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I am running Doomsday Dawn for my family: my husband, with extensive gaming experience going back to AD&D, my 15-year-old daughter, and my 12-year-old son, both of whom have very limited experience with Beginner Box rules.
My daughter decided to play the same character she has played in Black Fang's Dungeon and so on: an elf rogue named Iris. My son wanted to play a goblin and ended up with a barbarian named Ratscum. My husband is filling in the blanks in the party with a dwarf cleric and a human fighter.
We found all the ability boosts in character creation hard to keep up with. It feels like you don't really know where you want those extra +2s until you've added all your fixed boosts, but then you have to go back and figure out where the extra boosts came from so you're not putting them into the same ability scores as the fixed ones from that level. Also, the character creation walkthrough on page 11 seems to skip over the four free ability boosts altogether. I only found them when I thought the scores we were ending up with didn't look as high as the characters I'd seen generated in some of the preview threads.
I let my kids distribute their boosts as they chose, with only mild reminders of what their classes' key abilities were. I was totally inwardly cringing at my son's decision to go with a 14 Cha and 12 Con, although he's thrilled with his first-level Raging Intimidation feat, and my daughter didn't put any points into Wisdom, despite the fact that she took the Keen Hearing ancestry feat. I view this as a chance to see if the playtest rules are more forgiving than P1e rules to non- (anti-?) optimizers.
We found most of the campaign backgrounds kind of boring. My daughter took Mind Quake Survivor because it was the only one that sounded dramatic enough to her. My son was happy with Goblin Renegade because he already wanted to be a goblin, but his character doesn't have Crafting trained so the Quick Repair feat is going to waste for now.
In all, character creation for two newbies took probably three hours from sitting down with character sheets and pencils to finalizing purchases. There was a lot of flipping around pages and PDFs around the ability boosts. I should note that my husband, experienced gamer and noted micromanager, is still flipping around the PDF as I type, trying to find exactly the right options for his PCs. We'll see to what extent the PCs that were agonized over outplay the ones that were put together on a whim.
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Because I can't find an appropriate subforum/thread to make some general remarks on the official character sheet, I'll do that here.
The blank line I think is for when you're proficient in something not matching - like a cleric's favored weapon.
The blank weapon proficiencies are for different ones from Martial and Simple. For example, let's say you're a cleric of Desna. You get proficiency with the Starknife.
So I was right to put Rogue Weapons on the blank line on my daughter's sheet.
Actions and Activities is to track any action you want to remember you can do - like Battle Medic, or double slice, or power attack etc. Just as quick reminders for the player.
Oh, I get it now. Like my daughter chose Nimble Dodge as her rogue class feat so she wrote it on the reaction line. If instead it had been a fighter that took Combat Grab, that would have gone on the action line. For my kids' two characters, we just didn't run into any options that opened up extra actions.
Even though he is not trained in Crafting, he gets the Background Feat, and Repair is an activity he can do even though he is untrained! He still needs a repair kit though...
Okay, awesome! He has extra silver still to spend, so I'll be sure and tell him to buy a repair kit before we start the game. I guess I should have realized that background feats let you ignore prereqs.
Had our first gameplay session today. I'll get it typed up tomorrow, but a few more tidbits from character creation I forgot to mention:
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We found all the ability boosts in character creation hard to keep up with. It feels like you don't really know where you want those extra +2s until you've added all your fixed boosts, but then you have to go back and figure out where the extra boosts came from so you're not putting them into the same ability scores as the fixed ones from that level. Also, the character creation walkthrough on page 11 seems to skip over the four free ability boosts altogether. I only found them when I thought the scores we were ending up with didn't look as high as the characters I'd seen generated in some of the preview threads.
I let my kids distribute their boosts as they chose, with only mild reminders of what their classes' key abilities were. I was totally inwardly cringing at my son's decision to go with a 14 Cha and 12 Con, although he's thrilled with his first-level Raging Intimidation feat, and my daughter didn't put any points into Wisdom, despite the fact that she took the Keen Hearing ancestry feat. I view this as a chance to see if the playtest rules are more forgiving than P1e rules to non- (anti-?) optimizers.
