A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1–5.
Few societies have so vaunted a tradition of leading crusades as Taldor, yet the constant revisions to its history by scheming factions leaves the truth obscured by countless acts of political modifications. Even the lauded Kitharodian Academy’s texts are riddled with these changes, so when a secretive ally approaches the Pathfinder Society with information about a hidden archive that contains the unaltered histories, the Pathfinders plan a daring infiltration to recover the secrets of Taldor’s past victories so that Mendev might benefit from the discovery.
Content in "Library of the Lion" also contributes directly to the ongoing storylines of the Cheliax, Grand Lodge, and Taldor factions.
Written by Kyle Elliot.
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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Perspective: Played once at high tier, GM’ed once at low tier. I was at Avatar’s table when I played.
TO THE LIBRARY! All the word of mouth surrounding “The Disappeared” has led to the second time-critical, mission impossible, murder hobo slapping infiltration investigation. Library of the Lion takes us deep into Taldor’s Kitharodian Academy, where ancient secrets need to be copied, and books need to be read. “Ugh!” I hear you say, “Sounds boring!” Well, I say, reading is cool! Give it a chance!
Big Kyle has developed a fun research based minigame that takes the characters academic skills and uses them to earn intriguing clues or helpful hints. Clues are the real treasure of the scenario, while hints are used on mission critical book collections to bolster your chance of finding a clue.
Secondly, it’s set in a library, so bomb-throwing alchemists, gun-blasting musket masters and any class with low int and 2 skill points per level or less are set up to fail. Some creative use of strategy can let you work around your weaknesses, but otherwise, you’re in trouble. This is one of the more class specific and puzzle heavy PFS scenarios I’ve seen in recent months. Thugs need not apply. I expect this ambition will lead to a number of barbarian and fighter players down-voting this scenario as they can’t use power attack to research history.
Here’s the thing. When I played with my Linguist Sorceress Tengu, if we hadn’t [REDACTED], we would have failed on our skill check rolls and probably failed the mission. There is a LOT of reliance on skill check rolls. When I ran it for a low tier table with both an Inquisitor and a Taldan Bard, they finished with ten minutes left on the clock. Despite my own close experience with failure, I do kind of think this scenario doesn’t have enough challenges for PCs…
Ultimately, I feel Venture Captain Muesello does most of the work for the PCs. They are given a medium collection of the perfect set of magical items, including a customised tool to distract any interloper, they are given an enormous musical concert to remove/distract all other library visitors and they are given a ‘get out of jail free’ scroll. I have heard of parties running through this scenario with no combats whatsoever, and I definitely haven’t heard of any parties actually encountering the armed [REDACTED]. I just feel like the kid’s gloves are on a bit too much here. Except for the Grand Lodge mission. That one is a doozy. I guess I wanted some harder infiltration elements. Make me think how to distract the clerk, don’t do it for me. Harder skill DCs does not equal harder challenge for the player's brains.
Ultimately, this is a wonderful puzzle-rich, Taldor setting infiltration with some unique rewards included. However I do wish VC Muesello hadn’t done such a very good job for the Pathfinders. If he molly-coddles them this much, they won’t learn anything for themselves.
Party Composition
I played this at tier 4-5 with 4 players, and our classes and skillsets weren't especially suited to the scenario (we could tell from the get-go). With a very clever bit of preparation that I won't mention here, my group most likely did much better than we would have without it.
This is important, because groups who are both not lucky and not prepared could run into some issues with this quite out-of-the-ordinary scenario. It can't be said this is a fault of the scenario. This is actually one of its strengths. Pathfinders should be able to think out of the box when the circumstances tell them this is going to be the case. Luckily it's a situation where any one person can do the same prep we did, so it's solvable.
The Gameplay (light spoilers):
Some new mechanics are introduced here, ones that players don't have to put too much effort into thinking about. The "discovery" aspect adds a lot. There are constant "woohoo!" moments throughout.
I feel like there was enough variety to the few NPCs. They had a very specific purpose and they allowed the GM to easily add flavour to them.
The puzzle elements in this scenario were exciting and thought-provoking. The riddle puzzle was my personal favourite - not something you'd expect, and it forces some good creativity. I think even newbies would have a good time trying to solve that one.
Points of Improvement (heavy spoilers):
The one part which we struggled with was the cipher. We figured we knew how to do it, but the results were still nonsensical, and we had no idea how to complete it. We only found 1 card in this aspect. Maybe that's intentional, but we felt a bit robbed by the end of it. Obviously this relies on luck, and maybe it's just a matter of you can't have it all. But we were thirsty! Grand Lodge players in this situation will be scorned if this happens to them.
A lesson not learnt from a certain other scenario - the cipher's solution must be included in the book! The GM shouldn't have to work it out. Thank god for the messageboards, but this is really a book thing. It's a red flag here because this is the second time it's happened in PFS.
Names. Give the Administrator a name (another mistake from the same scenario that made that other mistake! red flag here). Give sample names of super-secret books that the GM can use. If the players ask for them, or what they find, these become important.
The book also needs to mention some more creative ideas of what else the PCs might find in the last room to avoid metagaming issues. Our GM did a spectacular job here and he was lucky we didn't get obsessed in there with our thirst for secret knowledge. Shades of Ice 2 has a (loose) example of how this could be written.
"How to research" was a little difficult to understand, and could probably be simplified since it was required throughout the scenario. The GM needs to work out a good method to ask players how this is done, and it's probably best to explain it as soon as they do their first research. The book should probably have made this more black and white.
