Party Composition - Human Fighter, Dwarf Cleric, Halfling Rogue, Elf Wizard
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1. How long did it take to play this part of Doomsday
Dawn (not counting preparation or character creation)?
4-5 hours
2. How long did it take to prepare this part of the adventure
(time spent reading, gathering materials, etc.)?
2-4 hours
3. How many sessions did it take for you to play through
this part of the adventure?
1
4. How many Hero Points (in total) did you give out
during this part of the adventure?
None, forgot about them and no one even remembered they existed until the end of the session.
5. How many times was a player character reduced to 0
Hit Points during this part of the adventure?
Three
Rogue by critical by sewer ooze (got to dying 3 after AoE atk) and later by centipede poison
Cleric by multiple arrows with a critical in the 2nd Goblin Room
6. How many player characters were killed during this
part of the adventure?
None
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Log ( by order of the rooms explored):
One house rule determination Light Spells, Torches, ect. DO give off Dim light at twice the bright light radius. Since not explicitly stated.
A1 : Light spells from Cleric and Wizard, one on Fighter's drawn long sword and another on the Cleric's shield
Elf Wizard searched room in front of her and notices the Sewer Ooze.
No one else beat the DC 16 Stealth. Informs the party and Roll Perception for Initiative.
Rogue->Cleric->Wizard->Ooze->Fighter
Rogue gets behind Ooze in 1 stride and misses 2 Strikes.
Cleric one action draws Heavy Crossbow, which is was nocked/drawn (whatever it is for crossbows) before hand just in case, one action to put bolt in the groove. Hits with Ranged attack.
Wizard casts and hits with Telekinetic Projectile
Ooze hits Rogue twice 2nd being a critical putting him at dying 2 and then dying 3 when it uses last action to AoE attack.
Fighter Strides once and attacks twice hitting both times.
Cleric at new point in order drops crossbow and uses 2 action Channel Positive Energy Heal to get Rogue back up.
Wizard hits again with Telekinetic Projectile (has 12,4 each, small darts/metal balls/sharp edged disks for this).
Ooze is killed
Cleric uses one more CPE to heal Rogue to full, picks up crossbow, re-nocks and belts to self again.
Wizard collects used projectiles.
A2. Goblins noticed light as they came into this room, stayed at furthest North end to avoid even dim light and attempted to hide.
Drew bows and prepared actions to fire on whomever got within range to see them first.
Wizard and Cleric succeeded to hear noises from two so they do not get Stealth on Initiative, the other two do.
This part was weird/confusing to us: How do you handle surprise?, Can you actually ready an action before initiative?. If so how does it work with the initiative?. Rogue is wondering how the heck they will ever get a sneak attack. etc.)
To speed up the explanation going to just hit the high points now.
Fighter misses a lot, Cleric down to 1 HP after a lot of arrows. Rogue does very little due to low rolls, even trying to duck into and out of cover of the pillars to get to hide and get a Sneak attack. Wizard is OP with High Rolls on Telekinetic Projectile and uses Drain Arcane Focus to use Magic Missile 3 action. Fighter and Cleric finally land some hits and finish off Goblins.
The multiple attacks per round is crazy at this level. RNGesus is a strong player. One Goblin landing 3 attacks and the Fighter only saved by Reactive Shield and low damage rolls. Note: we were using Reactive Shield wrong, assumed you got both the AC bonus AND the Shield Block reaction all in one.
They find the potion and Owl Bear Claw. Use Potion on Cleric.
High roll to identify Claw and Fighter puts it on Sword, but never gets a Crit. so doesn't matter in the end.
A3. Huge Success on the Perception Rolls. Everyone sees the Centipedes.
A few Fighter and Cleric Strikes with Wizard Telekinetic Projectiles they are dead just as the Rogue hits dying 2 from poison and high rolls on about 6 attacks, lots of high fortitude saves but one was not high enough. Another CPE on Rogue and a go back and rest for 48 hours to heal back up.
Lots of grumbles about all the attacks going out and how it can ruin your day. "Why not limit extra strike actions, it'll be like before with certain classes getting more later on, but it stops this craziness." was the effective quote at the table.
Dying rules where actually not hated like I suspected, mostly equal in like/dislike compared to 1E. Helped the "Wack-a-Mole" feeling you sometimes got. Not really any simpler though.
A4.PC's noted holes, no Crit. successes.
