KnightErrantJR's Alpha Playtest Thread 3.0


Alpha Release 3 General Discussion


Okay, so the first session didn't make a lot of use of the changes in Alpha three, but there were a few points:

1. Despite a change so soon after she got the rules for paladins, the paladin player did like the change to lay on hands and the ability to combine them in order to cure conditions, although she wished that she could combine them to heal extra hit points at higher levels as well.

2. She just leveled up to 4th, and she was happy to get another smite, as well as getting her first level spell, though she wished there were some better spells to pick from (when I let her look through Spell Compendium, she actually decided she didn't want them that much better).

3. While I personally wasn't thrilled with it, she loved the idea that paladins use charisma as their primary casting stat now, especially since its her highest stat, tied with her strength.

In our actual campaign, we had a short interim adventure that involved little in the way of combat, but this is what did come up for the following characters:

Human Paladin 4th Level

Human Cleric 3/Rogue 1

The main event of the night was a chase through the streets of Ordulin, climbing up buildings, running across ledges, and jumping from one roof to another to catch a thief.

We used a slightly modified version of the chase rules from Kobold Quarterly 3 in order to simulate this, but the run check was only used on the rounds that the thief was on a level roof that the PCs could run up to the thief on.

The fact that a few skills were rolled together into acrobatics didn't seem to bother the players, but neither of them were particularly skilled in that skill, so they fell behind fairly quickly.

The main way that the PCs caught up with the thief was to jump off the roofs in order to take a short cut. I noticed that the skill no longer has any provision for lessening damage, so both PCs took damage from the jump, though it didn't seem to both them too much.

In the resulting interrogation, the paladin was so relieved to have her sense motive skill back.

E-Mail Bardic Knowledge

Also, while the bard's player was on vacation, we had a few good e-mail exchanges with some skill checks for bluffs, diplomatically gathered information, history and religion checks, and actual diplomacy checks.

I noticed that his knowledge checks did shoot up a bit here, but I didn't mind that too much, especially since it eliminated the "okay, I don't know it THAT way, but do I know it through bardic knowledge" follow up question that always came after a knowledge check that didn't yield much.

Prep Time For Next Session

I was making up a stalling encounter of hobgoblins to be followed by a more substantial attack, and I noticed that it was a little confusing figuring out if the 1/2 or 1/3 CRs for some humanoids still apply, and if there is some way to plug in a formula to figure out exactly how the fractions come about, without just looking at the books and saying, "its just this way."

That having been said, assuming the fractions from the MM are still valid, it was fairly easy to figure out the number of hobgoblins for a standard encounter and a challenging one.

When doing the stats for the two non standard hobgoblins, its was very quick to pick out two key skills for the warmage and the knight and just plug them in, so hurray to the new skill system, which works out the same way as the old way (I know, the numbers are the same, but it was still nice to just plug in the skills).


KnightErrantJR wrote:
I was making up a stalling encounter of hobgoblins to be followed by a more substantial attack, and I noticed that it was a little confusing figuring out if the 1/2 or 1/3 CRs for some humanoids still apply, and if there is some way to plug in a formula to figure out exactly how the fractions come about, without just looking at the books and saying, "its just this way."

I was a little confused, too. My interpretation was that a creature with only 1 NPC level (and no racial HD) would have a CR of 1/4 (three less than CR 1) and a creature with only 1 PC level would have a CR of 1/3 (two less than CR 1), and that it doesn't matter whether the creature is a kobold or a tiefling (say).

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KnightErrantJR wrote:


3. While I personally wasn't thrilled with it, she loved the idea that paladins use charisma as their primary casting stat now...

Is there a balance issue?


joela wrote:
KnightErrantJR wrote:


3. While I personally wasn't thrilled with it, she loved the idea that paladins use charisma as their primary casting stat now...
Is there a balance issue?

Eh . . . not sure its a balance issue, or just me not liking the idea that paladins can now be as dense as some people play them (i.e. low wisdom smite machines with little understanding of why they do what they do)

That's certainly not how she plays her character, though, so I guess its not a big problem for my group, but its hard to get out of the "paladins should be wise" mode.


