A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1–4 (Subtiers 1–2 and 3–4).
The Pathfinders are sent forth to aid their own! A Pathfinder mission returning from a long sea voyage ran aground on the Isle of Kortos and were forced to leave behind many of their discoveries so they could press on to Absalom and receive much-needed medical care. The PCs are sent to the site of the wreck to retrieve the relics and charts their peers were forced to leave but the relics have drawn the attention of some of the Immenwood's most volatile inhabitants. Will the PCs be able to return the documents and relics to Zarta Dralneen, the Grand Lodge's Chief Archivist? Or will they fall prey to the unusual bandits dwelling within the coastal reaches of one of Kortos's most infamous forests?
Written by Scott D. Young.
Scenario Tags: Faction (Grand Archive)
Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:
as title, it should be a repeatable. to be able to really enjoy and understand it, this one requires multiple playthroughs. Otherwise it just feels like an "escorting your treasure bundles" scenario. which it was. plenty of decent chances for people to pipe up and do something seperately. end fight needs to be more difficult
The combats were tough, but not engaging. In particular the last battle, that leaves some players essentially waiting (and rolling) turn after turn, to see if it will be possible for their characters to participate.
Nothing interesting skill-wise came up. NPCs were not particularly engaging.
Kudos for trying something interesting tactically in the last fight; but cancelled by having done something that limited character choice and responsibility, rather than offering tough alternatives.
Disappointing, read before you decide to schedule it
To keep this short, while this scenario does have a story, the players don't get to learn a lot of it. There are some issues in the scenario and a couple of things I found to be less than great but it's kinda serviceable depending on your group.
The final encounter makes this scenario end on a really bad note since it takes forever to resolve and some classes/builds will have a really hard time to contribute.
Still, this would have barely been a 2-star review...until I read that inter-faction drama at the end.
Things like this, just create drama where none is necessary and make an established and well-liked NPC sound unreasonable.
I have played this and have GMed it, but honestly had I had the time to prepare it myself first, I would not have scheduled it.
There is also a pretty central element that is at first confusing and then the players start to game the system.
Some Spoilers!
Pros:
An actually challenging and combat oriented 2e scenario, when so far most seem to have been more skill focused with a token combat or two, this has a chance to put a drain on PC resources and lets players try out their combat capabilities.
The setting felt engaging and interesting, and the mission was different from the usual scenarios.
The circumstances were fun, but it requires some work from the GM to keep the bad luck and constant horrible weather interesting.
Cons:
Almost literally a railroad.
Encounters are set up in a way that often leaves some of the PC's outside of the action:
Constant difficult terrain slows down PC's who take rear guard, they may miss action altogether.
In the first encounter, three of the five PC's did basically nothing except ran after the wagon, trying to catch up with it. Just two PC's actually had meaningful ways to combat the threat.
Third encounter is set up in a way that it's likely that one or more PC's start in a trap, practically guaranteed to fail a save, potentially dropping to dying with unfortunate rolls. The rest of the PC's are hindered by environment, making helping/healing hard/slow.
Fourth encounter has a chance of overwhelming frontline before the rearguard can join the fight, again.
Last encounter is... Cool, but extremely unfair.
Spoiler:
Out of 5 PC's, one was taken down by a mook on their first turn, due to basically guaranteed fail against a poison. Soon after, boss activated his special ability which took 2 PC's out of the fight - the alchemist pregen did nothing during the combat except "stand up, move 10 ft in a random direction, land prone, stand up. repeat." as did the combat medic rogue. The encounter completely neuters any ranged attackers and anyone not trained in athletics. Even the barbarian with strong athletics was practically pinned down, with the -10ft movement speed from spell, then the remaining 20ft got halved due to not rolling 18+ on the athletics, and then the remaining 10ft got practically halved due to the difficult terrain. Moving 5ft per action, the combat was brutal.
Boss would have wiped the party, if it weren't for the fact that the environmental effect hit him twice, for a total of 10 dmg, and then the barb got a lucky crit and a normal hit, and finished him off. Barbarian was left standing with 3hp, on the merit of his rage.
I did like the scenario, but this has lots of potential to be very unfair, very un-fun slog where half of the party doesn't get to do anything. The pregen goblin did literally nothing in the last combat, despite the combat being loooooong.
"Flip-Mat: Tavern Multi-Pack" is listed in the scenario as "Flip-Mat: Tavern" - which isn't really a big deal. However, instead of using "Flip-Mat: Forest Multi-Pack" the scenario appears to have two custom 30x20 maps instead.
Were the map notes posted on Sept 5th intended for a different scenario, or did something else happen in the interim?
I ask in part because tomorrow I have to explain to a local GM that he may not have needed to spend money on the Forest Multi-Pack two weeks ago, and I cannot predict what his reaction will be to finding out that the maps posted here were not correct.
