A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 5–9.
A simple retrieval mission takes an unexpected turn when the Pathfinder Society learns a valuable treasure was under its nose—within the curious demiplane connected to the Hao Jin Tapestry. The descendants of the original owners have changed in the centuries since their sequestration, though, and initial attempts to parley have ended in failure. Can the PCs discover what became of this lost people and secure the relic they guard?
Content in “Tapestry’s Toil” contributes directly to the Year of the Sky Key metaplot as well as the ongoing storyline of the Grand Lodge faction.
Written by Steven Helt.
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.
Product Availability
Fulfilled immediately.
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Played this one last week -- party was:
6 Blaster Wizard
5 Greatsword fighter
5 Sneaky rogue
6 AC-tank Warpriest
7 Barbarian
Mostly, very fun.
Encountered a little frustration from some events that I'm sure were probably supposed to be a little frustrating anyway . . .
Spoiler for detailed reactions / review
Spoiler:
The first encounter was a ton of fun, but some really low diplomacy rolls meant the eidolon got beaten on quite badly. She survived, though, and gave one last chance for diplomacy . . . which also failed miserably. Ah, well, at least she got away after giving a little info about what had happened.
The ruined settlement had some good flavor, and after cleaning the mural we had a decent idea of what we were going to be facing -- or thought we did.
Then the second encounter just about killed us. We broke the illusion with the barbarian's idea to "fish" for the chest with a grapple arrow and rope, which a couple of decent will saves figured out that it wasn't really there . . . and that's when the excrement encountered the rotating atmospheric oscillator. That water orb is just crazy frustrating, and it felt like any time someone would get out they'd just get sucked right back in. If not for the warpriest's potion of fly, a couple of us would have been washed down the river. Nobody was ever in any real danger of dying from combat (and in fact the adds each went down in one hit) but there were some very close calls with drowning. Eventually got through that, though, and the GM let us camp on the way up the mountain -- the warpriest and wizard were both out of spells at that point.
The third encounter, however, was where the real frustration set in. Climbing those (expletive deleted) stairs just about killed the party. We split into a "left" and "right" group, with climbing rope, pitons, the whole works on both sides. Left side went with a slow-and-steady approach while the right side tried a faster approach. The right side each (Barbarian and Rogue) made their first climb checks . . . and then proceeded to fail the second, taking a good bit of damage. They then grew increasingly desperate to get up and join the party, leading to some bad decisions which combined with bad dice rolling to keep them on the ground. The party on the left took several rounds to get up to the top (discovered about halfway up, and then the shooting started) and would have been in trouble if not for the warpriest's crazy-high AC. Once they reached the top, though, it went much better -- getting four archers with one well-placed fireball is always a good time, and the constructs didn't prove to be much of a problem.
The trek through the mountain was . . . anticlimactic. The rogue hit every one of his scouting rolls, and the warpriest's navigation rolls were flawless.
On to the fourth encounter. For a time, we thought we were going to be able to diplomacize (is that even a word?) our way through, but it was not to be. No problems with the encounter itself, and both went down with little fuss.
Our fifth encounter (after another flawless navigation / scouting roll combo) was similarly simple. The boss got off his crystal-shards move, but never got another hit in. I heard a little bit about what might have happened if we hadn't taken him down as quickly as we did, and I'm certainly glad we didn't have to deal with that.
Overall, a great scenario. Everyone had a good time, there was a good mix between combat and role playing (and role playing during combat) and the ending felt earned.
I was the GM for Paul and I would echo much of what he said. There is an awful lot going on in the scenario and it has lots of opportunities to satisfy both the aspiring actors and the murderhobo's. I thoroughly enjoyed running it and will almost certainly run it again.
Having said that there are a few issues that could really do with being ironed out (spoilered to avoid temptation).
Spoiler:
1. We don't have any information on how deep the river is in encounter 2 or how concealed the creatures are at the bottom of it. There is a suggestion that the pool is clear but it isn't certain from the map which bit is the pool. Also Control Water here adds some really interesting options.
2. No distance or time is given for the trip between the initial village and the mountain. This is pretty important for issues of spell durations. I set it at about a five hour hike but that was a complete guess. The text on the relationship between the outside areas is generally not clear.
