A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 7–11.
The occasional unexplained disappearance is common enough in Ustalav, yet a rash of unexplained abductions has led to fearful speculation on the verge of panic in the streets. Hoping to improve the Pathfinder Society’s reputation in Ustalav, Venture-Captain Basia Kalistoff has offered her lodge’s services in putting an end to this crime wave. But in a city where countless terrors haunt its underworld and institutions, can the PCs unveil the true culprit without unleashing an even darker fate on Karcau?
Content in “The Darkest Abduction” contributes to the ongoing storyline of the Scarab Sages and Sovereign Court factions.
Written by Jerome Virnich.
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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Took too long writing my review so the system ate it. Trying to help you out here Paizo but I guess F that. My lovely 6 paragraph review, now boiled down to the TL:DR
Railroading? No more so than like 75% of other scenarios in PFS play
Bad Plot? Plenty of subtle evidence to find, its just the GM isn't explicitly told it. Make sure you reread the entire scenario and focus on that for your players. Not easy, but very possible. The GM should definitely consider making the background information from the pre-adventure intro accessible to the players as it is important, but glanced over in the in-game briefing.
Murderhoboism? Player's are obsessed with getting through every encounter without expending any resources whatsoever besides daily spell slots. News flash, being unwilling to part with you money or prestige for a valuable service when you could beat it out of someone instead means you were already a murder hobo at heart. That's a problem with the way other PFS scenarios are written though, handwaving the players through all costs and negotiations like they "aren't real" and players just got used to it. It's not even that much gold if you have an old dusty potion of Daylight or Wand of Endure elements sitting around from 5 levels ago you that you don't use anymore.
This scenario is fine, it just needs better information conveyance to the GM. I liked it alot and it has a clever ending if run well. If it doesn't end like a scooby doo mystery, you've done it poorly!
More like 2.5
I played it with a nice balance group and an excellent GM.
As instated by other reviews this had good potential, the investigation part of it does not flow at all.
But the biggest problem in this scenario the bad boon, here murder hobos should kick in, but if you character is made to be diplomatic there Is not much you can do.
If you are going to play this just make sure you play with a group that will have fun, as we did riding an invisible elephan (yes, snuffaluffagus) up the side of a building.
I just got finished playing this, It is one of the most ridiculous adventures I have been on. It is so railroaded that the GM was apologizing to us about how limited our choices are. there was so description on things that really did not need it and so little on actual plot. It became a running joke that we were on the tracks about halfway through the game. and we felt like it was a really bad Scooby Doo episode( we had a large cat for scooby stand in). all in all the best part was taking the villain and making them a pincushion in the end. and mind you my character started this adventure really not a big violent person but by the end he was the biggest supporter of murder death killing. all in all the adventure is one that try's to be investigative mission without really letting and/or you dont make the rolls and you are kinda left wanting. sorry for the rant but damn was looking forward to this and was more comedy (for the wrong reasons than suspense)
A couple possible errors I noticed reading through the scenario while doing prep.
Scaling Encounter C2:
Subtier 10-11 says to "Reduce the Perception DC of the nightmare vapor trap to 23. Reduce the Disable Device DC of the trap to 27."
The trap starts with Perception 30, Disable Device 25. My guess is that they got the numbers swapped for reduction, and it should read
"Reduce the Perception DC of the nightmare vapor trap to 27. Reduce the Disable Device DC of the trap to 23.
Map on page 17:
The D6 notation is placed over the foot of the stairs to area D10, but the description for D6 on page 18 describes it as the rear entrance.(Which appears to be to the right of the D7 notation.)
We played this tonight. It was a very interesting investigative scenario, and enjoyable, despite major railroading. But, despite investigating moderately quickly in the beginning, skipping the optional encounter, and some major GM squeezing of the later investigation time, we ran just over 5hrs.
Please Paizo, you really need to edit/playtest these kinds of scenarios for time. I'd hate to run/play this in a convention slot.
This is the worst scenario I have ever played. I have previously played this writers 4-05 scenario and I continue to be unimpressed by his scenario design. The scenario is overly deadly, 1 player dead and 2 unconscious in the first encounter which isn't even a combat, in the end the party walked away and this is overly deadly. There should be a warning on this adventure and it should be tweaked, when you have venture captains telling stories of losing 4 people to this mod this isn't fun this is sadistic cheese.
RPG Superstar 2009 Top 32, 2010 Top 8
