Pathfinder Society Scenario #3-21: The Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment (PFRPG) PDF

4.50/5 (based on 41 ratings)

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A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1–5.

In order to learn about the esoteric faith of the Empyreal Lord Korada, the PCs are sent by the Pathfinder Society to explore an abandoned aasimar temple to the benevolent deity. But what they find there is anything but an opportunity for peaceful reflection and enlightenment.

Written by Ron Lundeen.

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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Average product rating:

4.50/5 (based on 41 ratings)

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A ton of flavor

5/5

This is one of my favorite adventures. First off it has tons flavor and hidden(but very findable) features. It is also very deadly which I enjoy even more.

The investigation part is pretty fun, it also can punish the players for rushing out and killing without thinking things through.

As a Gm this also has tons of things to add. I threw in mantras with inneuendos about the hidden secret. Tons of fun on both sides of the screen.


A Great (and Creepy!) Scenario

5/5

I have run and played this scenario, and I have to say that it doesn't disappoint!

Like other scenarios that fit in the "One of the Best Scenarios" category, this one hits all of the key areas: role-playing, mystery, investigation, combat.

The investigation of the temple is an exercise in the bizarre. Some things aren't what they appear, others are, first instincts are sometimes right and sometimes wrong. In both the game I ran and the one in which I played, there's a lot of "WHAT IS GOING ON HERE????" It's that odd.

One caution: some of the encounters can be quite a challenge, if not deadly, and players/characters which are not prepared may well not survive.

The scenario is quite well-written, moves at a good pace, and sometimes leaves the players guessing as to what's around the next corner.


One of the best PFS scenarios I have experienced

5/5

I have had the pleasure of playing in this scenario as well as GMing it once, and I've had a blast both times.

The scenario is very balanced between combat, roleplaying, and exploration/skill-use - there are many opportunities for the GM as well as the players to stretch their acting muscles and speak in-character. A lot of Knowledge and social interaction skills that would otherwise not see a lot of play end up being very important to solving the scenario and keeping the PCs from falling into extra combats that would deplete badly-needed resources. However, the full-BAB characters in the party will have their chance to shine - there are enough combats (at a considerable, but not brutally optimized difficulty) to make the party Fighter absolutely vital to survival and success as well.

The plot falls into some classic (but well-liked) archetypes and tropes but there are enough interesting details included in the mystery that it is still worth playing - the players might guess the "big picture" twist but they still need to investigate in order to find out enough to act on. When I GM'ed though, my players did ask me if I was secretly running Call of Cthulhu instead of Pathfinder. ( :

There are also some interesting treasures and magic items that I think a lot of players will like - especially a unique item that increases commonly-tested defenses and IIRC stacks with more common boosters.

Actually, come to think of it, it may be my favorite scenario yet - a classic and fun premise, ample opportunities to make skills as well as combat abilities very useful (and many different sorts of NPCs for the GM to roleplay), and a unique treasure - I wish I could run every one of my PCs through this scenario.

Being Tier 1-5, it can be run for a new, level 1 group (though they might be best-served by having one other scenario under their belt first), and is a *very* good way of showing that Pathfinder Society can balance combat and roleplaying, and definitely rewards creative solutions to problems.


The Adventure that Hooked Me on PFS

5/5

Easily my best player experience yet in PFS, perhaps one of the best I've had in any 3.X setting. I must admit that a great deal of the credit goes to the GM, but the scenario itself made it easy to provide a great experience.

Maybe it's because I was playing a paladin, but I was really engaged in the story, and the pacing was good. The combats were appropriately challenging for our group of newbies, and the story motivated me to pay attention closely to what happened out-of-combat.

This was one of the first adventures I played in PFS, and my experience with it motivated me to keep coming back.


GM Perspective - Excellent


As a GM, I loved this scenario. Lots of roleplaying! Intrigue! And a slowly revealed underplot! Another great investigatory scenario.

If you like investigation and roleplay, this is a great scenario.

If you like nothing but combat, you will hate this scenario.


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Announced! Cover image is a mockup.

Lantern Lodge

Curious... Is this in the Tian Xia Region ?

