A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st to 5th level characters (Tiers: 1–2 and 4-5).
The Pathfinder Society sends you to the fabled Kingdom of the Impossible, the island of Jalmeray, to stop an Aspis Consortium black market relics dealer who is organizing the local bandits and violently robbing Jalmeray and Pathfinder Society caravans laden with relics, artifacts, and magical mysteries. When a venture-captain is murdered by the Aspis Consortium agent, it's up to the PCs to find him and do whatever it takes to stop him.
Written by Craig Shackleton
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 Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.
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This adventure does the opposite of almost every adventure ever!
First off as your venture captain tells you. You should lose, yes lose the first fight! But make it look good.
A clever DM can make this advenutre difficult for PCs wanting to fight their way through it. I killed all the PCs pets and then they decided to try another tactics. The scripts and such for the fights are awesome in that they allow a realisitic means to get through other than killing everything. This goes all the way through to the end! I love it.
So, I managed to run this scenario in 45 minutes. Why? The spoilers are below.
Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible Spoilers:
I consider this to be a fun little scenario, but it suffers from a few things. It's great that every fight can be talked out of. I mean that - I really wish that there was more of this in PFS, because it is very realistic. Unfortunately, for parties that are not roleplay heavy, this means that it can tend to run rather short. If the party does choose to engage in the combat, though, it is still pretty easy.
All in all, I consider it to be a fun little filler, not terribly difficult, but have a second scenario planned just in case.
"Using the twin guns of grace and tact, I blasted our enemy with a fair compromise" --Zapp Brannigan
Assault is an extremely good scenario, with ample opportunities for all types of play. It is unusual in the high number of encounters that can be bypassed via Diplomacy, so if you don't think that's a good thing, you may strongly disagree with my review.
Challenge (2.5/5)::
It isn't easy to judge the full difficulty of this scenario, despite having run it, due to the sheer amount of fights that you can talk down. In fact, I've generally seen over half of the fights ended via Diplomacy, including the BBEG fight with Zamir. The opponents seem fairly respectable, and one of the most amusing challenges is in actually losing a fight when necessary! I'll rate it down from 3/5 to 2.5/5 just because the Diplomacy DCs are low enough that any real Diplomacy character can just end everything if they do decide to take the talkie route.
Interesting Encounters (4/5)::
Okay, it's true. Most of these encounters are some dudes (and a training dummy) in a ruin. Standard fare. One of the encounters in said ruins has the somewhat-interesting twist that the monks attempt to pose as statues. The main reason for the high score is the first encounter. This is one of the most creative battles in PFS because the PCs have to lose. Letting Zamir's agents escape with the fake Scepter of the Arclords while making it look like a real fight and dealing with the added factor of the Thakur's men who aren't in on the con can be highly amusing and is quite non-standard. This could fall flat if you don't play up the importance of keeping the con secret. Even though the scenario itself has no mechanic for the NPCs figuring out the ruse, make the PCs roll Bluff checks and roll as if you were Sensing Motive, calling out players who have their characters do creative things to help make the ruse more convincing.
Roleplaying Opportunities (4.5/5)::
Except the thieves you are conning into stealing your fake artifact, just about everything else is a potential roleplaying encounter. Add in the faction missions, which encourage RP, and you can have a huge amount of fun. Obviously, you need a GM who can bring these NPCs to life, so I don't recommend this scenario if that isn't your cup of tea. Even the most bloodthirsty of parties will still get to RP with the Thakur's men, and potentially pursue some faction missions with them. This gives a good chance to show an outside view of the situation from a force other than the Society or the Consortium. The Tiger monks and bandits can be reasoned with and convinced to switch sides. In my first run of this scenario, the Zen Archer PC was training with the monks and the Taldan Cavalier kept trying to mimic their moves, adopting a hilariously Taldan-racist version of their stances and trying to strike unarmed (to succeed at the mission to learn the moves of the style). The slaves offer an opportunity for some interplay if you have both Andoran/Silver Crusade and Cheliax/Shadow Lodge characters at your table. If the Andoran is loudly offering all of them their freedom and the Cheliax character rolls poorly on social skills like intimidate, have the woman in question look to the the Andoran PC as a protector. This can later give the Cheliax PC a chance to trick the Andoran PC into making the check for him, if he is clever. Zamir himself can even be convinced to stand down by successful Diplomacy, and indeed Qadirans get to do some textile wheeling and dealing with him. To make the final encounter more than just a Diplomacy check, have him be at first skeptical that the PCs would be willing to offer him a job after he assassinated their Venture Captain (Zamir himself is not a merciful man, so he might have trouble accepting that other people would think that way). Have them state some arguments as to why he would be better off working with the Society to fulfill his own goals (if the PCs flounder on this, you can call for some Knowledge rolls to point out that the Consortium is untrustworthy and that its agents are more secretive than the Society's and thus less likely to gain a celebrity status like the one he desires). This could have achieved a 5/5 if it had more guidance for making the RP encounters memorable and not just a "roll Diplomacy", as some of the reviews before mine attest it can be in the hands of a less prepared GM.
Golarion Flavor / Continuity (3.5/5)::
Nowadays we've also got Cult of the Ebon Destroyer, but back then, Assault was the only gateway I'm aware of to Jalmeray and all the cool India-inspired fantasy that lies therein. The adventure makes sense that the PFS would be involved, and it all logically hangs together. Unfortunately, it doesn't really include too many Jalmeray elements in it explicitly like CotED, although the GM can certainly add the embellishments if she has time. Everything in the scenario fits for Jalmeray, it's just that the PCs don't encounter monsters or customs that exude the flavor in such a way to help a GM who owned just this scenario convey it. Still, the monks and such are cool, so I was debating between 3 and 3.5. In the end, the scenario gets a 3.5 for teaching me that the leader of Jalmeray was the Thakur, so I could get it right at the Paizocon 2011 Trivia Contest, as one of my few contributions to my amazing team.
