Starting the Pathfinder 2 playtest tonight (at last!) - any tips?

Morrus · Sep 20, 2018

How were your experiences? Anything to watch out for?

Lots of backstory at the start of this one. I feel like I'm cramming for a history exam! Luckily, the chances of Jason Bulmahn showing up and testing me are slim.

zztong · Sep 20, 2018

PF2 Players? Do you mean the playtest?

If so, and its the first session, we spent most of it making characters, roughly 2-3 hours. It will be longer if you're all sharing a book and none of the players have looked at the rules in advance. The PDF offers some search abilities, but searching on "Spell Roll" will turn up something like 195 hits. The glossary helps and is perhaps the best place to start a search, but it won't answer all of the questions.

During play, we regularly have to stop and conduct 10-15 minutes of research in the rule book. The emergence of Update PDFs drags this out even longer. People talk about bringing a snack for your DM to get a Hero Point. Well consider bringing one for your local rules lawyer too.

If your DM focuses on having a good game then they're also likely to end up throwing out rules or house-ruling things. This, of course, doesn't lead to playtesting the rules. Be ready for some by-the-rules tragedies, that you have to retroactively house-rule to keep things on track.

Morrus · Sep 20, 2018

zztong said:
PF2 Players? Do you mean the playtest?

Yup. Autocorrect.

If so, and its the first session, we spent most of it making characters, roughly 2-3 hours. It will be longer if you're all sharing a book and none of the players have looked at the rules in advance. The PDF offers some search abilities, but searching on "Spell Roll" will turn up something like 195 hits. The glossary helps and is perhaps the best place to start a search, but it won't answer all of the questions.

During play, we regularly have to stop and conduct 10-15 minutes of research in the rule book. The emergence of Update PDFs drags this out even longer. People talk about bringing a snack for your DM to get a Hero Point. Well consider bringing one for your local rules lawyer too.

If your DM focuses on having a good game then they're also likely to end up throwing out rules or house-ruling things. This, of course, doesn't lead to playtesting the rules. Be ready for some by-the-rules tragedies, that you have to retroactively house-rule to keep things on track.

Thanks! We’ve done character creation, luckily, so we dive straight in tonight.

zztong · Sep 20, 2018

Morrus said:
Thanks! We’ve done character creation, luckily, so we dive straight in tonight.

Oh, well that helps a lot. I'm trying to think of the sticking points we've had with the rules, in case that helps.

We had confusion about what rolling a "20" means. We had confusion about "take 10" and how its replacement works. (Or fails, as the case may be.) We've had lots of transitional confusion related to the new skills list. There's been confusion related to what a Lore skill is and how the DM should involve it.

I find the new initiative rolls to be frustrating. We're always being surprised and I'm always rolling initiative using some seemingly irrational skill. For instance, at last nights game my last action had been to examine something and I ended up rolling my "Social" skill for initiative. I suspect the DM is just messing this up. I get that if you're sneaking up on an opponent that you might roll your stealth for initiative, but does their reaction initiative really depend on what they were doing and how good they were at it? I mean, be careful sneaking up on a master chef who is cooking, because he's going to react quickly. I say BS, roll Perception.

There's a certain truth to folks who say players can't make a bad character. The corollary is that players can't make a good one either. The reality is there are good and bad characters, but the range is closer together. Make a 10 STR Halfling Monk. He'll be able to fight on the line. He won't do lots of damage, but he'll contribute. His AC and HP will be in the same ballpark as everyone else. You can intentionally make a bad character (or a new player can do it by accident) by giving the character a low AC, which sets them up for more critical hits. Modifiers can quickly turn an adequate AC into a poor one and an inadequate AC into a death sentence.

We didn't need the dying rules until our 4th session (which is in the 2nd adventure). That is, the latest session. Getting the table up-to-speed on how they worked and to a point where folks could make smart choices took about 30 minutes. And, I'm talking about the updated version that just came out. The way they played out was basically that our Ranger was helplessly backed into the ring ropes and mercilessly pummeled until the rest of the party finally killed the critter, which took many, many rounds. We just couldn't hit the Manticore and when we did, we weren't doing a lot of damage.

There have been a number of times we've had confusion related to special abilities and second attacks. Usually its the wording of a class feature.

We use Hero Lab, and there's plenty of confusion about how to make it do things for PF2. And that's beyond the bugs that keep messing up your current hit points. Hero Lab Online is not up to the same quality as the regular (native) Hero Lab. I'm ready to ditch it, but I don't like the notion of doing PF2 characters on paper either.

Resonance hasn't been a problem, but that may partly be because few of the players are paying attention to it. I don't think our table, including me, knows all of the things that should cost resonance. Its quite possible that we should be running out of Resonance and just don't know it.

We mess up spells all the time. Its really easy to assume you know how it works because of past experience with PF1. Its also really easy to get lost in parsing the nuance of the spell descriptions and the new action sequence. For instance, last night we spent 5 minutes trying to figure out if a Druid needed to concentrate on his Flaming Sphere spell when he didn't intend to move it. I think we concluded he did, but I don't really remember the details.

Similarly, the Cleric player spent 5 minutes working through the Heal Spell, again. Since you change characters between adventures, our players have changed classes. Each Cleric player must go through this apparent rite of passage. They ended up with a cheat-sheet scribbled on the game room's white board with all of the variations on casting it.

The longer I think about last night's session, the more I remember. I might have more later.

Morrus · Sep 20, 2018

That was fun. Ran the first half of the Ashen Osseum.

I think we’re doing poisons wrong. Those giant centipede were almost a TPK.

Lots and lots and lots of keyword looking up. I feel like this book needs a dictionary. Weapons which can be lethal or deadly or fatal or killy. OK, I made up the last one.

We enjoyed it overall. Once we get over the learning curve it’ll be better - I would have liked if the playtest adventure explained each new rule as it arrives and held our hands a little more.

3 actions definitely feels right. Using one to raise shield or whatever feels kinda natural.

Looking forward to next week. I know what I’ll be talking about on the podcast next week!

houser2112 · Sep 21, 2018

zztong said:
If so, and its the first session, we spent most of it making characters, roughly 2-3 hours. It will be longer if you're all sharing a book and none of the players have looked at the rules in advance. The PDF offers some search abilities, but searching on "Spell Roll" will turn up something like 195 hits. The glossary helps and is perhaps the best place to start a search, but it won't answer all of the questions.

People do this? Spend table time making characters? I'd be furious if I showed up to game night and people weren't prepared.

zztong · Sep 21, 2018

houser2112 said:
People do this? Spend table time making characters? I'd be furious if I showed up to game night and people weren't prepared.

Yes. The choice is to either cater to the lives of the players, or not have a game.

This game is a mix of around 10 veteran and new players. About 1/2 of the players have the PDFs and/or a Hero Lab Online license. The others really aren't capable of making a character by themselves. Everyone is a working professional or an active retiree, and attendance fluctuates widely from week to week. Last week there were three players. Next week there might be eight.

The game's history is D&D 3 -> D&D 4 (for 1 year) -> PF1 -> PF2 Playtest. The veterans liked PF1 and didn't mind helping out those players who just want to play and not worry about many of the details. The playtest has started a discussion about rules. A simpler game would mean more play time.