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

PZOPSS0006E


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4.00/5 (based on 38 ratings)

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Too bad this one is going to be retired...

5/5

Great adventure! Play it while it's still available!


4/5

Played this scenario for the first time yesterday and even with a sub par GM, it was clear this module was well thought out, intelligent and in many ways a master piece. I think it's a shame it's being retired.
The only flaw and the reason it loses one star is the overuse of Undead, which hurt some characters (like my Bone Oracle, and the rogue) disproportionately. Overall, good job.


First time with organized play

4/5

I just tried this last night and it was my first time trying organized play. It was loads of fun based on the individual quests.

Spoiler alert:
we had a Cheliax opera singer dramatically fall to hear knees screaming NOOO!!!! As the black pool of water started to drain before she had gotten the sample needed. We were all stunned after we realized that the grieving father was unaware of what had passed during the last 10 years and that he was convinced that he was just lending a hand to school.

It was an adventure that was able to stimulate us all, and I enjoyed it (even if we had a close call with the total party kill encounter).
All in all a great adventure that which was only improved by the skillful game mastering of Diego, and after this scenario I’m sure my character Ali Al’Barduet will find his way to another organized play.


Fairly straight forward

3/5

This was a decent adventure, pretty straight forward, mostly just a dungeon crawl. The whole creepy dead children vibe did give it some edge but ultimately it suffered.

My feeling is this adventure is much better if you have a group that really enjoys role playing. My PFS group tend to be more down to business so they really kind of blew through some of the interesting role-play/ plot elements in the game which pretty much killed the plot twist.


Great theme, lackluster play

4/5

I ran Black Waters as a GM yesterday for a full group at Tier 1-2 with characters that could typically consider playing up to Tier 4-5. Unfortunately the way this module was written I warned them flat out that doing so would result in a TPK. They (thankfully) took my advice. This is due to the inclusion of creatures which level 1-2 characters do not have the equipment available to handle, nothing more.

I first read Black Waters and hated it. The encounters as written are boring and too easily swing between "this is too easy" and "this is too hard" depending entirely on the group's equipment and headcount. One encounter in Tier 4-5 play is pretty much impossible for a level 3 group with six people to complete without the right equipment (which at that level they may or may not be able to afford). The climax is easier than the fight before it and although it has a fantastically cool effect, it just doesn't flow well. Finally, while I loved that the adventure doesn't end when the characters find the Macguffin, your group can get far too bogged down with the "have we searched everything?" mentality of regular home campaigns.

After putting it down for a few days in an attempt to find a different module I went back because frankly through all those problems, the story is really quite good and has fantastic unexpected twists. So I did the unheard of (Josh plug your ears), I tweaked it a bit. Moving around a couple encounters, adding in a couple very low level monsters as canon fodder, and changing things up a bit made the really boring into something the group really enjoyed. It still had some of the fundamental problems I mentioned, and the group did get bogged down at times, but overall it worked out well.

I was ready to give this mod a 2 star review on gameplay alone. It gets a third because it has some fantastically fun roleplay built in and an utterly fantastic story. With a little bit of work it can turn into something immanently playable.

Edit: While I think the mod is average due to the conversion issues, it should be noted that in a poll of my group for "their favorite module to date", three mentioned The Black Waters, which says something about how well thought-through the story is. It's difficult to run well, but if you turn the creepiness factor up to ten, it can be a very memorable module. For this, I have added one star to my rating.


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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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