Tergiver's alpha 3 playtests


Alpha Release 3 General Discussion


I have a few games to write up here, somewhat belatedly. It's a good sign for Pathfinder that I was able to run a few games with no time to prep or write up results, I guess. Hopefully some aspects of the writeup will still be useful...

The first game was a continuation of this game, finishing up the free WOTC adventure Hasken's Manor.

When last we left our intrepid heroes, the party's cleric had been shredded by an annis and the surviving heroes had defeated the annis. There was a *THUMP*, and the entire abandoned manor house shook...

After the change from alpha 2 to alpha 2:
- the wizard vanishes
- the fighter becomes braver
- the rogue sneaks off and is replaced by a wizard who has coincidentally happened to use as many powers and spells as the old wizard
- Somewhere else, a mysterious stranger decides not to bleed to death while waiting for the party to investigate the strange noise.

Some comments from character creation:
- It would be good to have a list of the spells that changed from 3.5 to Pathfinder, to find out
- One player wanted to create a bard with a guitar of charming, despite the suggestion of an adamantine sousaphone.

The fighter and wizard went upstairs, and explored some of the rooms. They found a hidden stash with love letters in it, which was a plot hook for later adventures. They went back downstairs, did a bit more exploring, then discovered an unconscious skum on the ground. After some discussion about the fact that the cleric was dead, the party managed to scrounge up some healing potions to revive the skum.

The skum (female, as it turned out, not that the party ever noticed) explained that her people were enslaved by Neogi in the local Underdark, and she had heard a story of the 'manacles of freedom' from a captured adventurer. Not knowing what they were, but knowing that they sounded like something she wanted, she brought three companions and broke in to the manor through the back door. The skum found a secret door, managed to open it, and ran afoul of a clay golem.

(At this point I belatedly realized that clay golem wounds can't be magically healed without a caster level check, which potions are very unlikely to succeed at. This doesn't make a lot of sense, and it screwed up continuity, so I ignored it. If Paizo is revisiting golems, that might be something to tweak.)

The revived skum was a psychic warrior, and used some psionics to partially heal. The party followed the skum around as they traced the tracks of the clay golem as it barreled out the manor (fortunately) and into the into the Underdark.

After this, they entered the secret room, discussed their options, and quickly set off a trap that conjured three astral constructs. They were in a bad way here - the wizard was threatened and without an easy way out, the psychic warrior was still seriously injured, and there was no cleric.

The wizard used blink and escaped the room by running through a wall and under the stairwell. The psychic warrior fought defensively, and the party was battered but able to prevail and obtain the manacles of freedom.

Thoughts:
1) The Pathfinder cleave feat seems to work better for the monsters
2) The party was in -really- bad shape without a cleric


Apologies for the multiple posts - the first one was eaten by the board for a while.


After wrapping up the adventure a little early, I let them create or tinker with their characters and run The Adventure of the Black Veils, another free WOTC adventure. I'd picked out the adventure ahead of time, but the only real prep time I had was while one of the players made a bard and the wizard worked out his new spell list.

So, the fighter player from the last playtest changed to a gnome bard (sans adamantine sousaphone), and the cleric's wealthy family paid to have her raised after the tragic annis incident.

So, the party consists of three ninth level characters:
1) A gnome bard
2) A half-drow cleric of Elistraee (Liberation and Good)
3) A human wizard specialized in transmutation

The cleric changed her character around to have much. better. armor.

The party was on the Cormyrean border area near Sembia, come to explore rumors of treasure in the nearby swamp, left by bandits who had sacked an abbey dedicated to Chauntea some decades ago.

The party shops a bit in town, listening to local rumors and talking to the resident druid. The townsfolk say that there's a creature on the island with a captivating gaze attack that used to be the leader of the bandits, and the druid warns the party of trolls and other swampy hazards.

The party picks up mirrors, poles, and oil and heads into the swamp.

I introduced a wandering monster encounter - four trolls ambling through the swamps. The party saw them from a fair way off, and had a few rounds to cast spells and prepare. The cleric casts searing light, damaging one of the trolls. The transmuter enlarges the cleric, preparing for battle.

