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Every spring, the gaming group I belong to holds what is known as Megasession, and three day weekend filled with gaming. Being the newest member (I joined about two years ago) and also the youngest (at 25, the some of the group have been gaming longer than I’ve been alive), they nominated me to run after a previous successful Megasession I ran. I have been running several of the Pathfinder Modules, starting with Hollow’s Last Hope and currently Crown of the Kobold King, as one-shots once a month and wanted to expose the group to more of the world while testing the new Alpha rules. The group has been receptive to both the world of Golarion and the first Alpha releases and liked the idea of a playtest weekend.
Wanting to give them a challenge and try something different, I selected Seven Swords of Sin as the module to run, with some modifications. I wrote an entirely new hook for the adventure, setting the party up as adventurers out for revenge against the main villain Tirana. At the start, the group has tracked Tirana to Korvosa where they know she is searching for something, but not what. The players elaborated on their relationship with Tirana, and with each other.
After reading about the deadliness of the adventure on the boards and knowing that we would only have three actual players at the game, I adjusted the party’s level. Using the new Alpha 3 rules, the group designed 8th level characters with standard equipment for their level as per the Pathfinder rules. As for the adventure, I only updated those creatures and NPCs with character levels to conform to the new Alpha 3 rules. I left the monsters as written in the MM or the adventure, only adjusting 3.5 grapple to the new Combat Maneuver Bonus of Pathfinder.
First Night – Character Creation and initial combat:
The group definitely liked the ease of character creation with the Pathfinder rules. The players are very creative with character history, but usually found some trouble in translating their concepts with the 3.5 rules. Each of the players was incredibly impressed with the races and their new abilities, both in terms of mechanics and flavor. The revisions to the half-elf even sparked one of the players, who hated in the race in 3.5, to choose the race for his character.
As for classes, the group couldn’t be happier. The players feel that the new options and redesigned classes give them the chance to fully develop their concepts as well as address several balance issue among the classes themselves. In 3.5, classes would become relegated to certain “standby” or auxiliary positions because of the lack of abilities or options, but this is no more in their eyes. Now, the players did have some issues with the classes, but I’ll address that during the play notes.
By far the best part for the players had been both skills and feats. The revised skill system in A3 provides the customization of 3.5 while making the drudgery of skill selection and mathematics so much simpler. Also, not having cross-class skills allows for deeper customization without penalty. The fighter was very pleased that he could take ranks in Perception without having to pay some odd penalty. The new and revised feats also gave the group more cause for joy. These have to be two large successes.
Our characters for the adventure:
Teg, the Conjurer (human wizard 8) – Teg is the former lover of Tirana, spurned by her evil ways and now seeking revenge. Teg’s player wanted to try out the new class powers and spells, and loves the new additions. He used a ring for his arcane bond, but we would still like to seem some clarification on how to enchant it and whether or not the spell it cast has to be one the wizard has memorized or just has in his spellbook. The conjurer powers fit the school very well.
Radomir, the Sunderer (human fighter 8) – Radomir is the proto-typical fighter, strong and brash, and may have also had relations with Tirana. Radomir’s player wished to play the hulking fighter, and loved the new Combat Maneuver rules some much that sunder became his thing. With Weapon Focus, Power Attack, Cleave, Overhand Chop, Improved Sunder and an adamantine greatsword, he rarely has worry about other weapons hurting him as they often end up broken on the floor (Broken condition is so helpful here).
Khazar, the Varisian (half-elf rogue 8) – Khazar is a Varisian though and through. Khazar’s player loved the Varisian information I sent him and came up with an entire backstory about his Varisian family, and his usual conception by an elf trying to help a Varisian couple bare a child. A two-weapon finesse rogue, Khazar’s player loved the new rogue abilities and the Acrobatics skill. Khazar’s player is not a big fan of casters because of the amount of work 3.5 entailed with spell lists and such. However, he selected both the Minor and Major Arcane Talents for the rogue, and had a veritable spellbook of wands stashed in his bag with the help of Use Magic Device. These options let him try something he otherwise never would. Thank you, Jason for giving him the opportunity.
