| Pasquolli |
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I don't - and have never - run modules, so I put this here ran than one of the Playtest forums. On Wednesday I ran Session 1 with my regular group of players with the PF Playtest rules. I let each of my players make 2 characters so we could experience more of the new classes; that meant six total characters.
We had:
- Skree; a goblin paladin with the criminal background (and an interesting backstory)
- Ikey; a dwarven druid with the acrobat background (and the reason for the name of the first session)
- Selekiir; a half-elven alchemist with the noble background
- Armnik Hjolgron; A dwarven rogue with the farmhand background
- Tybilt; a gnomish bard with the entertainer background
- Skratch; a goblin monk with the warrior background
I set the game in the Realms, on the Dragon Coast. The 3.0 FRCS is one of my favorite books ever and I run most of my D&D and PF games there. I think I've even run GURPS in the Realms. I've even considered running SotDL and WoD there. Anyway.
The heroes each arrived separately in Elversult and saw a help wanted poster to clear some vermin out of a warehouse. Having spent all of their money on traveling expenses, this seemed promising to them.
Skree, the goblin paladin, had a conversion that morning under mysterious circumstances. He was a paladin of Girru, an Untherian god who had been killed some 300 years prior in the Orcgate Wars. So quite mysterious indeed. When he arrived, he tried to seek out the highest authority in the area (his MO). He also tried to ascertain whether his new Code of Conduct allowed him to burn things. In general he was rather grouchy about suddenly being LG.
He asked the wrong guy for directions to the closest authority. The guy, a grungy vagabond, followed him with the intent to pounce him in a dark alley. The player's other character, Ikey, saw the interaction and sent his pet dinosaur to stalk after the ruffian. The paladin finally turned around and saw the hoodlum, and then the dinosaur. The villain likewise turned and saw the dinosaur. It was a comical situation. He fled. After that Skree and Ikey ventured on together. The office of the local authorities was closed.
Selekiir and Armnik arrived at the warehouse first, Robillard's Brewing and Shipping. Robillard had been a successful brewer and bar owner in Teziir but decided that crime was too rampant there, so he moved to Elversult and started a brewing and shipping business. He had a large warehouse full of kegs and other goods directly next to a large pub. The warehouse was infested with giant rats.
Robillard explained that the last batch of "heroes" who'd come to eliminate the squeaky pests had met an untimely demise. He suggested that Selekiir and Armnik go in the bar and have a drink on him until more folks arrived.
Tybilt and Skratch arrived next. The player playing these two characters isn't big on backstories. We decided that Tybilt, the gnomish bard, is a herald for Skratch. So the other characters eventually got to hear all about Skratch's supposed heroics. The two wanted to dive right into the warehouse, but after noting their short statures, Robillard suggested they go wait in the bar as well.
Skree and Ikey arrived last. In the bar there were also two scraggly locals who'd seen the posters, so there were a total of 8 people ready to venture into the warehouse. Robillard explained that the rats had sneaked in via a tunnel they'd burrowed under the floor and that they were drinking his beer. He offered 1 gold coin per dead rat.
Skree attempted to order ten cocktails at once. Robillard told him not to abuse the free drinks. Besides, he didn't think a goblin could hold his liquor. So Skree took his one cocktail and... held it. For most of the session.
Both Selekiir, the alchemist, and Skree asked if fire was OK. The barrels were fire retardant, but Robillard preferred they didn't test them. This didn't stop either of them in the least later on. While they were talking the two locals, chagrined at having to share the pot with so many, sneaked out and went into the warehouse by themselves.
The characters got to enjoy listening to their death cries as the locals were devoured by rats. On that promising note, they headed in themselves.
I had intended for the players to search between the crates and have the rats jump in and out of the shadows to attack. However, with six characters, and half of them readying actions on their turns, the rats would've been killed before they could run off back into the shadows (they each only had 8 hp). As well it would've been too much of a hassle moving in and out of encounter/exploration mode. It's something I would've been more comfortable doing in PF1E. One of the drawbacks with the new 3 action system is that I don't want to deprive the players of the opportunity to use all 3 actions meaningfully.