The gnome starts playing, and first fascinates the trolls and then suggests that they go somewhere else. None of the trolls make their save, they all wander off, and the encounter ends.

The party approaches the ruins of Ramshorn Abbey, and the gnome bard uses boots of flying to scope out the structure from above. The party elects to approach the bell tower.

It turns out that the bell tower is haunted by will-o'-wisps, who set off a trap in an attempt to trap the bard, but fail.

What follows is a one-sided affair. The wisps can always hit the party, but don't do a lot of damage. Once the wizard's magic missiles are out, the party can't really hurt the wisps. The wisps are magic-immune, which prevents most of the bard's spells and abilities from affecting them, and have such a high touch armor class that the wizard couldn't hit them with telekinetic fist.

Since the wizard didn't have a backup plan, the party elected to flee, but soon discovered the wisps could outfly them. The cleric cast divine power and rolled well, and managed to kill one of the wisps and drive the other off.

The party decided that this was about all the encounter they could handle today, and went off into the swap to rest and rememorize before coming back.

Notes:
-) The players found per-sense perception bonuses annoying.
-) The wizard's player hadn't played a Paizo wizard before, and thought it played well
-) He was surprised at the half-normal-price enchantment of bonded items
-) The cleric's player is not happy about divine power - it was the critical threshold for fighting the will-o-wisps, but she's used to the 3.5 divine power and it feels very weakened to her.
-) The bard's player enjoyed himself, although he wasn't used to the juggling of skills and spell points
-) Learning a language at every Linguistics skill point seems silly to the players. Maybe there should be something else other than just languages to spend Linguistics on?
-) Counter-tumble numbers should be written down, and it seems to me the GM like something that could be combined with CMB (10+CMB?)


Continuing the Adventure of the Black Veils -

The party ran off into the swamp after getting pretty seriously damaged fighting will-o'-wisps. Fortunately for the party, the cleric was able to heal some of the early damage and then use divine power and some high rolls to kill one wisp and drive off another.

In the swamp, they meet one more character who has come to join the adventurers in searching for treasure, and move to set up camp. I believe this character was a fighter, but I forgot to write it down and will post a followup.

I thought to myself: what will the will-o'-wisp do to the party, to exact revenge? Not attack itself; it's too badly damaged and alone. Hmm...

So, just before dawn, the wizard on watch hears splashing and sees a faint light moving through the swamp toward them. Fortunately for the cleric, she was carrying on a tradition from my regular game and wearing 'pajama armor' (studded leather) to sleep in without taking a penalty. No one else was wearing heavy armor, so it wasn't an issue.

After a few rounds to wake up and prepare, the party sees the will-o'-wisp leading a seven-headed hydra toward them. The hydra had an extra feat under 3P rules (1/3/5/7 instead of 1/3/6) so I gave it weapon focus (bite), the next feat along the hydra head/feat progression.

The party fought the hydra - the players weren't too familiar with 3.x hydras, so initially they went for the heads and found that they could destroy a head fairly easily but they couldn't make a lot of headway before two heads replaced it. After a few rounds of flailing, they decided to concentrate on the body, even though the hydra had already healed most of the body damage previously inflicted.

After a few rounds of concentrating on the body, the party finished off the hydra. The party looked around for the wisp, but it had turned its light down and become invisible, and would not be seen again.

The party finished up their morning preparations and returned to the ruined abbey. After another quick flying scout by the gnome bard, they completely randomly decided to start searching at the part of the ruins that were the secret hiding place of the boss naga. Oops.

The gnome went ahead, checking out one of the sinkholes that dotted the ruins, which the naga used as transportation. He looked into the hole, he looked up, the naga looked at him. The naga tried to charm the gnome, the gnome rolled very high on his will save, and started yelling to get the party's attention. The party was of course just outside the ruined tower, and took a couple of rounds to close in.

