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Pre-Gens:
- Kyra (Cleric)
- Fumbus (Alchemist)
- Seoni (Sorcerer)
- Valeros (Fighter)
Right from the top, the adventure was very good at pointing out possible inconsistencies. Why the Society didn't know where the safehouse was, why the Pathfinders were working behind the backs of the Church of Iomedae, and why higher-level Pathfinders weren't being sent on the mission. Explaining the quest and explaining why the PCs were the people right for the job felt natural. My group is fairly good at suspending disbelief, but I liked not having to lean in on that. Allowing for PCs to "bluff" during the challenge at the minotaur camp is a good sign that the module author understands common responses from players.
The Cleric, while not a Cleric of Iomedae, was opposed to lying to another church, and told her other Pathfinders that if she had a chance, she would return the MacGuffin directly to the Church of Iomedae. The other players assured Ambrus that she was also opposed to stealing, so there was nothing to worry about. "I'm more worried the goblin will melt it down with his acid" I quipped back as Ambrus, to which Fumbus responded "I don't even know how to make acid!"
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The structure of this section was very different from the other playtest adventures, and everyone got to do something useful. Seoni and Fumbus found the likely direction of the caravan their missing Pathfinder was on, and Valeros and Kyra chatted up the locals to learn about the minotaur and harpy threats they could find out in the wild. Everyone got to use different skills, and the adventure not blocking things from happening allowed the players to be more 'playful' in their roleplaying.
Not wanting to wander around in the dark in an unfamiliar area, the PCs rested and set out the next day for the safehouse. When they got there, they were told the message the minotaur victim told his healer, and left. None of the players thought to heal the wounded NPCs, but not out of a lack of caring (I think). Maybe I just didn't point out how badly hurt they were, or they just thought everyone in the world healed as well as allies of a Cleric do.
The adventure introduced a new rule, that being awake for 16 hours would make the PCs fatigued. AFAIK that's not something in the rules, so I just assumed that it was a module-specific ruling that didn't have to apply to other adventures. I like it, but I like my personal interpretation that you need only have to rest every 24 hours.
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Exploration mode for the adventure:
- Valeros: Defending
- Seoni: Detecting Magic
- Kyra: Searching
- Fumbus: Investigating (Nature)
When the group got to the ambush, Kyra and Fumbus CSIed the scene with Perception (which I used for their Initiative) and in recreating where the minotaurs must have sprung their ambush from, caught sight of two minotaurs hiding in the same ambush site! The PCs who beat the minotaurs on initiative decided to delay their turns until they engaged with them, not wanting to split the party across the stream. Fumbus and Kyra took a solid hit each, but managed to respond well. Fumbus critically hit one with his dogslicer, giving it flat-footed, which allowed Kyra to get another critical hit on it! Seoni was dogged by the other minotaur, but without AoO, she was able to regroup next to Valeros, who quickly finished off the flat-footed Minotaur and held off the second minotaur.
When the surviving minotaur surrendered, Seoni wanted to intimidate the minotaur to get out of here. I explained that it doesn't speak common, so she just pointed to the woods and grunted. I had the Minotaur run away (not back to the camp, as I felt it had been shamed too badly to return). Examining the dead minotaur, Seoni critically failed her Religion check on the evidence of Baphomet, and I told her that these minotaurs are dumb and prone to pointless violence.
Party manages to follow tracks of minotaurs back to their camp, but because an extra day had passed, they found Inisa bound before the assembled minotaurs. Seoni, believing she was performing the correct greeting, rushed in staff raised in a threatening fashion towards the priestess. I rolled a Perception check for Mildora to understand this was a misunderstanding of etiquette, not a typical adventurer introduction. Everyone at the table understood the absurdity of the situation, and I allowed it to play out for fun and laughs.
Seoni: "Alright you primitive screwheads, listen up! You see this staff? This... is my BOOMSTICK!"
Mildora: "We don't do that here."
The party is surprisingly chill with parleying with the minotaurs, especially when they are told of the troubles Ryolle is causing. Kyra even suggested they could all become Pathfinders, just like how goblins like Fumbus did. All the friendliness was fortunate. It suggests that if the minotaurs are provoked to attack, they will stand down if (2) minotaurs are killed, but doesn't specify how many minotaurs would be attacking the PCs each round. The PCs take the combat challenge: Kyra and Valeros were quickly eliminated, but Seoni and Fumbus unleashed their toughest spells and won the game for their side. But since Mildora offered to let them sleep the night there, the lost HP and spells were really inconsequential. Even the night rest was very forgiving, and helped the party breeze through the rest of the module. I guess the module assumed that players would have some qualms about sleeping amongst minotaurs?
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The next day, the party marched towards Ryolle in their standard manner. (In the rush to adventure, no-one actually asked Mildora to release Inisa). Rolling for their checks, I gave them cryptic clues to the ghasts' presence: clawmarks across trees, and a lack of birds and wildlife in the area. The Ghasts beat everyone with their Stealth initiative, so I decided to have them strike after Valeros passed them. I placed their miniatures where each ghast could get a handle on a PC, and each attacked PC got sick from the Ghast's aura. (Seoni and Kyra contracted Ghast Fever, but I didn't bother resolving that, since the adventure didn't last that long).
