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Tried this adventure twice, once as a player and once as GM. Telling now how it fells and plays.
Group1 (where i was a player):
Human polearm fighter (furious focus and sudden charge both available)
Halfling cleric of Abadar (with healing hands feat, battle medic and nature’s medicine, totally crucial for group’s survivability)
Elf evoker wizard (with an advanced familiar for scouting. Scouting still works bad it seems)
Gnome rogue (dread striker, using first world magic for ray of frost sneak attacks)
Notice on character creation part: ready-made basic kits are a necessity, as well as a clearer explanation of what is a 1st-level item (is normal healer’s kit 1st level? Or spyglass?).
At Lady Vord’s the fighter got his +1 glaive, and that was a shock. First “I wasted money on an expert one and now need to sell it for half-price?”, then from others “an extra weapon dice? Lol ,we going to cause next to no dps compared to that”. Last part turned to be frustratingly true, except for certain interesting exceptions.
Survival checks The GM did not make clear how our Survival checks were actually affecting the travel, so we just rolled and moved on. No “game experience” here. We did not use camels then, since were not sure on how riding works, especially during exploration.
Hyaenas and ankhrav fights. GM did not feel like making any tactical maps on the fly, so we just played both encounters without map, using verbal descriptions. That kills most tactical options, so it was “hit-miss-hit-kill, how many lost hit points we have to heal?”. With ankhrav the GM had additional problems, he believed the quicksand to be the ankhrav’s nest, so there was a confusion. We spotted the hazard in advance, so just have not interacted with it. Fighter with magical weapon did exceptionally well.
Gnoll camp. We spotted it from afar and evaded it. In my experience, such extra encounters get ignored a lot.
A treacherous climb Now this is the kind of hazard we liked! Failed at finding the path, did not want to waste time and went hard way, with cleric failing the Athletics check and getting damaged. Creates the “travel” feel.
Manticore A challenging fight! Wizard (acid arrow+magic missiles, had to use wand once or twice) and cleric (spiritual weapon) both turned to be the main dps in this fight, with rogue and fighter crying about the range - they could do little at the distance the manticore retreated to after each shot. The manticore caused some havoc and damage with its tail shots and eventually immobilized fighter. Then it landed to get rid of the wizard it absolutely hated by that moment and took him to 0 hit points in a couple of hits (think one of them was a crit). Cleric and rogue finished the manticore, cleric got some wounds, while fighter lost some time getting mobile again. Overall, that was a long yet fun fight. We healed up and continued.
Gnolls at the dead end. Had a fight, did not make a sincere attempt to negotiate. The glaive-wielding fighter was the king again, while the wizard who tried using flaming sphere (all gnoll saves against it were successes, very frustrating), had to use invisibility and hide midfight, because gnolls just kept hitting him as an easy target. After that fight, we could not heal up fully, spell casters were exhausted, we used one healing potion… all called for rest.
Entrance We searched for the secret entrance, found the lever… and assumed our perception checks should have given us information if there is a trap. Well, GM believed we should have rolled even more dice, so BOOM. Some damage on the rogue who manipulated the lever, the cleric heals him up and we are in. We went the right hand way, so lava room was next. After looking at the lava flows (not exactly sweet place for diving) and finding no passages forth or monsters (flying familiar just checked it all briefly, with no good luck on Perception checks), we just skipped the room and went for the puzzle.
Locking Device. Made a few attempts to solve, only to discover that a DC 24 check is not enough. Tried to bump around a bit, exploring more. The map was confusing, for it showed passage to the maze beyond the secret door as open, and GM did not find the “secret door DC 29” thing in the text fast enough. Basically, we had to playback and decided “we did not found it and never got into that maze”. Still not attracted enough to explore the lava and the water room, we came back for the wheels and just spent 2 days camping there and struggling with the DC 25 checks. Were almost out of foodstuffs and very angry. Eventually we succeeded and went for the next room… at least we were well-rested and with full spell allotment. That was day 9 already.
Mummy room. Easy fight, except that rogue got mummy rot. We did not rescue Mabar; instead we found the secret door and entered the tomb room. Located the tapestry with the detect magic, the rogue covered it successfully, we looted everything and rushed away, back into wilderness.
GM declared the Night Heralds can’t catch up with us. While they were only a few hours behind, they had one of them moving at the speed of 15… not exactly a way to outspeed us, even with some encumbrance. We handwaved the adventurers escaped safely, but decided just to play the fight to see what would happen if Night Heralds caught us in the evening while cooking dinner…
A true extreme challenge fight, very deadly. Could be easier with Mabar around, of if we had prepared a trappy killzone, or if we kept kiting Henah instead of engaging her in melee at all. The way it was, we nearly TPKed - 2 characters dropped to 0 hp, only one of them made a recovery roll, out of spells, used up some items… basically one more crit or good hit from the enemies, and the group is done. This is a good example of an encounter adventurers are better to avoid or prepare well in advance.