The next few encounters actually happened over the course of two sessions, because one got cut short, but that doesn't really have much of a bearing on the overall results.

For the next few encounters, the characters used for the adventure were the following:

Human Paladin, 4th Level

Human Cleric/Rogue 3rd/1st (Strength and Healing Domains)

Half-elf Bard 4th Level

Gnome Beguiler 3rd Level

All of the classes have been updated, and the only change made to the beguiler (other than changes to the skill lists and other general sub system rules) is to allow them to cast unlimited cantrips.

There was a lot of intra party bluff versus diplomacy checks. Both the paladin and the cleric have been using sense motive on the bard's bluff checks often to see if they are being, "led" in a certain direction by the bard. All of it has been very good natured, but the cleric and the paladin seem to be doing a fairly good job of keeping up with the bard's checks.

Before the PCs left Ordulin, they made some checks to find more magic items, and the DC I assigned to the Diplomacy check (for the "Gather information" use of the skill), was 15 + caster level of the magic item. Neither the bard nor the beguiler managed to find what they were looking for.

The bard managed to tell a "30 +" story with his oration in an inn frequented by adventurers and mercenaries. I'm working on an angle to incorporate a powerful patron contacting him, as per the current read of the perform skill, which makes me wonder if this will be designated the same way as it was in 3.5, and if it is, if the ramifications might be better spelled out.

On the Road Again

When the PCs traveled back to Blackfeather Bridge, they ran into a band of hobgoblins on the road into town. The hobgoblins (using the stats from Classic Monsters Revisited) attempted to sneak up on the PCs and surprise them.

There were six hobgoblin warriors of 1st level, making this (I think, see above) a "standard" encounter, one that draws off some resources but isn't particularly deadly.

All of the PCs except for the gnome were surprised, so only the gnome got to act in the surprise round. He managed to keep is non war trained pony steady, and cast color spray, taking out two of the hobgoblins.

The other three PCs got attacked by javelins, and took minimal damage. The paladin managed to fall from her horse without taking damage, but the other two fell and took damage on top of the damage from the javelins.

After the surprise round, the hobgoblins didn't last long. The cleric took one out, and the bard cast disquietude on another one, which pulled back from the fight. The paladin used both of her smites, each time spectacularly ending the hobgoblin in question.

The gnome put two more hobgoblins to sleep, and used coup de grace on the incapacitated hobgoblins.

Fifteen Minute Adventure Day Assessment

The paladin took no damage, but surprisingly used both of her smites for the day (she is usually very conservative with her smites).

The cleric and bard both took some minor damage, and the bard used a first level spell in the encounter, and the gnome used up two first level spells in this encounter.

Ease on Down the Road

Further down the road was a "challenging" encounter, consisting of eight 1st level hobgoblin warriors, a 1st level hobgoblin war mage, and a 1st level hobgoblin knight.

The hobgoblins didn't attempt a surprise, just barricaded the road. The knight allowed the PCs to dismount before his troops attacked. The gnome stayed on his pony for the first round.

The gnome casts color spray and takes out three hobgoblins, and then rides away and dismounts. Before he leaves, the war mage strikes the gnome with a magic missle.

The soldiers advance en masse on the PCs, but the knight hangs back until the rest all attack. The second round, the war mage strikes the cleric with magic missile, and he was still wounded from the javelin an the horse. He uses his channel positive energy and heals himself and the bard of their damage.

The gnome drinks a potion of expeditious retreat, the bard uses his wand of mirror image, the paladin meets the charge of the hobgoblins, and misses the lead one, and the cleric swings and hits the nearest hobgoblin.

The knight challenges the cleric and charges him, and does a considerable amount of damage to him. The bard casts a spell and nauseates three of the hobgoblins, then advances on the war mage.

The gnome circles around to the war mage as well. The bard looses a mirror image to an attack of oppourtunity, and the gnome gets hit by one. The bard gets hit by a magic missle, and is badly hurt.

The paladin drops a hobgoblin, as does the cleric. The gnome is dropped to negative hit points, but stabilizes, when hit with the war mage's acid splash. The bard uses heat lightning on the war mage, and sets him on fire.