As a result, after the first rat leapt out, the remaining rats came on fast and furious (staggered somewhat). I did take advantage of their climb speed to put them on top of the stacks of kegs, making it a little more challenging for the melee characters.
Some on this forum have complained that the monsters have too high of a to-hit bonus. However, I was glad that the monsters hit often and gave the players a reason to fear. In previous versions, a pile of giant rats would have been too easy. I was also happy to see that none of the characters could one-shot the rats, despite their low hitpoints, except for the monk, who managed to punt a rat off the top of the barrels for 12 damage.
Half the damage the characters took was splash damage from the alchemist's bombs, which I thought was hilarious. At one point we thought he'd just cursed two of the characters to a horrible death by dissolving acid, until we rechecked the book and saw that the splash damage is not ongoing. Phew!
Several of the characters caught filth fever, which is delicious. One of the characters fumbled his save. I put him directly at Stage 2 of the disease. One of the players argued this, but he changed his mind when he saw Filth Fever didn't have an onset (as some of the poisons do). In any case I think the rules should clarify this point (on the very first save). They finally managed to kill all of the rats.
They searched the warehouse and looted the bodies of those the rats had killed. They also discovered the tunnel. It had existed under the warehouse before, and the rats had only had to do a little bit of digging to get in. Skree climbed down and lobbed his cocktail down the tunnel, then blasted it with a Fire Ray (champion power). BTW, it took me forever just now to figure out how to find the champion powers.
I had more planned for the session, but we ran out of time. The combat took a long time. Part of that was due to the three action system; the players spent more time considering what they could do. Hopefully it'll get faster with practice. Other fun things happened throughout the session but this is enough.
I asked the players for their comments about the new system:
- They remarked that multiple attacks seemed pointless, due to the large penalties. With 3 actions per round, sometimes the only option was to keep attacking.
- The Ready a Shield action seems silly.
- One of the players complained about "Ready an Action" costing two actions. This didn't bother me personally though.
- It was unclear whether animals got multiple attacks with all of their weapons. For example, the dinosaur had a bite and claw attack. Can it do both in one action? We decided they didn't get free multiple attacks, but I still think it needs clarification. Perhaps an animal can use a second action with a different natural weapon without the -5 penalty.
- The player who played the Alchemist had originally planned to play a Sorcerer but changed his mind. The basic consensus was that "sorcerers suck". I've seen that reflected on this forum.
- The players complained about some fighting styles (eg. two-weapon fighting) being locked from most classes. The rogue in particular would've liked more options. You can do this with archetype feats, but it would take a while. The players in general didn't like the idea of "class feats". In FFSW for example, you can buy cross-career talents for just a little more cost. It would be nice to be able to buy "cross-class" feats somehow (more easily than with the current archetypes).
- The player with the monk complained about how many different stats the monk needed (though this has been a challenge in every version).
- The issue with Resonance Points for Alchemists came up (as it has elsewhere on this forum). I also brought up the issue with Bulk for Alchemists, though for this particular game I've decided to hand-wave the bulk issue.
- The dwarven druid acrobat rolled his Circus Lore every chance he got during the game, because he's funny like that. At the end of the game the player said, what's the point of the skill?! Some of the lore skills are clearly more useful than others.
As I've mentioned, the 3 action system can get bogged down sometimes. Each player wants to be able to maximize what he does. Perhaps a basic action can be added that gives a player a +1 on their next roll, something like "wait for an opening". It was a pain to have so many players readying actions because it gave them an excuse to use up 2 actions.
