A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 3–7.
The eldest daughter of the prominent Blakros family is set to wed an influential Hellknight, and the Pathfinder Society is invited to the festivities. Dressed for a wedding befitting royalty, a team of Pathfinders attend the ceremony on behalf of the Decemvirate, but will their presence ultimately strengthen the Society's relationship with the influential Blakroses, or will events at the wedding bring the already tenuous alliance to a breaking point?
Written by Thurston Hillman.
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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As someone who only joined PFS in early-mid 2014, I was never at the special / grand convocation that led to this scenario, nor was I involved in any of the preceding season 3 lead-up to this.
So, I thought (having run it) that I'd give a review from the perspective of someone who is "coming in cold".
There is a lot of roleplaying to do at the start. You need to influence as many of the guests as possible (while also achieving your faction mission). The faction missions seem unbalanced - some you succeed just by influencing guests (also the main mission) while others involve unrelated side-quests. The roleplaying itself is tedious at times and requires GMs to do a lot of prep-work. Maybe you already know these characters and don't need to... but I didn't. It was very hard to keep so many moving pieces going.
Also, most of the NPCs required 2-3 influence checks, but after a full conversation, there was no roleplaying reason why a PC would go back to chat. Especially in some instances where they use a "secret revelation" or some other trick to give them a bonus. Many of these aren't very nice and put the NPC on edge (while somehow still giving a bonus). Chatting after that would just seem... rude.
So, in all, the big influence-fest did not go well.
That said, the intrigue and combat that followed was very fun. Right up until the bad-guy leaves mid-way through because he feels like it. I know the BBEG in this one could easily kill a party if he didn't leave so early, but it's not very satisfying for players to have little to no chance at defeating him.
Oh, and the boon(s?) provided means little to nothing to me. There's some promise of "maybe something in the future" for each person you influence. This probably means you'll have to play the exact future scenario where your exact person of interest gives you the bonus. After making such a huge effort at squeezing out the roleplay, my players deserved better.
All in all, a disappointment for someone who "wasn't there". If you have been running season 3 and 4, and have somehow managed to play the grand convocation leading up to this, I'm sure you'll find it a worthy successor. Otherwise, skip it.
Posting a review after seeing the review of reviews, and not seeing this one breaking the top ten.
In any case I really did enjoy this one, I got the feeling that my character was someone who mattered in the setting. Also the different characters were fun to run into. It helped that the GM had obviously spent a lot of time in preperation. Up to and including speeches by the guests of honor.
The combat was a bit on the easy side for one encounter, but this was partly due to having just the right spell at just the right time and winning initiative. I was actually sort of grateful for the speed of that resolution, since otherwise we would have run even longer than we did.
I have both played and run this adventure, and I had a great time each time.
I made sure each player had something to do. Role playing involves character interaction. Not everyone is a consummate actor, so the GM will have to do a little encouraging to get the "roll players" to do something.
The final encounter can be difficult, but it can be overcome with team work and a little luck.
(Should mention in advance that we played low-tier) This adventure was totally unbalanced, and probably the dullest scenario I've played out of around a hundred of them. Those of my players who happened to bring a good face-character, or a skill monkey, got to play. Otherwise, they were ignored for literally hours while other players described in excruciating detail how they talked to dinner guests.
There are literally two fights, and they're short, pathetically easy and just about pointless. I don't know about your group, but my group was bored to the bone by this one. The only guy who had any fun was the cleric, who did all the talking.
If you like to throw dress-up mystery parties, you might like this scenario. If you're not into that, steer well clear!
Reading through this it looks like a great RP scenario. But I have to say, the cartographers Jared Blando and Corey Macourek make maps that while artistically clever, really dont lend themselves for use in online games. Im looking forward to running this game twice in the next week and a half both online and at a mini con. Hope it plays as well as it reads.
J-Bone. Thanks! I hope the scenario goes well for you in all runs! As for your concern about the maps...
Spoiler:
Luckily, there are only two combat encounters in the module. One map is a battlemat, so that should be ok.
As for the stylized maps, one is the island overview that doesn't need to be used with minis/combat. The other map might be a bit tricky, but is fairly small and basic.
Depending what VTT you use, it shouldn't be too hard to extract the map and section it in half using MS Paint. Though, the areas are known to the PCs, so you could show them off together as an aide.
That being said, I LOVE the cartography. In fact, all of the art for this module is simply stunning!
Just a small thing, but the infobox on p. 3 says that Pariol Island is 10 miles off the coast of the Isle of Kortos, while the intro on the same page says it's 20 miles. Who's right, Hillman or Moreland?
Just a small thing, but the infobox on p. 3 says that Pariol Island is 10 miles off the coast of the Isle of Kortos, while the intro on the same page says it's 20 miles.
Good question.
PFWiki Scribe wrote:
Who's right, Hillman or Moreland?
Completely unnecessary addition to a good question.
Just a small thing, but the infobox on p. 3 says that Pariol Island is 10 miles off the coast of the Isle of Kortos, while the intro on the same page says it's 20 miles. Who's right, Hillman or Moreland?
Just checked my submitted draft. The only reference I had to miles was "the island is a few miles away". So, we'll have to look for Mark on the exact answer.
I would have expected the influence and discovery checks to have different DCs on the different tiers. They are crucial to the encounters like combats in other modules and should be level based.
Even though my group failed the mission so bad we got no PA we thoroughly enjoyed this.
We had 3 Barbarians, a druid and fighter. Its a nice deviation from the norm.
But maybe there is a way combat focused chracters to help. Like send a lone character to go fight some vermin or something to impress them.
We had real problems influencing people.
Or maybe influencing people with feat of endurance and dexterity(Like juggling torches or something)
I plan on using this scenario as a supplement to my Council of Thieves campaign to add some more social role-play elements. The names and some of the story elements will need to be changed to make it fit in Westcrown.
Spoiler:
However, there is a monster problem with the scenario. At Tier 3-4 the final "boss" encounter is a Young Shadow Demon who starts out possessing a human fighter.
The problem is that adding the Young template to an incorporeal creature does NOT make it weaker.
What could be a good replacement for this creature?