Also in the group is Wen Histani (human cleric of Abadar 8) as an NPC as we were short one player. I built her as a combat medic with Selective Channeling and some prowess with a crossbow. The extra healing came in handy and allowed me to use spells to buff my main characters and not steal the spotlight in any way here.
For hit points, we used the racial bonus and each player though that was a great addition, and made the most sense in-game as well. Given the deadliness of the adventure and advice from the boards, I rolled hit points but skewed them for higher results. Our human fighter with a great Con and Toughness at 1st level, wound up with 101 hit points, and he was going to need them. Gear was done as per the Pathfinder rules, and this was also a good change, giving the players more options for more slots.
With the characters assembled and the players fairly confident in the new system, we began.
Initial Hook – Elder Minotaur combat:
The characters found themselves in Korvosa, having followed a trail of rumors to the city. Searching for Tirana after she purloined an ancient text bearing a seven-pointed star from a museum in Magnimar, the party began searching for clues as to her whereabouts. Diplomacy rolls here were low, so no such luck. However, a Know (local) check by our rogue garners some strange info about the Church of Abadar: the church closed early today without any obvious reason. Checking this out, the party went to the church and interrogated two very annoyed justicars who just wanted to finish their late shift. Satisfied that the guards weren’t under Tirana’s control, they retired to a nearby inn.
During the night, they are awakened by the loud knock at the door. The rogue, fearing the worst, draws his blade, throws open the door, and sees a beautiful southern woman standing in front of him (Wen). Not giving any info, Wen demands that they follow her to Tirana, and, being the foolishly trusting sorts, do so without complaint. When it becomes apparent that she is leading them to the Church, the group kicks themselves for not staking out the place. Now, the doors are ajar and guards from earlier are dead. Inside is even worse, with guards and priests alike scattered and bleeding on the floor. Wen leads the group to the stairs to the vaults below, and then leaves (running to find Archbanker Tuttle, but the group didn’t realize this at the time). Feeling like they’re being setup, they cautious descend while noting all possible exits, just in case.
Then comes our first combat. The party descends into the vault to find them all standing open, contents bare to the world but seemingly untouched. Succeeding on Perception checks, the party is not surprised when a group of church guards ( 4 guards - human fighter 6) ambushes them. The group begin with some deadly attacks, notably an Overhand chop from the fighter and some quick stabs by the rogue (the rogue’s bleed attack is very nice). The wizard realizes that the guards are charmed, and lets the other know not to kill them. Here the fighter changes to sundering their weapons, and the new CMB rules and Broken condition make this very easy to adjudicate. With his adamantine greatsword, only one weapon survived with the Broken conditon, all others bit the dust by the end. The rogue made an Acrobatics check to setup a flank and succeeded (the new DC of 15 + BAB worked well here, making it more challenging but not overly so). Sneak attacking for subdual, the rogue finished the fight without causing the guards any more pain.
The party headed into a small side passage away from the main vaults, and found a two-five-foot statue of a beautiful, nude woman bearing a double-headed guisarme and holding the Sword of Lust. They also found eight more charmed guards, Tirana, and her elder minotaur bodyguard (from Classic Monsters Revisited). I can’t tell you how satisfying it was to see the player’s faces when, instead of charging, the minotaur created a wall of stone to protect himself and Tirana. What was supposed to be an APL+2 encounter turned out to be somewhat simple. The party made short work of the guards using grease and stinking cloud. Tirana retrieved the sword and fled via the convenience of teleport, while the minotaur tore into the party. Here, the fighter’s use of Mobility and subsequently Overhand Chop really paid off and both seem to be very balanced as combat feats. In general, we found that the benefits of the combat feats were balanced by the fact that a player could only use one each round. Also, this made the fighter look at the combat from a much more tactical view, and added to the player’s enjoyment.
