Linda Zayas-Palmer's page

Replace "shaken" with "frightened 1". In cases where the condition lasts for 3 rounds, add the stipulation that the condition's value does not decrease at the end of each turn until the 3 rounds have passed.

Hmmm, any news on that sanctioning?

Its in the works! Schedules tend to get a bit scrunched up around the holidays, and there have been some other issues that are quite demanding on time as well. We hope to have some time late next week to start the process moving again.

I have some questions:

Hacker's Curse trap:

I am a bit worried about this one.
That curse will affect every technological item the party is using (all items in 60 ft. and no save for any item below level 8). That also includes armor and weapons.
At level 1-4 the PCs cannot cast remove affliction themselves. And the DC 35 computers check is also out of range for most of the characters. So the only option left for them is spending a lot of fame for remove affliction, or throw away all their gear and buy new stuff which also will hurt a lot.
Is this really intended?

I am also a bit worried about the fact that the curse is contagious so someone with that curse might play at another table and infect other people's gear.

Yes, that's pretty harsh for low-level PCs, and the trap is scaled down in other ways from the original CR 7 it is based off of. For this one, the PCs can automatically find a fellow Starfinder to remove the curse for free after they complete the quest.

The Whisperwing Hatchlings:

Quote:

Melee bite +6 (1d6+3 P plus 1d4 Dexterity drain [DC 9])

Putting ability drain as a to-hit effect on something for lvl 1-4 characters is quite nasty, and what exactly does that DC 9 mean?

Is that a save to negate or to half?
And what save is it actually - Fortitude, Reflex, Will?
And is it even a save or some other check?

DC 9 Fortitude negates, and it should be damage rather than drain.

The Acolyte Memories:

They have trick attack, but what skill are they using for it? Stealth, Bluff, something else? And do they get any bonuses on that skill (most operative specializations get some bonus) but without any information given it is hard to guess.

No bonuses are listed, so they don't gain any bonuses. They can use their choice of Bluff, Intimidation, or Stealth, but it's likely they'll choose Bluff or Stealth given their bonuses.

I'm glad to see the response folks have had to this revision, and I hope it runs much more smoothly at all of your tables.

The revision wasn't just the work of OP developers; it also took the efforts of Alex and Tonya, as well as editors, art team members, project management, and customer service. I appreciate the hard work everyone put in to make this possible. A revision on this scale isn't something we can undertake lightly, but this scenario's unique circumstances of production combined with its role as an introductory scenario made it worthwhile.

I'm glad to see the response folks have had to this revision, and I hope it runs much more smoothly at all of your tables.

The revision wasn't just the work of OP developers; it also took the efforts of Alex and Tonya, as well as editors, art team members, project management, and customer service. I appreciate the hard work everyone put in to make this possible. A revision on this scale isn't something we can undertake lightly, but this scenario's unique circumstances of production combined with its role as an introductory scenario made it worthwhile.

What we really need is an adventure where Nigel takes a vacation, and we've been asked to curate the Museum full time in his place.

Hmm

PS There was one other November PF adventure released this month by Organized Play, Bounty #4: Cat's Cradle. It's short but sweet!

Excellent point, Hmm. Please check out Hilary's bounty, which features a dash of whimsy and a fun, unique encounter :)

Thanks for finding issues, folks. I've made corrections, and we will reupload shortly.

Thanks for finding issues, folks. I'm correcting the raw scenario file, and we'll reupload shortly.
*Fixed runestone price/level to standard
*Fixed Elite template application on nightmare
*Fixed CP scaling in first encounter of high level range to list high level ranges.
*added number of spells to spontaneous casters (the standard, same as # listed)
*added missing checkbox to treasure bundle list
*added perception to Nigel's discovery skills (DC 2 higher than Arcana)
*blowgun damage normalized (technically NPCs don't have to do the same damage as PCs with weapons, though we generally try to have them do so)
*Map for Area B (added in previous revision)

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. The encounter should use other side of the Noble Estate Flip Mat. We'll be issuing an update shortly.

When we concepted The Pathfinder Trials, we planned for it to be a new-player friendly interactive that introduced key aspects of Pathfinder Society lore, releasing early in the PFS Second Edition campaign.

