Pathfinder 2E Play report (Extinction Curse spoilers)

[CapnZapp]

For those of us less familiar with PF 2e, could you explain in more detail? Do the PCs have bad attack bonuses?



Is that balanced for a 3rd? level adventure?

Confused, the condition, not Confusion, the spell.

SPOILER

The four "dream pollen pods" have one +12 attack each, plus one extra attack when the trap is sprung. A hit cause some damage, but most importantly trigger the special effect:

Hallucinogenic Pollen A creature hit by the trap’s pollen
spray must succeed at a DC 20 Will save or it is confused
for 1 round and takes a –2 status penalty to Perception
checks and saves against mental effects for 1d4 hours.
On a critical failure, the penalty is instead –4.

Since the pods won initiative (rolling 19 on the initiative check) all three melee fighter heroes were damaged and confused when they got to act (DC 20 is hard on 1st level), inflicting damage only on each other. (The pods actually missed two out of five attacks even though no hero has more than AC 18) The penalty to mental damage is not important here and now; but will be a serious drawback in the final showdown with the evil BBEG of the chapter.

The two remaining characters made an ineffectual attack (a cantrip I believe; unlike 5E ranged attacks is NOT king in PF2; dealing less damage and with lower attack bonuses. The pods have AC 18, very respectable at 1st level) and went and collected the door.

Then the first combat round was over, and it was the pod's turn again. It easily downed the one or two melee heroes still standing (can't remember exactly), and the two unharmed heroes plopped back the door to block any further pollen attacks.

It was me who quickly realized the fight was headed for a TPK (not that it's hard to predict how a combat will end if three out of five heroes are knocked unconscious before a single point of damage has been dealt to the enemy... ) so I encouraged them to break off the combat, in order to drag away their unconscious friends to safety, and stabilize them before they could die.

To give a complete confession, I fudged the roll when it was time to determine which random creature the confused character closest to the wagon entrance should attack - by that time, I realized that if I randomized a "you charge the pods" result, that character would likely just die. I was aware I likely came along as as a hardass dick GM when I announced they all attacked each other, but in reality I likely saved at least one life that way, by preventing anyone from running inside the wagon...

One of the players wasn't ready to give up, arguing they could take out the pods safely from a distance, and the other player had to convince him it wasn't worth the risk, and that they didn't have the time. In the end though, they saved the pod-infested wagon "for later".

 

[CapnZapp]

PS. The fight is the very first serious combat encounter of the entire adventure path, and it's rated "Moderate" for a group of four level 1 heroes. (I ran it without modifications even though there are five heroes)

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

The four "dream pollen pods" have one +12 attack each, plus one extra attack when the trap is sprung. A hit cause some damage, but most importantly trigger the special effect:

Hallucinogenic Pollen A creature hit by the trap’s pollen
spray must succeed at a DC 20 Will save or it is confused
for 1 round and takes a –2 status penalty to Perception
checks and saves against mental effects for 1d4 hours.
On a critical failure, the penalty is instead –4.

I think this is an adventure issue, not a PF2e issue!

+12 sounds pretty hard for a 1st-level attack. Even if a fighter can start with AC 20 or so, most PCs would not. Furthermore DC 20 sounds (as you mentioned) too much for 1st-level PCs.

 

[CapnZapp]

I think this is an adventure issue, not a PF2e issue!

When I said "That's PF2 for 'ya" that wasn't meant to absolve the adventure writers from any mistakes.

But it was meant to say "PF2 is taking off the carebear gloves that 5E is wearing"

Zapp



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That said, I still find the Assassin encounter in the Hoard of the Dragon adventure (I think?) hilarious. But since that was an honest mix-up mistake*, it doesn't count.
*) IIRC the "Assassin" NPC was much lower level in the playtest iteration available to Kobold Games than the level 9(?) glass cannon it ended up being printed as in the published Monster Manual.

 

[CapnZapp]

Just for funsies, here's another play report:

Run my first session on previous week.

My party consist of:
Andre - half-naked human barbarian, who loves burn himself
Valda - leshy, acrobat, wizard
Moonshaez - goblin dog rider ranger with trained goblin dog
Selvin - gnome wizard with parrot
Veles - half elf alchemist (who take role of circus doctor)
Kithum - human rogue clown


First part - the show go smoothly. Mainly Beacuse they have pyrotechnic role and two shows with fire trait. Also they pursued feather fall five to perform without net. At end they have 18 Exitement vs 17 anticipation.

