We finished the Lost Star playtest, here are our results

[Darksol the Painbringer]

THERE ARE SPOILERS AHEAD, PLEASE STOP READING IF YOU HAVE NOT COMPLETED PART 1 OF DOOMSDAY DAWN!!!

Our group ran through the first part of the adventure (Lost Star) and plan to run through the next part on the following Monday (which I will be GMing, since we decided everyone gets a turn to GM each part), and it was undoubtedly tough, but at the very least, we completed it.

Party Composition:

We had 5 PCs. A Dwarf Fighter, a Halfling Rogue, a Gnome Angelic Sorcerer of Pharasma (me), a Goblin Ranger, and an Elf Alchemist (who apparently decided to play the Razmir joke this time around). The Fighter actually bothered to shore up his Charisma, the Halfling Rogue did his level-up attributes incorrectly, and the Goblin Ranger outright decimated enemies with his set-up (and he's not really a power-gamer).

With the party composition out of the way, I'll go ahead and bring out the biggest result of this playtest: Of the five adventurers only two of them survived. That's right, the rest of them are actually slain. More on how that happens later.

Room 1:

We got into this first room, and being new to the system, we had to figure out who had good perception, who had vision, who didn't, and so on. To our surprise, Halflings no longer had low-light vision in PF2. (Maybe a typo? Who knows.) This means our main scout, the Rogue, could not do his job effectively whatsoever, meaning a Rogue class that doesn't have Darkvision or some other form of proper vision abilities (preferably without giving away position) were practically worthless for one of their primary forms of application to the party, and this being one of those cases. Granted, we did have workarounds to make them functional in combat (torches, Light cantrip, and so on), but as far as an advance is concerned, he couldn't do it. The Fighter and Ranger, who had Darkvision, were actually much better advances simply due to their ability to ignore any light issues inside the cavernous areas (though the Fighter couldn't stealth due to his abysmal training and armor check penalty).

Eventually our party catches the oozes (with them being unaware), we spread out as best we could (due to entrance constraints, the Sorcerer had to move up and utilize their Hand Crossbow), and focus-fire one of them. We do significant damage to it (somewhere in the mid to high teens, high damage rolls and all), but in the following turns, they swarm us. That's right, they. To ramp up the difficulty for having the extra player, the GM throws in a second ooze. One of them was able to get close enough to the Sorcerer and land a critical hit with a whopping 25 AC (the Sorcerer having 14 AC and not having been able to act yet for a Shield cantrip or anything), and takes an incredible 12 damage. One hit, and the Sorcerer (who actually had more HP than the Halfling and Elf due to their ancestry) was down to a measly 4 HP.

In the following turns, the Fighter uses their Sudden Charge feat, runs up, and hits the already wounded ooze, bringing it down. The other characters utilize their basic ranged combat options (shortbows, crossbows, etc). and deal some more damage to the other Ooze (which are very surprisingly easy to hit). The sorcerer, being in a potentially threatened area with an enemy, had to step, then move, and then reload their crossbow to follow up with offense. (While the wise thing to do here would be heal, lacking the Combat Medic skill feat and not wanting to burn Spell Slots on their first combat without at least completing it would be problematic in spell slot utilization.)

The ooze uses its special ability, repulsing and exploding onto the entire party in range. Thankfully, with decent modifiers and rolls, nobody was severely bothered by this attack, though a couple did get hurt (I think the Fighter, Rogue, and Ranger did). We follow-up with our onslaught of attacks and defeat it once and for all. Of course, being oozes, they carried nothing of value, so we lick what wounds we have and move on with the Sorcerer burning 2 of their 3 slots on Heal spells (one for the Sorcerer, healing 9, and the Fighter, healing the minimum of 5). In hindsight, using both slots to burst heal would have both healed the party better on average, and provided more raw healing, but since the spell was used in that manner and not much thought was put into it, the result stayed and we moved on, four rounds of combat being elapsed.

Room 2:

This is where, once again, the halfling doesn't shine (and yet should) due to his inability to see in the Darkness without giving away his position. Meaning once again, Fighter and Ranger lead the way down a narrow corridor. Ranger scouting ahead finds some Goblins doing something with a wall, I think it had something to do with a makeshift statue. Upon getting enough information (we realize it's 5 goblins messing with a monolith of some sort), we formulate a plan of attack that doesn't go as planned. The Goblins notice our friend, and come out with bows shooting. With a Light spell going, the Rogue managed to move through the narrow cavern into a safe position and start plinking away with a Hand Crossbow. He does some damage, with the Ranger outright slaying one in a single round with a lucky critical.

