#pathfinder playtest

Celestial Winter – Session Sixteen, Fin

In March, I learned that we would be moving to another country. It’s an exciting opportunity but unfortunately it means saying farewell to friends, family, and – until we get settled – tabletop. So, on Saturday, we ended the Pathfinder Celestial Winter campaign. I may run it again one day in the future but that’s likely to be a long ways down the road.

This was a good point in the game to…

Not an enemy mansion, to be clear. An ally's mansion. That they were all inside of.

We were belatedly finishing up Affair at Sombrefell Hall from the Pathfinder 2e Playtest earlier this evening. The last game had left them in rough straits.

The idea was that they had to survive a siege of undead. They made it through the first 4 waves, with only one to go. The one with the boss.

Cleric 1 had two 1st-level spells left, and a 3rd-level.

Cleric 2 had only cantrips and 2 spell points, and was knocked unconscious during the 4th wave.

The paladin was low on HP.

The alchemist was realizing his attacks had little effect on most of the undead with all their varying resistances.

Things weren't looking good.

The alchemist realized that what was killing them were all the different enemies coming from different points of entry into the mansion--windows, doors, attics, etc.

So they found a choke-point: the cellar with only one entrance. They gathered all the useless NPCs and stuffed them in corners of the cellar. Cleric 2 could talk to animals and found some moles and rolled an excellent diplomacy check and convinced them to burrow a hole down to the cellar to let in fresh air. The alchemist and cleric 1 shredded the library and set up explosives.

When the Big Bad began communicating with them telepathically, they set it ablaze and barricaded the cellar entrance.

The flames damaged the Big Bad and his minions, and the barricade gave them enough time to hold actions for when they broke through.

With a number of lucky rolls (unlucky on my part...I have the curse of Wil Wheaton when it comes to Nat 1s, to the everlasting joy of my players), the Cleric with 2 spell points managed to WRECK the Big Bad with both her attacks.

So to the surprise of everyone involved, they somehow survived this onslaught...and I let the moles make their way through with fresh air after the Bad was dead and go cuddle with the Cleric.

The NPCs were all scholars, and were properly horrified when they saw the remains of the destroyed library. But they all pulled through...and I think they all had fun...

Older Peas!!

I made Peas for the Pathfinder playtest- our group hasn’t been able to meet often, so we’re only just now approaching the second chapter with our main party. There’s a big time skip! Well, big for Goblins anyways. Peas has had a major glow-up and is currently living her best life.

With the alchemist out of the way, it’s time to look at their unlettered neighbors, the barbarian.

What I Like:

I think a lot of player-side book keeping is out of flavor with the barbarian. The Playtest barbarian moves away from rounds-per-day and the number crunching modifiers of the Core Rulebook barbarian. (Pathfinder Unchained did resolve that part earlier at least).

The totems are fun and flavorful, although I’m sure my players will find plenty of reasons to ask for different anathemas. I particularly like that the giant totem lets Amiri, the iconic barbarian, actually work.

The changes to attacks of opportunity (NPCs generally not having them, specifically) have let the barbarian move around a bit more like I felt they’re supposed to. Their maneuverability counts has counted for than just closing into fights a bit faster.

What I Don’t Like:

Fatigue is a really complex condition, which I don’t like throwing at new players of what is the conceptually simplest class. Thankfully, we went entire sessions (even in the combat-heavy Doomsday Dawn) without it becoming relevant.

The new rage they’re testing as of update 1.6 brings fiddly number crunching back in, which is unfortunate. And flat checks, except as in-game representations of pure luck, sort of grate.

Some of the language of barbarian abilities is pretty unclear, like actions that are phrased as static abilities (in Internal Fortitude and Raging Courage). More than some of the other classes, it needs some polish.

Closing Thoughts:

I have a very particular view of the barbarian, where I really want to be able to hand a brand new player a barbarian character sheet and let them get off to the races. The Playtest gets really close there, far closer than P1 ever got.

And, in Doomsday Dawn, we’ve had a new player cleaning up with the barbarian from 1st through 17th level. They felt appropriately barbaric and had more interesting options than P1 barbarians while also not getting overwhelmed.

Now that the P2 Playtest document is pretty solid (the last of the biweekly updates is out) and we’re finishing up Doomsday Dawn, I’ve been thinking about reviewing the classes. And, thanks to the magic of alphabetical order, we’re going to jump in with the alchemist.

What I Like:

Alchemists actually craft things now rather than acting as second-class spell casters. And they really do use alchemical items, particularly after update 1.6, as higher level bombs were introduced (rather than relying on the alchemist’s abilities).

Mutagens are both entirely optional and more flexible now. And you can share them. But I’m mostly happy they’re just optional, I’ve always been on the hunt for archetypes to trade them away in P1 and now no longer need to.

The original version of the P2 alchemist relied heavily on resonance, which was odd for an ostensibly non-magical class. But ow they have their own resource pool functions a lot more smoothly.

What I Don’t Like:

Alphabetical order is a harsh mistress. I really don’t like alchemist being the first class in the book. I’d much rather have it be something (like barbarian) that new players can read and understand easily and, if something later overwhelms them, default back to.

Poisons, although much improved from P1, are still pretty complicated and don’t really seem to do enough. The poisons shouldn’t be afraid of just dealing damage, causing ongoing damage, or having a save-or-suck effect akin to what spells use.

It’s sort of a weird complaint, but Vancian casting (preparing your exact spells at the beginning of the day) only really made sense to me for the alchemist. And now they don’t use it. Which is more a complaint about the wizard, cleric, and druid.

Closing Thoughts:

As the new core class in P2, the alchemist is going to get a lot of eyes and I’m not sure it stands up to them yet. It has worked fairly well in play for us, but it’s pretty complicated and the uses for different alchemical items aren’t immediately clear by reading the class (because they’re off in the treasure chapter).

Now, I don’t think that’s entirely fair. We’ve put up with spells being in their own chapter for decades, making many classes containers filled by the content in other parts of the book. But, fair or not, I think it’ll get judged on that basis.

The alchemist would play out a lot smoother if the basic functions were baked into the class (and class description). More complicated poisons and so forth can stay in some other chapter, but abilities to create basic bombs, serums, and damaging poisons would let a player get off the ground without digging into another section of the book.