Background: I’m playing Sky King’s Tomb with 6 players: a bard, a kineticist, an investigator, a sorcerer, a magus, and a fighter. Tools used include discord (voice/video/memes), powerpoint (exploration/downtime, etc.), owlbear (encounter mode), demiplane (character sheets/rule lookup), trello (shared loot), google docs (shared notes/campaign log)
I have many years of experience taking 5e campaigns from level 0-20 and this is my first Pathfinder 2e campaign.
Session 3: Resting/downtime/shopping day
RESTING
- we reviewed the rules for resting in pathfinder (using PowerPoint) but it would be good to have a fly out or pop up or something on a rest button to explain (maybe with a don’t show again checkbox) so that new players or transitioning players realize differences from 5e long rests. Specifically about recovered HP by calculating the amount.
- The resting flyout could have a section for the prepared spell casters to pick prepared spells, and for all players to pick invested items as they gain items with investment
- The rest button should be much more prominent than the “full heal” button since that’s not really a mechanic in pathfinder? maybe full heal should be hidden under the character options menu (like between the builder button and UI design selection)
- A refocus button (doesn’t really seem necessary but I’ll just mention it, since there may be feats and mechanics that trigger on refocus that I’m unaware of)
- Search results should prioritize core rules over feats/class mechanics (a search for “resting” leaves the desired result buried deep)
DOWNTIME
- Activities during downtime should be made clear on the sheet somewhere… (gather information, subsist, earn income, etc.) I prepared a chart for myself based on the activities list on Archives of Nethys to share with players… Exploration and Downtime Activities
- As a GM new to pathfinder I felt like I could use a little help figuring out how to run the earn income activity. Specifically, I opened the rules on it and was a little overwhelmed by the table and trying to decipher DCs, rolls, and income earned when the table deals in task levels and training ranks… Maybe GM tutorial content is beyond the scope of what Demiplane wants to offer but I’m here to give feedback on my experience and this is one area where I floundered and waffled a little. I’m sure I’ll figure it out better by next session on my own …
SHOPPING
- Players should get a buy button on the equipment manager
- When group features are added there should be a shared loot space (currently managing group loot/equipment trading using a trello board)
- if there is a shared loot manager it should have a button to automatically share out coins evenly between party members from the party loot, and for players to gift items among themselves
- It would be interesting to optionally have equipment purchases/changes announced in the shared roll log when there’s a shared roll log. This way I can just tell the players to shop for any common items and then check with uncommon or rare items that pop up.
OTHER/PIE-IN-THE-SKY
- a nice GM tool for future GM screen might be a “spotlight tracker”. This would be fairly easy to implement using the points trackers I requested last time.
Last session of 2023. See you back January 11. Have a happy holidays.