Second part - the investigation becomes hell for them, after a really fun show, they relaxed and separete from each other, group of 4 goes to investigate forest (mainly because one of the players run to forest and not all party followed her) and other two go to investigate ringleader wagon.

In forest party find snakes and kill them, but the fight was extreemly difficult, Valda and trained goblin dog died, 1 charater was unconscious, and Ande have only 1 hit point left.

Meanwhile plants in ringleader wagon eat clown Kithum. When party alltogether again, they healed and go investigate further (two players whoes characters died reroll to circus guards).

With Barnolf the all survived only because of lucky roll of charachter who have dying 3 and that bear fights only 2 rounds).

After that they gather all circus around the fire and try to rest and recover, but fairys come to have fun with them. After having pain with dancing and persuding fairys to leave them alone, they just sit near fire cowering in horror.

This time i think Nemia become impatient of hours of seating in wagon and she show herself to make a speach to PCs and atack. Terrified players have accepted combat and survive.

Now they do some gravedigging and furneal... Selvin got some mental damage and thinking of going to forest and hang some squirells on trees, other characters feel pain and anger for fallen comrades.

Don't know where it leads, but players don't expect such difficult battles and such brutality). Anyway players want to continue)

Sauce.

 

[CapnZapp]

Revisiting this to report that the tables have turned. Oh how they have turned.

Now the party is 5th level, and all three martials have Striking runes. That means they make mincemeat of any lower-leveled foe.

Levelling up from 4th to 5th level feels more like two or even three steps than just one, TBH.

This also goes for monsters. Level 6 or 7 monsters are still scary, so it's not like I'm complaining.

I'm basically just saying level 5 is a HUGE milestone that feels like a big deal.

(For martials. That the Wizard is given a 6d6 Fireball is just sad in comparison)

---

As for the actual adventure (remember this is a thread spoiling Extinction Curse) they've cleaned out much of the map of chapter 1, book 2 called "Dangerous Plot".

That despite me significantly beefing up the opposition. Now why would I do that?

I (now) realize the writers probably made most encounters "moderate" for a specific reason: to make players feel like they've leveled out of the apprentice levels, and to make them feel like awesome heroes that can take on an almost endless stream of level 3 or 4 critters.

I did not accomplish that. The reason is that I wanted to stretch out the chapter over several days, to give time for social events to progress evenly throughout the week leading up to their circus performance. (Social events of my own making, that is, inspired by how the succubi Balenni managed to survive her encounter with the heroes in the last chapter)

However, even though I made the monsters more dangerous and plentiful, they've still mopped up everything in the second day.

The harsh truth is that thanks to the Medicine skill Pathfinder 2 almost entirely abandons the attrition model. You basically never need more than an hour's rest to replenish everybody's hit points to full once you reach level 5 and take the optimal feats. The Cleric can then focus almost entirely on in-combat healing (a role that fell by the wayside in 5E).

Just about the only reason why a party of heroes would ever take a night's rest (instead of just pressing on) is the presence of casters in the party. That is: the way casters run out of spells means martials will have to go much slower than they are capable of simply because the game becomes much more fun for a caster if loaded up on spells. (We're still at a level low enough that the offensive capabilities of casters are meagre enough to simply not be necessary)

So even though I added a Shambler and a pair of Harpies and a Hydra to the map, and made Kalkek's wolves five Dire Wolves instead of regular ones, and let the Will o Wisps be regular level 7 critters, that still didn't slow down the heroes - now it's lunch time the second day and only the Harpies remain. And as I said, the only reason that not everything died on the first day was because the three martials decided it was more fun for the casters to have spells to play with.

Now you might think it was a cakewalk. It definitely wasn't. The first time the heroes were ambushed by the Will o Wisps while caught in quicksand they were clobbered and had to flee. The Black Pudding alone almost killed them (and did yank one hero point* from the Fighter). Kalkek attacked even though the party was still fighting four Dire Wolves. On their second encounter with the Will o Wisps, they were ambushed by the Hydra. (This encounter easily qualifies as "Extreme" by Paizo's guidelines. That didn't prevent the heroes from comfortably winning - thanks to Acid Splash in fact) Each level 6 monster has the capacity to take a character from full hp to zero in a single round, so the Cleric was essential.

