Mathmuse |
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By a marvelous coincidence, my gaming group ended our PF2-converted Ironfang Invasion campaign on Friday, August 25, 2023 and planned Session Zero for A Fistful of Flowers and A Few Flowers More on Friday, September 1. Thus, our short new campaign coincides with the playtest. We have seven players consisting of six people from the Ironfang Invasion campaign and one person who never played tabletop roleplaying games before. We replaced the four 3rd-level pregenerated leshy PCs in Fistful of Flowers with seven 2nd-level leshy PCs.
Our Session Zero was on the day the playtest document was released, We had watched the Thursday video about the Animist and Exemplar, so had a little warning, but not the detailed mechanics, so no-one had committed to the classes before Session Zero. Fortunately, two players decided to run playtest characters.
The PCs are:
Dashing Rings fungus leshy rogue (pregenerated Reaching Rings reduced to 2nd level for the new player),
Blade Slinger vine leshy swashbuckler,
Grothnar pine leshy barbarian,
Misteria vine leshy psychic,
Monet lotus leshy kineticist,
Nightshade duskwalker leshy exemplar,
Sunshine sunflower leshy animist (sunflower heritage based on Sunflower Leshy, creature 1,).
Sunshine's player did have a rule question. A feat referred to "your spells" and she wondered whether that meant only the Animist spells or both the Animist and Apparition spells.
She also had to download the Remaster Core Preview document to understand the names telekinetic hand (renamed mage hand) and entangling flora (renamed entangle). I had already explained how positive and negative energy were renamed vitality and void.
Despite that, she was quite excited about the lore of the class and wrote up a detailed backstory for Sunshine.
The Story of Sunny
Sunshine started life as a sunflower in the garden of the lonely widow Eleanor. Sunny was a particularly large and healthy sunflower plant. Eleanor talked to all of her plants, but developed a particularly fond relationship with Sunny - enough that she began to see Sunny more and more as a companion. One day, on the anniversary of her husband's untimely death, when Elinor was particularly stricken by grief, Sunny found herself coming to life. She went to Eleanor, who was crying alone inside the cottage. Sunny stood beside the window, where she could pick up enough sunshine to reflect it to her friend. Eleanor looked up to see her favorite sunflower casting sunshine on her. Sunny started to talk for the first time: "It'll be all right. We have each other. I won't leave you." She wrapped her tendrils around Eleanor in a hug.Together, they happily tended the gardens for many decades, until Eleanor eventually reached the end of her natural human life span. Sunny became despondent for a while, having lost her only friend. But more and more, she started feeling that Eleanor hadn't really moved on to another plane.
Eleanor, in the meantime, initially found herself a very weak spirit. She had always been of the Green Faith, so had no real connection to any of the deities or outer planes - so her spirit clung to her best friend, her sunflower plant leshy, Sunny. As time passed, she gradually strengthened. She wanted more than anything to be able to communicate with Sunny, to re-establish the bond they'd had.
On the anniversary of Eleanor's death, Sunny was particularly sad. Until she suddenly heard Eleanor's voice in her head: "It'll be all right. We have each other. I won't leave you." Sunny leapt with joy, glowing with sunshine; seeds flying like rain.
Eleanor's contact gave Sunny the ability to communicate with other spirits as well, and since then, some have gotten in touch with her who also wanted to become real leshies.
So they let the old garden go wild, took some cuttings so they could establish some of their favorite plants wherever they wandered, and went out to find new plant bodies for their new spirit friends - until they met Monet, and found a new home.
Note: Sunny's story was inspired by our campaign, Fistful of Flowers, beginning just as the new playtest for Animist class is about to start - combined with Erin allowing me to play a Sunflower Leshy, which is usually reserved for monsters - and the "Wished Alive" background was the final spark. "Eleanor" is named after Eleanor Rigby.
Alas, managing the details of Animist class were too complex and she did not have her character 100% finished before the first game session on Tuesday, September 5.
Nightshade's player has not discussed her exemplar. She lives in another state, so I don't talk to her face to face. We play via Roll20 with Discord handling our voices and out-of-game text discussions. She did create a Roll20 character sheet for Nightshade, so I will present the build in my next comment.
I spent the few days before the first play session making maps for every encounter for Roll20 rather than reading the playtest document about the Animist and Exemplar, so I lack my own opinion about those classes.
