A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 7-11.
For millennia an order of scholars known as the Jeweled Sages catalogued the wisdom and lore of northern Garund's greatest minds within crystalline artifacts. Though these sage jewels have recently resurfaced, so too has the new generation of sages learned that something else dwells within besides ancient memories. The entire order gathers where the Jeweled Sages truly began in order to confront their hidden past, purge an ancient evil that has haunted them for ages, and define the future of the Scarab Sages faction.
Contents in Salvation of the Sages also contribute directly to the ongoing storyline of the Scarab Sages faction.
I ran this for a very experienced, RP-focused party with 3 Scarab Sages members. The party felt genuinely threatened by the encounters and engaged well with the story elements.
From the GM perspective, there's a lot to think about with this scenario. I'm a 4 star PFS GM who specializes in mid-high tier play and I spent 2 weeks preparing the scenario, but still faltered on some details during the encounters. This scenario has a lot of depth with a lot of elements to portray, but some of that portrayal is condensed into mid-encounter chatter and visions. Portraying how fight mechanics work while the combat is ongoing is essential to making the players understand what's going on.
The players all loved the scenario, saying that it felt like it was a multi-table special in content and tone. Avoiding as many spoilers as possible, one of the single best elements of the scenario is how it dives into history-as-experienced, particularly for otherwise hard to nail down NPCs.
Appropriate tables for this adventure will come prepared for a variety of situations, be combat-capable for complex encounters, and have a strong desire to fulfill the goals of the story over quick one-shot combat capacity. It's worth noting as well that the combats are exceptionally dangerous for some compositions, particularly if the level spread is large and the scenario is pulled into high tier.
Damned paizo board ate my first review so this may be shorter.
I agree with all the other reviews that this scenario is, at base, very very good. Excellent story, interesting fights, good exploration, even some role playing. 5 Stars.
However, it ran very long. Despite us all having sent the GM our info ahead of time it took over 6 1/2 hours to run.
Despite being a reasonable (not optimal, but a long way from dismal, and we had ALL the necessary bases covered) group firmly in tier our high tier group TPK'ed.
Basically, if you go in with the wrong group (a group barely in tier, especially if 5 characters. Or a group with a couple of severely underperforming characters. Or just a group with the wrong mix of abilities, especially skills) then you WILL fail. Guaranteed.
I disagree with a couple of other reviewers. This was NOT obvious from either the briefing or the scenario description. We were NOT facing a Rune Lord. It was NOT the end of a season. It was a 7-11 like any other 7-11 on the face of it. Oh, a very important one to one faction admittedly.
There is one facet of the scenario that I absolutely loathed. This tempted me to give my review one star. But that wouldn't really be fair as I liked the scenario as a whole.
Totally unacceptable:
If you fail in this scenario (and that is definitely FAR more likely than with most scenarios) there is a very real chance of Permadeath. I don't mind (especially at this level) losing some cash and prestige to body recovery and Raise Dead. But if the group fails AND you fail a saving throw at the wrong time you will be permanently dead. No way out that I know of. This happened to one of the characters (not mine) and it is unacceptable in a scenario this difficult.
This scenario is great in that it ties up a ton of story lines, is incredibly challenging, and has amazing rewards!
However, the only negative I can give it is that the players did not enjoy having go though their chronicle sheets and character sheets for the obscure data needed in the scenario. Since there isn't really an effective way to spread the word that people need to tally things up prior to the scenario without spoiling it, it ate a good amount of time in the beginning tallying.
Without too many spoilers, this scenario is Season 9's Waking Rune. While lacking a hard mode, it is a well-balanced, tough scenario that will put the PCs through the ringer.
GMs, make sure you Prep for this one; you need to know what happens where and why, and you need to track conditions on the PCs, including bonuses they've gained and penalties they've accrued.
PCs, if you liked Waking Rune, you'll probably like this adventure. If you didn't like Waking Rune, you probably won't like this adventure.