For our rogue, the best moments for him involved using Acrobatics to pull of some great maneuvers. For example, at one point the rogue wished to jump over a guard during a movement, while not provoking any attacks of opportunity. A great cinematic scene that would have resulted in multiple checks of different skills in 3.5 was reduced to one, speeding up play and simplifying the adjudication of the rules. When avoiding the minotaur’s attacks of opportunity, the Acrobatics DC of 15 + opponent’s BAB worked very well, giving a better challenge but nothing that the rogue couldn’t overcome, failing only once on several checks.
The wizard was able to dominate the field using the new school abilities granted in the Alpha rules. The wizard’s player was very impressed with both the flavor and usefulness of the abilities, and being able to use spells with a bit more liberty really helped. Throughout most of the adventure, both the wizard and cleric were able to keep up with the others in terms of resource management and subsequently needed very little rest.
After dispatching the minotaur, the party decided leaving was probably in their best interest, before the Korvosan guards showed up and got the wrong impression. Unfortunately for them, not only were the Korvosan guards already on the scene, but some Sable Company marines were flying overheard while a small group of Hellknights began poking around. The party quickly surrendered to the guard and wound up imprisoned in Castle Volshyenek. The party had some time to stew and discuss what happened before being broken out of jail, I mean rescued, by Wen, accompanied by Archbanker Darb Tuttle. From here, the roleplaying allowed me to get out more of the backstory and set-up the adventure as it was written. The PCs struck a deal with the head of Abadar’s church, and with Wen in tow, attempted to escape the city without being spotted.
Chase Scene – Escaping Korvosa:
Using a similar set-up of the Shingles chase scene from the first volume of the Curse of the Crimson Throne AP, the party had to escape the city while being chased by a group of Korvosan guards and two Hellknights. This was a great opportunity to test the skill system. I used fifteen cards, each with two different skill checks listed, to simulate the chase. The characters could move forward one card each round as a standard action or attempt to make the checks to move further as a full-round action. My problem in developing the encounter came from the consolidated skill list. The original chase scene uses Tumble, Jump, and Balance in addition to Climb and such to add some variety to the checks, ensuring that a given PC would be able to make at least one check on each card. With the consolidated list, some of these options were not available and I was afraid that the checks would devolve into just Acrobatics. However, this just forced me to be a bit more creative and create other situations, such as bluffing your way passed some concerned citizens or knowing the layout of the city to find a shortcut. I added these skill checks to the mix.
I unveiled the encounter to the players and they were pleasantly surprised. The new skill system from Pathfinder allowed each character to customize their characters more fully than the penalizing system of 3.5, and this came in very handy. For example, the fighter was able to put enough ranks in Perception (a non-class skill) to feel effective with it. The “class skill” bonus works to reinforce those skills that should be important to the character without giving the appearance of penalizing a character who selects a non-class skill to raise. Each player felt that they could make choices for their character that fit the concept without worrying about extra costs or feeling like the character was lacking in some areas.
The characters took off in the chase, and after some stumbling and great leaps, out ran their pursuers. The players enjoyed the encounter and felt vindicated in their skill choices instead of punished. In the end, using social skills, knowledge skills, and the original physical skills made the encounter more challenging, more diverse, and more rewarding with the new skill system.
Second Day and Night – Seven Swords of Sin
The group met again earlier the next morning and gamed well into the wee hours of the morning, to the end of the adventure. Once out of the city and on their way to Kaer Maga, I used the adventure as written, only adapting those creatures/NPCs with class levels to the new Alpha 3 rules. So as to not spoil the adventure for anyone who may play in the future, I will just share my notes, observations, and questions from this point on.
1.) There is a rise in power level with the new rules. With the addition of more feats, more hit points, and new and better racial and class abilities, the new power level of the party is substantial. Now, since the adventure is touted as “extremely deadly” and many on the boards suggested it, I allowed the players to make 8th level characters and above average hit point totals, but this only made the jump more noticeable. Now, is this a bad thing? Well, there are still some issues with challenge ratings for encounters (see below), but my players were more enthralled with the added options than concerned by any power creep.