Despite the complaints we had a blast, but then we do no matter what system we use. I generally handwave and bullsh*t most systems I run, simply because I run so many. But the playtest has feats and abilities that depend on the exploration rules, etc. which forces you to be more strict. I also don't use miniatures, and the increased focus on distance and movement (each ancestry has a different movement) made it more exhausting to track the positions of the heroes and monsters. Again, if one player has 5 or 10 feet extra movement, I don't want to shortchange him (it reminds me too much of 4E's focus on movement and position).
By comparison the last system I ran was Shadows of the Demon Lord. I spent all of 5 minutes looking at that book and never used it again. I didn't even use the monsters in the book. It was the lazy GM's paradise. PF1E was pretty forgiving of hand-waving as well. Some of the new rules in the playtest almost felt like an excuse to inflate feats. For example the ability to search for traps "for free" from the Trapfinding feat is only useful given the strict Exploration rules. In the previous version a player could say "I'm going to scout ahead", which meant he or she was looking for traps and monsters while moving silently. Now I have to say, "ok, which ONE of those three things are you doing?" I get that the new rules allow more players to be engaged in exploration. But in general, a player plays a rogue because he or she WANTS to roll lots of skills, and a player plays a fighter because he or she just wants to smash things. It's not necessary to force the fighter to look for monsters because the rogue is busy looking for traps.
Perhaps a better option than fatigue is to give a character a stacking penalty for each additional action they perform in exploration.
Thanks for reading!
| Pasquolli |
Session 2: The Hapless Bride
One of my players was out of the country, so this session only had four of the characters: Skree, Ikey, Selekir, and Armnik. In-game, the two other characters were bedridden, recovering from Filth Fever. Everyone else enjoyed two days of downtime.
- Skree finally located the local authority. They were charmed by his guilelessness, and offered him a job as a bounty hunter. This wasn't his goal, but he was happy to have a job. He spent his second day of downtime on the job. He failed his roll and only managed to find a missing dog (2 cp reward). There were actually two missing dogs, but he did a cost-benefit analysis and decided that a hearty meal was worth the cost of 2cp. To his credit, he returned the prettier dog to its owners.
- After reviewing the Downtime section in the book, we noticed with excitement that you could "stage a performance". Ikey spent a day advertising, then performed his circus act the following day at Robillard's. He was given the option of 1sp in pay, or a couple more days of free lodging for the party. He took the latter.
- Selekir spent the time trying to find someone he could buy alchemical recipes from, but failed.
- Armnik treated the two sick party members.
The rules indicate that a player has to spend 4 days finding a job of his or her level. I've completely ignored this. All it would accomplish is to force me to give the players more downtime. This would disproportionately benefit players who use their downtime to craft or something other than working. Plus it doesn't sound heroic to spend a week bumming around town.
On the third morning, while the party was having a late breakfast, a man in livery rushed into the common room. He looked around the bar and his eyes finally settled on the party. He hesitated, as the party consisted of non-humans (including a goblin) and the man was somewhat racist. An aside: It bothers me that D&D and Pathfinder wave away social issues in favor of monsters and more monsters; social issues make for great RPing. It's another reason I like FRCS, as it indicates the diversity acceptance of various cultures. In any case, they were the man's best choice and he approached the table. He explained to them that his employer was in urgent need of some heroes. He couldn't share the details as it was a matter of some delicacy. They pressed him, but he said they would have to speak to his master for the quest. They hesitated - players always suspect traps - but finally acquiesced and followed him to his master's wealthy estate.
The players were getting some flak from the guy (Balt) but Selekir, the half-elf noble, gave him a stern talking-to, which smoothed out Balt's behavior going forward. The owner of the home, Merek, was a successful merchant. While they waited on Merek, they encountered his wife, Alys. From her panicked remarks they gathered that their daughter had been kidnapped. Finally they met with Merek.
He explained that his daughter had been kidnapped the previous evening and that the kidnapper demanded a ransom delivered by 4pm at a particular location ("Fountain Square"). Word of the situation would harm his status and position, so he didn't want to recruit the city guard. The characters had been at the right place at the right time (Robillard's was the third pub Balt had checked). The players asked if they could search his house and grounds for clues. He hesitated, but agreed, with Balt and a houseguard as chaperones. The chaperones would prove prudent, as Skree's goblin nature got the best of him and he would get fascinated by fireplaces and stoves.
