Pathfinder Society Scenario #3-05: Tide of Twilight (PFRPG) PDF

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A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for Levels 1–5.

In researching a recently recovered druidic lorestone, the Pathfinder Society learns of a powerful artifact with the power to turn men into bestial abominations. Amid claims of increased werewolf activity in the region, the PCs travel into the heart of the Verduran Forest to retrieve the valuable relic from a cabal of evil druids believed to currently hold it.

Written by Ron Lundeen.

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 Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

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Decent and above avaerage for intro scenarios

4/5

Straightforward and combat focused scenario. There are a few chance for investigation, mostly for faction side quests though, but virtually no major conversation or social roleplay aspects. When submitted as such, as an above ground dungeon crawl, it does match up quite well to expectations.

The only major flaw is that in one encounter a character fights until disabled with no further moral details. This is relevant because a good party can completely disable the character without an actual fight. Thus the GM will need to heavily moderate the scenario instructions with their own sense of reason to avoid the annoyance of being forced to play out through an entire fight when the thing was resolved before it started. It also lacks any instructions on the characters behavior or attitude if taken alive. So again, it's a single encounter in the scenario requiring more adaptation and improvisation from the GM than any other portion of the scenario.

That said the encounter is not a huge part of the scenario and the enjoyable portions do a good job of overshadowing it and thus the whole is a pleasant experience.


Good demo module for new players

3/5

Played and runned with low tier.

Not impressed, too rail-road. You just rob the BBEG, kill them, retrive the stone, with no roleplay or storyline.

It's a dungeon crawl without a dungeon, the only hightlight is the BBEG fight, make new players a shock, welcome to PFS!

GM must do more flavor with this, or may be too pale.


Not Impressed

2/5

Played this at low tier. Party was debuffing oracle, very optimized gunslinger, a cleric (newbie player) and another I fighter. Not the best combination to be fair.

I found the scenario very light on role play except for one or two brief scenes. The rest was all rather combat heavy although nothing too nasty that even this party couldn't handle. A party even half way prepared will walk this one IMO.

It wasn't a bad scenario and we had fun, but I feel that it is lacking something that I can't quite put my finger on.


Amazing flavor and setting

4/5

I played this scenario with Damanta, Ascalaphus and Woran (read their reviews below) as the summoner. I can only more or less echo their sentiments about this scenario. The setting was great and I enjoyed meeting fey for the first time as this character. What I disliked was the timer. It wasn't really needed and more or less forced us to rush from one fight to another, not really allowing us to properly interact in character with each-other. Especially given certain effects there's a huge potential for all sorts of fun interacting, but you feel rushed to the end.

Don't get me wrong, we did have some nice dialogues and situations occur because Woran allowed us to act out silly ideas – hey, my childish summoner got to fly with the roc animal companion for no reason other than that my summoner thought it was fun to do – but it could have been more. Woran really made the scenario more enjoyable than it's written on paper. At least, that's how I perceived and experienced it.

As for the encounters, well, they were certainly challenging. The final encounter can be really brutal and we did take a severe beating. It was closer than we probably would have liked, but we managed to somehow stay alive, albeit some of us barely.

All-in-all it's a great scenario with lots of potential, but it really comes down to the GM to use that potential to its full effect. Thinking outside the box and improvisation are always handy, but this scenario really flourishes with it.


Much funnier than its predecessor

4/5

I played this with Woran as GM and Damanta as fellow player; I was the inquisitor.

I'd previously played Tide of Morning with the same Abadar-inquisitor; I had some unfinished business in this forest. Pave The Earth and all that. For my character, this primal business was very unsettling and had to be dealt with.

I've read the adventure, and Woran pulled more RP potential out of it that you'd get from a dry reading. There are some good tips on that in the discussion thread. They really make the scenario great instead of just okay. They turn it from just a job into a fantasy adventure.

Difficulty seemed okay to me, we were a smallish party and we triumphed but it wasn't too easy.


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Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Announced! Congrats to open call author Ron Lundeen for wowing me with his proposal and putting together a really impressive adventure.

Grand Lodge

Grats Ron!


Is this mod in any way related to Tide of Morning?

Or just coincidence?

MSG


Goatlord wrote:

Is this mod in any way related to Tide of Morning?

Or just coincidence?

MSG

Yes. You could consider it a very loose sequel.


This sounds really interesting.


