Preface
I would not consider myself the most experienced GM. I was introduced to the hobby about 4 years ago and realized that I was a far better GM than a player very quickly. My games are typically very focused on political intrigue and have very lethal combats, with enemies usually taking the most optimal strategy that they should narratively understand. My players (3/4 were old players for the playtest) understand that combat is something that should not always favor the main characters and that death is always a possibility. For the most part, I play very rules-lite, however, I decided to play a completely RAW game to help the playtest.
I have spent a good amount of the past two weeks browsing the forums and reddit. As you can probably guess, like most people who frequent those two places, I do not have the most favorable opinion of the playtest from my readings. I was quite excited for the game and felt that most of my enjoyment was immediately dashed after seeing some of the leaks posted. The rest of my happiness drained away as I poured over the rulebook and browsed the forums, watching as piece after piece of the playtest were pulled apart. I am not normally one to get my hopes up and regret doing so for the playtest.
My party (which is normally around 6 players) did not obsess with the playtest during the past two weeks as much as me. Two of them took a quick browse of the rulebook and decided that it wasn’t the game for them. One of them just decided she didn’t want to play because she felt PF1E was already a good enough game and that it didn’t need changing. Two of them read through the rulebook and felt hopeful, while the last one didn’t read the rulebook until yesterday, when we decided to run the playtest.
I understand the point of a playtest. The point is not to tear something down and spit on it, ruining it for the creators or the people who enjoy it. The point of a playtest is to stress test something, checking where the weak points are and helping to patch them over and make the ship capable of sailing. To that end, I did not want to spoil my player’s enjoyment with my own dissatisfaction of the system, up to the point of lying to them before the game about my initial reaction to reading the Core Rulebook. While I might have some bias that affects the game, I did not want any of them to be tainted by the same emotions, in the case that it would hurt our playthrough.
Party
The party was as follows:
• Gnome Paladin: Theoretically, he wanted a familiar that would be able to deliver Lay on Hands, since he was going sword & board. He avoided heavy armors due to the price and the speed loss, which would have crippled him as a gnome.
• Human Ranger: She wanted an animal companion but didn’t want to play a druid. Was originally going to use a longbow until I told her the dungeon would be entirely close-range combat, after which she switched to a shortbow.
• Elf Sorcerer [Occult Casting]: The resident minmaxer. He almost played a barbarian until he saw the reddit spell finder.
• Halfling Alchemist: The sorcerer’s gf who has only played 3.5 and 5e. She said that the rules for character creation were confusing, though she liked how modular everything seemed compared to 5e.
As you can see, the party was far from optimized. In fact, the class and race combinations that they chose were probably the farthest thing from being optimized; they took 3 of the worst classes and paired them with races that didn’t synergize very well. This isn’t unusual- my group tends to focus less on minmaxing (other than the caster player) and more on creating interesting builds that use the rules in weird ways. We’re also less of a combat group, something that probably wasn’t good for this dungeon. They also had a lack of casting and healing; the Paladin could use Lay on Hands twice to heal 1d6 each time while the Alchemist had a healing tincture (or whatever it’s called). The Ranger had a Healer’s Kit.
Before we began, I made sure to tell them a few things about the dungeon.
1. Diplomacy would not work. Everything in the dungeon would want to kill them, and if they tried to use diplomacy, it would waste their time.
2. The dungeon has reported many TPKs online, so they should be cautious in their decision making.
3. They only had 7 days to complete the dungeon, due to the time constraints listed in the AP. I know they aren’t mandatory, but I didn’t want them to drag it on too long.
A1
Things started out awkwardly. I didn’t like the exploration rules; having everyone describe what they were doing meant that I had to read through the rulebook to find out what tactic they were using. It was faster than if they each took turns looking through the rulebook, but it broke the narrative flow every time I had to dictate what tactic they were using. It didn’t matter much though, as they never used any tactic other than searching. The Paladin, in the front of the party, wanted to just walk with a shield in one hand (raised) and his hooded lantern in the other.
Because they all rolled poorly on their perception checks, the sewer ooze managed to win initiative on them. It hit them with a stink wave, knocking the Sorcerer and Paladin over and doing a minimal and knocking them over. Immediately after, they grouped up on it and killed it very quickly. They Alchemist, who rolled the lowest on initiative, did not even get a chance to act. She was intending to hold her alchemical items in reserve and had prepared weapons of all different element types, thinking that different enemies might have different weaknesses, which was not true. Everyone cleaned the sewer goop off of themselves and then they continued on, forced into a single file line through the passageway.
A2
I ruled that it would not be hard to hear the goblins in their chatter as they party was in the searching tactic, however, due to the way light and awareness works, which was confusing, they couldn’t see the goblins. They spent some time trying to figure out how to fight- the Paladin, who was holding the lantern, couldn’t hold the lantern and use his sword&board combo at the same time. To remedy this problem, they tied the lantern to the Ranger’s animal companion, which was a bear cub.
