Here’s a cool thing that happened this week: I signed up to donate blood next Thursday for the first time in my life. Wish me halfling luck!
Another fun thing that happened this week: I added a beginner Pathfinder player to our ongoing home game.
New players are the best. I love the energy they bring to the table. When you integrate someone new to an ongoing gaming group, everyone gets a boost. Not only can I sense the joy of discovery thrumming through the new player when they realize that their character has infinite choice in how they choose to deal with an intransigent NPC, but it brings out the best in the veteran players, too.
There’s a concept in Buddhism called “don’t know mind” (or “donut mind,” as we call it around my household) which boils down to viewing the world with fresh eyes. No preconceptions or expectations. As Pathfinder players, we get conditioned to view every door or treasure chest as a potential trap, every request for a Perception check as a hint that there’s something in this room worth looking for, every rustling of leaves in the underbrush as a monster we’re about to roll for Initiative against.
I remember the first time my friend Amanda played Pathfinder with us. (Normally I’d change names to protect the innocent, but Amanda “doesn’t believe in Substack” the way eight-year-olds “don’t believe in Santa” so there’s little risk she’ll ever see this. Plus, she loves this story.)
I gave her the iconic swashbuckler Jirelle to play as a pregen in our one-shot tomb delve. (I believe it was “Risen From the Sands,” by Rob McCreary, the Free RPG Day module from 2014.) At one point, there’s a 10-foot-wide pit trap blocking the hallway that the party was able to spot. Amanda, inhabiting the identify of a dashing swashbuckler, said, “Ok um, I guess I leap gracefully over the pit.” I explained how to roll a d20 and add her Acrobatics modifier, and she cleared the gap easily. Hooray! Big smiles!
Just beyond the gap was a sarcophagus, which I described to the table. “Well, I go take a closer look at this cool sarcophagus,” Amanda says, while the less dexterous members of the party are figuring out how they’re going to bypass this trap. And I’ll never forget the look on her face as I described the sarcophagus lid opening to reveal a set of gnashing teeth — the sarcophagus was actually a mimic! — and asked the split party to roll for Initiative.
So: back to our latest new player. He’s the parent of a kid who went to school with my daughter last year. And even though his kid transferred to a different school this fall, I had a sneaking suspicion (sharp conversationalist, good sense of humor, works in a numbers-based industry) that he would be a good fit for our game. Turns out this guy played some D&D in college, many years ago. Hey, I know ‘em when I see ‘em.
Our new player brought a bottle of wine to share. Already I’m delighted. He borrowed dice, and played the elf staff fighter I’d built for him on minimal spec. He was chatty with NPCs, never looking at his character sheet to determine “Which social skill do I have the highest bonus in?” but rather letting his instincts for the situation drive the role-play. He enjoyed hitting enemies with his staff, describing the type and grain of the wood and reveling in the specifics of each blow.
And then, during a fight against some rowdy mountain goats atop a treacherous mountain ledge, one of my goats rolled a successful Athletics check against the magus’s Fortitude DC to Shove him off the cliff!
The guy playing the magus, who was our energizing noob when he first joined our Hell’s Rebels campaign five or six years ago, proceeded to use his Reaction to successfully Grab an Edge, dangling from the cliff edge with one hand and holding on to his longsword in the other. Very Sly Stallone in “Cliffhanger,” which was already an amazing image.
The imperiled magus, who was next up in combat, tapped into his Laughing Shadow hybrid study to cast Dimensional Assault, teleporting off the cliff edge and reappearing directly behind the goat that had rammed him. He proceeded to chop the goat’s head off with his attack.
Cheers and thumping of fists all around the table!
On the topic of cheering, please earn yourself a Hero Point by clicking that heart button up top. I have no idea what it accomplishes, besides making me feel good!
I glanced over at our new player and saw a look in his eyes: the bewilderment of a person who was only just wrapping his mind around what a Level 1 elf fighter is able to do in combat, seeing a Level 1 magus TELEPORTING OUT OF DANGER AND DECAPITATING A GOAT, all by using a single action focus spell.
“Wait, what the hell just happened?” his eyes said, followed immediately by another question sliding stealthily into his don’t know mind:
“And when can I do something as godsdamn cool as that?!”
Soon, my sweet noob. Very soon. Now, when’s our next session?!
THE MINI AND THE DICE
That sylph sorceress standing atop the clamshell case of my MacBook Air is Elysii, my wife’s PC when we played the “Shattered Star” AP together many years ago. It was the first time for both of us starting a Pathfinder adventure at Level 1, and our first time building and ordering and painting minis from Hero Forge. But clearly not the last.
Since that campaign, my wife has dabbled in other classes, and each foray into something new further reinforces her core value that she likes playing a sorcerer best. Doesn’t matter the edition or the bloodline: sign her up for a spontaneous caster and get out of the way. It’s nice to know what you like.
NEW FROM THE WAREHOUSE
Come on, it’s gotta be Kingmaker! One of Paizo’s most popular First Edition adventure paths got the full conversion treatment to Second Edition. And I mean THE FULL CONVERSION TREATMENT: spurred by a 2019 crowdfunding drive that raised $573,528, the team led by OG Paizo mastermind James Jacobs expanded the “Kingmaker Suite” (and apparently rewrote part of the plot to better foreshadow the BBEG, who had a reputation for coming out of nowhere in Book 6 of the original edition) to include 13 different products for PF1, PF2, and D&D 5E.
Yes, there’s a hardcover containing all six books of the AP. Yes, there’s a Companion Guide featuring new NPC allies inspired by the “Kingmaker” CRPG computer game, launched a few years ago by Owlcat Games. Yes, there’s a 5E Bestiary if you are a WotC stan. Yes, there’s a pawn box, and several map packs, and physical tools to track the “kingdom management” aspect of this sandbox-style hexploration adventure. Speaking of hexploration …
SCREENSHOT PRESENTED WITHOUT CONTEXT
That’s it. And so, as I tell my players at the conclusion of every Pathfinder module I run: this has been Ambush Tactics. I’ve been your Game Master. I hope you had a fun time.
Adventure!