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Pathfinder Society Scenario #5–01: The Glass River Rescue (PFRPG) PDF

3.60/5 (based on 22 ratings)
Pathfinder Society Scenario #5–01: The Glass River Rescue (PFRPG) PDF

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A Pathfinder Society Scenario for characters of 1st to 5th level (Tier 1–5).

A Pathfinder leading a diplomatic envoy from the dwarven holds of the Five Kings Mountains has gone missing, and the balance of power in a time of war hangs on her rescue. The Pathfinder Society's divinations indicate the agent was waylaid in the theocratic nation of Razmiran, when one of her escorted diplomats failed to pay a requested tithe. Now it falls to the party to enter Razmiran, locate the missing Pathfinder and the dwarven diplomats, and escape with their lives.

Written by Mike Shel.

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 Glass River Rescue

4/5 —

As this is my first review of a product, I'll try to come up with a good format while I'm typing this.

Perspective of GM, have ran 3 times now, once at local PFS group, once at a con and once for my home group, all ran as tier 1-2.

Story:
I think the story behind this scenario is a good lead in towards the rest of this season. It's a pretty straight forward situation that the PCs are led into.

Encounters:
The encounters are great! The first encounter (wolf and baboon choice) is nice and balanced, but I have to say, the baboon is the most dangerous thing in this encounter.

The drake is a nice touch and the acidic mucus is a nice touch. Dangerous for a first level character, but still savable. My only problem with this encounter is that I feel like the author should have included tactics based on if the PCs go north or south at the island. (Does the Drake fly over them menacingly and spit at them or does he try and do that from the water? Or better yet, say that if the PCs go north, the drake can't fly, something along those lines.)

The final encounter (both Lemures and Holy and CO.) is nice. I really enjoy Holy's feat selection and the lead in to where everyone thinks she's a cleric and her tactics.

Choices:
I did like the choices that the PCs are presented with throughout this scenario. The only one that I'm not a big fan of is the island. I understand there is some tactical value by going either north or south (and my 3rd group chose to avoid the trees in fear of baboons), but I think this portion should have been a little more expanded on.

All the other choices were great! Even if it feels weird having 1st level pathfinders taking recommendations for trade agreements back to the VCs

Primary & Secondary Conditions:
The primary condition is very straight forward and easy to achieve. No problems there.

As for the secondary conditions, no problems there at all. I really enjoy how this scenario was set up with a 2 out of 3 possibility. Let me expand on each one of those though.

1. Bluff the sisters - This one, none of my groups has accomplished. This falls more under a misc. situation more than this goal. My first problem with this is that the sister's bluff check is a bit high for first level characters to beat, unless they are focusing on bluff as a primary skill, then it goes down to the dice roll. I'll put more into a MISC spoiler.

2. Box of hair (1-2) - This one is very easy to accomplish. Nice easy Perception check to find this one.

3. Holy - All my tables have killed her outright every time I've ran this, so also no problems here. I feel like this is the teetering point of whether or not the PCs get the extra prestige point, so if the PCs allow her to escape, they should lose the extra point here. (Mean DM moment.)

MISC. and Final Thoughts:
Beside the drake fight, I hae really enjoyed the 3 old ladies. With there being 3 of them and one of them wearing the yellow scarf, all my tables have thought they were witches and have attacked outright the old ladies. Luckily, I've been able to get word to Roth each time to get holy's attention. This has been something I get to chuckle at every time and I hope the author has intended this as well.

TL:DR version:
Encounters are straight forward, all choices but the drake fight are cool RP situations, BBEG is very cool, overall difficulty is low for 1-2 characters, 3 old ladies are really good at sense motive and create good paranoia and the success conditions are a nice touch.

Overall, 4 stars due to great scenario, but the island fight needs a little more to it.

Great start to Season 5

4/5 —

Perspective: GM, 6-player table, Subtier 4-5.

This is a great start to Season 5. This scenario provides a perfect mix of combat encounters and non-combat encounters. Plus, player decisions have ramifications both within the scenario and for the season as a whole.

Most of the combats are fairly vanilla, nothing out of the ordinary. However, at least one is pretty tough, at least in the high subtier.

Pacing was about perfect. We played this in four hours. The author makes recommendations for dramatic tension, and it really works.

Lastly, a very serious spoiler to be read by GMs only:

DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT READING THIS IF YOU ARE A PLAYER!:

The secondary conditions are very difficult to meet. I don't know if that is a bad thing. It is what it is.

In our session, the players failed to defeat the BBEG before running away, which resulted in a loss of 1,000 gp and 1 Prestige.

A decent season kick-in

3/5 —

My perspective on this scenario is as a player. For reference, I played it in the lower tier (1-2). Be warned, spoilers will follow!

