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So, me and a couple of the guys from the Sufficient Velocity forums decided to run the playtest, since both of my IRL groups are already doing campaigns and don't want to drop those for beta testing.
We're getting kind of a late start because we had to cancel twice due to schedule conflicts, so we're just now doing The Lost Star. So yes, I'm aware of the irony that Sufficient Velocity is running late.
Despite not being super-enthused with PF2E, we wound up having a decent amount of fun.
Time to play: approximately four hours, including having trouble getting my mike to work on Roll20.
Number of times players had to rest: once, because the cleric was out of heals and the mages had burnt most of their spells.
Number of deaths/reductions to 0 hp: none. But some PCs got pretty close.
Doomsday Dawn Part 1 Open Response Survey
* 1. While participating in Part 1 of Doomsday Dawn, were you a player or the Game Master?
Game Master
2. Please give us any feedback you have about the narrative structure of Part 1 of Doomsday Dawn.
There was a lack of information on how to handle the players pursuing non-combat solutions, interrogating captured goblins, or at what point the goblins should break and retreat. It also doesn't provide any guidelines for how they should react if the players attack and then retreat to rest: do they not consolidate their forces or otherwise react to being attacked? That the players needed to stop to rest partway through a dungeon this short because they were out of healing seemed awkward for the narrative.
3. Please provide any feedback about the play of specific encounters in Part 1 of Doomsday Dawn.
A1: Sewer Ooze was a poor choice for the first combat of the playtest, as it's immune to critical hits and basically give no opportunity for the players to show off.
A2: Players won initiative on the goblins and took them out reasonably quickly, taking several hits in the process. Players took one goblin alive with Sleep, interrogated him. Module didn't not provide information on what he should share in this circumstance.
(I forgot to include in the survey: rules did not provide any circumstance bonus for Intimidation when the target is tied up and has a halfling sorcerer's dragon claws in his face. Not that it mattered because he rolled 16 against the goblins Will DC 10.)
A3: Players did not enter this room. If they had, it seems likely that the centipedes would have done them substantial harm.
A4: Odds of making a critical success on the Medicine check while examining the bodies are extremely slim. It's also strange that recognizing that it's not the work of a vampire wouldn't be a Religion check, since it's about knowledge of the undead.
A5: Players didn't enter the room as soon as they realized it was full of fungus. If they had, it seems unlikely that they would have been able to disarm it.
A6: Took two times through the room to notice the idol, then used Mage Hand to remove it from the pool, removing the need for a Thievery check.
Players did not bother trying to unlock the door in the south and just bashed it down with an axe. Even if they had Thievery, the odds of succeeding at three DC 20 checks before breaking their pick are almost nil.
A7: Players came to this room on the second day. Halfling sorceror snuck into room and was only noticed by Goblin Commando, then ran back to the party, who were waiting to ambush at the other end of the passageway. Module text said that goblins should wait for players to come to them and trigger trap, but I didn't want a long stalemate where neither side moved. Goblins pursued, Goblin Commando and two Goblin Warriors were killed, inflicting some damage on the fighter in the process. Last Goblin Warrior and Goblin Pyro retreated back into the room and waited by the trap, but players did not pursue and instead tried to shout demands for surrender. Eventual stalemate, players never entered room.
A8: This was the last room that the players came to on the first day. They burned the last of their healing spells after this room, and still weren't back to full, so they went back to rest. Hard to keep track of six creatures with three attacks each; almost forgot one a few times. Combat started at close range, so skeletons got all three attacks often and it seemed like every time they hit with the first two. Skeleton resistances barely slowed down the fighter's axe hits, but rendered the sorcerer's cantrips pretty useless; he had to resort to Magic Missile. All of the wizard (enchantment school)'s 1st level spells were useless against mindless undead, but he had Telekinetic Projectile so he was fine.
Given that Pathfinder Society Hopeful is a background for this adventure, it would have been nice to know what information Pathfinder Society Lore could have provided about the dead Pathfinder in this room. There doesn't seem to have been any opportunities for players to roll their background-granted Lore skills.
A9: Gnome wizard player wanted to try knocking over hourglass with ten-foot-pole before halfing sorcerer reminded him that he had Mage Hand. I let the sorcerer use his spellcasting modifier instead of Thievery to remove the hourglass; nothing in the rules about it but I wanted to give them a sliver of a chance. Sorcerer was going to crit fail, but used Lucky Halfling to reroll and succeeded.
