7-16 Faithless and Forgotten Part 2 GM thread


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Silver Crusade 4/5 5/55/55/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

You're not really wrong. I looked at it through the prism of challenging players with encounters in a scenario, where if players do something unexpected in a scenario we're usually allowed (encouraged?) to respond by moving around existing encounters (monsters, NPCs, traps) but we're not supposed to write/create our own.

This was thinking a little bit out of the box because this was reacting to a broken scenario rather than an unexpected player action, but I felt it was far more acceptable than creating my own trap and made for a better experience than not having any trap at all.

I can't promise it was purely within the realm of what PFS allows or encourages, although in my personal opinion it was. Maybe a VC or Paizo-ite will tell me otherwise. I don't know! :)

4/5 5/5

I think my best option will be to "play up" the potential danger of walking down that hallway. Let the players try to figure out some solutions for getting through safely. And when there are no ill effects on the other end, make it seem a direct result of their solution.

Hopefully, they'll recover all the animal totem relics and use them as intended to suppress the undefined compulsion and it won't matter what that compulsion might have been.

Silver Crusade 4/5 5/55/55/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

That's a pretty good idea. I hope John or Linda can tell us what got left off of the scenario so you don't have to use it!


My players avoided the compulsion effect through the key-items, but if they hadn't, my plan was for the compulsion effect to have them walk into the room, chanting in Infernal, and start praying toward the statue (essentially the fascinated condition). This would have forced new Will saves as normal for fascinated when the fight with the construct started, though.

I figured it made sense enough for a temple structure, and be appropriately creepy and not too punishing.

An unrelated question - where are all those vines coming from in the last room? They've got to be over a hundred feet underground at that point, and yet the final room of the dungeon is half-covered in vines. It looks like they're growing out of the pool, so I just went with that and described them as infernal plants, possibly leftover from when the place was used to open dimensional rifts.

Paizo Employee 4/5 Pathfinder Society Lead Developer

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Aha! I see the issue people are having with areas A8 and A9.

Failing the saving against an active ward in the Path of Damnation compels the PC to read one of the stones with runic script in area A9. That in turn forces a saving throw to avoid being fascinated.

Sorry about the confusion!

4/5 5/5

John Compton wrote:
Failing the saving against an active ward in the Path of Damnation compels the PC to read one of the stones with runic script in area A9. That in turn forces a saving throw to avoid being fascinated.

Thanks, John!

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

John Compton wrote:

Aha! I see the issue people are having with areas A8 and A9.

Failing the saving against an active ward in the Path of Damnation compels the PC to read one of the stones with runic script in area A9. That in turn forces a saving throw to avoid being fascinated.

Sorry about the confusion!

Is that all? It's a lot of poo-hah to avoid the Fascinated condition which is extremely easily broken anyway as soon as an enemy is in play;

Quote:
Fascinated: A fascinated creature is entranced by a supernatural or spell effect. The creature stands or sits quietly, taking no actions other than to pay attention to the fascinating effect, for as long as the effect lasts. It takes a –4 penalty on skill checks made as reactions, such as Perception checks. Any potential threat, such as a hostile creature approaching, allows the fascinated creature a new saving throw against the fascinating effect. Any obvious threat, such as someone drawing a weapon, casting a spell, or aiming a ranged weapon at the fascinated creature, automatically breaks the effect. A fascinated creature's ally may shake it free of the spell as a standard action.

So wouldn't being in the 15ft threatened area of the statue-snakes already come quite close to at least triggering another save? It feels like a LOT of effort to trigger a very easily overcome condition.

Silver Crusade 4/5 5/55/55/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I agree, the effect is pretty underwhelming for a trap with so much buildup to it. But it's good to know what it's supposed to be! Thank you!

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

I ran this last weekend, my players caught on to the significance of the items so the compulsion was never triggered. Problem avoided.

There was some confusion in the museum with the arrest. The players wanted to just try to talk themselves out of it - which is possible in many scenarios, and player conditioning certainly activates when it's presented as a sort of choice.

