A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 7-11.
For millennia an order of scholars known as the Jeweled Sages catalogued the wisdom and lore of northern Garund's greatest minds within crystalline artifacts. Though these sage jewels have recently resurfaced, so too has the new generation of sages learned that something else dwells within besides ancient memories. The entire order gathers where the Jeweled Sages truly began in order to confront their hidden past, purge an ancient evil that has haunted them for ages, and define the future of the Scarab Sages faction.
Contents in Salvation of the Sages also contribute directly to the ongoing storyline of the Scarab Sages faction.
This scenario took 6 hours to go through for our group and trust me, it could've easily taken 8 hours if you let it all happen fully and try to give a better experience. I only managed to have it he 6 hours cause I just brushed over half of the second map. Let it be known I'll always talk about the scenario as written here. You can make it way better by 1) scheduling two sessions for it and 2) adding way more flavor and RP potential and possibilities
Spoiler:
Let's go over the 4 parts of the scenario one by one: the sages and the intro, the first battle, the exploration middle part and the last fight with the ritual.
The intro was not good at all. For people who don't know the sages and their struggle fully, the entire intro made no sense. So many complicated and confusing names, so many plotpoints being thrown around, I had to give my players a summary after the whole thing OOC so they understand even remotely what is going on.
Then they meet the sages. In a scenario where you meet ALL SAGES, you're obviously supposed to interact with all of them, have some cool RP, but it was just too many. Apart from managing 6 voices and 6 personalities and cramping those in a miniscule timeframe, my players also didn't care. There was no need at all to interact with them. But even if they wanted to, the scenario gives like no input on them. This is supposed to be a conclusion scenario for an entire faction, but then each of the sages only gets like 3 sentences written about them. The only guy they actually kinda knew was Torch.... At later parts they get a sage as a companion, but they lack stuff like saving throws??? Saving throws and attacks just both, always automatically succeeed. That makes it easier for the DM but the players HATED that.
Then the first battle happened. We played high with 4 player adjustment because of the APL being on 9. So instead of having a good and well balanced fight (so the lower subtier without adjustment), one of the troops got taken away, so they took out the second troop in a single round. But then the Gashadokuro had its turn, used its breath weapon once, and instantly killed one of the players. from 100% HP to negative CON, with one breath weapon. Thank god one of our players took a pregen and played one with breath of life... The fight is so immensely awfully balanced. And here is where the first new thing comes into play: Troops! Some DMs might've done stuff with them before, but I haven't. Would it have been the only abnormally from a normal scenario it would've been find, but that was far from he only thing. Because there was so much going on, I even forgot about the auras and the Grasping Graves. Would I also have remembered those, they would've certainly faced death first combat. The hazard on the map has 3 different components to remember, together with the monolith "trap", which is completely under-explained. "Arcane runes cover the basalt monolith", WHICH MONOLITH? The map doesn't specify. There is no marker, nothing there hints at where this stuff emanates from. Then there are no visual clues for the players as to what is going on with that thing, I had to make that up myself, which is fine but still poor scenario writing.
The next part is the exploration segment. It is said they get a sage to explore with them, who gets weird flashes from that area, but these flashes are never explained either. It's just "uhh ohh I feel like the jewel is remembering this. Want me to dig deeper and try to remember more?", like the hell. Give the DM a bit more input on that stuff. If you wanna give the players a choice, you gotta actually have the choice be present. The players were just weirded out by it. Then here we have several new things to work with. The cleansing room which was lacking in descriptions of magic auras and anything else important. The mindscape with the Div inside who was completely lacking any personality. Once a player succeeded the check to find out its real identity, I had it just drop the masquerade. So then the players asked "which are the dangerous doors?" and since the creatures always lies, it pointed out the safe rooms. That felt good for the players, since they were smarter than a div, but felt cheap for the DM cause the creature was completely lacking in motive and personality. The acid room... How were they supposed to know its acid?? And what is "Powerful Acid"? I wasn't able to find that ANYWHERE. When their check found out its just a flame spell, they just ignored it, without even knowing its acid. Why exactly is the "cramped remains of a large blue dragon infected with an incurable variant of Fading Light" a hazard? Once again, no explanation or guidance at all for the DM. It is called a Hazard, but nowhere is it said what the problem with it is. My players instinctively went "no touchy", but I didn't even know why not to touch it. Just completely lackluster on explanations for the DM, which is the only reason why they managed to contain such a huge module into 35 pages.