There was a language barrier dealing with the maids and cooks, who were clearly indentured servants (likely from Mulhorand), but the party gathered that Merek's daughter, Millicent, had a secret boyfriend. They immediately suspected that the ransom was a ploy perpetrated by the two. Two of the characters went into Millicent's room, where they found that her wardrobe had been largely emptied. They also discovered a stack of romance novels, indicating her fantasy of being swept away by a romantic hero. One of the characters sneaked away from the group and spoke more with Alys (the mother). Without making any admissions, she said that "if" her daughter had sneaked away with an "alleged" boyfriend, that he wasn't high enough status for her daughter. The player said, "well that turned dark." I think he was expecting the mother to support her daughter's right to marry for love (I sure showed him!). The remaining player, the goblin, talked at length with the head chef about the proper way to cook meat, "you have to put it directly into the fire, so that the outside is charred and crispy and the inside is raw and bloody."
After that, half the party sought out Millicent's best friend, Ayleth (who they learned about in their interviews). Ayleth verified the secret boyfriend and lended support to the ransom being a ploy for Millicent and her boyfriend to run off together on her father's dime. The other half of the party stayed behind to inspect the grounds around the manor. Due to the new exploration rules, they got fewer rolls then I would have normally granted, and they overlooked a clue. It wasn't a critical clue, but nevertheless the strictly defined Exploration rules do feel somewhat limiting. Even so, I've caught myself bending them fairly often. There was another possible clue that Ayleth gave the players, but they had spent a lot of time at the house and didn't have enough time to pursue it if they wanted to make it to Fountain Square early.
They got to the ransom drop-off point with an hour to spare and spent some time inspecting the area. They tried to be subtle, but a hidden lookout did notice at least one of them at some point. Armnik, the Dwarven rogue, rolled a critical success on his stealth to move in the alleys around the square. He encountered a figure whittling behind a trinket shop. He rolled well on perception and realized the figure was only pretending to whittle. He was well-armed and keeping a lookout on the square. We retroactively decided that alternating between "sneaking" and "perceiving" didn't break the exploration rules, though it feels clumsy to have to come up with excuses for doing such a common activity. Throughout the session, the Exploration rules became a running joke (eg. "Looking and thinking about the things you see is exhausting!").
One of the characters went off to buy a chest to fill with rocks to serve as fake ransom. Armnik stayed hidden where he was. The others sought a building north of the square to hide and keep an eye on things (based on the clue from Ayleth, they suspected that the kidnappers would head north). They found a tailor shop. The seamstress let them come in on the condition that Skree would buy a proper outfit (which he was all too happy to do). By this point they had ascertained that there were at least two figures in hiding watching the square and that they were communicating with bird whistles. The chest was placed at the fountain, and 3 characters regrouped at the tailor shop; Armnik remained hidden by himself.
A figure casually entered the square, circled once, approached the fountain, and took the chest, bundling it in a cloak (he would later be identified as "Bill"). He then headed Northwest. The figure Armnik was watching (let's call him Whittler) finally left his position. Armnik followed Whittler and stopped him in the street to question him. Whittler attacked. There were some acrobatics involved that made the fight interesting. Given the many skill feats, I likely was too generous with what they could achieve with base Acrobatics, but I chose cinematic fun over strict rule-following. I've seen discussion on the forum about how the Devs took things one could normally do with a skill and bundled them away into skill feats. I can understand the desire to inflate the feat count while reducing their benefit, but in practice it makes it cumbersome (and less fun) to dictate how the players can use their skills. Whittler was killed, tumbling off a second floor railing.
