RSS RSS Facebook Twitter Email
Pathfinder / Pathfinder Society / Past Seasons / Season 0

Pathfinder Society Scenario #5: Mists of Mwangi (OGL/PFRPG) PDF

3.90/5 (based on 46 ratings)
Pathfinder Society Scenario #5: Mists of Mwangi (OGL/PFRPG) PDF

Our Price: $3.99

Add to Cart
Facebook Twitter Email

A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st to 5th level characters (Tiers: 1–2, 4–5).

Pathfinder Lugizar Trantos recently returned from the Mwangi Expanse with haunted eyes and a pack full of strange idols. Absalom's famed Blakros Museum purchased his pieces and Lugizar vanished. The strange monkey idols he pulled from the misty jungles of Mwangi carry with them a fell curse, and now their power has laid claim to the museum. Can the Pathfinder Society uncover the source of the curse in time, or will the Blackros Museum be forever lost to the mists of Mwangi?

Written by Nicolas Logue

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 3.5 edition of the world’s most popular fantasy roleplaying game.

Note: This scenario has been updated for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Purchasers have access to both 3.5 and Pathfinder RPG editions, but as of January 10, 2011, only the Pathfinder RPG edition is legal for Pathfinder Society organized play.

Product Availability

Fulfilled immediately.

Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at store@paizo.com.

PZOPSS0005E

See Also:

21 to 25 of 46 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | next > last >>

Average product rating:

3.90/5 (based on 46 ratings)

Sign in to create or edit a product review.

A Night at the Museum of the Apes

4/5 —

A classic scenario that started a run of later Blakros Museum scenarios. Mists is basically a dungeon crawl, but it makes up for the dearth of non-combat encounters with strong ambience.

Challenge (3/5):

Even the 3.5 version of this scenario had some legitimate challenges, and with the conversion, Subtier 4-5 now has the best challenge of any Season 0 I've seen (Subtier 1-2 looks like it would be a cakewalk now, though, so if you're running this for a home group, consider just using the 3.5 version if you're running Subtier 1-2). It isn't overpowering, but there's a few things that can go very wrong for a party.
A group that is high on Cha and Int casters can be screwed by the mists, which completely incapacitate all spellcasting for those characters. Somehow every time I've played or GMed this one, there's been a sorcerer around who failed his save and got monkeyfied. Fortunately, the module has a clever built-in mechanism for modulating the challenge--if the party starts losing and someone gets KOed, you learn that KOing ends the monkey effect, whereas a curb-stomping party may never learn this depending on how they dealwith the ape scholars. The only trouble, of course, is if the team all dies on the encounter with the first KO. However, you do need to be able to heal off that fight. When I first ran this, it was with a party who were all completely new characters and had no CLW wands. This can be rough in any scenario, so remind the group that they can pay for heals at a temple if necessary.
The other potential trouble can be the vargouilles. When I played this with my monk, he was the only one who made all four Will saves at the higher tier. If he had failed and the vargouilles were played smartly (knock out, then kiss, then wait), we would have had a TPK and several new vargouilles. In general, multiple save or disables coming at once can be pretty tough. Granted, I haven't yet seen this one actually take out the whole party, but do watch out. In general the mod has plenty of save or sucks, but this is the only case where there are so many that have such a dangerous condition.
If you can somehow avoid the ridiculously easy PFRPG version of the 1-2 subtier, consider the rating increased up to 4.

Interesting Encounters (4/5):

The encounters added to the flavor and theme of the demon-mist-haunted museum, with a good variety of opponents, each themed to one of the museum's exhibits. Several examples include vargouilles masquerading as masks, the taxidermic monsters in the same room that don't come to life (yet), and a ziggurat with a giant gorilla surrounded by monkeys and evil monkey idols hiding in the brush.

Roleplaying Opportunities (2.5/5):

This scenario is basically a dungeon crawl. There is one opportunity to talk to a besieged scholar which is essentially the only RP encounter you get unless you count the Venture Captain or Nigel Aldain, who you save at the very end. However, the RP potential of the mist itself boosts this one up to 2.5. Be careful, however, as the mists are clearly portrayed as a negative effect, so you need players who will ham it up despite this fact, as opposed to the sorts of players who don't like to dwell on failures or setbacks.

