The Pathfinder game started last Saturday. It went well, though it was a little slow at first. I had the brilliant idea of having the characters start separate from each other in several different groups, which turned out to not work so well, but as soon as everyone met up and introduced themselves things started rolling (best introduction: Gwydion Haalwya siccing his summoned dog on the first person through the door of the inn. There were good reasons for it at the time).
Now, the first adventure hasn’t quite wrapped up yet–there’s still some interesting stuff that I want to cover when we play on Saturday–but I am going to introduce you to my first impressions of the characters. Some of them wrote backstories together so they could start the game knowing each other, which made things easier.
First up: the minigroup I’ve been calling the Holy Trio, consisting of the half-orc inquisitor Kurth, the human paladin Michael and the halfling rogue Doctor Vecca.
Kurth is played by Peter, who last game was Sh’vass, an elven cleric with a strength of four, and I think the ability to actually carry shit may have gone to his head. His equipment includes a scimitar, a shield, a repeating crossbow, a boar spear and a handheld battering ram. He seems to be the leader of this little group, if only by virtue of being the shoutiest.
Michael is basically Marcus Bighammer again, except with a bow instead of a hammer. He is wholly devoted to shooting motherfuckers with arrows, and he does it very well.
Doctor Vecca has, thus far, not done much damage, mostly due to poor rolls. I get the feeling that he doesn’t like being in the wilderness, where there aren’t any prosthetic limbs or other weird tech to tinker with. He’s an aspiring artificer turned to theft due to desperation after being kicked out of Veras. He rides around with the inquisitor and the paladin because they need his skills sometimes and let him take most of the treasure.
The next little group is the bro team of the half-elf summoner Gwydion Haalwya and the human alchemist Doctor Clyde Wilson.
Gwydion is crazy charming, tall and handsome, and tends to get caught up in what’s happening (inside joke for my players: “DOG!). He’s a summoner, which is an interesting class in Pathfinder that’s gimmick is a sort of symbiotic relationship with an outsider called an eidelon. Gwydion’s eidelon is a catlike creature called Inoreppep, though he can evolve it into something else as he gains levels if he wants. I still think he should try the double jousting thing (Gwydion carries a lance while riding the eidelon, which also has a lance), despite how difficult/ineffective it might be.
Doctor Wilson, meanwhile, is just crazy. He’s a mad scientist experimenting on himself and those around him, trying desperately to find a cure to an ancestral disease that he knows will kill him someday. It’s hard to feel sorry for him, though, because he’s also kind of an asshole, what with all the racism and selfishness and property damage.
The remaining three characters started singly, without any specific backstory to connect them. They are the human fighter Eva, the half-orc barbarian Django, and the Silent Magus, who doesn’t really have a name.
Eva is a very small woman with a very large axe and blue-dyed hair, and who is apparently entirely comprised of muscle. Her light load carrying capacity is actually more than she herself weighs, which I thought was impressive. She spent the first session dealing massive damage to damn near everything and getting a little freaked out by the alchemist and summoner (especially the inexplicable appearance of the Attack Corgis and the Bloody Skeletons).
Django is a half-orc, though he looks more human than orc thanks to surgical experiments performed on him by the people who brought him up. He’s also a barbarian with a scythe, which seems to suggest an enraged farmer. Aside from the scythe, he’s pretty well equipped and reasonable. His player doesn’t quite know how Rage works yet, which was a problem, but he acquitted himself fairly well nonetheless.
The Silent Magus is a frost elf who doesn’t say much. He’s a magus, another non-core class, which is basically a guy with a sword in one hand and a spell in the other. He seems to be taking an Eastern theme with his equipment, wielding a nine-ring broadsword and wearing armor that I can’t pronounce. It’s interesting RPing with him, as the character doesn’t say anything when he can help it. Sam, the player, spends a lot of time describing what he’s doing rather than talking–”I nod,” or “I glance at the door significantly,” that sort of thing.
And that makes eight. It’s a low-magic party, which is going to be very interesting: no dedicated caster means no access to the highest level spells, which makes enemy wizards and sorcerers more of a threat. Which is as it should be, I feel. This Saturday we’ll finish up the mystery of the village of Carstan, and I’ll post a summary of the first adventure shortly after that. Stay tuned to this channel.
