Pathfinder Playtest - Adventure products issues/defects

[Trenloe]

We now have 4 Pathfinder Playtest products available in the Fantasy Grounds store - 3 Pathfinder Society scenarios (thanks to Gwydion) and the early access Doomsday Dawn campaign.


Doomsday Dawn (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.php?id=PZOSMWPZO2100MFG)
The Rose Street Revenge (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.php?id=PZOSMWPZOPSSTPT01EFG)
Raiders of Shrieking Peak (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.php?id=PZOSMWPZOPSSTPT02EFG)
Arclord's Envy (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/store/product.php?id=PZOSMWPZOPSSTPT03EFG)


These are all excellent products designed to get you introduced to the Pathfinder Playtest and involved in the upcoming story lines!

Please post any issues with these products in this thread.

Keep in mind that the PFRPG2 ruleset is an early access ruleset and is constantly under development, with many features not yet available. Some info on what is still to be developed here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?45066-Bug-Thread-Pathfinder-Playtest-ruleset-Release-1-(August-8th) Therefore, some features may not be possible in the released scenarios at this stage.

[Gwydion]

Good morning. Reading the Paizo threads on Doomsday Dawn, I found a post by Jason Jacobs, the Creative Director talking about the encounter with Drakus the Taker in Room A10 in the Ashen Ossuary. The encounter has a stat block for a Giant Rat which was an error in printing. The encounter was intended to be a solo encounter. Jason stated that anyone running the adventure should ignore/remove the Dire (Giant) Rat. For the full text of the post, see below:

Jason Jacobs, Creative Director

TL;DR: The dire rat is not supposed to be there in the encounter; ignore it when you run "The Lost Star."

Looks like this dire rat got into the text at some point during the secondary development pass for the adventure. Click below if you wanna see what caused it. (In any case, while the pretty unique set of circumstances that allowed this error to happen will be in place for some of the adventures for 2nd edition we'll be working on over the next several months, it's now something I know to be on the lookout for and, once we're officially in the era of the new edition, probably won't be a big issue...)

Spoiler:
Developing Doomsday Dawn was tricky, and was done in 2 passes. My first, more extensive pass was to make sure the whole book held together plot-wise, that the adventure flowed, was fun to read, and all of that, but also to do as much syncing up with the playtest rules as possible, since when the adventures were written during a few months before my pass started, the playtest rules were still very much in active creation mode. At the same time this was going on, the document got its first significant editing pass.
Then, once I was done, the text went back to the design team for them to playtest the whole thing and to give the rules side of things a look over. Once that was done, the adventure entered a SECOND development phase where someone went through and incorporated all of the notes from the first edit pass and the playtest. It appears that it's at this stage that the dire rat made its appearance in the encounter—in the text turnover to layout at this point, the dire rat entry is even in a weirdly formatted font that doesn't match the rest of the text file; formatting that got normalized automatically as part of the importing of text into the final layout files to begin the last several rounds of editing.

So... short and bitter version, it is indeed a copy/paste error that ended up in print. Sorry about that, all!

[Trenloe]

TL;DR: The dire rat is not supposed to be there in the encounter; ignore it when you run "The Lost Star."
When was that posted? Because that hasn't made it into the official product update PDF.

[Gwydion]

Sorry... Its a pretty obscure "correction". It isn't in the errata so if you don't want to adjust it I completely understand. Its on the paizo forum. Here is a link and here is a screenshot to the actual post on the page.

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2vab7?Dire-Rat-in-Lost-Star-A10

[Trenloe]

Sorry... Its a pretty obscure "correction". It isn't in the errata so if you don't want to adjust it I completely understand. Its on the paizo forum. Here is a link and here is a screenshot to the actual post on the page.

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2vab7?Dire-Rat-in-Lost-Star-A10
That's from the beginning of August, and they haven't put it in the errata. That's a bit of an oversight. I'll make a note of it in the area description.

[Gwydion]

Sounds good. Thanks!

[Gwydion]

Just a quick FYI for anyone following this thread who has any of the Pathfinder Society Playtest modules. I did notice that all of the pregens have been updated to reflect the rule updates. In particular, the untrained skills will change and I also noted some other items that are either changes or perhaps corrections. Once today's update is pushed, I'll start working to update all three Playtest modules to include the updated pregens and see if there is anything else I can add to make the modules more automated based on anything that is added to the ruleset by Trenloe.

