|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I ran the complete Rose Street Revenge this past Saturday for a group of 6 reasonably-experienced Pathfinder players. This was my first time GMing the new system, and their first times playing it. The party makeup was as follows:
Gnome ranger (two-weapon focus?)
Halfling cleric of Calistria
Half-orc monk (Tiger Style)
Half-elf sorcerer (angelic bloodline)
Goblin fighter (greataxe)
Elf bard (lore muse?)
I was extremely intrigued to note that no one played a straight human. This has matched my Starfinder experience, which is that humans are just not as interesting as the other races these days. The player of the half-orc monk found the entire character creation system frustrating, and she struggled with how the multiple attack penalties worked to some extent as well, but my impression was that she had gotten a grip on everything by the end of the session. A couple other players had smaller issues with character creation – the player of the ranger found the design of the character sheet very unintuitive and lacking enough space for all the things she needed to write down, and the fighter’s player misunderstood the mathematical relationship between Trained and the actual proficiency modifier (he thought Trained gave a +1 and all the higher proficiencies were one higher as well) – but those were less of an obstacle and were resolved before play started. (See Recommendation 1 for ideas for the character sheet.)
All in all, we spent somewhere between 1-1/2 and 2 hours on character creation.
Part One: Dragons
The players elected to begin with the kobolds. The exploration modes made a great deal of sense to the players, and everyone but the cleric chose to operate in searching mode once the tactics were explained to them. The trapdoor was a bit confusing – the Disable a Device action seems to suggest that any trap should have a minimum number of successes needed to disable it, but none of the traps had that information listed, so I just let it ride with a single success. The PCs had no trouble spotting the trap, and the Thievery-trained bard easily disabled it. I was even more confused by the slashing blade trap, although I didn’t realize it until I took the GM survey, because apparently there are two of them? I had absolutely no idea. I really thought the mod was written oddly, and there was a single trap just before the Dragon Sharks’ lair, which was strangely referenced a page before its stats were presented. Still, the PCs found and disabled that trap easily as well, but since no one was sneaking, I started the encounter as soon as they made their first attempt to disable the trap. The combat itself was pretty intense, with the monk being knocked out but a nasty pick crit and the Dragon Shark sorcerer making great use of the three-action magic missile option. This was our only experience with the dying rules, and it came as quite a surprise to the PCs that healing the monk didn’t immediately wake her up as well. The monk’s player wasn’t completely thrilled about that, but most of the group seemed to recognize that it was a change intended to stop the “weebles wobble but they don’t stay down” nature of magical healing in PF1. I couldn’t get a good read on whether they thought that goal was a positive one; some seemed to like the idea, others – particularly the angelic sorcerer, who healed the monk and was then afraid he’d just wasted the spell and the action – were less visibly enthusiastic.
I did note that there didn’t seem to be any minimum damage on a successful attack, and one of the kobolds did manage to crit with their pick and still deal no damage (2d8-2 is still zero when you roll snake eyes). Not sure if that’s a problem per se, but it definitely felt bizarre.
This was by far the longest of the first three sections in terms of time, which I rather expected, given that it was also the first one, and everyone was still getting up to speed. Puddles and Snippets seemed to run much more smoothly.
Part Two: Puddles
The players chose Puddles next, and this one was incredibly short. The PCs quickly found the Muckraker and handed over the donation to get her information; the Frog’s Tongue prompted a little bit of roleplay (the sorcerer decided that fried fish sounded good, and ordered some fish and chips), but that section didn’t last long either. Being able to Recall Knowledge untrained helped the group overall, but I did have a little fun describing termites as jungle-based insects that swarm their prey like piranhas and then scatter, because other than hunting they are very solitary. (Two crit fails on that check!) When they reached the mansion, most of the group chose to use the fighter’s grappling hook and rope to climb up to the second floor (used the rules for climbing with a rope in the adventure), but the cleric, who had also succeeded on the termite roll, used Acrobatics and made it up the stairs just fine. The bard actually did fail the climbing roll, and I described a section of balustrade breaking free and knocking her on the head.
I had a weird ruling I had to make when we got to the fight. The cleric was the only PC to win initiative over the ooze and the bats, and he used his very first action to make the Nature roll to calm the bats. He critted, so they were immediately taken out of the fight, and since they never moved, I decided that the ceiling didn’t start crumbling either. In retrospect, I maybe should have gone the other way just to test out hazards, but it seemed like a just reward for winning init and getting that crit on the Nature roll. Regardless, with no bat swarm and no acid splashes, the ooze was not much of a challenge – it opened with the acid wave, swung and missed with its pseudopod, and then got the snot pounded out of it by the PCs. The monk in particular was really effective, as four attacks that all connected took out a hefty chunk of even 60 hp. Total combat time was less than one round.
