A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1-4.
Dacilane Academy, located near the Grand Lodge, is a storied institution that sees to the education of many children of Pathfinders. However, the academy’s benefactor, J Dacilane, has recently heard rumors from his students of seven strange phenomena manifesting on campus. Despite his doubts that these are simply the imaginings of students raised on Pathfinder tales, J has called in a favor with the Pathfinder Society to investigate—both to put his students’ minds at ease and for the good learning opportunity a Society report about the school would provide. But are there more to these urban legends than meets the eye?
Written by: Rigby Bendele
Scenario tags: None
Maps: None
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Seven is a skill-based scenario with limited combat and roleplay.
Seven is a short 2-hour scenario that is difficult for a GM to run well the first time.
There is no roleplay in this scenario. I advise anyone who runs it to allow a conversation with the students and the principal before they investigate. It will also help a lot with the story.
The mystery is really awkward and is not done well IMO. I wish skill checks were done more organically, for example, if you succeed on a craft check, you learn this. If you succeed at an Occult check, you learn this. But somehow, you get to pick between 4 skills (which in many cases made no sense) and then get information unrelated to those skills. The mysteries were also not mechanically relevant at the end, not even for reporting. Sigh.
”The shed”:
I’m not sure what opossums are like in Seattle, but where I live, opossums don’t have the same attack stats as velociraptors. Just saying. The tough opossums have 35 hp?
The final encounter, and how it is meant to be run, is not explained well. As such, you’ll have huge amounts of variation as GMs try to do what was intended. For many groups, it will be a dissatisfying conclusion.
I had one group dislike this scenario and one (kids) group thought it was OK.
Overall: I like that Seven is a different type of scenario, but ultimately the limited roleplay, uninspiring mystery, and final encounter will make it dissatisfying for some players.
(I played this, but have not GMed.) Really enjoyed this!! Seemingly well written and especially fun for characters who are investigation-based as there will be A LOT of opportunities for that type of thing. Also really enjoyed seeing J Daciliane again as School of Spirits was one of my favorites to GM in 1e. (Also really happy to see trans masc representation as well, being transmasc myself :) ) If you play an investigator-type character you will have a blast with this.
I adored this scenario while playing it and even more so while GMing. Nice ambiance, lots of backstory to find out, interesting encounters, flavorful villain. Liked the fact that characters could interact with the story in different ways depending on their background knowledge (aka skills). As a GM you might want to do some additional background prepping just in case.
As others has said, this scenario has a nice premise and I was excited going in given the quality of the previous adventures into the Academy. Alas, I was disappointed and can only give it average marks. If your GM invests A LOT of time dressing up the details and incorporating past lore (assuming you played the previous offerings) I think it could be much better, but that is a lot to expect of the GM especially if you are playing this at a convention. Be sure to bring your most skilled character as you'll need 'em.
Spoiler:
The encounters are fine as individual events, but they don't feel related to each other or to a grander story. Some of them are just too obvious and/or silly for even kids to make the jump to ghosts and hauntings. Feels a lot like a mediocre Scooby Doo episode. The final encounter is pulled right out the TV show as the boss monster essentially runs around with the PCs in chase around a hallway with numerous doors and you seem to randomly cross paths. I could hear the theme music playing in my head, and I was waiting for someone to offer me a scooby snack and for the BBEG to be the headmaster or janitor in a white sheet yelling "boo" at us and saying, "I would have gotten away with it if not for those meddling Pathfinders!"
For me, the only redeeming quality is the diversity of knowledge skills used in the investigation. Too often scenarios keep using the same 2-3 skills over and over, or at least much more frequently than others. Often that makes sense thematically, but its no fun for the players not trained in the "key" skills.
Folks, I removed a bunch of posts and replies. The scenario is still in development, and I feel that both debating why a NPC is using different pronouns, before the scenario has even been released, coupled with the accusatory tone of the posts in here are not helpful for this product's discussion thread. The developer has clarified that the pronoun's he/him are correct. If you have feedback for how this has been communicated, you are welcome to email community@paizo.com and we can forward your comments onto the appropriate folks.
The change of the NPC's pronouns have been addressed with James' comment and my mod comment. The product discussion can go forward without additional commentary. Please note that posts can be removed for reasons other than breaking a particular guideline. Part of moderation includes helping encourage a thread to not hyperfocus on a topic that has already had posts removed so that the thread and posters have an opportunity to move the thread forward.
I am super excited about this scenario! I really like the J. Dacilane storyline in PFS1, and I can't wait to see what Rigby has done with the next chapter of his story!
I absolutely love school of Spirits and have run it a fair number of times, it absolutely is a classic, though to be honest I only ran Black Water since it is the setup for it.
This is an NPC I was looking forward to seeing again, though we will see if the scenario includes the things I was hoping for.
Is there a specific time on the west coast that the PDFs get released? I received an email that my order of this Society adventure comes out today, but it is not showing up in my Downloads. I keep checking to see if it gets added, but so far (1:00 PM Central time), nothing. Just me?
Maybe I'm misremembering, but wasn't Junia "J" Dacilane a girl?
Following up on this question now that the scenario has been released, there is some minor referencing in the text...
Spoiler:
According to the background material, "...his work with the Pathfinder Society came to the attention of the Eagle Knights and he quickly transitioned from awkward young lady to a handsome captain.
There is also, "If it weren’t for the Society rescuing me as a girl, I don’t think I’d be the man I am today!"
As far as I can tell, that is the only information in the text in response to your question.
So I've noticed the last few scenarios I've purchased -- including this one -- appear to no longer allow the extraction of images. I can see why this might have been done, but for transparency's sake, I'd like to know whether this was a deliberate change.
A song composed during the encounter in the shack in the back
** spoiler omitted **
Err, just to note, the gm didn't remember that those creatures don't attack party on sight as they are being on the defensive side? xD Or is that part of the bard's exaggeration? :D
Heh, it's more the first person who went in rolled a nat 1 to identify on a secret check, and while we all were pretty sure that's what had happened, we leaned into it, only to realize we bit off more than we could chew when a crit landed for like, 27 pts of damage :D
