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My group:
Human Fighter (melee)
Human Fighter (ranged); late arrival
Halfling Ranger
Elf Cleric of Nethys (wizard multiclass)
To start, I had the martial characters role-off for a magic weapon. The halfing one, and received a +1 short sword. All players received 1 hero point, with the cleric getting an extra one for hosting the game at his house. I also made the PCs role Nature checks to mount the camels the first time, which all but the ranger critically failed, so I had the camels spit in their eyes the first time they attempted to mount just for a little extra fun.
The party made good time on camels on the first three days, with halfling ranger succeeding at his Survival check the first day and critically succeeding the next two days. They reached the base with about 3 hours left in the day and decided to press on wards.
The hyenas got the drop on the party, with the hyenadon knocking the cleric of his camel. The hyenas initially focused on him to make use of pack attack, but the fighter and ranger soon drew their attention. After the hyenadon and one of the hyenas were slain, I had the remaining hyena turn tail and run. The terrain had little or no effect on the combat.
They continued to press onward on their camels. The ranger spotted the ankhrav mount and attempted to Sneak towards it, falling prey to the quicksand hazard (since he has not Seeking for traps as per the Exploration rules). The ankhrav then emerged on began tearing into the cleric and fighter with its armor-rending bite on the cleric followed by a spray acid on both the following round. The cleric moved to help the ranger out of the quickstand with his staff (using Athletics to aid in his check) while the fighter fought off the ankrav. The creature had taken enough damage that it retreated into the sands for safety. They then investigated its den and found the healing potions (with the cleric taking 10 min to identify them with Quick Identify) and the thieves' tools, though nobody had trained in Thievery. The player's recognized that the ankhrav was an ankheg and were confused as to why it was renamed.
The fourth player had arrived and finished up his character; I hand-waved that he was with the party the whole time for ease of introduction.
The party encountered the gnoll camp. They secured their camels on the far side. The cleric and the melee fighter attempted to engage in Diplomacy with the gnolls from across the river while the two ranged characters Sneaked to the sides. The melee fighter also gathered some river tiles for the encounter, which earned him a hero point.
I ruled that their check would take a -5 penalty since nobody spoke Gnoll (the cleric was the only character with a bonus language, and he chose Auran). The critically failed the check and the gnolls drew the shortbows and began shooting. The party was well equipped for range combat and focused their attacks on a single gnoll, who then feigned surrender to lure some of the party to the other side so he could gain the aid of the giant scorpion. They PCs tied a rope to the melee fighter who swam across, at which point the gnoll drew his battleaxe while the giant scorpion emerged and joined the fight. The halfling ranger joined him on the gnoll camp side while the others provided ranged support. The scorpion never landed a single hit despite flanking with the gnoll, mainly thanks to a fear spell from the cleric (it took some research to see if he took frightened penalty on attacks, but after a bit of sifting through the rules we did find that Attacks are a type of check so the penalty applies).
By now, it was the end of the third day so the party rested before climbing the mountain. I had them roll Perception checks during their watch, and the ranged fighter spotted something large flying over the mountain, foreshadowing the manticore.
The ranger failed to spot the easy path, but the melee fighter managed to succeed on the survival check to negate the need for Athletics checks to climb up the mountain. They found the slain gnolls, but nobody thought to investigate the quills and attempt to identify the creature. As they continued to climb, the ranger made use of his Terrain Stalker feat to freely Stealth while Seeking for hazards/traps. He spotted the manticore flying in and combat was joined.
I had the manticore hold back on its Spike Volley somewhat, only using 1 per turn as I reasoned that it would want to conserve its quills by only using them at the highest attack bonus. This allowed him some greater maneuverability, which helped somewhat by imposing some range penalties again the PCs. The PCs began a bit of meta-gaming, debating whether it had poisoned quills or a breath weapon, but I put a stop to this by pointing out that this was a new edition, so they didn't know what it had. The cleric used the scroll on the melee fighter who engaged the manticore, who continued to target the ground PCs with spike volley while using its claws on the melee fighter. The cleric was felled by the manticore before the ranged fighter finished it with his only hit of the fight. One PC fed him a minor healing potion to revive him.
Scouting ahead, the ranger spotted the gnolls seeking cover by the door, and the PCs correctly surmised that the gnolls were seeking cover under the overhang from the manticore. With a little backtracking, the retrieved the manticore's head and approached the gnolls, and Zakfah proclaimed them honorary members of the Al'Chorhaiv tribe. Zakfah even gave his scorpion necklace to the melee fighter, as he assumed that as he was carrying the head that he was the one who slew the beast. The gnolls then departed without incident.
The party then rested before entering the tomb. I followed the recommendation on the boards and head Lady Vord contact them via sending to inform them the Night Heralds were expected to arrive the next day (despite them initially be scheduled to arrive in four days).