Mathmuse |
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Nightshade exemplar 2
NG, Small, Leshy, Plant, Duskwalker
Heritage duskwalker (versatile heritage)
Background Ozem Experience
Perception +5; darkvision
Languages Common, Sylvan
Skills Acrobatics +4, Athletics +7, Religion +5, Society +5, Stealth +4, Warfare Lore +5
Str +4, Dex +1, Con +2, Int +1, Wis +1, Cha +0
Items +1 guisarme, leather armor, adventurer’s pack, minor healing potions (2), magic barkskin popcorn (acquired in Sept 5 game session)
AC 17; Fort +8(expert), Ref +5(trained), Will +7(expert)
HP 32
Speed 25 feet
Melee [one-action] +1 guisarme +9 (reach, trip); Damage 1d10+4 slashing
Melee [one-action] fist +8 (agile, finesse, nonlethal, unarmed) Damage 1d4+4 bludgeoning
Class Abilities humble strikes, shift immanence, spark transcendence
Body Ikon Gaze Sharp as Steel
Weapon Ikon Barrow's Edge
Worn Ikon Victor's Wreath
Ancestry Feat Willing Death
Class Feat Thorns of Mortality
Skill Feats Courtly Graces, Catfall
Hero Points 3 (houserule lets characters retain hero points between sessions)
I wonder about Thorns of Mortality, since A Fistful of Flowers is a light-hearted campaign.
After the game session on Tuesday, September 12, the players will level up their characters to 3rd level for A Few Flowers More. I am welcome to suggestions to pass on to my players about good feats to take when Nightshade and Sunshine level up.
Mathmuse |
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Game Session on Tuesday, September 5
Warning: Spoilers of A Fistful of Flowers.
During Session Zero the players invented three ways that their leshy characters learned about the kidnapped leshies. The water-and-wood kineticist Monet was a respected elder in the community, so other leshies in the area had approached her about disappearances and residents had mentioned that the young Lavender Twins were late in returning from their play on the rope bridge over the Blue Spring River. The psychic Misteria had detected a telepathic cry from the Lavender Twins, but took time to recruit adventurers Grothnar and Blade Slinger before heading to the river. But the animinist Sunshine had the most elaborate story.
The night before Session Zero, Sunshine's player had sketched out a cactus leshy rogue named Spike, but she decided to play Sunshine instead. However, she kept Spike in the game by saying that Spike had been recently kidnapped and died. His spirit had returned home to leshy territory and joined Sunshine as her second apparition. Eleanor Apparition was a peaceful gardner in life, so she became a Custodian of Groves and Gardens. In contrast, Spike Apparition was angry about his death, though he reverted to a nature spirit rather than going to an afterlife, so he became a Witness to Ancient Battles. (I lack Sunshine's character sheet, so I might be mistaken). He mentally passed details of his kidnapping to Sunshine: he was grabbed, stuffed into a sack, and later nailed into a crate with another leshy. He died after two days in the dark crate, with the crate rocking like he was on a river.
The game session stared with two separate parties: Misteria, Blade Slinger, and Grothnar; and Monet, Sunshine, Dashing Rings, and Nightshade. Both were heading to the rope bridge across the river. They met, saw that the bridge was broken, and shared their worries with each other. They checked for clues, saw that the ropes had been cut, found footprints of a boot from the riverbank to the bridge, and spotted a few lavendar petals. Misteria used Read Psychometric Resonance skill feat on the petals and felt only playful feelings. The rope had no psychometric impressions.
Monet crossed the river with her Lotus Leshy ability to walk on water. I had put a plant-eating manatee downstream for a sense of danger (the river was a Google Maps image from Blue Spring State Park in Florida, which often had manatees). Sunshine was untrained in Athletics for swimming, so Monet tied a rope to the far section of bridge to that they could drag it to near section and splice the two pieces together. Alas, only Dashing Rings was trained in Crafting. He rolled short, so his splice broke under Grothnar's weight. Fortunately, Grothnar could swim.
Monet instead stretched a rope across the river, to aid the party in swimming across. Blade Slinger, a vine leshy, used his vines to hold onto Sunshine as he swam across, but the added difficult made the DC higher and he failed the Athletics check. He and Sunshine were swept down the river, and did not make it out until two more Athletics checks later.
They found more boot footprints and more lavendar petals. Psychometry on the petals revealed extreme fright and Misteria took 6 psychic damage, which the party healed. Survival checks to track the footprints sent the party down the path from the rope bridge.
The next map was a campsite near a stream. The party sneaked to the campsite, but the pixie Glimmer spotted all of them except Dashing Rings. They investigated the campfire, found the remains of the kidnapper's lunch including a jasmine-scented candle, and then Glimmer revealed herself. She hoped that the party could light the campfire again--which the kidnapper can properly quenched with water from the stream--so that she could cook her magic popcorn. Blade Slinger, Grothnar, and Misteria were trained in Survival, so they worked together via Aid to light the fire and cook the popcorn. Glimmer gave them four popped kernels that would act as Barkskin potions, which the seven party members gave to the four PCs, including Sunshine, with the lowest hit points.
Glimmer also gave a physical description of the human who had stopped at the campsite with a bag that yelled for help in Sylvan. She said that he had headed downstream toward Petalbrook Village.
Traveling on the path downstream, the party encountered the Grazing Deer complex hazard. During the hazard's turn one of nine deer would move to a party member and make a nibble Strike +12 to eat some leaves (Grothnar, who is solid wood, said that the deer would nibble on her bark) for 2d4+5 damage. Dashing Rings had trap sense, so I gave him a free Perception roll to notice the hazard and a Nature Recall Knowledge to identify disable methods. He spotted the danger of the deer, but the only method he figured out was to hit the deer to chase them away.