In all, character creation for two newbies took probably three hours from sitting down with character sheets and pencils to finalizing purchases. There was a lot of flipping around pages and PDFs around the ability boosts. I should note that my husband, experienced gamer and noted micromanager, is still flipping around the PDF as I type, trying to find exactly the right options for his PCs. We'll see to what extent the PCs that were agonized over outplay the ones that were put together on a whim.
All of this is very similar to my own experience. Just had some friends put together characters, they all have some but not a lot of experience with PF1. Took 3 hours, they found it kind of confusing and not very well explained (all three of them missed the four floating ability boosts and found the different steps of ability score generation confusing, for the reasons you discuss), lots of flipping back and forth (especially for ability scores and even more so for spells).
Also noticed the lack of space on the character sheet for extra senses or for Lore specifications that you point out below. (And I'd add, the AC area doesn't have space set aside for shields, which annoyed my husband who was building a sword & board fighter.)
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I couldn't find the markers for my Combat Pad, so since I was GMing from a laptop anyway, I opened a Wordpad file to keep up with initiative and hit points. It was handy because I could just jot down anything that came up during play that was confusing or otherwise unfun.
The first thing was, what the heck do you roll to know something about an ooze? In P1e, it was Knowledge: Dungeoneering, but that doesn't exist. Nature didn't seem right. Arcana? Does someone need to take Ooze Lore?
The Slimy Cistern encounter was listed as Trivial 1, which I found mindboggling, given that the ooze had 40 hp, a +7 to hit, and d6+d4 damage. Yeah, it's almost impossible to hit, but it takes a lot of damage and has the potential to hurt someone before the party beats it down. Perhaps this is the same debate over the term "Trivial" that was had in the DC blog.
In the Mudchewer Central encounter, I wondered what to do without a surprise round when some creatures were aware and some unaware of the party's approach. In the end, I decided it probably didn't matter in this case since the party was carrying a torch in a dark dungeon and didn't really have a chance not to be noticed when they entered the room, no matter what they rolled for Stealth.
Iris the elf rogue won initiative but didn't want to use all her actions to move ahead of the party and let the goblins swarm her on their init, so this was the first time someone used the Ready action. She readied an attack with the trigger of someone attacking her, but she also had the Nimble Dodge class feat with the same trigger. The goblins didn't attack her that round, but I suppose she would choose which reaction she wanted to take if the trigger had occurred since she only gets one reaction per round?
The Goblin Scuttle reaction was pretty flavorful -- I could just see the little things swarming around -- but it didn't figure into the tactics of the fight.
I explained to my daughter what flanking means and how her PC could do extra damage if she attacked from the opposite side of an enemy than an ally. Since the goblin warriors didn't have an AoO reaction, it was easy for her to Stride around them with her elf speed to get in a flank, where in P1e she'd have taken several rounds 5-footing around or risked an Acrobatics roll. The lack of universal AoO definitely made this combat more mobile!
The dwarf cleric rolled a critical success on the Medicine check in the Motivation Room, which turned out to be one of only two critical successes the party rolled all session. (The rogue rolled a critical hit on a goblin while flanking.) In theory, the 10-over rule opens up more criticals, but in practice, at least at level 1, it seems to require a natural 20 on the PCs' part anyway. (For the enemies..., well, see Goblin HQ below.)
The party showed absolutely no interest in the contaminated fountain in the Purification Room. Instead they passed directly through, and the human fighter rolled a natural 20 to discover the alarm on the door.
Up to this point, everyone had been having a good time. But Goblin Headquarters was a nightmare. I had let everyone roll Perception (or Survival) for initiative up to here, but given that the encounter differs based on whether the goblins hear the PCs coming, I made everyone roll Stealth for initiative here. With four (or more) PCs rolling Stealth and 5 goblins rolling Perception, the odds are slim to none that the party can enter the room unnoticed.
The Goblin Commando won initiative and moved to the rope to pull the trap as soon as someone came in. That someone was the goblin barbarian. He succeeded (not critically) on the Reflex save, and I rolled low for damage so he ended up only losing his temporary hp from rage. He countered with a twelve-point hit from his maul that left the Commando barely standing, but from there everything went downhill.
