We started in Pale Mountains Shadow yesterday and I wanted to share my experience. This time, we were 4 players, so all my careful preparation of added monsters was for nought! Joking aside, I do like the simple way to scale encounters and I had prepared 5 and 6 player versions within 15 minutes.
Our merry band of adventurers were:
Datlev, a flamingly gay elven Barbarian with the Cavalier dedication
Diani, aka Superkyra, on her trusted mount Kyra, a Sarenite Cleric with the healing domain and Cavalier Dedication
Grommosh, a supposedly shapeshifting dwarfen Druid with a Vine Leshy familiar
Darulf (?), who I consistently misread as Donut, a dwarfen Dragon Monk
All but Darulf are cornerstones of our Pathfinder Society and have been playtesting since Day 1.
We jumped into the introduction and right off the players were a tad confused about the +1 Handwraps of mighty Fists and the scroll of flight. I was even suspected of going easy on them due to the awful reports of deadly Manticores on the forums
We then got into an interesting discussion about travelling with minions. I am still unsure if companions and familiars can have their own Exploration mode tactics, but can see the arguments that they could, at least the intelligent ones.
Pg. 416 Minion trait
If given no commands, minions use no actions except to defend themselves or to escape obvious harm. If left unattended for at least 1 minute, mindless minions don’t act, whereas intelligent ones act as they please.
So, between this and the way Exploratoin tactics are done I think we need some clarification. Especially as Familiars could be very helpful during exploration with their high perception and special senses.
As we actually had two Cavaliers, they could without any problems take exploration tactics, while the stout dwarfs wandered along. I still fell odd about having people without Ride on horses being as slow as if they were walking and it being exhausting, by the way.
But they did take up the offer of pack Camels, due to them being expected to plunder a tomb and bring back potentially heavy treasure. This brought up another good point – do I need to have someone assigned to pack animals and have them Handle/Command them as well? I decided against it and let the druid lead them along – in the end, we could have given that task to one of the riders to avoid the issue, but it’s another data point worth clarifying.
The five days of travel went by – we actually found a use for Assurance (Survival). It let’s you Auto-assist oon survival checks. That was nice. It did feel really strange that Diani was also the best at Survival, despite there being a Druid and a Barbarian. But the player couldn’t roll woth anything, so with three missed rolls and vs. one success they actually took a day longer for the travel than expected.
Encounter 1: Hyenas
Both lookouts failed to beat the Stealth of the predators, So I started the encounter with Stealth vs. Perception intiative and the Hyenas unseen. The mighty barbarian miffed his seek vs. the Hyanodon. Btw, does anybody else feel it’s off that the Large Hyanodon has a better Stealth than the medium Hyenas?
The Monk found one Hyena, but had no action left to point it out. This led to an interesting point where I put the miniature on the table but had to tell the other guys that they still don’t know where it is. But overall, I am fine with that mechanic.
So we came around to my beasties attacking. I had some fun with trying to kill and drag the Barbarians Horsie off, but had to realise that with the whole table being difficult terrain the whole drag mechanic was a bit pointless. Also, it is quite difficult to drag large creatures anywhere if there are a lot of other people around.
Overall, I fought it was a good demonstration of how special monster mechanics and difficult terrain work, and the Dragon monk stole everybodies thunder by ignoring difficult terrain and killing all three opponents (not singlehandedly, but he heavily contributed)
I awarded him a Hero Point for it, because I like hero points and was more stingy with them in the first module. I like to give everybody a lot of them so they can try out all the mechanics involved.
The druid did nice roleplaying in caring more about the pack animals than the rest of the group (I think he spent more actions on handle animal in this part than on casting ;), and Diani could shine by saving Detlevs Horse from dying twice in a row. I decided on the spot that heroic animal companions get dying conditions as well. It did go down to dying 3 once due to a critical hit and a follow up drag, but I did not get to finish it off.
Encounter 2: Quicksand and Ankhrav
This time Diani actually beat the Stealth of the Hazard, so went into encounter mode and gave them a “Something is off there in the middle of the map, next to the strange mound.”
Unfortunately, the barbarian went first and did not find anything, leading to the Monk wandering right into the quicksand. But, as he had an action left, he just moved right out again. That was a bit underwhelming, I would have expected at least an Athletics check to move out, but that’s the way it is.
Meanwhile, the Ankhrav had buried unnoticed right next to the party, popped out and gave half the party a nice Acid shower. Here I think I noticed an oversight in the description – I do not think it’s intentional that the Ankhrav causes persistent damage even on a successful save. We played it as written, but I gave half the persistent damage to the guys that made their saves.
In an absolute first, all four characters and horses I hit with persistent damage got rid of it in the same turn!
