Due to the honeymoon of two of our regular gamers, I've had the opportunity to bring in a short (5/6 session) PFRP campaign
The plan was to have a short adventure (~ 5 combats) each night and then to go up ~3 levels between adventures to try and cover as many levels as possible
I wont go into a lot of detail on the plot as its pretty basic and the point is to try and crunch the rules - I might put a plot based post onto ENworld later to get some cross-feedback
anyhow - First adventure - level 1 party - starting cash 300gp each
Nia' - Human Paladin -
Krane - 1/2 orc Cleric (Erastil, Good & Community Domains)
Morgan - gnome Sorcerer (Fey Bloodline)
Qi - Human Monk
Basic plot - walk up valley and find lost temple.
Encounter 1 (CR1): Lady landless the bandit - Qi moving ahead of the part spots the bandit ambush before it happens. With 2 heavily armed and armoured PC's the bandits back down and leave the party alone. (bandits were NPC classed and will be back later)
Encounter 2(CR1): The Temple wall - ruined gate house is occupied by some goblins. Qi scouts over the walls and spots them, and the party plan to move in quickly, surround them and prevent them getting re-inforcements. poor stealth rolls means they're spotted and One goblin runs from the gatehouse for reinfocemens (encounter 3)but is quickly taken out by Qi. Unfortunately the party run through the actual gateway and Krane sets off the trap (CR1 rock slide - 2d6)followed by a round or two of Javelins. Krane then does first channeling (2 from d6) as parry wounded and only one goblin scratched. The party then have to climb up onto the wall (DC 5 climb) and burst through simple wooden door before it gets barred. Meanwhile the now alert goblins start throwing javelins through the gatehouse windows. Qi & Krane are wall, Morgana starts lobbing acid balls into the gatehouse and Nia offers to accept the goblins surrender.
unfortunately the party don't roll well and make a few tactical blunders. although Qi and Krane break through the door they are held by one goblin while another continues to throw javelins. The paladin fails to make the climb check to jon them on the wall, and at this stage morgana spots the worg + Rider that make up encounter 3.
Encounter 3 (CR2 + 1/3): Worg + goblin rider
Morgana readies an action to deal with the charging worg, but nia decides to head off the worg and so take the charge outside of Morgana's range. Worg rolls well (in fact i was consistently rolling high teens for all the monsters, as opposed to Qi who might as well be using a d8 instead of a d20 !) and Nia wounded. Next round Qi continues to use flurry of misses agianst the goblins on the wall even with krane using 'aid another' to increase his attack. Morgan moves forward and casts grease under the worg who falls over - the goblin rider fails to make ride check and takes 3 hp damage (and is killed next round by an acid orb)Nia then hits the fallen worg, takes AoO on rising worg (misses) and then gets hit again.
Krane still on wall is watching this but believes the situation is under control so stays helping Qi. however the worg takes Nia down in the next round, and then moves to attack the gnome (making balance checks to leave the greased area). Krane rushes down to heal morgana and then attacks the worg, allowing morgana to step back and acid orb again and again. Krane takes damage and calls to Qi, using his orc ferocity to move away from the combat and collapse next to Nia (who finally makes a stabilisation roll at -9).
I always play disabled 0 to - con bonus, and death at - con btw
[Suggestion - Orc Ferocity should allow the orc to act normally when disabled and then one more round of disabled when below the disabled threshold)
Qi jumps off wall and lands next to worg, who was about to chase after the tasty looking sorcerer. and strangely enough rolls high 2 rounds in succession and takes the worg down
two healing potions later the cleric is conscious. last channeling gets Nia to disabled status and the party limp away only to be mugged for 10gp a head by the bandits who have been watching them from outside the temple
cont.
I had two more encounters planned - A Choker guarding the entrance to the temple proper (get to use CMB) and then some undead (cue channeling) in the temple itself (mixture of skeletons, zombies and a ghoul) (so another CR 2 and a CR 3 as the finale) but it was getting late so we called the game to a halt then
this was designed to be tough, and I possibly gave the monsters too much of a tactical advantage but it was very close (1 round) to a TPK only half way through! more hp for the starting characters would have made a difference, but the lack of healing, even with the channeling, was the killer. Luck / tactics did have a major part, and if this had been a proper campaign the party would have scarpered, licked their wounds, and come back again later so I don't think major changes to starting HP are required especially with the improvements made to the toughness feat....
