Dragonriderje's The Lost Star Feedback (Crazy Drakus fight)


Doomsday Dawn Game Master Feedback


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Just finished running The Lost Star for our usual Sunday night roll20 game. We play Pathfinder 1e on Saturday nights, in person, and sometimes do something a little different or more experimental on Sundays (Star Wars, 5e, FATE). The four of us all have 10-20 years of gaming experience and have been playing Pathfinder since its inception.

Our group:
Me: GM, and playing a Human(Half-elf) Wild Druid (Family Friend)
H: Goblin (Renegade) Alchemist
M: Human Conjurer Wizard (Esoteric Scholar)
W: Dwarf Fighter (Mindquake Survivor)

I spent probably a good 15 minutes setting up the situation, describing how each PC is connected to Keleri Deverin and why they're doing what they're doing. It was a bit awkward, but I think I managed to weave everyone's background in and set up some future things too. I wasn't entirely sure how to officially start the adventure so I revealed the cistern, placed the characters within and asked everyone what their Exploration tactics were. I had to be pretty direct about it because it wasn't really a natural segway to go from "here you are at the entrance" to "what are you doing?" I imagine the answer would have been "Go inside" which would've been useless for Exploration mode and to determine how the Sewer Ooze encounter begins. So I took another couple minutes out of game to describe Exploration Tactics. Would've been nice to have a smoother way to introduce the Exploration mode.

Sewer Ooze:
H decided his goblin alchemist would sneak to the entrance, M had his wizard detect magic, I had my druid raise her shield in defense and W wanted to do the same but his dwarf was using his dwarven waraxe two-handed so there wasn't really a tactic to apply to him.

I asked everyone for their Perception DC, since no one was using a tactic that uses Perception, and rolled Stealth for the ooze. It succeeded against everyone so I ruled that the group moved to the point where the ooze would attack, and then had everyone roll initiative. H and the ooze rolled stealth, everyone else rolled perception. The ooze got its area attack off, affecting half the party (ate up a total of 3 in-combat actions spent de-hampering), got ganged up on, got another round of attacks in before falling. I noted that a power attacking fighter does a crazy amount of damage! W's fighter was doing 2d12+4!

We partially abandoned Exploration Mode after this (I know, we dropped it rather fast right?) because H wanted to stealth ahead of the group to scout out dangers ahead. It didn't feel right to just move everyone as a group and give H the *amazing*(sarcasm) benefit of rolling Stealth for initiative when the group met up with the next enemy. So I just defaulted to the round-by-round movement with stealth checks across the map as H scouted ahead. I have no idea if this is something Exploration Mode is supposed to gloss over or hand-wave but I saw no real way of giving H the chance to locate, identify the enemy, and report back without doing round-by-round movement like we were in Encounter Mode. Maybe I could've just had him roll 1 stealth against the perception DC of the goblins (which I set to 10 since they were distracted) and given him all the information he wanted... but he also wanted to scout those side rooms. I wasn't sure what to do so we just defaulted back to what we would do in 1e.

Mudchewer Central:
Eventually, W blundered into the room and rolled really low on his stealth so the goblins spotted the party and we rolled initiative (W and H rolled stealth, others perception). The combat went rather well. There was a good mixture of movement, taking cover, attacking, etc. We even dealt a little bit with the Light rules but fortunately, we had Light and Dancing Lights spells so it wasn't a hindrance. The goblins were defeated (the fighters 2d12+4 power attack feels like a lot compared to the wizards 1d6 produce flame) but not before I played up H's connection to them. H tried to get the goblins to not attack or just let the party pass but I made it clear that Drakus had an iron grip on the few remaining goblins.

They identified and avoided the fungus and spotted the centipedes in the rubble without triggering them so they moved straight to the fountain room.

Fountain:
Once they started moving around the dungeon again, I asked about Exploration tactics and got a round of "the same." They identified the pool as corrupted and did a couple of small tests on the water to see how it would react. In interacting with the water I gave them a perception check to spot the idol. They succeeded, fished the idol on of the water with a grappling hook and staff, and wanted to identify it. I ruled that it detected as magic since it contained 2 quasits and only released them under special circumstances. So M wanted to use the Identify Magic aspect of Arcana so I told him that he could but it would be an easier DC if he manipulated the object instead of just staring at it on the floor. He took the "bait" and unleashed the quasits.

