A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 7th to 11th level characters (Tiers: 7-8 and 10-11).
A priceless manuscript has gone missing from the Pathfinder lodge in Almas, and the Pathfinder Society has traced its current whereabouts to a remote monastery off the coast of southwestern Nex. Arriving at the Monastery of the Unremitting Tide, the PCs face the suspicious scholars who study there, and in the process risk enraging an ancient spirit and uncovering a long-lost secret that, more than possibly costing them the stolen manuscript, could cost them their very lives.
Written by Martin Long
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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Having played and ran this scenario now, at high and low tier respectively, I can say this is a solid scenario. There are no particularly bad or good points to it, save some weak encounters. However, I feel those weak encounters make a certain amount of sense.
The story has a unique twist that most players will not see coming. It also has the tools available to the GM to ratchet up player paranoia if played right. More importantly, the players will actually learn the tale being told while they are playing, not just while the chronicles are being handed out.
There are also a handful of interesting NPCs to encourage roleplay, for which I am particularly grateful. Slipping into the persona of the big bad was a enjoyable romp, and non-murderhobo PCs are rewarded for once with enemies that aren't set to kill.
This was by far my most memorable game at Gencon. The final fight is tough, and for a group with two ranged rangers the early fights were wicked annoying. There is also plenty of room to roleplay, at the beginining of the last room, but you need to be willing to bring someone away from the table to really prevent metagaming for it to have its full effects..
After reading Collector, I agree with the other reviewer: It's convoluted and messy, and there are many things that won't make sense to either the GM or the players.
Most of the encounters are super easy and high level groups will just crush them unless the NPC tactics are substantially improved, to at least make it interesting.
”Tactics”:
NPCs need good tactics to give them a fighting chance. Wouldn’t it be nice to showcase the monk’s abilities with a solid build and good tactics, so that it would dispel the myth that they’re a terrible class instead of reinforcing it?
On the other extreme, one encounter is so deadly it’s virtually guaranteed to kill at least 1+ PCs at subtier 10-11 (and is super weak at subtier 7-8). Did anyone playtest and crunch numbers, or was that intended? Sigh.
In the future, I'd like to see either the authors or the editor do a better job when it comes to balancing encounters and making reasonable tactics. We shouldn't see encounters that are ridiculously easy or completely unfair death traps.
The scenario isn’t all bad of course.
1) If you simplify and make changes to the background story, it’s somewhat interesting and unique.
2) Unlike other scenarios, the background to the scenario will be revealed. I really like this! Unfortunately, the NPC doing the delivery is annoying as written (and won’t promote much sympathy). I wish the NPC had a different personality, it would make it *harder* on the PCs to decide what to do next, not easier.
3) The environment (of the first encounter) feels somewhat exotic and it invokes cool Kung Fu images in my mind. Unfortunately, the NPCs will get schooled so badly, those visions will never emerge.
The ending:
Alas, the story finally ends in a very unsatisfying way. To me, the ending doesn’t feel heroic. It feels like you "do your job", but justice isn't served. Besides being "evil" (which makes no sense, her race is 'good' and she sacrificed her life to save others. It doesn't add up.) and trash talking us ("meat"), did the boss really deserve her fate? All she wanted to do was take back what was arguably hers and stop her pain. If you were being constantly tortured, isn’t this something you'd want to do? Is that so wrong? No, I don't think so. Unfortunately, we're Pathfinders which means all we care about is the book because we’re a bunch of mercenaries who follow orders without thinking. Well, most of us. :)
For me, I think I need to tweak or make an alternate ending, to at least make it justifiable that we kill her.
Currently, it's just depressing, which just makes the scenario feel even worse imo. Then again, most PF players I see just mercilessly beat the crap out of any enemy they see without thinking about it, so perhaps it won't matter to 90% of the players and GMs out there.
Collector has the potential to be a very memorable scenario and has a unique storyline, however it's not polished and needs major modifications before I think it would be fun for my home group.
I had the opportunity to play this module at a local convention a few weeks ago. I was disappointed. The plot is extremely illogical and convoluted. There are just too many things that do not make sense on a very fundamental level. There were several times we as players/characters turned to each other and said “These people are real idiots…but they should not be.” The combats were at least ok.
I'm running this in a few days and I just realized that there's no description as to where the 3rd part of the manuscript is. There's an implication in the Mission Notes of M2, but I couldn't find anything else. Anyone know?
I'm running this in a few days and I just realized that there's no description as to where the 3rd part of the manuscript is. There's an implication in the Mission Notes of M2, but I couldn't find anything else. Anyone know?
Never mind, I found it. It's listed in the gear for the 7-8 tier, but was left out of the 10-11 tier gear.
