| Cyouni |
I'm doing 1, 7, 9, 17, with the other GM in our friend group handling the other three.
Party:
Goblin Sorcerer (dragon), 10/16/14/10/10/18. Spells of Color Spray, Fear, Burning Hands. Focused on blasting.
Halfling Rogue, 8/18/16/10/14/12. Focused on stealth and spotting traps.
Human Paladin of Iomedae, 18/12/12/10/10/16. Focused on sword-and-board, with Warding Touch and Deity's Domain (zeal).
Human Druid (animal), 16/12/12/10/18/10. Always prepared burning hands and heal, using scimitar as main weapon.
Encounters:
A1: One person was damaged by slime muck, dealing 1 damage. Slime then died, having only done that (as it had to Stride twice to reach the party).
A2: I did mess up Goblin Scuttle for a second, but overall it went quite well. Sorcerer tried burning hands (rolled min of 3 damage), but managed to take out one goblin and deal 1 damage to another. Sorcerer went down to 1/3 HP, and the paladin and rogue were hit once. Paladin used Lay on Hands post-combat to patch up the sorcerer a bit, along with a minor potion of healing.
I played the goblins as eager to get into melee, with only two bow shots going off before the full melee started. They never managed to get a flank off due to good placement on the party's part.
A3: Ignored.
A4: Crit success on the Medicine check from the druid.
A5: Both the rogue and druid succeeded in pre-planning, so the sorcerer used Produce Flame from outside the room to solve it.
A6: They spotted the idol, and the rogue used his fishing net to
fish it out and dumped it in the corner. They then moved on.
Since the rogue spotted the alarm while checking the door, they managed to sneak up on the goblins.
A7: Early part was the rogue rushing ahead, with the druid and paladin taking up the middle...right under the trap. Goblin Pyro got off a burning hands on the frontline trio, and another set off the trap. Druid moved up to retaliate with their own burning hands, and another burning hands from the Pyro took the druid unconscious. Commando got off one solid hit to take the rogue unconscious (despite the first Retributive Strike of the game taking him to 1 HP), and both the Commando and Pyro were finished off simultaneously with an Electric Arc from the sorcerer. Paladin used three Lay on Hands in this fight - one to keep himself up, another to try and keep the rogue up, and the last to pick the druid up for an area Heal at the end.
Decently injured, they decided to grab the idol of Lamashtu to dispose of and head back for the day. This lead to...
A6, Revengeance: The quasits got a good ambush off, poisoning the sorcerer and starting on the paladin (despite a Retributive Strike). It then went downhill for them from there, as the rogue eviscerated one in a single turn. The other didn't last long afterwards, though it triggered the only Shield Block of our game.
After some rest (with the paladin preemptively burning two Lay on Hands the next day to put himself a little higher on health), they found the purified fountain and drank from it. This put everyone to near-full.
They proceeded through the eastern exit, moving south to...
A8: This was basically a comedy of errors where almost everyone refused to roll above a 6. One skeleton natural 20'd a crit for 4 damage, and that was the only hit they made in 3 rounds of swinging. Players had much the same dice issue on attacks. Heal and Burning Hands wiped out four of the skeletons in the end, with the other two going down to the rogue tripping it into a sneak attack, and the paladin shield bashing the other one.
A9: Had drank from the fountain earlier that day, so bypassed the trap.
A10: They took two attempts to get in, so Drakus was alerted. Paladin managed to beat his Stealth, and went in with Weapon Surge into a Strike that missed. Revert Form let Drakus crit the poor paladin for 19 damage, so he started after the rogue. Paladin would have died after crit failing his recovery roll, but used his Hero Point and Lay on Hands with his single remaining action. Took him another turn to get up and grab his sword again, but he got back into the fight.
Drakus proved pretty challenging for them, taking the rogue down to 3 HP as well through solid hits. I did try using the claw as a primary weapon for a bit to start up a Grapple, but my player's Druid spent all three actions to get out (crit fail on the first, hitting DC 19 on the dot on the third). He attempted two AOOs, one on the druid trying to grab a scroll to heal the downed paladin, one to try and hit the retreating rogue (fortunately, this one missed -
it would have been really bad for them if this had hit).
The biggest turning point was probably the sorcerer, who forgoed blasting this fight to control instead after the paladin dropped turn 1. Drakus failed his save against both Fear and, two turns later, Color Spray. The frightened condition saved the rogue from going unconscious, and blinded let the rogue come back in for a set of 21 damage sneak attacks.
Drakus ended up going down to a Retributive Strike from the paladin while blinded. He successfully Seeked out the rogue, but the flat check ate his first swing, and the flat-footed from blinded let the paladin's Retributive Strike connect, taking him out.
Overall, I feel they enjoyed it. Paladin did feel the death/dying rules were a bit too punitive - he pretty much lost two full turns even after he'd recovered.
Druid felt Wild Claws wasn't worth it in comparison to his scimitar, with two actions to get a worse weapon.
Druid healing: 20 damage over two Heals.
Paladin healing: 41 damage over seven LoH.
Sorcerer burning hands damage: 21 damage over two castings (most targets saved)
Druid burning hands damage: 18 damage over one casting (all targets failed)