2.) There does not seem to be consistency in the new encounter levels and actual results. As in the above example with the minotaurs and the guards, an encounter that is APL+2 seemed a bit too easy for the party. Later encounters in the adventure, like a certain mummy with a 3.5 CR of 9 was a cakewalk for a group of just three PCs. The encounters that gave the group a challenge were upwards of APL+3 or +4, such as the fight with the vrock and his cultists, the dinos and their goblin riders, and the black dragon and his watery friend. With the nearing of Beta, I would like to see some better examples of encounter building in this system in order to find the right challenge balance.
3.) With the new abilities, the party only had to rest once during the entire dungeon, from opening the doors to the final battle, and they completed every room. Resource management for casters is so much better with the additions. The wizards was not running low of spells until after completing the second level of the dungeon. With the new channeling rules, I was able to keep the combatants healed without spending spells best used to buff the group. Very nice here.
4.) CMB is great for PCs. The clarifications to combat maneuvers are fantastic and the players felt more encouraged to use these even without the use of “improved” feats due to the new ease of use. Though, we still have questions regarding grapple, such as whether or not the creature or character being grappled needs to make a check in order to act. As written, the players interpreted the rules to mean a creature that is being grappled does not need to make a check to do anything unless he wants to take control of the grapple. However, the grappling creature must make a check in order to take any action listed in the rules. I do not know if this is the intention of the rules. Some more clarification is needed here.
5.) CMB is not so good for certain monsters. As mentioned during Alpha 2 testing, those creatures that are solely built around grappling are at somewhat of a disadvantage with the new rules. The shambling mounds and the giant squid had lower CMBs than their 3.5 predecessors and this took some of the sting out of them. I’m not sure how this could be addressed without more testing.
6.) Some concern/questions about specific combat feats: Cleave says that the targets must be adjacent. Does this mean their squares must share a side or can they just share a corner, such as being with 5 feet of each other diagonally? Also, the fighter player felt that Backswing was a great feat at low level, but really lost its appeal at higher levels. He thought that increasing the Strength bonus to just full instead of half might rectify this.
7.) Arcane bond – Object: Both myself and the wizard’s player would like there to be more clarification about how the object functions in regard to the spell it can cast and how it can be enchanted. Does the spell have to be one memorized for the day or can it be one from the wizard’s spellbook? When it comes to enchanting, can the object be enchanted with any ability/bonus, like a ring with a bonus to Constitution, and does the object follow the extra pricing for uncustomary space limitation?
8.) Notes about the character sheet that may have been mentioned before: Disable Device should be Dex, Spellcraft should be Int, and Swim should be Str.
9.) Huge successes so far include the skill system and feat availability and additions, as mentioned above. Though remembering some of the skill breakdowns was tricky. I often found myself asking for Spot or Listen checks instead of Preception (sight) or (sound), though I chalk this up to habit. It is somewhat odd that Knowledge and Perform skills are actual, separate skills while Perception is once skill with five different subtypes (though I don’t know how this could be any different).
10.) Revisions to spell and magic items seem solid and did not cause any issue during play.
11.) New adjudication for negative levels is great. The fighter’s player was concerned about losing a great deal when hit by an enervation spell, but when I explained the changes, he was both relieved and still concerned. The player didn’t have to basically undo his character, while he still had a challenge to overcome. The simplicity allowed the players to quickly adjust to the penalty without feeling like their characters had been destroyed by it.
12.) The new damage reduction rules work. No longer needed is the golf bag of different weapons, a major relief to our rogue player who had to deal with this with his fighter during our Shackled City campaign. During this adventure, the weapon enhancement rules gave the party a better grip on certain encounters with the creatures with special material restrictions, but were still challenged by those with alignment-based DR. This system seemed balanced.
13.) The four base classes we playtested seem to be balanced and well on their way to feeling complete. Again, the new features added more than enough options to make the players happy. Even the rogue’s player, generally not a caster or spell fan, felt that the spell abilities of the rogue fit the class and made great choices. Though we did not have the opportunity to playtest the other classes, the players liked the proposed changes to some classes while not liking others, but that is beyond the scope of this post and I will leave that to more playtesting.
