A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1–5.
A powerful ally of the Pathfinder Society has disappeared, and no one but the Pathfinders even remembers that she ever existed. Can the PCs discover the fate of their missing associate, or will all memory of her be erased completely from history?
Written by Jonathan H. Keith.
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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The Disappeared is a scenario with a sweet plot, which showcases NPCs and treats them as more than quest-givers, which contains sweet puzzles that are actually puzzling, and most importantly, is a scenario where cold-blooded murder doesn't solve everything. I wish every scenario were like this one. It's only issue is that 1-5 is too low-level for it's proper Tier.
-Matt
Refreshing and dramatic infiltration - more of this please!
First off, I can't believe Jiggy and Sieylianna gave this fantastic and refreshing scenario such a low score. Perhaps the GM did not do it justice? I have played and GM'ed this scenario. I completely agree with Sir Wulf's view of the scenario - it is refreshing, dramatic and exciting.
Disappeared is a challenging scenario to GM properly. Every room has unique events or clues in place that the GM must describe to the players before the players allowed to act. Yes it is ridiculous that getting 30 feet would take 5 minutes. But getting through 30 feet of extremely well dressed and crowded Chelish socialites flanked by highly vigilant armoured guards on the lookout for anything suspicious? That is not so easy. Again, everything is up to the GM to paint the scene accordingly. Brutes are set up to fail. That is the way this works - if you are dumb, you get punished. If you're subtle and quick-witted, you thrive.
The other reviewers have noted that this is the 'Mission Impossible' scenario of Pathfinder Society and I completely agree - and love it. It is truly refreshing to have an infiltration and roleplay heavy scenario that is light on combat. If I had my way, there would be at least two of these infiltration missions per season - something that rewards all the great rogues, ninjas, enchanters and role players of the Society who like to think on their feet.
I would love to give this scenario five stars, however there are some factors that flaw an otherwise wonderfully crafted scenario.
CONS::
-The handwriting on the player handouts make it unnecessarily difficult and erroneous to decipher the code. In many places, certain handwritten letters look like other letters, meaning that even a party that is on the right path will hit a brick wall. It would be great if the developers could redo the player handouts for this scenario with printed type instead of flowing handwriting. Removing this problem would lead to a better player experience.
-Most likely due to draconian word counts, there is little thought given to the high number of Chelish Pathfinders who ACTUALLY WANT THEIR FACTION LEADER TO DISAPPEAR. Let's face it, for three years Dralneen has collected every magical sexual aide from every nation of the inner sea. People want her dead, or worse, especially the folks who consistently risk their necks retrieving the 'whip of tantalising pleasures' or whatever it is this week. It'd be great if these anti-Dralneen Pathfinders could have an alternate mission that would mean that they didn't end up with a big zero on their chronicles.
-At low tier the dependence on high damage reduction monsters in this scenario seems really tough. At level two you have roughly 1,200 gp of gold to spend on items. Certainly not enough to afford special material weaponry that can breach through high damage reduction. It'd be nice if there was a adamantine mace or a silver dagger lying around somewhere that could be used by perceptive adventurers, because no low levels have the capacity to prepare for these fights.
First of all, I would like to say that I really don't like this module as a 1-5. The fact that new players are very likely to play the scenario is not something I like. When I played this, we had several venture officers in the group and had a marvelous time, I would have rated this 5 stars based on that experience. When I ran it, It was for 3 newer players and 3 other players who hate puzzles. The entire table hated it.
Scenario Details:
I like the idea of a combat-lite, RP-heavy scenario, but the puzzle mechanic was a little too much. First of all, the clues are written in hand-writing, which is very hard to read for some of the players, and even those with the best eye-sight had trouble. When I ran it, since being able to read each letter was key, it turned into a nightmare because several letters were wrong as it was being deciphered. As well, some of them were proper names that there was no way they could have known whether it was correct.
Those who are new to the game don't know of the lore of Golarion, and aren't ingrained into the story of season 4, and therefore really don't care about the events happening in the story of this one.
I would give any GM a warning about running this. If your party doesn't like puzzles and doesn't know much about the lore of Golarion, then don't run this. It's just not worth it. However, if you have veteran PFS players who know about Golarion lore and care about the story, then absolutely run this one, as your table will have a blast.
The Disappeared is not your typical dungeon crawl or even your typical roleplaying scenario. It's a "caper" adventure reminiscent of Mission: Impossible. It demands attention and creativity from both the players and the GM. Starting out as an infiltration, this adventure's combat scenes are not the main attraction: They merely punctuate the scenario's roleplaying and skill challenges.
A bunch of combat-optimized lunkheads WILL FAIL. A crew that doesn't find ways to support each other and gets widely separated can definitely lose party members. A crew that isn't prepared to fight (without drawing undue attention) may find themselves in a tight spot.
Although the adventure provides plenty of direction regarding the effectiveness of different schemes that the Pathfinders may try, GMs have to be open-minded about alternate approaches. Creative players will always find approaches that weren't anticipated, so GMs had best be able to think on their feet.