(starting Hp's were paladin - 15, monk & cleric - 10, sorcerer 7)
what i did like was how the changes to the skills really sped up character creation at low level, though it did mean that there were a lot fewer trained skills available.
what was awkward was the rules themselves. It would have been nice to be able to hand over sheets for race, and sheet(s) for class and let each player get on with it. unfortunately the layout of the pdf didn't help and even with one laptop copy and two printed copies it was awkward to find stuff quickly. hopefuly the Beta pdf will be indexed, and hopefully laid out so that its easier to print individual sections as required rather than printing the whole thing
Players have levelled up to 4th (i'm not using xp for this quick adventure, but i will use the CR guide rules for the next set of encounters) and I'll post that after it happens....
starting cash 300gp each
Any particular reason for this? I didn't find anything about starting gold in 3.P.
starting cash 300gp eachAny particular reason for this? I didn't find anything about starting gold in 3.P.
npc wealth level, page 136
seemed a reasonable starting point since the recommended wealth only starts at level 2
Page 111 of the 3.5 PHB has the starting wealth for characters.
300gp is actually very generous, it's about twice the average of the wealthiest classes. For example, avg for Paladin is about 150, while Monks get a big fat 5 silver.
So they may have had a bit of advantage from the extra gold in this case.
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Overall, first level is still going to be swingy. As you said, you were rolling well and they were rolling fairly poor to start.
Also, tactics and terrain advantage can influence things quite a bit as well. Splitting the party and facing multiple encounters at once while split up can create problems and inflate the actual threat the individual encounters would have in a vaccuum.
The above description sounds fine for a first level situation, considering the back-to-back encounters they ran into, with bad rolls.
However, extra starting hitpoint (different method, perhaps one listed in Pathfinder) could give a 1st level a bit more staying power vs the swinginess. This doesn't affect things much at all at higher levels either, so it's one possible solution to creating smoother beginning levels combat.
Good post, I look forward to reading more from this playtest.
Good post, I look forward to reading more from this playtest.
we aim to please!
Session 2 last thursday.
Level 4 playtest
3 characters level 4. equipment as per wealth guides, no single item greater than 1/3 of wealth
From last session
Qi – Human Monk
‘Nia – Human Paladin
New PC
Baldor True – Human Cleric (was going to be NPC but Player showed up at last minute) Domains Law, Rune. Feats include Extra Channeling & Selective Channeling
Scenario – Return to the temple. 18 months have passed since the last adventure, and the now experienced Qi & Nia are asked to escort a promising young priest to see if the temple can be reclaimed for the great church
Encounter 1 – CR 4 (nominally average difficulty)
Within the ruins of the precinct walls the party are ambushed by an owlbear (CR4).
Used grappling rules often in this encounter as the owlbear has improved grab. Got hold of the monk and managed to drag him back 20’ at one stage (I’ve decided this is now the major use of grapple – grab hold and then move around on the second round with the +5 modifier) but the PC had good escape artist and always managed to wriggle free. The two other PC’s had plate and shield and the owlbear found it difficult to connect
Cleric spent a lot of time drawing ‘lines in the sand’ (ie the minor rune domain ability). Worked very effectively in an enclosed space (gateway) against animal intelligence (but the third time he tried it even the owlbear decided it wasn’t that hungry)
At the end of the encounter only the monk needed healing
Encounter 2 – 3 X CR 2 (~ ECL5) nominally challenging
Through the half open doors of the temple (which the party found had been barricaded by wooden scaffolding) into the entrance hall – the party walked inside, made poor perception checks and were surprised by multiple choker attacks.
More opportunity to use the grapple rules, though this time the party struggled as the +8CMB the choker got (2 BAB + 3 STR -1 size +4 bonus) meant that it confirmed the hold ~50% of the time.
