A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1-2.
When a group of Pathfinder Society initiates recently completed their Confirmation and rescued a fellow Pathfinder, they also uncovered a host of ruins belonging to an ancient civilization. Now, the Society’s major factions have sent their foremost experts and leaders to begin coordinating a thorough investigation of the ruins. Strong and savvy field agents are needed to begin uncovering the secrets hidden within these ruins.
Written by Brian Duckwitz
Scenario tags: Repeatable
[Scenario Maps spoiler - click to reveal]
The following maps used in this scenario are also available for purchase here on paizo.com:
I like this one quite a bit. There's room to roleplay with the various faction leaders and 4 little mini adventures each with 3 different sets of encounters making the replayability interesting.
The structure allows experienced players to push and complete the entire adventure in a single adventuring day while a party that has a rougher time can take all the time they need.
The only thing that drops it from 5 stars in my mind is always having to make up a reason for Kazuuk not to help.
I've run this module three times in a Play-By-Post format using all three options available. In general, this module serves to showcase the four major factions within the Pathfinder Society, but I feel as they they could have been a little more explicit with how they operate. Most of the descriptions of the factions come through NPC exposition rather than adventure theming. The Vigilant Seal gets across their message strongly, while the Horizon Hunters end up looking a little strange.
Then there's also the issue of the hazards. I had originally disagreed with the other reviewers before playing the module, as those DCs aren't terribly unusual for their level, and - given enough notice - characters could deal with the hazards. I was unfortunately quite wrong. The DCs aren't the problem, but rather how the hazards function, each pain point being hazards that target potentially (by a large margin potentially) the entire party with three action routines that allow basic saves. Even very fortunate characters who save against all three effects are likely to go down. Be very careful about this module.
To PFS GMs, I would avoid running this Intro unless your players are very interested in the "conclusion" to Intro #1 or really want to learn more about the factions. If you do run it, make sure you adjudicate the hazards as fairly as possible. The PCs should have "safe places" to avoid the worst of the hazards and you shouldn't be afraid to point that out to your players.
For GMs that want to run this at home, I would choose another module or alter the hazards. Simply reducing the DCs by 2 and bringing their routines down to two actions would go a long way to making the hazards deadly, but manageable.
The scenario feels like 4 bounties strung together, which quickly makes it hard to care about motivation for whatever it is the party is being asked to do. I was really hoping it would continue intro 1 but alas. Playing this before intro 1 makes it even more awkward.
So, if one looks at the core rulebook, one will note that a level 2 standard DC is 16, a very hard DC is thus 21. This scenario has many, possibly most, DC's in the 20's for a level 1 scenario. I cannot excuse a game where they are not willing to follow their own rules. My encouragement to Paizo here is "Fail Fast", retire this and start over.
Is this like similar to starfinder's dealio of being "work together with faction leader's" quest that is fit for every year and not just current year? With first part being "intro to society in general" and third one being "intro to current year"?
Are they changing the naming and number conventions for these new sceanrios?
Intro 1 & intro 2 aren't technically part of season 3.
Its same as in starfinder intro 1, 2 and 3: first one is "general society intro" second one is "faction intro" third one is "intro to current year". So there will be third intro for every new year.
Partway through this scenario right now, and I think it may have a balance problem. Our GM says he made Challenge Point adjustments for our 6 person party, but every save DC for a level 1 party has been over 20. Party members suffered DC 20+ loss of control effects that led to further high DC saves that didn't break the previous effects. I sincerely hope it's a GM problem, and not the scenario.
Unfortunately this product cannot be reviewed, I guess y'all know how bad it is. Last time I checked, in the rule book y'all published, a very hard DC for level 2 is 21. That was the DC of nearly every check through this entire scenario. I feel like there is no excuse for the game not following it's own rules here. I am left wondering if anyone proofread or playtested it before release. This is "Year of the Adamantine Greatsword" level of poor writing here. I guess when John said he was going to make sure that didn't happen again, these intentions did not survive his leaving the organized play program. I hope y'all eventually let me review this as poorly as it deserves.
This scenario is extremely hard for level 1 and 2 characters. All of the hazards and encounters have high DCs of over 20. The pacing is also a bit lazy. Half of the missions are boring with barely one fight or interaction. The rest of the dungeons are completely empty except the very hard encounters and have few descriptions or anything for the players to play around with. The NPCs also don't properly explain the objectives of the missions to tell the characters that they should be trying to run through the rooms not caring about the many effects. The descriptions are more likely to confuse the players into thinking they need to interact with the very high DC encounters in order to succeed.
Even worse so, most of the hazards/encounters have room-sized area damage effects that will easily one shot your party almost every round unless they roll perfectly.
This is definitely a level 3 scenario parading as a level 1.
Preparing to run this now, and yes there are problems.
One question: In the "research" mission, did anyone come up with a good in-world explanation for why the characters would stay in the room to do research, as opposed to just grabbing everything and running it back to the questgiver? Really struggling with this one...
