Pathfinder Playtest: Doomsday Dawn

Game Date: 8/11/2018
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: PF Playtest, Part 1
Module: Doomsday Dawn

System: Pathfinder 2nd Edition (Playtest)
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Delman (Gary) - Gnome Sorceror
Ezren (Henry) - Human Wizard
Lavena (Matt) - Human Fighter
Marcius (Martin) - Human Rogue
Merisiel (Brian) - Elf Rogue
Sig (Mikhail) - Dwarf Monk

The Session:
An aristocrat in Magnimar sent us on a mission to retrieve a family heirloom, the Star of Desna.  Her vault had been robbed by goblins, and our investigation led us to an old lair called the Ashen Ossuary.

The first room of the dungeon was round, with a few puddles and a grate in the middle.  As Lavena went to examine the grate, she was attacked by a sewer ooze.  This fight lasted approximately one round, with Lavena landing the final hit.  The grate didn't seem to lead anywhere important, so decided to go through the tunnel on the far side of the room.  Sig used his stealth to scout ahead.  The DM rolled Sig's stealth checks so he wouldn't know how well he did.

The tunnel went around a short bend, and ended in a long room with lots of alcoves.  Eight goblins inhabited the room.  Ezren cast Light on Lavena, who led the charge into the room to start the fight.  We quickly found ourselves surrounded, but the goblins weren't too difficult.  Delman cast Bless on all of us to give us a bit of an edge.

Once all the goblins were defeated, we investigated the three side rooms.  One room had a collapsed wall, covered in giant centipedes.  We avoided them.  Another room had some dead goblins hung on the wall, and the third room contained a large fungus.  We ignored that as well, and took another hallway.

The next chamber we explored contained a pool of oily black liquid.  Sig was brave enough to investigate the pool, where he found a small statue of an evil goddess.  The statue cracked open, and two quasits burst out.  This was a difficult fight only because the dice gods cursed us.  The players kept rolling badly, while the DM was on a roll.  Once the quasits were hit a few times, they turned invisible.  We kept rolling flat checks to attack their last location, and finally finished them off.

There were two exits from this room, though technically they led to the same hallway.  One of the doors was locked, and it took three successful thievery checks to get it open.  One of our rogues broke his thieve's tools in the process. At the end of one hallway was a large statue of the Goddess of Death, who happened to be same goddess Sig worshiped.   Lavena didn't want to go near that statue, so she exited the pool room through the other door, which turned out to be rigged to make a lot of noise.

At the end of one hallway, a short tunnel led down into a lair containing seven goblin warriors, one goblin commando, and a goblin pyro.  At first it was a standoff - we tried to get them to come to us, and they stayed where they were with readied actions.  Merisiel attempted to shoot them from a distance, but got taken down instead.

One of the goblins ran forward and started to drag Merisiel's unconscious form deeper into the room.  Lavena couldn't let this stand, and rushed into the room.  We lost a lot of hit points in this fight, but eventually we prevailed.  On the far side of the room was a 15-foot high cliff.  It took a lot of attempts, but eventually a couple of us made it up the wall and let down some ropes for the rest of us.

Down another hallway, we found a room with a couple of treasure chests.  One was unlocked, but the other gave us a lot of trouble.  We couldn't pick the lock, and so we made a lot of noise trying to smash it.  The racket drew the attention of the chest's owner, a hobgoblin.  Lavena was first in line to fight this boss, and while she managed to get one good hit in, the hobgoblin took her down.  Sig went down soon after.

The battle kept going for a few rounds, and the hobgoblin transformed into a Faceless Stalker.  Those of us who were 0 hit points used our Hero Points to save ourselves, but we kept failing the checks to become conscious again.  Apparently the DC for waking up is tied to the level of the creature that downed you.

Finally we defeated the hobgoblin.  Three of us were unconscious at the end of the fight, but nobody died.  The hobgoblin held the key to the chest, which contained some decent loot along with our quest item, the Star of Desna.

Afterthoughts:

After nearly a year without gaming, I finally got to play again.   “Doomsday Dawn” is the first sample adventure for the Pathfinder 2e Playtest.  Full details of this adventure are available on Pathfinder's website.  Earlier this week I posted my first impressions of the Playtest materials, but today I actually got to see it in action.

I do think it plays better than it reads.  I'm not sold on some things, but it was a fun session.  I still like D&D 5e better, but I'm going to give PF2e a few more sessions before I really judge it.  The two games are on such opposite ends of the spectrum that it barely feels like the same genre, and I think there's room in the world for both.  The playtest materials are so robust, I can't help but wonder how much will change in the final product.