If your players seem about to just meekly go with them, because "we're nice law-abiding people and I'm sure it'll get sorted out", it may be time to OOC get your players to recall that getting taken in by the Hellknights is like getting taken in by the KGB; don't count on ever being seen again. This is the kind of arrest that even Lawful people might resist because there you can have genuine doubts as to the system being Just and Legitimate, just because it's In Charge.

As it happened, the players started to say something about "yes, but on what grounds.." and Iluvia told them "with this arrest warrant" which she'd given to the PCs to read. The new player (still in that cute phase when they introduce themselves as "Hi, I'm a Chaotic Neutral Rogue") tore up the warrant in front of her. Roll for Initiative.

I was pretty relieved - the situation could've gotten awkward because my players may have tried to push harder for a nonviolent solution, but this blatant disrespect for THE LAW! was not something a Hellknight lets slide. Lucky escape for me.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Had a lot of fun running this one. Was nice to see pathfinders doing actual archeology.

Had a cleric of abadar and an inquisitor of asmodeuous in the party. Lead to a very humerous moment at the end where the cleric nat 20'd a profession lawyer check to say that the warrant didn't apply to them so that the inquisitor could participate in the combat.

The party set the oil on fire. So i figured it was 1d6 if you hopped into the water and then 1d6 comming out the other side.

5/5 *****

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I ran this tonight and while most of the module worked well and was interesting the ending is deeply deeply unsatisfying.

Spoiler:
There is almost no reason for non murderhobo parties to want to fight the Hellknighs at the end. This whole series has been about how relations between the society and Cheliax have been improving, its hard to imagine a worse way of maintaining that than murdering a Hellknight Signifier.

My group ended up running and got shafted for doing so. I gave them their primary on the basis that they got her to show them the warrant which provides the requisite clue but losing the better part of half of the gold on the chronicle is just crap. This encounter needed a diplomatic way of resolving it, not providing one simply reinforces the idea that the best way to play is to cut down everything in your path which I thought we had been getting away from. It seriously mars what was otherwise a pretty interesting scenario.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Hmmm? If you diplomat your way out of the scenario you still get the gold. if your goal is to not get in jail, running away defeats the encounter.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

BigNorseWolf wrote:
Hmmm? If you diplomat your way out of the scenario you still get the gold. if your goal is to not get in jail, running away defeats the encounter.

Nope. We ran and so failed to get the gold for defeating her. Also this causes a failure on 2 of the possible 5 things you need to do for the secondary success.

It felt deeply, deeply wrong. Caused my review to be 2 stars instead of 5.

I thought at the tine, and in retrospect STILL think, that running (after it was made very clear that talking was not an option) was the right solution. Clearly better than murder.

Heck, a very strong argument could be made that killing them would have caused our paladin to fall.

Dark Archive 4/5 *** Venture-Agent, Finland—Tampere

Eh, they are Thrune goons trying to arrest you after you have been tricked to do Cheliax's dirty work and have arrested npc for wrongful reasons. Party I run it for didn't even think running away or surrendering since they were obviously bad guys

Maybe a party who failed to notice fake Taldan evidence or who did notice it but fail to connect it with border dispute(probably by not finding out about it <_<) might consider that, but otherwise I think they are rather obviously on evil end of morality. Party did leave signifier alive though, they stabilized her after fight and moved on.

That being said, I find it confusing that they would try to arrest you since they have no way of knowing you weren't doing their dirty work, but I guess thats conflicting orders from bureaucracy.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

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Paul Jackson wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Hmmm? If you diplomat your way out of the scenario you still get the gold. if your goal is to not get in jail, running away defeats the encounter.

Nope. We ran and so failed to get the gold for defeating her. Also this causes a failure on 2 of the possible 5 things you need to do for the secondary success.

It felt deeply, deeply wrong. Caused my review to be 2 stars instead of 5.

I thought at the tine, and in retrospect STILL think, that running (after it was made very clear that talking was not an option) was the right solution. Clearly better than murder.