Since the first attack started choking the paladin and she was unable to call for help the party got a bit disorganised and by the end of the encounter the cleric had to use selective channelling to make sure everyone stayed conscious!. Probably the most dangerous encounter
Afterwards the cleric player said he should have cast sanctuary on himself and walked around casting minor rune everywhere. This wouldn’t have worked as well with the chokers due to their reach but could be a seriously good tactic against non reach enemies. I’m tempted to say that the minor rune should be visible to stop it being abused like this – it is an at will ability – but that might nerf it too much
Cont.
Encounter 3 – CR 2 (Easy) ghoul touch trap
Party ignored – cleric used detect magic as he climbed the stairs and got immediately suspicious of the necromantic spell on the statue. I think that unlimited use of Orisons means that these spells have to be modified in some way otherwise the cleric / wizard can simply scan through the dungeon taking out half the traps – or you end up with magic aura’s everywhere which means the spell is entirely useless
[My suggestion – limit the range of detection cantrips (detect magic AND detect poison to 10’ or maybe even touch distance. Means it can be used where they have valid interest (at some personal risk), but stops it being part of a generic walk into room. Cast detect magic. Loot. Repeat].
Encounter 4 – 4 x CR2, 1 x CR 1/3 (~ECL 6) nominally hard
Beside the stone sarcophagi in the stylised shape of a chariot lay the skeletal remains of the dogs that pulled it. 4 x wolf skeletons. Inside the chariot was visible the skeletal remains of the driver. As the party approach the driver cracks his leather whip and the dogs attack
Party where expecting this as the paladin had detect evil on the room and picked up the signatures of 5 faint and one moderate evil. The party waited in the corridor behind a minor rune (again) and picked off the wolfs as they attacked without a problem. I was surprised the cleric didn’t channel as he had a lot of undead within the burst radius but the player said he was waiting for the party to take some damage so they got the full benefit of the healing. I guess its logical, but it didn’t feel as dramatic a use of the gods power as it had done when we had a sun domain cleric in the alpha 2 playtest (flavour more than mechanics here). Anyhow the wolfs were quickly despatched (with only the paladin complaining as she had no blunt weapons) with only the odd scratch and the monk charged in, jumped onto the chariot wall and decapitated the driver with one kick. Of course then he had a good view of what was inside the chariot …..
Encounter 5 - 1 x CR 5 – nominally challenging
The true owner of the chariot was the mummy inside. (the skeleton was his driver). I had said that the mummy would only stir if damaged (eg with channelling) or if the driver was destroyed. After the monk did his entrance the mummy rose and slam attacked the monk.
Paladin charged in, and attacked the mummy from outside the chariot wall – I ruled +4 AC for the cover but checking the rules I think it should have only been +2. the first attack missed, and in the second round the paladin dropped scimitar, threw shield to floor and drew greatsword and then jumped onto the wall drawing the AoO. Mummy missed so the paladin Smote evil (hitting just even before we remembered the CHA bonus to the smite evil)
In the meantime the cleric channelled, run up and gave shield of faith to the monk and channelled some more. Mummy couldn’t get past the paladin / monk to get to the cleric and although the mummy was dishing out lots of damage, the channelling, smites and other attacks were starting to have an effect. In the end the mummy fell with the party still in reasonable shape
It was getting late so we stopped at that stage
The party was still good to continue
Qi – 31 hp out of 31, 2 Ki points remaining and used 1 mage armour and 2 magic fang potions
Nia – 36 hp out of 51 used all smites and her single bless spell
True – 31 hp out of 31, 4 / 10 channelings left, all domain abilities intact and only one first level spell cast
cont.
General observations. During the choker encounter I had wondered if it was heading for a TPK the way the first scenario did when at one time I’d dragged the paladin into one corner, the cleric into another and the monk was being harassed by the remaining choker, but once the group managed to corner a choker and kill it they started to get on top. The channelling spells and increase in party strength does mean that skeletons / zombies CR’s seem too high for the challenge they pose, but the higher level mummy was a stiff fight, and if the mummy had taken advantage of the wolf attack to join in (would have been CR 7 – nominally epic) and maybe close with the cleric it could have been a whole lot nastier for the party. As with the alpha 2 test I did the general impression was that the party seemed more durable over time, even if the individual fights were sometimes scary.