3. Similarly no information is given about the amount of time it takes to move between locations once you get inside the fortress. It might have been nice if the check to get around affected timings, as it stood I just set it at one hour between each location.
4. We also have little information about the environment within, especially for the encounter areas. We don't know ceiling height or light levels. I generally went with a very open ceiling at the forge and a much lower one in the sanctum. I had dim or no light throughout.
5. The check to get about could have been much more interesting if it included more than simple damage for failure. It could easily have influenced things like the amount of warning enemies got, available buffs or number of mooks. As it stands it is largely a wand tax with a chance at some descriptive flourish on the GM's part. Unfortunately there is very little description of the interior to work with. It also wasn't entirely clear if the damage for failure came in one chunk or separate healable amounts.
6. I would repeat that this is not one to run without good prep. The river and sanctum encounters have the potential to be very complex. The final boss, especially on high tier, has a number of abilities that you want to make sure you are familiar with. He taxed my group right to the limit.
7. The end bosses spite move is one I was very surprised to see in a 5-9. If it happens you are looking at either permanent character loss or an extremely crippling financial cost. I don't mind things like that in 7-11 but in a 5-9 it is too brutal.
All but the last of those I consider to be fairly minor if annoying detriments which stops this being 5 star.
So, I ran a core game of this over the weekend with 4 players at the lower tier and it was again a blast. I incorporated some of the suggestions above and had a great time with it. The party negotiated with Grondel again, I havent had her fight anyone yet, and navigated the river fairly easily. The fey was a bit more troublesome and the party wizard spent a lot of time stuck in an Orb but they overcame him.
The gate guards were dealt with easily, it isnt a difficult fight on either tier and they negotiated with Tanbaruk. He got them to the forge without incident where Muerrit was hit with a Suggestion to surrender. She did but the Xorn was having none of it and attacked the party viciously, downing the barbarian with a critical bite. Muerrit was distresed by people attacking Droskers representative but affected by the suggestion she limited herself to casting buffs on him. Fortunately the 4 player adjustment meant she hadnt cast any on herself!
They overcame it eventually and moved on to the sanctum where again things went south. Ironwhip is an absolute beast in combat, especially when using earht glide to gain cover in addition to his other abilities. This time he again dropped a wall of stone near the door to slow down the group and just started wialing on them. His minions went down fast but he was piling on the damage. In desperation the wizard dropped a stinking cloud to provide some cover.
His snake familiar was sent into the office to retrieve the sky key under the cover of the cloud. It grabbed it and set off the trap but fortunately wasnt affected. The barbairan ended up fleeing with the snake and the Key using a fly potion, the Barbarian and Wizard similarly flew off (but into the citadel as Ironwhip blocked the exit with another wall of stone) and the poor pregen Kyra was reduced to a wet stain from a warhammer crit. Ironwhip animated her corpse out of spite which I think shuts down the Kyra clone vats so everyone else has to play a different pregen now.
In the end the group completed their mission but lost a PP from the secondary as Tanbaru wouldnt ally with them as they fled Ironwhip.
Overall another excellent game and I heartily recommend this one to everyone.
This is an excellent scenario. It has it all. An interesting back story, several opportunities for roleplaying and some quite good and interesting combats.
I played in a group of 5 characters at high tier. It was quite challenging for this group but we managed to pull it out without any casualties (although it was close a couple of times). The group was probably a little less powerful than the average (5 being generally the worst number of characters) but not significantly so.
We managed some significant roleplaying which is always good.
The PCs get to actually make some decisions that actually affects things somewhat. And it wasn't crystal clear at the meta level what decision we were "supposed" to make.
The final fight was quite interesting and difficult. It is very, very nice to see a fight which lasts several rounds, where the characters are clearly endangered, but where reasonably decent play of reasonably decent characters pulled us through.
I've reduced my rating to 4 stars since there are apparently lots of things that the scenario doesn't specify which the GM has to make up. The most important of these is the time between encounters. At this level with the number of buff spells flying around this is pretty important information to reveal.
It was also a bit long to play. Took us 5 hours (online game).
The GM stressed the fact that it needs a prepared GM. From the end boss I certainly believe that to be true.
