There seems to be scant info about this upcoming adventure. Too scant! Has there been any preview or teaser, maybe something coming out of one of the 'cons? Has a monster preview slipped out or a hint about cool feats or mechanics that players might encounter?
Other than it being the firstest and bestest stand-alone adventure for 2E, what's its draw for GMs and players alike?
Off the top of my head, here's what we know about The Fall of Plaguestone:
• Level 1–4
• Tells the story of the party coming together
• Serves as an intro to PF2 rules
• The monsters on the cover are acid wolves (hence the "forbidden alchemy, mutant animals" in the adventure description)
• The adventure rewards include a rare-level feat, only accessible by completing the adventure (to show off one neat use of the rarity system)
Other folks: have I missed anything?
Apparently the start is in the back of a wagon on the way to (I think) Isger per KD
There are also going to be feats players earn only through playing - potentially bonus ones ?
And there is some bonus players can earn only through playing (this could be the same as above )
Him being a legendary something springs to mind as well? A chef?
I am not sure which podcast they discussed it on
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People that play modules usually play a couple of them with the same character, or introduce them into their homebrew campaign. And that means they can make some feat do very special things that would be broken if everyone could just take it freely, but that is worth it if you spend 2-3 months (IRL) adventuring for it, and it fit the story you created with that character and that adventure.
I think I heard about an elf with a missing ear, but not sure, was only half-listening [/pun].
He is the cook named Cooky or Cookie.
For me it'll be a nice little extra thing for my group. We will probably do Plaguestone and then Age of Ashes. If the players want to keep there characters into Age of Ashes I don't see why the shouldn't. I can just scale up the encounters and say "you guys are on 1250 xp per level until the AP catches up.
Do low CRs still give low XP rewards? It might be fun to just let Lvl 4 characters roll through the beginning stages of an AP and let them show off how awesome they are for a while. Maybe beef up a boss fight so they don't just steamroll over everything. The XL rewards should adjust themselves.
For me it'll be a nice little extra thing for my group. We will probably do Plaguestone and then Age of Ashes. If the players want to keep there characters into Age of Ashes I don't see why the shouldn't. I can just scale up the encounters and say "you guys are on 1250 xp per level until the AP catches up.Do low CRs still give low XP rewards? It might be fun to just let Lvl 4 characters roll through the beginning stages of an AP and let them show off how awesome they are for a while. Maybe beef up a boss fight so they don't just steamroll over everything. The XL rewards should adjust themselves.
We're back to relative XP calculations so yeah, low CR creatures give little to no XP (sometimes straight up 0). It would still be really weird to start an AP with higher level chars, it would make stuff vastly less dramatic than intended for at least 1 book.
Although consider the new system for how challenging the lower stuff will be.
Entering the AP at lvl 4 with it expecting level 1 will be easier. The new system of Pf2 also seems to make scaling much easier. Adding or subtracting values up or down can bring it back on par. The AP example would be adding 3 to those initial encounters to even out expectations, but that would keep the distortion going for you. So maybe only slight adjustments.
Which will raise the XP they give and negate the thing. You'd have to straight up not grant XP at all while the adventure catches up or you'll keep adding +3 from lv1 to 20.
Might be easier to just start on book 2 of the AP, or hope there's some new modules you can use as a sequel.
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It's my understanding that this might be the first in a series of connected "intro" modules akin to PF1E's "Price of Immortality" trilogy. If so, this is the "Crypt" module and characters finishing it may have a future still.
That or I'm completely wrong/mis-remembering something I heard or read about Plaguestone.
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We're back to relative XP calculations so yeah, low CR creatures give little to no XP (sometimes straight up 0). It would still be really weird to start an AP with higher level chars, it would make stuff vastly less dramatic than intended for at least 1 book.
One GMs vastly less dramatic is another GMs highly cinematic.
Granted, you might still be right, but it might also be used for the opportunity to run around with more crits than normal, do more things they wouldn't normally be able to accomplish, and get to feel the opposition strengthening instead of being roughly matched.
Especially in Age of Ashes where the PCs wind up with their own castle. It lends their "moral arguments" some weight if they are gloriously triumphant rather than merely successful.
It would just take a bit of work to make sure it is action movie fun instead of so easy it is boring.
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I can't offer a preview at this point, because the game is out, but I can offer some advice. This will, of course, be highly subjective. There are going to be some minor spoilers, but I'll try to keep it vague such that the advice only makes sense if you have it. Although far from powergamers, my players just so happened to have a fighter, a giant instinct barbarian, a half-orc warpriest, and a druid. The warpriest pretty much ignored spellcasting in favor of melee. And I should say, because it might sound like I'm being too critical, my players had a blast.
I'll just do Part 1 in this post and Part 2 in a following one.