Unrelated note – after discussion with the a few players, I’ve replaced the ubiquitous wand of cure light with a water sprinkler of cure light wounds. Mechanically it’s the same as a wand – its made by the same feat, it just seems a better flavour
So my proposal is that Create Wand is replaced by Create Charged Item
Next Monday we move to 8th level – and I’ll let you know how that turns out!
Nicely done, I look forward to it.
How are the ki points working? Is your player enjoying playing monk?
Nicely done, I look forward to it.
How are the ki points working? Is your player enjoying playing monk?
player happy, though first monk played by him. Ki mechanic seems to be working
working on plan for monday session while watching cricket - any ideas on what type of encounters will highlight rule changes around CR8?
Specific things from playtests, as requested by those on high...
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The cleric's channel energy ability, especially as it pertains to big fights with undead and long-term healing. It is intended to soften the impact of the so-called "15 minute adventure day". Does it?
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does help in fights against undead, more so for the higher level monsters as it bypasses their DR - the cleric tended not to use against low level as they were not perceived as a threat.
definitely helps preserve the clerics spells for casting rather than conversion. selective channeling does become a must have though or its use in combat is severely limited.
All in all, I like this mechanic and we haven't seen any problems
of course, we haven't seen any negative channeling in the game yet...
....The barbarian's rage points mechanic. I think most readers agree that versatility with a barbarian's rage is preferable to the standard method, but the idea of points adds a somewhat new element to class powers. On first read, a lot of people are turned off by it. How do players and GMs feel after using it in play for a few sessions? Anyone converted? Anyone turned off by it? I know the gut reactions to this one, but I'm curious to dig deeper.
....
not playing Barbarian this time, but the alpha 2 test was no problem. Might suggest reducing the costs / number of points to simplify but other than that most people involved liked the change
....The #1 hesitation I see among a lot of gamers regarding switching to Pathfinder is the claim of backwards compatibility. Some of the changes (we hope improvements) in the core rules do mean things are a little different here and there, but how different does it really seem in play? How difficult is it to, say, convert any Pathfinder adventure to the system? A lot of people seem to be running Curse of the Crimson Throne or Rise of the Runelords in their Pathfinder RPG playtests. How easy is the "conversion" process?
....
i'm not using a module so i'm only having to convert monsters on the fly or make up NPC's. Not a problem so far as i've never been too worried about exact skill points etc so i've just used the highest of spot / listen / search for perception etc
would be nice if there was a Pathfinder NPC generator available on-line or as a download - this would make a lot of peoples life easier i'm sure.
At 8th level clerics get their second special domain ability, I've been looking forward to hearing how they work in practice.
Maybe whip up some class level NPC bad guys so you can test out their mechanics aswell, barbarian/bard etc.
At around eight level the limit on enhancements and new DR rules could begin to come into play. Maybe give them ago.
Also maybe try out the new sunder rules and the broken condition, to see if its viable.
:D Not meaning to be bossy, but there are a few ideas!
Part 3 playtest - now level 8
only got a few encounters done as we had a new character and the other players had limited time to level up since last thursday. we'll finish this bit of thursday
Cast
Qi - Human Monk 8
'Nia - Human Paladin 8
Azrael - Halfling sorcerer 8 (celestial bloodline)
NPC - Human Cleric 8 - (Law & Rune Domain)
Setting. Dark and mysterious forces are at work in the valley. the temple reclaimed last session has been cut off from the village
Encounter 1 - Wolf pack (Challenging)
8 worgs organising 6 Dire wolves gave me the opportunity to see how the characters dealt with multiple opponents utilising CMB tactics
round 1 - worgs appeared on right of party, round 2 they dived in so each character was flanked (limited impact)
round 3 they withdrew to the left chasing the horses away
party chased after and was caught in dire wolf pincer movement
eventually party got on top having taken some damage (nothing the 'wand' of cure light couldn't deal with, but use of flanking, cutting off PC's and retreat / ambush by monsters had them really scared for a while. only PC knocked over by trip was the sorcerer who promptly cast fly and used mobility to escape without drawing AoO's.
encounter dragged on a bit, but partly due to players looking up new abilities / spells and partly due to GM losing track of place in MM on a regular basis (should have printed out the monsters from the SRD). eventually enforced rule on roll damage with attack and PC's got hang of haste rules
Encounter 2 - Wyvern attack (easy) - wanted to bring in a flying opponent + use new poison rules (if i'd only hit with the stinger...)
