A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st to 7th level characters (Tiers: 1–2, 3–4, 6–7).
Famed Pathfinder Bodriggan Wuthers disappeared from his dig site beneath the House of the Immortal Son in Taldor's gilded capital of Oppara. Once a grand temple to Aroden, the Immortal Son is now Oppara's most opulent theater. Sent to locate Wuthers, the Pathfinders must attend an opera with members of the Oppara elite in order to gain access to the secretive theater's dig site. When a cult crashes the performance and the nobility change into hideous walking dead, the Pathfinders are forced to choose between finding Wuthers or saving themselves.
Written by Joshua J. Frost
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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I thought this was fairly standard (combat orientated) faire and although the setting is pretty cool, it's up to the GM to make or break the setting with details and roleplay. This scenario could have been really creepy, but it's open to GM interpretation because the scenario doesn't suggest anything of the sort (and would probably offend some people if it did).
I found several things unbelievable, which kind of ruined my suspension of disbelief. For example,
Spoiler:
After the first encounter, it's hard to believe everyone, EVERYONE, in the opera is dead. It took us 2 rounds to beat the first encounter and we turn around and everyone in the opera was dead. Stupid.
We should have had the chance to rescue some people (that were being attacked) and lead people to a safe place. People should have been hiding in some of the empty rooms, the enemy at the door trying to get in.
Also, no one had any items or money on them, which makes no sense considering they were nobles. If this were regular home play, we should have made tonnes of money. Which is just yet another reason why it makes the sense that most of the opera should have been barricaded into one room, fearing for their lives, so we have limited loot options.
There should have also been more options to find armor and weapons on the ground, in case PCs decided to dress up and take limited armor and weapons.
It also could have worked out better if some of the NPCs help you fight (ala Decline of Glory), then you can have these epic fights that are much above their APL, but still possible.
Also, I don't like that Frost gave some of the enemy picks (x4 crit damage), it's the perfect way to ruin someone's introduction to PF (or make the DM fudge).
This is a short scenario (2 hours) and can be played up with the normal risk (because of non-optimal spell selection).
With the right GM (and changes to the scenario to make it more believable), this scenario could be 4 stars (maybe even 5 with awesome roleplay details and a massive royal rumble and chaos), but I think it's more typical that it's a 3 star with most GMs.
As a relatively new player (new to PFS but old to D&D), I enjoyed the details of this module--the opera, the snobs, the cocky enemy behind it all. The PFS mission set-up was a bit obvious--of COURSE the Pathfinder archaeologist was duped!--but for the kids in our group, the faction goals were simple enough to accomplish between hacking up zombies. And we DID hack up a LOT of zombies! :) (And our newer players learned which weapons and spells don't work against zombies.) We lost one 2nd-level PC in the final battle, but we had enough cash to raise him. Overall, I liked playing this module, and it helped me learn about Taldor. All good.
For a year 0 mod this one delivers. It present Taldor in such a light that you can see why it is in decline.
Your characters will be talking about this one many mods later.
A well thought out story with some interesting characters. The combats are where this mod really shines. They are well built and can challenge veteran playing groups which is hard to find in pathfinder society mods.
From reading the module description above, both players & DMs know pretty much what they are getting into, and it's a fun ride! There are some great role-playing moments and combat encounters are interesting -- although players mostly know what to expect. Keep in mind that this is a "funhouse" module where PCs wander from room to room and the monsters jump out. Inexperienced PCs may need some prompting to get them moving in the right direction. Faction goals were a little weak but easy enough to accomplish.
Here's my suggestion to potential DMs: develop the NPCs very strongly at the beginning. Play up the snobbish Taldan attitudes (a Paris Hilton-esque spoiled rich girl who needs a bad boy to piss off her parents, or the boys club of braggarts, scoffing generals) and develop some NPCs for sympathy (slave boy ordered by his child master to insult an ugly character, lost little girl, ostracized intellectual). Later, when these NPCs come back as zombies out for blood, watch your PCs attack with glee or regret their attacks to put the zombies down.
