Pathfinder Society Scenario #39: The Citadel of Flame (PFRPG) PDF (based on
11
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A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st to 5th level characters (Tiers: 1–2 and 4–5).
Once the home to a cult preaching self-sacrifice by immolation in order to achieve paradise, the Citadel of Flame in Qadira's Meraz Desert was presumably wiped out decades ago after Sarenrae dervishes led a crusade to end its morbid message. An enormous sandstorm swallowed both the citadel and the army attacking it, burying both beneath hundreds of feet of sand. Thought lost forever, the citadel's rediscovery prompts the Pathfinder Society to send you deep in the unforgiving Meraz to finally close the book on Qadira's most mysterious cult.
Written by Steven Robert
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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I purchased and printed this scenario off for my PFS groups last night and it went two completely different ways for the two tables (my friend Gm'd table 2).
Spoiler:
The first villain
table 1: almost TPK. He opened with a color spray from his hidey-hole and and stunned the level 3 paladin while knocking the cleric out for 3 minutes. The barbarian and wizard moved up, only to get burning hands'd for max damage, dropping the wizard. The barbarian then opened the door, only to get tripped by the sorcerer's waiting whip feather token, followed by a elemental ray that dropped him into negatives. The next 10 rounds were a dance between a disarmed, frequently tripped paladin swinging with his gauntlet (he had no back up weapons) and the sorcerer expending all of his elemental rays, fighting with the paladin's own sword for a couple of rounds, before tripping him and fleeing as the whip ran out of juice. All of the -HP players stabilized, and the party did not wipe.
table 2: Kicked open the secret door and two shot the boss (gunslinger / ranger combo).
The dwarf in the forge
table 1: They approached with diplomacy, coin, and good-will, and learned all about the cleric end boss waiting for them above (already alerted by the sorcerer). They did so well, that I allowed the dwarf to accompany them for the rest of the encounter, although he never entered combat. The dwarf also disabled the steam vents above.
table 2: The gunslinger shot the dwarf as he opened his mouth, crit, and killed him.
The final boss
table 1: The barbarian one shot her: power attack, greatsword; with the help of the captured sorcerer (they got him coming up the stairs), they easily closed the portal and dispatched the fire beetle and the lemure.
table 2: The ranger got swarmed by the three monsters and died instantly. The barbarian got tripped by the whip, hit by a steam vent, and bullrushed into lava by the lemure. They almost TPK'd. They also spent 10 minutes figuring out how to close the portal. Half of them failed completing faction missions because they sped through the scenario.
My thoughts? I had a *huge* amount of fun playing with the first table. All of the first antagonists "tactics" building up to the fight are excellent, and fit exactly into how I ended up RPing him. The secondary characters later on, the dwarf and the devil bridge guardian were also a blast to play as. I really enjoyed the overall back story to the game, as well as the bad-guy motivations behind their actions both before the scenario takes place and during it. I also feel that this would be a good introish game for those new to Pathfinder, as it takes place in a pretty linear format (one location, go straight ahead then upstairs) and the fights aren't that tricky if you are smart, although sometimes fate just isn't on the PC's side (see table 1, encounter 1).
One word of advice to any players: play SMART. I don't mean play like its a second edition dungeon crawl, but do listen to everything your GM tells you (and what items you find, as they may prove to be very useful) and this game will be very satisfying. If you just try to blaze through, you may wind up with a party wipe, or at least a death.
I can hear the Indiana Jones theme music in my head now... I have both played and run this, and I think this may be one of the best adventures to introduce new players to the Pathfinder Society rules. Not overly combat heavy, it's loads of fun (the NPC in the hidden room forces the characters to team up and figure out what is vexing them). The optional encounter is well thought out, and allows the GM to 'make up time' should the party bog down in the beginning. The only reason I do not rate this a 5 is I feel the final encounter isn't that realistic. The ending cleric is ill equipped to deal with the group, and usually drops on the first swing. Perhaps adding one more acolyte in this room with her would make it more of a challenge. Nonetheless, a rip-roaring good romp into the sands!
Citadel has a nice variety of challenges, both combat and non-combat. Nice backstory. It also had some memorable moments near the end, especially for the Cheliax faction.
I found there was an above average amount of player strife in this scenario (due to factions), especially if you have a Taldor / Andoran player or Paladin in the group, which can cause a loss of fun.
I also found that this scenario can be a little rough on 1st level groups if they don't own a wand of cure light wounds. There's potentially a lot of damage in this scenario.
Length: Medium.
Sweet Spot: Both subtiers are good.
Experience: Player and DM, both at subtier 1-2.
Entertainment: Decent fun. (8/10)
Roleplay: Decent roleplay. (8/10)
Combat/Challenges: Decent. Neat concept on BBG fight, but rarely gets used (unless tweaked). (8/10)
Uniqueness: Decent (7/10)
Faction Missions: Very good, but players could disagree on how they want to handle things. Cheliax mission is awesome. (9/10)
Overall: Fun. (8/10)
Would you recommend: Yes
Imo this scenario is extremely risky if you decide to play up.
I played through this several months ago as a Cleric of Sarenrae and was very pleased with the module! I was able to connect with it in an extra special way, and unlike many PFS mods where the backstory ends up only good reading for the GM the players were able to really get into the why of what was going on. Three of the combat encounters were very cinematic and memorable! Only real downside to me is that even though it's set in Qadira it feels like it could have been anywhere. Flavor of Sarenrae and Moloch come through strong, Qadira not so much.
Very well described, evocative setting. Challenging, but not quite too hard. Great faction missions. A solid example of what high quality Society play is all about. (****-)
We played The Citadel of Flame in my bi-weekly PFS group about a month back. From a story perspective this is a solid 4 star adventure, but from a design perspective, I'd place this adventure squarely in the "two" category. The three star you see here is me trying to reflect that discrepancy. While the story was fantastically put together and a certain faction mission was absolutely spectacular, this module has at least one encounter which has a serious potential for a TPK. In hindsight, it was probably due to being required to play up a tier, so if you're considering this one, know that doing so is probably not a good idea for a number of reasons. What I mean by this is that if you're an over-sized group of 2 and 3's, Josh has stated you can continue to play at the lower tier; I suggest you do so.
The player that GMed this adventure and I had a fairly long conversation after our game regarding the problems we saw with its design and agreed as both a player and GM on similar problems. First off, the GM wanted to make sure I brought up the layout issues with the adventure itself. The adventure has the map descriptions up front in this adventure and requires quite a bit of flipping back and forth to run adequately. On a couple of occasions he became quite frustrated over trying to keep things straight. Secondly, at times the combats became frustrating for the players because they're difficult to present well. There is one noticeable one in the first half that can cause player frustrations and deaths if not handled properly. Make sure you've read the module over a few times and be ready for some quick thinking. We also felt modules which basically require classes (there are several out there) aren't always the best for society play. God forbid you don't have a rogue and cleric in your party because things get hairy fast.
I really wanted to enjoy the Citadel of Flame more than I did, but unfortunately for our group, it just burned out.
This scenario to me was really cool because of the challenges for one of the faction missions in particular!
Spoiler:
Especially if you're Chelish, hah!
Mine was pretty neat too :o).
I really enjoy adventures when they have you make tricky decisions like this, it's important to me because it makes me become absorbed into the game. Really had fun playing this one and all the trickery within!
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