Heck, a very strong argument could be made that killing them would have caused our paladin to fall.

I think the issue here is that some people view those guards and the witch as legitimate government agents. Killing them for doing their job would be wrong.

On the other hand, you could also argue these are nazi infernal stooges ready to drag you to the gulag for something that should be rewarded, not punished (a commitment to honest history). Basically, the Thrune regime lost all legitimacy when it sold its soul to Asmodeus.

The witch is even saying she's hoping you'll resist arrest because she wants an excuse to treat you worse.

---

Now, there's nothing wrong about knocking them out and grabbing the papers to save them from the pyre. It's annoying that there's not more guidance given on what it would take to get out of there without a fight. But I disagree that letting yourself get arrested and allowing Zefiro's life's work to be burned on a clarity pyre would be "doing the right thing".

Those Thrune agents are in the bussiness of doing Lawful Evil and you should feel good about opposing them. If you can oppose them in a non-lethal way, fine too.

Dark Archive 4/5 *** Venture-Agent, Finland—Tampere

Yeaaaaah, that too, I don't get how you could see them as legitimate when the Thulia is written to taunt players with police brutality and making snide sideremark implying they are torturing Zefiro :P

If players somehow miss that, I'm questioning "Wait, did your GM run them without including the taunting that is actually written into her speech?" Like, okay "Halt criminal scum!" I can still see, but "I hope you will resist because I will enjoy this, we don't even need you alive because we will pump information out of your friend!"... If that is someone's view about legitimate authority figures, I'm really horrified .-.

2/5

The ending of this scenario felt deeply flawed. As mentioned above, there has been an ongoing theme of tension between the pathfinders and the Hellknights/Cheliax. In nearly all the scenarios that play on this theme, the players are instructed to avoid unnecessarily straining the delicate situation.

In this final scene it is made very clear that these are government officials with a legally obtained warrant for our arrest. Yes, the charges are trumped up, but these are not goons. They are members of the local government on official business.

Murdering government officials for being jerks appeared to be overkill. Especially when you can just leave.

Scenarios like this just reinforce the idea that the best path is to murder everyone and steal everything that isn't nailed down.

5/5 5/55/55/5

CorvusMask wrote:

Yeaaaaah, that too, I don't get how you could see them as legitimate when the Thulia is written to taunt players with police brutality and making snide sideremark implying they are torturing Zefiro :P

There's a difference between lawful and good..

5/5 *****

CorvusMask wrote:
Yeaaaaah, that too, I don't get how you could see them as legitimate when the Thulia is written to taunt players with police brutality and making snide sideremark implying they are torturing Zefiro :P

She is a Hellknight Signifier there backed up by members of the City Guard and (at high tier) a pair of Hellknights. That's about as official as it gets in Cheliax and fighting them certainly seems like a very stupid idea, especially if you want to avoid damaging the very recently thawed relationship between the society and Cheliax.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Paul Jackson wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Hmmm? If you diplomat your way out of the scenario you still get the gold. if your goal is to not get in jail, running away defeats the encounter.
Nope. We ran and so failed to get the gold for defeating her.

That seems a little harsh. There's many ways to win an encounter, depending on what your goals are.

Dark Archive 4/5 *** Venture-Agent, Finland—Tampere

As far as I know, Pathfinder Society doesn't like being played for fools, so when Cheliax tries to trick them they won't just swallow their pride.

I'm not sure how its unnecessary in this situation though. But eh, you guys have more experience than me in this subject so as far as I know, maybe all other scenarios where you are supposed to avoid fighting Cheliax Officials they are being as hostile as here. Self defense and whatever ignored being punished despite them initializing the hostile actions.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

BigNorseWolf wrote:
Paul Jackson wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
Hmmm? If you diplomat your way out of the scenario you still get the gold. if your goal is to not get in jail, running away defeats the encounter.
Nope. We ran and so failed to get the gold for defeating her.
That seems a little harsh. There's many ways to win an encounter, depending on what your goals are.