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Sort of. The temple is of Tianjing origin, but beyond that I don't want to give anything away.


Now available!


Congrats Ron!


Larcifer wrote:
Congrats Ron!

Thanks, Larry! I'm excited about this adventure. Some people remarked that my ” Tide of Twilight” was a bit linear in the combats and light on the roleplay/investigation. This adventure is sort of the opposite of that.

Lantern Lodge

Just ran this for a group of five the other day and had a few questions if you're willing to answer them.

Spoilers within!:

1) When it comes to how the Heresy Points act during the encounter with Dakang, can I get some clarification on that. That one description stated 'for every Heresy Point a PC has, he must reroll twice.' That doesn't mean that if one of the PCs participated in all four heretical practices, he has to reroll the attack 8 times in the first round? The paragraph does mention 'at the beginning of combat' so does that just mean for the first round or what? I modified it during playthrough because I was slightly confused by it, and I put each Heresy representing a different trait. Herey #1 (as I'm calling it) applied to Attacks, #2 to saves, and so on. Anyways, what was your original intention with that?

Secondly, I want to compliment you on the scenario. I absolutely and 100% loved it, but being a more heavy roleplay scenario, it really pushes the boundaries of the time standards that PFS has, and as such, might easily be ran by less experienced folk. Hopefully not, but its a possibility and I just wanted to throw that out there, so people now.

Other than those two quirks, I want to compliment you one last time on an outstanding experience - for both my players and for me as GM.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

4 people marked this as a favorite.
Severed Ronin wrote:

Just ran this for a group of five the other day and had a few questions if you're willing to answer them.

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:

Let's assume Valeros, a fighter PC, has 3 Heresy Points. In the final conflict with Dakang, Valeros would need to roll twice on his first 3 d20 rolls of the encounter.

  • In round 1, he charges Dakang, and thus only gets a single attack, He rolls two d20s and takes the lower of the two rolls, to which he adds his normal attack bonus. This accounts for 1 of the 3 Heresy Points.
  • When Dakang's turn comes up, he channels negative energy, requiring Valeros to make a Will save. Again, he rolls two d20s and takes the lower of the two results. This is Heresy Point number 2.
  • On the next round, Valeros makes a full attack with two weapons. Since he's already used 2 of his 3 Heresy Points, only his first attack in the round requires two rolls. So with his main hand, he rolls twice and takes the lesser of the two results, then rolls his off-hand attack normally. Now he's used up all 3 of his Heresy Points.
  • All remaining d20 rolls during the encounter are handled normally, with only a single roll.

Lantern Lodge

Without quoting a thousand spoilers, I'll simply say thank you for te clarification. I feel more confidant running it this next time.


When presenting evidence to the guards of the corruption, does the DC drop by a certain amount per piece of evidence presented?

I'm running this tomorrow and going to go with a +4 bonus per piece. If they gather everything, it should be a gimmie.

Lantern Lodge

Wraithcannon wrote:

When presenting evidence to the guards of the corruption, does the DC drop by a certain amount per piece of evidence presented?

I'm running this tomorrow and going to go with a +4 bonus per piece. If they gather everything, it should be a gimmie.

When I ran it, I gave everyone a +2 bonus per piece.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

2 people marked this as a favorite.

It should be a +4 bonus. This detail got lost in development, and is on my todo list to get edited back into the PDF.

Lantern Lodge

Thank you for clarification, Mark. Appreciated.


What terrain type is Temple? Forest, Urban, other?

Liberty's Edge

Demi-plane? just ran this and dont think any terrain types fit. It is another plane.


Is there a reason, beyond what looks like an error, that some encounter areas have CR differences in the main entry and the subtier entries that do not match?

CR Issue?:

A5. Kitchen (CR 1 or CR 4)
Subtier 1–2 (CR 3)
Subtier 4–5 (CR 6)

A13. Garden (CR 3 or CR 6)
Subtier 1–2 (CR 2)
Subtier 4–5 (CR 6)

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Because sometimes we change how hard things are in development and the changes don't get implemented everywhere and then slip through editing. Luckily, I have a small adjustment I need to make to one of the encounters in this document anyway, and can adjust these when I do that. It should be sometime next week after PaizoCon's over that I have a chance to get those implemented.