First encounter is built on "Trivial" xp budget and it also splits the encounter such that it is even easier. My players took out the first wave in the first round and the second wave in the second round. The barfight was over in 1 round, as well. (Barbarian rolled a crit and dropped a farmer in one punch, then rolled well to knock out another with a one-two; the fighter hit twice and the warpriest assisted to knock out a third.) In both of these instances, I should have had a backup plan for if the fight goes too well because the story assumes the caravan is attacked for more than 12 seconds and that the barfight goes on for more than 6 seconds. If you have a barbarian that says, "Cool! Barfight!" and jumps right in with rage, he's at a minimum taking out a farmer a round. In retrospect, I should have ignored the "pacify 3 farmers to end the fight" suggestion.
Also, I didn't have a chance to use my houserule for the way fleas work in the first encounter because it was over so fast, but there is a bit of silliness there that you might want to ignore in favor of something else. I chose to make the wolves have a disgusting slime dripping from their mouths that did the same thing as suggested for fleas (retch instead of scratch to remove), which played well towards the whole blight thing that develops over the story. The players actually studied the wolves because of the weird drool and acid.
I also had a plan for the bee swarm to be blighted because their behavior was so odd. I'm a beekeeper and I thought the presentation of a bee hive was silly, but the druid had a smokestick, so the encounter was trivial anyway.
The following wall of text could be summarized as "Part 1 seems awfully easy:" 3 javelins at the old shrine = 3/4 of the threat gone, then the last one missed. At the rosemary bush, the druid took care of it. At Trin's house, the druid took care of it. Harrod's spear launcher worked, but damage was healed up by the cleric. Barbarian actually trained in Thievery and was ready at that point, so the falling debris did not work (it was a 50/50 chance to disable). More than one way to handle the guard dogs, but I let the druid make her case with wild empathy because she went all in on animals, from her background to her order (and, as an animal trainer, she is going to take ownership of them and train them now). The barbarian used a hero point on the poisoned lock because at this point everyone had 3, but had no reason to use them. At the snake pool, barbarian goes first, hits twice, ends threat. If you're keeping score, I'm at page 20 of the adventure, which ends on page 49, and my players have expended a smokestick (which is admittedly pretty expensive), a healing spell, and a hero point. Hallod's tactics are pretty good and the barbarian only hit once (with a hero point expended), so it took two rounds to finish the fight, but the party rested after that, so fully healed.
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Part 2:
I had already set the seeds to ignore the introduction of Noala, who I thought was an exceedingly uninteresting character. The druid of the party was interested in checking out a rumor regarding a blight in the area, which I had set up from the start of the adventure. The wolves were a great place to start checking for tracks, so, without Noala, the PCs went back to the first encounter location and followed tracks to the blighted den. I found this be much more interesting than the Noala angle, with more PC agency. The PCs used a similar tactic to make their way to the Pen. The encounters were a bit more interesting than before, but that damn barbarian averages 15.5 damage on a hit and the fighter, thanks to the benefit of having the Lost and Alone background, is at 13 hp with a +10 attack. Each fight took 1 or 2 rounds (the rats took 1 and the barbarian crit'ing an alchemist after sudden charge turned a modest challenge into a trivial one) until H7.
The PCs were still 1st Level, which I believe was an error on my part, but the adventure indicated Noala would train the PCs after the pen, so I kind of assumed they should still be 1st level when going there (even though I cut Noala from the story). That pitted the PCs against two severe-threat bosses at the same time, but the adventure splits them up to make them more manageable; if both of them were tactically arranged, the fight would be really, really tough. I followed the suggestions of the module, with the sculptor opening the door to the blood ooze's room, but he rolled poorly on initiative. Sudden charge fighter, sudden charge barbarian (plus a hero point), and the sculptor is over half dead. He flees with a tumble action and interacts with a secret door (his escape route) and is then cut down the following round. Surprisingly, when the party goes to mop up the blood ooze, it drops the barbarian to dying 1, but they finish it off in two rounds, as well. (In retrospect, they should have pelted it with sling bullets until it died.) Although the PCs won pretty handily, I think this encounter could have been quite a bit worse for them, so I recommend you get your PCs to level 2, especially if they don't have a fighter and a barbarian in their midst.
We're going to start Part 3 next weekend after a level up. I think they can handle it at 2nd level, but I am reasonably certain the adventure is designed for 3rd level characters at this point. The code is "Severe 3" and other encounters, which I believe means the encounter is considered tough for 3rd level characters. That is, Part 1 is for 1st level characters; Part 2 is for 2nd level characters; Part 3 is for 3rd level characters; etc. Once you get the code, it feels obvious, I guess, but it wasn't obvious to me at the time.
I'll just do Part 1 in this post and Part 2 in a following one.