In a sense, the witch is preventing you from reaching your last goal, Zefiro's papers. So I don't think just running should be considered a full victory. If you somehow managed to avoid here while still retrieving the papers and learning Zefiro's fate, that'd be different.

2/5

What papers? I don't recall anything about papers.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

The ones in Zefiro's hidden room (B3).

5/5 5/55/55/5

Lau Bannenberg wrote:
The ones in Zefiro's hidden room (B3).

Which the party has no way of knowing about that i saw.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

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One thing I should make clear. I read the scenario after playing it and I am not in the slightest blaming Andrew (the GM). He did an excellent job running it as written.

In the first part of the trilogy (which I'd read about 10 minutes before playing part 2 since I was running it that evening :-)) it was made VERY clear that we were supposed to act nice with Cheliax. Why is this now different? Sure, the officials are Lawful Evil. That was known when we were told to play nice with them.

I tried to talk our way out of the encounter by bluffing her that we had been to the site and had bought into the fact that it was a Lost Colony of Taldor.

That should have had at least a chance of succeeding. What if we'd actually failed to realize that it WAS all a plant?

That is what, from the character perspective, really makes no sense. Cheliax wanted us to vet the site and then want to arrest us even though they have no idea whether we bought their lies or not. Clearly there is some kind of misunderstanding, clearly we should at least have a chance to talk our way out of it (or so thinks the bard :-)).

From a player perspective if felt that we were faced with an impossible dilemma with no way to know the "right" answer. It was quite plausible that we were just running afoul of internal politics and the "right" answer was to surrender and then convince the authorities that we had, in fact, done nothing wrong. After all, they'd invited us to go see the ruins.

Murder hoboing was obviously an option. Its always an option. But man did it feel wrong to kill people for just doing their duty. And I'll point out that not all Hellknights are Evil. In fact, there are Hellknight paladins.

Compounding things, one of the characters was a loyal Chelaxian and another a paladin. These are people who are supposed to kill guards?

2/5

^
^
^
What Paul just said.

I haven't read the scenario, but it sure seems like it was run appropriately. Just a very difficult ending that made little sense in relation to the story arc.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Part I gives mixed messages. Yes, it says we should be nice to the Chelaxians, but also that we shouldn't trust them;

Part I mission briefing:
Zarta straightens her back and glares imperiously down at her counterpart. “Folly? One day you will look between the sheets and see you’ve climbed into bed with a snake, Marcos. I sincerely hope none of your agents find themselves in desperate need of a retrieval team; I remind you that devils work quickly to strip hope from one’s senses.” She turns and strides out of the room.

Part I story:
Zefiro makes it pretty clear to the players that what he's doing is illegal; keeping around documents telling the true history of Cheliax. And given the stories Mireille is telling, it's surprising that she isn't a main target for the Chelaxians herself.

In Part II we have at least three different Chelaxian government groups working at cross-purposes;


  • The Atheneum that sent the PCs to vet the dig and hopefully buy into the fake evidence.
  • The Khari government that ignores the PCs' authorisation to travel, until its own curiosity has been satisfied. This minor escapade could serve to showcase to the PCs that the left hand of Chelaxian government doesn't always know what the right hand is doing.
  • The Hellknights investigating Zefiro, which seem to be an entirely different faction than the Atheneum, and (assuming the PCs fell for the Atheneum's fake evidence) would have ruined the Atheneum plot.

I think fighting your way out of the final encounter makes more sense in the context of The Disappeared and Fortress of the Nail, where Zarta was arrested on trumped up charges and literally ended up in Hell, all without any trial or chance to defend herself. If you keep that in mind, it is not so reasonable to go quietly with the guards.

That Zefiro might have some more interesting papers you can salvage isn't something the PCs explicitly know, but it's certainly something they might suspect. After all, these Thrune stooges are busy searching the museum. If they think there's more to be found, and we know that Zefiro did indeed keep "noncompliant historical documents" (lovely term), then it's not farfetched to think there may be stuff in the museum worth saving. And that requires those goons to be out of the way.

