Pathfinder Society Scenario #4–04: King of the Storval Stairs (PFRPG) PDF (based on
5
ratings)
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A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 7–11.
The PCs are sent to map the Storval Stairs and ensure the stairs provide a safe route to the Storval Rise from Magnimar, but upon their arrival, they find the ancient site claimed and “ruled” by the self-proclaimed King of the Storval Stairs. Only through guile, diplomacy, or cold steel will the Pathfinders ensure access to iconic Thassilonian location.
Written by Dennis Baker.
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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King of the Storval Stairs presents a very simple scenario, the most straightforward of concepts. It's a slugfest in a pure form.
The fights are pretty epic, but it suffers greatly from having four of them, and from having too many monsters who are both hard to kill and cannot effectively damage the party. Thus, the whole thing became a huge timesink, my runtime lasting a total of seven hours.
For those who are not GMing this within PFS's constraints, I would suggest:
Slim down the number of basic hill giants and harpy fighters. Beef them up, and have fewer of them.
Also, I noticed that the scenario really went out of its way to make the "tough" fight easier for the players to handle,
by giving out:
tons of pre-big-fight scrolls (even a raise dead!) and handing the players a toooon of preparation time.
This assistance drops the CR of the big fight by more than the numbers would suggest. Giving 7-11 PCs that much assistance and that much prep time and that much terrain advantage is overkill.
I also noticed that the scenario tries to be really tough, yet goes out of its way to pull punches, with subpar feat, terrain, and spell selections on the monsters. It even goes so far as to hand the PCs an easy surprise round at one point!
In all, Storval Stairs tries to be a pure-form slugfest, but suffers from too many pulled punches, under-capable-yet-hard-to-kill monsters, and too much generosity. This combination leads to a grindfest which takes way too long to go through.
Fun: (5) I had fun, but that may have been more due to the GM and the people I played with. Hard to tell, so I’ll let it slide in this category.
Story: (2) There wasn’t really any story to speak of. It had just enough of a weak justification to wander off to the Storval Stairs.
Combat: (5) The combat in this was extremely challenging and kept you on your toes.
Roleplay: (1) None that I noticed.
Challenge: (2) This was honestly too hard. When I played it at Gencon, I had heard of 2 other tables. One TPK’d, and the other was set to TPK when they timed out and survived by default. Our group would have wiped if we had gotten 1 more person pushing it to the 5-6 player group size. 5 people would not have done well.
The Society occasionally needs a troubleshooting team to grab something and hold until relieved. It's nice to see a scenario based around that concept.
There are good opportunities for the combats to help tell the story of the scenario, and a good level of challenge which is tunable based on the NPCs assessment of the party.
I immensely enjoyed running this for a third of my tables at GenCon 2012.
Stairs is a combat romp in a great setting with challenging opponents. There isn’t a lot of roleplaying, however the setting and maps are interesting and it’s a good time.
This scenario had a "Rise of the Runelords" feel to it, which I enjoyed. I was really glad to see an iconic monster return to PFS! I was also glad to see an abundance of useful items on the chronicle sheet. I liked the references to the cooking pots, which can have the gore level increased or decreased depending on the group/GM. The reference to Xin Shalast was also exciting, hope we get to explore it.
”Detailed Rating”:
Length: Long. We barely finished in over 4 hours (and handwaved the end of an encounter) and could have used 4.5 hours. And this was with every other factor being perfect (GM prepared, maps done, chronicles done, players fast, 2 factions only). Could take 5 hours for some groups.
Experience: Player with 6 players at subtier 7-8. 2 well-made PCs and 4 pregens. I've also read the scenario.
Sweet Spot: Subtier 7-8. With a prepared GM, subtier 10-11 is too challenging and I'd avoid it.
Entertainment: There were some things I hadn’t seen before, but it didn’t crush us and everyone had a good time. (8/10)
Story: Story wasn’t that interesting but it didn’t need to be. Go there and kick butt. (6/10)
Roleplay: Very little roleplay. There is one roleplay encounter but we had to handwave it for time, so this might not be a fair rating. (4/10)
Combat/Challenges: Stairs is a combat sandbox for GMs, and based on the GM alone it can be extremely challenging or mildly challenging. The NPCs have a lot of options, and GMs should be prepared, because the NPCs are complex. (8/10)
Maps: The map was actually epic and huge, and I loved the setting. GMs that feel the need to draw everything during the session will hate it. (8/10)
Boons: Although it’s not a boon, there are a lot of nice items on the chronicle. Paizo has been listening to feedback. (8/10)
Uniqueness: Although straight forward, I really liked the setting.(8/10)
Faction Missions: Some interesting faction missions, especially having two factions working together. (8/10)
Overall: It's a lot of fun stompin' face in this great setting. Whether your group has a hard or easy time will highly depend on group composition and tactics. (8/10)
The story of this adventure is a little flat, more finding missing things for the society. The setting is cool and the encounters are well crafted. I hope this helps to set up events later in the season.