Thanks for posting your experiences, as well as the changes you made. I'll be running this adventure in 6 weeks or so, so I'm keen to learn everything I can, especially with a brand new rules system.
I've found in the past that taking tips from your predecessors can make an adventure even better than the original from Paizo, because you have so many options to choose from that are a better fit for your players.
Great writeup totoro. I'm planning on running this soon as well. Vague spoilers ahead. Go away players!
I like the adventure from what I'm reading. Or rather, I started liking it when I got to part 2. My main concern is with part 1, which feels a little too mundane. I can easily see my players spending like 4 sessions working through a mostly non-fantasy mystery and confronting a non-fantasy enemy in their non-fantasy lair. Some edits I'm thinking about making:
1. There are too many merchant caravan NPCs no one will care about. I may cut it down to just Cooky and Bort, and make it clear they go way back. Might just make it one or two wagons, rather than a whole caravan. Cooky, then, would want the PCs to solve the murder and would probably be a suspect, too.
2. Trin is a teenager who is exceedingly bored of her job at the Feedmill. Is morbidly fascinated by the PCs fight and injuries, rolls her eyes a lot, etc. It's fitting because it already says she wants to get out of this town. For some reason there are no young NPCs as written. I don't need my story to have a bunch of annoying kids, but they're all a bunch of plain, serious, 30+ people.
3. Feedmill is a lame name and an indistinct place. That's probably the point, but I need more flavor. Maybe I'll call it the Tipsy Turnip and make the servers wear turnip-like hats. Teenage Trin would hate that, which is perfect.
4. Give the characters history with Bort. I know cooperative players will generally go along with being pointed toward a quest, but there is really no reason for them to care about him or to be the ones investigating.
5. Make Sir Krent the lawman. As written, there is a useless lawman who does nothing, and an interesting depressed knight of Lastwall who has no relevance to the main plot.
6. Most importantly, find some way to bring in elements of Part 2 early. Having an acid spewing wolf and then nothing weird for too long just isn't to my liking. Alternately, maybe I just need to rush the investigation to make sure it doesn't take more than one session.
I agree about the merchant caravan NPCs. I ignored them all so far (my players didn't bother to search Bort's wagon). The reward the players get at the end comes from Bort posthumously, though, so I'm going to have to reintroduce Cooky (they probably forgot her name by now). Also, love your suggestion about Trin and the Tipsy Turnip; wish I'd thought of that!
Forgot to mention one other thing that might be useful:
My players liked the chase quite a bit. I took my time and the mud was particularly fun (first person who fails falls, next person to make it jumps on them to avoid the mud, that kind of stuff). However, speed is never taken into account. I recommend at the very least have the players roll in order of speed so that, if there is a tie, the fastest PC catches up first. I actually cheated the player of the gnome barbarian (he didn't know) because there were two elves, one nimble, who were not rolling as well. In the end, the gnome still caught the goblin, but I essentially gave the faster characters a chance to get three hits before the slower character got four. I didn't come up with a formula, but you might want to think about how to change the chase if you have a speed 20 PC in the same group as a speed 35 PC.
Also, the dog broke verisimilitude a little. I think you want to avoid it interacting with multiple characters, even though the nature check is supposed to be rewarding. Or if a first character fails and gets attacked, the next character needs to roll acrobatics to avoid tripping over the leash instead of just getting bit again for more damage. Just give it some thought.
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I was very strategic in picking up everything at GenCon and then foolish to try and run Plaguestone that very night! We were learning the new rules, creating our first characters, and I was trying to prep the adventure! So I made some mistakes the first night and we played for about 2 hours. Then we played another 2 hours on Saturday night and things went much better.
The Fall of Plaguestone begins as a classic mystery, with the PC's in the role of amateur detectives, following up on various clues and interviewing members of the small town to discover more. And herein lies my problem with the adventure...
As the FIRST official stand alone adventure that has been billed as a good way to learn the new rules, I would NOT have selected this adventure, especially for any newbie GM's out there. Yes, I like that there is very quick combat scene to get action rolling and to learn the combat system. But the GM is expected to run several named NPCs in the caravan. And then a very large collection of NPCs in town and the tavern, many who will be important to the subsequent investigation. Even as a GM with almost 40 years of experience, I found this overwhelming to prep and stay on top of. I can't imagine a new GM tackling this.
Paizo has produced several better "intro" adventures for new players and GMs. I realize that a "Beginner's Box" is probably in the offing, but I would have hoped for something like that in the first adventure here. I also recognize that I jumped in without fully grokking the ruleset or the adventure. I am looking forward to running this in 2 weeks with my regular game group at home and getting a "re-do" on the first Chapter of the adventure. I'll let you know how the rest of it goes...