The “forensic” part of the exploration seemed to happen quite smoothly, especially since the major clues didn’t require any roll to find. The swarms of corpse flies and death’s head moths were nicely creepy, and the cleric recognized their significance (after the goblin ate some and then made his Nature roll to recognize the species, apparently by their taste). I have seen a “Forensic Examination” use of the Medicine skill suggested on the forums, and I thought it was an excellent idea; I had it in mind when I was describing the results of the PCs’ rolls on the body in the attic.
Part Three: Snippets
Snippets was the only one left, which made the decision-making process pretty straightforward. Figuring out how to set up the initial inquiries was a bit tricky – although I have good players who are self-motivated and instantly suggested a few ways they could go track down some leads, things like Merchant Lore or Religion don’t immediately leap out as options for “where do I find a thieves’ guild?” So I decided to just read off the list of options and let them decide what they wanted to roll. One of the players did ask if the Bloody Barbers had their hands in illegal gambling or fighting rings, and if so could they use their Gladiator Lore to roll. I thought that was an excellent idea and allowed it, giving a few random locations in the Docks, Puddles, and Precipice District where such things might be found. The PCs rolled 3 successes and 2 failures, so they just barely made the cut (no pun intended).
Then they reached the Smiling Cut, the players were much more focused on the Rose Street Killer than on the Barbers, so the conversation stagnated almost at once. The PCs immediately took a shine to Snips, especially after he was bullied, even to the point where they offered him a job at the Grand Lodge. Snips demurred, however, saying he had “prospects” at the Smiling Cut, but it wasn’t until the bard flat out asked him, “Are those prospects with the thieves’ guild?” that things moved forward. One Perception check later, to recognize the lies behind his frantic denials, and the bard hit him with a charm person. He then became quite helpful (I decided he had a Will save of +1, and did not roll well), cheerfully informing the group about the meeting of Barbers out behind the shop. The PCs sent two flankers out to circle the building, and the rest just stepped out the back door. Combat immediately ensued.
This wasn’t a terribly difficult fight for the PCs – Barbers weren’t in particularly strong position to get into flank, and even when they did they didn’t do a whole lot of damage. I did manage to crit the monk once (again!), but 4d4 still isn’t that impressive damage-wise. By comparison, most of the PCs dropped their targets in one hit, and the greataxe was especially nasty in that regard. The cleric critted on his Pain domain power, meaning that one of the Barbers died really really badly. The PCs didn’t keep any of the Barbers alive, so they were forced to get the information from Snips only.
Part Four: Haven
The PCs were initially confused about where they should look once they found the sinkhole, especially since the bottom is shrouded in fog, so I let the one PC who made the Perception check to find the sign for the Sanguine Thorn also note signs that people had been climbing in and out of the sinkhole. One PC crit-failed the climb down, but did make the Catch Ledge roll to halve the damage. Once down, the PCs chose to forgo the main entrances and walk in through the holes in the walls. (The mod said something about some of them being hidden, but none of the holes are marked with an S.) We went straight into combat.
The goblin fighter won init, so he rushed straight in and took a swing at Wennel. Unfortunately, 5 damage with a greataxe meant no damage to the skeleton with resistance slashing 5. The first round of zombie attacks were pretty effective, ending up with three people grabbed and one person bitten as well. Conversely, however, two 3-action castings of heal from first the cleric and then the angelic sorcerer fixed almost everyone and basically nuked all the zombies, all at the same time. Wennel was largely unaffected, but even on a save the zombies took 7 damage, and the one that crit-failed took a whopping 13.
Heal... is really strong.
With the adds out of the way, the PCs focus-fired on Wennel, and he went down without seriously threatening anyone else. Ironically, the goblin was immune to goblin pox, so I had to switch Wennel's target to the ranger; unfazed, she proceeded to pummel him with a table leg, even despite taking a ray of enfeeblement to the face as well. This was the only fight where the fighter really had a chance to use his AoO, but alas, Wennel's high AC, especially with the shield up, meant it didn't do any good. Finally, the monk - sans her usual Tiger Stance - moseyed over and punched Wennel in the face, and that was that.
General Impressions:
It flowed well. Combat seemed to move more cleanly than I am used to, with everyone, good guys and bad guys both, being more dynamic. The initiative change didn't have the impact I was hoping for, other than making the cleric suddenly the speed demon of the game, which I'm not sure is necessarily a good thing. Maybe higher levels will see it have a stronger impact? The spellcasters seemed to feel like they had lots to offer in general, although there were some concerns about offensive options for the sorcerer. The monk and fighter were both very strong frontliners, the monk because she always had two attacks and the fighter because, well, d12s hurt when they land. The ranger seemed less effective, but I think she was still waiting for her two-weapon fighting to really come online. The ranger's player seemed to be content with it, though, even to the point of suggesting she'd rather level the ranger up for the next PFS playtest over making a new character.