Animist Sunshine rolled highest in initiative. She rolled 23 on a Nature check and determined that the deer could be hit for 45 hp total, intimidated individually, persuaded to leave with Wild Empathy (which no-one had), or sneaked past. She Strode forward. Rogue Dashing Rings advanced, too, but did have any actions left to Strike when he reached a deer. The the deer had their turn. One moved to Sunshine and nibbled on her for 11 damage. Monet advanced, missed with a seedpod Strike, and rolled a 1 on a 1d8 to heal Sunshine with Ocean's Balm. Exemplar Nightshade activated her spark, advanced to Sunshine's deer, and hit with her guisarme for 11 damage and 1 persistent spirit damage. The swashbuckler Blade Slinger advanced, lacked enough actions to gain panache, but hit with his rapier for 5 damage. Psychic Misteria tried Intimidation and failed. Barbarian Grothnar raged, made a sudden charge, and hit with her greatclub for 18 damage. That made 38 out of 45 damage to the deer in that turn.
On the next turn, Sunshine used her Heliotrope ability, copied from the Sunflower Leshy in Bestiary 2 but only a 20-foot cone and only once per turn. The deer saved against it. Then she cast her vessel spell Garden of Healing to heal for 4 hp. She had actions left to Stride and use her Seed Spray (also from Bestiary 2 but that ability cost Sunshine an ancestry feat). The deer saved against that, too. Dashing Rings managed one hit on his rapier Strikes against a deer for 3 damage. The deer took the 1 persistent spirit damage from Nightshade's Strike, but also made the flat check to end it. Then a deer nibble on a random target, Monet, for 10 damage. Monet failed an Intimidation check against the deer and then Strode twice to enter Sunshine's Garden of Healing aura. Nightshade made three misses against a deer. Blade Slinger failed a Tumble Through for panache, succeeded at a Battledancer Performance for panache, and missed with his Strike. Misteria missed with a cantrip. Grothnar missed twice and then moved to flank for Dashing Rings. That made 42 out of 45 damage to the deer.
Sunshine sustained her Garden of Healing to heal herself and Monet for 3 hp. Her Heliotrope dazzled a caught a deer off-guard. Then she managed to Intimidate that deer. I had it run away immediately and declared that the threshold for damage dropped down to 40. Dashing Rings made a Strike on the deer flanked by Grothnar and hit for 14 damage. The deer on their turn all ran away, ending the hazard.
I told Sunshine to roll 8d4 to represent the remaining 8 rounds of healing from Garden of Healing. Both she and Monet returned to full health. Then they took time to Refocus.
They walked for more hours down to Petalbrook VIllage. I used the Coastal Village map from 2-Minute Tabletop, except that I covered the forests with flowery meadows with beehives, to represent the beekeeping in the village. That gained a, "I remember that town," since I have used that map before. As the entered the town, I described the buildings on the outskirts, "The first building spells of cooked meat a smoke, a smokehouse. The next building smells of wax and jasmine, a candleshop. The third building is a large inn." The players remembered the jasmine--scented candle at the kidnapper's campsite and went into the candleshop to ask the shopkeeper Galan about his customers. Oops, the module wanted them to see villagers on the streets before entering the candleshop.
They asked Galan about to whom he had sold jasmine candles, and he replied many villagers and tourists and the shop shipped some to other towns. They are made of real beeswax and the main profit item for the shop, since the beekeepers can make unscented wax candles themselves. Then I fit in his lines from the module, “I’m terribly sorry, it’s just I’ve never seen a walking talking plant before. Are you... customers? Can I help you?” They said they were looking for a red-haired man who had bought the jasmine candles, and Galan said that many people in town had red hair, such as his cousin the candlemaker. More discussion disclosed that the cousin was downstairs and did not want to be disturbed because he had returned from gathering alchemical ingredients in the forest just an hour ago. And he had magic crystals set up as an alarm. Diplomacy checks to persuade Galan failed, so Monet distracted him with discussion of scents while Dashing Rings sneaked over to the basement door to pick its lock. He failed his Stealth check, and Galan caught what they were up to. He yelled that he was going to get the village guards. Misteria cast [url="https://2e.aonprd.com/Spells.aspx?ID=44"]Color Spray,[/url[ and Galan failed, so he was stunned 1, blinded for 1 round, and dazzled for 1 minute. The party grabbed him, tied him up, and gagged him. Then Dashing Rings picked the lock to the basement.
We ended for the night there.
Mathmuse |
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I had a Discord conversation with Nightshade's player:
Nightshade's Player — Today at 5:38 PM
Exemplar feedback:
Theme: I like the theme. It's a callback to demigod heroes of a bunch of different cultures, those who had the spark of something that made them just a bit more and able to go just a bit further than the average person. The only problem with the theme is the mere fact that classes are generally balanced to each other, so exemplar isn't inherently just that bit better like a demigod might normally be. That said, exemplar doesn't explicitly call themselves demigods and can be viewed as a toned down version of those myths. Perhaps more focus should be placed on the inner relationship with divinity rather than one's cultural role, since their role isn't really different than any other competent and leveled adventurer.