A word of advice: If your party is entirely made up of lunkheads, GMs may want to give them more leeway than they would allow a more capable group. When the barbarians invade the grand gala, turn the adventure from "Mission: Impossible" to "The Three Stooges". If the situation becomes too absurd, the guards' commander may mistakenly conclude the whole situation is some sort of a prank or trick...
Creative idea, built on an assumption of non-creative players
Jiggy
(RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32)
—
I played this one at Con of the North this past weekend, and man did we ever botch it.
We were doing great up until we were shown to the waiting room, at which point began a great lesson on the vital importance of metagaming. :/
You see, everyone knows out-of-character that you should never split the party. But I was the only PC at the table who could activate the two scrolls of disguise self, although the table's ninja had a hat of disguise. The whole mission was supposed to be secret. So what do we do?
The metagamey thing to do would be to keep the party together, and have an armed-to-the-teeth Pathfinder squad "sneaking" through a ritzy gala, and assuming that the scenario author would provide mechanics for that to somehow have a possibility of not attracting attention.
The in-character thing to do is have the two people who can magically look identical to a ranking staff member and a halfling servant scout the place out first, then come back and form an efficient and effective plan of action.
We did the latter, as it frankly made the most sense and seemed, in-character, to have the highest chance of success. Upon reaching the important rooms, I sent the ninja back to fetch the others while I searched. Not wanting any untimely interruptions, I locked the doors so I would have some warning first and could use the other disguise scroll if necessary.
Unfortunately, that meant that when I accidentally triggered an encounter with a pair of devils, I was alone and the GM had to decide how to deal with a scenario that says it takes 5 minutes to cross a room, when we're in combat rounds.
The party was caught trying to pick the lock to get to me, and they were all ejected from the premises. I was later discovered in the secret room, stable at -3 HP, lying in a puddle of my own blood.
After a slot's worth of playing, we had passed probably less than 15 minutes of the game's timer, and we all got 1XP, 0gp, and 0PP (except for two people who completed their faction mission early on; they got 1PP). Never even discovered any plot points or any such thing.
Awkward.
The lesson here is apparently that you should stick to your normal tomb-raiding mindset, think of yourselves as a D&D "party" instead of a set of individuals with a goal, make the metagame assumption that an event can't happen without combat, and let the setting get creative around you; rather than getting creative yourself and acting like a person with that mission would actually behave.
Thanks for moving up the release date. It gave me another option for my game tonight and looks intriguing. I hope the group opts for playing this tonight. If not, I have it available for my next session.
The Paracountess can hardly send you a faction mission if she's been disappeared... the Cheliax faction gains both prestige points if you pass the mission and gets 0 prestige if you fail.
I imagine the missing faction mission is supposed to make things more "real" for the Chelaxians in the party
I feel pretty strongly that this adventure goes right along with the meta of "Season Four - What A Doozy!" I ran this for an underpowered table of 5, and they held their own, had a blast, and still managed to keep things interesting. Definitely writing a review.
When I conducted the mission briefing for this adventure, I got everyone into the mood by pulling up the theme music from "Mission: Impossible". Venture-Captain Valsin concluded his briefing by advising the characters that "As always, if any of your operatives are captured or killed, the Society will disavow any knowledge of this mission."
To address the "missing" Chelaxian handout, I told the Chelaxian players that when they had picked up their copy of Bondage Fetishist Quarterly from their faction contact, the Paracountess' usual coded message was missing.
This is a "Caper" scenario: Before running it, watch some episodes of Mission: Impossible or films that feature similar shenanigans. When things start to go wrong, remember that the Chelaxians are a very socially-stratified culture, bound by bureaucratic procedure. They won't respond efficiently to a confusing situation. ("You want us to interrupt the Ambassador because you THINK some uninvited guests have crashed the party? OF COURSE some have! This is the Grand Gala of the season!" "But, but, but..." "Come back when you are sure!")
When I ran it, some of the disguised PCs found themselves repeatedly lectured by a senior servant ("I see that you're new here, but any idiot knows not to serve sherry with the vegetable canapes!"), others feigned that they were drunken party guests ("Of course I have a claim receipt for my cloak! My idiot manservant was carrying it!"), and one attempted to sneak an eidolon through the party in a large sack (It's a surprise for later, sir!"). As the minutes ticked away, the party eventually found themselves huddling on top of cabinets in the archive, desperately trying to fend off the chamber's guardian (which found the cabinets difficult to climb...).
When running this mission, keep emphasizing the passing time ("That took three minutes. Tick-tock!") so the players know to hurry. Be open to attempts to "jump the rails": Almost any party will try a few stunts that nobody sane would have considered.
Also, err on the side of generosity if the party mix is just completely unsuitable for the the scenario. If your group utterly lacks the ability to be stealthy or to bluff through a dangerous situation, play the scene for laughs. Situations that are TOO ridiculous might not even count as strikes against the party, as the Chelaxian security forces may think they're being subjected to some sort of a practical joke ("A barbarian is attacking the topiary? Go back and check again: This sounds like another jape from those idiots in the kitchen! You remember the time they claimed that a drifting mist was turning people into monkeys!")
