This is my first post to the forums, hope I'm doing it right and this is a good way to submit feedback. I did submit the first Doomsday Dawn survey (several weeks late), but didn't feel like it accurately reflected my experiences. If I should have structured this differently or posted in a different place, I apologize and please let me know what I could do to improve.
I ran the Lost Star as a DM. I have not played Pathfinder 1e before, but have had experiences as both a player and DM for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, 4e, and 5e with 5e being my favorite of those three and the system I am most comfortable in. Three of my players have some 3.5 and 5e experience (as players and DM) and have different preferences with each system. One of my players is a longtime veteran of many tabletops, has been playing D&D since 2e, and has played PF 1e.
My players and I all had a blast with the base rules to the Playtest, not so much with the module itself. We are currently discussing whether we want to keep playing Doomsday Dawn or just to go off and do our own adventures with the characters and rules.
What we liked
-The three action system is amazing. Combat felt very fluid, people did more than 5 foot step and full round attack, and it had an almost cinematic feel to it. On one turn our goblin barbarian struck and killed a goblin, dropped their weapon, grappled another adjacent goblin, then bit them for the kill. Players were incredibly mobile because they didn't fear attacks of opportunity (which came back to bite them during the Drakus fight).
-Every fight felt somewhat challenging. We compared the experience to a tabletop version of Darkest Dungeon (a turn based fantasy video game that is known for high lethality). Level 0 enemies were a genuine threat, something my players and I had never experienced before.
-Fewer feats and class abilities made the choices players did make feel more important and memorable. One of our players is a little forgetful and frequently forgets some of the different options she has for her race/ancestry and class. Choosing each feat yourself and not being handed a list of 3+ abilities felt impactful and she remembered all of her abilities because she picked them herself.
-Character creation was fun, fairly simple, not randomized, and was fairly fast aside from spending 150 silver pieces.
What we didn't like
-The cleric was reduced to a heal bot. Because the enemies had such a high bonus to hit and spellcasters didn't have all the same suppression/crowd control options (not complaining about either of these) the party was guaranteed to take a fair bit of damage and opted not to use/consume healing potions because the cleric had 4 heal spells for free and they were concerned with their resonance (which we all think is a really cool system. I'm not a fan of the walking magic item arsenal that each player turned into in 3.5 and I think resonance is much more flexible than 5e's attunement system)
-The players had absolutely no motivation actively explore and search through the Ashen Ossuary. They knew these were characters who they wouldn't play again until 9th level (where they would just receive a bunch of loot) so had no interest in scrounging through every room for the pittance of coin the goblins had hiding in their beds or fighting every fight to get the most xp they could. They wanted to go in, murder drakus, get the gem, and get out. The ignored the pool, centipedes, fungus, and goblins around the fire because there was simply no reason to engage them (that the players were aware of). They only engaged the skeletons because they got tired of not interacting with anything and not really being penalized for it. They felt like they missed a lot of story but also had trouble figuring out why they were supposed to care.
-Most of the rules were clearly developed and methodically written (this is very good) however, several were just missing or hard to find and it caused confusion. Does a large sized weapon (for a giant barbarian) offer any advantages besides +2 damage while raging? Does it cost more to buy? Do you have to handle animal before commanding an animal companion? Shields... how do they work? We searched on the forums and reddit and found mixed answers and were forced to houserule it.
-Rulebook was a little difficult to navigate for the players who were looking at it for the first time. Why are powers mixed in with spells? Why are conditions not in an appendix and are instead on page 320/434? Why aren't the updates a part of base rulebook pdf?
Welcome to the forums! Good to hear you all had a largely positive playtest experience so far.
-Rulebook was a little difficult to navigate for the players who were looking at it for the first time. Why are powers mixed in with spells? Why are conditions not in an appendix and are instead on page 320/434? Why aren't the updates a part of base rulebook pdf?
Powers are technically a kind of spell. I think most people agree they shouldn't be listed with "real" spells anyway.
I imagine conditions have their own chapter and listing (instead of being relegated to an appendix) to encourage people to read through them in their entirety once.
Not sure why the base rulebook.pdf hasn't been getting updated, and it's getting more annoying with each update. To really do it right they need to not just update the text but make it clear it's updated,
At 9th level fighters become immune tofirecold.
because otherwise people who have the PDF will be casually referring to chunks of text w/o realizing that people with the hardcover are seeing something else---but it seems to me that should be doable, even if it's painful and makes the PDF messy, and they should put some poor intern through the necessary pain to get it done. But I don't know squat about their document build system.