Mechanics: The ikons are fun. It's a very flexible class for what specific build you end up with since you are picking three options out of their respective pools. It generally seems to fall as DPS with the ability to off-tank and/or support as well. You can build more pure DPS with your choices, but it's likely that you won't be quite as good at DPS compared to a class like barbarian, which is all about that. Instead, you get more utility and flexibility. That flexibility fits with the theme source since it's drawing from a lot of different demigod myths, all of which have some similarities but different emphases (most were warriors, had some sort of magic item, and had a divine body of some sort, hence the three ikon categories). If the fight is challenging, you are likely using Spark Transcendence every round, assuming that you have at least two abilities useful in combat. I chose ikons that had one-action transcendences, which means that I might as well Spark instead of just Shift if I'm switching ikons since the action economy is the same (less true out of combat, where it's more a matter of switching passive modes). I like that the ikons gain additional passive and active abilities over time and that you define who your exemplar is as a hero (the various phrases add up). I feel cool playing the class. That said, it was pointed out to me that at least the base level powers I chose aren't very flashy without their flavor text. I'm fine with that, since I get the feeling that the flashiness grows as you come into your power more properly, but it might have helped to have one of the level 1 feats related to picking your divine path be part of the main build (since you don't get a level 1 feat as far as I can tell from the class). That gives a bit more of the flavor of the class.
Mathmuse — Today at 5:44 PM
I was surprised that the Exemplar lacked a 1st-level class feat. Skipping the feat is typical for spellcasters but not for martials. However, the main purpose of the early feats is customization, and I think that the exemplar can customize immediately with the choice of ikons. Does that make sense? You studied the class more than I did.
Nightshade's Player — Today at 5:47 PM
It was my impression too. It doesn't need more flexibility from feat choices, but there are 3 level 1 exemplar feats. Two of them are mostly flavor (and a bit of extra damage against a specific type of foe), related to what kind of divine spark you have (the third is the option to dual wield your weapon ikon). And because you don't get a feat until level 2 and there are more mechanically useful options at that level, the flavor ones weren't as appealing to choose.
I'd recommend reducing their mechanics and upping their flavor a bit and making them part of the initial choices of your class, to see if that helps with making exemplar look more divine from the outside
mechanically, it's a middle complexity martial fighter class with tank/support options. Enjoyable to play for people who know what they are doing and not going to suck completely even if you don't since none of the options are bad.
I picked a body ikon pretty quickly since there was a bigger divide there. Weapon ikons I had several I could rule out quickly but debated between two options for a while. Worn ikon, I'm still not sure I made the right choice. There's a lot of overlap feeling on the worn ikons, partially because their passives are all auras and three of the four actives are all about movement.
Mathmuse — Today at 5:52 PM
I am curious about the Thorns of Mortality feat you selected. It seems harsh for a fun little quest. Except that adding the death of the cactus leshy Spike made the story a little more cruel.
Of course, you could has selected "Thorns" just because of the plant theme.
Nightshade's Player — Today at 5:53 PM
It was the most combat useful feat option for me.
I didn't need dual wielding, I didn't feel like getting a Domain, I wasn't as interested in getting jump feats on my body ikon (though that wasn't a bad choice). I could have done Vow of Mortal Defiance, but that would have been another mechanic to track outside of the ikons.
Thorns just added extra passive utility to my weapon ikon.
Mathmuse — Today at 5:58 PM
I have to sauté mushrooms for pizza, so bye for now.
Nightshade's Player — Today at 5:59 PM
Love you, Dad~
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Alas, my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome flared up after the game session on Tuesday, September 12, so I am way behind on this chronicle. I had tried to write despite the exhaustion, but focusing to recall details was too tiring. Time is running out, so I am switching to a less detailed style.
Game Session on Tuesday, September 12
The PCs entered the basement of the candle shop, where the candlemaker Darius who kidnapped the young leshies was residing. They avoided the alarm crystals in that room. Most crowded at the door to the workshop to yell through the closed door in introduction, but the exemplar Nightshade opened the door and took a few steps inside. This let the rogue Dashing Rings sneak in and hide behind a table.
Believing Lady Meliosa's lies that leshies were unintelligent, Darius accused the leshies of being gnome druids in Lamashtu's Day (Halloween) costumes. He ordered his two candlewax homoculi to eject them from the room and picked up his hot wax sprayer as a threat.
