A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1–5.
When the flames of revolution swept through Galt, the Society lost much of what it held there: dozens of agents, several lodges, and the fellowship of countless contacts who foreswore the Society rather than become targets themselves. Although Venture-Captain Eliza Petulengro has reestablished a foothold in the country, she needs to rebuild her network of allies. One of the most important figures resides in Rosehaven, a small village due to celebrate its yearly festival of light and forgiveness. Petulengro hopes that an entourage of Pathfinders might participate in the festivities and endear itself to the Society’s former friend. Past evils have other plans, however, and unless the PCs can keep their wits about them, they might not just lose sight of the mission; they might lose their lives.
This scenario is designed for play in Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild 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.
I mean, it's an interesting town, there's definitely a feeling that there's quite a bit of story going on here. The GM was certainly having a lot of work navigating the script. From our perspective though, the story that actually happened was pretty straightforward, cliche even.
The definite downside to this scenario is the combats. The enemies are so feeble that you almost spend more time on rolling and organizing initiative than on actual combat.
What saves it from getting a "poor" rating from me is the attention to set-piece dressing. That was nice.
PFS sandboxes aren't easy. Reaping what we Sow does a passable job at it--its strengths are in the setting and the NPCs, as others have mentioned. And as such, if you enjoy roleplay, this can be a really fun scenario. Giving players the opportunity to carve their own pumpkins is the kind of low-key genius touch that helps players roleplay their characters in a fun way.
That said, the combat encounters are about as easy as everyone else has said. That doesn't support the horror interpretation at all. And in one situation, it's not clear just how bad things get for the PCs and the town due to some serious language sloppiness.
There's also not a lot of box text, which is fine for some and a problem for others. As you frequently find in a sandbox, some paths and approaches are better-supported than others, too.
Lots of things can happen and player choices can cause the course of the scenario to take a turn. Very sandbox, and a lot of the events don't even play out if the party goes about the scenario a certain way.
This scenario is also great for Halloween with all the Pumpkins.
Unfortunately, the combats are so easy that I just can't give it 5 stars. Every combat I ran in this was over in 1 or 2 rounds. The only reason anyone came close to injured was a crit, but then they were quickly out of danger again.
I played this scenario yesterday on the low tier, with a party of mostly level 1’s and me bringing a level 3 character (healbot) to the table. The first thing that has to be mentioned, is how well the flavour is in this scenario. Every NPC felt unique, the festival was nicely organised and the town actually felt alive. It also really suits the Halloween spirit, so great job on that!
As for the combats, I agree with the other reviews before me. They're just on the easy side. I think the majority damage we took was when my gnome decided to blindly try and activate a wand because of gnome reasons. I, as a player, knew in advance I’d fail, but that didn’t stop me. It hurt, but I just shrugged it off with a single Infernal Healing.
The fights, at least on the low tier and for as far as we encountered, were mainly walks in the park. Thematically the ‘hammer’ one, you’ll know what I mean once you’ve played it, is amazing though. The final encounter however just felt like an anti-climax and could have been a bit more spectacular to actually serve as a proper ending.
The story though wasn’t as creepy or scary as I thought it would be. I didn’t get the same level of goose bumps like I did while playing Hall of the Flesh Eaters. I think the ambiance there is just better so I honestly have to completely disagree with the fact that this scenario is supposedly perfect for fans of Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Horror Adventures as it claims to be. The other portion, namely that it’s great for lighthearted games, I can agree with. I can easily see this as being one of the first missions new players should embark on.
It’s a fun scenario with a bunch of flavour, but sadly isn’t that challenging. Combined with the fact that it's just not really horror either, I feel like I have to penalize it a little, resulting in a mere three stars. That said, I'd still recommend it to new players.
This is a fun scenario, and as someone posted earlier, would make a great Kid's Track Scenario.
I ran my Pyrokineticist and was pretty much useless during the encounters. We didn't have an Arcane Spellcaster and the closest thing to a healer was the Druid. Others have stated that the encounters were easy and they were, even during the last encounter when half the party failed their saves and fled, and they were the front liners. However, we were a little scared due to our party makeup during each encounter, and only after the combat saw how easy each was.
We ran a little long I think, but it was due to Role Playing and really having a good time doing such.
All in all, I really think this a great scenario for the fact that is really a good chance to ROLE PLAY and not have to push through combat after combat.
If you don't care about ROLE PLAYING, just pass this one by; if you what to have fun ROLE PLAYING, find a GM and players that know how to ROLE PLAY and sit down and have some fun. Just don't get the Pyrokineticist pissed by crashing through the window and getting shards of glass in the last couple mouthfuls of her pumpkin spiced coffee. She was already upset at how little she had left and was trying to figure out how to best savor that last little bit.
Nice - hopefully its in time to get a good Samhain game going! Still on course for last Wednesday of the month? (looking to make some plans for our local meet up)
Is it recommended that people do Eyes of the Ten before this one?
This requires absolutely no knowledge of Eyes of the Ten to play and enjoy. Those who have played the series before can catch a few references to what's happened in the meantime, but even these don't spoil the series.
I'm supposed to run this tonight. When's the drop, when's the drop, when's the drop.
Not getting antsy at all. No, not at all. (Twitch, twitch)
Running things the day they're released:
I strongly recommend against doing that for any adventure, though I recognize circumstances sometimes require that someone run and adventure "cold."
That's especially not a great plan for this adventure because it's partly an investigation, with branching encounters that depend on what the PCs do or do not find. If there's any way that you can reschedule that game not to be on the same day as the release, I encourage you to do so.
Just reported a table for this scenario. Doesn't appear to show for table credit.
Otherwise, this was an awesome game, I really enjoyed running it!
Seconded. Quite a lot of fun :) Given the right circumstances and sufficient time, bringing pumpkins for carving would be a fantastic group activity to go along with this one.
Also, same problem with the credit not being recorded. Same issue with 8-05. Wonder if it's the newer season 8 stuff?
Pathfinder Society Lead Developer
