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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I really enjoyed this game and it's turns and twists. I felt the encounters were fair and this was really quite enjoyable. Totally worth the playthrough and definitely on my wish list.
Craig Shackleton is quickly becoming one of my favorite Pathfinder Society module writers. He knows how to twist together a well written tale that involves roleplaying, fighting, fun environments, and twists and turns in his stories. Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible, while being one of the worst named modules to date (simply because it's not really an assault on The Kingdom of the Impossible, but rather its enemies), again delivers his unique module design mix.
While not outright difficult, Craig understands that modules are best designed to be a set of connected encounters that alone may not outright kill a party, but together provide the right backdrop to the story and combined challenge for the party. Again this was the case; by using unique environments and opportunities for every class to shine, this module really felt like the right tone and feel we enjoy in our PFS games. Furthermore, the module not only adds in fun roleplay situations (rather than the standard set of combat encounters), it rewards good roleplaying with in-game benefits, something that's been lacking in a lot of other society adventures.
Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible (or as our GM called it, "Journey to the Center of the Kingdom of the Unpossible") is easily one of the top adventures we've had in society play yet. Highly recommended.
My absolute favorite part of this adventure though...
Spoiler:
That your reward is dependent on your actions during the adventure. I have yet to see this in any other module and frankly the idea is brilliant.
This is Craig’s 3rd scenario contribution to Pathfinder Society. He set the bar for himself very high with PFS#4 Frozen Fingers of Midnight. This scenario was not quite as enjoyable but again has a lot of role-playing opportunities. If you have ever lamented that your ‘face’ character concept never has a chance to shine, this scenario will restore your faith in bards and charismatic rogues. The combats are a bit of a yawn at Sub-Tier 1-2 but become a lot more fun at Sub-Tier 4-5. The faction missions were better than average and contributed to the story. Campaign world flavor was average. I don’t think that Jalmeray is going to be remembered when players look back at this scenario.
Assault on the Kingdom of the Impossible can be a challenge to run as a GM. The author has enabled players to attack the encounters a variety of ways, which makes it tough for GMs who have trouble ad-libbing and improvising skill checks. I only wish I could do a better Indian accent.
Those of you who have complained about the lack of consequences in Pathfinder Society will be happy to see something before unseen on the Chronicle sheet. It isn’t much, but it is a promising change in the direction of the campaign.
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.
