A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1–5.
When a ship that Venture-Captain Calisro Benarry hired to ferry Pathfinders to the Gloomspires vanished, she called upon diviners to speak to the sailors, only to learn that they had met a watery grave. Benarry has narrowed down the ship’s location to the shoals off the coast of the pirate island of Tempest Cay. While the venture-captain asks some questions on shore and searches for survivors, the PCs must travel out to the shipwreck, uncover the reason why a crew of experienced sailors met their doom, and discover why the nearby ocean has been growing increasingly perilous.
Contents in “Grotto of the Deluged God” also contribute directly to the ongoing storyline of the Concordance faction.
Played this with a group of mostly experienced players... A very diverse group, not all min-maxed, and at low tier. We had a BALL! We also had the advantage of playing with the author of the scenario as our GM, so we didn't have to worry about an unprepared GM running cold. I was impressed with both the story and the GMing style. The challenges were frequently (but not always) capable of being worked around with a little ingenuity. Those that had to be fought were not overly challenging, but it was still fun to play. I will be watching for more from this author and make sure I don't miss any scenarios or modules she might write in the future! Sign me up!
I have GM’ed this scenario twice now and I’ll be doing so again in a few days of me writing this. I think that is a statement in itself: I’m not likely to run a scenario more than once unless I like them or unless specifically requested. In this case it’s fairly simple: I like this scenario. It’s straightforward, offers a sweet diversity of encounters and is fairly easy to prepare as well. The various NPCs are also quite memorable and really bring this scenario alive.
In that sense I completely agree with Keerawa below. It’s a great adventure for new(er) players, but not so much for experienced players. That said, the final encounter can still be challenging for them as well give them a run for their money depending on the composition of the party. I’ve scared quite a few players and I hope to do this yet again in a couple of days.
The scenario also provides a nice introduction to the Concordance faction, with some pretty solid and thematic boons thrown into the mix as well. The only downside, however, is that Grotto of the Deluged God can be completed in roughly 3 hours. I guess that’s what happens if there are more than one way to solve an encounter, but perhaps a few too many encounters can be bypassed. It’s hard to balance such a thing, but I have to say the author did a relatively good job. I will certainly recommend it for newer players and would like to see more from this author.
A scenario with training wheels, or rather, water wings
I played this at low-tier with a group of very experienced players. The characters included a merman, an aquatic elf, and a warpriest of a god of storms. When we heard the mission briefing, we were eager to explore!
It's a fun set-up, and I had a great time in our confrontation with the BBEG, but we ROFLstomped this adventure, completing it in record time. It didn't provide enough challenge, and for our group, I would rate it a 3-star adventure.
That said, I think this would be a FANTASTIC adventure for a group of newbies. It provides a good introduction to society play and the lore of this season and part of the world, and plenty of support to help them succeed. New pathfinders will get to experience some of the environmental and combat dangers they should prepare for, and still come out alive. It rewards players who have invested in skills (with fairly low DCs), but has paths to success for groups missing those skills, which is important for level 1 parties. For newbies, I think this would be a five-star scenario.
So, on average, I'll call it a four-star scenario and recommend it to GM's introducing people to Pathfinder Society.
It did use Warship at the time of that posting, but it was changed last minute to Ship to better serve some encounter needs we caught during copyfitting.
I believe that there was also an issue with the placement of B3 during that conversion. The description of the entrance to B3 is in a different area than the map shows the entrance.
A fun adventure, but yet another scenario that punishes you for not just being a murder hobo. Is there even a scenario out there below the 7-11 tier that has a Scroll of Teleport on the Chronicle sheet? Meh.
A fun adventure, but yet another scenario that punishes you for not just being a murder hobo. Is there even a scenario out there below the 7-11 tier that has a Scroll of Teleport on the Chronicle sheet? Meh.
THIS!
One of the only times my group decided NOT to be murder hobos and we were penalized for it? WTF?!?!?
The wording of that 'boon' is also strange. It seems like the players at the table should be given the option of dividing the cost of a single Scroll of Teleport amongst all of the players at the table, but the way it's worded, everyone is getting charged the full amount (each). Anyway, if anyone does know of a scenario that has a Scroll of Teleport on the Chronicle sheet (that can be played by a 6th-level character or lower), please let me know so that I can look at running that next. Thanks.
I have to bring up that the tan texturing on the bottom quarter or so of the page makes portions of the text almost unreadable when printing in greyscale, which I normally do to save on ink costs.
A fun adventure, but yet another scenario that punishes you for not just being a murder hobo. Is there even a scenario out there below the 7-11 tier that has a Scroll of Teleport on the Chronicle sheet? Meh.
THIS!
One of the only times my group decided NOT to be murder hobos and we were penalized for it? WTF?!?!?
You're not punished for not killing it, you're punished for swearing fealty to it, above your vows to your gods and the pathfinder society. You can not-kill it all you want. You just can't bend the knee to it without consequences.
As I mentioned in the GM thread for the scenario, I laughed really hard when I saw that "boon"...after I picked my jaw up off the floor. It's so harsh, but loyalty matters.
I believe that there was also an issue with the placement of B3 during that conversion. The description of the entrance to B3 is in a different area than the map shows the entrance.
Yes. I've tried running the published scenario with both maps and I think both ships work fine. Really, B3 can be on whichever deck you want it on as long as the physical description in the encounter text is moved to the right place.
I think 17 months is not too impatient to chase my Pathfinder Wiki colleague's request. Seems this and 9-23 are still missing their final covers here that we want to scoop up and add to the wiki.