Golarion Flavor/Continuity (4/5):

You get surprisingly-much in this category considering it's just a dungeon crawl in Absalom. While not directly relevant to this particular adventure, the lore on the Blakros Museum itself was rich and evocative enough to spawn several more adventures each off of unanswered questions piqued by the scenario's background text. You also get Anghazan and Mwangi themes. Finally, having Adril Hestram as the VC is useful to build up to the retirement arc. This is a scenario in which the PFS would logically be involved, and the adventure flows together well with no logical inconsistencies except perhaps how the giant crocodile fit itself up there.

Awesome Factor (4/5):

This category exists for things that just make the characters call out "That's awesome!" On the other side, it includes things that make them groan, but I've named the category after the positive side of the aspect. The flavor oozing out of this scenario is what makes it awesome, as expected for a Nic Logue adventure. This scenario is able to creep people out, and it's inspired at least one player to have his character quail in dread whenever the museum is mentioned again (after which he'll always explain that the negative reaction is in character only with "I am loving it"). The mists and their effects are also awesome, but with a warning of a potential for anti-awesome if you have an Int or Cha caster whose player cares more about effectiveness than the flavor.

Overall Analysis (4/5): I don't judge often in extremes. A scenario will truly have to be something to get a 1/5 or a 5/5 from me in any category. I know some reviewers tend to rate high, where a 3/5 would be a product they didn't like. For me, Mist of Mwangi's low 4/5 (it had an average of 3.5) means that the scenario is very good. This places it at just about "Paizo average" quality for me, but only because Paizo's quality tends to be high, so I expect a high median quality from them. Try to run Subtier 4-5 for a better challenge. Also, there's a file to make a 3d map of the museum on the forums. I did so, and it's awesome, but it's way harder to do than the thread makes it sound (unless you're way better at building things than me, I guess).

A decent scenario

4/5 —

A decent scenario that I enjoyed.

Hit and miss...

3/5 —

I played this module at the 1-2 subtier. This module has (or had?) a good rep, but I didn't particularly like or dislike it.

Spoiler:
I really liked the potential of the first encounter. Unfortunately my party all made their saves. I also liked the two encounters in the smaller exhibit rooms (one with a variety of undead, another is a fake out). The scenario mission and faction missions do a good job of making sure the party explores the whole museum, even though they could walk straight to the BBEG. The atmosphere of the museum can be played up to make this a pretty decent spooky-suspense style module. My biggest complaint with this module is that at 1-2, it was a cakewalk for my party. I don't think they felt threatened even once. The final encounter was particularly anticlimatic (they finished it it two rounds with ease). The consensus seems to be that this is a really fast scenario, but my players took 5 hours to finish.

Player review for Mists: Challenged the mind and the blade

5/5 —

We played Mists of Mwangi with a fairly challenging set of circumstances. Our party had a new player who had never played a pen and paper role playing game before - she did great! We had two players running pregens for fighter and cleric, and we passed maybe a single saving throw each throughout the scenario for our level one PCs.

**Spoilers follow**

We lost two characters to the template literally the moment we entered the building. Though it may or may not be the case, these two characters appeared to be escaping deeper and deeper into the building - this was great GMing by Doug Miles. I've never been so immediately gripped by the urgency of a situation in pen and paper before this afternoon, with our fighter and our cleric steadily moving farther out of reach.

I was playing the wizard, and I expended half of my prepared spells and two scrolls to rescue the party from what appeared to be a possible early loss.

**Specific details Spoilers! Skip the next paragraph**

(Alter winds to clear an area of breathable air, a toppling magic missile to knock the party member from the rafters, and as he charged me a prepared scroll cast of protection from evil - one down! We rescued the other, a halfling ninja, with an Enlarge Person'd Valeros plucking him from the rafters. It was at about this point I suggested the obvious mundane solution to avoiding the issue)

So we went on through an exciting, and at times potentially deadly, scenario. We had more than one hairy moment (Ha!) where the GM even suggested escaping as a possibility. Carrying on through and eventually completing the scenario felt like a serious accomplishment in Mists of Mwangi.