----

All in all, I can see how a party might get a completely different picture of the situation. I think the scene would have worked better if:


  • There were earlier clues or Knowledge/Sense Motive checks to let the PCs know that getting arrested is a terrible idea. Maybe insert a short scene with random NPCs gossiping in a tavern about people who get Disappeared and speculation on what happens to them.
  • Some guidance in the scenario on other ways to resolve the encounter than violence. A short note on if it's possible/how hard it would be to persuade the signifer not to arrest them.

I think if you've interpreted all the foreshadowing and context in the way the author intended, that the ending makes perfect sense. But clearly, quite a few people got a completely different impression from those clues and then the ending isn't so good.

---

As an aside, Part III covers the paladin/law issue a little better in the mission briefing:

Part III briefing questions:
Are you asking us to break the law? “In Cheliax, ‘the law’ means brutally crushing any dissenting voices, quashing individuality, rewriting history, and paying lip service to a government that took control by selling itself to Hell.
Good laws help people. Bad laws destroy good people like Zefiro. If you’re worried about breaking laws, just break the bad ones.”

Dark Archive 4/5 *** Venture-Agent, Finland—Tampere

In part 1 you are supposed to avoid annoying Cheliax, but at same time not supposed to trust them. For example, if you tell Tamrin that you are pathfinders, you have more guards after you when sneaking Mireille out. And sneaking Mireille out is clearly something that would piss off Cheliax, yet pathfinders won't let history be buried.

Basically, I don't see it as being contrary to first part. Like, after Mireille part if you believe trilogy is about being buddy buddy with Cheliax, well, why are you making sure that someone who is "criminal" under Cheliax law is safe? Marabellos even says in mission debrief that they aren't going to trust Cheliax as blindly as Zarta thinks.

I guess it could have been more obvious though, maybe with Marcus being like more strong with "Don't trust Cheliax, but try to not make them angry if you can" message in first part. And yeah, I guess there could have been advice on how to deal with characters who are LN Cleliax loyalists.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

There is rather a large gap between "Not trusting and liking Cheliax" and "Killing legal authorities who are trying to legally arrest you".

When I played Part 1 we were very, very careful to use nonviolent means to get Mireille away.

Oh, and the characters do NOT know in part 1 that openly being Pathfinders results in harder encounters.

2/5 *

I made sure to continually use terms such as "disappeared " into the legal system instead of arrested. It reinforced the idea that getting arrested was not a good idea. Especially after the group did get arrested in part 1.

Dark Archive 4/5 *** Venture-Agent, Finland—Tampere

Paul Jackson wrote:

There is rather a large gap between "Not trusting and liking Cheliax" and "Killing legal authorities who are trying to legally arrest you".

When I played Part 1 we were very, very careful to use nonviolent means to get Mireille away.

Oh, and the characters do NOT know in part 1 that openly being Pathfinders results in harder encounters.

I think there is gap between "legal authorities trying to arrest you" and "oppressive authorities trying to arrest/kill you". Like, the difference between police and gestapo. Besides, that implies you guys don't care to find out why they are ransacking the museum. (Also non lethal force is a thing. And so is stabilization) Also, not caring enough to find out what happened to Zefiro. Though I guess that is understandable.

Still, I guess there could have been alternate way to do that. Like, maybe scenario should have allowed players to sneak around them and then search's Zefiro's office really quietly or something, scenario did allow chance to notice Inverness and realize that guards are there before you encounter them. I mean,

F&F part 3 spoilers:
third part of the trilogy allows skipping final encounter completely if players are really successful with their escape, so I guess nothing says "Final encounter has to be unavoidable" in scenario writing rules?

True on that, though if players DID reveal themselves then guards should probably be like "Oh, you are the pathfinders we were warned about" when they see them.