I'll get the updates submitted to Smiteworks as soon as I can. Thanks!

[Trenloe]

In particular, the untrained skills will change ...
If the proficiency cycler is set at "-" (which is the default and standard for untrained) then FG will automatically update to use -4 plus level instead of -2 plus level for the untrained proficiency bonus.

I'm anticipating a few players complaining when they next open their PCs... :D

[Gwydion]

If the proficiency cycler is set at "-" (which is the default and standard for untrained) then FG will automatically update to use -4 plus level instead of -2 plus level for the untrained proficiency bonus.

I'm anticipating a few players complaining when they next open their PCs... :D

Oh nice! Should have thought about that. I'll take a look when it is updated and see if there are other changes to the pregens before I touch anything. Thanks!

[Ampersandrew]

Hi Trenloe, the second part of Doomsday dawn advises taking Ancient Osiriani, Auran, Gnoll because they might be useful.

Lots of my players took ancient Osiriani, then one of the NPCs talks to them in Ancient Osiriani. So I tried to use it, it's not an available language. I had to faff about getting them to change it to Osiriani which is there so that some of them understood it and some didn't.

I didn't see any way for the GM to add a language on the fly.

[Trenloe]

I didn't see any way for the GM to add a language on the fly.
The same as all CoreRPG based rulesets: Language are added via the "Languages" button in the campaign settings window.

[Ampersandrew]

The same as all CoreRPG based rulesets: Language are added via the "Languages" button in the campaign settings window.

Cool. I didn't know that.

Obviously.

Yes, I manged to add it in.

[Gwydion]

Good morning, all! Just a heads up that tomorrow (Tuesday, 10/2), you should see updates hit for all three of the currently issued Society Playtest Modules (Rose Street Revenge, Raiders of Shrieking Peak and Arclord's Envy). I updated as much as I could to take advantage of the great work Trenloe is doing with the ruleset and improved some of the NPC powers/spell coding to make it easier for you. I apologize that I'm always a week behind on catching up to the ruleset, but as soon as I see the enhancements that Trenloe makes that come out on Tuesday's, I work to update the modules and then those changes usually get pushed the following Tuesday with the scheduled updates.

Oh... and the final Society Playtest adventure The Frozen Oath has been submitted and hopefully will hit the stores in the next week or two. It has to go through the normal process, but wanted you all to know it was on the way!

Anyway, hope you are enjoying these modules!

[UltimateGM]

You rock Gwydion thanks for the updates and the time your putting into the game.

[Gwydion]

You rock Gwydion thanks for the updates and the time your putting into the game.

Well, I appreciate the comments but Trenloe is definitely doing all the work on this, I'm just trying to keep current with the adventures I converted. Thanks, though and I can't wait to actually run my first game with the ruleset this Wednesday!

[UltimateGM]

Yes Trenloe is definitely meeting and exceeding the challenge on making this the best rule-set for PF2E.

[Gwydion]

Spoiler!

Doomsday Dawn - DD01-09.A01 Slimy Cistern

Trenloe,

I noticed for the first encounter (and probably same for others), that given the sewer ooze record is locked and I can't unlock it without dragging the ooze to create a brand new ooze, I can't get to the "save" roll button for the filth wave. If I hit the cast button, It just shows [CAST] Filth Wave in the chat and doesn't roll. However, if I left click and hold the cast button and drop it on each player, it rolls fine. Just fyi.

Actually, even when I open the record, clicking the cast button doesn't work. I have to drag the cast or save button on to each player. Thanks!

[Trenloe]

I can't get to the "save" roll button for the filth wave. If I hit the cast button, It just shows [CAST] Filth Wave in the chat and doesn't roll. However, if I left click and hold the cast button and drop it on each player, it rolls fine. Just fyi.

Actually, even when I open the record, clicking the cast button doesn't work. I have to drag the cast or save button on to each player. Thanks!
This is standard behaviour throughout the FG 3.5E/PFRPG/PFRPG2 rulesets - you need a target selected for a save action to be rolled. Hence why dragging it works, as that indicates a target. Put the NPC in the combat tracker and assign a target there - then the cast button will roll a save.