The other goblins move forward, being thwarted by the ranger's superior armor and cover tactics. The Dwarf had an insane idea of using Sudden Charge to move into position of 3 goblins behind a pillar and swinging at them while their defenses were down. Reeling from the surprisingly powerful attack bonuses and hit points of the Oozes, some of the party cautioned him of the ramifications of these creatures having powerful attacks and being in range of multiple attacks, due to the Fighter having low AC being a very easy target (only one AC ahead of the armorless Sorcerer, no less). However, he felt the need to take the risk because sitting back and doing nothing was not in his blood. Surprisingly, his gambit pays off, rolling well on both his attack and damage rolls, and obliterating two goblins within a single round (we didn't know they had only D6 hit dice, as later the Ranger kills the final goblin with a max damage single shot). The Rogue then moves forward and utilizes his sneak attack, taking down the fourth goblin, giving us a flawless victory. (The alchemist and sorcerer did not participate much in this combat; more accurately, their offensive capabilities had no impact on the combat outcome.) Receiving Shortbows and arrow restocks as our monetary reward, we trudge forward towards the crude sculpture. Further examination revealed an Owlbear Claw (which wasn't identified until the next day due to a bad roll), and with that, the party moved on, the combat itself taking approximately 5 rounds (though one or two of them were used for closing gaps between enemies and dealing with cover issues).

Rooms 3 and 4:

For simplicity purposes, I'm condensing these rooms together.

The third room of investigation was a room with a giant red mushroom in the middle, taking up most of the space. Some of the party believed that the fungus was covering treasure. Others believed it to be a parasitic nuisance that doesn't belong plaguing these tombs. Due to a failed knowledge check, we were never sure. The Sorcerer offered to burn the fungus, but was told that, for fear of ruining treasure or other important items laying within the room (which weren't initially visible due to the fungus or the spores), would not be a valid option. The Dwarf offered to throw a hammer and safely smash it. After some debate, sure enough, it was done, with the mushroom expelling a cloud of spores that nobody was in range of. Once the crimson mist settled, the party proceeded to search amidst the scarlet reclusion, but came up emptyhanded.

The fourth room contained corpses of goblins. While the PCs were able to determine that they had no blood within their bodies and that there were holes near the neck, they were unable to decipher if the wounds were of vampiric origin or not, still under significant doubt.

Room 5:

The room was initially caved in and appeared uninhabited. Once the fighter moved in, 6 giant centipede creatures emerged from the rubble, some of them biting the Fighter for significant damage. The party immediately retreats, the Sorcerer expending their last spell slot on a Summon Monster (Fire Beetle) to cover their potential escape in an attempt to bottleneck the centipedes. To their shock, the centipedes never left the room, and merely stood in what appeared to be their habitat, protecting their territory. The sorcerer then proceeded to make quick work of them with their Oil flasks and Produce Flame to ensure the creatures are slain, taking what would amount to dozens of rounds of "combat." (Though shooting fish in a barrel would be a more accurate representation of what happened here.) Further investigation of the room yet again yields no conclusive results, and being out of spell slots, the party rests.

Room 6:

An interesting fountain and cesspool was found, with the Sorcerer identifying it as a "Last Rites" chamber for their deity (with a lucky roll, of course, as Sorcerers do not have great Lore or Spellcasting skill modifiers, nor do they have applicable signature skills). The Alchemist concluded that the water is obviously unsafe to drink due to its putrid nature. Finding it tainted with the totem of Lamashtu (an equally lucky roll) filled the Sorcerer with rage, demanding that the idol be destroyed for its blasphemous application. The Fighter fulfills that request, smashing the idol into pieces, but spawning two imps as a result. Their presence and activities starting out made the Fighter suffer some damage and receive Frightened conditions, but even with this, one of the imps was slain within the first round of combat from nice rolling and attacks.

The second one on the other hand was a nuisance. While it wasn't threatening due to its requirement to spend an action to fly (which for an imp is practically mandatory), combined with a sequence of bad rolling against a moderate AC/check, the imp was annoying (but not lethal). After an uneventful subduing with some shooting with ranged weapons and cantrips, it goes down, several rounds later.

