A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 3-6.
The Pathfinder Society dispatches agents to attend a conference and secure agreements with the hobgoblin nation of Oprak. Travelling through dangerous terrain to reach their destination, the Pathfinders quickly discover a complication when they learn that the nefarious Aspis Consortium is also attending the talks. It’s all up to the Pathfinders to make a strong impression with the hobgoblins, all while foiling any attempts from Aspis to make inroads of their own.
Written by Lysle Kapp
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:
I rather enjoyed this, but I had the advantage of playing an author table, so perhaps some of the comments below stemmed from unintended gamemastering.
The roleplay is deep, and the fights are unremarkable. I like the sandbox aspect, but admit it's fairly GM-dependent (some GMs can make it miserable).
Great premise, but structuring and pacing could be improved.
I played this high tier in a 4-hour slot. CP 29 with a 6 person party. Towards the end, the GM was rushing us through, and we made have skipped an encounter or two.
The adventure is an interesting one, where you are going as a part of a diplomatic mission to establish trade relations. You're competing with the Aspis Consortium, and you can't outright fight them, so you have to find a way to best them in negotiations by undermining their undermining efforts.
Where it breaks down is how it's presented. The players should notice shenanigans very early on but are warned to find evidence. What they don't realize is how much evidence there is to gather, so they spend 20 minutes discussing a single roll to gather a fraction of the evidence. I think if the scenario was rearranged a bit, players could get a perspective and formulate a better, more concise plan.
There is a MAJOR fight toward the middle of the scenario, and I think this elicited the biggest gripes from the table. I can't speak to the other reviews on what is and is not correct, but the encounter I played just felt like lucky crits or complaints about high AC.
There's a lot of good ideas in this one, but maybe there is a bit too much player agency with no clarity on exactly what we're supposed to do other than beat the aspis. I think it might have worked better if instead of a timeline of talks and investigation, instead it was a series of suspicious events for us to respond to, and then gather evidence at the end.
Overall, not the best scenario but not the worst either.
I ran and played high tier. There are typos, tough skill challenges but overall the investigation is fun and gives plenty of role play opportunities. Both my groups had a good time.
I concur that editing must improve, though. This is supposed to be professional, not amateur free stuff.
Not as bad as some suggest, quite a decent investigation scenario
I have played this scenario at high tier and have prepped it to run. It is not nearly as bad as the initial reviews suggest. Some of those contain inaccurate information which suggest the scenario was run poorly.
There are some reasonable complaints and issues with it. The first encounter at high tier is difficult and dangerous, however this is a combat light scenario and I for one dont object to some difficult combats. The deus ex machina is a cheap get out for this encounter and undercuts much of the challenge of the scenario.
The camp investigation is well done. There is lots to poke about with and the scenario gives you many leads to follow. Some of the DC's are high however the scenario gives you more than one way to approach them. This could sometimes have been more explicit.
There are a lot of typos in the scenario. The scaling for the high tier of the first encounter is clearly wrong, referring to the low tier creatures. This results in a trivial encounter at CP23-27 against two level 5 creatures rather than 2 level 7's which it should be. This is significantly easier than the base version of the encounter.
Beyond this however it also have a number of basic typo's, some of which would have been picked up with simple proof reading software.
See for example "that they’ve been that have been" on page 13 or the duplication of the reward entry on page 14.
I ran this for a 13CP group of 4, in general the group found it interesting and figured out how to proceed in the pseudo-sandbox environment with little difficulty, and overall the plot was enjoyable.
The main letdown for this scenario is the way the encounters are structured, critical details like combat ending when half the PCs have the wounded or dying condition should also be on the encounter page when the intention was for the PCs to fight overly strong enemies, or the encounter in the tunnels which is so trivial that the PCs almost don't have to do anything to save the NPC in question as hes strong enough to kill the enemy creatures with above average rolls on his cantrips which destroyed the mood that the scenario was trying to build with the encounter.
The other reviewers have mentioned having to beat overly high stealth DCs, these are optional as there are other ways for the PCs to progress if they explore a little.
Is the Fireball Rune trap supposed to be triggered if someone tries to open the lock? Or as written, "Trigger A living creature enters the sensor area." The problem I see is that the sensor area is a 20 foot radius, inside a 10 foot Diameter hut. So, figuring the trap is at the center point of the hut, any living creature passing within 15 feet of the hut would trigger this trap. Also, the person who sleeps in this hut would trigger it before going to bed. Does the posted guard know to stay that far away? Or, am I missing something? I've been wrong before, I may be again.
Aha! I need to have the spoiler thingy at the front, then /spoiler at the end. One day I might learn HTML, LOL.
Aha! I need to have the spoiler thingy at the front, then /spoiler at the end. One day I might learn HTML, LOL.
There's also another neat trick:
The "edit" button just above all your posts. (and the "delete" button, too)
It's right there with the "flag" button, the "list" button, and the "reply" button.
The 'edit' and 'delete' buttons stay visible for 60 minutes after you make the post, then they disappear.
Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
RobertTHEPerylous wrote:
Ok, Trying this again.
It may be too late for tonight's run of the scenario (with spoilers for an encounter):
However, my intent as the author was for the Fireball Rune to operate similarly to the Electric Lock Rune. The development team may, however, have a different response.
I would adjust the text as follows:
Description An invisible rune imprinted on a chest’s lock releases a powerful, fiery discharge.
Trigger A creature touches the lock directly or with a tool.
To me, it makes more sense for the trigger to by tied to the lock rather than a 20-foot sensor.
The error was mine and I should have caught it when I revised the encounter.
Thank you Lysle! That was the way I ran it. Hey, while I have you here, I have another Question that came up after the game. My wife GM'd the lower subtier and I GM'd the upper subtier, and we realized something about Encounter 1.
Spoiler:
The upper subtier faces the same creatures in the second Scaling Level as the lower subtier, 2 D-B's with the weak adjustment. Should the 5-6's be facing 2 B's with the Weak adjustment instead?
I didn't catch that before I ran the encounter so my table faced a much easier challenge than they probably should have. That's may bad, I should have caught that and adjusted like I did with the other thing.
