A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1–4.
A new year dawns for the Pathfinder Society. For the past several years, Pathfinders have explored the edges of the Iobarian wilderness, making new allies and discovering hints at a long-forgotten past. Now, the Decemvirate has decided that it is time for the Pathfinders to do what Pathfinders do best: explore, report, and cooperate! In an ancient cyclopean ruin, the Society seeks to stake their claim with both a new lodge and, hopefully, new insights into Iobaria's remote history. Some secrets are best left buried, however. Will the PCs make a name for themselves as modern day explorers, or will the evil lurking at the heart of the Iobarian dig site consume their hopes and dreams?
Written by Scott D. Young
Scenario tags: Metaplot
[Scenario Maps spoiler - click to reveal]
The following maps used in this scenario are also available for purchase here on paizo.com:
The first scenario of Season 2 opens with a bang. Well, sort of.
Set in the relatively-unexplored region of Iobaria, the players are tasked with exploring Cyclopean ruins to learn more about the ancient civilization that once dwelled in that place. The focus of the story is decidedly research driven, and the PCs are tasked with mapping ruins, documenting their contents, and securing the area for less martially-inclined field scholars.
To this end there are a lot of skill checks in this scenario. A lot of skill checks. This is both to its benefit--the skill challenges, despite being numerous are relatively forgiving--and also to its detriment. In fact, mostly to its detriment.
While Citadel of Corruption manages to throw skill encounters at the players and be less punishing than those seen in Season 1, the draw back is that there is a lot of dice rolling for very little reward. Each site the PCs explore offers a variety of skill checks to attempt, but success yields only a modest amount of information and poses no risks for failure (other than disappointing the Decemvirate). It is the definition of dice-rolling as busy work.
Nowhere is the drudgery of dice rolling more apparent than the scenario’s use of the Research subsystem (one of the many optional rules systems from the Gamemastery Guide). The research scene was an extraordinarily tedious affair described by our GM as “pulling teeth.” The skill DCs were overtuned, either too easy if you had the appropriate Lore skill, or too hard if you had anything else. Most DCs would require substantial luck for most 1st and 2nd-level PCs to achieve.
Unfortunately, time-wasting dice rolling isn’t the only problem this scenario has. The combats are ill-adjusted as well. My group was mostly 1st and 2nd level characters, with my 3rd level ranger basically babysitting the group, and because of this some of the encounters were extraordinarily brutal.
Encounter:
The combat with the Abyssal Fungi is an example of enemies being too-well-suited to their environment. Their ability to cast darkness into groups of 1st and 2nd level players is extremely powerful, especially since most light sources at those levels will be suppressed by the darkness. Normally this isn’t as much an issue since the low-tier enemies are weakened. However, high CP scaling replacing the weakened, darkness-less fungi with their full-strength counterparts, darkness and all. Fortunately my group was able to dispel the darkness spells, but for groups without darkvision--most PCs now in PF2E--or means of dispelling the darkness, it’s a rather rough fight.
The overall effect of the scenario for me was to swing from trivial to unfair, and back again. Combined with some luck-gated treasure bundles and just bad luck, the scenario left me wishing I’d played something different.
The Ending:
The scenario ends with one of the Decimverate members grappling with shadowy entities in a pillar of light. But this scene felt entirely out-of-left-field, and didn’t really have any emotional impact. I didn’t know who Sapphire was, or care that they disappeared. Worse still, I didn’t really feel like their disappearance affected me, mostly because I didn’t have any opportunity to participate in the cut scene.
When writing sequences like this--dramatic moments that require some level of emotional buy-in, it’s best to give the players some chance to react. Adventure Path 07: Edge of Anarchy has a good example of this kind of event, where the GM asks the PCs to state what their characters are doing during a particular scene--even without having to roll dice for combat. It would have been better to handle Sapphire’s predicament in a similar way, with weary agents returning from the field given a final opportunity to demonstrate their heroic qualities.
To wrap up this review, I feel that I should say that Citadel of Corruption dared to try something a little different. In presenting the PCs with a more research-oriented mission, it sought to allow PCs to leverage skills--especially Lores--that might not otherwise come up. This is a good thing, and I should like to see more scenarios provide opportunities for characters to express themselves outside of combat or diplomacy. However, because of the haphazard arrangement of skill challenges, and the tedium of the research encounter, I cannot recommend this scenario unless you’re looking to check off the metaplot boxes.
First of all the premise is nice and the story behind good plus it also sets up the season but that's it for the positives.
I'd really wish the writers would stop with these boring mechanics of throwing dice again and again against one or more objectives. It just gets so repetitive and dull after a few rounds. Especially in this case where the skill challenges are far too high and some of them behind a wall to even try. Why even try rolling on these challenges if your chance of failing is higher than chance to succeed for most of the groups?
Combat difficulty also seemed to be riding a roller coaster of plain easy to one hit KO. This whole scenario also seems like it should have been for a higher level characters and not for level 1-4.
probably should have made it a 3-6 and upscaled it
The story and content is pretty good, but the actual mechanics and what we actually do was kinda meh.
a lot of the lores and languages required to do the things in this scenario is crazy. If i didnt have comprehend languages, we probably would have failed. The decemvirate sent a ton of newbies to do dangerous work to preserve untouched cyclopean information. information in SEALED underground areas, and these people certainly dont have the languages or lores at these levels for such ANCIENT work. Not to mention how everything was literally deteriorating before our very eyes, and you expect a bunch of people with little knowledge or experience to preserve this?