A5. Elf succeeds on perception again looking into this room. Rolls high on Nature skill. Hits it with a TP from far outside the room with a rock. Move On.
A6. Searched all over room. Most everyone noticed the alarm. Rogue sees idol. No one wants to dare putting a part of themselves in the murky water. Try to fish out the idol with some Rope. FAILURE!
Quasits attack, low Init. Wail on Cleric because he looks 'good', he takes the brunt of the damage. Rogue finally gets some flanks and 2 sneak attacks but low damage. Wizard still high rolling TP attacks and damage. Fighter high rolls as well and they are taken down easily. Cleric heals using CPE.
Rogue can't get South door unlocked (5 failures none Crit. fails), give up and go through East Door.
At this point I noticed no compass marks on map, but easy enough to figure out from context.
A7. Rolled Perception for combat with Quasits, commando success. They douse fire and succeed on athletics to climb up on ledge after a few rounds.
Prep bows and arrows, pyro stands next to trap release.
Rogue finally gets a nice high roll and sees trap, pyro panics and releases trap anyway(no info on terrain after trap so just let it be normal). Very high Init. from every goblin. Cleric gets filled with arrows downed by crit. dying 2. Pyro runs and uses all action to climb the ledge and clambers up wit crit success. Wizard wants to use Sleep he prepared on the grouped Goblins, reads new sleep and is annoyed.
As he put it, "Okay, the nerf I get, but THEY FALL ASLEEP STANDING UP STILL HOLDING THEIR STUFF!!. That's just dumb, name it 'look I'm the old daze spell,but slightly different YAY!!' and remove Sleep if they are gonna do THIS!. How are you even gonna use it as intended when sneaking up on people is like it is." Hyperbolic and said in good humor as this is a playtest, but annoyed nonetheless
Opts for burning hands instead and due to positioning hits all but pyro and one regular goblin. 8 damage all failed saves. Rogue moves and starts climbing ledge. Fighter moves to climb as well, CRIT. gets up next to commando with no actions left. Commando's one good attack negated by faulty Reactive Shield, pyro panics and burning hands on fighter and other 2 goblins, killing them all except the fighter who succeeds on Ref and kills the pyro next turn. He locates the secret door while up there. The rogue unlocks this time and they head in. Meanwhile, Cleric high rolls Death saves and gets back to consciousness uses heal,potion, and 1 CPE (1 left)to get him and Fighter back to full before heading on.
A12. Notice locked chest. Rogue finds the trap. Leave it for now and loot later. (They did, got key and unlocked etc.)
A10. Party sees Drakus in media res. Roll Perception Init. (surprise still confounds us.) Drakus still rolls the higher Init., Rat a close 3rd after Fighter, then everyone else.
Drakus hits the Fighter hard after revealing true self. Fighter hits hard back. Rat misses awfully. Cleric casts command and it is useless. Wizard with more TP high rolls. Rogue moves and tries to tumble past Drakus, fails and get AoO for a lot, still up and misses attack. Drakus one sword hit is lessed from 6 to 5 by our faulty Reactive Shield, misses with both claw attacks. Fighter hits Drakus hard. Rat misses the Rogue every attack. Cleric pulls out crossbow and and fires and hits for 9 damage "C: Is there still a penalty for firing into combat? DM: Hmm... doesn't look like, just a +1 to their AC because the Fighter is blocking you. C: Hell yeah! Eat this!!". Wizard kills the rat with TP. Rogue finishes Drakus off with that sweet sweet Sneak Attack.
A11. Grab all the loot, see the vision.
A9. Rogue notices and High Rolls to bypass the Trap on the way out.
A8. High Init. for party, Cleric hits Skeletons with 3 action heal using last CPE and fighter and wizard clean up easily with high rolls over just 2 rounds.
END
Edit: We used Identify a Magic Item wrong as well. Did not notice it took a whole hour.
Well we won't be using it that was if it's not changed. Will be house ruled stat.
Had to read the Quick Identify description to even find anything about how long the skill check took, after reading about how much time in actually took on the forums.
Quick Identify
You take only 10 minutes when using Identify Magic to determine
the properties of an item, ongoing effect, or location, rather than
1 hour. If you’re an expert, it takes 5 minutes; if you’re a master, it
takes 1 minute; and if you’re legendary, it takes 3 rounds.
For A2 doesn't the scenario state that the goblins rush the PC's when they notice them?
Indeed it does, missed the last sentence there. My bad, guess I made it more complicated than it needed to be