Pathfinder Society Scenario #7: Among the Living (OGL) PDF (based on
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A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st to 7th level characters (Tiers: 1–2, 3–4, 6–7).
Famed Pathfinder Bodriggan Wuthers disappeared from his dig site beneath the House of the Immortal Son in Taldor's gilded capital of Oppara. Once a grand temple to Aroden, the Immortal Son is now Oppara's most opulent theater. Sent to locate Wuthers, the Pathfinders must attend an opera with members of the Oppara elite in order to gain access to the secretive theater's dig site. When a cult crashes the performance and the nobility change into hideous walking dead, the Pathfinders are forced to choose between finding Wuthers or saving themselves.
Written by Joshua J. Frost
This scenario is designed for play in Pathfinder Society Organized Play, but can easily be adapted for use with any world. This scenario is compliant with the Open Game License (OGL) and is suitable for use with the 3.5 edition of the world’s most popular fantasy roleplaying game.
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This scenario has potential, but unfortunately, it does tend towards a rather straightforward dungeon crawl. It's somewhat sandboxy, however, with several opportunities for the GM to have some fun with the party. I recommend running this and Among the Dead together - both are fairly short and, in my opinion, can be ran as a single session. Your mileage may vary there. The scenario is not overly difficult, unless you're playing with a very new party that hasn't prepared for common PFS enemies.
All together, a rather unremarkable scenario. For clarity, I ran this scenario as GM at the 3-4 tier. I envisioned this scenario as being a zombie-survival-esque, however, its really just a dungeon crawl filled with zombie after zombie after zombie.
Pros:
One clingy aristocrat NPC is particularly fun
Final "boss" fight is challenging
Cons:
Encounters are too easy (all except the final battle)
Encounters are repetitive (particularly for the 1-2 tier)
Spoiler:
Two more human zombies and another bugbear zombie? Again? Yawn.
Plot and faction missions pull in different directions.
Spoiler:
The plot wants the PCs to sit down so the show can start, the faction missions lead to players running about looking for NPCs.
I'd play this scenario again, but it most certainly wouldn't be my first choice (or anywhere near my top ten). It could have some potential for a group who has the time to really roleplay the social atmosphere of the opera before hand.
The thing is, I don't like modules where you basically have to cool your heels until something happens. Because it leads to trying to get something to happen, only to be shut down at every turn, and then finally realizing it's because the writer wanted to do it himself. No me gusta.
I enjoyed running this module a few weeks ago for my local PFS group. There were many new players, and they enjoyed the chance to role-play at the opera, with the well-written NPCs, and during the combats.
Unfortunately, they took the shortest path to the boss and we were done in about two hours since there is no reason to go back and explore other areas. This also made it somewhat challenging as the GM to insert the "random encounters" since the PCs went directly to the boss.
I was a bit concerned by the x4 picks in this module, but we had a large party who handled the combat with ease.
