacking.
- The Ready a Shield action seems silly.
- One of the players complained about "Ready an Action" costing two actions. This didn't bother me personally though.
- It was unclear whether animals got multiple attacks with all of their weapons. For example, the dinosaur had a bite and claw attack. Can it do both in one action? We decided they didn't get free multiple attacks, but I still think it needs clarification. Perhaps an animal can use a second action with a different natural weapon without the -5 penalty.
- The player who played the Alchemist had originally planned to play a Sorcerer but changed his mind. The basic consensus was that "sorcerers suck". I've seen that reflected on this forum.
- The players complained about some fighting styles (eg. two-weapon fighting) being locked from most classes. The rogue in particular would've liked more options. You can do this with archetype feats, but it would take a while. The players in general didn't like the idea of "class feats". In FFSW for example, you can buy cross-career talents for just a little more cost. It would be nice to be able to buy "cross-class" feats somehow (more easily than with the current archetypes).
- The player with the monk complained about how many different stats the monk needed (though this has been a challenge in every version).
- The issue with Resonance Points for Alchemists came up (as it has elsewhere on this forum). I also brought up the issue with Bulk for Alchemists, though for this particular game I've decided to hand-wave the bulk issue.
- The dwarven druid acrobat rolled his Circus Lore every chance he got during the game, because he's funny like that. At the end of the game the player said, what's the point of the skill?! Some of the lore skills are clearly more useful than others.

As I've mentioned, the 3 action system can get bogged down sometimes. Each player wants to be able to maximize what he does. Perhaps a basic action can be added that gives a player a +1 on their next roll, something like "wait for an opening". It was a pain to have so many players readying actions because it gave them an excuse to use up 2 actions.

Despite the complaints we had a blast, but then we do no matter what system we use. I generally handwave and bullsh*t most systems I run, simply because I run so many. But the playtest has feats and abilities that depend on the exploration rules, etc. which forces you to be more strict. I also don't use miniatures, and the increased focus on distance and movement (each ancestry has a different movement) made it more exhausting to track the positions of the heroes and monsters. Again, if one player has 5 or 10 feet extra movement, I don't want to shortchange him (it reminds me too much of 4E's focus on movement and position).

By comparison the last system I ran was Shadows of the Demon Lord. I spent all of 5 minutes looking at that book and never used it again. I didn't even use the monsters in the book. It was the lazy GM's paradise. PF1E was pretty forgiving of hand-waving as well. Some of the new rules in the playtest almost felt like an excuse to inflate feats. For example the ability to search for traps "for free" from the Trapfinding feat is only useful given the strict Exploration rules. In the previous version a player could say "I'm going to scout ahead", which meant he or she was looking for traps and monsters while moving silently. Now I have to say, "ok, which ONE of those three things are you doing?" I get that the new rules allow more players to be engaged in exploration. But in general, a player plays a rogue because he or she WANTS to roll lots of skills, and a player plays a fighter because he or she just wants to smash things. It's not necessary to force the fighter to look for monsters because the rogue is busy looking for traps.

Perhaps a better option than fatigue is to give a character a stacking penalty for each additional action they perform in exploration.

Thanks for reading!