A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 5–8 (subtiers 5–6 and 7–8).
Open Decemvirate member Eliza Petulengro is looking for a handful of intrepid Pathfinders to accompany her on an interdimensional journey throught the Maze of the Open Road! Eliza is traveling from the Grand Lodge in Absalom to the Woodsedge Lodge in Galt, but the Maze of the Open Road has become unstable and unpredictable in recent years. Eliza hopes that with help of her fellow Pathfinders, she can secure the road and prepare it for regular use by the Society once more.
Written by Christen N. Sowards
Scenario tags: None
[Scenario Maps spoiler - click to reveal]
The following maps used in this scenario are also available for purchase here on paizo.com:
The number of skills that can be used is small and unbalanced, and the difficulty level is a little high.
The number of battles is fluid, and there are too many or too few.
Battles take a long time, there is no tension, and the enemies are often weak.
The final battle is really crap and it lowers your spirits, it's weak, it just takes a long time.
It would have been more interesting if Chase had compressed the Skill Check and increased the description of the environment.
I would have liked to see more diverse and unique strange creatures in the battles.
I'll give it 2 stars because the ingredients were good, but it could have been a better scenario.
We've been running PFS in our store since season 1 but we didn't have any players high enough to play this at the tme of release.
I've now been going back through all the scenerios we've missed and this was always on my radar and the reviews have to say put me off offering it.
However after sitting down and reading it, this is a great fun litte scenerio and you can see what they were trying to go for, but they didn't land it perfectly.
This was the era of "The Tile Maps" which had just come out so was really being pushed in season 1 which as a player / gm isn't exciting.
(This is why this is not a 5 star)
But I really love the planes and how they were changing / altering the maze. It gave me a lot of creativity to how to describe it to players and I just used different ink markers on play mats instead.
I love all the litte clues / red herring in here as well. The players were kicking themselves by the end and one major clue they wish had clue them up were
Spoiler:
A halfling wearing shoes!
.
Fights were very fun and I can imagine when only having the core rulebook / understanding of the rules in Season 1 it would of been deadly. But now it wasn't as much.
This is a great little linear scenerio if you got players who like no frill story and lots of combats.
A recommend for GM's who are creative and my player loved it.
The scenario really felt like a "hey look at these monsters!", and the map choice was definitely odd, but overall I found the scenario to be a fun yet mindless romp.
It did not deliver on the maze. It did not deliver on its twist. It was a fun series of disconnected fights. And for once, after all of 2e's intricacies and complicated plots, it was nice to have a simple: "Go here, do thing. There will be enemies in the way."
I played at the same table as Ascalpus. Before I prepped it I might have been similarly scathing. Having prepped it now to run tomorrow I am slightly less harsh. This scenario has a number of issues:
1. There is very little flavour of the Maze. Admittedly we didnt know much about it in 1E except for its appearance in Eyes but it doesnt really come across.
2. The progression through the gates is not terribly well explained and was vey confusing when I played it.
3. The potential encounter in the gate area is far too small, given you may well have multiple large opponents. This whole scenario smacks of an attempt to get us to buy the awful map packs. Please stop doing this. I dont know if your data is showing an uptick in their purchase but from personal experience I can say it is not inducing me or anyone I know to buy them. Mostly I run online so it is less of an issue, apart from having to stitch together way too many very annoying single tiles. If I ever ran this in person you can be sure I would be drawing something basic or picking a flip mat that was "close enough".
4. It haas a variety of editing errors, most noticeably in the note section which cannot make up its mind how may there should be.
5. It is missing key information on Eliza. Sure she isnt supposed to be involved as an active combatant but lots of creatures in this have area effect abilities which she will be caught by.
6. It has way too much combat, potentially 5 different combat encounters. You can technically avoid two of them but its not very liktley, at least for the first set of guardians. I wouldnt ever want to run this in a con slot.
Alright, my group just played this scenario. It was fun and all, but at the end, we discovered that it is impossible for anyone to free the statue while playing in this tier. It requires a spell or item that cannot be used at level 8. We had brought back his statue to the Pathfinder Society to get him help if that was appropriate.
Why would you include this as a checkbox for reporting this scenario if it isn't able to be done?