Issue 1: Incomplete objective
Right off the bat is a small, but fairly significant issue: Aya Allehe (the Venture-Captain quest-giver equivalent) doesn’t give the PCs one of their main objectives. She suggests to speak to Novaria to get a contact in Absalom. It’s a throw-away “further development” bit, word for word:
She also provides them with the name of a possible contact: Novaria, an agent of House Cartahegn (one of the smaller rival trade houses of the city), who has worked with the Society in the past. She tells them that they if they mention Aya’s name, the Cartahegn spokeswoman should at least hear them out.
From this, the players are supposed to figure out that what Aya wants is for them to approach House Cartahegn with a proposal for smuggling Pathfinder agents and Pathfinder Society goods through Bloodcove. I read the whole adventure 3 times before running it, but still didn’t realize or remember that Aya’s “quest-giving” didn’t include that very key objective! I had to retrofit.
If you GM this, just remember to tell the PCs what their objective is with Novaria before they depart for Bloodcove. Otherwise, you’re stuck retrofitting (which I hate doing).
Issue 2: Canvassing the Locals
The PCs are asked to canvas the locals to find out their attitudes towards the Aspis Consortium, ostensibly to figure out if the Pathfinder Society has a hope of wresting control of Bloodcove from the Consortium. Great objective, good flavor and makes total sense. However…
There are four named NPCs and 2 generic “local ethnicity” locals NPCs you can “canvas” in order to discover the town’s attitudes. The named NPC choices are pathetic, and I have no idea why the PCs would even think to ask them - let alone why they’d need to make a check (albeit a low DC check) to “discover” their allegiance. Here are the only named NPCs, and what the PCs know about them before they somehow still need to roll before they “know” if this NPC feels positively or negatively towards the Aspis Consortium:
1. Byshek Obiel: Perhaps the most valid named NPC to canvas, if the PCs chump their sense motive / perception to notice the waitresses. This guy is running a spy network for the Aspis Consortium. How do you think he feels towards Aspis? Positive. Yep. Wow.
2. Na’alu: Openly recruiting for the Aspis Consortium, even trying to convince the PCs how good they are and attempting to get them to work for the Aspis Consortium on the docks. Hmmm. How would he feel? Let’s ask. Really?
3. Novaria: The Pathfinder contact who ends up agreeing to help you smuggle Pathfinders (the enemies of the Aspis Consortium) through an Aspis Consoritum controlled city in direct opposition to the Aspis Consortium. Hmm. Negative attitudes towards the Consortium? Better check.
4. Ungala: The most ridiculous choice to specifically ask. A bandit who directly fights against and steals from the Aspis Consortium (and other merchant houses) and rants about how much she hates that they are stealing national treasures from her people. Oh wait, better just make sure… does she like the Aspis Consortium?
Worst of all, it’s attached to a success condition. If your PCs don’t think to ask these NPCs and make their rolls, then as written, they miss out on progress to a particular success condition.
Sorry for the sarcasm, but that level of poor design really deserves it. Make up some other NPCs to appear. The players have time, and they should be doing it anyway. Have a random name/profession/attitude generator or something if you like. It’s not hard. NPCs who have obvious attitudes towards the Aspis Consortium shouldn’t require a check, or even be part of this objective.
For GMs, there isn’t much you can do about this as you have to run the adventure as written. Your PCs have six choices on NPCs to canvas, and they need to get at least 3 to meet that success condition. Just prompt the PCs to ask if they’d like to know “for sure” how the NPC feels when they encounter them, and get them to make the roll. Then sigh deeply and move on.
Issue 3: Where to Stay / Pathfinder chapter house WTF?!?
The sandbox-like nature of the adventure is great, but PCs are left with only a single very poor choice of where to stay: the Witchlight. If you have a group who completely chumps their perception and sense motive rolls, they’ll never know. However, I feel that an average party would discover that the waitresses are spying on the tables and listening in to conversations. This makes that location a very poor spot to stay. Are there alternatives? Nope.
There is a mention of the local Pathfinder Society chapter house, but it isn’t included in any of the text at all, save for a knowledge (local) result stating that “foreign Pathfinders who visit it frequently disappear”. Seriously? They maintain a chapter house, but can’t even receive visitors and they haven’t closed it down? Given that they haven’t wouldn’t this be:
1. A prime location for the Pathfinders to gather;
2. The best place to start looking for Malika Fenn (the agent who went to ground for fear her identity was compromised);
3. A location to at least put some effort to detailing in the scenario; and/or
4. A better quest objective. Seriously! I can’t believe they’re just allowing visiting Pathfinders to be killed!
As a GM, get past this by making up another Inn where they can stay, or let them stay at the local PFS chapter house if they enter surreptitiously. Either way, you’ve got a bit of prep work to do getting some NPCs and the location/s set up.
Issues 4 & 5: The Smuggling Deal
If the PCs force Ungala to capitulate, she offers them a deal. But where does this happen? In the streets. There is no obvious location for them to broker a deal with Ungala. The crowds disperse, but the Free Trade Square is a massive open space and prying eyes are everywhere. Are the Pathfinders honestly expected to just broker a deal then and there? If not, where do they put the cart while they are making the deal? What happens with Ungala in the meantime? Do they just let her go?
The scenario doesn’t deal with any of that. Not what happens to Ungala if you refuse and deliver her to the authorities, not where to make a deal with her… nothing. I don’t mind making these things up on the fly (it’s why I roleplay!), but I prefer the adventure to at least give something as a believable option for what to do when the PCs take the obvious course (eg. exercise caution to hide their identities while they’re undercover in a crowded market), even as an afterthought.
For GMs, the solution is to just make up a safe place to meet. I improvised a nearby stable that Ungala had prepared in advance for stripping out the cart.
