Pathfinder Society Scenario #6–20: Returned to Sky (PFRPG) PDF

4.20/5 (based on 12 ratings)

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A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 7–11.

Part of a Numerian relic once thought scattered to the winds has found its way back to the savage land of super-science, and the Pathfinder Society must track down the component if they are to unlock the device’s secrets. Clues point to the economic hub Chesed, where only the descendants of a shattered clan can share where their revered ancestor buried the strange artifact. Can the PCs brave the troubled city, evade the vigilant agents of the Technic League, and survive a trip into the Numerian wastes?

Content in “Returned to Sky” contributes directly to the Year of the Sky Key metaplot as well as the ongoing storyline of the Exchange, Liberty’s Edge, and Silver Crusade factions.

Written by Anthony Li.

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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PZOPSS0620E


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Average product rating:

4.20/5 (based on 12 ratings)

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Half Drag, Half Thrill

3/5

So this was my final (pre-Seeker) scenario for one of my favorite characters.

A few months after playing this, all the events in Chesed are virtually gone from my memory (which is unusual), but the end "dungeon" turned out to be one of my favorite areas and really engaging. I enjoy the mix of 'slow' and 'fast' challenges that both let you think on how to respond and require immediate action.


Return to Awkwardness

2/5

Sky is a mix of roleplay, investigation, and combat.

The roleplay at the start was one of the most painful and awkward RPG experiences I’ve had. “Make friends with Y”. Ughh. It was so awkward, unfun, and delved into painful roleplaying conversations that actually involved date rape drugs at one point. Sigh. It's enough to turn anyone off of RPGs, lol.

The rest wasn’t very exciting. I skipped most of season 6 and I have to say, I hate tech. Hate tech. Hate hate hate. Did I mention I hate tech? Please, season 6 is done, no more, save that s*** for Starfinder.

There was basically one combat encounter in the entire scenario, you had time to prepare for it, and for us it wasn’t challenging at all, it was over in 2 rounds with almost no damage taken. Our healer was bored to tears.

”Detailed Rating”:

Length: Medium (4 hours). I think we actually did the optional.
Experience: 6 good PCs at subtier 11-12.
Sweet Spot: tbd.
Entertainment: Not interesting. (2/10)
Story: Not interesting. (2/10)
Roleplay: There was roleplaying, a lot of roleplaying, but this is not the kind of roleplaying I want. (1/10)
Combat/Challenges: Looked sophisticated but was weak. (3/10)
Maps: OK. (7/10)
Boons: Very good, especially if you like tech. I’m beginning to think people are rating stories based on the boons. (8/10)
Uniqueness: It’s a get the McGuffin story with no twists. (3/10)
GM Preparation: TBD.

Overall: I'm not sure why this scenario is so overrated, what a letdown. (3/10).


A rare jewell of ambitious scenario writing

5/5

I'd been looking forward to running this scenario for a long time, and last weekend I finally got to. It more than met my expectations. I'm also running Iron Gods as a home game, so I'm pretty well set up with resources to run this. For me it's like a trailer for "later in this AP..."

Content-wise, the city of Chesed is described with enough detail to run, but if you've read the Numeria sourcebook there's a lot more you can add. The RP encounters are clearly described, the mechanics given to the GM, and then you get a lot of free rein to fill them in. I liked that a lot. The mechanical structure is very straightforward but it doesn't feel dumbed down or artificial. My players were all quite experienced and had characters that had both good social stats (which you'll need) and actually something to talk about (which the scenario rewards handsomely).

As to the "action" part: I had a 5-player party that just got into the 4-player high tier. I'm very impressed with how well-balanced the 4-player adjustments have been done; they leave the cool main features of the encounter intact while adjusting appropriately for a different action economy.

I did like the high tier best; that's where you get the "real" version of some enemies & gear. Enemies were statted up well; dangerous but not unfairly deadly, and capable of taking some punishment. I do hate running enemies that can't in any way hurt the PCs or have no real defences against the PCs; I enjoy enemies that go down after a real fight. This scenario does that very well.

This scenario is also first for me in that I saw Trap Sense save a character from sudden thermonuclear annihilation. My players also underestimated another encounter that looked like "oh, just a lot of mooks". All the challenges in this scenario are serious but beatable.

We had to rush the final encounter a bit and I overlooked one ability that would've made it a lot more dangerous. Even so the final boss didn't really disappoint; he's still quite different from most things you can run into. But my players had saved up some maximum firepower for the end so they got through nicely.

When it came time to distribute chronicles there were a lot of impressed faces. This might be one of the fullest sheets I've ever seen. A significant chunk of that is faction stuff, but then the faction missions here were kind of nice. Very smoothly integrated in the main narrative.