2 wyverns attacked the sleeping party, though the monk made a 28 perception roll so I gave them 6 rounds (d10 result) to prepare before the wyverns came in
this gave the sorcerer the chance to mage armour the paladin and cleric so they weren't defenceless, and he then cast haste on the group before hiding under a tree
(using a flying monster did have the effect of making the sorcerer think twice about casting greater invis. and fly at that start of combat which was his stated plan)
one wyvern did a fly-by attack, the other landed. the one in the air was brought down in one round by the monk doing a hasted flurry and rolling high on damage (given this was the same player who couldn't roll above 8 in the first session he was due some luck) and the other got hit by a maximised scorching ray from the sorcerer, only hit once in a full attack (thats 6 attempts!) on the monk before being brought down by paladin / cleric / monk who mobbed it.
Have query on the use of cleave with multiple attacks - feat as written has a line stating 'make a single attack', which I assume is designed to prevent twf taking advantage, but does this prevent itterative attacks (assume yes though not sure if necessary) or bonus attacks due to haste / speed enhancement etc? (assume no)
I must admit I thought that attacking a sleeping party with flying monsters would have increased the difficulty, but the sorcerer casting haste every combat, and the damage done by the monk / paladin melee machine is quite impressive.
run out of time at this stage (especially with what i had planned for the next encounter) but we'll carry on at this level on thursday
Second session, same group including NPC
Encounter 1 (ECL=6 - average)
Repaired temple walls and gate house with 6 ghasts (CR3) in chain shirts armed with long spears and heavy crossbows
monk jumped onto walls and eventually let party in, paladin was paralysed attempting to climb the wall, NPC cleric waited outside until gates were open, and celestial sorcerer cast 'mage armour', 'Fly' and then made use of his bloodline ability to do holy range damage with very little danger to himself (not helped by a particularly bad night with the dice for all monsters)
This is the major disadvantage of the at will mechanic. fly / levitate were useful escape mech / final encounter spells, but with unlimited small zaps its the only spell you need to be an ablative blaster. I guess the solution is to make sure that monsters have some range ability or an escape route / cover
eventually party successful after chasing ghasts up and down the walls and courtyard. the additional AC a chain shirt gave definitely made an impact on survivability of monster and the confused space with walls, crenellations and arrow slits meant it was difficult to channel (emanations blocked by walls - Right?)
Party never in any danger but it was an effort to break through the doors
Encounter 2 (ECL=8 - Challenging)
the BBEG was the NPC clerics former cohort, a cleric 6 who was turned into a vampire spawn by the <plot to be revealed next adventure>. he was guarded by a Shield Guardian who was blocking the entrance to the living quarters. BBEG had undetectable alignment up (which blocked the paladin) and took advantage of the length of the battle to magic vestment, shield of faith, bulls strength power up. he then took position in a window above the shield guardian
I had thought this would be an epic battle - but in the end the vampire had a battle of dispels with the sorcerer (flight dispelled, but ring of featherfall) while the shield guardian went toe to toe with the paladin and monk. there was then a channeling battle with the NPC cleric, and BBEG which kept the fighting pair above 50% of hits and damaged the vampire to the stage where he dropped down flanking the monk with the intention to release the shield guardian from the corner it had been backed into to try take out the cleric. couple of bad rolls later, a maximised scorching ray from the sorcerer, and it was all over.
comment - > certainly need an equivalent of resistance to negative energy' for intelligent undead to allow them to last more than a few rounds - maybe resistance = HD?
with hindsight I should have kept some undead back to use as personal bodyguards and take advantage of the negative channeling but i had expected the shield guardian to be more of a challenge. alternatively i could have had the vampire retreat and force the party to find him in a small dungeon but it was getting late so the direct assault worked best for us.
because we're all involved in 2 campaigns at 12th level, we've shot straight to 14th for the next session.