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Goblin Squad Member. Organized Play Member. 49 posts (83 including aliases). 1 review. No lists. No wishlists. 6 Organized Play characters. 1 alias.


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Season 0 played later

3/5 —

As we are drawing near to retirement our group tries quite a few tier 7-11and it made me pick up Fingerprints of the Fiend, mostly because I like series and wanted to bring back the party to Fury of the Fiend, maybe even to a third part. Society play are often "go there do that" never to return, and one of the things preached in role-play games over the years are familiarity - always let the players experience the same locate twice so they can see the world around them is alive. The Inn have maybe been taken over by the daughter or something similar, with that in mind I selected the "of the Fiend" series.
This being a season 0 scenario means there could/would be some adjustment to make it interesting for a party to fit the current rules, but being ready for that I did not hesitate.

The party I play with are highly optimized so combat should not be an issue in general but focusing on the environment and flavor of the text would be a must. And with this part Fingerprints did not let us down. Overall the scenario is made very descriptive, with settings that could unfold in many ways.

Spoiler : The Cliff:

For flavor of the whole location I had the party arrive in a small boat as the captain described the location as heavily pirate infested. This made the party be on the lookout from the start. Entering the small sand bank when a few supplies had been left and a rope dangling from a top of the pillars made the party ready for an ambush or at least for something to come. I did not use flip map for this encounter of multiple reasons. First is put a flip map down alerts the party just like Roll initiative does. I simply went with an old rope have been left... but they unfortunately did not fall for that.

Plan with the encounter was let the party climb the rope and approximately half way the Erinyes would arrive, swooping down bows in hand. The Erinyes have a minor illusion spell which I would use to burn the rope further above. This would panic the party as they look down upon a 100ft drop or so. But as it is in Pathfinder Society access to magical items are way too easy so almost all had some form of flight and the rest was helped via Dimension door from the travel domain'ed cleric. Trap missed but super nice setting for it. One of the players mentioned a rope ladder instead would have been more believable.
Erinyes in midair were interesting however not overpowered for our group (mind you highly optimized) and they went down fairly easy.

Overall I loved this start to the adventure - it was different from what we have experienced in the past and did have a nice challenge to it. Likewise it did NOT tell too much about what was to come.

Spoiler : Excavation site:

A bunch of guard with lousy perception skills made our party almost walk up to them before some of the slaves cried out. This was made to be a walk over and it served that. The party called out the poor soon to be dead Aspis folk, and without too much party in good old pathfinder fashion, the guards was killed off.
How to place them in the camp site is pretty much up to the GM except for the large wooden structure. Those made me think of different ways after I had played the scenario. Some ideas for flavor could be: They come at night (or dusk) providing a rare chance for rogues to use their stealth. The guard’s placement could be around the camp maybe even standing guard in front of a tent where Zahur Karn would rest.
I had them all patrolling around the wooden structure and lucky me we did not have a fireball wielding player otherwise everyone had been dead to begin with (they almost were anyway but that’s beside the point)
Spent some time planning how the camp should look maybe make small paper tents on the flip map and make it look very important.
My experienced was the party of experienced pathfinder players kept count of the encounter (Encounter 1 Erinyes Check, Encounter 2 Guards Check)
But the real encounter is inside the wooden building, with guards having heard the battle and being ready. Yes they too are no match but again the surprise for the player walking into the building that "encounter 2" was just beginning was priceless.

This part worked well because of the surprise otherwise it’s just another dull "I remove the guards" encounter. But as mentioned it does not have to be like that. The GM has free hands in the descriptions to make it a cool looking battle scene.

Spoiler : The Railroad:

First off the idea is great, implementation not so much. The rules seem to work fine however moving up to 100ft per round is nothing really. Likewise the nonlethal damage really makes no difference at level 10-11. A standard character moves around 30+ running make them catch up with the wagon in an instants. One could argue they cannot run on the tracks, but this is where I hit a problem. With multiple monks in the party one being large they simply ran down the tracks without effort. Likewise there is no description of the tracks. I made it a mine shaft where the tracks ran round and round. Do not do that. The party will jump downward to save time, likewise what happens if the cart trips over where do the party/npc end up, on the tracks?
A more detailed description of the idea of the tracks and a much higher speed would be useful. We did however have a mage that even though he had flying and movement way greater than the mining cart chose to take the ride - for the fun of it, and loved it.
Then the people in the cart. They are only there for fun. They pose no threat for the party what so ever. This include the bard who has such as lousy DC she can't hit a dead pigeon. This party needs some work to make the ride more than just a "wow we did that effect" So be prepared to do some work if you want to get anything out of this.

Spoiler : The City:

Morlocks, Stone Golem and a ruined city. Standard standard standard. However I made it much more than that. Descriptions are the key here especially if you want to focus on the Jistka Empire. I made small lanterns spread light into the ruined city providing enough dark places for the morlocks to hide and ambush. No doubt right out of the book they cannot harm anybody but that's okay. I made them climb up and down the walls of the houses, like dark shades that moved in and out of the light source. Then the rubble started to move and stand up. Sadly we had a character that felt extremely trigger happy and armed him with adamantium arrows before I even finished the description. The golem is a challenge and a fun one too (golem are in general okay - due to their heavy immunity). And a real fight broke out in the middle of the ruins while the morlock moved around trying to make leap attacks. Good old hack'n'slash encounter with no real twist.

Spoiler : Factory/Temple :

The proud somewhat foolish cleric steps out in front of the party and taunts them. This removes the element of surprise and he is left to his own initiative. Sadly this means he might be challenged. As it happened he fired off a silence at the party to begin with after the mage had dispose of all the wolves. Then came the archer and removed more than 80% of his health. And before he could act again he was a goner.
My idea was simply silence, wall of fire, channel negative energy (6d6 can be quite painful) and throw whatever spells he has left. A player told me, that the Cleric should have moved back into the building thereby getting out of ranged attacks. Tactics should be silence around the entrance and step just inside waiting for the foolish melee characters to enter, then face them with slay living and negative channeling. Upon entering the Aspis rogue/rangers should fall in behind and use their skills in flanking.
However that just did not happen for us and it ended up being somewhat an anticlimax.

Overall we all seemed to like the scenario, it had a good feel to it, but it also needed some work. What I did not like were the faction missions. They were just boring. And I did not really feel they related much to the Jistka feeling. My idea with the faction missions would be to make them flavor based. Why would the ruby prince ever consider the jistka important granted a codex about golemworks is interesting but it would be much more interesting to have to locate some stone tablets as a side quest rather than just picking up the quest a kill? Faction Quests should get the players to "move around" in the scenario getting the experience and feel of the place.

I of course have also read the other reviews and they speak about lack of maps and too much preparation. While these things are true one should keep in mind that this is a season 0 scenario used for me in season 3. Players are MUCH stronger now, have more possibilities and know the rules much better. This of course will reflect on the feel of the game. Rating for me would be : Flavor 5 stars, Faction 1star, combat ranging from 1 (end-boss) to 3 (Erinyes), work load expected so no biggy 3 stars for what comes with the pages, Maps for encounter Erinyes + mine cart sadly none 1 star, but into the ruin I printed them out and used them at a 1" square size : 3 stars for the factory 4 for the city. Put all that together leaves me with around 3 stars!