Pathfinder Society Scenario #6: Black Waters (OGL) PDF

4.00/5 (based on 38 ratings)

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

The Pathfinder Society seeks the ancient ruby ring of the salamander and it falls to a team of Pathfinders to find it. Last seen in the Tri-Towers Yard, a once elite academy for the youth of Absalom, the ruby ring is now lost in the Drownyard, all that remains of Tri-Towers after it was destroyed a decade ago in the great quake. The Pathfinders must risk the strange black ichors and salty brine to find their prize—will they risk their very souls as well?

Written by Tim and Eileen Connors

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.

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PZOPSS0006E


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Average product rating:

4.00/5 (based on 38 ratings)

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superb (but quick)

5/5

Look, let's be clear: This scenario takes two hours if you stretch it. That's not always a bad thing, but it is something to keep in mind.

That said, those two hours are going to mess with your head. If you don't leave this feeling a little bit dirty, you weren't paying attention. It's an absolute delight to run because even a party that's goofing off and not paying attention finds itself sobered by portions of the flavor text--but it's not depressing, because the combats are so comically easy that you can get some good fun out of them. All told, fantastic. I just wish there was twice as much of it!


Unexpected

4/5

I would like to rate this low because I didn't like playing it. But the fault is not with the writing (which is quite good) but rather with my subjective response to the content. I wasn't expecting this adventure to be so full of dead children. Having played it, I go back to the description and yes I can see how I could have concluded that from the "academy for youth" now being lost in the "drownyards". And yet at the time I was playing I found the scenario more than a little ghoulish. On one hand it's awesome that it's one of the most atmospheric scenarios I have ever played. If I had known ahead of time it was going to be a horror-toned scenario I would have been better able to appreciate it. Or avoid it, depending on my mood.


Great

4/5

All in all this lead to some great role playing. The GM has some options yet the story is pretty straight forward. The NPC can be clunky at times but this is a fantastic season 0 scenario.


Authors show their fantastic imagination.

4/5

I wasn't expecting much from this one. It's outdated by it's reference to 3.5 rules. Season 0 easy power level. No metaplot present to draw references to. And yet it totally won me over. Why? The authors have imagination!

I have to say, the writing here was great. Not only do we have a really rich fantasy adventure site in the form of Tri-Towers Yard, but we also have a storyline that is wrapped up in a neat little package and is revealed at critical points to the PCs. The implications of magic items is dealt with in a really intriguing way.

I honestly think it would be a service to the PFS community if a developer was given an afternoon to edit this module to be brought in line with the Pathfinder rules set. Introduce haunts, rewrite the stat blocks, swap the skill DCs. The writing here deserves it.


Very nice background, but dated by its age

3/5

Difficulty was a bit high, but we ended up having a good nice dungeon crawl


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Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Now available!

Scarab Sages

question concerning Quadiran faction mission (SPOILERS!):

Spoiler:
It says in the set of paragraphs after the conclusion that if the Quadiran purposefully fails his will save when an agent of the Saphire Sage scrys on him, he gets the point, but in the handout it says that Quadiran agents will be watching him. the saphire sage is the leader of the Osirions, so I'm just wondering if this is a mistake and it should be that an Agent of the Pasha will be trying to scry, or if this wasn't and has some hidden meaning attached. I'm only pointing this out since I hate inconsistancies...

Thank you for your time.


The PDF has been corrected and will be uploaded again shortly.

Spoiler:
The running text under the Faction Missions heading should read Pasha under the Qadira Faction heading and not Sapphire Sage.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Joshua J. Frost wrote:
The PDF has been corrected and will be uploaded again shortly.

And so it has been—repersonalize and redownload for the new version.

Scarab Sages

Cool. It is a great adventure incidently, and I can't wait to run it. Inconsitancies like that just pop out at me since I like to have a lot of subtext. the way the original was worded hinted at some kind of teaming up of Quadira and Osirion, which could have been interesting.

Spoiler:
also, and I hesitate to point this out since I hate when people do it to me, but I noticed that Taldor wasn't put into its own paragraph in the same area. instead it just runs on from Quadira to Taldor. again, I'm just trying to be helpful, but having cheliax, osirion and quadira with their own paragraph (and indented), and having Andoran not be indented and Taldor not have their own paragraph just sticks out.

Sovereign Court

Angry rant ahead...

Spoiler:
I... uh, I just got this scenario and read most parts of it.

I quickly read the encounters, and I stopped at Act 4 to scream "NO! THEY CAN'T DO THIS!" Tell me, how do you expect six 1st level characters to win that battle? Conclusion: They can't. It's impossible. Yes, impossible. I don't even see any place giving free oils of magic weapon or any real help that would make it even possible to get past that encounter. Even a second level cleric will need to have Charisma at least 14 to have the 5% chance to affect the allip. This encounter just begs the DM to softball it so much the Allip is going to have a happy carnival mask with a flowery halo on top.

I'm expecting a revision of this. I'm willing to mark this scenario as a mere two-star in case this obnoxious encounter is left in place. A prime example of this same mistake is a Living Greyhawk metaregional scenario, ESA6-02 Gift of the Tempest (IIRC), which also featured an Allip, killing at least 60% of the parties on the lowest APL.

Incorporeals - are - not - fair. Don't use 'em on low (1-3 levels) APLs. Period. I honestly don't understand what's so great about having tons of super-deadly scenarios.

