A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1-2.
The Aspis Consortium pays well, but few can stand its underhanded tactics for long. One operative fed up with the Consortium's practices has contacted the Pathfinder Society with a tempting offer: assist her in leaving the organization, and she will supply the Society with years of insider intelligence about their longstanding rival. It's up to the PCs to navigate Diobel—a proud town run by cutthroat smugglers—earn the defector's trust, and deal a telling blow to their Aspis foes.
"The Consortium Compact" is an evergreen, replayable scenario designed to help introduce players to the Pathfinder Society, the Isle of Kortos, and one of the Society's longstanding rivals.
Written by Mike Kimmel.
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I have only played this, but I loved how we could approach the different mini missions in our own way.
The last fight was quite a challenge, as we did not prepare.
Overall, had fun.
I both ran this as a GM (Tier 1, PFS table of 6 players), and shortly afterwards, played in it as a fill-in PC (Tier 1, PFS table of 5 players.)
Somebody else mentioned that the strengths of this evergreen scenario also mirror the weaknesses. The format is set up so that players can avoid having a duplicate experience (with the 2 out of 3 smaller missions), which is great - it would have almost been better to drop in 4 smaller missions so that a replay could be 100% fresh.
I do agree that the finale is a little understated, and while it can be spiced up, if played as a PFS scenario, it's uninspired. The strength is in the initial two Acts and the interesting, fluid shenanigans that can erupt in the last Act.
That said, both times I've played through this, it ran approximately 2.5-3.5 hours, even with a fair amount of chatting and tangents - so it could be a good fill-in if the venue or players have finite time limits (and, as an evergreen, it probably gets far quicker once it's been played through a few times.)
Another evergreen scenario, but more like an official mission compare to First Step, Confirmation, and Wounded Wisp.
Good for both new or veteran players. I love the first and second mission, lots of solutions and even not go into battle.
Talking of the final, too predictable... go somewhere and fight four guys... can't you make some difference?
Change to 5 stars, all my PC love the first mission of multi-solutions, I haven't seen two teams run exactly the same. And building barriers in the last scene really fun like Denfense of the Ancients.
When I was preparing to run this scenario as a GM, I was pleasantly surprised. Unlike the previous evergreens, this one actually offers a different experience. A part of this is the whole 'three tasks, pick two' portion, but also because it's a sandbox. Every task, more so than in any other evergreen, can be done in a wide variety of ways. It will most likely offer a unique experience every time because of the choices players make.
For an evergreen this is very outstanding, but how does it translate to being a scenario someone might play only once? Well, the idea behind the scenario is simple. Three task, pick two and enjoy. It's nice and while I felt there was a storyline behind it all, I don't feel that it comes together very well for players. That said, the fact that you can do a lot of different things and still succeed is always a plus in my book.
As for the combats, particularly near the end, I couldn't help but feel a tad disappointed. Depending on the preparations by the players, it might even be anticlimactic, which makes it a weird ending for the scenario. For me, as a GM, it left a bit of a sour taste, a taste of disappointment. Luckily the players still had fun and that's all that matters. In the end, I'd say it's a good evergreen, but not a great scenario.
As a player, I feel this falls into the same pitfalls that a lot of scenarios have in that things the players can do aren't really described. I like the choose two of three things to do and those were fun, but the third encounter is terrible. let the players try to set up the place up before they show up with very little to go on other than don't kill some people. I like the scenario up to that point and at that point I really lost interest as I couldn't really figure out what to do to move things along, so our GM just moved things along for us to they show up. Terrible ending to what could be a good scenario.
Why are there so many
Scenarios about Aspis
And those on the other side?
These archvillains have visions
And some have bronze badges
The Aspis they hide in plain sight
So we've been told
And some choose to believe it
I know they're wrong, wait and see
Someday we'll fight them
The Consortium Connection
The Pathfinders, your players, and me...
I'm currently running four (!) PbP tables of this.
One of my frustrations is that the races and genders of the NPCs aren't specified in the stat blocks. Digging through the text some are identified as women (the port inspector, for example), but I feel this information should be in the stat blocks.
Similarly, I'm assuming most everyone is human, if it doesn't specify otherwise ...?
Uhm, in the 'Warehouse Location 5: Loading Platform' chart, the #4 entry seems to be missing for the randomized d6 die roll.
While its easy enough to re-roll a result of '4', could we get a hint as to what #4 was supposed to be?
Please?
Also, 2 of the generic 'Healing' NPCs (the Acolyte and the Mercenary Healer) are both listed as Clerics. Can we get clarification on which Gods they follow, or do we need to try and puzzle it out from the alignment, domains, and weapon choices?
