I'm running the WOTC adventure City of the Spider Queen as a Pathfinder playtest. Since it's a 3.0 adventure and my players elected to be a Drow party from the Forest of Cormanthor, I've got a fair amount of conversion to do.
So far, we've had two sessions. I'll talk about character creation first.
Most of the players are drow. I used ideas from this thread, and defined drow as:
- +2 dex, +2 int, -2 con
- female drow have the favored class of cleric, and male drow have the favored class of wizard
- no spell resistance unless they're exposed to underdark radiation (Faerzess)
- generic drow spell-like abilities
- 120' darkvision
- weapon proficiencies in rapier, short sword, and hand crossbow
There are five players and six characters:
- female cleric 9 of Vhaeraun - a former "masked traitor" with the Evil and Trickery domains. (Note for later: the 'evil' weapon property on PDF p.179 seems to be a typo for 'unholy'.)
- male orc barbarian 7 cohort of the cleric
- male drow ranger 9 with the two-weapon fighting focus
- male drow rogue 9
- male drow universalist wizard 9
- slyth druid 7/oozemaster 1/shifter 1
All the characters are evil except the slyth, who is neutral. The players elected to build the party backstory such that intraparty conflict would be avoided.
Rule customizations:
- I selected the flat +6 hit points, and give it to PCs, NPCs, monsters, etc. Everybody.
- Stats were generated using epic point by (25 points)
- the first round of combat is always a partial action
- expanded 'aid another' rules, where a 20 gives +3, a 30 gives +4, etc. (By the way, I don't see a description for 'aid another' on skill checks.)
It was interesting to see how many house rules have crept into my regular game without me really noticing - things like "reroll hit points on 1s", for instance.
I wasn't sure about giving a price break for magic item creation if characters had an item creation feat. That was in the Alpha 3 rules, but I didn't see it in the Beta. I decided to only give that to the wizard on his bonded item, and he created a arcane ring of blink/featherfall/protection +2/sustenance.
The ranger was thinking about going down the quarterstaff path. We talked about how a quarterstaff would be a neat weapon if you didn't have to enchant each end separately (as per normal Darth Maul, I mean dual weapons). We decided not to go down that path, and he picked a more drowish rapier-oriented two-weapon fighting style.
We talked about 'weapon swap' for a while. The two players who might want two-weapon fighting were liked the basic concept but not the special effect. In particular, the weapon swap scene from Princess Bride would seem to inspire a bluff-based feat instead of swapping weapons from hand to hand. We thought that a 'flurry' with a one-handed weapon used in two hands had a nice effect, but that there was no reason for it to be in the two-weapon fighting path.
The wizard decided to be a Shadow Weave user, to experiment with a non-blasting wizard. This will be an interesting choice for this adventure. He mostly took enchantment spells, but decided to be a universalist instead of an enchanter because the powers were better.
I asked the player for more details on his thought process and he said:
It seems to me that the universalist bonus spells were the deciding factor.
Other tidbits from character creation:
- bonuses to things you're bad at don't matter
- right now, if you aren't the best interaction person in the party, interaction skills don't usually matter
Notes from the first session:
Gameplay:
Classes:
Skills/Feats:
Magic items:
Combat:
Some quick thoughts after an evening of prep, looking through the book at existing classed monsters.
More prep notes:
1st-4th - no change
5th - +1
6th - no change
7th-10th - +1
11th-+2
12th=+1
13th-16th=+2
17th=+3
18th=+2
19th=+3
Early notes from the second playtest:
The increase for amulets of mighty fists seems kind of excessive compared to weapons. Maybe we need monk bracers that only enhance monkish natural attacks, that only cost double a normal weapon.
I thought so too, but then I noticed a weird thing: you can buy a +0 Flaming Amulet of Mighty Fists for 5000 gp, even though you can't buy a +0 Flaming longsword (for instance). The cheapest possible flaming longsword costs 8000 gp.
I thought so too, but then I noticed a weird thing: you can buy a +0 Flaming Amulet of Mighty Fists for 5000 gp, even though you can't buy a +0 Flaming longsword (for instance). The cheapest possible flaming longsword costs 8000 gp.
That's true, and I think that's a cool thing. Monks already have DR/magic damage, but want to make their attacks special. Same with dragons.
I guess the amulets are hewing pretty close to 2.5 times more expensive, but that definitely adds up at higher levels.
I thought so too, but then I noticed a weird thing: you can buy a +0 Flaming Amulet of Mighty Fists for 5000 gp, even though you can't buy a +0 Flaming longsword (for instance). The cheapest possible flaming longsword costs 8000 gp.That's true, and I think that's a cool thing. Monks already have DR/magic damage, but want to make their attacks special. Same with dragons.
I guess the amulets are hewing pretty close to 2.5 times more expensive, but that definitely adds up at higher levels.
But if you chop off +1 in enhancement bonus, they're not /that/ far off (5000 vs 8000, 20000 vs 18000, 45000 vs 320000, 80000 vs 50000, 125000 vs 72000).