The Ankrav tried unsuccessfully to eat the Barbarians Armour and got pummeled to Death for it. I was thinking about how to get anybody in the quicksand, but couldn’t find a good position to shove anybody in. And it really wouldn’t have done anything, as on their turn they probably would have just moved out.
I also thought to late of Burrow/Bite/Burrow to protect the Ankhrav from the onslaught more, but that’s what a playtest is for ;)
We did get to test Natural Healing, as both Diani and Grommosh had it. Interesting point, RAW you can try Natural healing until it succeeds, as you only can heal with it once per day. Don’t know if that’s the intent, but I am all for healing options beside Clerics, so I’m fine. It’s also a bit strange that it’s a per person thing, because that leads to a bit more bookkeeping (Did I get naturally healed from Diani or Grommosh today already?)
Encounter 3: Gnoll Camp
I fully expected my players to just walk around the camp, but despite having no one speaking Gnoll (getting extra languages is not easy), they tried to parley with the beasts. We got into some sign language Diplomacy, and I transcribed the -4 for not having the language from intimidate to diplomacy. With the whole group helping him (Diani would have been the best at Diplomacy as well, but as the Druid came up with the idea I had him make the roll) and the Monk giving a critical success at support, they actually convinced the Gnolls to let them pass for one of their horses.
I gave the druid a hero point for avoiding the encounter with this nice piece of roleplaying.
Encounter 4: Pale Mountain and the Manticore
The players spent a whole day (12 hours) looking for the easy path up the mountain, being very aware that they were shit at climbing and would have to leave their mounts. This gave me the opportunity to foreshadow the Manticore a bit with his roars in the night and the sounds of him killing the Gnoll party drifting off the mountain.
We had some fun with critical fails on Lore rolls, leading to the Cleric identifying the manticore, while the barbarian thought of a dragon. When they found the quills, they changed positions, with Diani being now convinced that Detlev was right, it’s a spine-shooting Dragon!
A little later they finally encountered the only Manticore on Golarion that thinks hiding in clear skies is the best strategy when his perception is six points higher than his stealth modifier…
To make it less stupid, I had him actually hide in the rocks above them on the map and spring into action. Calculating up/down and lateral movement did give me some headaches during the fight, never mind calculating distances for weapons and spells, but my players helped me a lot, so that was ok. The barbarian got to use his longbow without the dreaded volley. They send the Monk flying, and though I was initially worried he would just end up as Manticore chow, being unsupported in the sky and slower than the monster. But then we realized that in Dragon stance, he can actually rise faster than the manticore, due to him ignoring the difficult terrain!
That made it a really interesting fight, with a lot of getting up and down to stay in Heal range (because the Manticore bites horrifically hard). I tried out some Intimidation to spice things up, but Monks are no slouches at Will Saves. I finally grappled him in the intent to fly up with him out of heal range and munch on him, but in that round the monk Hit with a critical Dragon Tail attack followed by a max damage punch, kicking the beast out of the sky!
That’s where we called it a night. Much fun was had by everyone, so I call it a successful start.
Major takeaways:
1. I am getting more familiar with exploration mode, but it still needs a lot of clarification for me to make it a smooth and useful part of the game. Interaction with companions, Animals, riding and how to transfer from exploration to encounter actually works with clearer examples.
For example, the players did not feel good about the quicksand/Ankhrav thing. They actually beat the Stealth DC of the thing, but that only meant they had to search for it again. While I am not against this, it felt off to the players. It is even fuzzier with stealthy enemies. Do they start out as sensed? Unseen? How many of them do they detect? I can rule all of this, but clarification would be very much appreciated.
2. The small self prepared encounters need more guidance. Positioning of the enemies has a major impact on the start of the encounter, especially for ambushes like the hyenas. Also, while I think the dangerous terrain was interesting, I did not know how to actually utilize it with the hyenas. Would they drag their victims through it, taking damage themselves?
Ankhrav/Quicksand. How does the Ankhrav benefit from being next to the quicksand? Does he drag/shove his victims in? Is he unaffected by it due to his burrow speed?
For the Manticore – how far away you spot him has a major impact on how the battle starts, and there is no guidance on that at all.
And the Gnoll camp encounter is also bad design – you autospot them first, and there is no incentive to interact with them at all. I have the feeling my druid player was just bored and wanted to do something for a change.
3. Balance. If the playtest was to check if a +1 weapon on one player unbalances the party, I will answer with a clear yes. While there were other factors involved (Dragon stance ignoring difficult terrain and good rolls), the Monk completely outshone everybody else in the damage department.
Neither the Druid nor the Cleric touched any of their spell slots. That does not worry me as such, as they only had two Low 4 encounters and one High 4 Encounter, and that on alternating days.
Unfortunately it will be quite some time until we finish this, due to Work and family interfering, but I look forward to it!