The cleric casts defensively and uses 2nd level spell to heal himself, and the paladin cuts down another hobgoblin. The bard uses his cure light wounds wand on himself, and the hobgoblin hits him with an acid splash as well, this round making his reflex save and putting out the flames.

The cleric and paladin finish off the remaining awake and unhampered hobgoblins, including knocking the knight into negatives. The cleric stabilizes the knight, and the bard finishes the war mage with his crossbow, then heals the gnome with his wand, using two charges to bring him up to positive hit points.

Fifteen Minute Adventure Day Assessment

The gnome was knocked out of the fight and dropped into negatives. The bard used three charges from his CLW wand, and one from his mirror image wand, and also used a first level spell and a second level spell, as well as a bardic performance ability (on top of the spell he used in the previous encounter).

The gnome used a potion of sanctuary and expeditious repeat, and used a sleep spell and a prismatic spray, knocking out his spells for the day.

The paladin took no damage, but had no smites left.

The cleric used a 2nd level spell and a channel positive energy ability for the day.

I Prepared Explosive Rune Today

The bard finds a message in a tree, and made a perception roll against the shadow's stealth check that was hiding in the tree (but was unable to come out due to the sunlight).

The message detected as magic, and the gnome stared at it long enough to figure out that the spell on the scroll was abjuration.

No one looked for traps on the magical note, and it blew up, injuring and killing the captured knight, and injuring the bard and the cleric, the gnome having retreated far away.

I was torn on this one. Last adventure I said that the PCs couldn't see the magic sigil of a magical trap due to its concealment as a trap, but at the same time, I had a hard time not allowing the PCs to see magic on the note. Wondering if some clarification of magical traps and how to find them, and what spells reveal about them might not be in order.

Experience

Again, it was pretty easy and fast to use the PF experience award chart to hand out XP at the end of the session.


We had another mainly RP session tonight, lasting about two and a half hours, after which I had a chat about the campaign so far and some random thoughts from my players.

Most of tonight had to do with Diplomacy checks for gather information, a few diplomacy checks for NPC reactions, and a few Sense Motive checks and Bluff checks.

On top of the information gathering, the cleric rogue can spot a pick pocket a lot faster than the bard can.

With 4th level characters (Bard 4, Cleric/Rogue 3/1), there were a fairly good number of checks in the mid twenties, and another fairly well represented checks that fell into the mid teens. In fact, the range was probable about 1/3 low (6-11 range or so), 1/3 medium (15 to 20), and about 1/3 high (with the highest roll being a 27 for the cleric's sense motive).

Aside from the skill checks, the chatting session went something like this:

The player of the cleric/rogue likes the Shadowbane Stalker PrC, but he wishes that some of the things the class does, like sacrificing divine spells to aid in skill checks, could be done with feats, so that he could still progress as a cleric. He doesn't mind a few levels of rogue drawing off his cleric abilities, but he'd be willing to burn nearly all of his feats just to get some of the Shadowbane Stalker abilities and still progress as a cleric.

This led to a discussion about if feats could replace some PrCs, by making PCs better able to just simply multiclass, saving PrCs fore really different concepts.

The bard player and the cleric player both agreed that organizations are usually better represented with some kind of affiliation system rather than a PrC (though there might be some organizations with special skills that this might apply for).

The bard player says that the bloodline sorcerer completely obviates the "need" for a class like the Warlock (not that the warlock matters one way or the other).

Both players really like skill tricks and wished there were more of them and perhaps an OGL version of them.

Both players like action points, but favor the Eberron version of action points over the strict OGL version, which were a little too open ended in what they could be used for.

Bard player still likes perform setting the DC to saves somehow, but says he gets that a straight check is kind of broken, but he still hopes for a way to have the check mean something for the DC of the ability.

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Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber
KnightErrantJR wrote:
Bard player still likes perform setting the DC to saves somehow, but says he gets that a straight check is kind of broken, but he still hopes for a way to have the check mean something for the DC of the ability.