The mood in this scenario is superb and it features multiple 'gotcha' moments where the scenario reveals unexpected encounter conditions. Every character had a chance to be absolutely essential in combat, essential skill checks, and roleplay - at one point a good knowledge planes check found my strength 7 wizard desperately holding a waterproof bag over the paralyzed Valeros's head.

The end encounter's 'hook's' effectiveness hinges on any one PC making a good perception check, which made the reveal of that crucial information feel like a real accomplishment. The encounter itself's difficulty fell a little flat compared to the previous encounters, which seems to be the opinion generally espoused by other forum members. From the player perspective, though, it felt as if we had earned the advantage through investigation and skill - if we didn't have some of this key information it might have gone differently!

The faction missions were very straightforward and served their function - to keep you from missing the majority of the scenario by skipping to the end! We only missed one encounter - after peeking into the bathroom we quietly apologized for intruding and closed the door!

5 out of 5 fluff
4 out of 5 crunch
5 out of 5 Gamemastering

Thanks for reading

Hard to rate this mod

2/5 —

So this mod is a hard one to rate, I like the fact most people enjoy the mod, it just does't do it for me.

I like the museum but I guess something about this one doesn't "work" for me.

I dont really want to spoil anything but I think if I only played it I would give it a 3.

I liked a template...

21 to 25 of 46 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | next > last >>
Search Thread

Search this Thread:

So, is planning a game day to play this on October 4th a good idea or a bad idea? That is, how reliable is the release date for this?
Dark Archive

This actually sounds like a good Halloween adventure to me.
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Now available!
Scarab Sages
Vic Wertz wrote:
Now available!

umm... product is unavailable.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer
Jonathan_Shade wrote:
Vic Wertz wrote:
Now available!
umm... product is unavailable.

Sigh. It may take a couple of minutes for all of the store applications to see it... I'll see if I can't kick it.

Scarab Sages
Vic Wertz wrote:
Jonathan_Shade wrote:
Vic Wertz wrote:
Now available!
umm... product is unavailable.

Sigh. It may take a couple of minutes for all of the store applications to see it... I'll see if I can't kick it.

Thank you for the help, Vic

I would like to see these Pathfinder Society Scenarios available free to Pathfinder Sunscribers. Especially Superscribers.

ASEO out
ASEO wrote:

I would like to see these Pathfinder Society Scenarios available free to Pathfinder Sunscribers. Especially Superscribers.

ASEO out

I wouldn't go that far. Paizo needs to pay for these to get made, after all, and they're quite cheap if you think of the page count and quality production values etc. Though I'm a fellow Charter Superscriber like yourself, I don't begrudge Paizo making a small profit on these. Even if you finished one in an evening's session, that's a small price to pay. Like renting a movie.

However, if we Charter Superscribers were to, say, receive a discount on them...I wouldn't complain ;-)

Nice avatar choice. You're either a Downer fan like myself, or a Drow fan (that works too). If the former, we need to put the pressure on Paizo to do something really important. Like print the 2nd volume of those Downer strips...
Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy
BenS wrote:
However, if we Charter Superscribers were to, say, receive a discount on them...I wouldn't complain ;-)

You get the same Pathfinder subscriber discount on these as on any other product, so they gave you what you wanted over a year ago! Yay Paizo!

BenS wrote:
ASEO wrote:

I would like to see these Pathfinder Society Scenarios available free to Pathfinder Sunscribers. Especially Superscribers.

ASEO out

I wouldn't go that far. Paizo needs to pay for these to get made, after all, and they're quite cheap if you think of the page count and quality production values etc. Though I'm a fellow Charter Superscriber like yourself, I don't begrudge Paizo making a small profit on these. Even if you finished one in an evening's session, that's a small price to pay. Like renting a movie.

However, if we Charter Superscribers were to, say, receive a discount on them...I wouldn't complain ;-)

Nice avatar choice. You're either a Downer fan like myself, or a Drow fan (that works too). If the former, we need to put the pressure on Paizo to do something really important. Like print the 2nd volume of those Downer strips...

Both, and I think there were like only 8 avatars available when I picked it out ;-)

ASEO out
ASEO wrote:

I would like to see these Pathfinder Society Scenarios available free to Pathfinder Sunscribers. Especially Superscribers.