They wanted to try and use diplomacy with the goblins, however, I reminded them that they’d heard the goblins were angry and dangerous and had attacked members of their own tribe in the past. They decided to approach in single file, throwing a torch down the opposite side of the room to illuminate more area. After the intense bright light, I had them roll initiative as the goblins reacted.
Goblins won initiative and took the paladin down to 3 health with 8 ranged attacks as they moved forwards. The party was a bit bunched up and bottle necked, so they rushed behind the pillars to provide themselves with cover. After some confusion with the sensing rules, I allowed them to take some attacks, which they missed. The Alchemist did hit them with the bomb splash damage, doing a small amount of damage.
The Paladin, still wanting to tank but not wanting to die, took his turn to raise his shield. The next turn, he was shot and critted to death, falling to Dying 2. The Bear was shot and took minimal damage. Two of the goblins had emerged into the light, dropping their shortbows and whipping out their dogslicers. I made sure to let the party know that these goblins were exceptionally handsome; with a +1 charisma, they were better looking than both the Ranger and Alchemist.
The Ranger and Bear attacked in unison, though it brought up a confusion: we didn’t know how the animal companion attacks worked with the special attack. Could the bear do a bite and claw attack as a single action? Did it need to only do the claw, then do it’s special second claw to grab? Or could it spend its entire turn to bite->claw->bear hug? It didn’t matter too much, the goblins were so low in HP that the attacks from the Ranger and Bear were enough to kill them.
Two goblins were still shooting from the shadows, which nobody was lucky enough to move from sensed to concealed. The Sorcerer was blindly throwing things with Telekinetic Force from behind a pillar, mostly safe from the fight. The goblins released the last of their arrows into the Alchemist, critting her and knocking her to Dying 2. The Paladin passed his save and lost the dying condition. Now that he had dropped everything, he had a free hand to use Lay on Hands to himself, which he did before starting to crawl away.
The goblins, out of arrows, were forced to run into the fray and enter combat with the Bear and were killed quickly after. The Alchemist failed a death saving throw and moved to Dying 3. The Ranger used to +3 Medicine skill to administer first aid to the Alchemist and despite all odds, succeeded. The Alchemist used a healing tincture to heal 2 hp.
Current Status:
• Paladin: 3 HP, 0 Lay on Hand uses, Dented Shield
• Ranger: Full HP, plenty of arrows
• Sorcerer: Full HP, hasn’t used any spells other than cantrips
• Alchemist: 2 HP, has used most of her alchemical supplies
A3
As you can see above, half of the party was in perfect condition while the other half was mostly dead. Because of this disparity, there was a bit of an argument about what to do. The Ranger and Sorcerer wanted to continue on and clear out as much as possible while the Paladin and Alchemist wanted to return home to sleep and recover. To break the argument, I reminded them that they had a limited time to complete the mission and then reminded them how slowly they would heal if they spent time resting.
They ultimately decided to compromise: they’d check out the side passages to see if there was anything that might notice the death of the goblins outside. Because the Paladin was at such low health, he refused to enter. The Alchemist said she would enter as long as it was safe inside.
Well, the Sorcerer and Ranger decided to head into A3 alone. To preserve their stealth, they had the bear, holding the only light source, to stay outside the tunnel and shine light inside. They entered stealth mode and rolled poorly, noting their presence to all of the centipedes in the room, who skulked around the party. The two rolled poorly on their perception rolls as well and ended up losing initiative as 6 centipedes dropped from the ceiling to surround them. Within a single turn of centipedes attacking, the Sorcerer was unconscious and the Ranger was at 3 HP and bleeding. She had to drop her bow and use her melee weapon while calling for her bear to help. The bear rushed in to attack the centipedes. The next round they were all Dying.
The Alchemist, watching this, decided to throw a tanglefoot bag on the centipedes, afraid they might leave the room to attack her. The Paladin, who out of game had decided that this dungeon was a wash, turned around stumbled away in the darkness, trying to find his way out (remember, he had left his lantern with the bear that just charged to its death and the ranger was carrying all of the torches). The Sorcerer passed his first death saving throw while the Ranger failed. The Alchemist threw some alchemical fire into the mess of centipedes, tanglefoot bags, and party members. The fire pushed the Sorcerer to Dying 2 and would have killed the Ranger had she not used a Hero Point to return to 0 hp and not dying.
Then she died anyway due to not rolling a 20 on the recurring fire damage. The Sorcerer decided not to use a Hero Point since he knew he was dead and went to get some food. The Alchemist and Paladin both decided to leave the dungeon, crawling through the darkness screaming for help and about the horrors of Keleri’s basement.
