Pathfinder: Session 2

Since it's holiday time, we've been getting in a few more sessions than usual. After an eight hour Rippers marathon the day before, we got together for four or five hours of Pathfinder.

• +Annette plays Aliella Glorygem, a Dwarven Wizard (Evoker).
• James plays Elerith, an Elven Cleric of Desna and the only Good-aligned member of the group (everyone else is some form of Neutral).
• Maddi plays Constance, an Elven Rogue.
• Sasha plays Asmira Mothwing, a Human Fighter with scale armour, a shield, a rapier, and a massive Dex bonus.
• I play Durga the Thunderbolt, a Human Barbarian with a two-handed sword and studded leather armour for swift movement.

Previously, we entered a network of caves and fought many goblins, while searching for the mysterious creature known only as Black Fang.


We awoke refreshed and advanced on Black Fang's lair. After climbing up a ledge, we fought and defeated four foul animated skeletons. Pressing on, we entered a large cavern with a hole in the roof. Asmira and I pushed forward. Rounding a wall of rock, I spied a pile of treasure - and at that moment, a small Black Dragon descended through the hole to land upon it!

Before I could react, it had shot its acid breath at me and charged to attack! I drew the Dragonbane longsword and fought back as the others joined the fray. While it took its toll with tooth and claw, our blades and magic were more than its equal. After a mighty blow from my Dragonbane and a grievous thrust from Constance's rapier, the beast took to the skies and fled.

We returned to town to resupply, planning to head back and stake out the lair in case Black Fang returned. However, the mayor was satisfied that the beast was driven off and we received our reward.


After completing our first "dungeon" the GM informed us that, since our group had worked together so well, we decided to form an adventuring company and offer our services for hire. However, it was a few weeks before we were approached with a task.

I did raise an eyebrow when we were told what our characters were doing, but I am cutting the GM some slack as he's running a module-based introduction that will lead into a full campaign. At the moment the focus of the game is on the dungeons, so the GM exercising editorial control to make sure we get to the right place is understandable. At least telling us how things need to be is preferable to giving us the illusion of choice and then blocking our moves until we end up where he wants us anyway. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to make more meaningful decisions about campaign direction once the game proper begins.


A few weeks after dealing with Black Fang, the mayor approached us with a job. A pair of Dwarves had asked for the rights to an abandoned mine near Sandpoint. The town agreed, but the Dwarves had not been heard from since. We were to find out if they had run into trouble or if they were mining gold without paying their dues to the town.

The mine tunnel led to a crossroad. There were signs of a fight with giant spiders. Tracks had gone West and North and returned, but had then gone East and not returned. Aliella cast an Alarm spell upon the crossroad, and we headed off to explore each tunnel in turn.

To the West was a 15-foot deep sink-hole with a chest on the far side. Constance leapt across and recovered some treasure, but hurt herself trying to leap back.

To the North was a cave-in and signs of webs. We were attacked by two man-sized spiders, but eventually slew them and found a small amount of treasure.

To the East we found an injured Dwarf. He said that he and his brother had been attacked by a rock monster, and implored us to find his missing kin. We found him a short way along the tunnel, but as Asmira advanced to fetch him an Earth Elemental burst out of the rubble and attacked us! Elerith evacuated the Dwarf as battle was met, and we destroyed the fiend after a gruelling battle. Fortunately, none of our number fell in combat.

We escorted the Dwarves back to town and collected our well-earned reward.



The game was enjoyable; once more, the focus was on exploring and overcoming the challenges presented in the dungeon environment, and barely any play has taken place back in town or even in the wilderness. The modular dungeons have offered a variety of problems to deal with, so there's generally something for everyone to get involved with.

After two dungeons, we're two-thirds of the way to second level. It's starting to seem like a bit of a hike, since I'm straining to get my Attack Bonus higher and hit more often. Like many games, Pathfinder tends to have many rolls where effectively nothing happens - missed attacks, failed checks that don't progress the situation. I gave the group an overview of Apocalypse World where every roll has a consequence apart from lost time, and I'm hoping to run a game of that for them some time soonish.

Speaking of XP, there was one situation that irked me a little, although it's nothing major and certainly didn't spoil the game. The GM was showing off his nifty experience point spreadsheet, and happened to mention that we'd missed out on some bonus experience in Black Fang's lair because we hadn't accepted the quest from the goblin chief to retrieve his toy dragon. He said he wanted to reward us for negotiating rather than fighting the goblins. He wanted to encourage us to make the "right" choice, but since we were unaware of the incentive it was pretty ineffective.

The overwhelming majority of the party is Neutral or Chaotic Neutral, we have a Dwarf who has a racial hatred of goblinoids, and my character was leery about leaving the goblin threat behind us. Negotiating and honouring an agreement with the goblins is a Lawful and possibly Good act, so we went unrewarded for playing to our alignments. The only Lawful Good member of the party did try to get us to negotiate, but she was outvoted.

