A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st to 7th level characters (Tiers: 1–2, 3–4, and 6–7).
You are sent to Aspis Consortium-infested Bloodcove to gather supplies for a nearly doomed Pathfinder mission nearby. Disguised as ordinary merchants, you have little time to gather what you need and get out before the Consortium discovers and destroys you.
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 love the open ended feel of this scenario, and how versatile the writing was in what it allows PCs to disguise their action in Bloodcove. Also the awareness point mechanic was good and the combats in the scenario were challenging and appropriate. Played it at the 1-2 subtler and every combat was tense (thanks mostly to amazing rolls in the first). Everyone who played it enjoyed it and I certainly enjoyed playing it when I did as well. The custom NPCs were also well written and enjoyable.
My perspective on this scenario is as a player. For reference, I played it in the lower tier (1-2). Be warned, spoilers may follow!
Story
This scenario has a brilliant introduction and layout. Its depth of scenario isn't exactly what I would call groundbreaking, but it allows the players to delve into Bloodcove's mood with ease.
Story score: 3/5
Roleplay
Many roleplaying opportunities are present in the scenario, including a few with villains or at least despicable characters. As stated previously, the mood in Bloodcove is rich, and the roleplay is also influenced by the paranoia the players should have about who might be Aspis and who can really be trusted.
Roleplay score: 4/5
Encounters
Varied, but nothing revolutionary in terms of novelty. I liked the fact that there was two NPCs with classes from the APG, it's an excellent change.
Encounters score: 3/5
Mechanics
The whole scenario revolves around the mechanics of players that can be discovered by the Aspis consortium and captured. This is certainly a great idea, though as a player I only felt I could get discovered by failing the checks to move from one location to another. I don't know for sure if you can be spotted according to your actions in the various locations you visit, but it'd great if you could.
Mechanics score: 4/5
Overall, the Bloodcove Disguise is a very enjoyable scenario, albeit a little easy, by season four's standards. Its sandbox nature also makes it naturally more interesting and motivating for the players, albeit a little shallower on the storyline. I'll be looking forward to playing the next scenario, a direct followup to this one, apparently!
Total: 4/5
This was my first Pathfinder adventure and my first Pathfinder Society experience. I agree with this review http://paizo.com/people/pathar/reviews.
The person writing this has more insight into the workings of Pathfinder Society Events but in the two that I have been in I have clearly seen that there is a randomness in the mix of players, characters, and styles which makes an adventure that requires "ALL" characters to make specific types of rolls seems to put the entire party in a position where they are painted into a box that they may not be able to escape. Our party was lucky in that we compared notes and verified that we had only two possibilities based on the skills that the checks needed - the other choices involved skills that we could not attempt untrained! Since I have not played part two - I'm not sure how successful we were and what the impact will be - but I will say it was a difficult scenario mainly due to the lack of skills. BTW - we played this at 1st level.
There is so much flexibility and opportunity for Gm involvement in this one. Their hands arent tied by terrible tactic sections per usual. With a great GM , we had a 5-star experience and the scenario made it easy. For a regular or not willing to put in th eeffort GM, this one may suffer a bit as it wont give the full effect.
This was a great module, and the problem I have lies not with it, but with the way it sets up the sequel. I love the idea of having to be subtle. And I love the idea of it having repercussions if we aren't.
In home games.
In Society play, however, you will often find yourself at a table where no one has any non-combat skills. At which point, having everyone make skill checks they are destined to fail every time they do everything is ... irksome.
Look, there's no way to balance a party in Society play. We show up with the characters we have, we play the adventure we signed up for, and if it requires a set of skills that nobody has--or it requires EVERYBODY to have skills--we're just out of luck. Which is unfortunate because it doesn't account for the player base of PFS (at least based on my experience), and it certainly doesn't fit the roleplaying aspect of the world ... unless the venture captain in charge of this assignment INTENTIONALLY picked the worst possible team to send on this mission?
Running this adventure in five minutes here at Gen Con. You need flip mat water front tavern.
You will also want map pack inns, cities, waterfront, and jungle.
OMG. In addition to being one of the funniest beings on this planet, Crystal Frasier can write scenarios. Good ones. "Sandbox in Mwangi with APG content and Lizards named Omb" good.
Paizo ! Immediately redirect Crystal to scenario writing duty ! Halve the food rations ! Triple the workload ! Threaten to have Jason B eat an alive octopus in the middle of Paizo office unless more Crystal modules are written ! And if all else fails, RELEASE THE KRAKEN !
