PF2e 01 - Grasping Grove 1

This was our first foray into Pathfinder 2nd edition, and It’s certainly something. It’s hard to get a real opinion on a system like this from one session though, since Pathfinder and games like it tend to break around like… level 3 and beyond. So I’ll have to re-evaluate once I get there.

Let’s meet the party!

Esdee - Desert Rat Ratfolk Magus (Starlit Span) - Cagy about his reasons for leaving home, but he’s seeking who killed his nomadic tribe. No valuables were taken, nor was it done by dragons.
Magnus Valerius - Wolf Beastkin Human Thaumaturge - Suckered in to moving to Arlon by it’s PR’s travel guide, now stuck a ways from home. Sprii Goldenleaf Leaf Leshy Leaf Order Druid - After Awakening, they found themselves aimless. They had these abilities but didn’t know what to do with them in the forest. They travelled to Arlon looking for some direction.

So there’s our crew! Let’s get to the session proper.

We started in medias res with the party en route to their first assignment as freshly minted members of The Silver Star, the largest adventuring guild in the country. Their assignment is to recover the nectar of the Yellow Musk Creeper, a viney plant that is located in the Grasping Grove, a forest about a half day’s travel from Arlon. Once they have it, all they need to do is deliver the 3 ampoules of it to Brewer’s Point, the alchemy headquarters/school/guild.

On the road, they are escorted by three other guild members, Fesper, a catfolk ranger and her squad of a warrior and some mage. Fesper provided them with their starting additional supplies of a healing potion each, and a signal flare. Fesper and company would be nearby in case there were any issues. The two men laughed as the party asked Fesper what they were in for, as if remembering their own time with this assignment.

Notes - This was the first opportunity I wanted to give the players to interact with their characters and each other. Fesper being good natured and willing to help while the other two see this as what it really is for them, part of a job, makes it so I only have to make 1 fully fleshed out NPC for now.

They entered the forest and found 3 paths created by nature, one winding past west, a path north to a sun dappled opening, and a lazily curving path to the east. Before anything, Esdee took a moment to think about the plant and try to see what they knew, and Sprii communicated with a nearby tree. Between the two of them, they knew that the Yellow Musk Creeper likes the deepest parts of the woods, and is an aggressively growing plant. The tree told them which direction the plant is located: north.

Notes - So here is where I looked at my overview map and got a little worried. I was afraid that I had done too many encounters for this adventure, especially since the Druid prepped Heal only once. Sidebar, I do like how Heal is variable action. One action being touch range, 2 being a single target within whatever with bonus healing, and 3 actions being an AOE healing with extra healing.

So north they went, and found themselves at the Tranquil Pond. They noticed some animals surrounding the pond, but nothing was going very deep. Even the ducks on the pond avoid going beyond a couple feet from the shore. The party saw something among the reeds in the water, which turned out to be an oilskin pouch containing a scroll of Elyisian Whimsy. They were able to slowly lift it out of the water using Prestidigitation.

Notes: The scroll was there to give the Arcane caster a new spell to potentially learn, but it also does give them something to trade in at the library or sell for money, so there’s that. If they had walked into the water, it would have triggered the encounters with the Giant Amoeba and Amoeba Swarm, but instead they spent a ton of time milling around the edge of the water, eventually drawing their attention anyways. When they had their clever solution I expected them to dip and head towards either the glint of metal they saw back towards the entrance, or to the panicked animal noises to the east, but they hung around and fought the amoeba instead.

The party moved to the Eastern Grove and found that the animals were going apeshit because of some rampaging juvenile boars, who seemed to be affected by some yellowed vines wrapped around them. They dealt with the youthful hogs, and as they were slain, the vines withered into nothing. Once things settled down, the wildlife returned to normal, and Esdee was able to find a rat to speak to, who warned them about some thing to the north, and indicated that the plant they wanted was located to the North-northwest.

Notes - Not much to say with this one. Simple encounter, Weak Juvenile Boars used grass in the center of the map as cover before lunging out to rush the party. This was where we called it for the night, just over 2 hours and fifteen minutes. Hoping we can make more progress going forward, but we’ll see.

Final Thoughts - The 3 action system is interesting in some ways. The Magus’ Spelltrike ability is going to take some getting used to since it needs to Recharge after being used, either by casting the Conflux spell or by using an action to recharge. The Thaumaturge is honestly the easiest character to work with right now because we can just go “Hey what the fuck does this thing in particular hate”. What we came up with: Amoeba didn’t like alcohol/disinfecting plants, the boars had a weakness for like, charcoal. They were able to imbue these into their short sword implement to deal a couple points of extra damage while also letting the party be privy to what the enemies were weak to and resisted.

So far, so good. I don’t have a game next week because two players aren’t going to be around, so I have two weeks to lean on the stuff I already prepped. I will probably milestone them to level 2 after this mission though, just because. Otherwise it might take awhile to go from 1 to 2.