One homoculus Strided to Nightshade and tried to Shove her. Untrained in Athletics, it failed. Then it tried to bit her, but failed again. This began combat against the two homoculi with Dashing Rings, Blade Slinger, Misteria, Grothnar, Nightshade hitting back, though Misteria used the Telekinetic Projectile spell attack. Sunshine cast the cantrip Tangle Vine, which we assume is Tanglefoot renamed, to little effect. Monet, in contrast, searched the room for the kidnapped Lavender Twins leshies, eager to prove that Darius was a villian rather than an innocent. She found them in a crate in a storeroom.
Darius drank his Bestial Mutagen and Strode into the fray. Nightshade used her weapon ikon immanence and dealt 1 persistent spirit damage to him along with the guisarme's damage. Dashing Rings shot him from hiding for sneak attack damage and then hide again. Sunshine cast Discomfiting Whispers and Strode to the square south of Darius. This, unfortunately, kept the others from closing in to the south, west, or east of Darius, only the north was free of the misfortune effect on attack rolls. Most PCs focused on taking down the homoculi.
This also means that Sunshine's apparition named Spike is a Imposter in Hidden Places rather than a Witness to Ancient Battles as I had previously guessed. I still do not have a copy of Sunshine's character sheet, stored as a spreadsheet on her computer, and since the player is sick this week, I cannot nag her about it.
Darius stepped backwards (west) for a better spread on his hot wax sprayer and used it. It caught Grothnar, Sunshine, Nightshade, Blade Slinger, and Misteria and set them on fire. And since it was an area effect rather than an attack roll, Discomfiting Whispers had no effect on Darius.
Monet rushed out to use her water kineticist ability Ocean's Balm to put out the fire on Blade Slinger. Grothnar tried assisted recovery and failed. Nightshade had the best solution with worn ikon Victor's Wreath. Its transcendence let everyone roll a new save against the persistent fire damage.
Sunshine stopped sustaining the Discomfiting Whispers so that others could close in on Darius and knock him out. And Darius rolled his recovery check to stabilize, but then the persistent spirit damage made him dying again. The party tried several assisted recovery checks on Darius to end the persistent spirit damage, and had several failures before they finally stabilized him. They tied him up and then Sunshine began a Garden of Healing to heal everyone up, including Darius but not the dead homoculi.
Note: players can think of several ways to reduce the DC on Assisted Recovery for the familiar energy types, such as pouring water on someone with persistent fire damage or grounding someone with persistent energy damage. What can help recover someone overcome persistent spirit damage? Persistent damage usually happens on a critical hit, but the exemplar's Barrow's Edge gives persistent spirit damage on a regular hit, so it will happen routinely and thus ought to have a routine solution for capturing a target alive. Perhaps the examplar can dismiss the spirit damage? More fun would be that the exemplar could absorb the spirit damage to buff themselves for one round.
As the party was arguing with Darius, the authorities of Petalbrook Village showed up. The Survival check to tie up the candleshop clerk upstairs had been low, so he had freed himself and fetched them. The party diplomatically explained the situation to them. The authorities made several concessions to the party if they could sweep this matter under the rug. The village would hold lessons in Sylvan language to be able to speak to young leshies. Darius was fined all the gold he earned from selling leshies and forbidden from ever entering the forest again. Darius provided the address of the upriver town where he had sent the earlier kidnapped leshies and the village paid for their passage in a river boat the following morning.
Mathmuse |
Game Session on Tuesday, September 19
A Fistful of Flowers put the town of Rosentry within one day's walk from Petalbrook Village, but I moved it further away for verisimulitude. Townfolk living next to the Verduran Forest would know that leshies are an intelligent species. The party traveled three days uneventfully on a riverboat to Rosentry, talked with the warehouse manager, and proceeded to the Meliosa estate.
The map of The Meliosa Estate Garden measures 75 feet by 50 feet, which seemed small of a party of seven, so I added a villa map of five times the area to it. The party scouted around the walled villa, hear the location of the garden guests, but chose to enter by a villa gate 175 feet from the garden. The gate was locked with DC 16 Athletics to climb, DC 19 Acrobatics to squeeze through, and DC 20 Thievery to unlock--the same DCs as the garden gate. Unfortunately, Dashing Ring's player was absent, so we said that Dashing Rings had remained behind in Petalbrook Village but had lent the party his thieves' tools. The party made several attempts to climb or unlock the gate and failed (they are only 2nd level). I asked Nightshade's player whether Nightshade had any special power that would help. She said she didn't. But Misteria succeeded at the Acrobatics check to squeeze through the gate's bars and opened it from the inside.
The party sneaked through the villa grounds. They found tiny leshies on display in bell jars, freed them, and told them to hide outside the gate.
They confronted Lady Meliosa at her garden party with five guests, accusing her of kidnapping and imprisoning intelligent creatures from the Verduran Forest. Lady Meliosa made her usual protest that leshies are not intelligent creatures. Misteria made a perception check and spotted Lady Meliosa's wisteria leshy and went over to talk. The text said that Lady Meliosa's leshy's had the languages Common, Druidic, Sylvan, and speak with plants of same type as leshy. But Lady Meliosa would have been startled if her homemade leshies spoke Common to her, and they had no-one to teach them Sylvan or Druidic, so this made no sense. I reduced that to speak with plants of the same type, and Misteria and Wisteria were both wisteria vines, so they could speak to each other.
