Psychopomp, Shoki

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Venture-Agent, France—Paris 7,389 posts (8,611 including aliases). 1 review. No lists. No wishlists. 23 Organized Play characters. 3 aliases.



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The worst PFS adventure I ever got my hands on

1/5

I have mastered 50 PFS games, and I feel bad to give a review only about this one as there are tons of adventures I had a lot of fun GMing. I've put 1 star because I can't put 0 stars. I have downloaded it twice, thinking I got some kind of draft version or joke version the first time. From the other reviews, it looks like we got the same adventure.

The best way to describe it is "the worst PFS adventure I ever got my hands on". By a large margin.

There are grammar errors here and there, even in the handout I'm supposed to give to my players. Also, it's not "formatted like a PFS adventure". I can't really describe that, but when reading it I was not having the feeling of reading a PFS adventure.

But the worst is the adventure itself. It just makes no sense from the beginning till the end. Suspension of disbelief is not enough, you need to entirely unplug your brain to play it as is.

Spoiler:

You are supposed to recruit someone described as a vigilante. The guy had a trauma after his daughter got killed and now "likes to hunt Razmiri priests and destroy their masks in very public, very violent displays [sic]". So he is just a mad serial killer and the Pathfinder Society wants to recruit him??? I'd be scared to travel by boat next to him, who knows what other traumas he has. The adventure doesn't say his alignment despite stating the alignments of everyone, but I expect something very close to CE.
Also, you are supposed to recruit the vigilante and he is not agressive, still the adventure speaks everywhere of what would happen if the PCs decide to kill him or restrain him or bully him... Points of infamy are in general the proper answer to PCs acting that way.
Also, the vigilante was supposed to attack the BBEG, but nothing explains how he will help the PCS. I expect him to be there during fights, obviously.

The main antagonist, now. The guy's a gold mask, the leading power in Razmiran. He was the leader of one of the biggest city in the country, but he "fell out of favor [sic]". Still, the guy should be a super important political figure. So when a "killer with a golden mask" appears, no one wonders how he got this golden mask which is supposed to be super rare? Maybe the previous leader of Xer who's missing is a clue?
Also, the main antagonist is a pal to Tar-Baphon ("Bolger sought power from the Whispering Tyrant, promising Tar-Baphon control of all of Razmiran in exchange for the strength to destroy Narsen and the Society" [sic]). Yeah, you know, TB loves to organize big parties and invite lots of friends. How do you get in touch with one of the biggest threats in Golarion? So, he wants to invade Razmiran... all alone. He is/was a political figure, but he prefers to hide into the woods, kidnap poor fellows and turn them into vampire spawns. And he really thinks his plan is good. That would not be the first stupid enemy the PCs face, but this one is supposed to be a political leader...

The forest... So, the enemy is in the middle of the Exalted Wood (a vast, untamed forest according to Pathfinder wiki), and he created a magical mist to lose people around. The thing is big, you need a long rest in the middle of the trip to get to him, so there are a bunch of square miles of mist and forest in there. The mist is super thick, you don't see beyond 30 feet. Still, the first thing you do is meeting the vigilante. Quite some luck? The guy is just there in the middle of the forest because untamed forests are the best place to chase razmiran priests...
Next, you got attacked by a bunch of vampire spawns. One of them has a piece of paper with gibberish on it: It's an encryption key. Ok...
Then, you travel through the forest and walk on a fireball. Yes, the forest is booby trapped, and you're supposed to take 4 fireballs in the way to the BBEG. Considering the size of the forest, there are hundreds, maybe thousands of fireballs in there, it's Vietnam. Luckily, you find a "dropped missive [sic]", a scroll explaining you where are the fireballs. So it's a map (unless you find a way to explain by words where you have trapped a forest). And it's encrypted... How do you encrypt a map, I have no clue. What was this map doing in the middle of the forest... once again, this is a total mystery. How the guy got his hands on hundreds, maybe thousands of scrolls of fireballs, who knows.

I could continue with lesser aberrations, like how the guy got Tendriculoses to protect his lair instead of eating him, what is he doing inside a cave in the middle of the forest, how he managed to kidnap people (especially Pathfinders) while being in a vast, untamed forest? So many more mysteries...

Overall, it's the very first time I refuse to GM an adventure as is. I've GMed tons of PFS adventure that were not great, but this one is just a (bad) joke to me.

Still, I love PFS and Paizo, you should keep up the good work. I just wanted to express that this adventure is really subpar.