Pathfinder 2 in Freeport - a stress test

Pathfinder 2 in Freeport!

Our group played its first Pathfinder 2 (PF2) game last night, scarcely two weeks after the official release. I was drafted for DM duty, being the only one with the rulebooks in hand, and only two players were able to free themselves from work or other obligations. Yet, even though a party of two is decidedly suboptimal and dangerous, we had a great time.

My two friends L and C have been playing with me for some ten years here in central France. First we played D&D 3.5, then finally switched to Pathfinder years after its release. We played the Rise of the Runelords AP, and got a little over halfway through in four years of monthly games (with a few other players who came and went) and last December we started a pirate-themed homebrew campaign with a rotating DM chair, and that was going great. In 9 months we had some ten sessions and had reached 3^rd level.

Still, it was with some trepidation that I suggested we switch right away to PF2 and start new characters. I had spent two weeks reading the rules and participating in the Paizo forums to clear up any grey areas, but I was worried that my fellow players might have become attached to their burgeoning pirate characters and would be miffed at me asking them to dump their darlings. Fortunately, they were as eager as I was to test the new game system, so the three of us had at it.

Character Creation

C decided to make an elf druid character named Eraklesias. He’d read a little online and was off to a good start. He chose Woodland Elf ancestry with the Elven Weapon Familiarity feat to give him access to more weapons than the base druid class would. He went on to choose the Animal Whisperer background, to capitalize on the druid vibe, and when he moved on to the Class section he chose the Animal focus as his druid order, so he could have an animal companion. Given our limited time for the session, he put off dealing with the animal companion for a later session, and after a quick run through the equipment section he was ready to go.

L really wasn’t sure what he wanted to make. He’d always found spellcasters too complex, and since I knew he loved being good at skills, I suggested he play a Rogue. He settled on a Human Rogue named Luciano, since I was already hinting at a character origin in Sandpoint, in Varisia, where they’d played the Rise of the Runelords campaign for so many years. He chose Versatile Heritage and Natural Ambition for an extra general feat and class feat, then went further into the Rogue vibe by choosing a Criminal background. Since I’d hinted that whatever background he chose, that would represent the family “business” that his father wanted him to follow until he turned his back on it and became an adventurer, it was now clear that he came from a long line of Czarni crime families, fleshing things out even further. Plunging into the Rogue class, he chose the Thief racket (for the DEX to damage option, the only way I’ve found to get DEX to damage in the game as it stands now) and the Nimble Dodge and Twin Feint feats, to see what cool stuff he could do dual wielding as a rogue. When he got to choosing his trained skills, he found he had nearly every skill in the game, having put most of his Ability boosts in DEX and INT. He grabbed the standard Rogue gear package and was ready to roll.

Our Starting Adventure in Freeport

We’d been playing for some months in a PF1 pirate-themed campaign, and although our characters had ostensibly been sailing towards Freeport, with our rotating DMs each coming up with new and different things, we still hadn’t arrived. So I decided we’d get this first PF2 session off to a good start by positing their arrival in Freeport. On a side note, I’ve always loved city-based campaigns, ever since the Judge’s Guild released the City State of the Invincible Overlord in 1976 at Gencon IX, so when I picked up the new Pathfinder edition of Freeport, the City of Adventure earlier that spring, I knew I had to get my players into that setting.

I wrote up a backstory for each character. Luciano had followed the family business for a few years, but had always been starry-eyed when he saw adventurers in town. One day he got a letter from his cousin Fredegar, asking Luciano to come to Freeport to work for him. Eraklesias was much older, so much older, in fact, that as a young Woodland Elf Druid, he’d befriended Rudolpho, Luciano’s grandfather, and stayed in touch, becoming something like a guardian angel for the young Czarni. So they were off for Freeport.

Act One: Downtime mode

PF2 has three modes of play: Downtime, Exploration and Encounter modes. I wanted to test all three last night. So I asked both players to look at their trained skills and choose one that they would use to Earn Income working in Fredegar’s tavern, The Crooked Hand. 

Eraklesias decided to use his skill at Nature to work in the stables, tending to animals, while Luciano decided to use Underworld Lore to provide illegal goods to tavern patrons, waiting tables as a cover. Both of them failed their first Earn Income check, earning only two copper pieces per day for the first week of work. I told them that they could pay 10 silver pieces each to have a comfortable living for the week, taking meals and drinking beer each night in Fredegar’s tavern, but they both opted to use the Subsist task to get by for free. Eraklesias critically succeeded at using the Survival skill to Subsist (rolling more than ten over the DC I’d set), earning a comfortable living for himself, fishing and hunting along Freeport’s docks. 

Luciano had an ordinary success in Society, earning him a subsistence living, like a homeless bum. The second week, they both succeeded at their earn income checks, gaining 2sp per day, and they again declined to pay for their cost of living. Luciano spent a second week living like a vagrant, while Eraklesias had another critical success for a comfortable living. The end result for the two weeks was that they both had 15.4 extra silver pieces in their pockets, and Luciano showed that he was completely lacking in personal dignity, an appropriate and interesting personality trait for a Rogue Thief Criminal.

