We finally got around to running the first playtest module yesterday, and we got halfway through. Rather than try to remember what happened in the first part after we finished it, I wanted to get it here.
We had a Dwarf Cleric of Nethys (Knowledge), Dwarf Fighter (w/ Power Attack), Goblin Rogue (Dex to damage?), and an Elf Sorcerer (Draconic bloodline).
The first encounter went really well for the players, and we were all amazed at the fighter putting out 20 points of damage with his Power Attack. The ooze was able to get one action out, so it used the Filth Wave, but it only affected a single PC.
In the second encounter in the sleeping chambers, the Sorcerer first tried to find a spell they could use to get attention away from them, but was frustrated that the rules are now VERY clear that you have to loudly and strongly say the magic words for verbal components. No more whispering. So they tried to sneak past the goblins. I wasn't sure how to run that situation of a bunch of clanky people moving sneakily, and rather than stop play to look into the Stealth and Sneaking rules, I rolled Perception for each goblin, and said that the Goblins needed 2 successes to notice them, rather than bicker at each other about that great statue that kept on falling. The cleric with the -7 penalty to sneaking did surprisingly well. The elf, who was the only one with Low-light vision, had a bullseye lantern with a very small beam.
Once the goblins caught wind of weird things happening (they didn't see the light, due to good usage), the party tried to book it into the Purification Chamber. The elf unfortunately tripped on the first step (I ruled that hastily running with a very small beam would make it very hard to get full details, including steps). We paused at this point to figure out if people who hadn't acted yet were flat-footed. We ruled they were, since I wasn't finding as much as I was hoping. Since the information is all over the place, not finding it doesn't necessarily mean it's not the rule, so we reverted to PF1e. After looking around the rulebook while writing this, I think in the future I won't have them be flat-footed.
Then we had the first real good combat playtest (using theater of the mind, rather than the grid, as there was still cheese on the table), and it went pretty well. A goblin critted against the rogue, but somehow only did 8 damage (rolling 1,1,and 6). The fighter was very, very good at their job.
I appreciated how easy it was to parse the Goblin Warrior statblock. It solved a major complaint I had with 1e. The cleric did a lot of Chill Touch, and the Sorcerer did a lot of throwing the recently-unattended dogslicers using Telekinetic Projectile. I think they both enjoyed the more powerful cantrips. The rogue did some great roleplaying, and I think sneak attack helped out quite a bit. The last goblin tried to run, but clever positioning meant that it couldn't Step safely away from the fighter (it was blocked by the rogue and the crumbled statue), and then the fighter used the AoO to do enough damage to knock it out.
At this point, their healing reserves were at about half. They really wanted a healer's tool, but couldn't afford it right away. They did find the ring, and sold it for a healer's tool once they went back, but they still went to the next room.
(Of note, I told the Goblin PC that the centipede room was "Pet Bug Trash Room", "Motivation Chamber", and "Weird Plant Room", so he recommended they didn't venture into those rooms. Probably wise, but they seem to be convince that there'll be a vampire, and Motivation Chamber disproves that.)
They did find the Idol in the Purification Chamber, but I forgot about the set DC to get it out with a tool, so I just said the cleric spent 3 minutes moving it out with his staff. He then put it in his backpack, at which point Lamashtu birthed out two quasits.
This was was a fight that was interesting in some ways, but not in others. It almost knocked out the Sorcerer due to the Quasit poison, but she quaffed a potion of healing, and rolled max. That is what kept her alive in the end. I still haven't shaken the idea that AoOs aren't really a thing for most PCs, so I didn't move the enemies around as much as I could've. I wasn't sure how to figure out how Quasits turned back into their normal shape, as their ability didn't mention that. It had the concentrate trait, and rather than look that up, I made some assumptions and just had them not maintain the changed form, so they reverted on their round again.
Then, all out of the healz, they retreated to town, and got a healer's kit. Once we got the kit, we looked up the rules for resting, realized it would be easier to just use the healer's kit, and did that for 2.5 hours in-game. Lots of TLC that night. We realized that with the healer's kit, there was no real reason to Rest to restore HP, as you get far less. There were no critical failures, so the party wasn't bolstered against it.
Thoughts: (list functionality seems busted :( )
- I didn't have time to fully read the new DC setting guidelines, so I just winged it. Most DCs I came up with were 11 or 15. Some of them were 5.
- The group thought that player character generation took way too long, and wasn't streamlined enough. I suspect this was primarily due to jumping around PDFs constantly to get all info. Jumping around PDFs is apparently much slower than physical books for us. Part of the problem was also probably the lack of suggested starting items, lack of "kits" of items, and few suggestions on what to do. Also, learning a new system as we made them.
- We all really liked baselining silver as the main coinage used.
- Some players felt like you needed to max out your main stat, and that this made boring attribute spreads. It turns out they forgot the 4 free boosts.
- Some players found remembering all the traits to be a really high cognitive load. It is perhaps not as accessible to those with mental disabilities or a lot on their minds due to life. As an example, our rogue said he did not enjoy having to remember under what circumstances his dogslicer (agile, finesse, goblin, backstabber) did special things in, even though it was relatively few situations.
- Personally, I think the mental load of learning all the traits will be fairly high, but once they are known, using them will be much less complex.
- I think everyone generally liked the 3-action system. The only complaint I saw was comparing to 5e's ease of moving in and out, and hitting in the middle of your movement. I just don't think they tried that out, as it seems like it would still work better in PF2.
- Some complaints about things that used to be free now taking up an action. No specifics were actually given on this, but I suspect it was stuff that we had an unknown house rule about. My assumption is that Recall Knowledge is the one in mind. Only getting 1-2 tidbits of information per action, and then increasing DC when you spend the most important resource in the game didn't sit well, even though it's pretty realistic.
- We all noted that it's so much more codified. I commented to them that it felt like many rules were specifically added to prevent forum arguments. I appreciate this, but it does increase cognitive load a bit. "If this was a computer program's source code, it would be beautiful"
I think we all expected a less complex system than Pathfinder 1e, given current market trends. I suspect that we will in the end prefer a less complex system (save me from 5e please!), but everyone said they thought 2e has potential, and that they want to play again.
I'm going to give the rules a twice-over, and am really excited to run the second half of the Last Star. It felt very nostalgic to me, due to being back into Pathfinder again. I'll update this thread once we finish the scenario.