With detect magic, the cleric spotted the trap, but the party lacked anyone even Trained in thievery let alone being an Expert in it, so they couldn't disable the trap. The cleric attempted to trigger it using a force missile, but after some internal debate, I ruled that it would not trigger the trap as it did not meet the triggering condition ("A creature grasp the door latch directly or with a tool") as he was technically not grasping the latch and the force missile was not technically a tool. The halfling ranger elected to open the latch anyway and take one-for-the-team, earning him a hero point.
The party began to explore the tomb, finding the earth and water room but electing not to enter it (and play "water-hopscotch" as they termed it) and continued into the main chamber. They quickly recognized the chamber as being a locking mechanism for the ornate doors, and that each of the four nodes were associated with one of the four elements (no checks needed--they figured this out from the box text alone). They then elected to explore the remaining side chamber, the fire and air room.
The entered the room, trigger the two elementals to appear. The melee fighter received the brunt of the fire elementals attacks the initial round while the ranger engaged the air elemental. The cast ray of frost on the fire elemental, but kept missing due to the elementals Touch AC 20. As the melee fighter fell back, the ranged fighter switched weapons and took his place, ultimately falling unconscious to a crit while being on fire. The cleric finally managed to land a ray of frost, drawing the ire of the fire elemental, and he too was also unconscious while on fire.
The halfing ranger, meanwhile, had finished off the air elemental, although the player incorrectly pondered whether it was hurting it as it dispersed every time he struck with his +1 short sword. He and the melee fighter then flanked the fire elemental to finish it off. The ranged fighter had just "died" and used a hero point to return to 1 hp instead, so when the explosion happened, he was knocked back unconscious, though he was soon revived with a healing potion. The cleric, meanwhile, was at dying 3 when the explosion triggered--I was going to check to see if he would still get a save while unconscious, but the player rolled a natural 1 so it was a moot point. He "died" and used a hero point to return to 1 hp.
The party then wanted to rest, but I reminded them that the Night Heralds were expected to arrive tomorrow. It was also late, so after healing up, we decided to end the session and pickup there next week.
----
The fire elemental was the MVP of the night, "killing" two PCs and getting three of the four knockouts. I am not crazy about the hero point system as all the players simply hoard them to ensure that they can make their Recovery Saves. The dice were not on the PCs side this fight, and combined with the persistent damage rules, this fight would have been really deadly without Hero Points. Not a fan of the that drops you to Dying 4 so your dead--nope, I'm fine with 1 hp mechanic--it takes a lot of the drama out of having to role recovery saving throws.
No problems with resonance, though, as it never became an issue (assuming all the players were tracking them correct) as the cleric's innate abilities and lesser staff of healing provided most of the healing all night. Other than a couple healing potions, I don't remember any of the other PCs using any magic items other than their weapons and armor; a couple had stocked up on oil of magic weapons, but I don't think any PCs actually used them.
I also don't think I was using the Terrain Stalker feat correctly. After reading it after the game, it still requires a Sneak action, the PC just doesn't have to roll to see if it succeeds or not.
Also, as have been pointed out, a strict interpretation of the rules means that riding a mount without the Ride feat or similar ability is a Fatiguing action and cannot be done for more than 10 min. I imagine the intent was that you needed to Handle Animal and Command Animal as two separate actions IN COMBAT, but they can be ridden as mounts in Exploration Mode.
The lack of bonus languages is also a problem in the new rules, in my opinion. As instructed, I informed the PCs that they should take Auran, Gnoll, or Ancient Osiriani as bonus languages, but only the cleric qualified for one (Auran) whereas no other PC had an Int 14 or above. There also doesn't seem to be a way to pick up any as they level either (such as a General Feat). The fact that you get Common, one based on your Ancestry, and at most one other bonus language is really limiting. The cleric's player voiced his displeasure about this.
Don't get me wrong, we had a lot of fun and there's a lot I like about the new system--I love how modular the feats are and the three-action Encounter Mode system, for instance, just want to point out areas that might need a little more refining.
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The party continued to explore the earth and water elemental chamber. I had the earth elemental pop-up behind them as they descended the stairs and Shoved the melee fighter into the water. He wasted several turns trying to escape the water elemental first by Climbing (only to get sucked back in by the Vortex Pull) then by swimming away and then climbing (and again being sucked back by the Vortex Pull). He eventually succeeded and got out of the water. One precularity arose in the first round, however, when he failed to make any Swim checks and thus went underwater. According to underwater combat rules, Bludgeoning attacks take a -2 penalty underwater, which the Water Elemental incurred since its attacks were Bludgeoning. One would have expected the water elemental to ignore this penalty.