WelbyBumpus wrote:
Goatlord wrote:

Is this mod in any way related to Tide of Morning?

Or just coincidence?

MSG

Yes. You could consider it a very loose sequel.

Kind of a new, improved Ultra Tide?


Really like the new(?) trend of providing a name link to the forum identity for each scenario author.

The author of this one has already posted right here in this comment thread: WelbyBumpus

Silver Crusade

1 person marked this as a favorite.

WelbyBumpus by any name has been putting out great mods for over a decade in my memory. Bring your "A" game - this author has been known to even kill off his wife's certed animal companion in the debut of one of them - and the replacement she bought 30 minutes later! Good memories!

Shadow Lodge

WelbyBumpus wrote:
Goatlord wrote:

Is this mod in any way related to Tide of Morning?

Or just coincidence?

MSG

Yes. You could consider it a very loose sequel.

Oh good I thought for a moment that PIZO had pulled a Jimmy Olson As A Gorilla Stunt.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Now Available!


It's just a jump to the left...

Somebody had to do it.

Sovereign Court

I am running this over the weekend. I had a couple questions.

First, any suggestions on how to do a good representation of the Briar Henge? One of my players is deaf so I would like to do the Henge justice.

Spoiler:
If a PC fails the fortitude roll and becomes bestial, do they stop using their weapons and just use their bestial attacks? I am a little unsure of how to play this out for them so they understand how it affects them other than telling them their stats changing...

Thanks


TriOpticon wrote:

I am running this over the weekend. I had a couple questions.

First, any suggestions on how to do a good representation of the Briar Henge? One of my players is deaf so I would like to do the Henge justice.

** spoiler omitted **

Thanks

Sorry for a response that may be a little later than you need. I've not yet run a game for anyone more deaf than myself, but my wife plays and is legally blind, so I've got some accommodation experience and understand the need to be flexible. Some suggestions:

Spoiler:
To the extent visual descriptions work best, if you can display Briar Henge as a hedge maze that is brown, dead, and thorny; that might get the visual across.

Regarding the template, PCs are not restricted in their ability to use weapons, cast spells, etc. They have the ability to use claw/claw/bite attacks, but don't have to.

Thanks,

Ron Lundeen

Shadow Lodge

I DM'd this and had a couple of significant issues. Very spoilery bits below.

Spoiler:

1. Does ability damage heal normally once a player goes bestial? As in, when resting overnight, do they heal 1 ability damage as normal, or does that not apply? There is only one mention of the overnight healing not happening, and that's right at the end of the book, and even that says they just "heal [the ability damage] normally".

2. Where is the water source on Falbin's home? Does he have one? It's a farm! This seems critical, considering it's an obvious course of action. The party struggled here, with the low-int low-wis fighter trying to use his hands to cover it with dirt! And a waterskin only has so much water - maybe 1 square worth.

3. What happens if they're unable to put the fire out? It can easily spread too far for the PCs to be able to do anything if they're trying fairly mundane methods and the rolls aren't in their favour.

4. The bestial template says if it gets too low, your character is removed from play. But what's stopping you buying that spellcasting service when the scenario ends? You're not dead, are you?

5. The river: how deep is it (can you walk along the bottom?), how high are the banks (do you have to jump down/climb up if you swim across?), and where are the "intersecting tree branches" (which aren't on the generic river map)? And secondarily, the water is placid, but requires a swim check with a DC normally for rough water?


Avatar-1 wrote:

I DM'd this and had a couple of significant issues. Very spoilery bits below.

** spoiler omitted **

Thanks, Avatar-1, for GMing this. Let me take a stab at your questions. I presume you resolved these at your table, and I don't think any of way of resolving them would've been wrong. But here is my take:

Author's thoughts behind spoiler tag:

Avatar-1 wrote:
1. Does ability damage heal normally once a player goes bestial? As in, when resting overnight, do they heal 1 ability damage as normal, or does that not apply? There is only one mention of the overnight healing not happening, and that's right at the end of the book, and even that says they just "heal [the ability damage] normally".

I assume this ability damage does not heal naturally until the template is removed, as explained at the end of the adventure. But a ruling otherwise--that it heals naturally just like any other ability damage--is sensible, too. I've had a few parties use lesser restoration to remove the ability damage, and I've allowed that.