2/5

The choices for the final encounter:

1. Murder a room full of lawful representatives of the government.
Important factors:
A. We were specifically instructed to not stir up unnecessary problems.
B. It's broad daylight.
C. We are in the middle of a hostile city.
a) How are we supposed to get out of the city afterword?
b) This isn't random violence. They know who we are.

2. Let the bad guys arrest us.
Important factors:
A. The Pathfinder Society knows where we are and could potentially get us out.
B. With the obvious infighting within the Cheliax government, possibly one group could be played against the other to get us freed.
C. We could disappear forever. :(

3. We could just leave.
Important factors:
A. They threaten us as we walk in the front door.
B. We have a clear path to the street and the main bad guy is on a balcony on the other side of the room.
C. It avoids 90% percent of the problems lined out in the previous 2 options.

Frankly, when running away was brought up as an option, it seemed so obvious that any other course of action appeared foolish at the time.

Now, truth be told, I didn't think this was the last encounter of the scenario. The way it was set up, I was certain that there was one more scene where we locate and rescue Zefiro in some sort of sneaky manner. I was rather taken aback when I realized that was the end.

The Exchange 5/5 5/55/55/5

"Of course officer. We would be happy to go with you and answer any questions you may have about that" glare at the party "TALDAN ARCHEOLOGICAL SITE WE FOUND.

+2 from the fact that we had missed enough of the glues to have the boon burned off our chronicle sheets.

Then we just broke back into the museum a week later.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

Kifaru wrote:

The choices for the final encounter:

1. Murder a room full of lawful representatives of the government.

You mean, jackbooted thugs looking forward to torturing information out of you, and gloating about it.

Kifaru wrote:

Important factors:

A. We were specifically instructed to not stir up unnecessary problems.
B. It's broad daylight.

The scene takes place during the evening.

Kifaru wrote:


C. We are in the middle of a hostile city.
a) How are we supposed to get out of the city afterword?
b) This isn't random violence. They know who we are.

Getting out is a legitimate question, but only these people know who you are. If they're not talking, nobody else knows you were involved.

Kifaru wrote:

2. Let the bad guys arrest us.

Important factors:
A. The Pathfinder Society knows where we are and could potentially get us out.

Last time we did that we had to go into Hell and face a 3PP OP monstrosity.

Kifaru wrote:

B. With the obvious infighting within the Cheliax government, possibly one group could be played against the other to get us freed.

C. We could disappear forever. :(

Most likely.

Kifaru wrote:

3. We could just leave.

Important factors:
A. They threaten us as we walk in the front door.
B. We have a clear path to the street and the main bad guy is on a balcony on the other side of the room.
C. It avoids 90% percent of the problems lined out in the previous 2 options.

You can, and it gets you partial completion of the scenario. Then again, it does cause you to lose Zefiro's unique papers and the trail to where he's being held.

If you bug out and quickly come up with a second plan to remove the most valuable things from the museum without running into those Hellknight wannabes - you've done an outstanding job.

On the other hand, if you just bug out and never wonder if maybe there was anything else in the museum worth protecting, well, not so great a job. You could have figured out there might be stuff there that needed your protection.

Kifaru wrote:

Frankly, when running away was brought up as an option, it seemed so obvious that any other course of action appeared foolish at the time.

Now, truth be told, I didn't think this was the last encounter of the scenario. The way it was set up, I was certain that there was one more scene where we locate and rescue Zefiro in some sort of sneaky manner. I was rather taken aback when I realized that was the end.

I don't think this scene is perfect. I don't think it's a very good scene actually. But I do think people get too hung up on "it's government, so it's law, so it's okay".

The Chelaxian government is EVIL. Just because it's by the books doesn't mean it's in any way just or okay or fair or right. If you just follow their "lawful" orders, you're sheep being led to the slaughter.

2/5

Of couse they are evil. They are also very powerful and a force the the Pathfinder Society has repeatedly emphasized they don't want to go to war with. As things are now, the pathfinders can at times try to work in conjunction with the Chelaxian government. If pathfinders start murdering high ranking Chelaxian officials, then that could most definitely lead to war.

