Pathfinder Society - Trailblazer's Bounty - Resting?

[Luebbi]

I'm about to run my first Oneshot and bought Trailblazer's Bounty.

I noticed that most or all of the encounters are several days apart, giving the party ample rests between the encounters. This means that Spellcasters, for example, will not have to worry about expending spells. I could, of course, add random encounters during the night, but the module is fight-heavy enough already.

Coming from DND5E, I'm worried starting every encounter like this will have my players steamrolling the opposition, without having to worry about spell slot usage. I'm thinking of combining Falls/Treeline and Warg/Orc/Ogre into one busy day each to counteract this. How did you handle this?

[NielsenE]

If you are running for a PFS2 game then you can't change it.

If you're running for yourself & friends and not awarding chronicles, then it should be fine to change if you want to.

More comments:

The falls fight tends to pull a lot of resources from the party, often consumables more than spell slots. And the treeline fight is sometimes skipped and when not skipped is still often more about skill checks/climbing, solving that puzzle more than spell slots. You probably don't want any healers down spells they should be, if it goes wrong.

The Warg is an optional, severe encounter. With a note that if people have struggled up to that point to skip it. I don't think it would be wise to combine it.

The Orc/Ogre combo is probably fine, Most of my tables have successfully diplomacied the Orcs, however.

It is important to remember that the math of 2e is generally designed around people being at full HP for each fight; while there is some daily burn down of resources. Severe fights, which two of these are are designed to be challenging even at full resources in most cases. And while the other fights are low/moderates, they still have situational effects that can make them deadlier than expected.

While it is a fight heavy scenario, it also have a lot of good roleplay, and storytelling possibilities during the journy, and I think if you combine the days you'll lose some of that and it'll feel much more meat-grindery than intended.

If its your first time running something in PF2, I'd suggest taking the 'easier' path on the players while they learn tactics and strategy before ramping up the challenge. Things that work well in PF1/5E don't always translate well.

[Ascalaphus]

There is a lot of rest in the scenario which does dampen how hard the fights are - but that's not an accident. When the scenario was being written some of the other early scenarios got criticized for being overly harsh for beginner stuff. So there was a push to ensure this was a bit more gentle.

I would say don't view it as a scenario that's supposed to be hard. Present it more as a feelgood adventure, where players can get used to the system a bit, have a couple of fairly easy fights that let people figure out their characters and how they work.

[Luebbi]

Thanks for the advice, guys! I'll let the party rest up inbetween encounters, then ;)