In such a small room, the goblins didn't have to make more than one Stride to get to the barbarian and then could just stand there and hit him, with flanking even as he didn't have a reaction. Their bonuses to hit were much better than the party's; the fighter was the best at +5 while the goblins were at +6 and +7. It didn't help that the players' dice went abysmally cold at this point of the game, while I kept rolling in the mid- to high-teens and scored critical hits at least three times.
The barbarian never got a second attack; even with the cleric hitting him with a heal, he was Dying 1 by the top of the second round, and the rogue joined him in round 4. At this point, everyone was ready to walk away from the table and the ruleset entirely, and I had to pause and deliver a look-at-this-reasonably speech combined with a we're-here-to-playtest-not-quit speech, pointing out that 1st-level is rough in P1e too, that the dice were hating the party and loving the goblins, that if the barbarian hadn't dropped so quickly the lack of AoOs means that the party could have retreated to the 5-foot corridor for more favorable terrain where they couldn't get surrounded, etc. (At times like these, it's good to be the mom as well as the GM.)
Both the cleric and the fighter had shields, but my husband had refused to "waste" an action to raise them because a shield "should" just work passively. He had also been complaining about the -10 on his third attack, however, so now that he was the only two PCs still standing, I convinced him to use an action each round to raise his shield.
Wow, do I love playtest shields! I don't think either character took any more damage the rest of the fight, although the fighter's shield took 3 dents and was broken (see above re the dice loving the goblins). The fighter finally managed to connect with the commando who had been at 4 hp since round 1, the downed PCs made their recovery rolls to regain consciousness and, without AoO reactions on the goblins' part, managed to get back into the corridor behind their allies. The elf rogue got out her bow and took down a Screened (not soft cover) goblin from the corridor with her 1 hp, and the barbarian figured out that with 3 actions he could run in, hit a goblin, and run back out. And so victory was snatched from the jaws of defeat!
Despite that, however, as a GM, I found this encounter seriously unfun. Due to the size of the room, the playtest rules' more flexible action economy devolved entirely to Strike Strike Strike. So many d20s to roll! Over and over again! Plus-six, plus-six-minus-five, plus-six-minus ten, plus seven, plus-seven-minus-five, plus-seven-minus ten, and on and on and on. First-level fights can drag on due to low dice in P1e too, but I only have to roll one d20 per bad guy. It was really, really tedious. The battle lasted 8 rounds, but it felt like 15 or 20.
Also, while I much prefer the Dying condition to P1e's dying rules -- no worrying about taking a level-one PC from alive to dead-dead in a single blow due to a high damage roll -- there really needs to be a better way to know what DC the PCs are rolling against to recover. I was jumping all over in the PDF trying to figure it out: class DC or ability DC but if it's a monster the GM may use a high-skill DC ... what? The encounter was listed as Severe 1, so I ended up using the Severe 1 option off Table 10-2, but I know it's supposed to be easier to recover vs. a minion than a big bad so one oughtn't just to use the encounter listing. Can there not be an associated DC listed in the Bestiary listing for the given monsters? Or in the statblock in the adventure?
I didn't fudge dice (the dying rules plus hero points made me feel it less necessary), but I did make one mistake I know about: I forgot to make the cleric roll the DC 5 flat check while he was entangled by the goblin pyro's tanglefoot cantrip when he cast bless.
We ended the session with me suggesting the party return to Keleri's to rest and heal up (and the fighter get another shield) before trying to tackle Drakus.
Our session lasted four-and-a-half hours (most of it felt like in Goblin HQ), but it went much more slowly than a usual game because I kept having to look up rules. Very thankful I was using the PDF and could search for terms; it would have taken much longer flipping through the book.
Initiative:
Iris 17 (Stealth)
Sir Boris 14 (Survival)
Ratscum 14
Tank 13
Ooze 8
What check do you roll to know something about an ooze?
Does everyone have to Seek?
