A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st to 7th level characters (Tiers: 1–2,
3–4, and 6–7).
When the son of a famous Pathfinder gains control of his father's holdings in Taldor, the Pathfinder Society decides to build a new lodge there as a base to explore the many ruins of that crumbling empire. Unfortunately, the Taldan Phalanx has its eye on the holdings and an ancient curse has turned many of the residents into the walking dead. Can you survive the tangled web of Taldor's politics and fight off the echoes of the past or will you, too, see your glory decline?
Written by Tim Hitchcock
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.
Product Availability
Fulfilled immediately.
Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at
store@paizo.com.
Human Paladin 7, Halfling Cavalier 6 with worg mount, Human Fighter 6, Aasimar Oracle 6, Tiefling Rogue 1/Void Elementalist 2/Snakebite Striker 1 and Pregen level 7 Harsk
This scenario is really well written and an overall enjoyable adventure, if it weren't for nearly all the fights being in very annoying terrain. One fight in such a terrain okay, but 3/4th is just pushing it.
mechanic rant:
You want to play a small race? Here start making swim checks during 3 of the 4 combats unless you happen to be mounted or want to use ranged, in which case you get a -2 to hit and 20% misschance.
You want to tumble out of trouble? Do you have a 40 ft movementspeed? No? Too bad, no tumbling for you in 3 of the 4 fights. Or if you're positioned wrong no tumbling at all.
Now that rant is over, on to the good parts.
The fights themselves were interesting, and though we had to rush the ending due to time we had a lot of fun roleplaying our way through the various bits where we could use social skills.
from gm side: had a fun time running the adventure but a lot of underpowed encounters on the 3-4 side... several one hit kills and the threat of most monsters diesease or ability damage just didnt add up... as well as a 13 ac bbeg..... just a pitful creature.
Upon my first read-through of 'Decline of Glory' I wasn't really enthused about running it. It seems Season 0's first choice of monster anywhere is always ghouls and zombies and I was aching for some variety in monsters. I couldn't see any real variation in the story and aside from an awesome finale, the rest of the adventure seemed pretty dry (despite the constant rain modifiers).
Boy, was I wrong! At subtier 1-2. this is a solid 3.5 star scenario and a great 'character test' of what sort of Pathfinders your players actually are. There are tonnes of moral decisions embedded in the deceptively short word count and during running, all of these 'big decisions' came out swinging.
Pros:
-There are loads of decisisons here. Do we use the last Scroll of Remove Disease on the son of a Pathfinder - or do we use it on a team mate? Do we remain to protect the village or do we venture off into the woods? Do we steal the locked box or do we ask for it politely? They are pretty tough as well... Kudos to Hitchcock.
-The finale is awesome. I love any 'defend the base' situation, and with a potential seven ghouls vs a team of newbie Pathfinders, I am delighted with this one >:)
-A novel and believable realistic situation is the source of conflict, and a lot flows from this into guiding the PCs hands. You almost forget that there actually is a macguffin!
-Amazing gold for a Subtier 1-2 scenario. Yummy :)
Cons:
-Season 0 suffered from undead overload.
-There is very little explanation about why the nearby woods are infested with ghouls. Let us use Knowledge History to know that it's always been like this, or say that some necromancers have moved in recently. Run as written, the undead element may actually detract from the real meat of the scenario, unless properly explained by GM fiat.
-The flooded cavern combat makes it very easy for a party with any kind of ranged capability to deal with 75% of the encounter without taking any damage whatsoever. Bit of a slaughter, really.
I ran this for a crew of four PCs at the middle tier. Frankly, they trounced it. It was extremely easy - so easy, in fact, that the boss was dropped in a single hit. The storyline is acceptable, but it does require some GM massaging to make it all come together. There are a lot of fights, especially the first few, which are throwaways and seem only included to take up time. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't really memorable either.
I'm a bit confused by the counts of the final combat.
Spoiler:
The Tier 1-2 for the Distillery lists Grald and 4 Phalanx guards. The Distillery is then attacked at 4 points. Is Point A Grald + 4 guards and then area b, c, and d have 4 guards? Is Point A Grald + 1 guard at Point A while 1 guard is at b, c, and d?
2 guards came in at 1 side and the boss with 2 other guards attacked the front. This made it easier because we were mostly newbies and I was a cavalier so my horse got left behind in the swamp.
I'm about to host this one today, and I was wondering, whether I should add some level of difficulty since the group has a gunslinger.
In act 1:
for example speeding up how fast the next guard team arrives? Firearms can be heard quite far when compared to the normal clash of steel against steel etc. so I think it might be plausible if it took a little less than 10 rounds (I was thinkin 5 rounds, not less) for next group to join the fight. Besides, since this is season 0 scenario, those stats the guards have are bit of a joke anyway.