Investigating the rest of the room, we come across a door that is locked. The door requiring three separate checks of DC 20 was a significant turn-off to the possibility of characters specializing in Thievery being useful at their job, and risking losing Thief's Tools for a botched check when it might be needed later, which is easily possible (same price as a potion of healing at this level), made this doorway not a viable option of proceeding whatsoever. A second doorway with a crude trap that is easy to bypass became out way forward, and so we decided to rest once more before proceeding, making one last push for the end.

Room 7:

The second hardest encounter in this adventure takes place here. Having the Ranger proceed down the once-trapped hallway prior, we have a set-up similar to before. The Ranger, being a Goblin himself, knew that there were goblins ahead, and with his Darkvision, was able to successfully decipher it so, letting us know by retreating and filling us in, so we set up for yet another ambush. With a secondary bad Stealth check, the Goblins take notice of him, but thanks to a nice Initiative roll, the Ranger was able to act before the other Goblins did. With a clever ruse of telling them Drakus wanted them to work on the bust as he was displeased with how it looks (a Request action), it irked them to move forward.

Eventually several of them come to the previous room where the rest of the party laid in wait, and with cover rules applying, the players were not initially seen by the Goblins. Once they approached the bottleneck of the doorway, the first one was slain after the first few rounds, the others being severely wounded (and one of which melting from Acid, thanks to the Alchemist). Unfortunately, with bad damage rolls combined with some bad attack rolls, they manage to escape back into their main hall after round 1 of combat. The Fighter, not wanting to run from a combat, moves into their lair, where it turns out we were baited all along, as one of the wounded goblins triggers a falling rock trap on the Fighter, both damaging him and creating nasty difficult terrain. The Sorcerer moves into position to throw a Produce Flame (see a pattern yet?) to deal damage, but misses. The remainder of the party moves forward, and they are all clustered.

Now comes more surprises. A hidden Goblin spellcaster emerges from the shadowy corner and does a Burning Hands, affecting several PCs. While a disastrous 2D6 could have severely hampered our players, it was only 3 damage (or 1 on a success, of which most everyone made). Afterward, the Goblin Commando emerges, moving into range with his Horsechopper (which has reach now!) and delivers a critical fatal blow to the Sorcerer, which was at 14 out of 16 hit points, and took 15 damage from the attack. This caused the first Hero point use of the adventure, where the Sorcerer was stabilized. The Hero point rules were conveyed that the Sorcerer was able to do the Hero point method without any action requirement, and at any time, without paying anything other than the hero point, which I believe was actually a mistake after re-reading certain rules aspects. However, since we weren't aware of it at the time and for ease of play, the GM allowed the full allotment of actions immediately after the Commando's turn, which the Sorcerer then used to stand up and do a full retreat into a safer area (as the reaction was already used before).

The Ranger, having the highest AC, proceeds to move and attempt to stop the spellcaster's next spellcast (which saves people from even more damage on its turn), combined with the Alchemist following up with cleaning up the remaining goblin peons. Meanwhile, the Fighter, Rogue, and Commando began slugging it out. The Fighter was hit once for 4 damage (surprisingly, considering the Sorcerer has been critically hit twice thus far), as well as being tripped, but between the better rolls and the superior flanking tactics, the Commando goes down. Meanwhile, the Ranger and Alchemist finish off the remaining goblins, the Sorcerer uses both their first spell slot for the day to Heal, as well as the fountain for a total of 14 Hit Points (putting them at 15 HP). The Alchemist offers the Fighter an elixir to help restore some of the damage inflicted (he still wasn't fully recovered from the previous combats and from resting), and with us battered, but not beaten, we trudge forward, after a little over 10 rounds of combat having elapsed.

Room 8:

The stairway leading into the room was a spiral staircase, which significantly hampered our retreating ability and ranged/visual capabilities. The Rogue with a Light spell decided to lead the way in hopes of finding the Star of Desna inside. To our surprise, the room was covered in several sets (7, to be exact,) of bones wearing equipment, which then proceeded to animate and strike. Thankfully, since the Sorcerer was behind the Rogue using Detect Magic (which only told me there was magic here, the spell effectively throwing would-be casters into a hypothetical death trap!), perceived the animated bones, and rolled high on the initiative, was able to summon yet another Fire Beetle in front of the Rogue (with it being unable to act and just sit there). The skeletons swarm the beetle, and with a few attacks with scimitars, the Fire Beetle is banished. (It did save the Halfling's life though, as each attack could have killed him when added up, which is what's really important.) The Rogue runs away to safety, the Ranger moves forward with a light mace in hand, and the Alchemist lobs a bomb into the room. Finding out they are heavily resistant to fire (and probably non-bludgeoning damage as well), the Sorcerer wisely prepared the Disrupt Undead cantrip, and instantly lays waste to the first skeleton in the room.