But if you chop off +1 in enhancement bonus, they're not /that/ far off (5000 vs 8000, 20000 vs 18000, 45000 vs 320000, 80000 vs 50000, 125000 vs 72000).
Hm. You know, I think you're right about how to look at it.
A couple of more prep notes:
Retribution Domain
1: Bane as melee touch attack, duration = caster level
2: Shield of Faith 1/caster lvl/day
4: Endurance 1/day
8: Gain a +4 favored enemy bonus of your choice 1/day (increases to +6 at 10th, +8 at 15th, +10 at 20th)
12: Fire shield 1/day
16: Spell turning 1/day
20: Storm of Vengeance 1/day
Drow Domain
1: Touch of Chaos (as Chaos domain)
2: Cloak of Dark Power [For] 1/day per caster level
4: Clairvoyance/clairaudience 1/day
8: Make a weapon Elfbane 1/day, rounds equal to caster level
12: Discern Lies 1/day
16: Word of Chaos 1/day
20: Gate 1/day
Spider Domain
1: Summon a small monstrous spider as a companion, similar to the animal domain. At 5th level, medium, 10/large, 15th level increases to huge
2: Spider Climb 1/day per caster level
4: Summon Swarm (spiders only) 1/day
8: Venomous Aura – 30' aura, opponents take a -4 on saves versus poison
12: Giant Vermin 1/day
16: Stone Spiders [For] 1/day
20: Spider Shapes [For] 1/day
It was kind of tricky to come up with the 1st and 8th power, but I was able to use the existing domains as models so I think these are pretty balanced. Overall, porting domains to Pathfinder was easier than I expected.
The cleric character has changed her domain from Evil to Drow, so I'll get a chance to see the domains in action from a PC and NPC perspective.
Tonight's question was "What's the DC to identify a spell being cast when you can only hear the caster?"
I said 25+ spell level.
This might not crop up often enough to be worth adding to the list.
After a travel-related hiatus, the game picked back up again.
Reactions from the fourth session:
- It was straightforward to covert Stone Giants over to Pathfinder.
I gave stone giants the "Large and In Charge" feat from Stone & Fist, but changed it so that it worked as a combat maneuver. It seemed to work well - the stone giants were frequently able to force back the party, but there were enough misses or acrobatic AoO avoidances that it didn't seem abusive.
- Converting two NPCs that were stone giant elder sorcerers was more time-consuming. I went ahead and picked a bloodline for them (elemental) and wrote down their powers. I think there's going to be more of an update curve on some classes than others.
- Converting Dire Bears was also pretty easy, but I think they would have been tougher if I had given them Power Attack instead of Improved Critical. Something to consider for the inevitable monster book.
- Haste was difficult to cast effectively when the party was spread out, and players kind of expected that it was a burst and not 'no two more than 30' apart'.
- The ranger was weak without a favored enemy involved, and the player noticed that he wasn't accomplishing a whole lot in combat.
- The rogue player thought it a bit odd that Irresistible Laughter didn't allow sneak attacks, since the irresistibly laughing person still has their dexterity bonus.
- XP calculations are quick and easy, but 'fast' is not as fast as I was expecting. I went ahead and had the players level up after four sessions, and I may continue to level them up on demand for the playtest.
I've been remiss in posting the notes, but I've run some more games. My next prep notes:
1) There's no explicit provision for fighters to specialize in their natural weapons.
2) Improved Grapple requires improved unarmed strike - it would be good to have verbiage about whether a monster with natural attacks also qualifies.
3) In the bestiary, be sure to break down where the components of armor class come from. I found it pretty irritating to have to back-calculate it when updating monsters from City of the Spider Queen.
4) Power attack is worded confusingly to a non-mathy player.
5) Kir-lanians channel negative energy as a cleric and are also healed by it. This is much more significant than it was in 3rd edition - it means they could heal themselves up and damage the PCs. I increased their CR by one.
Play notes:
1) Although the players figured out that the monsters were healing each other and damaging the PCs, they didn't use positive energy to try to harm the monsters. The reason is that the cleric was evil, and wanted to heal her party members more than she wanted to hurt the bad guys.
2) Confusion was interesting, although the player characters suffered from it more than the bad guys. The PC wizard is a universalist who took shadow weave (Realms game) and specialized in enchantment magic. So far it's working interestingly, but we're still working out the edge cases.
3) I had to handwave grappling + flying - the flying rules made it more straightforward to figure out how to combine actions. I do think the flying rules could be a bit simpler, though.
4) The drow rogue player gets to create a new PC because he was grappled and dropped off in a dragon's lair, and in the last round of his confusion he rolled "attack nearest".
Game six:
Prep notes:
1) The player of the now-deceased rogue came back as a kobold sorcerer/dragon disciple.
