Pathfinder Society Scenario #7–25: Orders from the Gate (PFRPG) PDF

5 stars for story, 2 stars for execution

A great glimpse into the Hellknights, and an exciting and atmospheric romp. The author did a very good job of guiding GM's into giving the players an immersive interaction with Hellknights, and even getting to understand them.

That being said, there were a number of detail problems that should have been smoothed out before the scenario was released. Please don't take my criticism to mean that I didn't like the scenario:

*********SPOILERS BELOW***************
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- In the first and second combats, the hellknights deal with hordes of enemies while the PC's are asked to deal with their own combat. However what inevitably happens (particularly in the first combat where there was a 1-round delay before the actual bad guys show up) is that the PC's perform actions against the "flavor" enemies and the GM is forced to make stuff up in response. This could be tightened up.

- In the second combat, there is only a very rough description of the situation and the GM is forced to guess where the PC's are supposed to be when combat begins. It should be more explicit.

- In the 3a combat (With That Which Peels Flesh), The hellknights help the PC's in an abstract way. However two problems arose.

a) First, the Hellknights can cast Shield Other to protect the PC's. However that makes it very easy for them to fail the secondary success condition of keeping all the hellknights alive. You shouldn't encourage the PC's to use a tool and then punish them for doing so. In fact when I ran it that is exactly what caused them to fail the success condition (although I fudged it and said the hellknight was just unconscious).

b) Second, every time a Hellknight helps the PC's, there is a x% chance that they straight up die as an orc kills them. There are two problems with this. The first problem is that the scenario describes all the orcs getting held back by the other hellknights, and yet somehow an orc appears and kills the hellknight that is with the party. For the GM to describe this it's instantly going to confuse the players. The second and bigger problem is that you are taking the PC's ability to control the secondary success condition and turning it into a completely random dice roll that has nothing to do with the players or their choices. As a player had I known about that I would have been extremely frustrated. And again, you are punishing players for using a feature that you encourage them to use.

-Finally, in the 3b combat (Temple of the Sky), there is a whole ton of description about what the PC's can do to activate the temple guardians...and then it's described that they activate on their own anyway no matter what you do. I think some proofreading would have revealed that this section of the pdf could have been tightened up a lot, as there is a ton of description of many different things and overall it could have been explained in a much shorter and concise manner that would be very helpful to GM's.

GMed this scenario for Poison Dusk.

Plot: You're sent to accompany a group of Hellknights to clear out some chaotic force that seems to be blossoming in the mountains, but you're also tagging along in order to check out an ancient temple in Cheliax that the Society hasn't been able to access prior. Journey along with your "merry" band of Hellknights, tackle some unique obstacles, and make a tough decision towards the end.

Combats: While the party absolutely rolled over every encounter for the reasons Poison Dusk laid out, I feel that the combats are likely to end up as relatively difficult for most parties without being overwhelmingly terrifying. My one gripe is that the final encounter for the route my players chose seems to assume that they'd charge into melee; unfortunately the tactics were not ready for a range/caster heavy party to simply bombard them from a distance the entire time.

What I Liked: The scenario gives the GM a lot of opportunities and meaty tidbits to build up the tension and escalating threat as the party journeys deeper into the mountains. There's also plenty of potential for roleplaying with your Hellknight companions that can make for some unique interactions. And while the big decision towards the end of the scenario is a little forced to keep groups from trying both, it caused a good bit of soul-searching and character introspection among the players before a decision was made, particularly after a certain Hellknight chastised their waffling.

What I Disliked: Not a whole lot really. The tough choice towards the end of the scenario is a little ham-fisted, but I won't be docking any stars. One encounter looked like it could easily cost players their secondary success condition due to a rather short time limit and spread out group of enemies.

Verdict: I rather enjoyed running this scenario and look forward to playing it in the near future.

Was a great written scenario. The Hellknights were fun to interact with. If I had one complaint, the encounters were very easy, however we had a group of mostly higher level players, and one low level who brought us down into low tier.