But then the pandemic happened. Instead of leaving this intro scenario on ice for an ever-increasing amount of time, we're going to convert it to a non-interactive scenario, to release as one of our two January scenarios. It will still be a level 1 repeatable adventure.

Now that where you're going isn't a secret anymore... :)

Congratulations, Mike! Your seemingly endless font of creative ideas, your insights, and your dedication to making the Pathfinder Society program the best it can be have made you a huge asset to the Organized Play team, and an amazing coworker. While I'm sad to see you go, I'm glad that the community will be able to enjoy your work for many years to come. And I know that in your new position on the design team, you'll continue to create things that inspire people's imaginations and spark memorable stories.

Thod wrote:

The scaling tier 3-4 19-22 points is off.

Tier 3-4 starts with

3 Kobold Warriors (-1), 1 Kobold Scout (1) and 1 Spell Weaver (4)

19-22
2 Kobold Warriors (-1), 3 Kobold Scout (1) and 2 Spell Weaver (4)

23-27
0 Kobold Warriors (-1), 5 Kobold Scout (1) and 1 Spell Weaver (4)

19-22 is actually harder as 2 Kobold Warrior and 1 Spellweaver are exchanged for 2 Scouts. To me it seems 19-22 has one Spell Weaver too many.

I noticed this after I played it with a lower CP group and suddenly had a much stronger opponent as against the stronger group.

I'm just reading about a Death in the 19-22 points tier 3-4 and wanted to bring this one back to the attention as I think the death might have been caused by a typo.

Using table 10-8 CRB and level 3 as base I get:
110 xp for unscaled (3x10,20,60)
200 xp for 19-22 (2x10, 3x20, 2x60)
160 xp for 23-27 (20x5,60)
200 xp for 28-32 (4x20, 2x60)
220 xp for 33+ (5x20,2x60)
Take away 1 spell weaver and you get 110, 140, 160, 200, 220 and it looks fine

As GM I'm supposed to run as written. And 1 or 2 spell weavers make a difference for a lowish powered group in tier 3-4. So it would help is this is addressed.

Yes, this is a typo. 19–22 should indeed have only one spell weaver.

I was also at the table this weekend with Derek and Eliandra (and seriously, for the record: Eliandra handled this situation skillfully. We were absolutely high tier by the numbers and when the group was considering fleeing, I believe she handled the difficult situation very deftly).

It's true that this is a particularly challenging scenario; I purchased it after our session so I could read it and multiple encounters could TPK a 19-21 CP 2nd level party. This is because of the math in 2e and how party level+2 or party level+3 encounters work.

This particular scenario aside, I like Derek's suggestion that the number of players at a table contribute more to how tier is selected, especially in the case where there are 6 players.

Under the current system, the following 6-player tables will be high tier in a 1-4 scenario:

• (2+2+2+2+2+3) = 19 CPs
• (2+2+2+2+2+4) = 21 CPs

The issue is that, party composition aside, the 3-4 high tier will typically have combats that overwhelm either of the above two parties. Take for example the encounter design rules on page 489 of the CRB. "Party level" in the above two examples are 2.16 and 2.33, respectively. Let's say an author is designing a moderate high tier encounter for four 4th level PCs. The encounter budget is 80XP. The encounter could have two 40XP Creature-4s. However, for the 2nd level parties, these same two creatures would be equivalent to 160 XP (two Party Level + 2 creatures). A severe encounter for 6 2nd level PCs would be 180 XP. Our 2nd level party playing up will probably hit multiple severe difficulty encounters and such a party would regularly encounter extreme difficulty encounters...which is probably not what the author intended.

FWIW, the encounter in question was not the final one. By the CRB guide it was easily an extreme difficulty encounter....

** spoiler omitted **...

Oof, good catch! That sidebar is in error; there's only supposed to be one of those creature 4s at the 19 CP range. So you were facing what would be appropriate for 28–32. I'll make a note for revision and post in the GM discussion thread.

Hi! For those of you running this, there's an error in the challenge point sidebars for Subtier 5-6 for encounters A1 and A2: they should use the standard high-subtier categories of 19-22, 23-27, 28-32, and 33+ instead of the ones from the low subtier. The scaling instructions are otherwise correct.