But this didn't slow them down, is my point. Even a fight where three heroes are downed and brought back up again (by Heal or Battle Medicine) doesn't slow down the party more than 20-60 minutes, then they're fully healed and ready for more.

Basically, you cannot rely on combats to create a narrative take plays out over days. You need specific adventure support. (Something like the heroes not becoming aware of the next threat until the day after, or a map requiring significant travel from encounter to encounter)

So if given the chance to redo this chapter, I would probably have kept the monsters as-is to give the heroes their sense of awesomesauce, and simply retooled my progression of "succubi hijinks" to account for the fact that the adventure as written definitely does not need two weeks. More like a single afternoon.

This is an observation, not a complaint, by the way. It's not good or bad, it simply is.

Zapp

*) Think Warhammer fate points, not CRB hero points.

 

[Schmoe]

The harsh truth is that thanks to the Medicine skill Pathfinder 2 almost entirely abandons the attrition model. You basically never need more than an hour's rest to replenish everybody's hit points to full once you reach level 5 and take the optimal feats. The Cleric can then focus almost entirely on in-combat healing (a role that fell by the wayside in 5E).

<snip>

Basically, you cannot rely on combats to create a narrative take plays out over days. You need specific adventure support. (Something like the heroes not becoming aware of the next threat until the day after, or a map requiring significant travel from encounter to encounter)

That's interesting. So basically the only constraint on how much the adventurers can do in a day is literally how much time it takes. That's actually kind of cool. At some point you need to sleep, I guess, before becoming exhausted.

 

[CapnZapp]

That's interesting. So basically the only constraint on how much the adventurers can do in a day is literally how much time it takes. That's actually kind of cool. At some point you need to sleep, I guess, before becoming exhausted.

I should make clear that none of this is obvious when you first browse the rulebook. And characters certainly do not get these capabilities automatically.

But yes, by judiciously examining the available list of skill feats, crafty players can end up with a party that seldom needs more than 20-60 minutes of downtime to heal up completely (and to do so without using any resources - such as Cleric spells, healing potions).

And no, I'm not talking about the Paladin. No Paladin in this party. Just regular schmoes.

Schmoes that can go on for hours upon hours unless the GM says otherwise; yes. If you have spellcasters in the party, them running out of spells is likely going to constrain your progress sooner than "we've been awake the whole night", though. But we all know that a day contains enough combat rounds to - theoretically, at least - fight and kill all the monsters you need to advance from level 1 to 20, so...

Of course this assumes an adventure where you have a relatively contained map and you can keep on trucking without awaiting "story developments". Official adventures don't work like that at all, though. After a maximum of one level's worth of monsters it's almost always so that the heroes need to "report back" to make the story progress, level up, and be told where to find the next level's worth of encounters.

That's not meant as criticism by the way. It just is the way it is with Adventure Paths. But it does mean that Paizo might not see Duracell Bunny fighters as much of a problem. The game simply isn't set up to handle "open vistas" well.

If you on the other hand want a more traditional game where heroes can run out of steam just by hit points alone, such as in an old-school sandbox, I would highly recommend you familiarize yourself with the (very cluttery) inner workings of Medicine and its related feat (spread over more books than the CRB alone), and make adjustments as needed.

Or, (much) simpler and (much) blunter, simply add a house-rule saying "you can't fight all day even if the rules let ya".

 

[Schmoe]

As a Schmoe, I approve!

I'll have to study how Medicine works a bit more, as I still haven't had a chance to play yet. One thing that might change it slightly is that I only have the CRB right now, and don't intend to get any of the supplements in the near future. My natural inclination is to do just as you say, though - add some house rules about exhaustion and fighting all day.

 

[CapnZapp]

Just for completeness, the following thread expands on NPC interactions with the circus discussed herein.

Pathfinder 2E - Succubus on the offensive

This post is primarily meant for Pathfinder 2 rules, but feel free to offer advice even if it is general to any edition of D&D. :) The adventure I'm currently gamesmastering features one of these suckers. However, I'm toying with the idea to change the story arc from merely "behind the scenes...

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