The naga made use of unholy blight, which gave the wizard a bit of a break but was rough on the other characters. The naga hadn't been expecting this, and so was partially prepped and not fully prepped, and started taking some damage from the party. So, the naga slid into the sinkhole, leaving a clear trail for the party to follow to the east.

The gnome bard finished summoning badgers and dispatched them into the sinkhole after the naga. After the badgers stayed alive, he followed them into the water-filled cavern underneath the abbey, and soon overtook the badgers.

The rest of the party charged to the east, where they triggered an ambush by the bog mummies that lived near the desecrated altar to Chauntea - just as the naga had planned. Bog mummies are apparently just like normal mummies, but they're immune to fire instead of vulnerable to fire.

So, wackiness ensued, with the party fighting the mummies, the gnome following the naga underground, and the naga ambushing the party from a sinkhole just east of the mummies.

-) Channel energy worked well for the party, in this case the primary benefit was putting the Fear into two of the mummies and give the party a break.
-) The mummies got a few hits in on the party, but the victims made their saves vs. disease and bad things. Not that it would make a difference in this combat.
-) A little fly goes a long way for nagas
-) The badgers never managed to catch up with the naga

After defeating the nagas and the mummies, the party spent a while searching through the rest of the ruins and solved the mystery of the lost bandit treasure!

Notes:
-) What information is required for selective channeling? Do you have to see people to select, or can you do it inside obscuring mist? If there's someone you can't see, are they included or excluded by default? This cropped up in the previous game, during the party's flight away from the will-o'-wisps.
-) Do monsters with sorcerous abilities like nagas or dragons get access to any sorcerous bloodline powers? Is there a monster path? If not, could they take them as a feat?
-) Having a stronger version of the monster saves time when trying to make a partially advanced version (or convert to 3P) on the fly
-) Adventure design issue - don't put the monster's prepped armor class and list of prep spells halfway through the next page buried in text. A list of pre-combat and combat tacts is really handy as long as it's 1) easy to spot and 2) not stupid
-) Interesting terrain really does help make an interesting adventure


Last one!

This adventure was the Tower of Deception, another free WOTC adventure.

I offered the players the chance of being railroaded or shanghaied. If they were railroaded, the players wouldn't have any choice as to what adventure would run but the characters would be approached in character, know what they were doing, and have time to plan. If they were shanghaied, neither the players or characters would have a choice and I'd just drop them into the adventure.

The players consulted and decided that they'd rather take the time to prep and choose their spells, so they picked 'railroaded'. The players were approached by a Sembian merchant to turn off the lights on a haunted lighthouse off the coast of the Dales, which had lured unwitting ships astray for the past four decades.

The party included some familiar faces:
-) A half-drow cleric of Elistraee
-) A human universalist wizard
-) A gnome bard
-) The former swashbuckling rogue, now a more standard rogue

The party does some information gathering, looking for rumors about the tower but also looking for shipwrecked goods re-entering the economy. They find some rumors, but no evidence of looting and piracy.

The party sailed out near the lighthouse on the Sembian Foaming Horse, then get put in a small boat to row the last half-mile. Without a fighter, there's a big of a discussion about who gets to row. The wizard is particularly weak and the gnome is particularly small, so the cleric and rogue get to row.

The lighthouse is 180 feet tall, with one large central circular tower and four smaller circular towers at the corners on a rocky island surrounded by shoals. Even in the daylight, there's a yellow light dimly visible at the top of the tower. About a dozen ships have smashed up on the island, and are in different states of disarray.

The party lands their boat, and the gnome flies around the tower, spotting shuttered windows and two doors onto the first floor. The party decides to start by searching the ships.

Belowdecks on one of the more recent shipwrecks, the characters are attacked by three nautically themed spectres. Since spectres have 7 hit dice, I gave them an extra feat (1/3/5/7 instead of 1/3/6). The one I gave them was "Endure Sunlight", from Libris Mortis, so that they could operate in an environment where they'd be outside or partially outside from time to time.