Avatar-1 wrote:
2. Where is the water source on Falbin's home? Does he have one? It's a farm! This seems critical, considering it's an obvious course of action. The party struggled here, with the low-int low-wis fighter trying to use his hands to cover it with dirt! And a waterskin only has so much water - maybe 1 square worth.

Good point! The map is tightly focused on the garden and house. I'd put a well just "off the map" if the PCs are looking for one, but getting water up out of a well is time-intensive and probably not the best course to put out a raging fire. Honestly, I don't expect many parties to put out the fire, but instead concentrate on saving the gnome.

Avatar-1 wrote:
3. What happens if they're unable to put the fire out? It can easily spread too far for the PCs to be able to do anything if they're trying fairly mundane methods and the rolls aren't in their favour.

The adventure mentions this: "The fire does not spread outside of Falbin’s garden because of the wide gravel lanes surrounding his property, but Falbin’s house may eventually catch fire as well." So Falbin loses his house and garden, but it doesn't burn Wispil to the ground.

Avatar-1 wrote:
4. The bestial template says if it gets too low, your character is removed from play. But what's stopping you buying that spellcasting service when the scenario ends? You're not dead, are you?

Nothing's stopping you. That's the only way to keep a PC stuck with the template at the scenario's conclusion in play: purchasing a break enchantment spell.

Avatar-1 wrote:
5. The river: how deep is it (can you walk along the bottom?), how high are the banks (do you have to jump down/climb up if you swim across?), and where are the "intersecting tree branches" (which aren't on the generic river map)? And secondarily, the water is placid, but requires a swim check with a DC normally for rough water?

Your first three questions are up to the GM to adjudicate; I would say you can't walk along the bottom, or else a swim check might not even be required; the river is also described as "deep." I hadn't pictured the banks as high enough to require any jumping or climbing. The intersecting tree branches are all up and down the river; in every river square, I would say, although they obviously aren't marked on the pre-printed flip mat.

Regarding the Swim DC, I selected 15 because the river isn't "calm"--as it's in motion, being a river. "Rough" seemed the better approximation for a DC here.

Thanks much!

Ron Lundeen

Shadow Lodge

Cool, thanks for the reply Ron. Hopefully it helps other GMs - your post here is super important.

Sounds like the general approach to anything unclear should be to allow about as much leeway as the GM deems reasonable, where the book doesn't say anything is.

Spoiler:
I'm still a bit hazy about #1 since this one still feels like it should be a pretty absolute decision; I wanted to assume that ability damage doesn't heal overnight, but if the book doesn't say that, I feel that I'm obliged to fall back to the core rules, which say that it can.

Shadow Lodge

Spoiler:
CRB: Afflictions wrote:

Effect: This is the effect that the character suffers each

time if he fails his saving throw against the affliction. Most
afflictions cause ability damage or hit point damage. These
effects are cumulative, but they can be cured normally.
Other afflictions cause the creature to take penalties or
other effects. These effects are sometimes cumulative,
with the rest only affecting the creature if it failed its most
recent save. Some afflictions have different effects after the
first save is failed. These afflictions have an initial effect,
which occurs when the first save is failed, and a secondary
effect, when additional saves are failed, as noted in the text.
Hit point and ability score damage caused by an affliction
cannot be healed naturally while the affliction persists.

Ok, so what this means is while they are under the affect, they can't heal their ability damage normally. Magical means can still heal the damage, but not from simply resting.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Eric's quote from the CRB is correct and applies in this situation.

Grand Lodge

Am I correct in assuming that...

Spoiler:

the PCs do not make a Fortitude save against the Bestial effect until the start of Chapter 2?

Essentially just before the fight with the feral loggers?


sveden wrote:

Am I correct in assuming that...

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:
That's when they make the first one, yes. They make a second one the next day on the way to the end location, and it's a higher DC IIRC.

Sniggevert wrote:
sveden wrote:

Am I correct in assuming that...

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

Mostly correct.

Spoiler:
The PCs make one save right as Act 2 begins (just before they reach the logging camp) and a second save at a higher DC right as Act 3 begins (just before they reach the river crossing). Because the river crossing is somewhat near Briar Henge, they don't make another save between the river crossing and Briar Henge.

Grand Lodge

Another question

Spoiler:
In the final fight with the 4 BBEG druids, their stat blocks are _not_ adjusted already for the enlarge person Growth domain power correct?


sveden wrote:

Another question

** spoiler omitted **

You are correct; the stats are *not* adjusted for this (as this adjustment might not apply, depending on PC actions).