And lastly, the boss fight. SO MUCH GOING ON. You know what this fight was? Someone must've played too much Undertale, because this was just the final boss fight in the pacifist run.... One player pointed it out and it was spot on. Don't get me wrong, the fight was very cool, very creative! I think this part was the best part of the entire session, sadly it still fell short. The DM gets BOMBARDED with backstory for Aryana, which the players never really get to see, but that is a given with Society. I really liked the Paladin, he gave the whole thing some cool bonus, since Antipaladins are rare. The mindscapes were kinda cool, getting to look inside of the Sages heads, but it fell short because at that point we were already on the 5 hour mark and nobody cared anymore really, since they were tired. Getting to know more about Torch was cool, but the other sages all felt so bland and boring. The ghost siphoning power from the stones was very cool, but once again a new aspect that the DM had to work with. The entire scenario is just a whole overburden when DMs are used to normal scenarios and prep times.
TLDR the scenario had so much amazing potential but it tried to do way too much in a 4 hour time frame that it didn't do a single thing really right. If you wanna run this, do the theme justice. Schedule 2 sessions (or 8 hours for your players. If you don't take that long, go get food afterwards, it'll be 6 hours for sure). Read it far in advance, make better sheets for the sages, give them true personalities, give your players a chance to actually interact with them. And know which PCs they'll bring, so you can figure out which scenarios they were in, that way Torch's knowledge of them will be cooler. If this was a module and better done, it would be awesome. But the way it stands now, it's bad.
I started playing Salvation of the Sages with my half-orc Paladin of Sarenrae. I say "started" because I had to leave before the first encounter due to a plot point discussed in the spoilers below. Suffice it to say, there's something that makes this scenario very hard for paladins and certain other character concepts to play within alignment and other restrictions. Putting that to one side, however, the scenario looks really interesting, has an epic conclusion, and nicely resolves some long-standing storylines within PFS. I guess I'd recommend it for those PCs with more . . . flexible . . . conceptions of morality.
SPOILERS!:
Salvation of the Sages starts with a briefing in the city of Merab in Osirion. Venture-Captain Diya Akan and one of the jewelled sages, Tahonikepsu, explain the situation. The sage jewels used by the leaders of the faction have, since their inception, been contaminated with a fragment of the soul of an evil necromancer named Aryana Tahari. Although at present the contamination manifests as easily-resisted evil thoughts and urgings, the influence of Tahari's soul seems to be growing. The jewelled sages have decided to come together as a group and try to remove the contamination before it becomes too powerful and leads the order into evil. To do this, they need to perform a ritual at the heart of Tahari's stronghold when she was among the living: a village named Resa that has now fallen into ruins. There's a lot of additional information and backstory that stems from previous scenarios (none of which I've played), so I'm just summarising the gist of the plot here.
My involvement as a player in the scenario unfortunately ended with the next scene. The members of the order assemble, and the GM asks for Knowledge (religion) checks. It turns out that one of the jewelled sages is a freaking lich, and, yep, detects as evil! In a group with multiple paladins, that brought the adventure to a sudden lurch. I will say some excellent role-playing eventuated all around, but the bottom line was that there was no way my character could ally himself with a lich--so I had to walk! I'm of two minds about the issue. On the one hand, I think it was short-sighted and exclusionary. On the other hand, it was a good moral dilemma and no one said life as a paladin would be easy. I do find it ironic now that there's no consideration of this problem whatsoever in the scenario, but there is extensive discussion of how PCs may react to another problematic member of the sages--Grandmaster Torch. Anyway, the rest of this review is based purely on reading the scenario.