All in all, I’d call this playtest a success. After the first night, the players were incredibly excited with the possibilities they saw in these changes and their actual results. The following day continued the excitement until late that night when the party entered the final floor of the dungeon. At this point, the dice ran cold and the challenge of the adventure finally caught up to the party’s level. I also think that the grind of the adventure finally caught up with the players as well, but this is an issue with the adventure’s nature, not the rules. I spoke with one the players this morning, and he is very confident in the direction Jason and Paizo are taking with the rules, and so am I. I want to thank you for all of the hard work, and a fantastic and deep world to adventure in.
If there are any questions, I would be more than willing to answer as best I can. I hope this post helps.
Rodger
In regards to point 5 - perhaps monsters with Improved Grab should have some sort of racial bonus on grapple checks to make up for any "umph" they may lose in the transfer to PFRPG CMB rules.
This is a sweet playtest writeup and using Seven Swords of Sin as the playtest adventure was something I was considering as well.
Great analysis.
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In regards to point 5 - perhaps monsters with Improved Grab should have some sort of racial bonus on grapple checks to make up for any "umph" they may lose in the transfer to PFRPG CMB rules.
That is what I was thinking. Aside from the +4 from Improved Grab, the racial bonus would be a nice addition for these creatures.
Thanks for writing this. This is great!
Just curious -- what feats/abilities in particular do you think gave the fighter and rogue a rise in power level?
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Just curious -- what feats/abilities in particular do you think gave the fighter and rogue a rise in power level?
Our fighter specialized in use of a greatsword, with a focus on sunder. Feats included Improved Sunder, Weapon Focus, Cleave, Power Attack, and Overhand Chop. He also had Toughness at 1st level ad Mobility, which became instrumental for maneuvering in combat. Basic tactics were to use Mobility to engage on the first round, then Powerattack/Overhand chop for big damage or Powerattack/Improved Sunder to destroy weapons, depending on the situation.
The rogue was built for two-weapon fighting, using a rapier and a katar. Through full use of Acrobatics, the rogue could maneuver easily into flanking position for sneak attacks with Bleeding Attack (4 extra damage each round is pretty good at low to mid level). Also, Minor Magic (Mage Hand) and Major Magic (True Strike) are insanely good for a rogue. Also, with liberal use of Use Magic Device and more than enough wands, the rogue (with a staring bonus of 16 using Skill Focus) basically became a sorcerer in his own right.
The wizard was a conjurer and looking back, I'm not sure that the 1st level power made that much of a difference. Yes, it prevented the unnecessary use of spell slots, but became secondary as the damage didn't scale enough to be truly effective at higher levels. This could be an issue with the other 1st level power, especially the damage dealing abilities. Obviously, it shouldn't completely replace spell use, but maybe raising the damage at higher levels wouldn't hurt.
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Our fighter specialized in use of a greatsword, with a focus on sunder. Feats included Improved Sunder, Weapon Focus, Cleave, Power Attack, and Overhand Chop. He also had Toughness at 1st level ad Mobility, which became instrumental for maneuvering in combat. Basic tactics were to use Mobility to engage on the first round, then Powerattack/Overhand chop for big damage or Powerattack/Improved Sunder to destroy weapons, depending on the situation.
As an aside, I received an email this morning from the fighter's player. After reading that idea of "combat feats" (one per round) will probably not be in Beta, he feels that the fighter feats are still balanced by making them full-attack actions.
Just a thought.
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As the wizard in this playtest I can say the game seemed to go well. The first level power was not overwhelming but allowed me to take actions where I would be useless in the past. I think that was Jason's intent for the first level power so I think it was sucessful.
I think most of the problems I ran into were build related and not system related. I used all the powers available to my conjurere except the web power. And that was not because I thought the power was not helpful, it was cause I lost every initive roll for the entire weekend. And since these were not PCs that grew together my partners kept running into where I want to cast the wes or the one spell I never cast Black Tentacles!
All in all I was satisfied with how the game played the changes really made each PC seem more important I think having a fourth PC would have made the game more enjoyable. We avoided multiclassing to focus on the classes as written for playtest purposes. I was shocked on how long my wizard lasted with out the need for rest. The school powers and a couple of useful wands made for a much longer adventuring day!