When I went to GM this and I was preparing for it, the Grand Lodge mission made me want to cry. The book should have allowed for a player to roll an intelligence check to give them clues on non-giveaway tips to help solve it; I'll have to work something out before I GM this to save players some pretty severe grief. This is PGP-level stuff.
Final thoughts (light spoilers):
Overall, as a player who usually prefers heavy dungeon running scenarios over heavy roleplay, I really quite liked this one even though we only ended up going through a single combat. Our game lasted 4 hours cleanly, which I think is fantastic. In getting past the puzzles (bar the one mentioned above), we felt a real sense of accomplishment by the end.
I've since GM'd this, and it was a lot of prep required, and I couldn't keep up with the orchestra's timeline very well. It reminded me of a book I'd once read where the hero has to concentrate on so many different things happening all at the same time, one of which was a timeline hanging over him where he had to enter in the codes on a moving target, as well as deal with everything else that's happening.
Sort of like in Back to the Future 3 when Marty realises THE RED LINE'S ABOUT TO BLOWWWWWWWWwwwwwwww! BOOM
That's what it was like trying to keep it all together.
I think these new RP heavy scenarios are quite nice. Stolen Heir, Disappeared, Hellknight's feast. They are great but on small tables. If you run these tables with 6 or 7 players it just gets tiresome and tedious for some players inevitably. Those who are engaged usually have a good time and those who are awkward with RP usually hate it. I actually like RP but played this with 7 players and didn't know what was going on most of the time. All in all I am sure it would have been great but due to table size and playing in a somewhat loud gamestore, it was a bit rough. Give it a try and expect knowledge checks and the like.
Picking up this scenario as an emergency session tonight had me hearkening back to The Disappeared. Covert entry, time limits, and skill monkeying galore. This is PFS's 'Ocean's Eleven' to The Disappeared's 'Mission: Impossible'.
The location is evocative, the riddles enjoyable, and the NPCs dripping with flavor and personality. I wish I had had more notice to prep and work out the characters, but even so my players were engaged and having a grand old time working their way through the mission.
Much like The Disappeared and The Stolen Heir, the fights are a little weak (at least at low tier) but they make sense for the setting and certainly draw the players in rather than shunt them out of the scenario.
Would love to run it again to better play up the interactions.
Please tell me there will be a push to get this scenario released before everyone at Paizo leaves for the Christmas break. Otherwise, you should edit the release date to something more realistic like Friday, January 3rd.
Thank you! I know the Powers What Be have previously pushed scenarios out early to appease the howling horde prior to the holidays. I just wanted this to be confirmed sooner rather than the week-of. It ruins the impact of the dispensation announcement, so apologies for that...
Due to a combination of holiday travel and the editorial staff's tireless dedication and work in getting Inner Sea Gods out the door, this scenario's release is delayed. I anticipate it being available close to January 1st.
My apologies for the delay. Pathfinder Society Scenario #5-10: Where Mammoth's Dare Not Tread should be available for download later today.
Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Well I need to quickly change my schedule, thanks for the update John.
Hey folks, we're just about done with this scenario, and have some final checks left to perform tomorrow morning. We'll have it available for download as quickly as possible so that you can begin preparing it.
Had to throw this one together tonight after the home campaign fell through due to player absence. Possibly one of the best scenarios in awhile. Just like The Disappeared, you're either going to love it or hate it.
After reading the discussion above, I now understand why this is the case, but I was pretty disappointed when reading the scenario. Several typos slipped by the editors that are fairly obvious. What with illnesses being the cause, I'm not angry or upset. I'm excited to run this tomorrow night and hope that it will be as much fun as I think it will.
It would, except that the cipher text contains an error.
If you plan on GMing this you might want to make the single character adjustment when you give it to your players so that they can actually solve the coded message without confusion.
The required minor cipher fix:
Change the 6th last letter from "F" to "G", i.e. the cipher should end with "G-G-C-Q-F-C". As it stands, the best solution for the cipher gives you a final word of "o-b-e-C-i-e-n-c-e".
FWIW, I've only encountered 2 scenarios with ciphers — the other being The Disappeared — and BOTH have errors in their cipher text. The error in The Disappeared was much worse, but *any* error is problematic in a cipher.
Perhaps a dedicated puzzler should be recruited as a volunteer for editing these things? Yes, I am in fact channeling Eddie Murphy's Shrek character, Donkey... Pick me! Pick me! :P
I typically run Jade Regent for a group of players every other friday, but we'd just finished book 4 and while I'm prepping the next installment one of my players ran this scenario for us last week with our PFS characters.
I really liked the adventure. it has a good roleplay, and a different kind of investigation for an investigative mod, but I don't think it should be a tier 1-5 game; the mechanics of the skill challenges involved and the particular skills involved aren't common and most people won't choose them at early levels, or will be very poor with only one rank or so. We were lucky to have 3 PCs and one pre-gen (Ezren) with the skills needed in our group of 5. With a tier 3-7 group I think you might see more players with the skills needed, and all that remains is to adjust the encounters for the tier.
Our GM said the mod needed some editing, I'd have to read it to see what he's referring to exactly but he grew frustrated with a couple of rooms not being very clear or having conflicting information. I think I'd enjoy running this game with some editing - hopefully Paizo can clear up some of these issues. Some slack in the time requirements might be needed (adventure is on a clock) for table size.
I'd give it a 3.5/5 stars; with editing probably 4.5/5.
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