Overall, it felt like “would not be doable without good clerical healing”, “magical weapons overshadow their wielders with bland numerical bonuses”, “wizards are cool”, “dread striker+sneak attack is a great rogue option, but not against bosses and manticores”.
Going to continue the story, next time about the group I GMed.
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Group 2, where I GMed. The group was intentionally created as “gimp” group, to test some classes and build we felt were suspicios
Halfling divine sorcerer (demon bloodline). Planned to use halfling staff sling, changed mind midway and just went for spiritual weapon in all fights. Never used the bloodline power at all. His heals were weak compared to clerical, was just a back up for the alchemist with elixirs. Healed primarily the barbarian who had too few RPs to subsist on elixirs while getting loads of damage.
Goblin X-bow ranger. Poor at survival, very moderate in shooting. Had good thievery, good even as non-signature skill. 3 class feats to improve crossbow shooting to make it playable , but low damage overall.
Dwarf spirit totem barbarian. With dwarven waraxe and composite long bow as backup weapon. A truly powerful build (except at range), eats heal
Human alchemist, with wizard dedication and basic spellcasting. Made 12 lesser elixirs of life every morning; could do more (had 9 RPs), but that’s where groups RPs become a limitation. Overall, a good source of heal-ups between fights. Had medicine and battle medic too, critically failed the first 2 attempts and never used that option again.
At Lady Vord’s Pretty much the same cutscene. “What, so my expert dwarven axe was a waste? Wait, 2d12+4 now, without rage?… just follow behind guys, and keep me healed!”
Survival checks Felt like having too little impact for the adventure to be worth trouble.
Hyaenas and ankhrav Hyaena fight us where I told PLAYERS to make the map! Keeps me free for other things I need to do as GM, and keeps the players involved. Resulted in a fun combat, a bit easy (but guess it is supposed to be). Ankhrav map was tougher, since putting “hidden” hazards onto maps is always inconvenient. The adventurers noticed the hazard in time and did not get in trouble, yet the encounter overall felt bland.
Gnoll camp Again , the group ignored it.
Treacherous slope. This time, they found the safe path, so it did not fell really hazardous.
Manticore As a GM, <i>no way</i> I allow a flying creature to “stealthily” approach the group in the open-air mountaneous surroundings, especially when game rules prohibit PCs to sneak if they have no cover at the end of their turn.
The fight itself was fun with sorcerer mauling the beast with spriritual weapon, barbarian and ranger using their bow and x bow
A normally-melee barbarian with a 1d8+2 composite bow and couple of shots per round beats a pro-Xbow ranger with 3 ranged feats and just one shot per round for 1d10 damage (on hunted target). The ranger had better hit rating, but not drastically. Ranged rangers need more love.
The manticore causes way more trouble when splitting attacks between 2 targets than when trying to immobilize one. After 5 rounds of combat, it checked its health and just retreated, never showing again. No PC went down in this fight. The alchemist made an attempt to quick-alchemy a poison and use it on ranger’s crossbow bolt, but the manticore just made the save.
Zakfah and gnolls The group made an attempt to negotiate, but they could not prove that manticore is dead (it was alive, after all), and the gnolls attacked. A painful fight resulted with gnolls concentrating their attacks well, both the alchemist went to 0 health at some point (used hero points), the group almost died. The barbarian made the recovery roll, gulped a potion and actually came back to finish the fight (which is a rare thing: normally, a character that drops to 0 health stays put until the end of fight).
Predictably, the group rested after this fight, spending the remaining RPs to gulp healing elixirs. Nex t day, the ranger successfully disarmed the trapped door lever and the group continued into the tomb.
Chamber of Sunken stones They went left hand, found this room, noticed the water elemental but not the earth elemental) and decided to engage.
This is one of the places where I found the initiative system working wrong: the stealth-based initiative doesn’t change, whether you notice the enemy or not. I would love some rules changes, like adding bit flat initiative bonus to all participants who are not seen at the beginning of the encounter. At current rules, ambushing just does too little.
The elementals attacked after I let the group reach the first island. The fight was tactically fun and athletically challenging, with water elemental pushing opponents (namely, the sorcerer who stood at a wrong place and the raging barbarian who kept trying to engage the elemental in melee) into water and making them struggle with Athletics checks. Noone drowned, it was mostly action losses for them. Loved the earth elemental mechanics “crumble into the ground” mechanics, they let it reposition very tactically. No character got close to 0 health, but they sure have spent some resources. They got both elemental gems and spent some time using natural medicine options and identifying the items.