Lady Meliosa issued three Command Animal instructions to all her own guard leshies and rolled well (I had statted her out as a 5th-level sorcerer). Combat was on. But the PCs did not want to fight other leshies, so Blade Slinger, Monet, and one other freed the three tiny leshies in bell jars on the garden tables instead. Animist Sunshine held back, using her heliotrope ability to daze and her Tangle Vine cantrip to entangle Meliosa guard leshies. The freed tiny leshies ran to her. The other two PCs took the fight to directly to Lady Meliosa.
Afraid, Lady Meliosa Strode to the garden gate and cast Ignite Fireworks on the invading PCs. This and the attacks of the guard leshies burned through over half of some PCs hit points. Sunshine's player asked for suggestions on what to do, so I suggested casting from her divine spell slots, such as a Heal spell. She replied that she had not selected spells for those slots.
Whoa, this was already the third game session and the player had not finished building the 2nd-level animist! This player had decades of experience with roleplaying games, including playing a PF1 strix skald and a PF2 elf ranger, but she did have a bad habit of leaving ancestry and skill feats unselected until a level or two later, because she considered them unimportant. She suffers from analysis paralysis--afraid of making a decision unless she could definitely tell a good one from a bad one. But spell slots are important for spellcasters!
But this could be a flaw in animist design. The apparitions looked like the vital part of the animist class. The spells were divided into two parts, divine and primal, so each part looked less important individually. It appears that the animist has too many small parts. That encourages analysis paralysis.
Since the party desperately needed healing, I told her to fill both divine spell slots with Heal spells and start casting Heal. Then the other players and I had to explain to her the complicated design of the PF2 Heal spell with its one, two, and three action versions.
The swashbuckler Blade Slinger was experienced at Tumbling Through, so he tumbled adjacent to Lady Meliosa and interfered with her opening the gate. The barbarian Grothnar closed in on Lady Meliosa, too, and became the main target of the guard leshies. The exemplar Nightshade also closed in.
The fight was a mess with the party handicapped by unwillingness to fight the guard leshies, so I invoked a backup plan. A guest, who explained that she had been a judge and a cleric of Abadar before she married into nobility, demanded that the fighting stop and everyone explain themselves in proper legal fashion. She weighed the arguments and declared that Lady Meliosa was in the wrong. The captive tiny leshies had to be returned to Verduran Forest. Lady Meliosa declared in disgust that she was totally done with leshies and told her guard leshies to leave with the party, too. The PCs had no authority to impose further punishment on Lady Meliosa, but they had rescued all the kidnapped leshies.
Mathmuse |
Game Session on Tuesday, September 26
I forewarned the players to level their characters to 3rd level because the next adventure was A Few Flowers More at one level higher. The player of Dashing Rogue bowed out of the game until he had a new medicine to grant him more endurance for our 3-hour game sessions (in addition to my own disabilities, I have several chronically ill players). Monet trained in Thievery and picked up 3rd-level Infiltrator Thieves' Tools to replace Dashing Rings as the lock opener.
Months after the kidnapped leshies event, the party earned a reputation as local heroes on other adventures. The nyktera Stella flew in, invited the PCs to a feast, and explained that she needed a favor from them. Extravagant plant growths and sightings of some strange creatures suggested that First World energy was leaking into an eastern section of the Verduran Forest. The gnome druids of the forest allowed human researchers to set up camp there to gather samples. Howeve, other inhabitants of the forest, fey and arboreals, dislike the intrusion and were considering driving them out. Would the party please check on the humans, make sure they were not doing any harm, and reassure the locals? They were respected heroes, so others would listen.
They traveled to a map named Harvesters' Camp and still in exploration mode saw that the tents and the single cabin were damaged. The human researchers were gone. The party moved stealthily into the camp, but eventually one jinkin gremlin there spotted movement and exited through a small hole in the cabin wall to investigate. The animist Sunshine decided to catch up by Striding without stealth, so the gremin closed in on her. But Blade Dancer leaped acrobatically (the character had taken Acrobatic Performance for Battledancing via Acrobatics) to engage the gremlin in combat.
This alerted the other three gremlins who would dart out of three holes in the west wall of the cabin, attack a party member, and dart back in. The first gremlin was too far out to dart back inside so it stayed outside. I might have made a mistake with their Strikes, because the gremlins were tiny but attacked adjacent squares with a 5-foot reach and later they tried to flank like creatures with a 5-foot reach despite Tiny meaning a 0-foot reach. But how else are gremlins supposed to flank? The module said that they would try to flank. Anyway, I played the gremlins like Small creatures rather than Tiny creatures, except that they could fit through holes too small for the Small leshies.
Misteria intimidated the outside gremlin and got him scared enough to blab. The gremlin let slip that they had come from a gate from the First World that was a few miles north of the Harvesters' Camp. (Er, jinkin gremlins speak only Undercommon, but I let this one speak Sylvan.)