And then the ending? what the hell was going on out of nowhere? that sounded like first edition Seeker level content. A decimverate, the supposedly most powerful of mortals, disappearing while fighting a shadow creature or something?
It was nice to see the decemvirate show up, but to 1-4s? And them playing good cop bad cop? Building a lodge on top of a 10 THOUSAND year old ruins, right after we open it up letting WHO KNOWS WHAT out?
This, along with 2-02, is supposed to be released at GenCon, correct? Why the available date of 8/26 then?
I believe 8/26 is the date they're available for purchase by the general public, after having been initially exclusive to GMs running at the convention. Same reason 2-00 won't be available for purchase until August 4, 2021, but with a much smaller exclusivity window.
So this is in a "folder" named "Year of Corruption's Reach." Meanwhile, the cover art says "Year of Corruption's Grasp." Just curious: Which one is correct? I'm guessing Grasp -- not only because it is art rather than text, but also because it's better -- but confirmation would be appreciated.
The current version of this file has got an error on the Chronicle Sheet.
The sector "Boons" on the Chronicle Sheet states information from the Special King of Thorns. This should be removed.
So, we're running this online Friday night. I scheduled it that way because I was told it could be run anytime after the 26th and that it would drop then. Any chance I can get some clue as to what actual tiles are being used so I can at least get them uploaded to Roll 20? Any other clues so I can start the prep work?
Thanks!
Also, is this going to be the new regular release schedule? Meaning the last Friday of the month instead of the last Thursday. This means our venue no longer gets first crack. If a new scenario drops on Thursday, I have time to prep it before running it Friday evening (EST). If it's not going to drop until sometime Friday while I'm at work, it becomes very difficult to impossible to run it that night. Just my pair of coppers.
does the pdf come with separate VTT friendly maps?
Not even close.
How is it at all reasonable with the pandemic pushing the majority of games to VTT that these new scenarios are still not providing VTT friendly maps in the PDFs? This goes beyond being unfriendly, because it's all dungeon tiles, but there's no unmarked single image of the full map, so to do it properly you have to copy all the tiles individually and then line and orient everything by hand. This makes what should be a five minute task into a half hour of drudgework.
Now getting to play this scenario, it seems the DCs are too high, and getting players to roll against a time limit is just designed to punish players, especially as critical failures happen far too often with the high DC, and just remove research points. Overall, I really liked the story, but absolutely despise how difficult the DCs were made.
Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Rysky wrote:
The map file was likely made before the recent decision and focus to make the maps be VTT friendly was put into place.
This framing....
They already have the electronic files. I can add a page to a pdf in <30 seconds.
It doesn't have anything to do with the pandemic. But if it did... the pandemic Started shutting down society ~6 months ago. And the product release was delayed by a month. It's a decision.
The following seem like possible contributing reasons to me:
Paizo is busy, they produce a lot of adventures on a very tight schedule. There is no meaningful competition (there is extremely high product lock-in and loyalty of the customer base). They have some very expensive map products that they sell separately.
But it doesn't have anything to do with the pandemic.
It's not the end of the world. But it is a decision.
I agree the map files should be more easily imported into VTT. I'm sure Paizo is listening and it looks like the later society PDFs do have map files that are able to be imported easily.
Help.. Does anyone know if there is an Errata for the Chronicle Sheet?? For some reason it states under Boons..
"Congratulations on completing King in Thorns!...."
There are also no items listed..
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Brian Raivel wrote:
Help.. Does anyone know if there is an Errata for the Chronicle Sheet?? For some reason it states under Boons..
"Congratulations on completing King in Thorns!...."
There are also no items listed..
Since the second season, all boons have been moved online in the ACP system. After the GM registers your game, you get access to the scenario boon for free, IF the scenario has a boon.
As for the Items, I don't think the adventure has any uncommon or important items that would warrant access or a price reduction, so I think it's normal. But it has been a while since I played.
This has been the most lack luster game i've played to date, would strongly not suggest playing it, a lack of basic understanding of game rules as a level 1-2 has DC's that are nearly impossible to make. Creating a senario that literally asks if we are new society members only to throw large dc numbers at us is not a fun experience. Disliked the use of map-tiles on all the combat maps, only map i liked was the over-view of the main map area.
This has been the most lack luster game i've played to date, would strongly not suggest playing it, a lack of basic understanding of game rules as a level 1-2 has DC's that are nearly impossible to make. Creating a senario that literally asks if we are new society members only to throw large dc numbers at us is not a fun experience. Disliked the use of map-tiles on all the combat maps, only map i liked was the over-view of the main map area.
2/10.
Ran this this past weekend.
Fully agree concerning the DC numbers. Not only are they too high for a 1-4 adventure, there is also no adjustment between low and high tier. However, even without the adjustment, the DC's are too high even for the high tier.
Concerning the maps, I am going to chalk that up to this being an early season 2 adventure. For the hand-out version of the map, I just went with that for most of the adventure, except for the one fight that occurs within that area, and for that I just used another map that was similar.