The first encounter of the scenario is triggered when the group move toward the ruins of Resa. By bringing the sage jewels back in proximity to Tahari's source of strength, the group enable the evil necromancer's spirit to activate a deadly ward. In a very cool and well-described moment, a basalt monolith erupts from the rumbling earth, sandstorms begin assaulting the area, and masses of undead creatures arise to attack. In mechanical terms, the monolith gives off periodic waves of negative energy and needs to be disabled through skill checks, while the horde of undead use the troop rules from Bestiary 6 to good effect. A really nice touch is that the undead can air walk by climbing along the surfaces of buildings that collapsed millennia ago, but so can PCs who have strong connections to undead (like dhampirs or sorcerers with the undead bloodline). One of the jewelled sages directly assists the PCs in the combat, while the others are helping off-grid cinematically. It looks like a really good encounter to start things off, though it is also the last combat the PCs will face until the last part of the scenario.
The middle part of Salvation of the Sages is general exploration of Tahari's underground vault containing her research laboratories. There aren't any encounters here, but there are a couple of traps (with a decontamination trap that inflicts a maximized fireball on players particularly nasty and may insta-kill some PCs). There's a ton of background information on Tahari, the diseases she created, potential cures, and much more. It's definitely fitting that there's so much information to process in a mission that spotlights the Scarab Sages. Players who like to put the pieces together and assemble a narrative will be happy with what they have to work with. In a way, it's like a dungeon crawl but with important lore in every room instead of monsters. Some character concepts won't have much to do in this section of the scenario, but authors can't always cater to everyone and I think that's okay. The hack n' slashers certainly have their fair share of scenarios.
The big capstone to the scenario is probably the most complex encounter I've ever seen in PFS. The PCs take part in a ritual to draw the evil of Tahari out of the sage jewels and into a coherent form so it can be banished or destroyed. There's a *lot* going on here: multiple skill checks for the rituals; four different sets of enemies with complex stat blocks who arrive, contingent on events, at staggered times; multiple ongoing hazards and magical effects that have to be resolved each round; an elaborate presentation of a mindscape mechanism (PCs can journey into a sage jewel to try to expel Tahari); and handling the jewelled sages themselves, who can either help the PCs (if freed from Tahari's influence) or turn against the PCs (if possessed too directly by Tahari's evil). At this point in the game's (and organized play's) lifecycle, I have no qualms about complex encounters--though I think if any scenario should be gated behind 4 or 5 star GM access, it might be this one! GMs need to prep for this encounter thoroughly and probably have a round-by-round flow chart or something similar ready. I haven't played or run the encounter, so I can't evaluate how well it works in practice but it does sound pretty epic.*
I really appreciate how the scenario's epilogue accounts for a wide variety of possibilities in what happens during the ritual. Resolution is provided for if the ritual works or fails, of course, but there's also specific discussion of each of the sages and what happens to them if their own sage jewel was destroyed. As I often say in these reviews, too many scenarios end too abruptly, but that's not the case here.
My concluding thoughts are that, although it's certainly a bottom-heavy scenario and the issue with the lich is significant, I have to imagine Salvation of the Sages was a satisfying resolution to those players invested in the saga of the sage jewels. It makes me wish I had been playing since the beginning of PFS so it could have full impact on me.
* I always write my reviews before reading forum discussion on a scenario so that I reach my opinion independently. It sounds like there's a lot of concern that the final encounter is ridiculously hard. I can't offer any opinion on that, since I didn't play through or run it haven't really delved into the nitty-gritty of the mechanics. Still, I now think it might have been a stroke of luck that my paladin didn't go through with this mission!