Everyone rolled perception for this initiative. The quasits were a nice, short battle. The absence of Attack of Opportunity from everything but the fighter actually had a positive impact on the battle, in my opinion. Turns go faster as you don't have to worry as much about AoOs. M had a successful Color Spray spell on the quasits and we had a nice realization as to how useful level 1 spells could be even at high level and even if not heightened.

Picking the Lock:
H picks the lock on the southern door to Drakus after many attempts. He crit succeeded once, but then crit failed enough to erase those successes. He then tried to create an acid flask to melt the lock. I ruled that the acid was ineffective because steel has a hardness of at least 5 so 1d4 acid damage can't dent it. So he went back to picking, and rolled a success followed by a crit success and the door popped open (probably a total of 20 rolls, all said and done)

Choking Sands and Rules Conundrum:
H scouts ahead again, rolling both stealth and perception (again, I can't find a reason his character couldn't do this... it would feel like forcing a cruel, overly game-y not realistic mechanic) he doesn't spot the statue trap, triggers it, and the damage knocked him unconscious inside the damage area. I had the rest of the group roll initiative to see in what order they react to this event, and had H go last. My druid stabilized him, and W ran in to grab him and drag him out. W took a deep breath before running into the choking sands, and I ruled that this gave him a +2 to the save vs the trap. However, the trap only does damage if a PC starts their turn in the area. So W could have moved in, grabbed H, and moved out without taking any damage if he hadn't wasted an action taking a deep breath. This felt almost like a punishment for a reasonable action. The trap should probably do damage if you move into it as well.

At the start of H's turn we had a conundrum. He was Stabilized by my druid, but also in a damage area. Both the Fort save for being unconscious at 1 hp and the trap damage occur at start of turn... so would he make his Dying save first (he's unconscious at 1 hp), become conscious, then take damage from the trap and drop again? Or would he take damage first, drop back to 0 hp and make a Fort save to become stabilized at 1 HP? I ruled the first option so he just dropped back to 0 again.

W only had 1 Bulk left before becoming encumbered so I ruled that picking H up made him encumbered. But, he's a dwarf and the trap isn't very big so that wasn't a problem for him at all. H stabilized, regained consciousness and healed himself. Then the trap finished and starting the 1 minute resetting process. So party decided to press on quickly as it reset.

W went up to Drakus' door, checked it for traps, found out that it was stuck, and popped it open with ease.

This is where the chaos begins.

Crazy Whack=a-Mole Drakus Fight:
Drakus wins initiative, runs up to W who was just inside the door (having pushed through it) and attacks. W is very hurt. H runs in, takes the Attack of Opportunity, prepares a healing potion for W, and then is knocked out by the rat. My druid cast Fear on Drakus, which stuck but didn't end up helping much at all. M summoned a stirge which ended up mostly being a distraction for Drakus.

W lands a solid blow on Drakus, but gets knocked out on Drakus' turn. The stirge takes the heat from Drakus' next turn and H regains consciousness, but then drops to the rat again.

Eventually, the rat dies, the stirge dies, and Drakus turns his attention to the wizard and druid.

Meanwhile, H has died from failing Fort saves (he spent his 2 Hero Points on a reroll early in the session and refused a 3rd I tried to give him retroactively for running into the room with Drakus to try and heal W)

Drakus hits my druid who swings with her club instead and misses. Drakus' next round drops my druid and he advances on M.

We thought a TPK was quick to follow but boy were we wrong. W makes the Fort save to gain consciousness, gets his weapon, and stands up. Then Drakus drops M and advances on the now-awake W.

What happens after this is confusing to describe. But try to imagine a game of keep away with Drakus running back and forth from PC to PC as they regain consciousness and he beats them back down and then runs to next PC that has regained consciousness. Eventually, W woke up, played dead, and killed Drakus with an AoO as the boss ran by to attack someone else.