Story
I was rather interested in the premise, and the scenario delivered exactly what was advertised - a rescue mission. However, my complaint lies in the fact that since there are no twists whatsoever, the mission turns out to be a little bland, almost too straightforward if it weren't for the last part (see Mechanics section).
Story score: 3/5

Roleplay
This scenario can be made really interesting if the GM focuses on the various roleplaying opportunities available in it, n both parts of the adventure (but especially the last one).
Roleplay score: 3/5

Encounters
The encounters weren't very original apart for the one the cover suggests. Nothing much to see here.
Encounters score: 2/5

Mechanics
The last part of the scenario particularly stands out, as it leaves the players with the choice of how they want to infiltrate the building where their mission objective lies. I really appreciate this open approach, and would like to see more of it in future scenarios.
Mechanics score: 4/5

All in all, a decent scenario, but hardly a must-play. It does set an interesting mood for season 5, though.
Total: 3/5

A Good Beginning

4/5 —

This scenario is not an epic scenario, but a good one. Here is why. The fights are interesting and feel natural. Actually one certain encounter left a number of my players talking for a number of minutes afterwards about what happened. This is good. I only see this on occasions. The story itself contains a number of interesting bits about the lore of Golarion which is a good tease to help new players continue playing Pathfinder. The story has a set of interesting conflicts which players may or may not have to choose. The backstory on the characters in it to roleplay is sufficient to roleplay. The story itself does make you feel like a pathfinder and not some murder hobo or video game knock off. Overall I really enjoyed gm'ing this scenario and have enjoyed gm'ing it on multiple occasions now. This is not an epic scenario, but is a scenario that was well done. Good job Paizo!

Good story, great opportunity for roleplay.

3/5 —

Although the scenario has tighter rails than most, there are opportunities to deviate and allow a creative group unique solutions. The way the role-play/railroad scenes are written do provide for excellent options to provide the illusion of free will, while always resulting the same, save some amazing rolls or creativity. The combats can pose challenges, twice now I've nearly taken an unconscious agent to a watery grave, but even a group of less than optimized characters should be able to achieve the primary mission with little chance of scenario ending encounter. Even though I did find most of the role play fun, it is a challenge as a GM, as RP portions can "eat" a lot of time. It was hard to get the players "involved" in the merchant selection, too much NPC vs. NPC dialogue/banter in my opinion.
Overall the scenario is worth playing, but seems to fall a little short of the mark.

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Webstore Gninja Minion

Announced for GenCon 2013!

Sounds like a great start for season 5 :D
Shadow Lodge
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Its nice to finally know what it is that I'm running at GenCon... ;D
Dark Archive
Eric Clingenpeel wrote:
Its nice to finally know what it is that I'm running at GenCon... ;D

Same here; and it's written by Mike Shel. GenCon keeps looking better and better.

Sovereign Court
Eric Clingenpeel wrote:
Its nice to finally know what it is that I'm running at GenCon... ;D

Same. Just hoping I have more than 12 hours to download, print, and prep it...

Silver Crusade

We're going back to the wilderness! It's like going back to Season 0 adventures all over again! But not quite. Cause they are in Pathfinder RPG now. :D

I'll be running this at GenCon as well. I'm getting super excited about Season 5!
Liberty's Edge

It is getting close to release, when are we going to see the final cover art updated on the website?
Contributor

For those running this scenario at GenCon:

With your permission I'll be sitting in on several sessions and would be happy to answer questions for you, especially if you don't get lots of time for prep. Feel free to private message me here if you don't mind me sitting in to watch the action.
Shadow Lodge RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 8
Mike Shel wrote:

For those running this scenario at GenCon:

With your permission I'll be sitting in on several sessions and would be happy to answer questions for you, especially if you don't get lots of time for prep. Feel free to private message me here if you don't mind me sitting in to watch the action.

Thanks for being available Mike! I'll let you know if I have any questions once I get it in my downloads. :)

Liberty's Edge
Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Mike, Hope to see you sitting at my table again this year!

That said... what are the chances we will see this (and the other scenarios we are wiaitng on) given to the GenCon GMs today?

Because of odd situation I am going through right now, if I don't get it today it will be very difficult for me to be able to prep this before Gen Con.
Liberty's Edge

I got 5 sessions of this to run at GenCon - cant wait to bring the awesome!

Feel free to sit in on my games and see how its done! ;-)
Paizo Employee Developer

It's my first day back after Gen Con, and I've caught up on reading reviews. I appreciate the feedback—especially for it being predominantly positive.