Spectacular (!!), but on the heavy side (!!) for a GM
Perspective: Playing as Trapper Ranger/Living Monolith 11, with a party of Illusionist Wizard 11, Hellcat Monk 10, Spell Sunder specialized Barbarian 11, Swashbuckler 11, Archer Bard 11.
Scenario Experience: This is likely one of the hardest 10-11 subtiers I've ever played. It's on par with The Waking Rune in sheer power level (albeit without resorting to "one-shot the party" spells). The skill challenges were challenges for a highly skilled party. The backstory moments are amazing, very descriptive and enjoyable. This is what a faction retirement scenario should be like!
Pros:
+ Off the bat, the encounters start epic, and it continues all the way to the final encounter
+ The pretty nasty backstory of the bad guy foreshadows really sharp teeth. What dedication!
+ The backstory of the sages (!!), to each a glimpse into their own past struggles
+ The final encounter is spectacular with very interesting mechanics
+ So many skill checks (!!) with many pretty hard DC's. Don't bring a no-skill character to this scenario, as you will likely be bored to tears
Cons:
- There are soooooo many moving parts for a GM to keep track of, in the sense of modifiers to skills that the player is not supposed to know about. Our GM ran this for the second time, but still it was hard to keep track of everything
- The scenario runs very long. We played pretty quick and hurried, I think skipping only one location, in about 6.5 hours.
- Ideally, this scenario would have been provided with a form for the GM for him to keep track of all the modifiers. It really helps time-wise to have all the weird chronicle related stuff sorted out before the session, so the GM doesn't have to ask for it in the middle of an encounter, to avoid breaking immersion
Salvation is an epic scenario with combat, puzzles, and some roleplay.
THIS is why we roleplay! For stories like this! Matt Duval, thank you!
The only fault with this scenario is that it was too long. We ran out of time (at 5 hours). The only way you don’t run out of time is if the GM and players are prepared and aren't slow. Also, for some reason the scenario asks you to look through your chronicles for XYZ (how many choices have you made for boons?) so we spent 30 minutes doing that, and these stats were never used. We could have used that time.
Disclaimer: If players aren’t going to be smart about this one you’d better bring optimized PCs. There is the very real threat of death in this scenario. My group failed.
Spoiler:
Length: Extremely long (6 hours). You need fast players and GM and can’t look through boons at the start.
Experience: Player with 7 average PCs at subtier 7-8.
Sweet Spot: Subtier 7-8. The GM told me 10-11 was suicidal.
Entertainment: Awesome and epic and made my PC a hero. (10/10)
Story: Amazing arc concluding story. (10/10)
Roleplay: Not much, but it was good. (9/10)
Combat/Challenges: Themed and balanced well, unusual puzzles, challenging, but gave you a chance. (10/10)
Maps: Good and a custom map too. (9/10)
Boons: Boons were great, like challenging scenarios like this ought to be. (10/10)
Uniqueness: Epic scenarios on this scale are rare and I can’t get enough of them. Thank you! (10/10)
GM Preparation: I have no idea but I bet the last encounter takes time to do properly.
After months of preparation, four of us decided to tackle this scenario. Let’s say that our party was far from optimal. We had a level 9 ranger, a level 9 psychic (me), a level 10 occultist and a level 11 chained summoner without eidolon. You can imagine that playing on tier 10-11 with this setup was quite daunting. Before you ask: yes, two of us died at various stages throughout the scenario. I had to sacrifice myself during the first combat to save the ranger from being shredded to pieces, but thankfully I had a boon ready for this event. The second death, this time the ranger, I managed to undo due to a successful breath of life and caster level check. I guess that’s what boons are for.
Were those the only scary moments? Quite frankly: no. We were on the brink of death multiple times. A certain spell on the higher levels is extremely dangerous for a level 9 character and we both only barely made it. Luckily I had enough Scarab Sages boons to gain just enough of a bonus to survive the spell, while the ranger ended up using two boons to also manage to cling on to life. The other two player characters were either in a permanent state of daze or in single-digit hit points. And yet we still managed to pull through with great teamwork, summons and being great skill-monkeys.