The system I've toyed around with is inspired by the Sublime Chord prestige class (Comp Arcane) ability Song of Arcane Power. There they could make a Perform check to add to the caster level of a given spell. Switch it up to add to the DC of a given Bardic Performance ability, (assuming a standard 10 + 1/2 bard levels + Cha mod for the base DCs.)

Perform DC____Result
9 or less_____-2 to DC
10-19_________+0 to DC
20-29_________+1 to DC
30+___________+2 to DC

If you wanted to put some element of risk into it, you could say a natural 1 on the Perform check results in the -2 penalty even if the result is above 10. The RAW doesn't call for any penalty for a nat 1, but the evil bastard DM in me says otherwise.


Next session time! The players this time around were running the following characters:

Gnome Beguiler 4th Level

Human Cleric/Rogue 4/1 (Healing and Strength Domain)

Human Fighter/Sorcerer 1/3 (Aberrant Bloodline)

Half-elf Bard 4

Getting started

I gave the PCs a circumstance bonus for being able to find the hidden entrance to the dungeon complex they were looking for, and on top of that, the cleric and the beguiler were teaming up to aid another to search for things.

Side Note: I've read some posters theorize that since synergy bonuses are gone, that perhaps the "aid another" action will be gone as well. I hope this isn't the case. When multiple characters in the party can do something, it seems that it makes sense if they can bolster one another with the aid another action.

First Trap

The PCs knew about the first trap, so even though its DC was fairly high, the +4 bonus and the "aid another" action allowed them to get past it with little or no difficulty.

Everyone else that wasn't dealing with the trap said that they were keeping back 40 feet from the door (the trap, unknown to them, had a range of 30 feet, so it was a good choice).

Second Trap

The second trap was in the corridor leading to the dungeon complex, and it was a magical curse trap. I've already ruled that magical traps must have some "non detection" component built into them when they are made into traps, and the party is running with this, though I do hope that this might be clearly stated in the future, especially with free detect magics flying around as much as they are now.

Neither the beguiler nor the cleric/rogue could actually find the magical trap, but every member of the party save the bard made it through the trap fine. The bard missed his save and was cursed to age one age category upwards (curse effect found in several Green Ronin supplements, so I ran with it).

First Contact . . . then second

After searching the first room, the beguiler and the cleric/rogue went to one side and the bard and sorcerer/fighter went to the other. The bard found a secret door due to his elf blood, and the beguiler and the cleric rogue did just because they were checking the room every few feet.

Before they went to either secret door, the beguiler spotted a Crypt Thing (Tome of Horrors version of the monster), which teleported them all out of the crypt except for the cleric.

Since the gnome got to act in the surprise round, he cast expeditious retreat as soon as it was his turn, although all of the "teleportees" materialized high above the crypt and took 2d6 falling damage.

Side Note: This has come up twice now, but the old tumble skill allowed for a check to minimize fall damage, but the new acrobatics check does not, so even the party members with acrobatics couldn't mitigate any damage. Still kind of wondering if this was intentionally left out, or if it was an oversight.

The first round of combat, the gnome made it back to the opening to the room and made his save against the reset trap, but couldn't get back to the Crypt Thing.

The first thing the cleric did was to cast Protection from Evil on himself, not knowing what it could do, but knowing he wouldn't mind the AC bump at the vey least.

The next round, the gnome managed to get across from the cleric, but his weapon didn't do any damage, as it was magical, but a piercing weapon.

The cleric used his channel energy on the Crypt Thing, and due to the Crypt Thing's +4 turn resistance, it made its save, but at the same time, it took some damage as a result (and the cleric actually rolled pretty high).

Side Note: While the PCs were in Ordulin, they sold one of the only magical weapons they had, a +1 quarterstaff, since no one really wanted it. When they asked around for casters to make magic items for them, both the cleric and the bard opted for wands instead of weapons. The gnome beguiler and the paladin (who wasn't here for this session) were the only members of the party with magical weapons.

The bard and the sorcerer made it back into the fight by the next round, and the bard used a charge from his heat lightning (from the Green Ronin Advanced Player's Manual) wand to set the Crypt Thing on fire (it was immune to the non lethal damage from the spell, but missed the reflex save).