Locking device The two gems made first two checks very easy, but the rest of the puzzle proved to be the painful DC 25. The characters checked the lava room, shuddered at the idea “having same amount of forced bathing, just in lava instead of water” and decided to skip more elemental fighting. They rolled way luckier than the previous group and managed to open the device in just 4 hours.
Mummy fight Yay, first and only time making alchemist fire with quick alchemy turned to be a useful option! Note that you need really high monster vulnerability for the trick to work. Overall, the fight is not dangerous, except that the sorcerer and the barbarian got mummy rot. The ranger felt like doing very little in this fight. After that, they freed Mabar and talked to him, having the janni open the secret door. They miserably failed at the first thievery attempt on the tapestry, so the raneger ended up frightened for 1 day. They happily looted the room and left with Mabar as a new friend. They had more than 2 days left until the Night Heralds’ arrival, so no way the poor NPCs (with speed of 15, remember) could catch up with them.
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Some general after-test thoughts:
The game has the 5-edition problems where non-proficient barbarians succeed at all the Knowledge checks that wizards fail, just because they roll better. Kills the feel of the characters being special, making them insanely generic. In this adventure, untrained clerics were better at Survival checks than trained rangers, for instance. I do not like that.
I absolutely love how much use there is for non-magical items and skills (Intimidate usable at combat! Nature usable for healing between fights! I like it). You actually have many reasons to bring healer kits, for instance, preferably more than one per group. It is the nonmagical part of the game that makes magic special. If all the decent option you use are magical, then magic is staple. If most characters actually use nonmagical stuff, magic feels way more like magic. I absolutely love the direction paizo is taking now , just need more steps that way I believe. Like, making magical weapons “special materials+properties” ones, while shifting extra damage dice toi the character’s martial training. Was unfun to see ranger begging the casters to cast the magic weapon on his crossbow, because without it the ranger can’t properly participate in a normal fight.
Initiative system feels unwieldy and poorly compatible with scouting results. If you notice an ambush in advance, that SHOULD have some mechanical effects.
I do not like different rules for monsters and PCS, particularly when they affect actions, not base stats. A manticore sneaking upon a group from air when the PCs are hard-limited on their stealth options? No.
The difference between spell healing and alchemic/potion healing is drastic resonance-wise. Right now, we are back to the situation when “no group goes adventuring without a cleric with Healing Hands and healing domain”. Playing with druidic and alchemic healers should be at least viable.
Barbarians nicely represent the old idea “never hits, but when hits, kills”. Very playable and gambly.
Spell lists, particularly the divine one, are a bit small. I know this part of the game is easiest to bloat later, but right now all divine casters use pretty much same tricks all the time, with no variety. Might become better at higher levels, still have to check.
Made one more solo-battle playtest with 3 toons (, to see how scaling works (fewer monsters, weakened monsters etc). Scaling seems to work very smooth, was no trouble except with traps and hazards. However, discovered one more bunch of things.
- Mounts/animal should get scared not at start of fight, but after enemies actually make any actions. Without that, you get panicking animals when PCs win initiative without seeing yet any of the stealthed opponents. So what exactly makes them frightened 4?
-Dragon stance monk ability to move through difficult terrain is OP (and it adds to the stance with the best damage die!)
- Would rather have Survival skill used for detecting natural hazards (like quicksands etc.) than Perception skills. For easy reference, such hazards could use a special Hazard DC rather than stealth (quicksands are not really making sneak actions after all). Make Survival matter, right now it does not (Perception rules all).
- Leaf order is THE healer druid specialization. Good stuff.
- First round actions often go for non-attack stuff: dismount, grab your weapon etc. I love it, saves from all-nova encounter starts.
- Better not design encounters assuming “PCs attack moving across the obstacles” or “PCs lose 2 hours skirting encounter” What if PCs just boldly walk by the encounter’s side never crossing the obstacles (let monsters do that part if they want) and move on without losing time? Description goes oops.
- Wondering now how monk stances work on flying monks. “Standing on one leg while folding your arms in an imitation of a crane’s wings” in an aerial combat, hmm
Re: Dragon Stance: I agree that these are nice perks. But there are a lot of incentives to go for one of the dex-to-hit styles, making it hard for Dragon Stance to compete without some nice perks to offset the cost of investing heavily in strength. So the nice features it gets are arguably necessary in order to make it a viable option.