Nearly every nation has contributed to the Mendevian Crusade, but few are willing to send additional aid to assist the Pathfinder Society directly. Owed a favor the elves cannot refuse, Pathfinders travel to Kyonin to secure a force of some of the finest demon-hunters in Avistan only to find that the hunters are missing in action. Can the Pathfinders extract the lost elves from the depths of Tanglebriar, or will they become the latest casualties of Treerazer’s domain?
Written by Ryan Costello, Jr.
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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I played this at the recent 3XP Con and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is a hard scenario, no doubt, and there's been lots of discussion about that, so I'll leave that to the end.
There is a brief set-up in Absalom but the main briefing effectively takes place in Kyonin – given that it's called 'the Elven Entanglement', I hope that's not too spoilerific. A macguffin mission quickly becomes something rather more interesting, and the adventure is afoot. The section in Kyonin gives opportunity for some role-play, but the main opportunity for that is later on.
First encounter:
The first combat encounter is 'Keith'. 'Keith' is being pursued by some people who aren't sure what to make of you; that gives not only 'Keith' but shouted, in-combat diplomacy. Once you get over the shock of 'Keith's, er, unusual appearance, you have to realise that the usual tactics aren't necessarily going to work. At least in our case, moving around the terrain a lot made things much easier – once we worked it out. As with the third encounter, terrain was a challenge that made the whole setting more realistic (well, Golarionisitic). My character only survived this because of some first aid gloves and we had a couple of people down.
Second encounter:
The second encounter has a monster I'd never encountered before but is, more experienced players tell me, a classic of sorts. In retrospect, this encounter suffers in comparison to the other two; once the trick is worked out, it became a more standard sort of fight. What I only realised on reading the scenario is that a previous choice that I thought was either just for flavour or that we had made the 'right' decision (after a few anxious moments, thinking we'd just brought down all kinds of chaos) affects this combat – a nice touch.
By this point, we were on the clock, in a hostile jungle. We hadn't quite broken out the camouflage paint, but we did feel that we were somewhere we all would rather not be.
Third encounter:
The main role-play opportunity came with 'Ronnie'. The set-up is fantastic; I can't think of anything I can say that won't give too much away, but enjoy it. It fits into the area really well; you know things are creepy when you get to a nice area and immediately go on the defensive.
Spoiler:
It turns out that wayangs don't like dancing, but do like sneak attacks.
We didn't have time for the optional encounter.
Fourth encounter:
The denouement of the adventure came when we met 'Mick'. This was a tougher fight, I think, than the first encounter. It may be that we were lucky with the earlier and unlucky with the later combat, but the first one was more shock and regrouping while this was difficult all the way through.
This big bad came with abilities to match; this may be my inexperience, but I had not encountered this critter or a lot of its powers before, which always makes things more interesting.
The big difference between this and other fights here was the environment. The scene setting up to this point made it feel like an unpleasant, dangerous place to be, but the opponents and others beyond the bbeg really made it feel more like a stinking forest than a field with some unfortunate bits of terrain. Some of the opponents could easily have just been what you would expect to find in such a place; the difficult bits of terrain were used appropriately by the bbeg and it did feel like we were creeping in on his lair.
Difficulty:
Everyone seems to be giving this either a one out of five or a five out of five. I would hazard a guess that the people who gave it one out of five were TPK'd in the opening encounter.
The scenario and does, I feel, give fair warning that this is not a run of the mill adventure, particularly if you make even half-decent knowledge rolls. I came very close to an early bath – it took some first aid gloves to bring me back – and I do sympathise with people who were wiped out by the first encounter. That having been said, I'm not sure that people who lost a character and so didn't play the rest of the adventure are necessarily in the best place to comment on the adventure as a whole. I would also endorse DeusVult's comments above, to the effect that it's good to have hard adventures and, indeed, hard first encounters; if every first encounter is a cakewalk, they become humdrum and we're always waiting for the meat.
Thoughts for GMs:
As a few people have said, impressing upon them either in character, out of character or both that they're not in Kansas anymore is going to help with expectations. I originally but here that they should come loaded for bear, but that makes it sound like they just need to hit things hard - for this one, they need to be ready to think on their feet.
It it an unusual scenario, not just because of the setting and storyline but because it throws unusual critters at you in unusual ways. I'd like to see more like this from Ryan – maybe not quite as hard – because, above all, it was memorable.
Absolute garbage. Playing 4 chars, 2 7s, a 10, and a 8, only the level 10 cavalier survived the second round of combat. This is a complete waste of money and your time to try and attempt. I can't disrecommend this strongly enough.
I finally got around to playing this over the weekend, as the last session of Coast Con. I'd heard talk about the danger of the first encounter. We were a party of 6 between tiers playing 10-11 with the 4-player adjustment. While the scenario is very dangerous, and there was a moment when two characters were unconscious and looked like they might not last another round, I think most of the negative experiences have been from situations where the GM misunderstood or misread tactics, monster abilities, or both. I highly encourage anyone planning to run this to read the GM discussion thread.