[Gwydion]

This is standard behaviour throughout the FG 3.5E/PFRPG/PFRPG2 rulesets - you need a target selected for a save action to be rolled. Hence why dragging it works, as that indicates a target. Put the NPC in the combat tracker and assign a target there - then the cast button will roll a save.

Got it... Sorry for the false alarm. Learning new rulesets other than 5e.. :)

[Gwydion]

Ok. For any NPC in Doomsday Dawn, when I put them in the CT and try to roll initiative or skills or attacks, it works fine. When I try to doubleclick on saves to roll them I get a script error (attached).

24816

Sorry just saw this is a known error and u have a hot fix extension. Thx.

[Trenloe]

@Gwydion - don't worry about reporting false alarms or stuff that's known. I appreciate the feedback on this - with a weekly release schedule I simply don't have time to do the level of exhaustive testing I would be able to do with a single release point. Thanks for your help with this! :)

[Gwydion]

Sounds good. We are playing the lost star tonight and streaming it. Will have character creation too as part of the session so it should be fun/interesting!

[UltimateGM]

Not sure if it has been reported but in the Mirrored Moon the locations I and J are in opposite spots on both the player and GM map.

[Trenloe]

Not sure if it has been reported but in the Mirrored Moon the locations I and J are in opposite spots on both the player and GM map.
Thanks for spotting that! :) It'll be fixed in next week's release...

[UltimateGM]

Not a problem Trenloe! I was reading and it said to the south and I was stuck for a moment lol ;)

[FraustTheSnowman]

Sorry if this is covered elsewhere, I just recently came back to FG after a long hiatus and didn't find anything through searching...

Are these, specifically Doomsday Dawn, covered under the Paizo Partner Authorization deal? Because I bought hard copies of all the playtest material through Paizo.com, synced up my accounts, and it's telling me I have no products available.

[Trenloe]

Are these, specifically Doomsday Dawn, covered under the Paizo Partner Authorization deal? Because I bought hard copies of all the playtest material through Paizo.com, synced up my accounts, and it's telling me I have no products available.
Welcome back! :)

None of the paid for Pathfinder playtest products provide any discount for owing the Paizo product. The main reason - the Paizo partner agreement is for PDFs, not for hard copies.

The other (very important reason) is to help provide some funding towards the development of the playtest material.

Details of what you get with Doomsday Dawn here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?45622-Doomsday-Dawn-playtest-campaign-available-products-and-info

[Trenloe]

With the imminent release of the Pathfinder Second Edition ruleset I thought I'd provide some information for users of the playtest products. We're currently in a transition phase and the PFRPG2 ruleset that was used for the playtest will be migrated to the Second Edition rules when you run an update on/after August 1st. Some of you may already have noticed a theme update...

We have endeavoured to keep backwards compatibility with playtest data wherever possible. But, as can be expected, there may be the odd issue here and there, mostly with data mismatches etc.. You should be able to run Doomsday Dawn etc. with the updated ruleset.

If anyone is really concerned about issues then I recommend you change the name of the current PFRPG.pak file to something like "PFRPG_PT.pak" (PT for playtest) and then play games using that ruleset - you'll need to use the universal modules extension (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?41034-Universal-Module-Extension) to be able to load Doomsday Dawn etc..

If you have any issues with the old Playtest products then please report them in this thread. We'll make every effort to provide fixes wherever it's feasible.

[ivell]

Can I somehow backup Doomsday Dawn as well for use with Playtest version?

[Trenloe]

Can I somehow backup Doomsday Dawn as well for use with Playtest version?
You can’t "backup" a commercial FG module.

Doomsday Dawn itself won’t be updated for the new PFRPG2 ruleset - only critical break/fix data will be changed. If you update FG after August 1st you will automatically start using the new ruleset. See the information in post #28 about making a backup of the ruleset if you want to continue using the Playtest rules with Doomsday Dawn. However my recommendation would be to move to the full release PF2 rules.

