I've been using Path 2 Victory to play through Pactbreaker, and thought people might be interested in a short summary of each chapter.

The first chapter took me about an afternoon to play through.

WARNING: Spoilers for the Wardens of Wildwood adventure path.

Set up

I read through the adventure and converted each combat encounter into a scenario that can be played on a battlemap.

Because Pactbreaker Chapter 1 takes place in a gala, I painted some market terrain I had, and printed out papercraft buildings.

I created five characters, each level 5, using simplified character creation rules (yet to be released):

• Keldor Ironshade, a dwarf rogue
• Grom, a half-giant “hulk” (fighter)
• Zane Stormrider, a human “gun mage officer” (thaumaturge, using a wand as a pistol and a chalice for group buffs)
• Lyria Briarbrook, a halfling “fleet runner” (nature-themed, mobile cleric)
• “Brightsong”, a half-elf bard

Each character’s rules fit on a poker card, which I push forward to indicate if they’re taking an early turn or tap to indicate that they’ve taken their turn for the round.

I write on the cards with dry-erase markers to track HP and encounter/daily power uses. (And special conditions, like creeping death.)

I have separate reference sheets for spells and magic items. Have considered turning them into cards as well, but haven’t done so yet.

Chapter 1: Seeds of Discontent

I start by reading all the backstory, imagining that it’s like the opening narration of a movie – rather than knowledge I’d necessarily expect my party of heroes to have.

The Gala that is the setting of the first chapter is the fringe festival to a meeting of druids happening on a nearby island. The heroes are hired as part-time security, and can build relationships and participate in competitions. Effectively, it's a worker placement game played over eight rounds, where PCs can choose between influencing one of five Gala guests or participating in contests (if one is happening at the time).

To add another interesting choice, I also decided I could assign a hero to “security detail” to start with someone from the event security on hand (a dwarf or a walking tree) if an encounter occurs during that round.

Morning of Day 1:

With no contest or encounter, I decided to do early reconnaissance – assigning one hero to each of the five guests based on how I thought they’d get along. I only had the appearance of each guest to go on – I’d learn more once I assigned a hero to them.

The urbane Brightsong went to Alacreon the satyr hedonist, the sly Keldor to Khasprickle the puckwudgie agitator, earnest Grom to the eagle knight Alyce Quinley, all-rounder Zane to the gnome aristocrat sorcerer Tanasha Starborne and devout Lyria to Vandalya Swiftmane the centaur dissident.

From what Brightsong saw of the “carnal”, flirtatious Alacreon, I was pretty confident that a good Performance could Influence him – so I went straight ahead and attempted a skill check. A critical success was a nice early win. That’s 2 Influence with Alacreon, not enough for a gift unfortunately.

Zane made a good guess that Diplomacy would win over Tanasha, but a critical failure means no progress – but luckily, no Influence lost either since we were already on zero.

Grom fails to Discover anything about Alyce.

The diminutive Lyria barely reaches the knee of the mighty Vandalya Swiftmane, but she gamely attempts to get to know the centaur. With a critical success, she learns Vandalya is impressed by Gala performance and resolving incidents, and that Intimidation is one way to influence her.

What Keldor learns from spending the morning with Khasprickle does not impress him, but he does learn that Intimidation is a potential avenue towards influencing him.

Afternoon of Day 1:

It’s the Caber Toss! Seeing a chance to impress Vandalya, Lyria the lithe halfling priest rather improbably enters – as do Keldor and Grom.

The two heroes without training in Athletics or Acrobatics, Brightsong and Zane, instead approached guests – Brightsong back to Alacreon to try another Performance, and Zane to learn more about Tanasha using his Arcana.

Brightsong was just 1 away from another critical success, sadly – but getting Alacreon up to Influence 3 is still nothing to sneer at. Zane scored a critical success learning about Tanasha, and revealed her weakness plus that Deception can be used to Influence her.

Each of the three heroes in the Caber Toss contributed one successful throw to the final team score of 17, including a critical success from Grom.

Khasprickle’s team clearly trained for consistency, with seven scoring throws across their eight attempts – but with three 5s, three 4s and a 2, their final team score was only 15.

Lyria and Keldor gain 4 Gala Points and Grom gains 5.

Day 1 Evening:

There’s an encounter coming after this, but I decide to use all heroes to hobnob with guests.

I guess successfully that Tanasha is Influenced by Arcana, and Zane’s critical success gives us 2 Influence with the gnome aristocrat.

I want to figure out the dissident centaur, so I send Grom and Lyria in – learning that Diplomacy works on her too.

I reckon Khasprickle is susceptible to Deception and Diplomacy, attempted by Keldor and Brightsong respectively. Correct in both cases, but the heroes make no impression on the pugilistic pukwudgie.