After some rearraging a couple rounds later, the Fighter manages to get into melee combat and starts crushing some bones into pieces. The Ranger with a Light Mace smashes another skull, and the Sorcerer lobbing the Disrupt Undead cantrip make quick (though not flawless) work of the skeletons, wherein we discover a Pathfinder Society body with a Wayfinder. The Sorcerer at some point burned their final spell slot on the Bless spell, which only lasted a few rounds since space available to utilize Disrupt Undead came up, which was almost the party's highest source of damage.

While the other belongings were taken by the party, the Wayfinder is property of the Pathfinder Society, and as such the Pharasman Sorcerer demanded that both the body and the Wayfinder be returned to the Pathfinder Society. Feeling confident and not having time to rest (for fear of Drakus being discovered and as such fleeing the compound with any sort of valuables), the heroes press on into the bloodiest and most horrifying battle they've ever faced.

Room 10:

This was the absolute hardest encounter in the adventure, and is where half of the party died. Prior to the room, everyone had to consume the purified water or risk being heavily debilitated going into this room from Pharasma's trap, making any non-magical healing after-the-fact non-viable (at this point, the Sorcerer had no spell slots, there were no healing cantrips of any sort, the Alchemist and everyone else was out of all but 1 Resonance (except the Sorcerer, who had zero use for Resonance whatsoever), and the only other healing everyone had was a 1D8 Healing potion). Compared to the enemy they faced, it didn't matter.

In short, we come across Drakus amongst his "food," and he proceeds to stride towards us and get ready to attack. Getting a decent Initiative score, the Sorcerer moves forward and utilizes the Disrupt Undead, but due to the horrible Strike roll, it was indecisive at that point if he was truly an Undead or not, but the Halfling Rogue ally made a Recall Knowledge Action to determine that it was, in-fact, a Faceless Stalker. In a certain PF1 AP, we fought a half-dozen of these things at around 6th and they absolutely hurt and about killed a PC. Coming face-to-face with them again was perhaps the most horrifying element of this encounter to the players, even more horrifying than if Drakus was indeed an undead vampire hobgoblin as he was rumored to be.

He approaches and critically Intimidates the Fighter, putting him at frightened 2 and having him run away for one turn. Our frontline Fighter is now gone from the fight for over 2 rounds, leaving the rest of us exposed by his devastating attack regime, and follows up with a Strike. The Sorcerer, being in range, is swung at for 6 HP (could've been higher, but the feint+swing tactic wasn't being employed at this time), putting them at 9 HP remaining. The Sorcerer then steps to safety and hurls a Produce Flame (its only effective means of contributing to the combat), but misses. The rest of the party attempts to hit him in the round (the Fighter just now re-entering the room), but with bad rolling on both sides, nothing changes. The Rogue has an idea to try and flank him, but comes across two (not one, two) Dire Rats, who proceed to chew him into pieces with their own flanking and numerous bite attacks landing. With the new threats abound and getting no results on Drakus, combined with the Rogue being in a dire pinch, the rest of the party attempts to save the Rogue from his tight spot. While the Alchemist and Ranger combined defeat one of the rats, the other one still manages to scurry through from not suffering enough damage from a Produce Flame. The Fighter still does not land a hit on Drakus, and Drakus proceeds to flank and drop the Rogue to Dying 2 (he uses two actions to attack, since the second one at -5 had a significant chance of missing the Fighter, and the GM wanted to put additional pressure on the Rogue). Surprisingly, the Rogue decides to wait on his Hero Points until both Drakus move away and the Rat no longer becomes a threat. The Sorcerer going again finally defeats the remaining rat, and moves further away from Drakus, remembering the mistakes made within two combats prior (with enemies getting into melee range and almost outright slaying the Sorcerer). The Ranger and Alchemist, already at steady range, attempt to strike Drakus, and fail (the Alchemist using a bomb only deals 1 splash damage as a result). The Fighter lands a hit, but with only 1D12 and rolling low, doesn't get the devastating results he needs.