For the map, the octagonal building on the center west is should be keep (B4), and the wooden building on the east side should be the barracks (B5).

Sylvina doesn't share the consecrate ritual with the PCs. Rituals are a pretty big category of treasure, moreso than an uncommon spell. To offer ritual access as treasure here, we would have had to significantly cut into the other rewards the scenario offered or charge a fee that was beyond the means of 1st level PCs, which wouldn't have been appealing to PCs who didn't want the ritual.

Of course, people running this adventure for their home games are welcome to add it in here :)

Hi! This scenario has now been fixed and re-released. As to whipstitch's question on reporting, good point. I'll look into it. We can at least run a report now so we record how much of the data came from before the update was out.

The updated scenario is available for download. Thanks for bringing the issues to our attention!

The deafened part is an error. Please ignore :)

It's just been brought to my attention that we did not correctly update the treasure table in the back of The Dragon Who Stole Evoking Day, and that the Guide does not include a chart that explains how we generate quest treasure.
Since a quest grants 1/4 of the XP of a standard scenario, it also grants 1/4 of the scenario max reward for that level. So the treasure chart in the back of the scenario should say:
Level — Reward
3 —— 9.5 gp
4 —— 16 gp
5 —— 25 gp
6 —— 37.5 gp

We'll be updating the pregens on Wednesday. This update adds a set of 6 3rd level pregens: Amiri, Ezren, Fumbus, Kyra, Merisiel, and Valeros.

The update also corrects errors in the existing level 1 and level 5 pregens, cleans them up a bit, and applies the errata. If you've already printed out level 1/level 5 pregens, you can still use them in scenarios. They are still fundamentally the same characters. If you're going to be doing new printing, I recommend re-downloading the file first so you have the latest version.

We are still planning to release level 5 pregens for the other 6 classes, just not right now.

What tier is this for?

It's a Tier 1-4 scenario.

So, is there any word if this is legal for Pathfinder Society?

Hi! After carefully weighing a variety of factors (such as the burden on GMs still grappling with a new set of rules), the Organized Play team has decided that it's not in the best interest of the campaign to have playtest characters participating in official Pathfinder Society games at this time.

If you're interested in earning Pathfinder Society credit for participating in the playtest, I highly recommend playing Fall of Plaguestone and downloading the free sanctioning document for it on the adventure's product page. You can play a playtest character through the adventure and then apply the credit to a Pathfinder Society character of your choice when you're done.

Is this supposed to have a total of 4 Fame and 2 Reputation? Seems a little odd.

No, that's an error. It should give 4 reputation, 2 for each objective, as per a standard scenario.

Linda Zayas-Palmer wrote:

Thanks Hmm! I've added this to our list of updates for the pregens. This feedback is well-timed. I'm actually working on some fixes now, both to address errors and to input the errata (which changes the Bulk of basically every character, giving them more space to pick up things they find in their adventures).

While you are looking at that list Linda, one of the main complaints I have gotten about the Pregens was the removal of the background story for them. Would love to see that added back.

Hi! Given the mandate to keep pregens to a single page front and back page whenever possible, the more visual layout, and the amount of time such a revision and design would take, we're not considering adding stories to the pregens at this stage.

But the stories on the iconic pregens are nearly always paraphrased and truncated versions of the text of blogs from the Meet the Iconics series, so if your players are interested in engaging with the stories behind the pregenerated characters, I'd recommend checking out the blogs: https://paizo.com/community/blog/tags/iconics/meetTheIconics.

Some of the Level 5 pregens (Ezren, Fumbus, Kyra) are three pages long. I noticed that the second page of all the pregens includes a helpful header with the name of the pregen. There is no such helpful header on the 3rd page.

Since I laminated these, I have punched a hole in the corner of the double-sided first page and the third page, and then looped and knotted a string to keep the disparate parts together. I am hoping that people who hand out paper copies staple them. Otherwise, those third pages will come loose, and it will be difficult to figure out which goes with what pregen.

Can you please mark all pages with a character header?