The adventure is masterfully crafted—John and Matt deserve a real shoutout here. This also excellently continues the "Faction Story advancement" theme of Season 9, and has interesting consequences for the Scarab Sages. As someone else mentioned, this is a must-play for members of that faction, and a darn good scenario for everyone else.
When I prepared this scenario, I was half cackling and half crying at what felt to be an absolutely inevitable TPK. I was wrong, and am highly impressed. DO NOT RUN THIS COLD.
This scenario is comprehensive in scope, funny and new in execution, and nigh bewildering in complexity. For the last though, the support *is* there in the scenario to make it manageable (unlike e.g. 9-05). Meaningful choices are found throughout, beginning to end. Bravo! The BBEG is well-developed, and matches her traits described in the previous scenario it 'appeared' in.
There are some editing improvements possible. A lot of minor items are insufficiently described, leaving it to the GM to come up with (e.g. whether certain effects can be tracked to their source). Overall, with careful preparation, they did not detract.
Overall, my only real complaint, and still not worth a loss of star, has to do with the Scarab Sage faction boon.
Boon Beef:
For once, I can pleasantly say that making certain faction related choices *don't* negatively impact the whole table (via prestige). Thank you thank you thank you. Crushing the Diamond or Emerald Sage Jewels is a valid option for non-jerks. My only complaint is that the boon being lost doesn't really match the condition very well.
While this scenario is certainly unique and deserved high challenge, I do think it continues a trend this season of having exceptionally difficult scenarios. I've had more deaths and near TPKs this season than any in a while.
I prepped the better part of three weeks for it, reading it over during breakfast coffee, preparing nice icons to represent certain mobs, etc.
Unfortunately or fortunately, it really isn't geared for a random pile o' pathfinders -- this requires players who have at least worked with each other before, characters that have team synergy and can adapt on the fly.
Not all tables are capable of this.
Despite having a competent team, on my playing of it, the party healer went down during the first fight and had to be brought back with Breath of Life, and then my barbarian went down in the last fight, first to one cause (BoL'd back up) then to massive damage after other things happened.
My review says EPIC, and it's there for a reason. Our GM did not pull punches, and thankfully, thankfully cooler heads did not listen to my barbarian about some of the pre-preparations to make.
It was a nerve-wracking run, but it was a good scenario and I was fully prepared to have perma-retirement of my character going into it (which is not something I'm psyched up for usually).
I'm not normally a big fan of difficult nerve-wracking scenarios, but this one hit the mark, and anyone conversant with the Sage storyline should recall that during one particular scenario, the PCs were much more powerful than normal.
So anything that would have beings of that tier of power *worried* is going to be BAD.
Let's dial back the tone on the thread please. It's okay to question scenarios and mechanics and critique the adventure, however it is not okay to insult the community, including other posters, authors or developers. One easy way to make comments less antagonizing is to say "I feel X" instead of "X is this way." There are enough people playing that table variation can mean that experiences can vary. Please don't assume that yours is the only, best or average experience.
Played this twice, once high tier, once low tier (using replay a few months later), was difficult but there were no deaths. The comments here are mostly from the low tier game. Both games were very different as both groups took different paths to victory and chose different NPCs.
Yes at one point we said 'oh no, no one has disable device!' but experience as a Pathfinder taught us that normally there is more than one way to solve a problem (as there was here). Choosing the 'right' NPC also made it alot easier. Many of the characters tried assists during the ritual which probably the reason we took only minor damage from that. I thought we were toast in the final battle but eventually we turned things around. Although I see how just one failed save could have changed things drastically for us.
What I loved was the BBEG who was very memorable with its evil maliciousness. We had a Paladin who was in absolute terror. We played this in a 6 hour slot, I can see trying to rush this could cause problems. Also if you don't complete the investigation it will make things really tough (almost impossible?) as well.
You know, a WHOLE lot of this could have been solved if the PCs actually listened to the ritual leader.
And the language in the beginning of the first encounter does NOT need to be edited. A player could INFER something that was not IMPLIED. Critical thinking skills could be necessary here. There was an assumption made--which wouldn't even be detrimental, although I could see how it could be frustrating.