The ancestry choices seemed to make no difference whatsoever, with the sole exception of the goblin - only PC with darkvision, and he kept eating things with his Eat Anything feat. Beyond that, though, the whole group could have swapped ancestries and I would have never noticed. I don't believe that anyone at any point ever used their Background skill feat, but they were free, so...?
In general, it was a good experience, at least for me, and I'm looking forward to starting Doomsday Dawn on Wednesday!
Recommendations:
1. Two ideas were presented with regard to the character sheet to make things more clear. One was to separate out Trained/Untrained (since currently, no basic uses of most skills care about anything other than trained or untrained) and the higher proficiencies, so the +1/+2/+3 for expert/master/legendary would be more intuitive. The idea here would be something like a checkbox labeled Trained, and then just off to the side the E/M/L dots would be waiting, possibly with the actual modifiers printed there as well. The second idea was to include the proficiencies chart from page 291 of the PF2 core directly onto the character sheet so it could be updated by the player as the character levels, sort of how old charsheets had BAB which you changed as you leveled and then you changed everything else that BAB affected.
2. Whether there was one trap or two in Dragons, it was weird and inconvenient to have the trap stats show up later than the first mention of the trap. That’s never happened in a PFS mod before, so I assume that was a weird editing artifact of the playtest and not the usual plan going forward, but regardless, please don’t do that again.
3. I would strongly suggest a Diagnose and a Forensic Study action be attached to the Medicine skill.
Ok. Ran this over the weekend for 3 regular PFS players and newcomer. Human Ranger, Human Cleric, Goblin Paladin, Goblin Rogue. The cleric choose human just for the extra class feat, the paladin was excited to finally play a small martial class (they were also considering a gnome barbarian).
TL:DR Climb checks are unpredictable for the players, this will cause frustration (with that 20ft cliff be 1 check or 4 checks?). Rolling against the player DCs for stealth is fast and easy, I want to change illusions so that they roll against player DCs. 6 HP enemies are level -1 or -2 creatures, not level 0. The goblin race made 50% of my goblin players act out. Players need to be pushed to remember to recall knowledge more often: 'You could attack at -10, or you could roll to recall more knowledge?'.
A player that understood the PFS compromise and social agreement immediately reverted to adolescent behavior when given a goblin. Ok, dont ranting. I haven't made up my mind about the goblin PCs yet but that was frustrating.
We did not RP the goblinness much, which is unfortunate for the goblin paladin. But RPing everyone's shock and distrust of two goblins would have added extra time to the game for no real gain. This would be different in an adventure path where I really wanted to focus on the characters more than focusing on the new rules.
Puddles: This went well. The players gave the donation, visited the cook and made their way to the house. Two party members went up the stairs, two climbed the outside of the building so I said the stair group arrived a round early. The goblin rogue rushed ahead without the others and failed his stealth check. Rolling stealth against a static DC was fast and simple. The rogue managed to win initiative, grab the chest, and double move out of the room on his turn. In hindsight I should have explained the the chest was deep under the bed, requiring a character to drop prone to get it (turning interact, stride, stride into interact, stand, stride). Things like that that would have felt punitive in PF1 are important now in the playtest. The ranger used recall knowledge on the bat swarm after much prodding from the GM, and then critically succeeded at pacifying it, they really felt like a monster hunter ranger then. The ooze chased the rogue out of the room and was easily beat down, 3 actions make oozes less of the threat. The rogue was biting the ooze, and the ooze had no abilities that dealt acid damage to unarmed strikes.
Dragons: I also missed that there were two splashing blade traps until I did the GM survey, the encounters makes much more sense with two traps (the GM that ran it for me missed that there were two traps also). Also the question on the survey about how well presented the hazards were was before the dragons section of the survey that made me realize I missed a hazard... so you have some false survey results there. The party largely one shot the kobold mooks. As far as I can tell, invisibility does not give a bonus to the stealth roll, this made it easy for the party to locate the sorcerer. They did struggle with his illusion duplicate; everyone wanted to ignore it as soon as one character discovered it was an illusion (I'd like to roll a spell roll against a Will DC for illusions, it would change those moments where the player knows it is an illusion but the character doesn't to a moment where the player is unsure.) The players made liberal use of the leap action to move around.
Snippets: The party struggled with the red herring barber and the rogue tailed her when she left. The party did not trust snips but didn't interfere with his whistling. After the normal barber started eating pie and beer I had the rogue follow the sound of whistling back to the group in time for the ambush. The barbers went down fast with their low hp and were down before they could set up an ambush. For future lore checks; I hope that certain pieces of information get tagged as trained, expert, master to reflect that they are esoteric.