So the combats are, evidently, really challenging, but the story is above excellent and the setting is outstanding. You really get a sense of creepiness, danger and mystery while playing this scenario. You get tossed into a dungeon that will challenge your wits, while staying true to the theme of the scenario. The NPCs present will have a major impact as well and, upon reading back the scenario, can really add to the atmosphere of the scenario as well.
It is, however, a scenario that is not easily prepared at all. There are tons of moving pieces the GM has to take into account and, without a doubt, this scenario will run long. Our GM had to downplay some of the atmospheric elements as we were running out of time even though our timeslot was a few hours longer than normal. If he hadn’t done so, the creepiness would have increased tenfold during the final combat, and the role-play with the sages would have been more immersive.
This scenario is supposed to be the epic conclusion of the storyline of entire faction, a faction some of us love to bits. It overwhelmingly exceeds at that. Yes, it’s scary and yes, you can easily bite the dust and die. Yes, some of the checks are really nasty and unforgiving and yes, this might be the most challenging scenario some of us have ever played, but it is also worth it. Upon completing this scenario, you’ll really feel like you’ve accomplished something and made an entire faction proud, as evidenced by the boon on the chronicle sheet.
I prepped the better part of three weeks for it, reading it over during breakfast coffee, preparing nice icons to represent certain mobs, etc.
Unfortunately or fortunately, it really isn't geared for a random pile o' pathfinders -- this requires players who have at least worked with each other before, characters that have team synergy and can adapt on the fly.
Not all tables are capable of this.
Despite having a competent team, on my playing of it, the party healer went down during the first fight and had to be brought back with Breath of Life, and then my barbarian went down in the last fight, first to one cause (BoL'd back up) then to massive damage after other things happened.
My review says EPIC, and it's there for a reason. Our GM did not pull punches, and thankfully, thankfully cooler heads did not listen to my barbarian about some of the pre-preparations to make.
It was a nerve-wracking run, but it was a good scenario and I was fully prepared to have perma-retirement of my character going into it (which is not something I'm psyched up for usually).
I'm not normally a big fan of difficult nerve-wracking scenarios, but this one hit the mark, and anyone conversant with the Sage storyline should recall that during one particular scenario, the PCs were much more powerful than normal.
So anything that would have beings of that tier of power *worried* is going to be BAD.
Let's dial back the tone on the thread please. It's okay to question scenarios and mechanics and critique the adventure, however it is not okay to insult the community, including other posters, authors or developers. One easy way to make comments less antagonizing is to say "I feel X" instead of "X is this way." There are enough people playing that table variation can mean that experiences can vary. Please don't assume that yours is the only, best or average experience.
Played this twice, once high tier, once low tier (using replay a few months later), was difficult but there were no deaths. The comments here are mostly from the low tier game. Both games were very different as both groups took different paths to victory and chose different NPCs.
Yes at one point we said 'oh no, no one has disable device!' but experience as a Pathfinder taught us that normally there is more than one way to solve a problem (as there was here). Choosing the 'right' NPC also made it alot easier. Many of the characters tried assists during the ritual which probably the reason we took only minor damage from that. I thought we were toast in the final battle but eventually we turned things around. Although I see how just one failed save could have changed things drastically for us.
What I loved was the BBEG who was very memorable with its evil maliciousness. We had a Paladin who was in absolute terror. We played this in a 6 hour slot, I can see trying to rush this could cause problems. Also if you don't complete the investigation it will make things really tough (almost impossible?) as well.
You know, a WHOLE lot of this could have been solved if the PCs actually listened to the ritual leader.
And the language in the beginning of the first encounter does NOT need to be edited. A player could INFER something that was not IMPLIED. Critical thinking skills could be necessary here. There was an assumption made--which wouldn't even be detrimental, although I could see how it could be frustrating.
