A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1–5.
Rumors of a lost shrine in the Segang Jungle draw the Pathfinder Society’s attention, but the prohibitive cost of sending a team into the wilds of Jalmeray threatens to shut down the expedition before it even begins. Fortunately, a wealthy patron has offered to fund the PCs travel expenses in return for their help in his decades-old quest. Can the Pathfinders balance this new obligation with their exploration of the archaeological site?
Content in “The Segang Expedition” also contributes directly to the ongoing storyline of the Sovereign Court faction.
Written by Benjamin Bruck.
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 wouldn't have imagined that babysitting NPCs would be as fun as it is. If you enjoyed #4–19: The Night March of Kalkamedes then I strongly suggest this scenario. Having the additional challenge of playing a character who is a member of the Sovereign Court made the story all the more engaging.
There are scenarios you play and enjoy; then put into your stack of things to run. My AP group needed an adventure so I prepped this adventure in a hurry. It flowed like water. This is memorable due to the easy to implement favor mechanic between two NPCs and the intrigues of a family. The characters are accessible and as a GM I appreciate having a well thought out paragraph of the character personality that would never appear in a stat block.
The setting and the encounters all contribute to the story and theme. After playing this two weeks before prepping it in a day, I had no problem understanding the encounters, reoccurring NPCs, and keeping the scenario moving.
Role play is great, and everyone else appreciates how itcontributes to the story line. I liked how it was natural and encouraged by the situations in the scenario.
I ran this yesterday and thoroughly enjoyed it so thought I would add a few comments. I ran it at APL3 with 5 players, so high tier with 4 player adjustment. This would prove to be very dangerous. We had:
The set up is decent but the adventure is in effect two different adventures, a fairly linear hunting expedition and then an exploration of an old abandoned temple.
Part 1 had lots of opportunities to roleplay with the two Nobles which our two Sovereign Court members got stuck into. The hunting encounters were fairly easily dealt with, the Monkeys were dispatched fairly quickly and the snakes weren't much of a problem (although the big one hits hard and its poison DC is high) but the we got to the "tiger"
I would echo what a previous poster said, the 4 player adjustment monster is quite a bit more dangerous than the full 4-5 tier creature, largely because its bit damage is quite a bit higher. We lost the Paladin/Oracle here to a 39 damage bite crit.
Reduced to 4 the group pressed on to the temple. they negotiated past the looters and then we got to the Asura...They were a player down but as I don't believe you adjust tier because you lose a player they were still playing 4-5 with the adjustment. To be fair I had warned them of the risks of doing so.
The creature heard them approaching so set up its buffs and then they faffed about at the entrance as one of the Paladins could sense an evil aura. As they were hanging back the Asura dropped a spike growth all across the entrance and part of the room which ended up causing a lot of damage over the many rounds of the fight. They still didn't come inside so it used its summon and I rolled an 8 so now they were facing two of them.
To make a long story short they ended up having to run away. The level 3 and 1 simply couldn't hurt the thing and no-one had a way to negate their regeneration. They managed to take down the summon (thanks t a 47 damage smite crit) and its duration ran out just as its regeneration got it back up but by that point it was very apparent that only the level 4 paladin could hurt it. The sorcerer had been dropped, was revived and ended up hiding invisibly. The group managed to escape but not by much.
The fled and rested up the night. They didn't want to give up so they came back the next day and snuck in under cover of invisibility. Two of them distracted the creature long enough for a third to complete their exploration and the mission.
I have seen various comments about the 4-5 Asura fight being pretty easy and that wasn't our experience. To be fair the group were right on the edge of the tier but between SR, DR, Regeneration, Blur and Mirror Image the thing is incredibly dangerous. It's attacks don't do much damage but it has 4 of them and they are all at a pretty high attack bonus. The fact that the monkeys can turn up and disarm the thing actually makes it more dangerous as it is then making 4 primary claw attacks at its highest attack bonus.
An excellent jaunt in the jungle resulting in one of the best low-level adventures I've played in a while. Plenty of solid role-playing opportunities between the feckless count, gruff baron, and, unexpectedly, some of the wildlife.
I particuarly appreciated the encounter variety here. We got to test our skills in a low-stakes, semi-roleplay hunt, a campsite encounter was open-eneded enough to give us plenty of options, and one shining late combat had an interesting starting twist on top of spotlighting a rarely-used creature. Only the final fight seemed mildly underwhelming, but it's possible that this was due to something we had accomplished earlier in the scenario (and it was a nice surprise to see that come back in our favor)
Props to Benjamin Bruck for this gem! This adventure is top notch in roleplaying, encounters and flow. The flow of the adventure was my favorite–it moved along amazing and the fun never stopped. I had mostly brand new PFSers and they loved it. The mini encounters with role play and skill checks really dug into that safari feeling. The combats were not easy for 1st level characters and kept everyone on the edge of there seats as the risked life and limb. I would run this again anytime.
Quick question and excuse my ignorance, but is there some rule or something about only certain star level GMs or venture-staff able to run new games for a certain period of time? Or can anyone run this for PFS once it goes on sale?
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Usually the exclusives, marked with -EX or something similar--like Day of the Demon, in its exclusive form, are the only one with limits on who can run a scenario.
That's the encounter with the looters, who just want to bug out of the temple as fast as possible. If the PCs choose not to fight them or talk to them and let them walk out, they'll flee and take all their treasure with them.
Rather than lose all the gold from the encounter if the PCs choose not to deal with the looters, the encounter gives the PCs a reduced gold value--the gold from the next lowest subtier. At the 1-2 subtier, they get the gold listed for Below 1-2.
A nit-pick: The good baron does not seem to be proficient with his weapon of choice. :) When I played this it didn't matter because he did not get to shoot at his famous 'tiger'.
Firearm Style: At 2nd level, a trophy hunter gains the Amateur Gunslinger feat and Exotic Weapon Proficiency (firearms), and can use any 1st-level gunslinger deed (page 10).
Started to prep the scenario, and I noticed the Baron fought against the Gorilla King in 2690 AR. This puts him at a little over two millenia old. Am I missing something?
even with good aligned weapons Asura fight was a really hard fight with his 4 kukri and 2 claws attacks. 3 of us were with only 3-5 hp and we were really excited when he went down with a lucky critical hit from our prone barbarian!
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 8