Liberty's Edge

I ran this for a group of 3 Level 1PCs + 1 Pre Gen (I used Kyra) as an introduction to PFS. Unfortunately it ended up a TPK - the sheer number of critical hits I rolled as GM was astounding! Still it hasn't put the players off trying PFS again :)

Interestingly enough this was the same scenario where my 2nd level character died after playing up (it has taught me to never play up with a 2nd level character, even with a table of 7 players!)


Just ran through this as a player, so I shan't put a kneejerk after-action report in the review section and call it a "review". The module was fun and interesting, but combat-heavy and brutal. The combination of claw/claw/bite enemies, the twigjack, and the enlarged BBEGs meant four out of the six encounters ended with at least a party member dropping, including a near-TPK with three of the four party members dropped. We survived due to a party member loaning my cleric a cure light wounds wand and spamming sleep and color spray. I can't speak for the higher tier, but Tier 1-2 is challenging with four players, to say the least. :3


I played this today on a first level character in a party of 5. Of the scenarios I've played, this is, by far, the least well-written.

Issue 1:
The faction missions are very poorly balanced. 3 of 5 players failed their faction missions. 2 had basically auto-successes because they were "search for loot" style things, where every player was already planning on doing a perception check. Bad factions: Grand Lodge and, I think, Osirian

Issue 2:
While I understand that PFS is designed for balanced characters, the bestial curse nearly killed 2 characters based on how it was written.

Issue 3:
Some combats were simply too lethal for the 1-2 subteir. 2 combats started with the pregen rogue being knocked unconscious while flatfooted before her first action. There was definitely an element of dice randomness, but this was a serious problem with the play through.

Issue 4:
The final encounter was particularly deadly given the map design. It was mitigated by my druid to a large degree, but I could see this easily being a TPK environment if it weren't for a well placed Entangle.

Kyle Baird definitely has valid points in the review section from the GM perspective. The map issue for the final area was addressed by my GM with a 6 page printout map, but I can see how that would be a problem.

Contributor

I'm prepping this scenario to run tomorrow night and have a question about the timeline.

Spoiler:
After the read-aloud text under the "Getting Started" header, we learn that Venture-Captain Brackett "has already arranged for the PCs’ transportation to Wispil (overland to Bellis, then across the Sellen River by riverboat, and overland along logging trails due east to Wispil)."

I can in no way make this work with what's just below, where, in answer to another question, the VC says "it will take almost two weeks to get to Wispil from here."

By my measurements, a straight line route from Almas, where the scenario begins, to Bellis is 840 miles. Then it's a further 280 miles to Wispil from there. Well over half the distance of that straight line from Almas to Bellis is through the forest, and all of the 280 miles from Bellis to Wispil is. Yet I've got it figured that the PCs are supposed to be making 80 miles per day?

This isn't even taking into account the liklihood that the best route is probably along roads across the Carpenden Plains from Almas to Carpenden to Sauerton and then only entering the forest for the last couple of days in Andoran southwest of Bellis. Nor does it take into account the slower travel rate one would think that "logging trails" would force compared to the roads the PCs are likely to have traveled in Andoran.

If my measurements are right (and they could be wrong—I'm basing them off the map in Andoran, Spirit of Liberty) the best the PCs could hope for (assuming an unlikely straight road from Almas to Bellis and then trails from there to Wispil) on horses presumably supplied by the Venture-Captain is a journey of 28 days. The more likely route I outlined above sees them making the journey in 31 days.

Did I measure wrong? Has anybody else looked at this? I normally wouldn't worry about it but this is supposedly a scenario where the PCs are on a very tight timeline. Should I just change that line of Brackett's to read "at least a month" instead of "almost two weeks?"


Quote:
Daviot wrote:
Just ran through this as a player, so I shan't put a kneejerk after-action report in the review section and call it a "review". The module was fun and interesting, but combat-heavy and brutal. The combination of claw/claw/bite enemies, the twigjack, and the enlarged BBEGs meant four out of the six encounters ended with at least a party member dropping, including a near-TPK with three of the four party members dropped. We survived due to a party member loaning my cleric a cure light wounds wand and spamming sleep and color spray. I can't speak for the higher tier, but Tier 1-2 is challenging with four players, to say the least. :3

We almost had a TPK with a 7 PC party, comprised mostly of tank characters (I was the only Arcane caster).