Trivial? 40 hp and +7 to hit with d6+d4 to damage
Iris: Seek, Stride, Strike 23/7 (Ooze 33/40)
Ratscum: Rage, Stride, Strike 21/11 (Ooze 22/40)
Sir Boris: Drop, Stride, Interact, Strike 11/2 (Ooze 20/40)
Tank: Stride, Strike 7/9 (Ooze 11/40), Strike 10/8 (Ooze 8/40)
Ooze: Filth Wave, Strike 11, Stride (Tank AoO 7/8: Ooze 0/40)
Mudchewer Central
Initiative:
Iris (Stealth) 21
Sir Boris (Survival) 20
Goblin 1 18
Goblin 2 9
Goblin 3 8
Tank 6
Ratscum 5
Goblin 4 3
What do you do when some participants are aware and some unaware?
If you ready an action, can you not use another reaction that turn?
Iris: Stride, Ready an Attack
Boris: Delay
Goblin 1: Interact, Stride, Stride
Goblin 2: Interact, Stride, Stride (Goblin 1 Goblin Scuttle)
Goblin 3: Interact, Stride, Stride
Tank: Stride, Strike 17/7 (Goblin 1 7/14), Strike 19/5 (Goblin 1 2/14)
Ratscum: Rage, Stride, Strike 21/16 (Goblin 0/14)
Goblin 4: Interact, Stride (Goblin 2 Goblin Scuttle)
Iris: Stride, Strike 15/13 (Goblin 1 0/14), Stride
Boris: Stride, Stride, Strike 14/2 (Goblin 2 12/14)
Goblin 2: Strike 11, Strike (nat 1), Stride (Goblin 3 Goblin Scuttle)
Tank: Stride, Strike 17/9 (Goblin 4 5/14), Strike 10
Ratscum: Stride, Strike 10, Strike 10
Gobin 4: Strike (nat 1), Strike 6, Strike 10
Iris: Stride, Strike 20 (Goblin 1/14), Strike 7
Boris: Strike (nat 1), Strike 13/4 (Goblin 1/14), Strike
Goblin 2: Strike 14, Strike 19/4, Stride
Tank: Strike 13, Strike 18/10 (Goblin 4 0/14), Stride
Ratscum: Stride, Strike 20/12 (Goblin 2 0/14)
Motivation Room:
Boris Medicine 25: Critical Success
Purification Fountain:
No one investigated the fountain.
Tank Perception nat 20 to discover the alarm.
Goblin HQ:
Ratscum
Goblin Commando (blue speckled): 21
Ratscum: 20
Goblin Pyro (blue glitter): 20
Goblin Warrior 3 (purple): 19
Boris: 13
Goblin Warrior 2 (brown): 12
Iris: 7
Goblin Warrior 1 (blue): 5
Tank: 2
Do weapons with, say, Trip do damage and Trip?
What is the Recovery DC of a goblin commando?
Gobin Commando: Stride, Ready
Ratscum: Rage, Stride (trigger ready), Strike 22/12 (Goblin Commando 4/18)
Goblin Pyro: Stride, Cast tanglefoot 14: success
Goblin Warrior 3: Stride, Strike 14/3, Strike 14/6
Boris: Stride, Stride, Cast heal
Goblin Warrior 2: Stride, Strike 25/9, Strike 6
Iris: Stride, Strike (nat 1), Strike 8
Goblin Warrior 1: Stride, Stride, Strike 24/4
Tank: Stride, Strike 13, Strike 6
Goblin Commando: Step, Strike (trip) 13: success, Strike 21/8 (Ratscum dying 1)
Gobin Pyro: delay
Goblin Warrior 3: Stride, Strike 25/7, Strike 14
Boris: Strike 4, Strike 0, Strike 3
Goblin Warrior 2: Strike 10, Strike 9, Strike 4
Iris: Strike 12, Strike 4, Strike -1
Goblin Warrior 1: Strike 20/6, 16/4, Strike 9
Tank: Strike 7, Strike 9, Strike 4
Ratscum: Recovery 11 (failure) Dying 2
Goblin Commando: Delay
Goblin Pyro: Delay
Goblin Warrior 3: Strike 9, Strike 14, Strike 0
Boris: Strike 10, Strike 0, Strike 7
Goblin Warrior 2: Strike 21/5, Strike 6, Strike 13
Iris: Strike 11, Strike 6, Strike 1
Goblin Warrior 1: Strike 23/4, Strike 9, Strike 0
Tank: Raise Shield, Strike 19/10 (Goblin Warrior 1 4/14), Strike 10
Ratscum: Recovery 10 (failure) dying 3
Goblin Commando: Delay
Goblin Pyro: Delay
Goblin Warrior 3: Strike 4, Strike 21/6, Strike 8