ASEO out

We still have to pay the authors, cartographers, and artists (as well as the developers, editors, and graphic designers) responsible for the production of the scenarios. Given we're releasing 28 a year and that these take work to produce, there is no way we could just give them away for free.

Rather, we set a low price point to make them accessible.
Joshua J. Frost wrote:


We still have to pay the authors, cartographers, and artists (as well as the developers, editors, and graphic designers) responsible for the production of the scenarios. Given we're releasing 28 a year and that these take work to produce, there is no way we could just give them away for free.

Rather, we set a low price point to make them accessible.

I just thought it would be a nice feature for superscribers who are already investing on the Pathfinder game. but I can see how an extra $100 a year can make a difference in spending on both sides of the table.

Maybe at some point there can be a complied print edition of the previous years senarios. "Pathfinder Happinings Year X"

I'm much more willing to pay for print editions than I am soley e-copies.

ASEO out

Can anybody tell me wether this module is easy to convert to PFRPG? Especially the template.

I was under the impression all the Pathfinder scenarios were compatable with the PFRPG.
Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy
Aureus wrote:
Can anybody tell me wether this module is easy to convert to PFRPG? Especially the template.

It shouldn't be hard at all. In fact, I ran this as written for four Pathfinder characters at an unofficial game at GenCon and it was still so challenging that they didn't even finish it, fleeing from the museum with their near-dead comrades in tow. I wouldn't change anything, except maybe using PFRPG stats for any monsters that now exist in updated form (vargouille, snake, ghoul, etc.) Even the template doesn't need any work as far as I can tell.

Great news! Thank you!

So Pathfinder society scenaries aren't set up for use with the Pathfinder RPG? I've only played the once, last gencon...and we played Pathfinder. I'm so very very lost right now...
Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy
Fraust wrote:
So Pathfinder society scenaries aren't set up for use with the Pathfinder RPG? I've only played the once, last gencon...and we played Pathfinder. I'm so very very lost right now...

Before the final Pathfinder RPG rules were out, all PFS scenarios used standard 3.5 rules. So all 28 Season 0 scenarios need minor conversion to the current rules set, but they are mostly compatible since PFRPG is backwards compatible.

Fraust wrote:
So Pathfinder society scenaries aren't set up for use with the Pathfinder RPG? I've only played the once, last gencon...and we played Pathfinder. I'm so very very lost right now...

To be specifically clear:

Scenarios #1 through #28 were designed using 3.5. They are compatible with Pathfinder RPG and need nothing more than a CMB/CMD calculation for each stat block in order to be run under Pathfinder RPG (the current rules set for Pathfinder Society).

Scenarios #29 and up were designed using Pathfinder RPG.

Gotcha....I think I knew that, just got it in my head this was a new adventure (not looking at the numbers, just saw the name and got interested). Thanks for clearing it up guys.
Dark Archive

The template need a little conversion. I recommend you look at the template spreadsheet that someone has posted on the boards for easy appliance of the template, and convert that sheet. It's mainly the skills that needs working at, but also add CMB and CMD.

thank you for the tip. any idea where i can find this "template spreadsheet"? i haven't found it via the search function on these boards. :(
Dark Archive

Somewhere in this thread.

Thank you. :)
Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Pathfinder Society Scenario #5: Mists of Mwangi has been updated for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. Purchasers have access to both 3.5 and Pathfinder RPG editions, but as of today, only the Pathfinder RPG edition is legal for Pathfinder Society organized play.

Anyone who has purchased the 3.5 edition may download the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game edition for free from your My Downloads page.
Grand Lodge

AWESOME!!!
Vic Wertz wrote:
Anyone who has purchased the 3.5 edition may download the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game edition for free from your My Downloads page.

Thanks very much for not asking me to buy this again for the PfRPG update, especially since I've never gotten around to running it since buying the 3.5 edition. :)

Paizo rocks!
Grand Lodge

Hello - I only have access to the 3.5 edition of this module on my assets page.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32

Sozin - I'm showing that you have access to both versions. However, they are likely not directly next to one another, since they were granted on differing days. Your browser's Find function may be helpful.
Grand Lodge

Yep, I am seeing it now. Thanks Ross!
Scarab Sages

I played in the updated version of this at Penguicon 2011. I liked the setting a lot, but there were some problems. If I could rate it, I would give it 3 stars.