Haven: The party has become accustomed to DC 0 or 5 knotted ropes and taking ten. They were concerned about falling. This change feels big to me. It is a good GM tool; decide how narrative the climb is intended to be and then adjust to suit. For example: roll one climb check for a 20' climb regardless of your characters speed, instead of a climb check every 5 feet. But this makes it hard for players to predict threats; is that 50ft cliff going to be one check where they need to not roll a 1, or is it 10 checks where they need to not roll a 1? The player won't know.
I forgot to include the concealed penalty to everything from the fog.
The hazard rolled stealth against the players, I'm not sure if this is intended but it made the game flow much better (one check instead of 4 checks, meaning it had a chance at passing, and the players were not put on alert) but it might have been unfair because the players said they were looking for threats. The sucking mud made the fight interesting, taking the paladin out of the fight for a few rounds. The players used the leap action to jump the mud and paladin and get in the fight, it felt organic.
Wellen got lucky with a critical ray on the melee cleric and that character felt shut down (had to guess at the spell attack roll, Spell DC - caster stat + dex?), the player hoarded their last two channels and kept attacking at -3 instead of burning the undead in the holy light of Iomedae. The players only recalled knowledge once to discover that it was a skeletal champion cleric of Urgathoa, they didn't roll again to discover he was also a fighter. The attack of opportunity caught them off guard and quickly changed the dynamic of the fight. It ended with the party being beat up with one character unconscious and healed at Dying 3. They never made the save to wake up, which I like as a GM (in PF1 it felt like a cleric could increase your chance of death: 'You gasp, coming awake from the divine healing. You have 2 HP, are prone, have dropped your weapons, and are right beside the boss. You were not a threat before, but now you are awake.') I was concerned that chained 3 action harms would be a death sentence for the downed character, but groups healing got him ahead of the damage curve. No one had bludgeoning and they kicked themselves that they had the silver but didn't pick anything up.
I liked the 5 + 6 player adjustments, but they made it sting that much more as I prepared Doomsday Dawn and had to make them myself.
At the end the players were excited and asking to join the Doomsday Day group.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hello there! I'm the player of the angelic bloodline sorcerer in Shisumo's run. He did a bang-up job of summarizing everything, so rather than simply echo what he said, let me say a few things from my experience on the other side of the shield.
1. I was definitely confused about how dying saves work in PF2. I had not gotten to the death saves section of the book yet, so after the monk fell unconscious in the sewers, I wanted to make sure she wasn't going to drown, and also wanted to get her back in the fight - not just because we could use her, but also because it's not fun sitting out of the encounter. So, based on my 3E-derivative experience, I rushed over, pulled her out of the muck, and cast a 1-action heal on her. I was initially confused that she didn't become conscious again, and felt I'd wasted my time when the GM asked her to make a death save - what's the point of restoring HP if you can still die with a death save? I felt much better about it once he explained that she can't go worse than her current Dying status now that she's been healed, and the saves are just to see if she becomes conscious again. I would like to see some sort of mechanic for a PC to help another PC get back into the fight - maybe an alternative ability of a 3-action heal could restore key stat HP to a single character touched, and also remove the Unconscious status? Requiring that many actions feels like a good workaround - the healer gives up their round to get you back in the fight!
2. I like the flexibility of the sorcerer, though I feel like there's a distinct lack of actions for the divine sorcerer to take, at least at level 1. Assuming you want to save your L1 spells for significant fights, that means you're stuck with cantrips. I was decently useful with disrupt undead in the final fight, but my largest contribution in the other areas was using guidance to help people climb places. Even then, I don't think the +1 ever mattered. I expect some of this to resolve itself after a few levels, though.
3. I really like the 3-action economy. Not only does it simplify the combat round by removing different power levels of actions, but it also feels like you have more ability to do whatever it is you want. Removing AoOs is also a massive improvement - 3.X games tend to be very static on the board, since losing out on your full attack is a massive power reduction. Giving AoOs to a select few is a great solution, as it makes combat much more dynamic.
4. With regards to ancestry, I went with a half-elf - not for any real mechanical reason, but because I rolled randomly. The half-elf ancestry feels like it gives two really good options (low-light and +5' speed), and two really suboptimal options (trained in Diplomacy and add Elven to your accessible languages). That might be something to tighten up.
The adventure did answer a lot of unknowns for me, though, so it succeeded at that goal! I feel much more confident at trying my hat at running Doomsday Dawn for people soon!
I forgot to mention this: the kobolds ambushed the party while hidden, the kobolds rolled stealth, the party rolled perception. A character won initiative with no enemies sensed. My post on the encounter is here.
One more thing. Wellon used his shield to block one hit, then stopped using it to block as to not break his holy symbol while he still had magic prepared. I didn't have the time to verify the rules on dents and broken and broken versus destroyed tools, but that felt pretty organic and cool.