Monet decided to search for the door to the cabin. The player could see the south door on the map, but she avoided metagaming by rolling a random direction for Monet, who went north. Monet was attacked a few times by the gremlin darting out of the northmost hole in the west wall, but soon was out of sight around the corner.
Barbarian Grothnar charged a hole with Bashing Charge and made it bigger. She ended up inside and two gremlons flanked her. Her 3rd-level Deny Advantage prevents the flanking from making her flat-footed.
The other party members beat the outside gremlin unconscious. Animist Sunshine did not attack; instead, she cast Garden of Healing to heal up Blade Slinger and Misteria.
Next, Blade Slinger and Nightshade tumbled through the the hole that Grothnar had enlargened. Misteria sniped with Telekinetic Projectile through the northmost hole as a gremlin peeked out. That gave the gremlin greater cover, but Misteria still hit.
Sunshine pressed herself against the wall of the cabin to heal Grothnar with her Garden of Healing emanation. Does the emanation go through a wall with a hole in it? I ruled it did. It also healed one gremlin. After circling the cabin, Monet yelled from the south that she had found the door, so Sunshine strode over to join her.
The three martial characters Grothnar, Nightshade, and Blade Slinger finally took down the gremlins. Monet failed her attempt to unlock the door with her new lockpicks, so heavily damaged Grothnar ran over to open the door from the inside. Thus, she fell into the spiked pit trap. Fortunately, she made her reflex save to Grab an Edge and took no damage. She flattened herself against the wall to unlock the door and everyone else jumped over the open pit trap to enter the cabin.
Two of the gremlins failed their recovery checks and died, but the party tied up the other two and packed them into researcher's crates. They examined the plant samples the researchers had gathered and identified the Cursed Boots of Elvenkind that one gremlin had worn. They carefully examined footprints and determined that the humans had run away rather than dying.
Next game session will be at the next map, Gate to the First World.
Mathmuse |
Oops. I took a nap and my memory cleared enough that I realized I had made a big mistake in the chronicle for Tuesday, September 26.
I remember these sessions by recalling spectacular or plot-relevant moments, such as Blade Slinger making a stylish leap over a tent, Grothnar bashing through a wall, Misteria sniping through holes in the wall, Sunshine healing through the wall, and Monet missing the spiked pit trap because she failed to unlock a door. Then I extend my memory to what had happened before and after to make a more complete picture. Nightshade had done nothing spectacular, so I thought she had simply been acting as a generic martial character, following Blade Slinger around.
Nope, the exemplar Nightshade had done nothing spectacular on September 26 because she wasn't there. Her player had called in sick.
Kelinmiriel |
Oops. I took a nap and my memory cleared enough that I realized I had made a big mistake in the chronicle for Tuesday, September 26.
I remember these sessions by recalling spectacular or plot-relevant moments, such as Blade Slinger making a stylish leap over a tent, Grothnar bashing through a wall, Misteria sniping through holes in the wall, Sunshine healing through the wall, and Monet missing the spiked pit trap because she failed to unlock a door. Then I extend my memory to what had happened before and after to make a more complete picture. Nightshade had done nothing spectacular, so I thought she had simply been acting as a generic martial character, following Blade Slinger around.
Nope, the exemplar Nightshade had done nothing spectacular on September 26 because she wasn't there. Her player had called in sick.
Adding a note about Sunny and her Apparitions:
Because the timing on our game vs. the Playtest announcement was SO tight, and also, because I'd had some random inspiration, I had created a character ahead of time. Thus I had a cactus rogue trapeze artist named "Spike" all ready to go.
The announcement about the new classes was made less than 24 hours before our first game session was scheduled, and the actual details for Animist and Exemplar weren't available until a few hours before.
Anyway, I created Sunny, and realized that Spike could be one of her Apparitions - so even though most of his character information wasn't needed, he still existed in some form, and could give Erin a plot hook to get us into the initial scenario. And give me a secondary Apparition besides my creator, Eleanor. One with a much darker personality, as he was quite upset and vengeful about having been killed!
So there you have it. I had a much more difficult time with character creation than I should've, because the character generator provided doesn't work with a Leshy Ancestry unless a $40 purchase of some particular material has been acquired, which is absurd for a playtest using a "free RPG day" one-shot. I had bought Pathbuilder before, but of course that doesn't work with a new class. I ended up using a combination of a spreadsheet and a text document to keep everything in order. Clearly I'm more about the role-playing than the bookkeeping. Sorry.
Mathmuse |
Because the timing on our game vs. the Playtest announcement was SO tight, and also, because I'd had some random inspiration, I had created a character ahead of time. Thus I had a cactus rogue trapeze artist named "Spike" all ready to go.
The announcement about the new classes was made less than 24 hours before our first game session was scheduled, and the actual details for Animist and Exemplar weren't available until a few hours before.
