A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 7–11.
Despite several promising developments on the front lines, it’s increasingly clear to the Pathfinder Society that fighting its way across the entire Worldwound would prove far more costly than approaching the Sky Citadel Jormurdun from the west. What it might gain in ease of use, the society lacks in an established basecamp, so the PCs must travel to the Realm of the Mammoth Lords to win over the locals and secure a beachhead—all without falling prey to the area’s powerful megafauna, savage demons, and relentless barbarian tribes.
Written by Jerall Toi.
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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When my level 7 summoner was invited to play the high tier of this scenario, I was a little bit worried. The prospect of facing high level creatures was daunting. Add to that the idea of fighting mammoths and other huge or even gargantuan creatures while being but a mere gnome, and you can see why I felt as if I was going to be nothing more than a snack to them.
Luckily every single partymember had a pet of sorts, ranging from a roc or celestial crocodile to an actual mammoth or undead T-rex. In short, we brought an entire menagerie to the table. Fights ended up being trivial due to the four-player adjustment and with me casting Haste on every heavy hitter. As the GM also rolled a bunch of 1's on saves, I honestly felt bad for him.
For my party this D&D session – Demons & Dinosaurs – was relatively straightforward and easy. I'm convinced however that this scenario can be fairly challenging when your party brings less of a punch. Opponents can be quite nasty. They have the possibility of hitting fast and hitting hard. The role-playing sections are a bit limited on the other hand. Yes, they're there and they can be potentially interesting, but for the sake of time-management you more or less go through them quickly. They also felt a bit lacking on details and felt relatively underdeveloped.
Overall I did have fun, but didn't feel challenged. That's mostly due to the composition of our party and the four-player adjustment. Bringing 11 player controlled beings to the table is pretty powerful after all. Still, it's a fun scenario with some rather intriguing foes. They will make it memorable, but I just cant say it's as good as some of the other scenario's I've played. It just misses that extra oomph.
This is a great scenario, but it's brought down by a few flaws, all of which have been mentioned by others:
1. So. Many. Statblocks. Most of which aren't even complete. Slapping the Advanced template to something is pretty easy, but it's yet another thing you have to account for. I know the writers don't want to occupy too many pages, but now I have to print twice as many pages, because now I have to print out both the adventure and the separate statblocks (which were almost as many pages as the scenario itself). I really like what Season 6 has stated doing, with statblocks at the end for easy reference.
Also, don't spread out the statblocks too much. I had to leaf through multiple pages in a single encounter, because the high tier referenced low-tier stats and tactics. I'd rather have them on one page, so I can see them all immediately.
2. More freedom. This is very on-rails, and while my players weren't too bothered by it, each encounter just served to progress to the next and to fill the four-hour timeslot.
3. Better roleplay writeouts. I found it very difficult to easily find what needed to be done to convince each NPC to do what the players wanted them to do, and the interaction with them was pretty minimal. Something like bolding "When players do or accomplish X, do this" would've been welcomed, as now it all got lost in the background information of the scenario.
This is a bit personal, but I'd like to see a more detailed writeout other than a name, a description of their clothing and their favourite colour. Some people don't need as much structure, but I need something to transport myself into these characters, either by a giving more social queues, or more characterisation. Maybe it's a bit handholdy, but it makes the characters a bit more memorable both to the GM and the players, especially when you meet so many in a rapid succession.
On the other hand, I didn't find the lack of information on the gifts an issue. My players debated aloud what to give to whom, so based on that I could decide whether I agreed with their interpretation.
Other than that though, I really liked the scenario. The location is great, and the monsters pack some serious punch. You don't get to fight monsters this large this often, so if feels really cinematic when you're facing mammoths and megafauna. Four stars from a player perspective, three from GM perspective.
GM'ed this at the low tier with four players (witch, hunter, swashbuckler and warpriest).
Unfortunately I wasn't impressed. It is a simple go here and find us a suitable staging point but the three sites are just short descriptions with no room for encounters or real investigation. It also suffers from being a real railroad adventure with no player choice but to tag along for the ride.
Saying that my players had fun so I cannot really grumble but it needed less railroad and more investigative elements to make it better.
Basically this is a 7-11 tier scenario, that means combats and social encounters can take a bit longer. As a GM these higher tiers will take much longer to learn and prep to GM.
What we do have here.
20. Twenty.. TWENTY !!! different stat blocks.
6 different encounter locations.
Prepping this is about as much fun as studying for a high level math class.
Mammoths, demons, dinosaurs, barbarians, what's not to like? Theres statblocks for everyone allowing you to hack your way through the whole thing, or talk your way through half of it. The poor reviews here seem to be complaints that the GM ran the encounters incorrectly and did a poor job roleplaying. The fights are a bit easy, but the flavors so good I didn't mind.