Drakus then finally employs his signature tactic: Move, Feint, Strike. The Fighter, getting an attack of opportunity, fails to hit due to the penalty of his free attack, and proceeds to be damaged significantly. The Rogue gets an opportunity to finally come back from Dying 1, standing up, grabbing his hand crossbow and moving towards the Ranger's position. The Sorcerer, Ranger, Fighter and Alchemist now all trying to strike Drakus with spell, bow, maul, and crossbow alike. However, Pharasma's power of fate seemed to be against them at this time, as their repertoire proved insufficient to even affect Drakus whatsoever, through bad rolling across the board.

He then proceeds to utilize his signature tactic once more, and takes down the Fighter to Dying 2 (a critical hit granted through the Feint action). The Ranger manages to get a couple hits in, and the Rogue (who barely recuperated after drinking a potion) tries to shoot with a hand crossbow, and fails. The Alchemist's final bomb is missed, and the Sorcerer's Produce Flame cantrip is blasphemed by the will of Pharasma's fate.

Drakus performs his signature move again, proceeds to significantly wound the Ranger, and puts them in a difficult spot. The Ranger must step carefully to avoid any potential threat Drakus posed, and made a shot whom was once again missed. The Rogue performs an unorthodox tactic, drawing out a Dagger to throw, and lands a significant blow to the enemy after revealing that Daggers, even while thrown, have text to support receiving Dexterity to Damage, converting a 2 damage attack to a 6 damage attack; more than 3 times the original damage output! Unfortunately, the Alchemist's crossbow is not as accurate, and Pharasma still seemed bent on denying the Sorcerer her ability to contribute with the Produce Flame cantrip. The Fighter reawakens through the power of heroism, but can merely stand, draw a potion, and drink it for minimal healing.

Drakus downs the Ranger, and then proceeds toward the Fighter once more. The Rogue throws his other dagger, but was not so lucky on this attack. Similarly, the Alchemist cannot get a clear shot, and Pharasma continues to delay the Sorcerer's impactfulness.

Fast-forwarding the fight, Drakus slays the Fighter, Rogue, and Ranger before the fate of the battle changes. After the Ranger is down (and proceeds to bleed out from Dying), Drakus changes focus towards the remaining party members. Frustration, shock, fear...a slew of emotions rampaged through them, hoping for something to come; and it did. Pharasma's Divine Will became a reality in that moment. On the same round, with the same tactics, with the same odds of happening, both the Sorcerer's Produce Flame and the Alchemist's Crossbow roll Natural 20's, critically hitting Drakus for the remainder of his HP, and finally defeating him.

Numerous rounds (almost 15 to be precise), a severe streak of bad rolling across the board (the Sorcerer and Alchemist did not contribute to the fight until the very end after the Rats were defeated, which was over several rounds prior, the rolling was that bad), being drained valuable resources that could have saved allies (and gave the Sorcerer more tactics to utilize), and unorthodox tactics resulted in over half of the party getting killed by a single overleveled creature with two equal level minions entering late (even if surprising) in the combat. Surprisingly, the Alchemist and the Pharasman Sorcerer survived, but not without their own wounds or loss of their own. Feeling struck with shock and still recovering from the severity of their combat, the remaining PCs proceed to pick apart the body of Drakus clean of all belongings, and using the ceremonial dagger of the Pharasman statue (it made more sense than using some run-of-the-mill dagger laying around), give the fallen PCs their last rites traveling through the other side with Pharasma deciding their fate.

Room 11:

After some time of grief, the remaining duo still had a mission to complete, which was to retrieve the Star of Desna. The antechamber of Pharasma revealed a powerful Dagger and valuable religious texts of Pharasma, combined with a bowl of holy water filled with ambiguous foreshadowing. The Sorcerer felt compelled to safeguard these important teachings and relics of Pharasma, as she has witnessed their power being corrupted and fallen into the wrong hands. Further investigation reveals the Star of Desna, and receiving the Macguffin, thereby wrapping up the adventure.

Not only was this playtest really brutal at times, with the players and PCs both feeling quite inadequate compared to their enemies (that Drakus fight was really soul crushing and gritty in terms of the overall outcome, though it did have some semblance of "stereo type happy ending" to it), but it did involve a lot of re-referencing rules (which still resulted in getting rules down incorrectly, skewing raw playtest results, and significantly increasing the time in which this playtest took, which was over 12 hours, or two session's worth of playing), some different levels of ad-hocing from the GM for determining encounter challenging (such as adding creatures or merely adding bonuses to compensate for a non-standard number of players), and left us with a story that, truth be told, I don't know how it would proceed moving forward.