I am wounded to see my first less-than-five-star review. Wounded, I say!

Seriously, though, I'm very pleased to see this adventure received so well!


Faction Mission Question:
Can I assume the Brass Scales weigh more than 5 lbs? Or do you want a simple Mage Hand to be able to get them?

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Spoiler:
They can weigh less than 5 lbs. if a player comes up with the creative solution of using magic to retrieve them instead of Escape Artist. Given that the party has to survive a pretty tough battle to get access to them in the first place, I think that allowing this sort of use of a class ability in place of a skill check is fine.


This scenario sounds interesting. I'm not going to read the spoilers, but I will be participating in this module here soon. It's funny because this involves exploring an Aasimar temple (as it said in the description), and Albireo Renos, my Aasimar Cleric, should feel right at home lol. And just to clarify, at Genghis Con earlier this year, I won a boon sheet that allowed me to create an Aasimar ^^. Either way, Albireo should be just fine. It'll definately be interesting. Can't wait! =)

-Patrick.


I'm having some trouble with the big picture.

Spoiler:
The people in the tapestry - how did they get here? The stated reason seems to be that they wandered here from other sites within the tapestry. So Hao Jin put things in her tapestry that contained living people? That sounds - capital E - Evil.

And Hao Jin disappeared 300 years ago? Wouldn't the tapestry be crawling with multiple generations of people at this point? Not the temple itself - i see how the population would stay in control there - put the countryside should be thick with people at this point.

Has anyone come up with descriptions on how the other folks got there? That seems like the first thing players would ask.

Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

DMFTodd wrote:

I'm having some trouble with the big picture.

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:
Hao Jin rarely intended to move people unwillingly into her realm, at least not when she wasn't collecting creatures specifically. In this case, Dakang was rooting around in the dirt in a battlefield she collected; the inhabitants in the Wonders in the Weave series were accidentally collected when the cave network they lived in was brought along with an old ruin adjacent to it; the inhabitants of Round Mountain were brought along when she pulled a whole sphere of earth from the Darklands into the tapestry to seal off invasion tunnels from below and save a nation under attack. Where the specific folks who appear in this adventure came from isn't defined, but when you're collecting whole ruined cities, ancient temples, and geographical wonders from across the world, there are likely to be a l few people who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And whether or not this fact would be considered evil, Hao Jin was certainly not good-aligned. She was, after all, a devout follower of Abadar.


One more question:

Spoiler:
Is Dakang supposed to have an unholy symbol hanging on his neck (which the players fond of doing so will try to sunder) or does he need one at all to channel and cast spells?.

Grand Lodge

I've seen this run twice, and both times the players have been confused for the reasons DMFTodd mentioned.

Spoiler:
One gets the impression that the world of the tapestry should be deserted save for a few other explorers. Being greeted at the door of the temple and finding that it was in use was confusing. My table assumed it was some sort of time shift, while another table thought it to be phantasms or some other type of sinister illusion. In both cases the adventure slowed to a crawl because the players were afraid to trust anyone.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Zathow wrote:

One more question:

** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:
Since he wears it painted on his face, I say no.
Grand Lodge

It wont let me leave a review but this is a fantastic PFS module. Highly recommended.


I know this is four years late but I have to say in response to Radiostorm:

I played through this module at SCARAB many years ago and had a blast, and as you mentioned, we did slow to somewhat of a crawl! The GM role played the whole scenario perfectly though. Looking back, because of the expectation of finding nothing, our characters where very wary. This lead to hilarity and unspeakable dread. It reminded me of a mix of Scooby-Doo, Benny Hill and The Ring. Which may not sounds great to some, but believe me, we could not stop laughing at the absurdity that was fear the entire scenario!

I mean come on, when has the PFS ever sent Pathfinders to a safe "abandoned" local? :-)

Grand Lodge

Pg. 8 - Suicide compulsion haunts

Both of these haunts describe the weapon used as a jagged length of wood. Should this be considered an improvised weapon? This won't matter on the coup de grace attempt, but when attacking someone trying to prevent the suicide attempt, an attack roll would be made.

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