These were my thoughts in that last scene. It was a complex and difficult situation. And at that crucial moment I forgot that sage advice that has been passed down from one generation of pathfinder to another throughout the ages.......

When in doubt, murder everyone and loot the room.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

I've thought about it, and read all the critiques. I really don't think it's a great scene. It would be immensely improved by a paragraph discussion just what the prospects are for handling it socially.

But I don't think it's quite so bad as it's been made out to be. Just play up the foaming at the mouth evil of the Hellknights and it'll be clear to your players that at some point, politics be damned, you're not gonna get arrested by these people, and frankly, they need a whacking against the head. And then you have an interesting combat.

Remember: not pissing off the Chelaxians would be ideal. But we have limits too, and if (due to some bureaucratic and/or infernal clusterf!%$) they push us to our limits, well, they had better have a lot of PP saved up themselves...

(When I ran it, the witch was Death Knelled to prevent easy revival.)

5/5 5/55/55/5

That familiar has a big mouth though

2/5

In the grand scheme of things, it's just one lost prestige and a couple hundred gold. Not a big deal, but it did leave a pretty bad taste in my mouth. By far the least pleasant scenario I've played in. Nothing to do about it, except jump in another game and forget about this one.

Silver Crusade 4/5 5/55/55/5

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Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I think the intention is that in parts 1 and 2 the PCs distaste for and distrust of Cheliax is supposed to be a slowly increasing burn and by the time you're at the end of Part 2 and your friend Zefiro has been disappeared, most parties will be about done with Cheliax.

It worked fine for the group I ran through and I think it will work okay for many groups but I totally believe that a party of paladins or players who pay exceedingly close attention to the mission briefing will have a hard time with it. It doesn't quite seem as universal an approach as you'd like to have for a PFS scenario.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

Lau Bannenberg wrote:

You can, and it gets you partial completion of the scenario. Then again, it does cause you to lose Zefiro's unique papers and the trail to where he's being held.

But why would we really care about that? Our mission was to check the site.

In character AND as a player I was very surprised that even the primary success condition was at risk. The primary success condition SHOULD have been to explore the ruins.

Sovereign Court 4/5

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Your primary isn't at risk. The primary is:

Primary:
The PCs complete their primary mission if they explore the Jistkan ruins as far as area A9 and discover clues of Zefiro’s destination in eastern Cheliax. Doing so earns each PC 1 Prestige Point.

The second half of that refers to the information on the warrant. As long as you at least see the warrant you meet that part.

But pretty much every Pathfinder should care about one of the few allies the society has in the country, and a source of uncensored historical information, getting carted off to prison.

RPG Superstar 2015 Top 4, RPG Superstar 2014 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16

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Hi, the author here!

It's been enlightening to read about your experiences playing the scenario and I'm glad that many of you enjoyed playing it or at least parts of it. I've taken note of the issues raised and I'll keep them in mind for any future endeavors.

Ultimately I'm pretty happy how the scenario turned out, as it is the first I've ever done. In hindsight I'd probably cut something from the previous sections to make room for more options and guidance for the ending.

Thank you everyone for your discussions and feedback.

Dark Archive 4/5 *** Venture-Agent, Finland—Tampere

Kifaru wrote:
Now, truth be told, I didn't think this was the last encounter of the scenario. The way it was set up, I was certain that there was one more scene where we locate and rescue Zefiro in some sort of sneaky manner. I was rather taken aback when I realized that was the end

That is actually rather accurate thought <_< I mean, second part of trilogy is setting up third part where that is exactly what you are doing.

Paul Jackson wrote:
Lau Bannenberg wrote:

You can, and it gets you partial completion of the scenario. Then again, it does cause you to lose Zefiro's unique papers and the trail to where he's being held.

But why would we really care about that? Our mission was to check the site.

In character AND as a player I was very surprised that even the primary success condition was at risk. The primary success condition SHOULD have been to explore the ruins.

Little bit confused what you mean, you mean like if you avoid guards altogether and never see the arrest warrant?

