A Pathfinder Bounty designed for 3rd-level characters.
When the Fifth Mendevian Crusade ended, the hamlet of Bulviss was one of many casualties on the Mendevian side of the border. Overrun by demons and their allies, the hamlet hasn’t been touched since a band of crusaders cleared out the demonic influence that lingered. Now, contracted by an interested party, a group of adventurers must head into the ruins of Bulviss to find a missing deed and any other surviving treasures. Have the demons truly been removed, or are there other, darker secrets waiting in the ruins?
Written by: Alexi Greer
Content sanctioned for use in the Pathfinder Society (second edition) Organized Play program.
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:
This has got to be my favorite bounty so far, and not because it's level 3, but because of the atmosphere.
The bounty is dark, much darker than the other ones and that change in tone is quite a delight, with it being a much more mature theme of losing loved ones.
I'm going into spoilers now.
It's the little things the bounty does, such as show, but not tell by showing you the ruins of Bulviss and giving the GM possible prompts of what happened. This allows you to tell the story like a movie, in that the PCs see and deduce what could have happened rather than through exposition. The whole town/hamlet is a sandbox, and allows players to explore at their leisure, even if because of the word count, I feel that most of the town and the buildings went unexplored. For my run, I allowed players to see the other buildings, to explore and find more clues about what happened during Bulviss stand through observing the remains, the set off traps and visions of the dead.
I was also quite glad that the whole skill checks section was basically tossed out, as that had become very formulaic after all the previous bounties.
The cons would be for me these three, and they're all very minor ones at that.
The bat swarm encounter is listed in a building that has a roof on the map. This would force a GM to run it on another flipmat as there is no actual map of the interior of that home. This was solved by just moving the encounter to one of the houses with a broken roof.
The majority of the town is left unexplored, as well as descriptions of the streets are left mostly blank. This could be because of word limitations, but this bounty thrives on atmosphere and mood as players slowly move through this ghost town and try to figure out what happened.
Finally 3rd level bounty is here!
The plot is fairly straightforward but still provides room for some RP although I wish it had a bit more npc interactions. There are not many skill challenges and the major one can be solved with brute force. The final encounter was not very challenging for a party of 4.
Overall it's a good start.
Taking one star off for:
1.No picture of the only NPC.
2.Provided map is not very useful as it's missing the house interiors completely.
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, LO Special Edition, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
So looking at running this but trying to understadn the map? I am assuming A4 is the well in the middle of the town? the filled in circle in the center?