Act Two, Encounter mode: What happened one night

Our budding heroes were lounging in the tavern when they noticed a red-haired woman in sailor’s garb walk in with three men following her and make straight for the corner table where she drew her rapier and threatened an old man who’d been a regular for the last two weeks. A successful perception check allowed them to overhear her say, “So, yellow belly! Here’s the dive where you’ve been hiding yourself. You didn’t really think that you could rob me without my coming to look for you, did you?” It was time to check initiative.

I like to start adventures “in media res” or “in the middle of the thing”, asking players to react to the scene unfolding before them. Eraklesias used his earlier perception roll for initiative, but since Luciano was working his grift, selling illegal goods to tavern patrons, he used an Underworld Lore check for initiative. The woman, a 3^rd-level rogue pirate, won initiative and used her actions to critically wound the old man, sending him straight to Dying 2, scarcely a round or two from certain death, then rifled his pockets for two actions. Eraklesias and Luciano faced off against two zero-level pirates (new hires on the woman’s ship) while the third man, a 2^nd-level fighter, pushed some tavern patrons around to make a quick path for escape. 

Eraklesias used a combination of strikes and trip and shove actions to overcome his lesser opponents, while Luciano, sure of himself, circled round to attack the woman. He missed his strikes, then she landed a blow before trying to trip him, only to score a critical failure and fall, slipping on the old man’s blood. 

Luciano was sure to conquer, but only managed to slightly wound the woman before she got to her feet and took the Long Jump action (at a cost of two actions), running ten feat and  successfully leaping over an intervening table on her way to a stairway that went upstairs. Her right-hand man covered her escape before withdrawing after her. I asked for Recall Knowledge (Society) checks from both PCs, and they remembered that there were two exits from the upstairs, via exterior staircases. 

They elected to let their adversaries escape while they remained behind to lick their wounds. Eraklesias used his healer’s kit and the Medicine skill to good effect, healing both of them almost completely, but they were left with the mystery of the old man’s death, and the woman’s words about a mysterious stolen map.

Act Three, Exploration mode: an investigation

Both heroes had survived their first fight, not too much worse for wear. Using Medicine to stabilize and then heal one of the zero-level pirates from Dying 3, just in the nick of time, they interrogated him, but didn’t find out much beyond the woman’s name and the dock where her ship was berthed. They were more interested in finding out about the old man, but failed their Diplomacy (Gather Information) checks to work the crowd, looking for anyone who might have witnessed his comings and goings, and then also failed their Survival (Tracking) checks to backtrack the old man after commandeering his boots. Things were not going well, and as they navigated through the twisted back alleys of the Docks district of Freeport, I decided to spring an encounter on them: a pack of giant rats carrying the dread Filth Fever disease.

However, when I’d first planned this part of the night’s adventure, I didn’t know what character classes my friends were going to choose. Giant Rats may be nasty adversaries for two 1^st-level adventurers, but they have the “animal” type, so quite naturally Eraklesias used his druidic power of Wild Empathy (via a Diplomacy: Make an Impression check) to improve the pack leader’s attitude. He then used Wild Empathy again to make a Diplomacy (Make a Request) check, and also succeeded in asking the pack leader to call off the attacks.

I’d earlier planted the rumor that more and more packs of giant rats had been seen around the Docks district at night, and Ereklesias had the bright idea of asking the rat (which has “scent” listed amongst its additional senses) to sniff the old man’s boots to find out if it knew where he lived. These are the moments I live for as a DM – a clever idea leads to a solution when all the avenues I’d planned out have failed.

Act Four: the adventure continues

It was late, but we elected to keep playing. We’d already tested all three gameplay modes of the PF2 system, and were starting to get the hang of it. They searched the raggedy old house the old man had been living in, found some clues and discovered a secret trap door leading to a basement and a section of Freeport’s sewers. They faced off against a giant centipede (amongst other critters) and discovered just how dangerous PF2’s new poison system can be, especially for a character with a ten Constitution and a low Fortitude save. Luciano very nearly died, only surviving thanks to Eraklesias’ quick thinking and good Medicine skill rolls. We wrapped up the night’s session and my friends headed home. We’d given all three of PF2’s gameplay modes a good run through, not to mention the character creation process (easy as ABC!), the skill system and the combat system, all the way to deleterious conditions and Dying levels.

I’m tempted to write this homebrew adventure up and make it available as a quick-start one-shot adventure or campaign seed. I’ve got all the stat blocks and gameplay mode guidelines written out, all it would take is a bit of spit and polish. If you’re interested, let me know, either in the comments section or via PM on the Paizo PF2 forums. Look for Wheldrake. Thanks for reading.