Personally I think it would be better if expectations and rewards were discussed ahead of time so everyone knows where they stand. These days I prefer to discuss the way a particular game will run before I actually start running it. At the moment with Pathfinder it's just the one minor thing, but I thought it was worth discussing because I'd rather not see it become a trend.

In any case, I'm enjoying the game and looking forward to next session.

>>> To be continued...

Pathfinder: Session 1

+Michael's started a game of Pathfinder using the Beginner's Box, so I'm a player in this one!

Not having played Pathfinder before, I'd gathered that it was an offshoot of D&D 3.5, and a lot of people on the forums I frequent find it to be overly fiddly, mechanically speaking. I played a few sessions of 3.5 a while back, and after much exposure to AD&D 2nd Edition in the 90's I actually really liked a lot of the changes they made - especially reversing AC/THAC0. However, I can totally see where it could become "too much" with all the manoeuvres, feats, and modifiers to keep track of.

I'm starting to feel a bit "over" dungeon fantasy as a gaming genre, but was willing to give it a go. In my AD&D days, the simplicity of the Fighter had always appealed to me, so I started thinking about a two-handed sword warrior.

I must say, the Beginner's Box really does an excellent job of guiding you through character creation and presenting your options clearly without being overwhelming. The layout and icons used throughout the book really help in this regard. 

So I was going through the Hero's Handbook, looking at options for my planned greatsword-wielding Amazon - and then I opened the Player's Pack expansion and fell in love with the Barbarian class. I've always disliked D&D's tendency to make everyone move at the same speed, so the extra Movement really appealed. I also liked the idea of a warrior tapping into their primal rage to cause carnage and destruction. It really fit with the image I was developing for my character. Thus was born Durga the Thunderbolt.

We're using the free version of Hero Lab to keep track of characters for this game. It certainly helps make the modifiers and fiddly parts of the rules more manageable.

With a bit of a recruitment push, we ended up with five players plus GM.

• +Annette plays Aliella Glorygem, a Dwarven Wizard (Evoker).
• James plays Elerith, an Elven Cleric of Desna and the only Good-aligned member of the group (everyone else is some form of Neutral).
• Maddi plays Constance, an Elven Rogue.
• Sasha (absent) plays Asmira Mothwing, a Human Fighter with scale armour, a shield, a rapier, and a massive Dex bonus.
• I play Durga the Thunderbolt, a Human Barbarian with a two-handed sword and studded leather armour for swift movement.

The party began at the mouth of some caves, rumoured to be the lair of a beast known only as Black Fang. It had been attacking livestock near the coastal town of Sandpoint, so the group had accepted a request to seek out and destroy the menace. All of the characters save myself were locals; I had wandered in from the wilderness and taken this opportunity to prove my bravery and seek treasures.

We were attacked by goblins at the cave mouth, who proved no match for us. We entered and came upon a group of goblins arguing with their leader. We negotiated with them and managed to gain information about Black Fang's weaknesses, but refused to accept the leader's quest to return a toy dragon to him. Negotiations broke down and we slew them all in battle.

We avoided Black Fang's lair for the moment, choosing to explore the other chambers first. I swam across a deep pool to an island  where treasure lay, and was attacked by a Reefclaw. The treasure included a Dragonbane Longsword, which I claimed for the battle ahead, as it seemed Black Fang may be some form of draconic creature.

We discovered a goblin and a giant spider dead near each other; the goblin held the toy black dragon that the goblin leader had wanted us to retrieve.

The final room housed a glowing red ruby flanked by statues. After much caution, we approached and the statues announced "Approach with humility and live; approach with pride and die!" After much cautious debate, I crawled towards the altar. A fan of flame shot from each statue over my head, but there was enough room to claim the gem - which stopped the flames.

We withdrew to the entrance chamber to camp and prepare for battle against Black Fang.

Michael did a good job of GMing his first session ever, adapting well to our decisions and presenting the dungeon in a neutral manner - he wasn't out to get us, nor was he there to help us. 

My only disappointment was that our characters all started the game without knowing each other, save a brief introduction on the road to the caves. I would have liked to establish connections to some of the other characters, giving me some extra motivation besides the mercenary promise of treasure. I thought it a little odd, anyway, given the characters were all supposed to be from a town of 1200 residents, that nobody knew anybody else at all.

However, the lack of connections didn't impact the actual play of dungeon delving, and we began to develop the beginnings of relationships naturally as the game progressed. I was able to express my primal nature and take on my role in the party as highly mobile heavy hitter, a front-line fighter with my eye ever on the next doorway while the others searched and looted.

All up I enjoyed the game, and I'm looking forward to Session 2! I am, however, also eager for this group - many of whom are novices - to experience some of the other flavours of RPGs. In particular, I'd love to run a game that wasn't focussed on maps and minis like our Savage Worlds, D&D Next, and Pathfinder games have been. I'm keen to try something like Apocalypse World, Ryuutama, or Tenra Bansho Zero with them, and Annette's also expressed a desire to run a Firefly game using the shiny new Cortex Plus edition - which would also meet my mini-less criteria and let me play as well!

>>> To be continued!