The Berries and Bees:

A dispute between a drainberry merchant and a gnome customer overturned a stall run by a primal pollen vendor. The gnome slipped away, but the spilled primal pollen attracted swarms of bees that are attacking innocent bystanders. Defeat the drainberry bush and rescue the bystanders.

I merged two encounters from Pactbreaker to make this scenario: Bees! and No Refunds. Rather than treat the panicking crowd as a hazard, I represented them with six bystanders scattered around the marketplace. These bystanders would move randomly at the end of each round, and could easily end up running into the bee swarms or even the irate drainberry merchant and his troll bodyguard.

The bee swarms were indiscriminate, treating the closest target as the enemy. The drainberry bush and troll wouldn't target bystanders, but would lash out at them if there were no heroes in reach to target instead.

The heroes also entered from random corners of the board, to reflect that they were coming from different parts of the Gala. Heroes that had been at the same guest/contest appeared together.

Finally, there is a timer: after the fifth round, and every round thereafter, roll 1d6. On a 4 or higher, the game ends.

After a dicey start, where one of the bystanders was reduced to 0 HP on the first round, with no way to reach him with healing that round, the party rallied. The heroes did a good job of throwing themselves in front of bystanders, and copping the attacks themselves. That did force a few heroes into melee who'd have rather stayed at range - in fact, Zane the thaumaturge set a precedent in this scenario of charging headlong into battle, which he kept up for the next two scenarios too.

The drainberry bush, forest troll and both wasp swarms were defeated, with no casualties among heroes or bystanders. Lyria did use her lightning bolt; daily spells will not refresh until the end of the chapter, so this represents a real sacrifice - but a worthwhile one to stop the troll's regeneration.

On round 5, two heroes even had time to stop by the primal pollen merchant and pick up a couple of bulbs.

Day 1 Afterparty:

Alacreon’s afterparty is another chance to Influence him – but for all my success so far, I actually don’t know what works on him except Performance. None of my heroes are particularly good at the Fortitude save they’ll need to avoid a hangover, so I just send in Brightsong – the only musician in the group.

He fails. But he passes his Fortitude save easily, so no great loss there. We’ll try again on Alacreon at the next night’s afterparty.

Day 2 Morning:

Zane bonds with Tanasha over their shared interest in magic, and at Influence 3 she reveals information about a fellow guest. Zane chooses the stoic centaur, revealing that she is impressed by Athletics and Deception.

That gives Grom something to do that doesn’t involve rolling his mere +3 bonus to mental skills. Or so he thought – but the would-be Gala Champion’s “1,001 pushups” routine leaves Vandalya unmoved. Lyria tries to Discover more about Vandalya, and fails. So does Keldor.

Brightsong tries Diplomacy on the eagle knight Alyce, winning 1 Influence with her.

Buzz Bite:

The heroes only have a limited time to get the spark bat off the board and to safety. Meanwhile, if the spark bat stays near the stormdrinker then the arboreal becomes a formidable opponent as the bat’s electric shocks quicken him. In an early round, the stormdrinker got off a burst of lightning that cost three of the heroes about half their hit points.

A few fluffed Nature checks meant it was perilously close to the spark bat not getting off the board, but a lucky roll extended play into Round 6, and with the stormdrinker defeated the whole party banded together to coax the spark bat off the board.

Day 2 Afternoon:

It’s the Prismati Contest. Without any sporting ability, Brightsong and Zane instead hang out in the stands with Alyce, and Brightsong succeeds – scoring the party’s first Influence point with the eagle knight.

Grom makes a great thrower and Lyria’s Acrobatics makes her a solid catcher. And you can call Keldor “King Timahoe”, because the dwarf rogue was born to be a setter.

Keldor beat the opposing team’s setter to the row closest to the thrower. The opposing team ended up with inferior “digs” towards the back of the field, and just six overall to the heroes’ eight.

After the setting, Prismati is a pretty static game – each dig has its own colour and you only get one ball of each colour, so if you miss that’s it for that dig. The heroes made six of their seven catches – none were capable of being intercepted by the other team.

The other side made a miserable two of a possible six catches.
With this kind of record, the heroes accept the leprechaun’s bribe to throw the prismati game – with an eye to humiliating the leprechaun and currying favour with Alacreon.

In the second stretch, Keldor pulled ahead in much the same way, claiming the digs closest to the thrower. Impeccable team discipline in throwing and catching scored six of the seven digs again – and this time the opposing team only scored one – right at the far end of the field, off a high throw that sailed over the head of the pugwampi the heroes had specifically recruited to Intercept throws like that.

The leprechaun did not look happy.