I had planned running the two Free RPG Day modules, A Fistful of Flowers and A Few Flowers More, once we ended out 3-year-and-10-month Ironfang Invasion campaign as a light refresher while I planned our next long campaign. Kelinmiriel had two weeks advance warning about playing leshies. Our Session Zero was scheduled for Friday, September 1, at 3pm Pacific Daylight Time (some of my players are in Oregon and Washington, so our game sessions take place in both Eastern time zone and Pacific time zone.)
And then Paizo announced the upcoming playtest with Save the Date – Pathfinder Playtest Stream Aug 31! on Friday, August 25. They did not announce the names of the two new classes until that August 31 Twitch stream at 4pm Pacific Daylight Tine. As Kelinmiriel said, that was less than 24 hours before our character creation.
I love game design, so I love participating in the public playtests. Most of my players are less enthusiastic. For example, Kelinmiriel had bowed out of participating in the public playtest for Pathfinder 2nd Edition itself, though later she did run a character as an emergency substitution for an absent player in In Pale Mountain's Shadow. I was delighted that she took a liking to the animist class and made her playtest character named Sunshine.
I have another story about Sunshine's hasty incarnation. Since Kelinmiriel could not use the free character builder for the War of Immortals playtest provided by Demiplane, because that builder was not free for uncommon ancestries such as leshy, she used Archives of Nethys for her ancestry and background information. To find everything about leshy heritages, she searched on the word "Leshy." One of the results was the Sunflower Leshy creature 1. Most other leshy creatures, such as Gourd Leshy creature 1 and Fungus Leshy creature 2, were also heritages for a leshy PC, but Sunflower Leshy lacked a matching heritage.
Kelinmiriel imagined her leshy as a garden flower that was Wished Alive out of love, and a sunflower was a better heritage for that than a cactus, fruit, fungus, gourd, etc. Therefore, I quickly converted the Sunflower leshy creature into a Sunflower leshy heritage. It had a toned-down cone-shaped Heliotrope ability as its special feature and could gain Seed Spray ability as an ancestry feat similar to Seedpod ancestry feat.
Kelinmiriel's full story about Sunshine's birth is back in the opening post.
This thread may give the impression that my campaigns are disorganized improvisation. That impression is totally true.
Kelinmiriel |
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...Kelinmiriel imagined her leshy as a garden flower that was Wished Alive out of love, and a sunflower was a better heritage for that than a cactus, fruit, fungus, gourd, etc....
Actually, I wanted the Sunflower heritage, and then when I saw "Wished Alive", I thought, "That's really good, to have a different origin, since she's not a standard player leshy heritage," and it inspired the whole backstory with Eleanor, which also gave me her primary Apparition (obviously Custodian of Groves and Gardens!)
Anyway, I really enjoyed this class. It has a lot of versatility - the different apparition types and the ability to change which ones are selected each day, give a player flexibility in how to play their character. I actually role played three separate characters for the fun of it - Sunshine was my main, of course, but a couple of times, Eleanor "spoke" through her, and a few times, Spike had a few things to say. (Not as "Apparition Sense" power, but simply when that one was primary, I felt it was appropriate that my own primary Apparition should be able to comment if it fit the circumstances. It adds flavor to the game!)
Since Spike was a cactus Rogue Leshy, his Apparition type was Imposter in Hidden Places, so I didn't ever choose any of the others, though I probably will once we restore him (we've been growing him a new cactus body to inhabit, because Leshies could do that, although we might need some sort of ritual to get his spirit into it).
Overall, I greatly enjoyed this class. One improvement I'd like to see in it, is in the Vessel spell "Garden of Healing". Please change it so it only applies to allies! It was a lot less useful than it could've been, as I kept trying to position Sunny so she could heal her friends without bringing our opponents back up to hurt them again!
I'm afraid I haven't read much of the Animist class abilities beyond what I expected to be able to use during the playtest, since we're playing such a short campaign and such low levels. Also, I've never played a prepared spellcaster, so I'm not a good person to comment on that. I have a personal bias against them - I just feel they're too much work for me; having to know ALL the spells available for your class and choose every single day from that huge list, based on guesses of what you might need. It's overwhelming. (Erin's been helping me with that part.)
One thing I had questions about was the differences and advantages between Sage and Channeler. I spent a great deal of time reading this over, and finally selected Channeler.
Both get to select multiple Apparitions each day, but as far as I can tell, can only access abilities from the one that's primary, and only the Channeler can easily switch which one is primary (with Apparition's Whirl, a single action ability.) So what's the use of Sage even having additional Apparitions, if a Sage can't access them?
The ability that a Sage gets instead of Apparition's Whirl is Apparition's Possession, which protects you from mind effects at the cost of limiting what you can do - plus it also costs an action, of course, and only protects you until your next turn. Doesn't seem nearly as useful.
At level 19, a Sage can acquire practically god-like powers from their primary apparition. But until then, it doesn't seem nearly as good or versatile as Channeler. Am I missing something?