Meanwhile, the remaining PCs focused on the Earth Elemental. He managed to also Shove the halfling ranger into the water, but he escaped easily since the Water Elemental was busy dealing with the melee fighter and could only use Vortex Pull as a reaction. Once the earth elemental was dealt with, the party lured the Water Elemental to the edge and finished it off, but not before it succeeded in knocking-out the melee fighter.
After exhausting their healing and resonance for the day, the party decided to rest even though they knew the Night Heralds were scheduled to arrive the next day. I asked if they wanted to work on the puzzle before resting, but they declined thinking that solving it might release something nasty, and they were in no shape to face it.
The next day, the cleric went about solving the puzzle as he was the only one trained in Arcana (with low Ints, they all only had a +2 or +3 and were at risk of critically failing the DC 15 Aid Another check). The first three went in quickly with only one failure, but the last one took like 8 attempts before the cleric finally rolled high enough to make the last check.
The mummy fight was scary for the PCs but was relatively for three reasons: 1) Obviously, its appears that there are 8 mummies at first, not 4. 2) The PCs had no fire spells or alchemist fires, which would have made the fight easier; 3) None of the PCs were Charisma-based, so the Lesser Mummy Rot was a non-issue; of course, they did not know this, and were scarred when I started asking for Fort saves. Anyway, the halfing ranger landed a crit in the first round and dropped one of the four mummies, and the party easily handled the rest in the following couple rounds.
The room confused the PCs as they though that the room itself was the countdown clock, but I emphasized that it was 1) not finished and 2) the item they were looking for was described as a gemstone. There was then some debate on what to do about Mabar, as they have no way of knowing if he was friend or foe. The ultimately decided to wake him, and he provided some backstory on the tomb (Auran was the one bonus language the PCs took as only the cleric got one). After he revealed the secret door, they told him that bad people were coming to kill him and that he should leave, which he did via plane shift.
The halfling ranger's player was the first to ask about the mirror in the secret tomb, so I had him roll the Will save, which he made. The party decided to leave the mirror behind, but looted the tomb, at which point I had the Night Heralds make their grand entrance.
This was a tough fight, but with some luck and good tactics, the PCs prevailed. Henah took point and engaged the melee fighter while Motek cast bane on the group. The ranger and melee fighter engaged with Henah while the ranged fire focused his attacks on Motek. The cleric made a great move by entangling Motek with a tanglefoot bag; Motek would make 5 attempts with his Athletics before he was able to free-himself and cast unhindered. Meanwhile, Jibar might a surprise appearance, but missed all her attacks against the cleric despite him being flat-footed from her being invisible. Renwick then cast web on all but halfling ranger, which was largely a non-factor in the fight.
A touch of corruption dropped the melee fighter, allowing Henah to focus on the ranger, but she missed her touch of corruption on him the following round. The cleric healed the melee fighter, but then goofed and attempted a cone spell (not sure which one) that would hit the melee fighter as well as Motek and Henah. However, the Night Heralds both made their saves (the cleric and anti-paladin have good Will saves, who knew), so he only succeeded in stunning his ally. Henah got a surprise vengeful strike against the halfing when he crit her. Motek, one free of the tanglefoot, downed the melee fighter a second time with a touch harm, then used a ranged harm on the ranged fighter. Meanwhile, Renwick and Jibar had downed the cleric, who used a hero point to revive and spammed Heals the rest of the fight (while laying on the ground I might add).
The halfling ranger finally bested Henah, and Motek was brought down to 3 hp from the ranged fighter's continued efforts. Jibar, at this point, decided it was better to flee (since she was not a believer in the cause), but Renwick, seeing the dire states the PCs were in and wanting to impress the Night Heralds, fought to the end. Unfortunately for her, once Motek was down, the PCs made short work of her. The fighter was still unconscious (although he stabilized form his recovery checks) and the rest were all down to single digit hit points.
Conclusions:
The PCs hoard hero points for when they are Dying, as 1 completely erasing all levels of Dying and returning them to 1 hp (and consciousness) is incredibly powerful. They do not even consider using them for re-rolls or extra actions (though its rare anyone gets 3 per session). They only spent 3 hero points total in the two sessions I ran, with 2 mainly in part to my not realizing the persistent damage from the fire elemental no longer increases the Dying condition under the revised Dying rules.
Someone made an oopsie.
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Awesome storytelling and write up. Thanks for sharing! Wish I had more time to devote to playtesting.
Thanks for the kind words.
Agreed, just like most Paizo adventures, some encounters are inherently more difficult (the manticore, both elemental encounters, and the Night Heralds) whereas in other the PCs had little difficulty (hyena, ankhrav, gnolls and scorpion, mummies). Even the manticore is not too difficult if the party considered ranged attacks during character generation.