I am running this module in a week. Does anyone have any advice or previously done updates for the monsters in this module? If so, can you post them or tell me where to view them? The module is written in 3.5 rules and the new pathfinder rules do not exactly match up with some of the enemies in the module.
I am running this module in a week. Does anyone have any advice or previously done updates for the monsters in this module? If so, can you post them or tell me where to view them? The module is written in 3.5 rules and the new pathfinder rules do not exactly match up with some of the enemies in the module.
I ran it a week or so back without any modification and it worked fine.
I ran it 2-3 weeks ago and I ran it with minimal changes. All I did was figure out the CMD and CMB on the fly. Very free flowing mod. #49 Among the Dead deals with its fall out.
If you have the time you can really make this really scary. Due to some bad rolls it was almost a TPK, but due to a member of the party getting creative, saved all of the party. (and I didn't have to bend the rules!)
they contain minor spoilers so people who have not played this mod should not read them.
Spoiler:
Should the ogre zombie use a weapon or slam attack? Obviously the weapon is WAY more dangerous than the slam.
and...
Spoiler:
I am trying to create the ogre, bugbear, minotaur, and grey render zombies using the pathfinder rules. Do you feel these monsters transfer to fair, fun, and balanced fights using the pathfinder rules?
We played this recently with a 6 person party with two pregen's played by inexperienced players. This slowed down the play quite a bit in the early going. I personally did not like the way this adventure railroaded us in the early going.
Specifically:
Plot Spoiler:
We were told that without proper clothing we could not attend - we would literally be thrown out. Brand new characters like our Pregen's did not have enough money to even buy the lowest attire! Our GM was kind enough to permit rental when one of us thought of that option (although at a steep 1/3 normal purchase price) and he also allowed us to take all of our gear under oversized clothing. A bit unrealistic but not irrational given the railroading.
I personally liked the module despite the railroading. The adventure aspect of it was a bit predictable but it flowed naturally and without too much goofy nonesense.
One thing that bugged me about the railroad was:
Plot Spoiler:
The fact that we could not save anyone except for the specifically called out NPC. Also the lack of money and items on the dead made no sense.
Another area that can be a problem in society play is that at a low tier you can end up in trouble in a module like this:
Spoiler:
The DR of Zombie's seems minor but when you have no control over a party and what they bring to the table it can suck. We started with six characters but the pregen character's players had to leave early. The real problem came when we realized that the remaining characters were geared for anything but Zombies. The brawler's primary attacks were unarmed (bludgeoning), the crossbowman (piercing), the cleric (bludgeoning). Luckily the fighter had an Axe (Slashing) and the brawler had a short sword (slashing) and a dagger (slashing). However due to the way the terrain was laid out there was a lot of difficulty bringing concentrated firepower to bear on the problem and the evil clerics healing the zombies and making more was not good given our situation.
On top of the difficulty that some of the encounters could pose for a 4 person group, the terrain at times made for some challenges as well:
Spoiler:
The difficult terrain in the subterranian space was a major problem. Not being able to 5' to reposition in combat without an AoO was a huge issue. My fighter with a 23 AC fighting defensively took AoO x4 crit and went down just trying to stay out of flanked position. The tunnel sections limiting movement and bottlenecks caused which allowed for missile weapons to be shot at us didn't help either.
GM Question:
One question - our GM was unable to find the Death Touch ability defined anywhere - does anyone know what it was supposed to do? He winged it and I think it was fine but it would be nice to know.
It's a D&D 3.5 Death Domain ability:
Death Domain
Granted Power
You may use a death touch once per day. Your death touch is a supernatural ability that produces a death effect. You must succeed on a melee touch attack against a living creature (using the rules for touch spells). When you touch, roll 1d6 per cleric level you possess. If the total at least equals the creature’s current hit points, it dies (no save).