With two of three stretches won, the heroes were guaranteed to win the overall game – but there was one Influence Point with Alacreon still in play so they headed into the third stretch full of vim and vigor. When Keldor reached the closest row before the other team’s setter had even left the starting line, it was looking promising. Keldor ended up showboating in the second half of the setting, flubbing several obvious plays as he showed off to the crowd. But it mattered not at all – when the dust had settled Keldor had claimed nine digs to the other team’s five.

The heroes scored five digs, making a tie theoretically possible – and the opposing team’s thrower proved magnificent at this last hour, placing four items practically in his catcher’s hands. But one flubbed item was enough to give the heroes this stretch as well.

Grom, Keldor and Lyria banked 3 Gala points each, with one extra for Keldor as Most Valuable Player. As the leprechaun storms off, Alacreon greets them with a big grin, and hands over a jug of fond remembrance to show his thanks. To take the leprechaun’s money and then turn around and humiliate him is so much more satisfying than to simply reject his bribe altogether.

Day 2 Evening:

The Flyting Contest finally offers the more cerebral of the party a chance to win some Gala Points, but the heroes are also keenly aware that time is running out to win influence with the guests.

I realised I’d been playing Discover wrong: giving the skill with the highest DC when it should have been the skill with the lowest DC. Upon realising that her Survival skills could have been impressing Vandalya all this time, I gave Lyria a couple of free rolls – and she got up to Influence 3 with the previously stolid horsewoman. Grom showed off his Athletics and finally impressed her. Perhaps she’d seen his throwing skills at the prismatic contest just before.

Keldor is the party’s best hope in the Flyting contest, and Zane and Brightsong entered mostly to back him up.

But the dwarf rogue did badly. Brightsong opened the contest with a critical success against the will-o’-wisp. Meanwhile, Keldor flubbed both his first counter-quip and his first jab.
Brightsong’s rather feeble rhyming couplet fails to bite, and he loses another Cred.

Zane goes for fear over wit, and breaks the heroes’ run of bad luck by resisting the giant toad’s throaty mockery. He gets the leshy’s weakness dead to rights, and knocks a Cred off the talking flytrap. The flytrap doesn’t seem bothered, though, and sends Keldor running from the stage, tears in his eyes.

“Stick to prismati,” yells the crowd.

Brightsong, realising Gala Prestige is suddenly within grasp, strums his lute as he directs some choice words at the toad. A critical success! Suddenly the heroes are looking stronger.

The giant toad scores a critical success on his volley against Zane. That’s the thing about flyting, it’s anyone’s game! What’s more, now it’s down to three players Zane cannot target the giant toad. He has to criticise his own team member, Zane. And it’s a critical success! The toad now has as much Cred as Brightsong and Zane put together.

A poor showing by the toad quickly reverses positions, and Brightsong deals the killing blow. Rather than play it out to the gory end, Brightsong and Zane agree that since Zane is now leading on Cred, he gets the glory. Brightsong gets 2 Gala Prestige; Zane gets 4 Gala Prestige and a lesser sapling shield.

Keldor has processed his emotions and takes to the stage to accept the Gala Championship trophy, though he still avoids the eyes of Brightsong and Zane. The flytrap leshy waves mockingly from the crowd.

Day 2 Afterparty:

With Alacreon already at 5 Influence, everyone agrees to forego the afterparty and just get some shut eye.

Day 3 Morning:

Lyria sucks up to Vandalya some more, and gets her to Influence 5. Hope that fighter’s fork was worth all the trouble. Zane totally fails to charm Alyce, and destroys what little Influence they had with her. Brightsong thinks Tanasha will be useful later, and wins 1 Influence with her. With nothing to lose, Grom tries to Influence Alyce with Society – our first ineligible skill. Keldor gets further with Deception – now the party is back to Influence 1, barely better than the party’s relations with Khasprickle.

Day 3 Afternoon: Zane wins Tanasha’s approval: Influence 5. Brightsong warms up Alyce, as does Keldor – proving that hate can swing to love more easily than indifference can. Lyria fails to Diplomatise Alyce, and Grom trudges off to Security Detail on the basis that there’s nothing he can contribute.

The Attack:

I designed this scenario with two cythnophorians, and six guards - who all begin infected with creeping death. That put pressure on Lyria to heal the guards and keep them from becoming possessed by the cythnophorians.

The limited number of rounds also stopped the heroes from just hanging back and making ranged attacks against the extremely slow cythnophorians.

In the end, though, the party dealt with the attackers handily, and while they had to contend with a possessed guard they did manage to keep everyone alive - winning favour with the Guests.

Cleanup: The less said of the heroes’ bumbling attempts to help, the better.