For me, the combats were challenging, but extremely fun. There were opportunities for fun role play as well, though I'd lost my voice by that part of the con and couldn't participate much in those sections, despite playing my social focused ninja. This was my first experience with Tanglebriar. It was also my first Season 5 7-11 scenario, and it did not disappoint. I hope the early confusion and negative reviews are forgotten over time, as I think this is an excellent scenario.
There's no harm in having a scenario with a reputation for generating TPKs.. and it's of no consequence if that reputation is deserved or not.
In fact, there IS harm to PFS on the macro scale if there are NOT any such scenarios. Add "I survived the Elven Entanglement" to a bragsheet alongside others like "I survived the Dalsine Affair". Not only does it keep the optimized player crowd challenged, it reminds everyone that you should remember to be on your A-game when the adventure is on.
Whether you agree or disagree, I believe that The Elven Entanglement is memorable (good), challenging (good), thematically consistent (good) to a "sylvan elven adventure" theme that avoids being trite (good). It even has roleplay encounters to keep the normal players entertained at a table that's bound to have TPK-defying munchkins seeking that "I survived the Elven Entanglement" t-shirt.
Any adventure that has such a high chance, within the first two rounds of the first encounter, of wiping out a party or killing individuals, who most probably cannot be brought back into the game, leaves players sitting around with nothing to do for 4 hours. The rest of their team may be left without a viable party. That is not fun and it's not entertaining. It's a liability at a convention. Worse than that, it's a serious design fault. I have no problem with getting killed (it's a personal habit) but I at least like to make the middle or end of the adventure. I cannot recommend this adventure. It's a shame, because this is otherwise an atmospheric adventure with an interesting story but there are other more sophisticated ways to instil fear and awe in players without dropping a grand piano on them without warning.
I've never played Pathfinder Society, probably won't get the chance to for the foreseeable future, but I think I'm going to buy this anyway. After listening to all of "Know Direction" over the summer, I'm really curious to read some of Ryan's writing.
While no motivation to buy this is unwarrented, Nate, I recommend you give PFS a try. Heck, if you're buying this scenario anyway, offer to run The Elven Entanglement at your FLGS. Most regions have a core group of veterans begging for higher tier scenarios.
Give it the Wild Speech feat. People so rarely expect an otyugh to talk; it would blow their minds to hear a bear talk and then find out that the bear is an otyugh...that can also talk.
I think I'm gonna buy this and work it into my home campaign -- the PCs just happen to be in the Tanglebriar right now, and in need of building some trust with the elves of Kyonin.
EDIT: And I am a Know Direction/Private Sanctuary fan, and want to throw some business Ryan's way!
Does this scenario have any recommended factions? I haven't seen any mentioned anywhere...yet.
If not, does this mean that Season 5 Tier 7-11 scenarios will follow a slightly different paradigm than the lower tiers have so far, or does this fall under the category of "one does not constitute a pattern"? :P
Does this scenario have any recommended factions? I haven't seen any mentioned anywhere...yet.
If not, does this mean that Season 5 Tier 7-11 scenarios will follow a slightly different paradigm than the lower tiers have so far, or does this fall under the category of "one does not constitute a pattern"? :P
TIA!
Not every scenario will have a faction-related opportunity. It so happens that #5–05 does not have such a faction goal, and I'm sure that there will be others—not all of them Tier 7-11—that will similarly have no faction association.
Does this scenario have any recommended factions? I haven't seen any mentioned anywhere...yet.
If not, does this mean that Season 5 Tier 7-11 scenarios will follow a slightly different paradigm than the lower tiers have so far, or does this fall under the category of "one does not constitute a pattern"? :P
TIA!
Not every scenario will have a faction-related opportunity. It so happens that #5–05 does not have such a faction goal, and I'm sure that there will be others—not all of them Tier 7-11—that will similarly have no faction association.
Except, of course, for those of us with Lantern Bearer characters who see this entire scenario as one big glorious opportunity to do some work for their true faction. ^w^
Thanks lastblacknight. And thanks to everyone who has reviewed the scenario so far. Sorry for those who fell victim to an early encounter, although from one of the write-ups, I can see an error or two the GM made that increased the lethality of the encounter exponentially. I’ve posted some advice for GMs thinking of running this scenario in the thread in the Pathfinder Society GM Discussion forum.
I'm running this tomorrow, and I'm really looking forward to it. I think I might bring a copy of Queen of Thorns to lend to anyone who seemed incredibly into the setting.
The Briarborn Juggernaut (a not quite advanced version of the Titan Centipede) Didn't have the fact that it can not be tripped in the CMB/CMD section. I assume that the same would apply as it did in the lower tier monster.
Animate Dead on Briarborn Juggernaut. It's a horsey!
You may need to consider how to handle that. Our GM had to take a break to figure out what would happen. And we still ended up effectively ignoring a large part of the module. Official ruling may be necessary.
You may need to consider how to handle that. Our GM had to take a break to figure out what would happen. And we still ended up effectively ignoring a large part of the module. Official ruling may be necessary.
Not official, but...
Spoiler:
Given how many reviews mention that the first encounter led to a TPK, I think this is a just reward for a well fought encounter.
I have personally witnessed that tactic once and read about it happening on two other occasions. It's not a tactic available to every party, and just happens to make a few parts of the scenario easier.
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