Are we going to find some cheap way to bring back the once-dead PCs into the later part of the adventures, when this "party" (which only now has 2 members of it left), or would it make more sense to just have the players whose PCs are dead simply make new ones? While this is ultimately a personal preference thing, and we might have to simply figure it out ourselves, I'm really curious what others would adjudicate in this position, especially since it seems like the adventure assumes no PC would die, (and yet we have THREE of the five dead!) making a situation like this absolutely awkward for the story to move forward without having some sort of GM Ex Machina taking place.

Regardless, I hope this playtest data proves some value to the Paizo developers, and I also hope that others who have playtested this section can examine and critique our playstyle to help improve its functionality.

In the near future, we are going to be running the second part of this adventure over the next two weeks (which I will be GMing for), so I will actually be on the other side of the screen for this new party (with a wholly different composition to compare different aspects of classes and how they fare compared to other party compositions we've already playtested).

[Bardarok]

Two Dire Rats? There is only one in the Adventure and the Devs announced that one wasnt supposed to be there at all in the 1.0 update either so it should be a hard fight with no dire rats. No wonder there was so much death with two extra enemies. Overall though I think monster power it a little too high across the board. Good report!

EDIT: Also halflings never had low-light vision in PF1

[Kerobelis]

Bardarok wrote:

Two Dire Rats? There is only one in the Adventure and the Devs announced that one wasnt supposed to be there at all in the 1.0 update either so it should be a hard fight with no dire rats. No wonder there was so much death with two extra enemies. Overall though I think monster power it a little too high across the board. Good report!

EDIT: Also halflings never had low-light vision in PF1

I believe a few extra enemies were added to make up for the fact their were 5 PCs

[Bardarok]

That makes since. Looks like it ramped up difficulty to quickly though, if it's easy with 5 PCs but adding one or two Mook (lvl 0) enemies jumps it to deadly that's a serious system problem.

[Elleth]

If some of my players died I was going to assume that

ritual shenanigans:

The dead party members were brought back via the resurrect ritual, courtesy of higher leveled members of the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye. As the survivors would see themselves in the future, it seems reasonable that Keleri might assume their friends could come in useful, and so be happy to shell out a little for a potential shot at saving the world.

[ikarinokami]

Bardarok wrote:

That makes since. Looks like it ramped up difficulty to quickly though, if it's easy with 5 PCs but adding one or two Mook (lvl 0) enemies jumps it to deadly that's a serious system problem.

I think it's more an issue that they had 5 PC's and no main healer. a paladin or cleric or druid would probably have made a huge difference.

[Dekalinder]

ikarinokami wrote:

Bardarok wrote:

That makes since. Looks like it ramped up difficulty to quickly though, if it's easy with 5 PCs but adding one or two Mook (lvl 0) enemies jumps it to deadly that's a serious system problem.

I think it's more an issue that they had 5 PC's and no main healer. a paladin or cleric or druid would probably have made a huge difference.

Guess we are back to the Holy Trinity. How long before BBEGs gets an enrage timer?

[Darksol the Painbringer]

ikarinokami wrote:

Bardarok wrote:

That makes since. Looks like it ramped up difficulty to quickly though, if it's easy with 5 PCs but adding one or two Mook (lvl 0) enemies jumps it to deadly that's a serious system problem.

I think it's more an issue that they had 5 PC's and no main healer. a paladin or cleric or druid would probably have made a huge difference.

I'm not sure a Paladin, even with its Lay On Hands (1D4 + Charisma), will make any more dedicated a healer than the Divine Sorcerer who has up to 3 Heal spells for more raw output, nor are they as flexible (with their AoE burst for out-of-combat healing). (They are certainly better combatants though.) Cleric is broken as-is, since they have two sets of spell point pools, compared to every other class with spell points, which have one, so it's nowhere near a fair comparison for any class, period, and Druids don't get that many healing powers, or at least not much more than what a Divine Sorcerer would.

