Pathfinder Society Scenario #3–25: Storming the Diamond Gate (PFRPG) PDF (based on
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A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 3–7.
Agents of the Pathfinder Society have discovered the location of a back door into their private demiplane that puts the entire realm at risk of plunder and exploitation at the hands of the Aspis Consortium. Rather than close the access point into their adventuring paradise, however, the Decemvirate sends a crack team of Pathfinders to secure the gate for future Society use... at any cost.
Written by Larry Wilhelm.
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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So just ran this yesterday with a group that was a little over 5 in average level. Like most PFS games they voted to play up since in actuality most PFS games are pretty easy. Sadly for them though this was not one of those games. I really enjoyed the maps, plot, mobs and of course the end battle (although it was a b&&+@ to draw). When I compare the end battle to the laughably pathetic end battle for "Our Lady of Silver" I wonder what Paizo was thinking. Unfortunately for my group about half of them had just breezed through "Our Lady of Silver" recently so were expecting another cake walk. So all-in-all a very good scenario, I would just recommend (highly) that when you run this suggest to the players that playing up would be a very very bad idea.
Summary: This is a rock solid dungeon exploration that explodes with a terrifically challenging and engaging final boss battle, a great finale to the Tapestry warfare storyline.
The Good:
-Interesting dungeon rooms with flavour and verisimilitude ensure that your party are not adventuring through empty and featureless stone rooms. Being stalked by a telepathic trickster makes for some intriguing roleplay too.
-The final fight will pick up your players and shake them silly, ready for arguably the most epic and challenging boss battle PFS has ever seen! Aspis agents will never seem the same after Aglorn Desimire. If you have a party that are itching for a greater challenge, consider running Diamond Gate.
-Snippets of the metaplot are abound here. The Andorans are worried about a letter sent from "Pasha", the Aspis are scrambling in Varisia, the Paracountess Dralneen starts a feud with the nouveau riche Desimire noble family. I am amazed that during a simple dungeon delve, so many interesting snippets come to light during the faction missions. It's great and attentive players will delight in seeing the threads come together. A beautiful example of metaplot immersion.
The Bad:
-The Hao Jin Tapestry is still just a undeveloped locale where Hao Jin teleported in a bunch of smaller dungeons that can be navigated in five hours. There's no interesting additions from the demiplane aspect of the scenario.
-The special magic item on the chronicle sheet is vastly overpriced for what it does.
I have played and GMd it twice now. Will be running again this upcoming weekend at a con.
I love the theme of the temple. The ranger/rogues were typically cake walks, but compared to the guardians and Aglorn they needed to be. The description of the false gate is a bit hard to understand. I made a model with turing wheels to help make it easier for my players to understand. The last fight is awesome. All my players are just shocked when I pull out this huge map with swinging rope bridges they have to cross to make it to the gate.
So, in between an awesome backstory, great diety themed temple, and an epic bbeg fight, I can happily say this is my favorite scenario. Nudging out Rebel's Ransom. Please keep up the good work.
I felt like everything prior to the boss fight was kind of lame, but man alive, what a fantastic boss fight. That required a lot of strategy and some seriously hard work. I adored it.
The scenario had an interesting premise, but needed refinement. I was a player (level 4 Sylvan sorcerer in low tier) and haven't read it. I will say that the other players liked it better, but they weren't as totally boned in the final encounter.
1. Our group captured and questioned one of the outside guards, but the scenario had no imformation on what he would know.
2. The puzzle was confusing and needed an illustration/handout to make things clear. It took too much time in an already long scenario.
3. The random tablets in the hallway were another big time waster, but since they were potentially a faction mission, they couldn't be ignored.
4. The final encounter was totally ridiculous.
Final Encounter:
It's bad enough that the party had to wind their way across a number of rickety rope bridges to get to the bad guys who were raining death on us the entire time along with multiple armies of summoned creatures, but when a fireball automatically destroys a bridge, what is the point?
Then you top that off with the BBEG diemsional jump at will makes it a long, frustrating finale to a long, painful module. Our four person table had two people make it past the original blocking monsters (aided by Glitterdust) and two people trapped behind the first bridge.
The fireball seriously damaged those two and one barely avoided falling 100' to his death when the bridge collapsed (And I think the Reflex DC 13 was very generous on the part of the DM.) My tiger evaded the fireball and made a DC 23 Reflex save to scramble onto the rock when the bridge collapsed. It spent the rest of the module fighting three lemures and an imp.
The sorcerer and Samurai (medium armor) had no chance of making the Acrobatics check to leap the 15' gap. If the foe had cast Fireball right off the bat, the party would have been bottled up. I think one character could have made the jump, but that would have been it. And there really was no reason for the BBEG to show himself when he could move freely about the cavern.
And this is at the end of the module when resources have been spent. The wisdom of including Fireball in tier 3-4 is also debatable. I'm not sure of the caster level, but the rolled damamge was 22 points.