I just think this adventure didn't fit preconceived notions (one poster has repeatedly written as much), so some folks didn't know how to handle it.
Mr. Duval, excellent adventure! I can't wait for more from you!
I've run this twice and played it once. One GM session and my play-through were at low-tier, and my other GM session was at high-tier. When I played it, one PC went down early and hard in the final battle, but didn't die. After that, the fight was actually pretty quick.
When I ran it at low-tier, several PCs went down throughout the fight, but they had enough designated healing with a merciful healer and a life oracle that nobody stayed down permanently. Once they beat the final encounter, everyone was still standing, though many were at single-digit hit points and were out of spells.
When I ran it at high-tier, I table-wiped. They didn't get to the final encounter. Rather the ritual just before it dealt them 165 damage. Everyone died.
What I take away from my experiences is that people should play the low-tier, rather than the high-tier. We didn't have trouble with the low-tier version.
I've both run and played this scenario (both with Disciple of the Void above), and I greatly enjoyed both, even though I was one of the PCs that took 165 damage and died.
While I don't recommend this for a con, it's a great scenario. It has a very interesting and satisfying story, and feels every bit as epic as the culmination of a faction's story should.
That being said, its incredibly difficult on both sides of the screen. Personally, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. Some of the mechanics are different, and may run counter to what we have come to expect. For me, that's a feature, not a bug. I like when experienced players are thrown for a loop and can't just assume how things will play out.
Ran this to close out a con last night. 4 out of the 6 players were Scarab Sage characters, had a lot of familiarity with the feel of Osirion delves, and were very excited for the culmination of the story.
It is, as many people stated, long. Especially if you enjoy the RP. As a GM, conversing with the party as so many different, intricate NPCs with a lot of deep history with the society and providing insight into their personalities, (as well as the few who were introduced in this scenario) was an absolute joy.
This scenario is challenging, and it WILL run long. We played for 6.5 hrs and I think we could have played for 8 hours easily, exploring more of the interactions between characters.
My group, though they didn't all play together frequently (this being a con), took the time to get to know each other and figure out how to support each other. I gave them that when we sat down. No one knew much about each other's characters until we sat down.
Matt has done an amazing thing with this scenario. It FEELS as difficult as it should considering the stakes and the amount of emotional and temporal investment the players and characters it is geared towards have invested in it.
I love Golarion, and I love the Pathfinder Society. Scenarios like this one need to happen more. I prepped for a month, and I still could have improved my live performance. I really want to run it again, for another group of people who love these characters as much as I do.
I think there are some aspects of the mechanics that as GMs we need to make sure we telegraph earlier on. I like to build suspense and paranoia, and I don't like to "prompt" for rolls as I feel it breaks the flow of the game. There were a few places that I as a GM needed to plant the seeds of what would become future mechanics. There are promptings within the scenario for how to do this - but planning out how to do this well is a lot of work. There were a few places where I needed to reconsider my plans on how to frame a specific event, and I'm glad I knew enough about the world and context to make that make sense within the scenario.
This is certainly a challenging scenario for players. It is a very challenging scenario for GMs, too. Purely prepping the mechanics is NOT going to do the trick. Figuring out how to help your players come to the right conclusions, infer what steps they should and shouldn't take, will take some time and seat-of-the-pants work. I've never felt more rewarded as a GM as I watched my players reign victorious, even after setbacks (over half the party were full or partial casters, and there was some real deduction by the players in order to figure out what was happening to them). One of the potential "scenes" at the end brought more than one person at the table to tears. I've never felt so good playing a scenario.
Q1: In PFS, the conclusion says all the dead PCs can come back to life.
However, my PCs defeat the Boss, and almost all the Sages are dead except SINUHOTEP, THE AMETHYST SAGE. Err... 3 PCs are dead, can they come back to life?
Q2: Can they still get 2PP ? All Sage jewel are intact.