The cleric couldn't damage it with another hit, and neither could the gnome, and the sorcerer missed with his acid ray due to his lack of precise shot to fire into a melee.

The Crypt Thing got a critical hit on the cleric and did a good deal of damage with its claw (using the critical hit deck, he got a triple damage result). The bard greased the square that the Crypt Thing and the gnome were in, and it (and the gnome) fell over.

The sorcerer got a critical fumble, and was cursed (-4 on all attack rolls until remove curse can be cast on him).

The cleric got an attack on the Crypt Thing as it was standing up, and barely did enough to get over its DR. The Crypt Thing missed the cleric this time by the amount of AC provided by the Protection from Evil.

The bard used another charge from his wand and set it on fire again, the gnome got up and was hit by the Crypt Thing, and the sorcerer started using magic missiles on the Crypt Thing.

The cleric threw out a channel energy to heal the party as much as to injure the Crypt Thing. It made its save, but took some damage, and most of the party gained a good amount of hit points back.

The Crypt Thing focused on the cleric, and the heat lightning and magic missiles wore it down, and finally the flanking sneak attack from the gnome with the Crypt Thing put it down for good.

Next Encounter

In one of the secret rooms, the PCs saw a graveyard sludge and two ogre zombies. The cleric was going to enlarge himself to keep them in and fight them himself, having just cast Bull's Strength on himself and still having protection from evil up, but the rest of the party didn't want him to risk the full attack on him.

The ogre zombies were brutal with the cleric between their normal damage and the acid damage from the graveyard sludge. The gnome and the sorcerer attacked the sludge, and the bard and the cleric concentrated on the zombies.

The bard rolled high enough to figure out that the graveyard sludge was healed by positive and negative energy.

Side Note: I'm still going with the DC of the Knowledge Check being 10 + CR instead of hit dice, and I'm giving out information based on what the PCs said they were interested in instead of what the static chart in the MM V says.

The sludge had bolstered one of the zombies, and the cleric was hesitant to heal the sludge with his channel energy, but he decided that the zombies were doing more consistent damage, so he used another channel energy, which healed the sludge of the damage the beguiler and the sorcerer had done to it.

The cleric was badly hurt, and the bard used a charge from his mirror image wand to "tank" the zombies while the cleric fell back to heal again. Since these were "glammers" and not automatically mind affecting, the zombies started pounding on the images.

The cleric gave himself a minor healing, then attacked the ogre zombie with a Cure Serious spell, nearly putting down the first one. The bard didn't do much but draw attacks with the mirror image spells.

The gnome and the sorcerer had done a moderate amount of damage to the sludge again, but the cleric finally decided he needed to get the ogres out of the way, and used a channel energy again, which healed the sludge up to nearly full, but put down on of the zombies.

The sludge badly injured the gnome, and he fell back to drink some potions. Since the one ogre zombie that was left seemed to be in bad shape, the sorcerer hit it with magic missiles and downed it, but not before the cleric was knocked into negatives.

The gnome and the sorcerer focused on the graveyard sludge while the bard revived the cleric, and they all just managed to take out the sludge before it could take down the gnome or the cleric again.

More Exploration

The PCs went to a room that had a magical trap, and the gnome (with the cleric's assistance) found this one and disarmed it, but they stepped into the room and awoke the wood golem within.

A Sad Fight, Really

The Wood Golem had me scared, but the bard cast heat lightning on it, and while the non lethal damage didn't do anything to it, it could never make a reflex save, and kept taking 150% of the ongoing fire damage, and the PCs just played keep away until it fell over in a burning heap.

Hm.

I could have had him take a full round to put out the flames, but I'm not sure how well a golem would be "programmed" to do something like this, so I just had him chase down the intruders and burn up over time.

Fifteen Minute Adventuring Day Analysis

The bard used most about half of his spells, a charge from his mirror image wand, a few from his cure light wand, and a few from his heat lightning wand. After all of these encounters he was in pretty good shape.

The cleric used up his bull's strength and cure serious wounds, all of his channel energies for the day, and a couple of charges from his cure light wounds wand. He was knocked out cold, but was in pretty good shape by the end of the day.