Fumbus got the worst of it: being paralyzed, he couldn't even retch up to overcome the sickness! He just made some Lore checks that told him information about ghasts they were already demonstrating to him! Kyra unleashed a 3-action Heal, which worked perfectly given that she was in the center of the march. We checked the rules for auras, and were unsure if she could heal herself with an aura based on the wording on Page 299. I ruled that it did not, since there were some harmful auras that would needlessly hurt the caster if it included them in it. Seoni and Valeros worked on focusing fire on one ghast at a time, to lessen the sickness and chance of paralysis. When Valeros rushed in to fight his first ghoul, he had forgotten about the stench aura. Fortunately, the Fighter made the Fortitude save. On the second round, Valeros dealt exactly enough damage to kill off the ghast on Fumbus, then Sudden Charged to the one on Kyra and critically hit it! Once the last Ghast was dropped, the still-sick adventurers took a moment to retch the sickness out of them. Not a pleasant visual.
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Given there was one encounter left and no PC had used a magic item yet in this adventure designed to test the Resonance rules, I asked the players to try and use some of the magic items. I explained to Kyra's player how to use "Treat Wounds" with Medicine, which she used to top off Seoni and Fumbus for their remaining damage. Unfortunately, that meant they didn't need their newly found healing potions. Still, Kyra retrieved her scroll of Heroism, ready to cast it on Valeros. Seoni retrieved her Scroll of Acid Arrow. Valeros leads the way with his Viper Arrow notched into his bow. Without a shield ready, he tries to Sneak into Ryolle's lair, obvious failing of course.
The PCs saw and were seen by the enchanted guards, but still tried to get the jump on them when they closed in. The Guard rolled a natural 1 for Perception, but Seoni rolled a 13 for Stealth, matching their Perception! We had a discussion on who was beating who here: did the guards reach the DC for Seoni's Stealth, or did Seoni meet the DC for the guard's Perception? We never had any problem before resolving a skill roll with Stealth and Perception, but for some reason rolling initiative with these skills (being opposed as they are) really threw us. Eventually, we realized that Initiative works different from skill checks: Initiative is ranked, whereas skills are compared to a Difficult Class. And since PCs lose ties to enemies, I had Seoni lose initiative to someone who rolled a natural one.
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Everyone but Fumbus failed their save vs. Song. The other PCs wanted to roll Deception to trick Ryolle into thinking they were captivated, but after looking at their low Deception bonuses, they declined. Despite my better judgement, I followed the module's advice and had Ryolle fly into melee with the party. Fortunately for him, the PCs had a very sub-optimal round. In order to use her scroll of Heroism, Kyra spent her whole turn moving next to Valeros and casting it. Seoni got a natural 1 on her roll for Scroll of Acid Arrow. Valeros, being in melee with Ryolle, dropped his bow, pulled out his melee weapon and attacked once.
Not wanting to play Ryolle too dumb, I decided he would end his turn in the air, flying down to strike and then come back. When Fumbus finally got free, he threw two Alchemist's Fire Flasks at Ryolle. He missed both times, but still got him with the splash damage. As Ryolle was directly above them all, they asked me if the splash damage would rain down on them as well. I couldn't think of a precedence for how splash damage would work if it fell straight down. So I ruled that the splash would no longer be damage after it travelled 5 feet, landing as harmless cinders.
Ryolle got into "retreat mode" on his turn from Valeros' Attack of Opportunity, so he began to fly away. I made sure to make that point clear to the party, so they wouldn't wait on the ground with readied actions if it was clear he was bolting. Valeros dropped his melee weapon, jumped towards his bow, and took a shot with the Viper Arrow at the retreating Harpy. Even with a penalty, he managed to hit! But when we looked up at what Viper Arrow did, and how it wouldn't affect Ryolle at all, we were all underwhelmed. Fortunately, Seoni managed to finish the Harpy with a Lightning Bolt, even though he made his saving throw.
The ending was a happy one. Kyra was pleased that the Pathfinders decided to work with the Church of Iomedae, and that the minotaur tribe was willing to parley with the Pathfinders. And I think someone (maybe Mildora) returned Inisa to safety.
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Thoughts: This has been my favourite module for the playtest so far. The skill DCs have been reasonable, and more importantly, the difficulty of the adventure was just average. My players were expecting another meatgrinder, and were surprised at how easy it was. For sure, they felt threatened at several parts, but unlike other modules, they weren't having their HP and spells being widdled away by tough encounter after tough encounter. It definitely felt like a more average RPG game, with more joking and roleplaying going on. Unfortunately, the lowered difficult meant that the PCs didn't need to use the magic items as much as they did in other adventures. The magic items were okay, but I honestly didn't need to reference the new rules, because each PC maybe used one magic item in the entire adventure.
Also, every PC seemed balanced against each other. It was a lot like "In Pale Mountain's Shadow", where the casters didn't feel brittle or the martials too limited. Casters generally ran out of their non-cantrips around the same time the martials ran out of HP. It may be the case that PF2 has its sweet spot around Level 4-7. In any case, every PC did well, and the players were satisfied with what they did in the adventure.
- Seoni had the most spotlight on her, but she was also the Charisma PC as well. She never needed to use Ancestral Surge, as there was always something else more important (like moving away from a foe she was in melee with).
- Kyra managed to keep everyone healed without exhausting her Channel Energy reserves; she never needed to cast Fire Ray once, since she was always in melee.
- Valeros dealt a surprising amount of damage and his AC helped him avoid a lot of hits, even without a shield raised.
- Fumbus' player was pleased that he could play the Alchemist like a Rogue, leading with his dogslicer and falling back on his Alchemy if he needed it.