The intent of the Divine Sorcerer playthrough for this was to see if it would be a competent heal-based class compared to others, and at the starter levels, I can say with certainty that between all of the uses of their chosen spells over two adventuring days (Bless, Summon Monster, and Heal), Heal was used 50% of the time, with Summon Monster being used 33% of the time (one of which was actually worthless), and Bless was used 16-17% of the time (which was mostly pointless since the fight it was for was trivialized by the Disrupt Undead cantrip being a better contribution to combat). In short, any uses of a Divine Sorcerer's spell slots outside of Heal were largely worthless and a waste, since other classes not having access to healing (yes, the Alchemist had a couple Elixirs of Life) could do anything that the other Divine Sorcerer's spells could do, or the other spells the Divine Sorcerer chose (or rather, had access to) were just plain bad.

The Sorcerer never, and I mean never, had an occasion to use their Angelic Halo power due to it requiring too many actions while in the heat of combat (you don't know for sure whether combat was starting in some of these rooms, and you don't want to burn precious spell slots), and only being useful for those moments where you're simply setting yourself up for failure in this adventure, or for those moments where the bonuses didn't matter due to such a disparity between rolls or modifiers. (I mean, it could have spared one critical hit, but as I say above, with its limited duration, you can't really expect to have it active at times where you need it most because combat springs unexpectedly, either due to bad Stealth rolls, or bad Perception rolls.) And the benefits are really only useful if you're playing horrible tactics (such as not keeping a distance against enemies who can close that distance and inflict some pain without a buffer inbetween).

The Sorcerer would have been more likely to use the Protection Spell on the Fighter against an enemy like Drakus (or any other enemy, really) if they had access to it, but it being an Uncommon spell means it's off-limits in both this adventure and most other ones unless the GM wants to be nice and give it to you as a reward option. This is the same for all Uncommon or better spells, really. Which means any builds relying on Uncommon or better spells aren't viable in the slightest.

I honestly could have been any other class and contributed about the same, since literally most combats were me just standing in clear fire and using Produce Flame (which isn't even a Divine cantrip, it's a Primal one I got from my Ancestry feat), and never having a fair occasion to use spells due to their selective or uninspiring benefits. D8 damage to potentially inflict the Dead condition on enemies (or D10 if they're Undead creatures) through causing damage is still a much more valuable contribution in combat and to the party than spending a spell point to grant allies a +1 to hit (which takes an action each round to maintain, which only lasts a minute!), or to summon a creature to absorb 6 hit points (though the latter actually did save someone's life, I could have still used that spell slot for healing the group 4 HP, or healing them for identical or more HP). In short, other Divine spells need a boost, and there needs to be much more variety in the 1st level Divine spell list. I seriously chose Summon Monster just to choose Summon Monster; if I choose something just to choose something, instead of it being something that I, as a player (and a character) desire, then it really shows how bland and weak that spell list is (at that level, anyway).

[Barnabas Eckleworth III]

As far as not wanting to burn precious spell slots because you're not sure if combat is starting, that's what the cantrips are for. Is so the sorceror can always do something, and still save his bang for when it counts.

[Darksol the Painbringer]

Barnabas Eckleworth III wrote:

As far as not wanting to burn precious spell slots because you're not sure if combat is starting, that's what the cantrips are for. Is so the sorceror can always do something, and still save his bang for when it counts.

I did mistype that, as I meant to say spell points in relation to a Bloodline Power (take notes Paizo, people confusing spell points and spell slots, even unintentionally, can happen with this similar terminology).

I suppose with how short the adventuring days were, it might have been prudent to ignore the whole "I might need them later" aspect of it, since we didn't have more than 4 combats in a given day, but the factor that it still clashed heavily against other important actions to take, as well as still caused a potential pause in character decisions for their turn (I would have much rather been able to apply the benefits of this bloodline power to someone else, which could have saved several hits and by relation, HP). That's what I have a Shield cantrip for, and with it requiring half the actions for half the benefit, it still proved valuable in avoiding hits (a couple from the Mephit demon, one of which I blocked and negated the damage entirely), while still allowing me to contribute to combat.

I'll also say that I kind-of botched the Produce Flame damage (which was originally only D4 with the Persistent Burn on a critical effect, instead of just a D8 with double-damage critical), but considering it was an ancestry cantrip, and Ray of Frost does exactly the same thing I was describing, which I also had access to, and that there were no apparent enemies with resistance or weakness to cold or fire damage, that the mishap wasn't something that could have skewed the playtest results very much if it was changed to the appropriate option with the results displayed here.