Anyway, there has been a lot of pressure on pathfinders to protect allies of pathfinder society in a lot of scenarios lately and pathfinders are supposed to be historians story wise, even though murderhobo options in scenarios are unfortunately common... But to be honest, I can see what you mean <_< Zefiro didn't leave much of impression on me even from first part and I was surprised after reading second part that he is that important npc in this trilogy.

Anyhow, yeah, you guys have managed to convince me that final encounter could have been handled better <_< I still feel like trilogy has been building up Cheliax's betrayal(and Pathfinder's counterattack) since first part, but I understand now how it could have been handled better and how scenario could also be interpreted. Still, I did like the scenario and that it had actual archaeology work in it. But to be honest, I could have done without final encounter since my favourite part was archaeology stuff, but final part had to happen in order for third part to be set up. I guess nothing is perfect?*shrugs*

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/5 **

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lumiapina wrote:

Hi, the author here!

It's been enlightening to read about your experiences playing the scenario and I'm glad that many of you enjoyed playing it or at least parts of it. I've taken note of the issues raised and I'll keep them in mind for any future endeavors.

Ultimately I'm pretty happy how the scenario turned out, as it is the first I've ever done. In hindsight I'd probably cut something from the previous sections to make room for more options and guidance for the ending.

Thank you everyone for your discussions and feedback.

Thanks for chiming in and reading the comments.

I suspect that you've read my review but I should point out that a significant part of my disappointment is how much I was enjoying the scenario until the very end. The scenario as a whole was excellent, I just disliked the ending. If the scenario hadn't been so good to start I'd probably not have cared enough to post everything that I've been posting :-)

And it is obvious from this thread that my opinion of the ending is far from universal.

5/5 5/55/55/5

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Mandatory zootopia sloths reference for the travel permit requests.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria

Two things:

The last encounter basically felt like the "Staatssicherheit" of the former DDR, a band of goons are trying to arrest you for breaking the law.
It is a bad and unfair law but if the players played part 1, they are definitely guilty... they broke the law and can expect to end up in prison. It is an evil regime, and that's pretty much what evil does, and players should be aware of the fact that they are guilty.

The hellknights have an arrest warrant, and they believe that they have every right to deal with the PCs one way or another, diplomacy and bluff really don't have a leg to stand on.

And frankly you don't have to kill the hellknights, there are ways incapacitate someone without killing them.

5/5 5/55/55/5

Sebastian wrote:
It is a bad and unfair law but if the players played part 1, they are definitely guilty... they broke the law and can expect to end up in prison.

In this country, for the rest of their lives. Or two weeks. Probably the same thing. Its no surprise if adventurers people fight back, and its even less of one that they don't hold back. Lawful or not, these people are evil. They're supporting a brutal, represive regime and to 2/3rds of good aligned characters the world is a lot better off without them.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria

BigNorseWolf wrote:
Sebastian wrote:
It is a bad and unfair law but if the players played part 1, they are definitely guilty... they broke the law and can expect to end up in prison.

In this country, for the rest of their lives. Or two weeks. Probably the same thing. Its no surprise if adventurers people fight back, and its even less of one that they don't hold back. Lawful or not, these people are evil. They're supporting a brutal, represive regime and to 2/3rds of good aligned characters the world is a lot better off without them.

I am not a fan of the country myself, but it offers some amazing prospects for storytelling (and from you can steal quite a lot from the history of other former or existing regimes).

The scenario shows various forces in the same government working at cross purposes, the inability to get a fair defense/hearing, a country using intimidation and torture to get what some members of the government want.. one reason why "what happened to Zarta" was so appealing and interesting, is that the platonic chelish ideals were proven to be ... ripe with controversy and conflict.

Scarab Sages 4/5 5/55/5 *

Kifaru wrote:
Scenarios like this just reinforce the idea that the best path is to murder everyone and steal everything that isn't nailed down.

That was my exact thought in the end of the scenario. It reinforced to me that playing chaotic a~*++~@ is the right path to choose.

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