Thanks.
Hmm

Thanks Hmm! I've added this to our list of updates for the pregens. This feedback is well-timed. I'm actually working on some fixes now, both to address errors and to input the errata (which changes the Bulk of basically every character, giving them more space to pick up things they find in their adventures).

One other thing...

Did anyone notice that this is the ONLY scenario that awards 4 fame as normal, but only TWO reputation????

I'm running this scenario tomorrow and i would really like confirmation from organized play staff whether this is correct, because it seems strange that this is the only scenario that awards only 50% reputation.

...huh. Not sure how *that* crept in. The scenario should give the standard amount of Reputation.

Are you all leaving this to the android who has a penalty on this roll? Oookk, I'll give it a shot ;)

Important note on Reputation in this scenario:
This scenario has an unconventional structure where it looks like only PCs who are representing the Grand Archive can get the bonus reputation. We first-edition-PFS-trained developers are still working out some of the bumps of moving over to an SFS-style system, and we don't really want this scenario to be an outlier.

With that in mind, please strike out the phrase "If any of the PCs are members of the Grand Archive faction," in the faction notes section at the beginning. Have Zarta talk to the PCs regardless of their faction affiliation (if none are representing the GA, you'll probably want to paraphrase the boxed text a bit).

Then at the end of the scenario, if the PCs meet the conditions listed in the faction notes section, every PC gets the bonus Reputation with the Grand Archive faction.

To answer some of the questions in this thread:
1) The encounter in area D should have 2 Wounded Orc Brutes and one Orc Warrior.
2) For the faction notes, if the PCs meet the listed conditions, every PC earns 1 Reputation for the Horizon Hunters faction, whether they slotted the Faction Champion boon for Horizon hunters or not.
3) Add the missing treasure bundle to area B. There's a dead body at the bottom of the cliff that still has a coin pouch. The PCs automatically find it without a check.

The 2019 GM boon should also open up the same kobold rules options as the Gen Con 2018 one. That is to say, add the following to the kobold section of the GM boon that lets you play a Ghoran, Kobold, Rougarou, or Samsaran.

"Treat all kobold specific character options in the Advanced Race Guide and Inner Sea Races as if they appeared on the Additional Resources list, as well as all character options from Kobolds of Golarion except the traits icy mementos, lair snake, lightning blessed, ooze defense; the spell blightburn weapon; and the item blightburn paste."

Thanks for getting this sanctioned for society play!

One question, are there plans to make this repeatable or is it already and I just missed it?

It is not repeatable, and we don't currently have plans to make it so. Pathfinder Society in Second Edition has a lot more repeatable scenarios than Pathfinder Society First Edition, and we're looking to see how well those meet the needs of the community before exploring other replay options.

The street date for Pathfinder and Starfinder Society scenarios, with occasional exceptions for winter holidays, is the last Wednesday of the month. So this month, it's October 30th.

Goodness...my condolences, Hilary *hug*. If you want to talk, I'm here for you. And may the world stop sending you so many heart-wrenching challenges.

Any news on sanctioning and/or chronicle sheets?

Sanctioning for Plaguestone will be out by the end of October.

Valantrix1 wrote:

If that dragon is who I think it is, and it still has the items in its hoarde from first edition, its going to make my dwarven paladin PC extremely happy. I can't wait to get my hands on this one.

It's not that dragon.

I'd love to see what happens if someone confuses the dragon in this AP for the dragon you think it is, though :)

So sorry for your loss. *hugs*

Thanks for this Linda. I did have another issue crop up now I have finished prepping this, how do players qualify for the Bag of Contingencies boon?

Has there been any allowance made for being able to play 2-08 after this if you level to 9 from 2-06? If we expect xp to be evenly distributed we should have one player at every other table of this leveling out of being able to do what seems like it is the second half of a story. Feels like a design issue with an otherwise neat idea.

No special allowance. When we present multi-part scenarios, we know that some people may level out of them, but there's not really an easy solution to that issue. If you are interested in experiencing a full story arc with the same character, we recommend playing earlier parts with a character that is not at the maximum level for the tier.

The Scenario also bears the Tag: Repeatable

That's an error on the title page. 1-05 is not a repeatable scenario, but 1-06 will be. Sorry about that!