I just think this adventure didn't fit preconceived notions (one poster has repeatedly written as much), so some folks didn't know how to handle it.
Mr. Duval, excellent adventure! I can't wait for more from you!
I've run this twice and played it once. One GM session and my play-through were at low-tier, and my other GM session was at high-tier. When I played it, one PC went down early and hard in the final battle, but didn't die. After that, the fight was actually pretty quick.
When I ran it at low-tier, several PCs went down throughout the fight, but they had enough designated healing with a merciful healer and a life oracle that nobody stayed down permanently. Once they beat the final encounter, everyone was still standing, though many were at single-digit hit points and were out of spells.
When I ran it at high-tier, I table-wiped. They didn't get to the final encounter. Rather the ritual just before it dealt them 165 damage. Everyone died.
What I take away from my experiences is that people should play the low-tier, rather than the high-tier. We didn't have trouble with the low-tier version.
I've both run and played this scenario (both with Disciple of the Void above), and I greatly enjoyed both, even though I was one of the PCs that took 165 damage and died.
While I don't recommend this for a con, it's a great scenario. It has a very interesting and satisfying story, and feels every bit as epic as the culmination of a faction's story should.
That being said, its incredibly difficult on both sides of the screen. Personally, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Some of the mechanics are different, and may run counter to what we have come to expect. For me, that's a feature, not a bug. I like when experienced players are thrown for a loop and can't just assume how things will play out.
Ran this to close out a con last night. 4 out of the 6 players were Scarab Sage characters, had a lot of familiarity with the feel of Osirion delves, and were very excited for the culmination of the story.
It is, as many people stated, long. Especially if you enjoy the RP. As a GM, conversing with the party as so many different, intricate NPCs with a lot of deep history with the society and providing insight into their personalities, (as well as the few who were introduced in this scenario) was an absolute joy.
This scenario is challenging, and it WILL run long. We played for 6.5 hrs and I think we could have played for 8 hours easily, exploring more of the interactions between characters.
My group, though they didn't all play together frequently (this being a con), took the time to get to know each other and figure out how to support each other. I gave them that when we sat down. No one knew much about each other's characters until we sat down.
Matt has done an amazing thing with this scenario. It FEELS as difficult as it should considering the stakes and the amount of emotional and temporal investment the players and characters it is geared towards have invested in it.
I love Golarion, and I love the Pathfinder Society. Scenarios like this one need to happen more. I prepped for a month, and I still could have improved my live performance. I really want to run it again, for another group of people who love these characters as much as I do.
I think there are some aspects of the mechanics that as GMs we need to make sure we telegraph earlier on. I like to build suspense and paranoia, and I don't like to "prompt" for rolls as I feel it breaks the flow of the game. There were a few places that I as a GM needed to plant the seeds of what would become future mechanics. There are promptings within the scenario for how to do this - but planning out how to do this well is a lot of work. There were a few places where I needed to reconsider my plans on how to frame a specific event, and I'm glad I knew enough about the world and context to make that make sense within the scenario.
This is certainly a challenging scenario for players. It is a very challenging scenario for GMs, too. Purely prepping the mechanics is NOT going to do the trick. Figuring out how to help your players come to the right conclusions, infer what steps they should and shouldn't take, will take some time and seat-of-the-pants work. I've never felt more rewarded as a GM as I watched my players reign victorious, even after setbacks (over half the party were full or partial casters, and there was some real deduction by the players in order to figure out what was happening to them). One of the potential "scenes" at the end brought more than one person at the table to tears. I've never felt so good playing a scenario.
Q1: In PFS, the conclusion says all the dead PCs can come back to life.
However, my PCs defeat the Boss, and almost all the Sages are dead except SINUHOTEP, THE AMETHYST SAGE. Err... 3 PCs are dead, can they come back to life?
Q2: Can they still get 2PP ? All Sage jewel are intact.