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 setting of Jalmeray, the encounter where you have to lose, some of the faction missions, and the number of possibilities for RP are all awesome. The boon is a nice touch too. The only thing that I would consider anti-awesome is the potential for this scenario to be a pitfall for a starting GM, as it may not give enough to guide them through the RP encounters as more than just a "roll your Diplomacy".
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, Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible's lowish 4/5 (it had an average of 3.7) means that the scenario is very good and fun to play. This places it at about "Paizo average" quality, but only because Paizo's quality tends to be high, so I expect a high median quality from them. Again, stay away from this scenario as a GM if you aren't prepared for some immersive RP (and as usual for PFS scenarios, wordcount is at a premium, so be ready to make up a lot of the content of that RP, beyond the gist of the situation, yourself). If you can do that, and particularly if you can do a bit of research into Jalmeray, your group will remember this scenario for a long time.
My only complaint with "Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible" is that it is yet another mission that is heinously challenging for good aligned PCs, as your options from the Society are either "Kill the big bad" or "Make him work for us- and we'd really rather he worked for us."
For those of us who left Living Greyhawk and migrated to Pathfinder Society hoping for a new harbor instead of 4th Edition D&D, this is once again one of those mods that reinforces my belief that campaign HQ isn't making it a priority for good characters to have the opportunity to be genuinely heroic. The situation almost came to blows at my table when a PC who was passing himself off as neutral (because you're not allowed to be Evil, so you write Neutral on your character sheet and then act however you want...) started doing really despicable things and another started making deals with slavers...I had to make my Good-aligned Andoran character walk on the mission because there was no way in character I could allow those things to happen without trying to stop them.
All in all, the WRITING in this module is fantastic, I just wish Paizo had more stuff out there for those of us who actually want to play good guys.
That and I'm adding this module to my checklist of mods not to run if there's a Paladin on the table- I don't want to be responsible for taking someone's powers away, and if you're really adhering to the Lawful Good is Lawful Good thing and not watering it down, there's almost no way to avoid that in this scenario unless you're at a table of all Good PCs who decide that the Pathfinder Society is a little too mercenary for its own good and you're going to resolve the situation as YOU see fit. Unfortunately, there are precious few such PCs in my area.
For those of us who left Living Greyhawk and migrated to Pathfinder Society hoping for a new harbor instead of 4th Edition D&D, this is once again one of those mods that reinforces my belief that campaign HQ isn't making it a priority for good characters to have the opportunity to be genuinely heroic.
Well, I'm the only one at campaign HQ, so you can just call me "Josh." :-)
Paladins are a challenge. In Pathfinder Society, they are part of an organization that is not lawful and is not good. If they're part of the Cheliax, Taldor, or Qadira faction, they are also likely asked once or twice per scenario to do something that goes against their code.
I'm cognizant of Paladins and the challenge they (and to a lesser extent, good characters in general) present in adventure design. This is not the first complaint of this type that I've heard. In fact, I added class suggestions to version 2.0 of the guide to give both my designers and current and prospective players suggestions on where to go with a Paladin character. I think in 2.1, I need to add additional suggestions for GMs and players on how to play a Paladin in an Organized Play environment.
For this particular scenario, the greater good is the thing.
Spoiler:
Should the PCs kill or bring the bad guy over to their side, it removes a bandit lord from power and spares the northern part of the island from his potentially evil ways.
While some GMs and players might see the spoiler as an impossible idea to overcome as a Paladin, I don't. I see the Paladin doing what is necessary to establish and maintain the greater good. I'll be adding language in 2.1 to spell this out a little better.
Regardless, thank you for the feedback. We here at campaign HQ (known collectively as "me") can only improve the Society with your experiences and I appreciate criticism and try to improve the Society with it.
Good thoughts; I appreciate your openness and I look forward to see what you guys have coming next.
Again, please don't get me wrong- you've come out with some great, well-written scenarios and the world of Golarion in general is an excellent setting; I just hope there will be more of a place for us good heroes in it as the campaign expands- which it sounds like you're trying to make, so thank you. =)
Without checking the spoilers - this is one of the mods I'll likely be playing with my Sorc/Paladin (going Dragon Disc) in a couple of weeks. If I end up in this one I'll let you know how I got on.
Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible, while being one of the worst named modules to date (it neither involves the impossible or a kingdom for that matter), again delivers his unique module design mix.
This scenario takes place on the Isle of Jalmeray, which is known as the Kingdom of the Impossible.
By the by, does this scenario happen to have a map of the whole island of Jalmeray, or just a portion of it? And does it have any new info on the island kingdom?
I've just started playing in a game in the Katapesh / Nex area, and if it has enough campaign setting-usable material in it, I might grab this... :)
Your Friendly Neighborhood Dalesman
"Bringing Big D**n Justice to the Bad Guys Since 1369 DR"
The text on page 5 says "They are camped exactly on the ambush site described in Waman’s itinerary." But why on earth would Waman point out they were going to be ambushed. It doesn't make sense in the slightest. Unless I've missed something?
There seem to be quite a number of slip-ups like this in PF modules. I've only run season 0 and 1 so far, so hopefully these errors get less.
I'd like to see more roleplaying and less dungeon-crawl mods too, with complicated decisions required by the PCs. Decisions where they have to weigh multiple consequences, and where the right decision is not clear (or they're all bad!). Just a hope.
The secondary success condition for this scenario is disgusting.
Please either change it, or retire the scenario.
Secondary Success Condition:
You get an extra PP if you recruit a slaver, someone who is kidnapping people and forcing them to labor in the equivalent of magical sweat shop as slaves, into the Society.