[ivell]

What about the compatibility of the characters. I can think of finishing campaign on the new rules with old characters. Though this is not really what I intended to do - I'd rather play Doomsday Dawn as it was in the Playtest to be able to actually playtest it. That's disappointing after paying for something twice (especially). I understand in some way your point, though it would be better to leave current state as a legacy stuff for willing people to play and then offer them as well to use new rules. To me forcing people to move to FG2 just like that in case of software and digital content is simply something that shouldn't happen.

Especially when the only solution for that is NOT to update FG. That is just crappy workaround if I intend to run both versions of the game.

[Trenloe]

What about the compatibility of the characters. I can think of finishing campaign on the new rules with old characters. Though this is not really what I intended to do - I'd rather play Doomsday Dawn as it was in the Playtest to be able to actually playtest it. That's disappointing after paying for something twice (especially). I understand in some way your point, though it would be better to leave current state as a legacy stuff for willing people to play and then offer them as well to use new rules. To me forcing people to move to FG2 just like that in case of software and digital content is simply something that shouldn't happen.

Especially when the only solution for that is NOT to update FG. That is just crappy workaround if I intend to run both versions of the game.
That is not the only option. See what I said about backing up the ruleset in post #28.

I have mentioned more than once the options available and that Doomsday Dawn won't be broken for you.

This is the second time you've posted an angry/disappointed response. Maybe I'm not explaining myself properly, but it seems to me that you're not truly digesting what I'm saying before you post your responses.

As I've said more than once:

You will be able to keep playing. I've given you twice the steps to keep playing with the playtest ruleset.
I've mentioned that updates to Doomsday Dawn will only be for critical issues that stop people playing with the full release of PFRPG2.
I've also mentioned that we will attempt to minimize any issues all round.


I feel I've been very open and transparent, and have provided options to do what you want. Like I said, maybe I'm just not explaining myself well...

And, if you're still feeling angry, I will draw your attention to the disclaimer text in the playtest ruleset that was posted to chat every time you loaded a campaign: "Welcome to the Pathfinder Playtest Ruleset. This product is an Early Access release. It may feature bugs, incomplete data and prototype graphics. This is not a finished product. Using this for an ongoing campaign may result in lost characters or data and evolving functionality as new updates are released. We will try our best to minimize the impact of this to end-users, but please avoid using this ruleset if this will cause distress."

Note - this disclaimer is no longer present in the chat window if you've updated FG recently as we're beginning staging of the new PFRPG2 ruleset framework.

I'm sure if there are any major issues between the two ruleset that we will supply, on request, a copy of the old ruleset if you didn't make your own copy. However, I doubt that we will keep two versions of Doomsday Dawn, as this just isn't feasible - but, as I have said, we will work to address any major issues.

In the end if all of the above still makes you angry/disappointed then I suggest emailing [email protected] with your complaint and ask for a refund. But, I will say again, you should be able to continue playing with minimal impact...

And one specific comment:

I'd rather play Doomsday Dawn as it was in the Playtest to be able to actually playtest it.
Seems like a bit of a waste of time to me - Paizo aren't taking any feedback on the playtest now. The full release has a lot of differences (based off feedback received during the playtest), so I'm not sure what you'd be actually playtesting? The module or the system? If the former, then I'd recommending doing that in the new ruleset - you'll have more options, products, etc. going forward. If the latter (playtest the playtest rules) then I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish...

[Trenloe]

As an FYI to anyone regarding the sunset of the playtest ruleset, here is the text that appeared in the chat window for playtest ruleset campaigns:


Pathfinder RPG 2 ruleset (Playtest) v3.3.6 (release 4e) for Fantasy Grounds
Copyright 2018 Smiteworks USA, LLC
Welcome to the Pathfinder Playtest Ruleset. This product is an Early Access release. It may feature bugs, incomplete data and prototype graphics. This is not a finished product. Using this for an ongoing campaign may result in lost characters or data and evolving functionality as new updates are released. We will try our best to minimize the impact of this to end-users, but please avoid using this ruleset if this will cause distress. We have a number of stable ruelsets available for other game systems we support. Data in the playtest materials included (Core Rules and Bestiary modules) will be deprecated once the official System Reference Data (SRD) is released along with the official Pathfinder 2 Core Rules and Bestiary. Please report any and all feedback to us at the Fantasy Grounds forum.