Boris: Stabilize: Ratscum Dying 2, Raise Shield
Goblin Warrior 2: Strike 19/3, Strike 7, Strike 14
Iris: Recovery 23 (success)
Goblin Warrior 1: Strike 13, Strike 14, Strike 9
Tank: Strike 19/7 (Goblin Warrior 1 0/14), Strike 17/5 (Goblin Warrior 2 9/14), Raise Shield
Ratscum: Recovery 6 (failure)
Goblin Pyro: Cast tanglefoot 11, Stride
Goblin Commando: Stride, Trip 12, Trip 16 (success)
Goblin Warrior 3: Stride, Strike 9, Strike 5
Boris: Strike 14/2 (Goblin Warrior 7/14), Strike nat20/5 (Goblin Warrior 2/14), Raise Shield
Goblin Warrior 2: Strike 14, Strike 19/5, Strike 10
Iris: Recovery 16 (success), Crawl, Crawl
Tank: Stand, Strike 13, Raise Shield
Ratscum: 16 (success)
Goblin Pyro: Delay
Goblin Commando: Delay
Goblin Warrior 3: Strike 13, Strike 19/5, Strike 7
Boris: Strike 13, Strike 0, Raise Shield
Goblin Warrior 2: Strike nat 20/4, Strike nat 20/4, Strike 8
Iris: Stand, Interact, Strike 12
Tank: Strike 10, Strike 19/10 (Goblin Warrior 2 0/14), Raise Shield
Ratscum: Stand, Stride
Goblin Pyro: Cast tanglefoot 25
Goblin Commando: Strike (trip) 20, Strike 4, Strike 9
Goblin Warrior 3: Strike 23/1, Strike 20/5, Strike 10
Boris: Stand, Cast bless *forgot to apply flat check
Iris: Strike 14, Strike 16/5 (Goblin Commando 0/18), Strike 1
Tank: Drop, Strike 14/9 (Goblin Warrior 5/14), Strike 9, Strike 10
Ratscum: Stride, Strike 10, Stride
Goblin Pyro: Concentrate
Goblin Warrior: Strike 11, Strike 12, Strike 5
Boris: Stride, Strike 18/6 (Goblin Warrior 0/14)
Iris: Stride, Strike 11, Strike 13/6 (Goblin Pyro 9/16)
Tank: Stride, Strike 22/10 (Goblin Pyro 0/16)
4-1/2 hrs
^That should be "impossible not to hit" in regard to the Sewer Ooze in paragraph 3. :P
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Yes, shield are currently overtuned compared to anything else. And the game seems to be balanced around them.
Yes, shield are currently overtuned compared to anything else. And the game seems to be balanced around them.
Interesting, there are also threads about how useless they are. I have no idea as I have yet had a chance to play test. They do seem interesting, hopefully they will clarify the denting and hardness confusion going on.
Edit: thanks for the detailed play testing so far, it has been good to read how you and your family is progressing!
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Also, while I much prefer the Dying condition to P1e's dying rules -- no worrying about taking a level-one PC from alive to dead-dead in a single blow due to a high damage roll -- there really needs to be a better way to know what DC the PCs are rolling against to recover. I was jumping all over in the PDF trying to figure it out: class DC or ability DC but if it's a monster the GM may use a high-skill DC ... what? The encounter was listed as Severe 1, so I ended up using the Severe 1 option off Table 10-2, but I know it's supposed to be easier to recover vs. a minion than a big bad so one oughtn't just to use the encounter listing. Can there not be an associated DC listed in the Bestiary listing for the given monsters? Or in the statblock in the adventure?What DC to use for a recovery check is listed at the bottom of the Recovery Saving Throws paragraph.