The remaining players left the tailor shop and headed west to intercept Bill. Bill headed down an alley and the party split up to hit both ends of the alley. They converged in the alley but couldn't find him, but did spot a sewer grating beneath their feet. Armnik caught up with them at this point. They headed down into the sewers. Skree headed down into the sewers first and was immediately shot by a rogue (who used a readied action; a clumsy but acceptable way to handle Surprise). This was a third man who had been watching the square who the players had never spotted. Bill was 20 feet North of them in the tunnel, moving slowly due to the weight of the chest. The crossbowman was 30ft South, reloading his crossbow. The players rolled initiative, each using their first action to get into the tunnel.
Selekir, the alchemist, lobbed an acid potion at Bill and hit. Bill immediately dropped and spent the remainder of the fight rolling around in a panic. Even with active effort, ending the ongoing effect of acid takes a flat 15 roll, which I feel is too powerful at lower levels. The crossbowman managed to survive a little bit due to his distance to do some more damage, but they finally dispatched him. That left only Bill "alive" for questioning. Selekir had to use up two healing potions to keep Bill conscious long enough for him to succeed at a flat check against the Acid. I've never seen the players so on the edge of their seats hoping a bad guy will survive. Bill was deeply fearful of the party and told them everything they wanted to know.
Millicent and her boyfriend had indeed concocted the ransom scheme. A local rogue's guild "The Palms", characterized by a tattoo on their palms, had caught wind of the scheme. They got pi$$ed that someone was "working" on their turf, not to mention they wanted the windfall for themselves. Bill said that Millicent and her boyfriend were being held by his boss in a building along the river to the north. Bill and his now-dead associates had been tasked with watching the square and collecting the ransom, after which Millicent would ostensibly be released. Bill refused to share details about The Palms, saying they could do things worse than death by acid, though the players suspected The Palms was connected to more powerful guilds in Westgate. Bill lead them to the hideout.
He told them that the only rogue at the hideout was his boss, so everyone including Bill were surprised when they encountered two guards at the doors. It was a quick fight, though Skree did get knocked down to 2 HP. As I mentioned in the Session 1 recap, I like that the battles are short but lethal. However, the way this is done is by inflating the proficiencies of the monsters while giving them low hit points. Most of the low level monsters are glass cannons. It makes for a weird dynamic, and as mentioned elsewhere on this forum, the monster's bonuses don't connect to their stats in any meaningful way. One of my players, who owns a python in RL, looked it up in the Bestiary, and discovered that it could easily kill any of them. We had a good laugh about this. In general, the monsters' abilities are based purely on their level. This makes sense in terms of game balance, but requires too much of a suspension of disbelief. Bill escaped during the battle.
The party managed to evade two hazards at the entrance of the building; the rogue's Trap Finder feat saved the day here. The first time, I had already decided the trap was activated (poison on the door knob) until the player remembered that he had Trap Finder. The second time (tripwire) I told him to roll, seeing as I now remembered his feat. While the feat makes sense given the laborious Encounter rules, it's cumbersome on the GM. I much prefer players requiring the foresight to look for traps without having a "oh but wait..." loophole. Some may argue that a player should announce that he or she is searching for traps, even if it's a "free" action. However, my player spent a feat on Trap Finder, and we're new to the game, so I wasn't going to deny him the opportunity to use it meaningfully.
The players got inside and spotted Millicent. The boss was standing behind her with a knife at her throat. Her boyfriend, a handsome half-orc (or as handsome as half-orcs can get) was bruised and tied to a chair. The boss demanded that they set down the chest (which they had reclaimed from Bill) and leave. He wasn't interested in conversation. Skree, ever the forthright paladin, set down the chest. The boss instructed him to open it. Skree opened it. The boss, angry, demanded for him to turn it around so he could see inside. The players were buying time, but it was clear they had no plan. Finally I tossed them a bone. At the last second, the half-orc boyfriend tipped his chair over to collide with the boss. This broke the boss's readied action to cut Millicent's throat. The players quickly interceded.
