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I have a few questions and notices regarding the adventure. I've found some minor editing errors, some of which confuse me. I'll put them under a spoiler tag, since they do contain spoilers.
The thug doesn't seem to have daggers listed in its gear nor attacks. An easy thing to fix oneself, but still a minor editing error.
On page 9, the map of the Underdocks encounter ... how large squares are they? I'm assuming 10 ft., but they could be 20 ft. 5 ft. would be ridiculously small. And why is the pathway blocked by the bunker? This map seriously made me stop for 30 minutes to try to think why it was ever put there.
Other than that, this scenario is brutal! Very well written and so, but I'd consider the Tier 1-2 to be way too difficult at certain points.
I ran this adventure during GenCon and
Hey All.
The small town is Wittleshine.
The map scale is 5ft per square (narrow docks). I wanted to keep them a little dangerous.
more on the docks here
however the other dock that seems to just stop... That's actually supposed to go off towards Lubor's Exports.
As far as the final enounter,
More stuff I found that was wonky-
I didn’t have quite enough space in my review to explain my statements.
I think the entire premise was rather forced and inappropriate for first level characters.
Not all of the encounters seemed entirely rational.
At first I had some serious problems with the sahuagin encounter. It seemed very much like it was thrown in to simply add another combat. Certainly the explanation given in the module text does not do a very good job of explaining it, or providing any rationale for why it would be occurring. I think there are ways to make it work – but they do require making inferences and conjectures that have no basis on the actual text. As written it could be an near insta-kill for a number of parties and anyone dropped into the bay in full armor.
A Possible Solution:
One solution might be that in order to get to where the Hydra's Fang lays at anchor any small boat has to pass through a narrow and shallow "passage" between some large derelict vessels. The sahuagin are lying in wait in the passage waiting for any small boat headed toward the Fang. They know that any boat moving through the passage is going to the Fang as it is the only vessel at anchor in this particular anchorage (the anchorage is somewhat secluded and Darcy bribed the harbor pilot to use it). The sahuagin can easily discern that the row boat headed toward the Fang is being crewed by novice seamen (too much splashing, unsteady oar strokes, bad navigation, etc.). Hence they know that they have a pretty good chance of swamping the boat and dropping the boaters into the shallow waters of the passage. Also, given the orientation of the passage and the Hydra's Fang, any lookouts posted aboard the Fang are unlikely to see the sahuagin's assault.
The party I ran through this module had no trouble dispatching the vicious pirates at each turn. I’m not sure how the dastardly 1st level warriors managed to sink so many pirate ships but they weren’t much of a match for even a lightly optimized adventuring party.
The Hydra’s Fang didn’t work for me.
I have done quite a bit of research on medieval and Renaissance-era sailing vessels. I probably had a lot more time and energy to devote to this than the author, and came up with an alternative deck plan for the ship.
There is also a discussion going on here with major spoilers.
CJ
Not for 1st level characters!!
This was the second Pathfinder Society module I played through, and for 4, 1st level characters, it was a real pain. The module made sense, and I got the time intensive element, but it was, overall, deadly.
For Tier 1, ouch. The GM let me have a look at the module afterwards and, wow.
Encounter 1's EL wasn't listed, but it could have easily been a EL 2.
Encounter 2 wasn't bad. It felt balanced.
Encounter 3 felt like it was designed to kill the PCs. I'm curious as to how many players didn't tie off gear, take off armor, and died when the boat flipped...
Encounter 4, again, doesn't list an EL. Nor does the trap have a CR. So, I'll assume the trap's CR is equal to the 1d3 medium sharks it summons. (An EL 2 or 3 itself, we'll be nice and call it CR 1). Add two more brigands (CR 1/2 x2) and the CR 3 end guy? I'm going to say EL 4, maybe 5.
Encounter 5 was a solid EL 3. However, by the time we reached it, resources were completely exhausted and it was far more difficult. A party without a cleric would die here.
All in all, the run of the module for 1st level characters is very difficult.
I would not run this for level 1 characters. Moreover, as it is the second Pathfinder Society module, it strikes me as being intended for 1st level characters when released, which seems inappropriate.
The writing, story line, and feel was amazing. I loved the feel of it. But the encounters. Ouch.
Not for 1st level characters!!
** spoiler omitted **
It took them a little while to get a feel for balanced scenarios. Silent Tide was the best of the first four scenarios, and while each of the other GenCon 08 offerings were good, they each have at least one encounter that is deadly or are relatively low in the peril department.