I was looking forward to experiencing this scenario when I first heard the bullet-points of it, but now that I have read the scenario over, and am scheduled to run it at a convention in less than a month, I will tweak this heavily.
Spoiler:
Just reading the flow of the scenario, I can see there being significant sequence and focus problems with the GM having to stop and parse through the text for specific skill checks and DCs for that specific section of corridor.
And the time-keeping mechanic seems very complicated, yet subjective at the same time.
The average GM is going to have a tough time weighing what can and cannot happen in the scenario. It seems unfair to make them stay canon in this scenario, when there are just too many details to keep track of. The victim here is going to be the player.
Oh, and the scenario uses a single map that is large and detailed, but it is a custom one - not available via a mat or map? Sheesh.
What I'm going to do instead is tell the players that they have three hours to complete the mission (which leaves a half hour on either side for set-up and wrap-up). When they enter the waiting room, I'm going to start a count-down timer at the table.
The map I'm going to cobble together with map packs and make it as accurate as possible to the map in the scenario. I'll only reveal each piece of corridor as they encounter it. And I'll have a pre-made mental list of random encounters, pulled directly from the scenario, in the hallways - waiters, dignitaries, drunk guests, etc.
I'm volunteering to run it this way for a willing group of volunteers before the convention to see how this works instead.
Before anyone criticizes me for not running this scenario to the letter of the text, I would have to say that when I GM, my ONLY concern is player enjoyment, and this scenario - as written - does not pass my GM-spidey-sense muster.
Mainly due to the fact that the party played 4-5 Tier with a bunch of 3rd level characters. They managed the infiltration fine, but the first combat encounter destroyed them.
To be completely honest, I think about half of us completely misunderstood the point of the scenario mission as well. Somewhere along the way "infiltrate Cheliax and pretend to talk to the ambassador, whle there find cues about what is really going on" turned to "attend to party as a front to meet the new ambassador, and find out as much as you can about them/shake their hand for taking out Zarta finally and asure him/her that the PFS is interested in being allies".
I'm not sure playing down would really have helped that much. It's one of the ones I think that DM's and Players walk away with a very different experience. :)
When I first played this, my group had a little bit of trouble because we were fuzzy on exactly what our goals were. We succeeded, but until the scenario was over and the GM told us we succeeded we weren't sure.
When I GMed this scenario, I had the VC really drill the PC's goals into them:
Spoiler:
1) Go to the embassy with a message for the ambassador.
2) Amara Li will keep him busy for an hour, and while they're waiting they should take the chance to sneak into the embassy.
3) After they're in, they need to find three things:
- Where Zarta was taken
- Why she was taken there
- Who was responsible for it
Before the scenario, my wife drew out the map on graph paper for me (we were helping each other prepare for a con), then I cut out each room so that I could lay them down one at a time as they explored the building. My favorite bit of prep, though, was:
Spoiler:
I put together an actual framed portrait of Ambrus Valsin with lipstick marks on it, then hid the player handout in the back of the frame with just the edge of it sticking out.
The players really got a kick out of that.
The group just barely made it, but they were all clear on what they had to do and I think they had a lot of fun doing it. This has been one of my favorite scenarios to run; I'm planning to run it again at GenCon.
TriOmegaZero wrote:
Mainly due to the fact that the party played 4-5 Tier with a bunch of 3rd level characters. They managed the infiltration fine, but the first combat encounter destroyed them.
I'm pretty sure that's the intent for Season 4 scenarios. If your party falls in the middle, playing up should be a scary prospect; they should not go into it with the assumption that they'll make it through just fine.
I ran it last night, and actually my fears were unfounded, because...
Spoiler:
The time mechanic that I was dreading wasn't an issue at all - barely even acknowledged. Once I laid out the scene (BTW, I had the two maps in the scenario professionally printed full-size at Staple for only $ 3.50 each - yay!) the players looked at the setup and quickly figured out how they were going to navigate their way through the embassy.
The rules are pretty lenient and subjective on how the characters can do this, and the players came up with some creative solutions that weren't described in the scenario, so I just let them go with it.
I tried to keep track of the amount of time it took them to get to Zarta's chambers - and then back out afterwards - but really, it was only a handful of skill checks each way, and really creative role-playing that got them through. I rewarded them for the creative role-playing by allowing different types of skill checks, and lower DCs when I was impressed with their problem-solving.
Any other GMs that run this scenario, I would suggest being more descriptive than usual of the characters' surroundings and the goings-on, and maybe give hints, and allow a lot of perception and sense motive checks to deduce maybe the best course of action and movement. But, overall, be lenient and let the players be creative.
The total navigation time in real-time was maybe a half hour of game time. They spent most of their time and energy on the combats, the deciphering of the code, and searching the vault.
Yo, know I'm a couple of years late to this one, but one of the items on the Chronicle sheet seems not to match the price I found in the Ultimate Equipment book. It's the