A10: Players passed up their door on the first day because it was stuck, went through it on the second day after facing the goblins from A7. I assumed Drakus would have heard the fighting and thus was hiding next to altar. Dwarf fighter and human cleric rolled well and saw him. Cleric used Summon Monster. 1st level Summon Monster options were a bit thin and didn't include anything with a celestial flavor, so the cleric summoned a pig in the square in front of Drakus. This blocked dwarf fighter from reaching Drakus; I suggested that he could jump onto the altar but he noted that would be an action, so with the move before and after the jump he would have none left to attack. Dwarf moved up to just behind the pig instead. Drakus spend two actions making claw attacks/grabs on the pig, taking it out, third action to suck its blood for terror factor. Halfling sorcerer unleashed three magic missiles. Gnome wizard cast sleep, Drakus saved, save success effect on Sleep is -1 Perception which is pretty useless if you're already in combat. Cleric cast Disrupt Undead, confirming Drakus is not undead. Dwarf fighter Stepped up, Double Sliced, one crit and one hit. Drakus revealed his true form, then attacked with longsword and claw, one hit and one crit. Huge attack bonus plus bonus from revealing true form made his attack so high there was almost no chance of missing. Halfling sorcerer used scroll of Shocking Grasp from A8 and Dragon Claws to finish Drakus. I handwaved the action cost of running up and jumping onto the altar as just one action and the combining of Shocking Grasp with a natural weapon because it was cooler that way.
4. Please provide any feedback about the player characters and how they interacted with Part 1 of Doomsday Dawn.
Player character AC ranged from 12 (cleric without shield) to 13 (wizard, sorcerer) to 14 (cleric with shield) to 16 (fighter). With all Level 0 monsters arbitrarily having +6 to attack regardless of ability scores or proficiency, PCs were getting hit rather often.
Fighter's player was somewhat demoralized that maxing out his stat and having expert proficiency only got him on par with goblin mooks, and the cleric and mages didn't have a very good chance to hit.
Cleric almost never used his shield block reaction when his shield was raised because he was afraid of breaking his shield. It's immersion-breaking that the hardness of wood suddenly plummets when it's used in a shield instead of a door.
Cleric avoided medium armor and fighter avoided heavy armor due to fearing the speed penalties. Even in breastplate, Armor Check Penalty entirely negated the fighter's Strength advantage on Athletics checks.
Fighter used dwarven axe and clan dagger, a fun and versatile combination. Fighter's player praised the interesting variety of weapon abilities.
Gnome wizard (enchantment school) complained about the number of enemies that were immune to enchantment. Cleric complained about area-effect heal doing too little to be worth using.
Problem arose when mages couldn't Ready to cast spells because you can only Ready a one-action activity.
Several complaints about having to spend action to do things that were free actions previously.
5. Please provide any feedback about the monster, hazard, and treasure mechanics in Part 1 of Doomsday Dawn.
The players stayed out of the room with the mindfog fungus as soon as they identified it, which is good because there was only a very slim chance that they could have disarmed it even with trained Survival and a buff from Guidance. DC 19 is much too high for 1st level.
No member of the party had Thievery or dispel magic (which isn't available at this level), so we had to get creative to disarm the Sands of the Boneyard trap using Mage Hand.
If it were not for lucky rolls, the players would have missed out on a fair bit of treasure. Needing to crit on a DC 10 check (i.e. DC 20) is very unlikely at 1st level. It wasn't until they went through A6 again on the second day that they made the DC 15 check to notice the Lamashtu idol in the fountain.
Monsters having three attacks and arbitrarily-large attack rolls means they'll likely damage the players every round and run a good chance of damaging them seriously. It results in burning through a lot of healing spells. Without a cleric, I don't see how this could have worked.
6. What was your favorite aspect of Part 1 of Doomsday Dawn?
RPing goblins during the times that players interrogated or negotiated with them. Drakus eating that pig in front of the PCs and getting his heart ripped out by the halfling sorcerer's shocking/icy dragon claws.
So... basically the parts I adlibbed.
7. Were there any aspects of play in Part 1 of Doomsday Dawn that did not live up to your expectations?
Information was not terribly well organized, had to go looking through a lot of text for answers to player questions. Lack of morale information on goblins, or how to RP them.
Spellcasters didn't feel like they got much bang for their buck when they used their 1st Level spells, compared to just attacking with their cantrips or the cleric's scimitar.
Lore skills from the backgrounds never got an opportunity to be rolled.
Non-linear layout made it a little too easy to accidentally skip straight to the boss fight.
8. Do you have any other comments, feedback, or concerns relating to Part 1 of Doomsday Dawn?
Was not the brutal slugfest I expected from other people's reports of TPKs, but players avoided some of the worst fights and got lucky on others. I didn't play the monsters very tactically. It's still troubling that they needed to rest during such a short dungeon because they were out of healing from taking so much damage. Wound up going off script on the module a lot for the sake of letting the players do whatever creative idea they had instead of sticking rigidly to the playtest.
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A couple of additional bits of information:
After the Playtest Rulebook came out, a lot of people lost interest, so I only had two players, who each made two characters. The cleric and wizard were one, the fighter and sorcerer were the other.
I did not realize that Guidance resulted in the target being bolstered against it. The cleric was spamming it like crazy. Not sure what point there is in a cantrip (which is supposed to be unlimited use) that only works once per party member.