The gnome used up his expeditious retreat, and a cure light wounds potion, and received several charges from the bard's cure light wounds wand.

The sorcerer used up most of his 1st level spells, but while he still has his acid ray, he is severely limited right now with his ongoing ability due to the -4 attack curse he has on him.


Encounter Analysis: Crypt Thing

The Crypt Thing encounter was a Encounter Level 5 encounter, which for a party that averages out to 4th level (4.25, actually) this comes it at a challenging encounter.

For the most part, I think it was. The PCs were injured and used several resources, but none of them were in too great a danger at any given time. It probably felt a little on the "low" side of challenging, but that might be due to the cleric being slightly higher level as well.

Encounter Analysis: Graveyard Sludge

The Graveyard Sludge and its zombies would be a challenging encounter as well, given that the Sludge was a CR 4 creature, and the zombies were CR 3 reach, meaning that essentially according to the Encounter design rules, they are roughly 2 CR 4 creatures.

This one did feel a bit more challenging, as the PCs got beat up pretty badly and the cleric actually went into negative hit points. I think the difference here was probably that one enemy is easier to control, not matter how powerful, than three.


Post Game Discussion

I brought up that the consensus opinion on the boards seemed to be that while sneak attack damage can now hard nearly everything (except, as I ruled, incorporal undead and oozes, for example), that criticals do not automatically work on things that are, under 3.5, immune to criticals.

I was just wondering if everyone is going with this idea now? It make sense, because the rogue is finding the "weak spot," but criticals are actually finding a vital spot. In other words, something without a vital spot might still have some weak point that a sharp eyed rogue could find.

Just wondering, as this was an interesting discussion (and has ramifications on how some "non OGL" things work, like the feat that lets you sneak attack when you critical, which I'm planning on ruling will only work on creatures vulnerable to criticals).

Dark Archive

KnightErrantJR wrote:

Post Game Discussion

I brought up that the consensus opinion on the boards seemed to be that while sneak attack damage can now hard nearly everything (except, as I ruled, incorporal undead and oozes, for example), that criticals do not automatically work on things that are, under 3.5, immune to criticals.

I was just wondering if everyone is going with this idea now? It make sense, because the rogue is finding the "weak spot," but criticals are actually finding a vital spot. In other words, something without a vital spot might still have some weak point that a sharp eyed rogue could find.

Just wondering, as this was an interesting discussion (and has ramifications on how some "non OGL" things work, like the feat that lets you sneak attack when you critical, which I'm planning on ruling will only work on creatures vulnerable to criticals).

Interesting... my own opinions on how 3E encounters work against PF characters reflect pretty much your own.

To answer your question: yes, this is how I decided to rule critical hits in my campaigns after my near-fatal 1st session (1st level PCs against a Banedead -- you can read about it in my own playtest report). Like you, I also ruled that oozes and incorporeal creatures are the only ones immune to crits. Also, I'm using the "optional" crit system posted on these boards: you always inflict max. normal damage + "crit dice" + bonuses (i.e. a PC who has +2 damage bonus critting with a greataxe would inflict 2D12+18 points of damage). I'm also thinking about "special effects" you can inflict with a natural 20 -- e.g. stun your enemies with bludgeoning weapons.


Asgetrion wrote:

Interesting... my own opinions on how 3E encounters work against PF characters reflect pretty much your own.

To answer your question: yes, this is how I decided to rule critical hits in my campaigns after my near-fatal 1st session (1st level PCs against a Banedead -- you can read about it in my own playtest report). Like you, I also ruled that oozes and incorporeal creatures are the only ones immune to crits. Also, I'm using the "optional" crit system posted on these boards: you always inflict max. normal damage + "crit dice" + bonuses (i.e. a PC who has +2 damage bonus critting with a greataxe would inflict 2D12+18 points of damage). I'm also thinking about "special effects" you can inflict with a natural 20 -- e.g. stun your enemies with bludgeoning weapons.

You may want to pick up the Game Mastery Critical Hit and Critical Fumble decks, both groups that I DM love them.

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