Mildly spoiler response to Thamius' concern:

Thanks for pointing out the difficulty of tying in the optional encounter and making the full Prestige award. I'll be certain to keep an eye out for that in the future.
Sczarni

Small point, but I was reviewing this scenario to get an idea what secondary success conditions would look like (running #13 tomorrow). I really like the addition of boons to the chronicle for faction goal advancement.

The small point I really wanted to make was that the chronicle lists gear rewards for all subtiers and subtler 8-9. I'm sure this was a layout/cut paste over sight as the scenario is level 1-5.

Just thought I would point it out in case no one has said anything yet.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Played it today.

Kind of meh...in the end it seemed just like any other have this one skill or fail scenario.

On the plus side, I did enjoy the story. Pretty nicely written, thanks.

minor spoiler:
One player was a meta and power gamer who was socially challenged (repeatedly interrupted and used a lot of cursing) and another player who decided that breaking (destroyed their bedroom door, used intimidate) into the peaceful npc's bedroom was a good act.
Since the rest of the party at Tier 1-2 decided 1) not to slaughter everyone and 2) could not beat a +37 sense motive with bluff we failed the mission. Also low tier has limited options in dealing with an invisible boss.

Going to see if it runs a bit different, maybe it was our GM and group.
Sovereign Court
Rerednaw wrote:
** spoiler omitted **

I do apologize for my part in not keeping people on track and shutting them up so others could play. I also apologize for mis-speaking.

Spoiler:
It was a 27 Sense Motive which I rolled (Nat 19 plus skill bonus), but a 37 like I said at the end. I even went back just now to check the roll. It was rolled properly, and the bluff check was still did not beat it, and thus not altering what happened. Also, I will let you know that the final fight would have happened regardless of that check, just been a bit easier. That said...
You lot absolutely trounced the final fight. I was left in the dust trying to catch up. Not much I could have done different with those tactics.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path Subscriber

Any flip maps or map packs required for this scenario?

or are the maps easy to create on a blank map?
Grand Lodge

Map Pack: Waterfront and Flip-mat Country Inn. They are pretty complex.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Sior wrote:
Rerednaw wrote:
** spoiler omitted **
I do apologize for my part in not keeping people on track and shutting them up so others could play. I also apologize for mis-speaking. ** spoiler omitted **You lot absolutely trounced the final fight. I was left in the dust trying to catch up. Not much I could have done different with those tactics.

@Sior

Did we play the same session? As I recall, we basically popped cover and fled. :) I don't consider fleeing and module failure a big success. On the other hand nobody died which was a nice plus.

I thought your GM style was fine, BTW. That other stuff wasn't your fault.

I still have a fundamental issue with "one skill check or fail" but that's just how it's written is all. I prefer something along the lines of make at least 3 out of 4 or similar. That way when the dice pulls a Han Solo Stealth/Bluff check we can make it up. Also if it is a round of such rolls it encourages more player engagement out of combat something PFS still has some difficulty with. I guess more like the way skill challenges are done in 4th DND. :)
Silver Crusade

Played this about a month ago. 2nd level greatsword paladin > river drake, apparently.

Sadly the local PFS group has a few people who basically play murderhobos and made a hash out of the whole inn infiltration (you'd think it would be the paladin screwing up the bluffing, but nope, it was the rogues), but we managed to rescue the prisoners and destroyed the final encounter; I wasted smite because the cleric (I guess not a cleric from the discussion? She died too quickly to say) got completely gibbed before I could get a second turn.
2 people marked this as a favorite.

Spoiler:

This is an actual exchange from tonight's running of this scenario.

"So what's her AC? I got a 19?"
"She's a grandma...so her AC is 9 - you hit her for nearly all her HP, and she screams and begs for mercy."
"Her AC is 9?"
"She's a grandma."

Luckily the party got the hint that while the sisters MAY be evil, hell, they may be involved in some awful things, they're NOT combatants -- I only had to explain to them one time that they were bordering on evil actions when it came to these three women.

Night Hag, witch, demons, ghosts, they were none of those things. But two members of the party assumed they were.

The Urban Ranger Tiefling with HUMAN as his Preferred Enemy - took this to mean he hates humans and so therefore felt NOTHING about beating on a defenseless elderly woman. Attempted to justify an evil act by saying 'But my character HATES humans.'

So? She's a grandma. That was my only response.

Maybe in future -- we don't put something like 'If someone from this land treats you with kindness, it's cause for suspicion.'in our scenarios, then have defenseless elderly women be kind to the PCs. Or, we actually MAKE THE EVIL WOMEN EVIL. Ratting people out to the authorities is not 'punch the grandma in the face' level of evil needing thwarting. But if you plant that seed of 'If they're kind, be suspicious' with Murder Hobos -- bear in mind they will IMMEDIATELY punch a grandma.