Further, my players tried to broker a deal with both Ungala and Novaria. There is no option for this in the scenario. They made some exemplary diplomacy roles and did some beautiful roleplaying to try to convince Ungala to also work with the Society (while not telling Novaria). Did the author seriously not consider this possibility?
I allowed them to use both Ungala and Novaria for roleplaying purposes, but got the players to pick a “principal” for the agreement, so I could report it properly.
Issue 6: The Warehouse / Sabotage
There are guards outside the warehouse, patrolling. There is no guidance given for their patrol rout, nor is there enough space on the regurgitated flip-mat to actually have the battle. Fine if your PCs bypass the guards, but when the miniatures come out - you’d best have some spare terrain prepared. It’s a city dock setting, so there should be alleyways and boxes for the PCs to hide behind if they want to ambush the guards as they patrol - but they are missing from the map since there is nowhere near enough space shown beyond the warehouses. The tactical maps really were made for fighting inside the warehouse, which is likely to occur only if the PCs sneak inside past the patrol but then later get noticed by the guards.
It really shows a lack of attention to detail and foresight on the author’s behalf. It would be much better to have a single-entrance warehouse and have the guards in fixed position - with enough room to fight outside!
Also, the ships mentioned in the descriptive text are nowhere to be found on the map because it’s a flip-mat, and not custom for the scenario. Since they have 3 maps as flip-mats (which is generally fine, even great, when the maps are appropriate) and 2 custom maps, I’d really like to see this as the custom map instead of the other two (the ambush map, I’m sure, would have an appropriate flip map available somewhere). The map of Bloodcove is the other custom map - which leads me to a further minor gripe: the Map of Bloodcove has an ambush marked on it along with the location of Malika Fenn’s dead drop! You can’t possibly show it to players until all the encounters are over, and it would really help get them acquainted with the town.
It really feels like this scenario was never play tested, or if it was, they didn’t take the time to update the scenario based on the lessons they learned. Seriously, where are these things they’re supposed to sabotage on the map? They haven’t even been marked in afterwards with letters! Also, the adventure says “three large riverboats”…. but the slip could support at most 3 x 20 ft boats if they squeezed a lot. I'm not planning a jungle expedition, but a 20ft boat doesn't sound as though it's large enough. I've been in a 20 ft kayak (okay, so it fit 2 people in it, but still...).
PCs also need to complete “2 of the following objectives” but many are mutually exclusive. I can’t imagine you’d be able to sabotage the supplies successfully by poisoning them if you also burn down the warehouse containing them. Same with scuttling the ships (or burning the ships) and disabling the rudder - can’t do both. Can’t scuttle ships and burn ships to get the same effectiveness either. The presented sabotage options are just poorly thought out. Of course, players are encouraged to come up with their own ideas… but if burning all the ships and the warehouse itself to the ground only gets them a “partial” success, it seems ridiculous to me. Why would they think to do anything more if everything is destroyed?
GM advice: just decide where the guards are when the players arrive, come to the session with a spare flip-mat (or just a grid) with appropriate boxes/crates/alleyways for the PCs to use tactically and something to represent the three ships (like some cut-outs). If you don’t have a spare appropriate flip-mat, just pull out one of the book’s other maps to run the battle (like town square map for Ungala’s ambush) just so that you have a grid to fight on. So poor that you have to do this, but unless you like drawing grid lines on your tabletop, or playing free-form, then you pretty much have to. Luckily, I played on PbP and could just add in the extra map online (used a D&D city map that I found online with an edge that matched closely to middle of the warehouses).
As for the sabotage and if they decide to burn it all and do nothing else, flat out let them know up front that they need to complete at least 2 forms of sabotage and let them get very creative (before burning it to the ground). Or rule that burning the warehouse gets them 1 out of 2 and burning the ships as well makes it 2 out of 2.
Issue 7: Lazy, Lazy, Lazy
In addition to the points above about the laziness of the adventure (poorly chosen flip maps, bad guys, descriptions) the general lack of attention really needs to be its own issue. Overall, the author either doesn't pay enough service to the fact that many GMs will be picking this up and playing it the same day, and also not all GMs have time to do their own research for something that is supposed to be hassle free: a scenario.
Aya Allehe has a picture in the book, which is great, but her introduction is totally devoid of description. A GM is forced to describe her from her picture or just show the picture to the players. Same with Na'Alu (GMs may not realize that he has a picture many pages after his appearance... not when he appears for some reason). Later, Novaria isn't described or pictured at all, and she's not Mwangi and has been described in a PFS scenario before (so GMs shouldn't be forced to make this up).
Worse, though, two major ethnicities that PCs are supposed to canvas (Bonuwat and Bekyar) aren't described at all. I have a copy of the Inner Sea world guide and my Internet works just fine. I looked them up... but I'll be damned if I know anyone who wouldn't need to look this up. How is anyone supposed to remember exactly what two subgroups of four major ones found on the Mwangi continent are all about? It should have been included at least in the knowledge (local) description/s. No-one should have to Google something like that when they have the adventure in front of them, especially when the author is so lazy as to describe someone in the adventure as "a Bonuwat man”.
Oh, and the tactics and morale are missing from Na’alu and his robot friend in tier 3-4. The pro-forma description for the robot is “a strange, artificial looking humanoid” - nothing about what makes him look strange and artificial. There are also minor consistency issues throughout (eg. Na’lu’s feats are also missing “combat casting” in tier 3-4 and he can’t possibly have a concentration check of +10 without it).
Lazy, lazy, lazy.
GMs, do some research and write some notes before running your session. Come prepared with your own descriptions of NPCs and figure out how the tier 6-7 tactics relate to tier 3-4, and use what you can (Na'alu obviously can’t cast stoneskin on himself at that level 6!).
Developer