We had a party of 4 characters (Clr1, Fig1, Wiz2, Fig1). We *barely* survived the first encounter.

Details about an encounter:
The fight in the hall of the honored dead is just too hard for 4 characters. The zombie that has an AC of 20 (!!) and a ghoul (3 attacks) and 1 skeleton. Jeez. And with the pregen cleric with no turn undead, we just had to do it the hard way.

The final encounter was good fun.

And yet...:
The caster in the corner required a perception check of 25 to see him. I managed it because I rolled a nat 20 and have a fairly crazy perception skill for a 2nd level character.

In the final analysis, I'd like to see this tweaked a little bit more to accommodate first level characters.
Sovereign Court

Sunday my friends joined me to go play a TBD game at PFS. A fellow player and PFS enthusiast RT had come to play but took pity on us and ran Mists of Mwangi for us. I played my dwarven wizard from Cheliax.

This was "Jumanji" and a dangerous "Night at the Museum" all rolled up into one. I really enjoyed this scenario, it was hard in places, and could be bit deadly in others if the entire party failed their rolls, but very rewarding.

Paranoid players are going to have to remember at tier 1-2 not to over think things. Other than some RIDICULOUS spot checks required to find an item, the rest just requires you to use a calm rational approach. Course that's that's easier said than done, with dark mists full of crazies and poo flinging primates!

I give this scenario a solid 4 out of 5 stars fun fun fun! Again thanks to RT (prolly stands for REAL TEXAN) for running this for us all.
Scarab Sages Contributor

This was the first scenario I ever ran as a character of my own. I decided to play it risky, and play the 4-5 subtier. Fortunately, I survived. But the final boss...pulled something unexpected that wasn't in the scenario. I was surprised that even though that was stated as a possibility, it didn't occur to the makers of this scenario to make the schematics for said situation.

Don't look if you haven't played it:
Da'Tunga got killed and zombified by the idols, basically. And the GM had to make up the stats and whatnot for Zom'Tunga.

If that could be rectified somehow, I'm sure others would appreciate it...though I doubt that this is a common occurance lol

All in all, it was a blast however. Gotta love dat curse.

Just finished playing this one at Tier 4-5 and am now running it (as a PbF) at Tier 1-2.

Spoiler Alert!:
The tactics of the Tik Taan idols at Tier 4-5 state that they "avoid melee combat if at all possible" and "use their spell-like and special abilities to support Da'Tunga." It goes on to say that "Any person slain during combat is immediately animated as a fast zombie." (emphasis mine)

I'm not sure if the "person" is an intentional qualifier of if one would merely be arguing semantics; but raising Da'Tunga as a fast zombie makes a difficult encounter nearly impossible.

Grand Lodge

Just downloaded the PF version of it. Didn't realize it'd been updated. Only ever had the 3.5 one.

I have a couple of questions though. Firstly, why does the tier 1-2 version not have the spear listed as treasure? Is it because it's actually jeweled treasure and not a real weapon like the tier 4-5 one? Also, why does the 3.5 version have it listed at 2000 gold but the PF version is only 750?

Ran this just recently and had a couple questions.

The mists provide cover and a stealth bonus in some rooms, does this same bonus and cover apply to all the other rooms where the mist is present? It seems to be the only way to make certain areas even a minor challenge, including the bathroom and final battle.

Final Battle:
In tier 1-2, if the mists reduce a characters Intelligence to 6 at the beginning of the scenario, and then the Tik Taan curses them further to reduce their intelligence to 2, the character now has animal intelligence, so would you have them behave as all the other animals and people trapped in the mists, dropping whatever they were holding and attacking the other characters? Or would they just mindlessly stand there and drool until the Tik Taan is defeated?

In the descriptor of the grand hall, "Mock vines cling to the walls and hang from the fifty-foot-high domed ceiling, and huts of grass are strewn about the open area."

Would this count as enough vegetation for the Tik Taan to use Entangle to fill the room?
Community / Forums / Paizo / Product Discussion / Pathfinder Society Scenario #5: Mists of Mwangi (OGL / PFRPG) PDF All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Product Discussion
Pathfinder GM Core
Last post: by Moth Mariner