During this final battle, W dropped to 0 HP THREE times (used Hero Point once to avoid death), and H, M, and my druid dropped to 0 HP TWICE each. H died :(

It's a DC 17 to stabilize or regain consciousness if you've been knocked out by Drakus. I'd say we had some lucky rolls to keep popping back up and it was weird that we kept regaining consciousness in that weird pattern. It was like a song being sung in a round - Get knocked out, gain Dying 1, stabilize, gain consciousness, remove Dying 1, Get knocked out, gain Dying 1, repeat. On the plus side, I'm pretty fluent in these Dying rules...

The End:
Since it was 4 hours into our session, I hand-waved most of the rest. The other goblins in the cave ran away when Drakus was killed, and the PCs looted the Shrine to Pharasma and Drakus' lair, returned the items to the people of Magnimar and received their magic item rewards. I dropped some serious hints about the Notes on the Last Theorem and the importance of the Esoteric Order and called it a night.

Big questions::

  • Exploration mode is a little clunky. H kept wanting to sneak and keep an eye out for traps and I saw no reason not to let him. I didn't want to just hand-wave all the exploration and discovery of things based on one roll inbetween combat but maybe that's the intention of the rules... Or maybe the Exploration rules are more for longer term/distance travel and its ok to do round-by-round in a small dungeon.
  • If you do d12+4 with your weapon and you crit a power attack, do you do 3d12+8 or 4d12+8?
  • In what order do "start of turn" effects occur? Dying saves vs constant damage, for example.

Player-specific Impressions:
  • W: Seemed to enjoy the big damage numbers even at first level. Power attack seems powerful, but a useful mechanic that provides player choice.
  • H: Not super thrilled with the Alchemist class, seems conflicted on how to best spend Resonance. Would probably appreciate having something special or unique to do that doesn't cost Resonance (like a caster's cantrip or fighter's Power Attack)
  • M: Wizard is his favorite class in any game and he especially loves that his wizard can wear armor at higher levels. At first level, though, the spells were somewhat powerful but always in non-damage ways (like debuffing or battlefield control). Decided to use his crossbow over a cantrip after a while (not sure why)
    EDIT: M's own feedback: A LOT of spells that used to be conjuration have been moved to Evocation. Acid spells and Glitterdust are now Evocation. Makes it a bit harder to find spells to fill your school slot, when there is only 1 Conjuration cantrip.
  • My druid: Wild Claws provoking an AoO feels pretty bad and her healing was extremely lackluster (and I refused to spend both spell slots on Heal alone) but overall seems pretty useful. Also had abilities to help do things out of combat (scouting with pest form, for example) that I wouldn't want to do when I'm running the game as well.

Shadow Lodge

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Dragonriderje wrote:
At the start of H's turn we had a conundrum. He was Stabilized by my druid, but also in a damage area. Both the Fort save for being unconscious at 1 hp and the trap damage occur at start of turn... so would he make his Dying save first (he's unconscious at 1 hp), become conscious, then take damage from the trap and drop again? Or would he take damage first, drop back to 0 hp and make a Fort save to become stabilized at 1 HP? I ruled the first option so he just dropped back to 0 again.

In case you didn't find this, you did end up doing it correctly. P 304 in the Rulebook:

Quote:

Step 1: Start Your Turn

Many things happen automatically at the start of your turn, and it’s also a common point for tracking the passage of time for effects that last multiple rounds. Take the following steps, plus do anything else that is specified to happen at the start of your turn, in any order you choose.

• If you created an effect that lasts for a certain number of rounds, you reduce the number of rounds remaining. ...
• You can use free actions or reactions that have a trigger of “Your turn begins” or something similar.
If you’re dying or unconscious, attempt your recovery saving throw (see page 295).

Step 3: End Your Turn

Once you’ve done all the things you want to do with your actions, you reach the end of your turn. Take the following steps, plus resolve anything else specified to happen at the end of your turn, in any order you choose. You then pass play to the next character in the initiative order.
• End any effects that last until the end of your turn. ...
If you have a persistent damage condition, you take the damage at this point. You also attempt any saves for your afflictions at this time. Many other conditions change at the end of your turn, such as the frightened condition decreasing in severity.
• You can use free actions or reactions that have a trigger of “Your turn ends” or something similar.

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