Liberty's Edge
2 people marked this as a favorite.
Quote:
The Urban Ranger Tiefling with HUMAN as his Preferred Enemy - took this to mean he hates humans....

Sigh.... "trained to fight against" is not the same as "hates", but it's a pity folks don't realize that.

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
rknop wrote:
Quote:
The Urban Ranger Tiefling with HUMAN as his Preferred Enemy - took this to mean he hates humans....
Sigh.... "trained to fight against" is not the same as "hates", but it's a pity folks don't realize that.

Unfortunately, the mechanics of the class can be argued to favor the player's interpretation. When the only way you can take your own race as a Favored Enemy is be being of an evil alignment, it rather implies an antagonistic relationship with said Favored Enemy...

Sovereign Court
Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Irnk, Dead-Eye's Prodigal wrote:
When the only way you can take your own race as a Favored Enemy is be being of an evil alignment, it rather implies an antagonistic relationship with said Favored Enemy...

[citation needed]

Ranger class wrote:

Favored Enemy (Ex): At 1st level, a ranger selects a creature type from the ranger favored enemies table. He gains a +2 bonus on Bluff, Knowledge, Perception, Sense Motive, and Survival checks against creatures of his selected type. Likewise, he gets a +2 bonus on weapon attack and damage rolls against them. A ranger may make Knowledge skill checks untrained when attempting to identify these creatures.

At 5th level and every five levels thereafter (10th, 15th, and 20th level), the ranger may select an additional favored enemy. In addition, at each such interval, the bonus against any one favored enemy (including the one just selected, if so desired) increases by +2.

If the ranger chooses humanoids or outsiders as a favored enemy, he must also choose an associated subtype, as indicated on the table below. (Note that there are other types of humanoid to choose from—those called out specifically on the table below are merely the most common.) If a specific creature falls into more than one category of favored enemy, the ranger's bonuses do not stack; he simply uses whichever bonus is higher.
Shadow Lodge

It's kind of a throw back. In 2E, a Ranger had to attack their favored enemy to the exclusion of others unless it was completely impractical. In 3.0, you had t be evil to select your own race as a Favored Enemy unless they where normally evil (like Drow), (I think it was something like that). In 3.5 that mostly went away and a bit more social effects where added in. It still retains the Favored Enemy rather than something like Favored Target/Subject.
Grand Lodge

This question was put up on Facebook's PFS page. Putting it here to see if anyone can help this person out.

"I'm looking the old Pathfinder Society module, Glass River Rescue, and I've noticed Passad, Metella, and Amauhak don't have stat blocks. Do those stat blocks exist elsewhere?"
Grand Lodge

I see that 5-21 has stats for Passad and Metella as experts (merchants). Still nothing on Amauhak so far.
Paizo Employee Developer

There are not stat blocks for any of these three NPCs at this time. It's possible that a future scenario might provide them full stat blocks.
Grand Lodge
John Compton wrote:
There are not stat blocks for any of these three NPCs at this time. It's possible that a future scenario might provide them full stat blocks.

Okay. So nothing in 5-01. This is how it reads right now in the 5-21 adventure:

TEMEL PASSAD
LN male human expert/prophet of Kalistrade

METELLA RAUGER
LG female dwarf expert/fighter

Tier 1-2
TEMEL PASSAD OR METELLA RAUGER CR 1
Shopkeep (Pathfinder RPG Gamemastery Guide 284)
hp 13

Tier 4-5
TEMEL PASSAD OR METELLA RAUGER CR 5
Traveling merchant (Pathfinder RPG Gamemastery Guide 285)
hp 31
Paizo Employee Developer

Yep, noted. The NPC Codex reference is very useful for approximating their statistics in that adventure, but that sample expert does not reflect their exact class mixes. Likewise, the differences over the subtiers (important for the adventure) make the substitution a little less satisfying in the long run. I would want to provide a definitive character level before saying that something is the canonical stat block for one or the other. Any one of them is probably in the level 5-8 range.

Might I ask why it is important to have their exact stats? Is there a compulsion or charm spell involved?
Grand Lodge
John Compton wrote:

Yep, noted. The NPC Codex reference is very useful for approximating their statistics in that adventure, but that sample expert does not reflect their exact class mixes. Likewise, the differences over the subtiers (important for the adventure) make the substitution a little less satisfying in the long run. I would want to provide a definitive character level before saying that something is the canonical stat block for one or the other. Any one of them is probably in the level 5-8 range.

Might I ask why it is important to have their exact stats? Is there a compulsion or charm spell involved?

Apparently it makes it easier to run. I've never ran the adventure myself, but it's been brought up a few times in the reviews, and someone on FB was in need of it for their game. Apparently a number of people required it for one reason or another.

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