I've been using Path 2 Victory to play through Pactbreaker, and thought people might be interested in a short summary of each chapter.
The first chapter took me about an afternoon to play through. Here's "Day 1" of the first chapter, more coming soon.
Set up
I read through the adventure and converted each combat encounter into a scenario that can be played on a battlemap.
Because Pactbreaker Chapter 1 takes place in a gala, I painted some market terrain I had, and printed out papercraft buildings.
I created five characters, each level 5, using simplified character creation rules (yet to be released):
- Keldor Ironshade, a dwarf rogue
- Grom, a half-giant “hulk” (fighter)
- Zane Stormrider, a human “gun mage officer” (thaumaturge, using a wand as a pistol and a chalice for group buffs)
- Lyria Briarbrook, a halfling “fleet runner” (nature-themed, mobile cleric)
- “Brightsong”, a half-elf bard
Each character’s rules fit on a poker card, which I push forward to indicate if they’re taking an early turn or tap to indicate that they’ve taken their turn for the round.
I write on the cards with dry-erase markers to track HP and encounter/daily power uses. (And special conditions, like creeping death.)
I have separate reference sheets for spells and magic items. Have considered turning them into cards as well, but haven’t done so yet.
First scenario set up
Chapter 1: Seeds of Discontent
I start by reading all the backstory, imagining that it’s like the opening narration of a movie – rather than knowledge I’d necessarily expect my party of heroes to have.
The Gala that is the setting of the first chapter is the fringe festival to a meeting of druids happening on a nearby island. The heroes are hired as part-time security, and can build relationships and participate in competitions. Effectively, it's a worker placement game played over eight rounds, where PCs can choose between influencing one of five Gala guests or participating in contests (if one is happening at the time).
To add another interesting choice, I also decided I could assign a hero to “security detail” to start with someone from the event security on hand (a dwarf or a walking tree) if an encounter occurs during that round.
Morning of Day 1: With no contest or encounter, I decided to do early reconnaissance – assigning one hero to each of the five guests based on how I thought they’d get along. I only had the appearance of each guest to go on – I’d learn more once I assigned a hero to them.
The urbane Brightsong went to Alacreon the satyr hedonist, the sly Keldor to Khasprickle the puckwudgie agitator, earnest Grom to the eagle knight Alyce Quinley, all-rounder Zane to the gnome aristocrat sorcerer Tanasha Starborne and devout Lyria to Vandalya Swiftmane the centaur dissident.
From what Brightsong saw of the “carnal”, flirtatious Alacreon, I was pretty confident that a good Performance could Influence him – so I went straight ahead and attempted a skill check. A critical success was a nice early win. That’s 2 Influence with Alacreon, not enough for a gift unfortunately.
Zane made a good guess that Diplomacy would win over Tanasha, but a critical failure means no progress – but luckily, no Influence lost either since we were already on zero.
Grom fails to Discover anything about Alyce.
The diminutive Lyria barely reaches the knee of the mighty Vandalya Swiftmane, but she gamely attempts to get to know the centaur. With a critical success, she learns Vandalya is impressed by Gala performance and resolving incidents, and that Intimidation is one way to influence her.
What Keldor learns from spending the morning with Khasprickle does not impress him, but he does learn that Intimidation is a potential avenue towards influencing him.
Afternoon of Day 1: It’s the Caber Toss! Seeing a chance to impress Vandalya, Lyria the lithe halfling priest rather improbably enters – as do Keldor and Grom.
The two heroes without training in Athletics or Acrobatics, Brightsong and Zane, instead approached guests – Brightsong back to Alacreon to try another Performance, and Zane to learn more about Tanasha using his Arcana.
Brightsong was just 1 away from another critical success, sadly – but getting Alacreon up to Influence 3 is still nothing to sneer at. Zane scored a critical success learning about Tanasha, and revealed her weakness plus that Deception can be used to Influence her.
Each of the three heroes in the Caber Toss contributed one successful throw to the final team score of 17, including a critical success from Grom.
Khasprickle’s team clearly trained for consistency, with seven scoring throws across their eight attempts – but with three 5s, three 4s and a 2, their final team score was only 15.
Lyria and Keldor gain 4 Gala Points and Grom gains 5.
Day 1 Evening: There’s an encounter coming after this, but I decide to use all heroes to hobnob with guests.
I guess successfully that Tanasha is Influenced by Arcana, and Zane’s critical success gives us 2 Influence with the gnome aristocrat.
I want to figure out the dissident centaur, so I send Grom and Lyria in – learning that Diplomacy works on her too.
I reckon Khasprickle is susceptible to Deception and Diplomacy, attempted by Keldor and Brightsong respectively. Correct in both cases, but the heroes make no impression on the pugilistic pukwudgie.
The Berries and Bees:
Quote:
A dispute between a drainberry merchant and a gnome customer overturned a stall run by a primal pollen vendor. The gnome slipped away, but the spilled primal pollen attracted swarms of bees that are attacking innocent bystanders. Defeat the drainberry bush and rescue the bystanders.
Picture of the set up
I merged two encounters from Pactbreaker to make this scenario: Bees! and No Refunds. Rather than treat the panicking crowd as a hazard, I represented them with six bystanders scattered around the marketplace. These bystanders would move randomly at the end of each round, and could easily end up running into the bee swarms or even the irate drainberry merchant and his troll bodyguard.
The bee swarms were indiscriminate, treating the closest target as the enemy. The drainberry bush and troll wouldn't target bystanders, but would lash out at them if there were no heroes in reach to target instead.
The heroes also entered from random corners of the board, to reflect that they were coming from different parts of the Gala. Heroes that had been at the same guest/contest appeared together.
Finally, there is a timer: after the fifth round, and every round thereafter, roll 1d6. On a 4 or higher, the game ends.
After a dicey start, where one of the bystanders was reduced to 0 HP on the first round, with no way to reach him with healing that round, the party rallied. The heroes did a good job of throwing themselves in front of bystanders, and copping the attacks themselves. That did force a few heroes into melee who'd have rather stayed at range - in fact, Zane the thaumaturge set a precedent in this scenario of charging headlong into battle, which he kept up for the next two scenarios too.
Photo of the game in progress
The drainberry bush, forest troll and both wasp swarms were defeated, with no casualties among heroes or bystanders. Lyria did use her lightning bolt; daily spells will not refresh until the end of the chapter, so this represents a real sacrifice - but a worthwhile one to stop the troll's regeneration.
On round 5, two heroes even had time to stop by the primal pollen merchant and pick up a couple of bulbs.
Day 1 Afterparty: Alacreon’s afterparty is another chance to Influence him – but for all my success so far, I actually don’t know what works on him except Performance. None of my heroes are particularly good at the Fortitude save they’ll need to avoid a hangover, so I just send in Brightsong – the only musician in the group.
He fails. But he passes his Fortitude save easily, so no great loss there. We’ll try again on Alacreon at the next night’s afterparty.
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There you have it - day 1 of chapter 1 of adventure 1 of Wardens of Wildwood. Let me know what you think!