Ultimately, the Ranger tried her hardest to survive. It was depressing, but she played out her death, rolling both flat checks to remove the recurring damage while also rolling to recover her dying status. Regrettably, she could not roll a natural 20 and died to the flames (ironically, in our PF1E group, her first character was an alchemist who died to her own bombs). Her animal companion, the bear, fought it’s hardest and did end up killing the centipedes, though being a bear cub, abandoned in the dungeon while poisoned, it perished next to its master.
Afterward
Immediately after, we discussed what happened.
Even though I had told them about the multiple TPKs in the dungeon and about the high difficulty, they were not expecting what had happened. With the number of enemies presented in such unfavorable situations, they felt that they did not have enough resources or options to take care of them. They also felt that certain actions were too punishing; having to spend an action every turn to raise your shield meant that the paladin couldn’t move and attack enemies. Having to order her bear around to attack meant that the Ranger could not mark any targets to shoot.
They also lamented the critical hit rules. Multiple times throughout the adventure I rolled crits against them (the highest AC was the Paladin’s at 16, with the rest around 12) which put them down very quickly. Some of this they attributed to my natural luck. Otherwise, they felt that at level 1 the amount of attacks that can be taken against them in a single round could be ludicrous- being shot with 12 arrows in a single round is a horrifying experience for a level 1 character. Taking 18 centipedes attacks at level 1 is an unpleasant experience. Because the monsters could fight reactively, the players rarely had opportunities to take more than 1 strike action per turn, meaning that they had far less crits. As none of them were minmaxed (save the Sorcerer), their attack bonuses were all lower than the most basic enemies in the dungeon.
Everyone had mixed feelings.
The Paladin was the most optimistic out of all of us. He enjoyed character creation and liked many of the changes to the action system. Even though his character was quite weak and only got 1 or 2 attacks in the dungeon, he still enjoyed it. He spoke the least during our discussion, so I can’t speak much to his beliefs, other than the fact he was sad his shield broke basically immediately.
The Ranger seemed favorable to some aspects and bothered at others. She hated the animal companion system, preferring the system in PF1E far better. She didn’t like the spell list and how hard it was to read, nor did she like the rules regarding signature skills or skills in general. She liked the action system, though she didn’t like how some things took actions. The fact that she and her animal companion only got 2 actions per turn when she commanded it to do something felt obtrusive to her. She also didn’t say it explicitly but I had the feeling she did not like the Ranger Hunt Target ability, citing that it felt like a waste of an action. It also felt bad that it did not actually increase her ability to sense a target unless she used the Seek ability.
The Sorcerer, even though he never used anything higher than a cantrip in the dungeon before dying really liked how spells worked (even if he absolutely loathed how they are displayed in the book). He enjoyed having a constant at will ability that did decent damage and would scale. He also liked the different spell lists and loved the minor flavor that the occult bloodline gave him (he always gravitates towards aberrant archetypes and options in 1st edition). The fact that they were making occult stuff part of the core game was something he liked, though he disliked he couldn’t be a prepared caster and have that power. He disliked signature skills but liked how he felt like he was really good at every skill without having to put much effort into them. He felt like character creation was a little confusing.
The Alchemist player, who runs a 5e games over the weekend, said that she was ambivalent and that her opinion of the playtest might have been skewed due to having done basically nothing throughout the dungeon. She appreciated the complexity and the feeling that her choices mattered, though she didn’t like the fact that things seemed needlessly complicated and punishing. Her gripe with alchemist items was that she felt if she didn’t spend all of her money on consumables, she would be behind everyone else in power (which was true), though she did like how all of the items had unique effects. She had about two pages of notes for what every item on her formula book did…it actually looked like what you might expect an actual alchemist book to look like. Though she didn’t have an animal companion, she payed close attention to the Ranger player and decided that she really liked how animal companion rules worked in comparison to 5e.
In the end, I can’t say that I actually hated it like I thought that I would. The system certainly feels bad and is hard to implement, but otherwise, I felt more hampered by trying to adhere to absolute RAW than anything else. I believe that I would have enjoyed it more if I homebrewed things and used on the fly rulings, something that I do pretty much every time I GM. Of course, this begs the question of why I would play PF2E? The answer: I wouldn’t. Not on my own. If my players wanted to use this system or migrate to it instead of PF1E I would. I’d argue against it the entire time, but my admission is that PF2E is not as bad as I first thought while reading the Core Rulebook. PF2E is a serviceable game and not a trainwreck like I initially thought, which means I should give credit where credit is due.
Future
We decided we would not be going back to help Keleri with other characters. Her basement will forever be infested with evil goblins and the faceless stalker until the end of the world happens (or whatever the plot point is. I admit I didn’t pay much attention to the fluff). Low level gameplay was very unfun for all of us, even more so compared to low level gameplay in PF1E.