If damage that reduced you to 0 Hit Points came from
something that doesn’t have a DC, such as an attack roll,
use the attacker’s class DC. Though a class DC usually
includes the key ability modifier for a character’s class,
the GM might sometimes decide a different ability score
is appropriate; for example, a wizard’s class DC usually
uses Intelligence, but if he knocks someone out with
his staff, the DC might use Strength or Dexterity. For
monsters, the GM will use a high-difficulty skill DC of
the monster’s level (see page 336).
I just left my PDF open to that page for combats.
I read that sentence a couple of times, but I didn't understand it. Does it mean I use the High column on the row of the monster's level? Then I was close; I used the Severe column.
Still seems like it would be easier to put the DC in the monster's stat block for the GM to reference without flipping to a separate table in another book.
Or put that table on the GM screen. :)
Hey, am I right that there's no penalty for shooting into melee in the playtest rules? I didn't see it anywhere, but I certainly haven't read the book cover to cover.
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Or put that table on the GM screen. :)
Hey, am I right that there's no penalty for shooting into melee in the playtest rules? I didn't see it anywhere, but I certainly haven't read the book cover to cover.
1. A few weeks ago, Mark referred to the DC table as something that "certainly" would be on a GM screen.
2. Correct, no penalty for shooting into melee per se, just the possibility of screening.
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For Aberrations you use occultism to recall knowledge.
That's what i did at least, as it's the skill most fitting.
Animals = nature is a logical conclusion, but nowhere in the bestiary is a passage where creature types are linked to a skill for recalling knowledge about them.
I also made up the DC as 10 + CR for identifying the basic traits and one ability of common creatures. A critical success would give you pretty much all info.
For an uncommon creature i would suggest DC 15 + CR and for a rare creature i would suggest expert rank and a DC 20 + CR.
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The party sold the tarnished silver ring they found in Mudchewer Central so the fighter could replace his broken shield. Having completed the shopping, they healed up, rested, and headed back into the dungeon.
As they passed the Purification Fountain, I once again stressed that the water shouldn't have been so dark and polluted, but they just didn't care at all.
They didn't go into the Room of Ruined Repose, as it appeared to be both uninhabited and a dead end. They were focused on finding Drakus and the Star.
The fighter and barbarian were in front of the party and were caught in the Choking Sands trap. Both failed their saves. After they backed out of the area and let the sands disperse, I played up the connection between the statue of Pharasma here and the weeping fountain in the other room ... but still nothing. However, Iris the elf rogue rolled a natural 20 on her Thievery check to remove the hourglass from that statue and took it with her as a souvenir. She eagerly wrote it down in her equipment list, asking if it had any Bulk.
The fighter failed the first Athletics check to open the stuck door to the Befouled Shrine, so by the time the barbarian tried again, Drakus had hidden behind the altar. (Technically, there's no room "behind" the altar, so I put him on the side away from the door.) His Stealth check beat the party's Perception checks so he initiated combat when the barbarian and rogue approached to investigate the altar.
Two Strikes later, the barbarian was at Dying 1. Never even got a chance to participate in the fight. Although the cleric healed him on his initiative (twice!), he didn't make the Recovery Saving throw so he was unconscious at 12 hp and didn't get to play. Which sucked. Zero fun was had by the twelve-year-old boy. The Playtest rules have cut down on the "if you roll low, go watch TV in the other room while everyone else gets to play" parts of the game, but they've added a new (and frequent) one by requiring a saving throw to regain consciousness. This needs a fix.
The fighter moved up to fight Drakus after the cleric cast magic weapon on his sword, and the rogue, having learned from Goblin HQ, moved back and pulled out her shortbow.
We were, unfortunately, again in a situation where the rule for melee was Strike Strike Strike, and Drakus has a high to-hit bonus. The fighter's shield again came into play in a big way, now that he had learned to keep it raised, and getting to roll a second damage die with magic weapon was the party's only hope.