The boss activated a trapdoor and slipped out of the building. He managed to get away, but not before the alchemist smacked him with an acid potion. They didn't know if he made it out alive. The players decided that they would return Millicent to her father for their reward, along with the bodies of the rogues as proof that they slew the kidnappers. They would leave the boyfriend out of it. Millicent complained, saying she couldn't get away from her dad without the ransom money. The players suggested she pawn of her jewelry. In any case the adventure ended and they got their reward, with a promise of potential future work. Hooray!
The characters advanced to level two. The alchemist took Far Lobber, which makes a lot of sense. The other player was disappointed at the selection of Skill Feats. As an example we looked at Quick Leap, which makes a character.... better at jumping. This feat would very rarely make a difference. I told the player that basically, if he were to take it, it would allow him to pursue an opponent across a chasm (or something like that) with one fewer action than the opponent (in a very hand-wavy way). The difference in movement between ancestries is already forcing me to pay more attention to distances in combat (which is OK). A feat like Quick Leap would require specifying the height and width of pretty much every pit and obstacle in an encounter which is excessive. If I ran modules and used battlemats, fine. But I don't. Again, this is too much like 4E. If I wanted to use maps and tape measures, I would play Necromunda or X-Wing.
Notes:
- Downtime. I like the idea of downtime, and the table of Skill Income is great. I will however never use the suggested time for "finding a job". Also, it appears time-consuming for Alchemists to find recipes.
- Exploration. I generally limited the players to one thing during Exploration, which worked out alright for the most part. Nevertheless, the rules seem onerous and were the butt of many jokes.
- Encounters. I run my games fast and loose. I'm very busy and the only preparation I do for games is during commutes. I don't have maps or figurines or even well-defined environments. The strict movement and distance rules slow down encounters as they force me to make up distances, which disrupts the fast-paced action. Flanking is great. Two guys fighting the same monster? Flanked. But when we're dealing with range increments and movement speeds that can be 20, 25, or 30 feet, it becomes a pain (if I want to be fair to the players, which I do). On the plus side, the three-action system worked better this session. Perhaps we will get used to stricter distances as well.
- Languages. PF2 makes languages harder to acquire. I don't like "Common" because it's boring (it's just a trade language anyway). The characters all speak Chondathan, but there are dozens of languages in the Realms. Language barriers are fun. Only knowing a couple of languages is not. When a character knows 5 languages and an NPC knows 3, part of the fun is finding the one they share (Giant it is!).
- Skills and skill feats. This is going to be a big challenge for me. I like for players to be creative with their skills, to make for more exciting encounters. I haven't really explored the skill feats, and I don't intend to. I don't want to have a reason to further limit the players. Once they start getting skill feats, I will find meaningful ways to take advantage of them. Until then, I won't hamstring what they can do. I may be setting myself up for trouble if the players say, "you let me do all this stuff already; why do I need to take a skill feat?" I'll likely have to houserule that they can take a general feat instead (which breaks the balance but oh well).
- The players got a shield as part of their treasure haul. After reexamining the rules, we decided "Ready a Shield" wasn't as bad, since it offers a soak.
- We couldn't find anywhere in the rules as to whether monsters got 2 actions or 3. Animal Companions only get 2. I considered only giving 3 to "boss monsters", but finally decided to give 3 to all monsters (otherwise all those glass cannons would be even easier to kill). Maybe I overlooked a rule somewhere.
- The Paladin was unimpressed with his higher-level options.
As usual we had loads of fun. This is true of any system we choose though. I can run anything (though Shadowrun is tough; that system is not hand-wave friendly). The choice of system really is about allowing the players to make interesting characters that satisfy their visions of that character with sufficient "crunch" (for those players who like it). The parts of the playtest I like best (eg. Skill Income) can easily be stolen and applied to different games. At this point I don't see going back to this system after we complete the current adventure unless the final product is different. The flat level-based bonuses and inconsequential feats, among other things, aren't fun enough for the players. The overpowered monsters are frustrating.
Thanks!