End Fight Spoiler:
The Twigjack had a brutal thorn-spray that dropped one of our Barbarians, and the Druids spamming Enlarge + Shillelagh, completely butchered our Paladin, plus another Barbarian.

The Paladin survived because he had a boon, and the Barbarian was killed outright in a single turn.

The scenario is extremely combat-centered, and the encounters are deadly for level 1 - 2 characters.

Grand Lodge

My three friends and I were really excited about trying out pathfinder society last weekend we did ok on the Tides of Morning adventure but had a TPK on Tides of Twilight with four characters.

spoiler:

We did got lucky on the fire and took out the attackers in one round. Two down and one surrendered. We forced the surrender guy to help with the fire and started fighting the fire on round two. Still we had no hope from the start of putting out the fire. We called for the town guards looked around for water and used create water. However with a 50% change to spread to eight additional squares a round how can a party of four 1st level characters succeed?

When we got to the encounter with the dog, pixy, and twigjack we all got TPKed. The twigjack popped in and hit us with 4d6 damge for 16 points. (DC14 Save or die) for first level characters. But wait there is more the twigjack can do his spliterspray three rounds in a row for a 12-72 points of damage over three rounds. In addition, he can dimension door around to make sure he gets the whole party in his 15foot cone. I was just curious how any group of 1st level characters is supposed to take 12-72 points of damage over three consecutive rounds?

My suggestion for the twigjack is if you are going to use a creature that has such a large variation in damage pre roll the 4d6 damage dice on the low side for lower level character and reduce the save DC. IE have the twigjack do 10 points of damage per DC12 spliterspray. 30 points of damage over three rounds is still a lot better than 72.

My suggestion for the fire would be to not have the fire start to spread until at least round 3 at lower level. This way lower level pcs would still have a small chance of killing the npcs in the first round and putting out the fire.

Both these impossible to complete encounters have really tamped down my excitement of pathfinder society play.

Dark Archive

Ran this today (six players, tier 1-2, all players but one were level 1) and in general we had a positive time.

Two points that could use improvement:

Point one:
The secondary success requirement is to stop the spread of the fire in the garden before it hits 20 squares. The players slaughtered the bandits in three rounds, with one player attempting to put out one square during the second round; however, with a 50% chance of fire spreading to *any* adjacent square, it was already up to 16 squares ablaze after the top of the third round. There was nothing they could do to contain it from four more squares at that point.

I believe the only way this task could be accomplished is if the players focused entirely on the fire from the start, even ignoring attacks from the bad guys to do it.

What I suggest is, pick a random direction for each fire. Then, roll to see if the fire successfully spreads in that direction - and only that direction. This makes sense as fires in the open tend to blaze in the direction of the wind, and not in a perfect circle. This is how I would have liked to have ran it, but since this is a PFS scenario I was not comfortable modifying the rules to that extent. My players had to go without that extra prestige point.

Point two:
The twigjack is *way* out of control for a party of level 1's. Dealing 4d6 damage **three rounds in a row** is crazy TPK material. I was thankful that this was an 'optional' encounter so that I could happily strike it off of the list.

Beyond these two points - good times, we liked it.

Franchisee - Game Kastle College Park

I've been running a modified version of this scenario for a group of new players. We're going to start our third session playing it (turns out you can really spin out the time planned for a PFS scenario if you really let your players go and only have three). Anyway, they are loving all of the opportunities and really getting into their characters and immersing themselves in the world. Great module and thanks for writing it!

EDIT: And totally agree on the twigjack encounter. I nerfed it and replaced them with 4 CR 1/2 homebrew briar/thornmen monsters.

Liberty's Edge

I would like my players to develop a healthy respect for the fey, but it's hard to respect Atomies.

Spoiler:

Atomies deal 1d2-2 damage with their diminutive rapiers as written. If RAW, this means they never deal any damage. I was wondering if this scenario could be revised so that they deal 1 damage if they hit.

While we're skirting the RAW rule, how about making it so that Atomie weapons are dipped in Drow Poison [perhaps the Drow got the recipe from the fey]. This makes them much more dangerous as follows:

Drow Poison
Type poison (injury); Save Fortitude DC 13

Frequency 1/minute for 2 minutes

Initial Effect unconsciousness for 1 minute; Secondary Effect unconsciousness for 2d4 hours; Cure 1 save
--

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