Having just ran From Under Ice over the weekend, I can heartily recommend playing that before playing this one. Why? Read the spoiler below if you don't mind a very slight spoiler.
Kind of a spoiler:
I'm pretty sure this is a follow-on adventure that continues the events in From Under Ice. Of course, I'm just going by the summary here.
Absolutely cannot wait to play this - but I'll have to, since I've committed to playing it at GenCon.
Is this supposed to be available for general purchase before premiering at PaizoCon? I remember it was an issue last year with the PaizoCon premiers....
Hey, everyone! I'll be checking this thread for feedback and questions about the scenario. I talked to several who played or ran the game at PaizoCon and they all seemed pleased. Always wanna answer questions and learn, though.
I look forward to the day Paizo publishes me as "Steven T Helt" : )
Played this one last week -- party was:
6 Blaster Wizard
5 Greatsword fighter
5 Sneaky rogue
6 AC-tank Warpriest
7 Barbarian
Mostly, very fun.
Encountered a little frustration from some events that I'm sure were probably supposed to be a little frustrating anyway . . .
Spoiler for detailed reactions / review
Spoiler:
The first encounter was a ton of fun, but some really low diplomacy rolls meant the eidolon got beaten on quite badly. She survived, though, and gave one last chance for diplomacy . . . which also failed miserably. Ah, well, at least she got away after giving a little info about what had happened.
The ruined settlement had some good flavor, and after cleaning the mural we had a decent idea of what we were going to be facing -- or thought we did.
Then the second encounter just about killed us. We broke the illusion with the barbarian's idea to "fish" for the chest with a grapple arrow and rope, which a couple of decent will saves figured out that it wasn't really there . . . and that's when the excrement encountered the rotating atmospheric oscillator. That water orb is just crazy frustrating, and it felt like any time someone would get out they'd just get sucked right back in. If not for the warpriest's potion of fly, a couple of us would have been washed down the river. Nobody was ever in any real danger of dying from combat (and in fact the adds each went down in one hit) but there were some very close calls with drowning. Eventually got through that, though, and the GM let us camp on the way up the mountain -- the warpriest and wizard were both out of spells at that point.
The third encounter, however, was where the real frustration set in. Climbing those (expletive deleted) stairs just about killed the party. We split into a "left" and "right" group, with climbing rope, pitons, the whole works on both sides. Left side went with a slow-and-steady approach while the right side tried a faster approach. The right side each (Barbarian and Rogue) made their first climb checks . . . and then proceeded to fail the second, taking a good bit of damage. They then grew increasingly desperate to get up and join the party, leading to some bad decisions which combined with bad dice rolling to keep them on the ground. The party on the left took several rounds to get up to the top (discovered about halfway up, and then the shooting started) and would have been in trouble if not for the warpriest's crazy-high AC. Once they reached the top, though, it went much better -- getting four archers with one well-placed fireball is always a good time, and the constructs didn't prove to be much of a problem.
The trek through the mountain was . . . anticlimactic. The rogue hit every one of his scouting rolls, and the warpriest's navigation rolls were flawless.
On to the fourth encounter. For a time, we thought we were going to be able to diplomacize (is that even a word?) our way through, but it was not to be. No problems with the encounter itself, and both went down with little fuss.
Our fifth encounter (after another flawless navigation / scouting roll combo) was similarly simple. The boss got off his crystal-shards move, but never got another hit in. I heard a little bit about what might have happened if we hadn't taken him down as quickly as we did, and I'm certainly glad we didn't have to deal with that.
Overall, a great scenario. Everyone had fun, there was a good mix between combat and role playing (and role playing during combat) and the ending felt earned.
Played this last Sunday and had a lot of fun. Came a hairsbreadth away from dying. If a party member’s familiar didn’t heal me, I probably wouldn’t have stabilized.
Also, without giving anything away, I will just say the rewards are quite nice for this scenario.
Heya,
I'm about to run this scenario this coming week and had a couple of GM related questions.
Spoiler:
At the waterfall with the Draugr fight, are they meant to be stealthing or something? It seems if the bad guy wasn't wanting to be noticed, he wouldn't be leaving undead lying around the place.
Also, when the Draugr hit, is it an auto negative level or is the DC 12 like the nausea effect would be?
RPG Superstar 2013