I have started to prep the stat blocks for this and have some questions/comments.

As previously mentioned there are a couple of references to using Easy/Average/Hard DCs (one in the sword sidebar, love its abilities by the way and one in the ritual, there may be others). I assume we just grab the DCs from Part 1?

Leaving those references in there was an error. For those who do not have Part 1 on hand, here's the chart.

The tactics on the Nightshades for tier 14-15 and 17-18 seem to be reversed. 14-15 shows as using quickened cone of cold but it doesnt have it, 17-18 shows quickened unholy blast, it has cone of cold instead. Do we just swop them around?

Yes, just swap them.

Vahlo uses his fiendish boon in all tiers but only adds unholy. He gets more than a +2 benefit in every tier. Its worth noting for people running that he cannot add any more as the weapon caps out at +10 effective bonus.

That's a rules wrinkle we ran into with this. An opponent with a weapon so powerful he couldn't apply the full extent of this class abilities. #Firstworldantipaladinproblems

Vahlo's cruelty DCs are not correct in anything other than high tier. They are largely not listed, there is a passing reference to DC27 in his tactics. This is only right for tier 1718. Tier 12-13 should be DC22, 14-15 should be DC24. I assume you dont want us stunning level 12 PCs for multiple rounds with DC27 effects?

The passing reference came from a copy-paste error in tactics. Please use 10+1/2 antipaladin level+cha mod as normal for the rules of the cruelty ability (which comes out to DC 22/DC 24 as andreww notes).

The advanced daemons in tier 1718 have the wrong devour DC, it should be 27. Looks like the effect of the advanced template on it was missed.

Yes, its supposed to be DC 27 as listed in the special attacks, rather than 25 as listed in the special ability block.

For the tech weapons, let's go with what James Jacobs said in this post. Players who were using fighter weapon training and similar weapon-group specific options using other categories can switch them to match the weapon's new classification, or sell the weapon back for the full value if it no longer works for their character.

To answer the questions floating around here as well as one other I got asked today:

Lore DC: The Pathfinder Society Lore DC should be 15 (or 10 if the PCs have the faction champion boon for the person in question, which applies to the minor factions).

Saving Throw Bonus of Ritualists: When selecting their number of Hit Points, I assumed that they fail every round (but never critically fail). So let's go with that.

Disabling the Ritual: Each attempt to disable the ritual takes one action.

Some quotes from the Pathfinder Society Guide to Play for context:

"Revere: Player characters can revere any Golarion-specific deity, pantheon, or philosophy without alignment restriction. This extends to evil deities as well, so long as the PC does not participate in or glorify activities that violate the Pathfinder Baseline or otherwise incur an alignment infraction (see Pathfinder Core Rulebook 486 and Infamy and Alignment Infractions)."

"Worship: In Organized Play, worship refers to a relationship between a character and a deity where the character gains a mechanical benefit (e.g., a cleric’s spells and abilities or access to options tied to that deity) in exchange for their dedicated worship. A PC may worship only one deity and must choose a deity that accepts worshippers of their alignment. However, the PC cannot participate in or glorify activities that violate the Pathfinder baseline or otherwise incur an alignment infraction (see Pathfinder Core Rulebook 486 and Infamy and Alignment Infractions)."

The goal of this distinction is to offer a broad range of character belief and expression while remaining consistent with published information about which types of believers each deity is willing to grant power to.

Your PCs can revere deities and philosophies that haven't shown up in Second Edition products yet. So you can have your character be a follower of any of the Eldest (but they can't use revering an evil Eldest as a reason to have their character engage in behavior that is inappropriate for the table). Until we've published key mechanics like what alignments are required to gain power from a deity and which of the new domains they have, characters can't worship them as defined above. But the list in Lost Omens Gods and Magic is quite extensive, so there will be many more options for deities for your clerics in the near future.

I talked to Tonya. The season 10 guide is the final guide, and the Season 10 faction journal cards are the final set. You can continue to use the Season 10 journal cards in perpetuity.

Will we be getting level 5 versions for all of them eventually?

Yes, all of these characters will eventually get level 5 versions as well.

I was out sick last week. Now that I'm back and feeling better, here are my thoughts in the comments instead :)