My kobold rules, based strongly on [http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderRPG/feedback/alpha3/racesClasses/howToPFizeKobolds the Paizo thread]:
-4 strength, +2 dex
small: +1 size bonus to AC, +1 attack
normal speed (speed 30')
keen senses - +2 perception
crafty & cunning: +2 on craft (craftmaking) & profession (miner)
+1 natural armor
light sensitivity
languages: draconic & common as automatic
favored class: sorcerer or rogue
Game notes:
1) I had been operating under the assumption that Pathfinder characters were +1 LA compared to 3.x characters. That's definitely not true at this level of play.
2) There are no spells that affect CMB except Free Action. There should probably be more at some point.
3) I found it surprising that Freedom of Movement is not a sorcerer/wizard spell.
4) We talked about whether the weapon finesse feat should subsume agile maneuvers - the sorcerer player votes yes, but can see it either way.
5) At one point in the combat, the wizard was nauseated, panicked, grappled, and stunned. Rough night.
6) The kobold is one tough little guy - he has 117 hit points at 11th level.
Game 7 notes:
I decided to make it a test of the magic items system (but only a test). I gave the PCs a chance to pick any one magic item of 10,000 gold pieces or less that wasn't just a stat-booster.
-) There seems to be a mismatch on the necklace of adaptation - is it 40,000 or 9,000 gold? It's listed differently on the list and in the item description.
-) One of the players commented that the "robe of useless items" still qualified for its name. Maybe this could be jazzed up by making it a permanent - not charged - item that can generate non-magical items of a certain gold piece value? Food, water, 10' poles... all the sort of stuff that a wizard isn't going to want to worry about or carry.
the players picked:
-) A ring of mind shielding, as a flavor item to mitigate the brain sucking/mind reading aspects of the Underdark
-) A tan bag of tricks, because it generates level-appropriate monsters for ten minutes
-) a rod of metal detection, as a flavor item for the kobold dragon disciple so he can be more dragonish
-) a metamagic rod of lesser empowerment, because the cleric wanted to boost her healing and her searing light damage
Game notes:
1. Suggestion is still a tricky spell to adjudicate. I think it would work better with a sliding scale of difficulty, and it would be great to have an enchantment sidebar with suggestions to differentiate between different stages of difficulty. Something similar to the bluff table would be great.
In this case, I ruled that "Kill all the fire giants you can" was reasonable to the extent that they're evil, but unreasonable to the extent that they were lawful, so I gave the giants a +4 on their saving throw. That meant that one failed instead of three.
2. The fire giants were tougher than their CR10 rating. I gave them improved critical (greatsword), which came up a lot. It may have been how I was rolling, but power attack + double damage on a 17-20 was pretty severe on the party.
3. The druid dropped the first round, when he tried to cast detect magic when the party was walking up to four fire giants who were, after all, only waiting around to kill them. I think I hit all four times and power attacked, so the druid died. Ooops. He got to play the NPC fighter this fight.
4. Despite the cleric's healing and his guarded stance, the fire giants were able to kill her barbarian cohort. Guarded stance + shield of faith meant that the giants couldn't power attack a raging barbarian, which was great news for him. They could still critically hit, though.
5. Turning monsters against their companions is still a rather effective way of shifting the balance of power in a fight.
6. The party didn't concentrate on taking one monster down - that's an odd DnD ism that you're always better off concentrating attacks on one monster, because you fight at full strength until you die. It seems to be counter-intuitive.
Next time: we'll playtest negative levels by letting the druid and barbarian get raised, and the wizard will take a level of war weaver from heroes of battle.
Interesting!
Last one - till February, at least.
1. The PCs leveled up to 12th level with no problems. I talked to the cleric about contemplative, and ruled that the "third domain" just meant that she could extend a domain relating to her god in the prestige class. That wasn't what she was looking for.
I'm definitely taking a look at the 3.x prestige classes with an eye toward "Can I just make this a feat chain?" So far pretty much no go.
2. Figuring out the rules for coming back with negative levels and what that means was a huge pain. The rules are scattered all over the book with no real cross-references or even hints. We did eventually figure it out.
3. I thought I had read something about permanent negative levels going away when you leveled up, but I couldn't find it. If it's not a rule, I think it should be - not everyone's going to have 2,000 gp on top of raising costs.
4. The PCs got to fight incorporeal drow wizards, and did pretty well at it. Spell Resistance + Miss chance makes for some pretty solid survivability, except when the wizard readied magic missile and used it to disrupt the opposing spellcasters. New house rule, I guess.
5. As written, death ward lifts the penalties from permanent negative levels. The druid player figured that out, and it was a big help for him.
6. As a first cut, the penalties for dying and coming back (two negative levels) seemed noticeably painful but not abusive or unreasonable.
7. I talked to the wizard player about the Universalist metamagic class ability - he agreed that it was reasonable to limit it so that you can't raise a spell beyond the maximum level you can cast. That limits him as well as the bad guys, so the party was hit by a cone of cold and not an empowered cone of cold.
Hm, just to clarify an edit that went awry - the "new house rule" comment was meant to apply to the agreement that Metamagic Mastery couldn't be used to raise a spell level over the maximum possible to cast.