I told them about the rest of the dungeon and their response was: “How are level 1 characters supposed to do any of this?”
I don’t believe that a fair question- plenty of parties could do it if they got lucky enough. I also imagine that plenty of optimized parties could breeze through it as well, especially if they took time and bended everything in their favor. For my group of non-combative utility mains, this was not something that they could really handle (all of our main dpr players weren’t interested in trying PF2E).
We are hoping that we can see the good points of the system at a higher level of gameplay. I’m not sure when, but sometime in the next few weeks, we plan on playing one of the higher-level adventures, checking to see if it has the same problems or whether the game just comes on at later times. If there are any recommendations on which adventure is the most enjoyable, please comment and let me know. I’d be very appreciative of it and I’m sure my players would be too.
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I’m going to input edits later from my players with their survey decisions and any personal thoughts that they have about the playtest. Most of them are either too shy or too technologically illiterate to make posts and would rather have it all conglomerated into one single thread.
Part 3 might be a good one to try. It has some fun roleplay components your players might like, but also some solid combat tests too. Part 6 is also an excellent choice in that regard but might be too high level to try out next, so perhaps go to 3 and then 6?
Just a note (and I may be misinterpreting the summary of events), but alchemist fire only deals persistent damage to the main target, so potentially the ranger may have survived and just lost her bear (and maybe the sorcerer depending on if the persistent fire was what finished her).
Part 3 might be a good one to try. It has some fun roleplay components your players might like, but also some solid combat tests too. Part 6 is also an excellent choice in that regard but might be too high level to try out next, so perhaps go to 3 and then 6?
Just a note (and I may be misinterpreting the summary of events), but alchemist fire only deals persistent damage to the main target, so potentially the ranger may have survived and just lost her bear (and maybe the sorcerer depending on if the persistent fire was what finished her).
You're understanding correct, that would be a misinterpretation of the rules, which would be a mistake on my part. I don't think much would have changed though.
I will try parts 3 and 6. I might also try to see if I can get someone to try and DM one of them so I can see things form a player perspective.
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Yeah, when you said you guys usually did political intrigue, I thought of Part 6. It also has some combat, but mostly interactions and some puzzles. I thought it sounded really interesting.
Though, I have to ask... AC 12? Where they all naked? I usually don't play particularly optimized, but I don't think I've ever dared go that low.
Edit: I'm glad they took it well though. Hopefully the next one is more entretaining.
Very well detailed and written. I enjoyed reading your play test and hope you try again!
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They also felt that certain actions were too punishing; having to spend an action every turn to raise your shield meant that the paladin couldn’t move and attack enemies.
Move + attack + raise shield = 3 actions.
The paladin should be able to do this every round unless there was something restricting him. Was it just that his speed was too low?
Hmmm, I didn't pay close attention to light sources in my game. Half the party had darkvision and the cleric had the light cantrip that he was using for the other half, the wizard dancing lights. That said, I probably should have paid closer attention, especially in large areas like A2.
Talga also provided some rudimentary intelligence to the party, so they avoided the centipedes ("manylegs") and the mindfog fungus "dum dum fungus") entirely.
Though, I have to ask... AC 12? Where they all naked? I usually don't play particularly optimized, but I don't think I've ever dared go that low.
I didn't double check their sheets so my guess would be that they weren't adding their level to their armor class, but yes, the Sorcerer and Alchemist were both unarmored. The sorcerer technically had a higher AC due to his dex, however, the only times he was attacked was when he was flat-footed. The Ranger had an AC of around 14 and the Paladin around 16.
I suppose that I should have double checked their sheets to make sure that they had correctly created their characters. I'm not sure it would have made much of a difference but I cannot say for sure.
The paladin should be able to do this every round unless there was something restricting him. Was it just that his speed was too low?
He was a gnome and wearing medium (at least I believe he was wearing medium) armor, netting him a total of 15 speed. He didn't want to risk charging in and getting flanked without being able to spend an action to raise his shield.
Thank you for this! That comment made my morning!
I tried to make the death of the party as light-hearted as possible, so telling them that they were dying to very handsome goblins was something they got a kick out of.
Hmmm, I didn't pay close attention to light sources in my game. Half the party had darkvision and the cleric had the light cantrip that he was using for the other half, the wizard dancing lights. That said, I probably should have paid closer attention, especially in large areas like A2.
Talga also provided some rudimentary intelligence to the party, so they avoided the centipedes ("manylegs") and the mindfog fungus "dum dum fungus") entirely.
I regret not telling them to make sure they were prepared for darkness in the first place. I think that the encounters would have been trivialized if, for instance, the players all had access to darkvision.