The Map C. High Coast Road in the appendix on page 38 is not clean. There is an "R" still printed in the map. If we have to give these maps to a printing shop as these are not Flip-Mats it would be great if you can offer a version of this map without the "R" in it.
So after reading and prepping this game I need to ask. Is it just me or is this game super tough? This game seems extremely brutal especially at level 1-2. Between weather mechanics and misfortune, you can easily one shot low characters on accident
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
Alvarious "Alfred" windrunner wrote:
So after reading and prepping this game I need to ask. Is it just me or is this game super tough? This game seems extremely brutal especially at level 1-2. Between weather mechanics and misfortune, you can easily one shot low characters on accident
It hasn't worked out to be super lethal in my playthrough or run.
I didn't like the combats in this one at all. The initial fights are all basically trivial encounters that feel like filler content because there is no real threat at all, but then the last fight is quasi-difficult in a way that's also very frustrating due to the special rules that it applies, with no warning, that can render many characters next to useless.
I'd imagine depending on your party makeup that last fight might be trivial if you've got a bunch of buff melee types who can just run in and clobber the guy, or feel next to impossible if your damage is mostly ranged. The ranged players at my table were left with not much to do, but as usual the boss went down in a heap once a melee got into his face and did the whole crit with a magic striking weapon and do 30+ damage.
I'm fairly certain there are wind environment effects, but the scenario doesn't make it entirely clear if it's just for the one effect in the last combat, or through the entire last combat. I read it as describing the one, localized effect. That made archers feel less useless.
So after reading and prepping this game I need to ask. Is it just me or is this game super tough? This game seems extremely brutal especially at level 1-2. Between weather mechanics and misfortune, you can easily one shot low characters on accident
Played this as my first non-quest PFS2 session, and I've gotta say, if I let this set the tone for how PF2 plays, I wouldn't play it. I didn't see the stat blocks, so I can't say for certain where the blame lies, but according to the GM,
Spoiler:
the swarm of perfectly normal squirrels has DR 6 against all physical damage types.
Makes it a little hard for a character to have literally any effect in that encounter if they're not a mage or a beatstick.
Swarms simply resist physical damage, rather than being outright immune (for fine or diminutive, half for tiny) like they were in P1. Which is a bit more manageable.
It would be helpful if maps for the current season were actually available to use.
Our general priority for maps in organized play adventures is-
1 (Preferred)- Currently in print flip-mats, map packs, or flip-tiles
2 (As necessary)- Custom maps (no print version exists) or PDF-only maps (maps that are appropriate to the encounter but which we no longer sell a print version of)
While we prefer to use maps that we have available in print, PDF-only maps that are appropriate to the encounter still provide more options to the consumer than custom maps and lower our development time (since we don't need to review new maps and send them off to a cartographer when that work has already happened), so there are still going to be situations where that's preferable for everyone. And again, the work on the GM's side between a custom map and a PDF-only map is literally identical, except they also have the option of buying the PDF for printing and/or exporting.
I have got a question.
What is a "tjerbute" (from the handout). I can't find this in any pathfinder book I own, nor does google or translation tools hint me to it.
We just finished running this adventure for Society play. A very fun gauntlet of struggles and fights against the environment as well as the creatures about. It does a fantastic job of making you feel the progression of the storm and just the circumstances and bad luck affecting your characters as you make it deeper and deeper into the woods. Highly recommend although make sure you have someone trained in nature or... hire someone to drive the carriage or you are gonna have a bad time.
Also cross posted in the GM discussion, did we ever get a CP adjustment for 16-18 low tier?
No. The 16-18 low tier scaling option didn't exist until well into the season and we have not had an opportunity to go back to the scenarios that predated the update. We've got it on our schedule to go back and update the early wave adventures, but it's unlikely that will happen before the end of the year.
Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Extra Fame and Rep from this only available to Grand Archive Faction members? It could be A) No, any party member who fulfills the conditions; OR B) only if you have Grand Archive Champion boon?
Answered by Linda Zayas-Palmer in the GM Discussion thread: https://paizo.com/threads/rzs42s73?PFS-104-Bandits-of-Immenwood
Quote:
With that in mind, please strike out the phrase "If any of the PCs are members of the Grand Archive faction," in the faction notes section at the beginning. Have Zarta talk to the PCs regardless of their faction affiliation (if none are representing the GA, you'll probably want to paraphrase the boxed text a bit).
Then at the end of the scenario, if the PCs meet the conditions listed in the faction notes section, every PC gets the bonus Reputation with the Grand Archive faction.
In Encounter B2, the Squirrel Swarm. The stat block says they are small, however, on the map that shows their starting location, they are shown as taking up 4 squares, which would make them large.