The big change between spectres and other undead I'd used before is that spectres have a +2 turn resistance. This was really a big deal - it translates into resist 10 positive energy and a +2 on will saves against channeled energy.

During the fight, the spectres took almost no damage from the positive energy and generally made their will saves. Most party members got stuck with negative levels, but the gnome took the brunt of the negative levels and was only a few levels from being turned into a spectre himself.

I had some problems remembering to include the +2 to the will save on the fly for channels, and accidentally included a +4 for the last spectre during a save because I confused the spectres with some wraiths on the same page (foreshadowing). I had to retcon the last round, undo one hit and say "oh yeah, the last one fled, oops". I think that turn resistance adding to will saves is probably too much to keep track of easily, but I might get used to it.

The party spills some oil on the deck and flees the boat, intending to set it on fire later. There's some quick looking up of Restoration in the Pathfinder Alpha 3 rulebook. Initially, the players complained about the cost, but then they realized that the cost only kicks in when you're restoring permanent damage. (This is the same way one of my house rules works, so yay Paizo!)

The cleric only had one Restoration memorized, and she used it on the wizard to avoid any potential problems with teleporting the heck off the island. Without using any of their unlimited detect magic cantrips, the party discusses whether or not the just teleport back to the port of Harrowdale and get restored.

Eventually, the rogue points out that they should warn the ship about the undead so they'll keep a safe distance.
"Interesting coming from you."
"You don't have to be Good to not want your ride to get killed."

The party gets back in the ship's boat, rows back to the ship, and warns the Sembian sailors of the local undead. Then, having unknowingly left a teleport trap zone, they teleport back to Harrowdale and start looking for high-level priests to restore them.

The local temple of Mystra restores the gnome, and the next morning the other two party members are restored before the 24-hour limit. After a popsicle break, the party teleports back to the tower and gets caught in the lighthouse's teleport trap.

Instead of being outside the tower, the party is inside a room the size of the central tower, empty except for threads of silver energy. There are three shuttered windows, stairs up, and stairs down.

The trap triggers a suggestion - "Go down two flights of stairs, and stand around." Most of the party saves easily, but the rogue fails badly. The party argues with the rogue a bit, the bard quickly finds that daze doesn't really work on party members at this level, then the wizard webs the down stairwell to keep him from running away by dropping from the ceiling (the power of slippers of spider climb). The thought of running into a web gives him a second will save, which he passes.

The party goes upstairs to the roof of the tower, and sees the lighthouse light. The crystal generating the light is protected by a guardian naga, who warns the party off. The naga is polite but firm, and the party rolls well enough to realize that the naga is probably lawful good. This confuses them, given the presence of the undead and the shipwrecks, so they continue to question the naga.

The party asks - "As long as we don't approach the crystal, could we raise the walls on the outside of the tower to block the light from the sea?" The naga considers this, and allows that it is not prohibited by her instructions. The party accepts this as a plan, wonders if there are any prohibitions on fly, spider climb, or feather fall, and decides to take the stairs back down to the eighth level of the tower.

Going inside, we look up web and find that it is dismissible. Handy, that. Going down the now unblocked staircase to level 7, the party encounters two women in a room with tables of stuff. One of the women is wearing a strange mind flayer helmet. The rogue rolls a 1 on his Knowledge (Dungeoneering) skill, and has a little freakout while the rest of the party enters diplomatic negotiations.

The residents of this floor give an (unreliable, as it turned out) synopsis of the tower, their place in it, and what the naga really does if you try to flee off the roof. They also warn the party of a crazed cleric a couple of floors down. The gnome uses Linguistics to determine the origin of the names they were given. The woman who talked to them gave a planar name, and the silent one in the mind flayer helmet gave a fey name, but that just indicated the origin of the name, not necessarily the named.

After talking to them about the equipment in the room and potential rewards, the party walks down onto the sixth floor, into a large open room with a unicorn and barbezu frozen in blocks of ice. Having been somewhat warned by the residents of level 7, the party runs past the floating blue sphere. The sphere tries to tag the rogue, but misses.