Iris got into position where Drakus wasn't screened from her by the fighter when he had 17 hp left. Her first Strike was an accumulated 20 and did 5 damage; her second Strike missed. She had one action left and nothing else to do with it but take a chance with -10. And she rolled a natural 20. The Deadly d10 shortbow did 16 points of damage (assuming I'm reading Deadly right: you get 2d6 and an additional d10? or your second die from critting is a d10 instead of a d6?), and Drakus fell.
The barbarian came to in Exploration mode sulkily, and they explored the final two areas. Despite my playing up the prayer book and its possible connection with the Befouled Shrine, it never occurred to them to try to reconsecrate it. They found the Star and the rest of the stolen goods, which I didn't even detail because they would have just kept it all, and returned to Keleri for the wrap-up.
The dwarf cleric didn't remember that he was a Budding Osirionologist, so the kids had to point out to their dad that he should have been interested when Necerion's travels were brought up. My daughter, on the other hand, whose PC was the Mind Quake Survivor, responded with an enthusiastic A-ha! when the Dominion of the Black was referenced.
For their reward, everyone with the possible exception of the cleric, who is thinking about the minor staff of healing chose to go with +1 magic armor. With so many consumables on the list, it's hard to imagine why someone would choose one of those instead of something they can use all the time. Although I guess really they're not really going to get to use any of it, since these PCs don't turn up again until 9th level. Lame.
At the end of the adventure, my husband realized that he had never used Power Attack for his fighter, even though he had selected it. That might have made some difference. Also, I realized after we were done that I hadn't been handling Shield Bash correctly (to the extent that anyone knows exactly how it's supposed to work). I hadn't subtracted the shield's Hardness before applying the damage, so we might not actually have gone through three shields in the dungeon if I'd done it right.
Overall, though, I thought this dungeon was too difficult for first level. Everything's to-hit bonuses were better than the PCs' were. The party didn't even encounter the centipedes, the fungus, or the skeletons, and they still had 3 PCs drop to 0 hp and had to go rest and come back to finish.
Choking Sands
Religion: Boris 15, Tank 13, Ratscum 9, Iris 4
Tank 5/20; Ratscum 13/19
Iris Thievery nat 20
Boris channels
Befouled Shrine
Tank Athletics 7; Ratscum Athletics 22
Ratscum
Drakus 27
Boris 19
Ratscum 13
Iris 12
Tank 6
Barbarian goes down in round 1 before getting to act
Recovery Saving Throw DC 17?
What happens when you're healed while unconscious?
What does expert quality do? Is there a table for quality bonuses?
Does expert quality armor have the reduced ACP, or does it have to be magic? (370)
Drakus: Interact, Strike 25/11, Strike 17/12 (Ratscum 0/19)
Boris: Move, Cast magic weapon
Iris: Move, Interact, Strike 16
Tank: Move, Strike 23/11 (Drakus 29/40), Raise Shield
Ratscum Recovery 16 (failure)
Drakus: Strike 26/9 (1 Dent), Strike 15, Strike 2
Boris: Heal (Ratscum 6/19)
Iris: Move, Strike 7, Strike 9
Tank: Strike 25/12 (Drakus 17/40), Strike 13, Raise Shield
Drakus: Strike 19/9 (2 Dents), Strike 25/4, Strike 8
Boris: Move, Interact, Heal (Ratscum 12/19)
Iris: Strike 20/5 (Drakus 12/40), Strike 13, Strike nat 20/16 (Drakus 0/40)
Pharasma's Sanctum
Drakus's Lair
Ratscum Perception 19
Iris Thievery 22
+1 magic armor; minor staff of healing?
2 hours
Tank forgot to use Power Attack the whole adventure
Just looked at his sheet, and he only has his weapons marked at Trained. So, yeah, he should have been at +6, and I'm sure there was at least one time he only missed by one. :P
I walked the kids through their characters, but I left my husband to do his own. :|
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Page 295:
If you are healed while being unconcious, you have to make a recovery save (fortitude against the class DC of the monster which dropped you plus your dying value) every round.
Fail: you stay unconcious.
Success: you become concious, but loose one action, so you have two left.
In both cases (and every round after) you reduce your dying condition by 1 until it has reached 0.