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There are a couple of warnings I should give. This is not an easy scenario to run; while the editing is excellent, the enemies are quite simply, complex beasts. You need to look up the subtypes and templates and make sure you really understand them. It's also very worth it to thoroughly read the setting bits. So that's a significant chunk of preparation.

Minis and maps on the other hand were very straightforward. With the Iron Gods mini-pack you're pretty much set. It uses two flip-mats, and you might need one additional wilderness map if the players botch an earlier part of the scenario. Of the listed maps, the Tech Dungeon is an odd thing that you don't really use anywhere else, but here it works perfectly.

The adventure is also likely to run long. I had a 6-hour slot including a modest lunch break and we had to hurry towards the end. The RP part can take quite some time if you have good talking points. The action part can go slowly if the PCs are (justifiably!) cautious.

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On the whole, the adventure is ambitious and requires serious work to run, but rewards it very well, with nice RP, setting flavour, challenging opponents, cool loot and all that.


Good combats, good roleplay, with stressful pace

5/5

Mix with combats and roleplay, a good module overall. I love the first and last battle, can be challenging with experienced GM, and have many roleplay oppurtunities in first part as well.

However, I think the storyline of Techic League and Crusaders have too litlle connection with the second part, makes the story not attractive enough.

Overall an entertaning scenario, best for tech-fans.

By the way, nice boons especially for Qadira faction.

note:rise to 5 stars! I think the faction mission can do some good roleplay, GM should try to make the BBEG cooler as well, the classical skin sucks.


5/5

I really enjoyed both playing and running this scenario. It's got a great mix of RP and combat, tons of cool stuff in the background for the GM to reveal to the players (gotta love the bridge in Chessed) and my all time favorite non-boss villain in Neddrick Istvarti. I really hope that he shows up again in a later scenario.

The crash site is really pretty basic when you get down to it. Both times I GMed it the optional encounter was skipped due to time (it's easy to go over on the RPing in the first half of this one). The "traps" are a little hard to adjudicate, and I'm not entirely sure that my take on them is how the writer intended, so they are the only thing I'm not completely loving about this scenario but the showdown with Phalanx has never failed to be intense and fun in any of my run throughs.


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Is the title Returned to Sky as the cover image, or Returned to the Sky as the store page?

Grand Lodge Global Organized Play Coordinator

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Garrett Guillotte wrote:
Is the title Returned to Sky as the cover image, or Returned to the Sky as the store page?

Returned to Sky as listed on the cover.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps Subscriber

Is this supposed to be available for general purchase before premiering at PaizoCon? I remember it was an issue last year with the PaizoCon premiers....

Contributor

Hooray, Anthony! Know Direction Networkers FOREVER!


Congratulations Anthony! Also drat, a bit faster and I could have gotten the Boston Lodge shout out first for Anthony.

RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

Two Questions:

  • How easy would this be to incorporate this scenario into the Iron Gods adventure path?

  • How central is the Pathfinder Society to the plot? I.e., can they be excised without making the adventure pointless?

  • Wizard

    1 person marked this as a favorite.
    Lord Fyre wrote:


  • How easy would this be to incorporate this scenario into the Iron Gods adventure path?
  • It should be pretty easy to incorporate. The Technic League plays more or less the same antagonistic roll in PFS Season 6 as it does in Iron Gods.

    Lord Fyre wrote:


  • How central is the Pathfinder Society to the plot? I.e., can they be excised without making the adventure pointless?
  • Honestly, not very. If you change the quest giver to someone related to the PCs it would work pretty well. While the adventure is written with PFS in mind, the Society is only a framework for the narrative. The mcguffin the PCs are being sent to retrieve, however, is integral to Season 6's metaplot and doesn't really have a place in the Iron Gods. So replacing that with something more suitable for the AP would make sense.

    RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32

    The Anthony Li wrote:
    Lord Fyre wrote:


  • How easy would this be to incorporate this scenario into the Iron Gods adventure path?
  • It should be pretty easy to incorporate. The Technic League plays more or less the same antagonistic roll in PFS Season 6 as it does in Iron Gods.

    Lord Fyre wrote:


  • How central is the Pathfinder Society to the plot? I.e., can they be excised without making the adventure pointless?
  • Honestly, not very. If you change the quest giver to someone related to the PCs it would work pretty well. While the adventure is written with PFS in mind, the Society is only a framework for the narrative. The mcguffin the PCs are being sent to retrieve, however, is integral to Season 6's metaplot and doesn't really have a place in the Iron Gods. So replacing that with something more suitable for the AP would make sense.

    Thank You. I feel that Iron Gods needs more Technic League presence. So anything that increases their screen time before the big confrontation in Book 5 is a good thing.

    Spoiler:
    ... not to mention, more of a push towards Iadenveigh (as opposed to going straight to Starfall) at this point in the AP could be helpful.

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