| hyphz |
PC roster:
Goblin Sorcerer
Half-Orc Barbarian
Gnome Bard
Gnome Monk
Elf Ranger
Dwarf Cleric
The session began as the players had just defeated the Quasits at A6. The monk successfully identified the noisemaker trap on the eastern door, and the players passed through it into the corridor. At that point, the Sorcerer decided to send his rat familiar through into A7 to scout ahead, and saw the goblins sitting around the fire.
What does this rope do? There was a problem here with the rope control for the trap. The trap is given a Stealth DC, but it is not clear how the control rope would be hidden, especially if a goblin was holding it (although on this occasion it was not) or what bonus seeing the control rope would give to detect the trap.
The rat did notice the trap and after some discussion of the v1.1 option for familiars to Interact with objects would allow it to pull the rope, the Sorcerer instead decided to have it squeak loudly to attract the goblins' attention to a potential meal. Since they were arguing over meat I figured they would not mind a little more and one of the goblins followed the rat back into the corridor where the party waited.
We've been waiting for you. You go first. At this point the party prepared to ambush the approaching Goblin. Per the rules it would seem the party would be able to roll Stealth instead of Perception for initiative. But for many party members, Stealth was worse than Perception, meaning that they would actually tend to act after the enemy because they set an ambush. I considered allowing them to choose whichever was better, but if Perception was better this meant that setting an ambush gave no bonus at all.
The monk knocked the Goblin unconscious, and the PCs then decided to wait for it to come round and question it about what the cavern. The monk decided to try to help the goblin back to consciousness..
Bob, you knock him out lightly! And due to the v1.1 rules found himself rolling against his own class DC. This is not necessarily a bug, but perhaps a little counterintuitive, given that it means that players who wish to keep an enemy around for whatever reason need to make sure that enemy is downed by a worse fighter so that the DC will be lower.
The goblin provided them some information about the Southeast corner of the map, and at that point the Goblin Commando arrived in the corridor looking for where his friend had gone (this was not a good tactical decision but Goblins are not known for tactics). It appeared and hit the monk, badly wounding him. The Barbarian stepped up and..
Hack you in half! Dealt around 40 damage to the commando in a single round! This was thanks to his stacked damage bonuses; +4 for strength, +2 for Raging, +2 from the Titan Mauler ability doubling the Rage bonus because he was using an outsize axe. His main hit critting and a couple of the penalized hits hitting gave him a ridiculous damage total.
Why not be armed? Of course, at this point the Monk player was looking a little pouty that he had dealt 5-6 damage is his turn and the Barbarian had just dealt 40.
As the Barbarian was standing over the dead Commando, the Pyro also came around the corner and used Burning Hands on the Barbarian before being shot by other party members and finally downed.
There was then a pause as the PCs decided what to do with the dead goblins and which way to go, which was interrupted by the Barbarian getting frustrated and deciding to charge into the cavern with the other goblins. This of course led him into the area where the goblins, who were now alert, had seen the trap..
When does a fight begin? And all kinds of confusion broke out as to how to handle the goblin pulling the rope on the trap. The Barbarian player argued that the Goblin could not be readying to pull the rope, because you can only ready in Encounter Mode and it had not yet begun. If initiative was rolled before the Barbarian entered the cave, then the Barbarian would have already passed through the trap area before the Goblin's turn; if the Barbarian knew he had not won initiative he could walk away and end Encounter Mode to break any potential Readied action by the Goblin.
The Barbarian proceeded to crit and kill one of the goblins and seriously wound the other, and the Monk killed the one remaining one. He then decided to climb up the ledge, based on information from the captured Goblin. The Barbarian failed to detect the secret door, but the Sorceror's familiar went up with him and spotted it. Having no party member able to pick locks because none were trained in Thievery, the Barbarian decided to beat down the door with his axe.
Axe of steel, door of paper The rules seemed to be quite weak on damage to doors. The adventure did not state what they door was made of, but I assumed it was made of stone as otherwise it would not blend in with the surrounding wall. This gave it Hardness 7, doubled for being structural, which meant it was trivial for the Barbarian to smash through the door with two swings.
They then entered area A12 and the Barbarian again proceeded to beat the locked chest with his axe, and again with no information on what it was made out of, this was far easier than would seem sensible. In fact the standard Chest in the equipment list is made of wood meaning it was Hardness 5 and thus even the monk would have had a reasonable chance of breaking it by punching it. This naturally triggered dissonance as Drakus had gone to the trouble of putting a dangerous needle trap on the lock of the chest but had not bothered to secure it against just hitting it.
I ruled that having broken open the chest destroyed the potion and oil vials in the chest, but the PCs still recovered the other items, including the Feather Token. The Sorcerer examined this and, after being told it would take an hour per item to identify them, decided to activate the Token. The rules on Operate Activation do not specify how you find out how to activate an item or whether it is necessary to know what the item is in order to do so. So, he rubbed it and it turned into a sparrow, ready to deliver a message for him.
After some consideration, he announced his message as "**** you" to be delivered to Drakus - intending to follow the sparrow to find Drakus' location. I pointed out that it could only message someone he had met - and he pointed out that, due to the Renegade Goblin background, he had in fact met Drakus before when he attacked the Mudchewer tribe pre-adventure. The rules for the token do not state how precisely the location has to be specified, although they do imply that the sparrow can search for the target, nor how the target using Stealth affects the delivery of the message.
So the sparrow flew down the passage to A10 (because it was the only open exit, not because it knew Drakus to be there) where Drakus was hiding having heard the PCs rooting through his stuff. His cunning attempt at hiding behind the altar was ruined by a sparrow darting over to where he was hiding and squawking "**** you" at him. And there was much hilarity.
Combat was joined! The ranger shot Drakus with a few arrows, and the monk rushed in and punched him for 5 damage - which he soaked with his bludgeoning resistance. He then hit the Monk back with his longsword, critting him and knocking him into negative HP.
The Barbarian stepped up to also attack Drakus, dealing around 30 damage even after resistances. At that point, the Cleric decided to move up close to the Monk and try to stabilize him. Unfortunately, since the Monk was downed by Drakus, the DC to do so was Drakus's hard level DC and he rolled a critical failure and made the Monk worse.
Assessing the patient: It seems rather awkward that in the v1.1 rules, the difficulty of stabilizing an ally can vary wildly, meaning that a well-meaning ally can end up rolling against a DC which turns out to have a high chance of crit failing. This may have been intentional, but it seems awkward.
At that point, the Monk changes his mind and decided he will instead spend his Hero point to not be knocked down. I allow the retcon, and the Cleric decides instead to Daze Drakus. Drakus hits him with an AoO, disrupting the spell.
Would you, could you, AoO? Some clarification would be useful on whether players and/or monsters know whether or not an opponent has the ability to AoO, or at what point they find this out. The problem is that if everyone assumes that others do have AoOs, and still avoid moving around engaging positions or casting spells in their vicinity, then the opponent has a significant proportion of the benefit of actually having an AoO even if they don't. On the other hand, if they assume that opponents do not have AoO, they risk significant loss of resources if they actually do. This becomes even more so when you consider the possibility of PCs or monsters playing mind games by deliberately declining AoOs they could have available, to fool others into thinking they don't have them.
Drakus was then polished off by the Barbarian after the Monk again tried and failed to hit him, and the adventure was wrapped up.
So far, things seem reasonable, although the difference between the Barbarian and the Monk is rather worrying. It would be really good if PF2E could be the first D20 game to have a monk that actually works, but I guess that might be too much to ask..