The fifth floor is a larger living area that includes the four side towers, and it includes a raving human. The party decides to stick with negotation and calm him down, and manages to break his chain of thought before he fires off a finger of death. The party soon discovers that he is a priest of Shaundakul, god of traveling, who appears to have become mentally unstable after being trapped in one location.

The party gets some more information from the priest, who warns them about the evil ladies who live upstairs. They elect not to invite him along, and continue down to the hydra they've been told about by multiple people.

Continuing down to the fourth floor, the party sees a non-Euclidean statue shrouded in mist. The party keeps a-going down the stairs, without stepping into the room.

The third floor is an alchemy lab and magical workshop, and the party spends considerable time evaluating and cataloging the items. They find a stash of sunrods and a potion of invisibility that had been under a lead sheet, and estimate that if they could pack out a couple of tons of gear and symbols it would be worth several thousand gold pieces.

The rogue sneaks down the staircase to the second floor and discovers the icy white cryohydra, waiting near the stairwell. Since I had screwed up the last hydra - I didn't roll attacks of opportunity for the sunder checks - I was looking forward to fixing that with this hydra. The rogue evaded the hydra's breath and went back upstairs.

The party came up with a cunning plan to soften up the hydra - the wizard assembled a set of alchemical gear, which was stuffed into a spare set of clothes that was also stuffed with straw. The spare clothes were tied into a manlike bundle by a rope, which the gnome animated and used to send the straw man downstairs.

The hydra, which the party new was always kept hungry, snapped up the straw man. The wizard rolled a 20 on his Alchemy check, and the hydra rolled a 1 on its Fortitude save. Hm.

The party heard a wet squelching noise, and went downstairs, planning to ambush the hydra while it was vomiting. What they found is that the mix of reagents had interacted negatively with the hydra's magical chemistry, causing some of its internal organs to explode. The hydra was now quite messily dead.

After a brief pause for self-congratulation and amusement, the party surveyed the hydra for interesting parts, the room for treasure, and the staircase for going down.

On the first floor, the party found a narrow maze of passageways. In the maze, they were ambushed by four wraiths that reached through the walls to grasp blindly at them and then retreat past the party's ability to strike.

I had decided to experiment by advancing the wraiths a hit dice and gave them the Turn Resistance feat from Libris Mortis. This ended up being huge - in 3.x terms, Turn Resistance grants a +4 turn resistance. In Paizo terms, this granted resist 20 to positive energy and a +4 on will saves versus channeling energy. Resist 20 means that the wraiths essentially ignored all of the cleric's energy channeling, and I also ruled that it let them resist the positive energy from cure light wounds cast by the gnome.

The party ended up using the fire trap at the center of the maze to defend themselves from the wraiths. The trap triggered whenever anyone entered the room - the rogue did a reasonable job of evading the fire, and the rest of the party was willing to put up with it. After they were all in there, the fire trap didn't set off any more, but a teleport trap did kick in and the rogue (again) failed his will save and was sent back to the welcome area on the eighth floor.

This was where we had to wrap, but we decided:
1) The party was going to rest, then use walls of stone to block the lighthouse from view by ships, thus fulfilling their contract
2) Alone, the rogue was almost certainly going to be charmed by the succubus on the seventh floor, leading to future problems and plot hooks

Notes:
1) It would be good to know what blocks positive energy - I have my list of things that block detect magic, but that might be from a previous edition. For the wraith encounter, I figured if they could reach through the stone, the positive energy would reach back through it.
2) Turn Resistance doesn't translate - one feat for 5 or 10 points of resist positive energy would be nice
3) I think it should be clarified what else resist positive energy works on besides channel energy - healing spells, for instance

Liberty's Edge

The positive energy resistance potion of turn resistance has been removed in Alpha 3. It's just the will save boost now.


Shisumo wrote:
The positive energy resistance potion of turn resistance has been removed in Alpha 3. It's just the will save boost now.

Whoops, you're right. I missed that change.

...

I'd have to say I agree, that's a good way of doing it.

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