Scarab Sages

I haven't read this scenario, but I will concur

Spoiler:
that encounters with incorporeal monsters can easily be a TPK for low level parties. If the melee classes have no magic weapons, they have no chance of hitting them. A wizard or sorcerer with magic missle has the best chance of killing them. As you said above, a cleric with a very high charisma might be able to turn an allip.
I remember an allip encounter in the first Freeport (Green Ronin) adventure that became a TPK, the first time my group tried it.

Sovereign Court

Boerngrim wrote:

I haven't read this scenario, but I will concur

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:
I actually thought of the possible ways to deal with the encounter with 1st level characters and 2nd level characters (only ones available at this time)...

1st level:
- A cleric/druid/sorcerer/wizard who has prepared any of the following spells: Cure Light Wounds, Disrupt Undead, Hide from Undead, Magic Missile (although futile, as an Allip gets 5hp for each successful drain), Magic Stone, Magic Weapon, Shillelagh
- A cleric with improved turning and charisma 14+ rolls 22 or more.
- A character of the Osirion faction can save at least herself by using the power of Attuned to the Ancestors.
- The party consists of the olympic team of Holy Water Throwers, preferably with Blind-fight. Nevertheless the allip has 22hp, so 6 characters would deal 15 points of damage in average per round (provided they hit all the time),... to cut it short, they'd need at least 3 holy waters per character, preferably 4. That'd cost 75-100gp per character. Costly.

2nd level:
- Same as above.
- A cleric with improved turning and/or good charisma, has to roll either 19+ or 22+.

Those are really the only ones that come into my mind. Magic fang is useless since all animals will flee from the unnatural undead. Most likely the only option for non-casters is to fling holy water flasks. It's a very expensive hobby.

Furthermore, removing the ability drain is expensive. It could easily render a promising start of a cleric/druid completely useless, forcing her to pay 380gp for the Restoration spell.

Nitpicks:
On page 10 the ring of sustenance is said to be in Cassiel's fingers, although it should be Junia.
Also, am I to understand the said ring isn't actually going to be accessible in the scenario? It appears in the chronicle sheet, sure, but it is the said artifact as well (a lousy one at that).


Deussu wrote:
** spoiler omitted **

Deussu,

I'm working on a fix for this issue that should be up in a day or so. Thanks for the feedback.

Sovereign Court

Joshua J. Frost wrote:
Deussu wrote:
** spoiler omitted **

Deussu,

I'm working on a fix for this issue that should be up in a day or so. Thanks for the feedback.

Excellent! Thank you! I'm running this adventure on 19th October, though for you it's closer to 18th (living in GMT+2). By then I'm sure something has been done. :) And I do feel the need to apologize for my (constantly) adrenaline-pumped text.

Spoiler:
I've been thinking of some softballing already. Either by clustering labeled oils of magic weapon, giving a fragile ghost touch sword which turns into dust in sunlight, and/or making the allip deal ability damage instead of drain.
My favorite would be to give the players an alternative, intriguing way to deal with it. Say it was to be succumb into a pool of holy water giving a scripted death. Or somewhere beneath the necropolis is a shrine of positive energy, activated through some clever manner. Whatever the reason, it should make the players feel like they won a very powerful enemy by using their wits.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Joshua J. Frost wrote:
Deussu wrote:
** spoiler omitted **

Deussu,

I'm working on a fix for this issue that should be up in a day or so. Thanks for the feedback.

Just wanted to mention that that fix was made last week. (We already e-mailed everybody who had purchased the scenario, but if you were waiting for the fix before you bought, wait no longer!)

Sovereign Court

Ah, so it would seem. I don't find any reference to updates on Black Waters from my email though. Nevertheless, I now have the updated version and I am happy.

The Exchange RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

I, too, purchased the scenario and received no email about a second correction.

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Chris Mortika wrote:
I, too, purchased the scenario and received no email about a second correction.

Sigh. Looks like our mail server was not on speaking terms with me at the time. I've resent it.

Liberty's Edge

Vic Wertz wrote:
Chris Mortika wrote:
I, too, purchased the scenario and received no email about a second correction.
Sigh. Looks like our mail server was not on speaking terms with me at the time. I've resent it.

I just hopped on to reDL it, grumbling all the while that I just DLed and printed it out yesterday. I'm glad to see that I don't have to reprint the module after all, but the additional notice is perhaps as confusing as missing the original message was...

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Shisumo wrote:
Vic Wertz wrote:
Chris Mortika wrote:
I, too, purchased the scenario and received no email about a second correction.
Sigh. Looks like our mail server was not on speaking terms with me at the time. I've resent it.
I just hopped on to reDL it, grumbling all the while that I just DLed and printed it out yesterday. I'm glad to see that I don't have to reprint the module after all, but the additional notice is perhaps as confusing as missing the original message was...

Hmm. Yep—I probably should have amended the notice to say that if you've downloaded it since October 10th, you have the latest version and there's no need to download it again...

Grand Lodge

Was this updated to the Pathfinder system yet? I saw that it was slated to be, but haven't seen any updates. Now that there's a Season 7 sequel, I'm hoping to run both.

Silver Crusade

One more request for an update, especially since theres a Season 7 sequel.


There isn't a chronicle sheet for this on the additional resources page.

Here it's not.

Grand Lodge

Calthrox wrote:

There isn't a chronicle sheet for this on the additional resources page.

Here it's not.

I'm confused. Why would there be? It's in the pdf on the final page? There's not much there, granted, but it exists.

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