A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st- through 4th-level characters.
Within their vaults the Pathfinder Society has located a rare and mysterious star gun from the distant shores of Arcadia that, while broken, still holds a deep power within it. In order to ensure that past wrongs are made right, the Society must arrange for travel within the borders of Arcadia to repair and return the star gun to its rightful home, but to do so they must first convince the council of Segada to allow a team of Pathfinders entry.
A junior team of agents is dispatched to plead their case to the councilmembers, hopefully securing friends and allies of the Society for future exploration and contact. However, a villain lies in wait, aware of the power the agents are concealing and plotting for the exact moment to strike and catch them off guard.
Social encounters:
I recognize that there is a lot of ambiguity about the Influence system. This doesn't really bother me; there will be table variation, but it's fine. I didn't really care about any of the NPCs or their motivations which were largely one-note, but that was fine. Yes, there is some NPC art missing that would have been nice to have, but I can find art, so it is fine. It's by no means my favorite influence encounter in PF2 scenarios, but it isn't the worst.
Combat:
As others have said, the combats are extremely easy, and really undermine the idea that the forces working against the Society are at all competent. Several of my players were aghast at the end of the scenario over this. Would it be mean to say the combat feels a lot like the combat in an intro Starfinder adventure?
GMs:
This is one where the GM should really use their judgement and smooth over or elide some of the minor problems in the scenario, such as the silliness of the VC promising to escort the PCs and then appearing just after the combat to apologize for not being on time to escort the PCs. Why make such a bumbling fool of the VC? Especially in the light of how trivial the threat actually was? Another example: as Pirate Rob already mentioned, there's an assumption that the PCs would spill their guts to a random NPC they have no real reason to trust. GMs need to give them a reason to trust this NPC and make up some suitable dialog here.
In the grand scheme of things I don't think this adventure deserves a one or two star rating but I doubt I would want to run this again.
Not enough background on the 4 NPCs to be influenced, making it hard to get really engaged with the influence system.
You get instructed not to tell people of your mission.
The first named NPC you encounter after you briefing... the scenario assumes you tell the whole mission to her for like no reason other than "she can be trusted"
The combats are uninspired with the middle one being particularly weak.
The locals are all biggoted, taring everybody as "Avistani" regardless of actual heritage.
You keep getting ambushed, and then promised to be escorted safely, only to be ambushed again with your escorts around the corner before having the same promise be made again.
Also the opening premise. Why are you here an hour before an incredibly important negotiation with no into or plan as to what's going on?
Scenario does seem competently put together, largely free of errors and mostly gets from beginning to end without game breaking issues which keeps it from falling to 1 star.
Pros: Flavorful. The social encounter feels intense and requires careful choices from players.
Spoiler:
Of course that's only because they don't know they will get large bonuses and 2 more rounds at the end of scenario
Cons: Almost everything else. The city is not well described. The motivations of villains and their plans are muddled. The npcs are introduced and then forgotten. The images for key npcs are missing.
Really the only thing that made this enjoyable was that I had an excellent player group. But I digress.
The worst of all are encounters. They are not just easy, they are extremely easy. So easy my players were wondering if they were really supposed to fight these pathetic villains. Now normally I am all for keeping the difficulty down to account for rng groups, but these encounters seem just poorly designed. Here's why:
Spoiler:
Encounter 1: foxes special abilities don't work in the city. Without them they are just measly level 2 critters facing level 3-4 players. All over by round 2. Encounter 2: Level 0 npcs in 3-4 tier? Needless to say they were dead in one hit. The other two are level 2s with longbows... in a tight alley with no way to gain distance. Over by round 2. Final encounter: bbeg is a level 3 caster with AC18 accompanied by level 1s with AC15. Again, in 3-4 tier they are just instantly killed and caster was dead by round 2. No pcs were ever even remotely in any danger.
I tried to play off the flavor and create some intrigue but with tools given there's not much one can do. Unless you are really into influence encounters I unfortunately would not recommend this.
Perspective: Ran this for a party of 5 players with 18 CP
Story & setting: Arcadia getting some love, more information about star guns, I'm syked and excited for part 2!
Exposition: In a reasonably short amount of time you can convey how the location is different from other places we've had scenario's, yet it all feels reasonably familiar. The inconvenient being that there is not that much information about the setting that we're getting into here. The scenario offers some handholds to givdish out a little bit of information, but there's just not that much to go on. Finally and unfortunately, neither for players nor for the GM does the plot of the enemy actually get really clear though. As the GM you get a minor hint, but it feels like a missed opportunity.
Mechanics: The mechanical part of the scenario is a pretty straightforward implementation, which I found nicely done. I had the impression that the setup here works better than in a few of the other scneario's out there though. This has generally to do with the fact that
Mechanics spoiler:
this time you don't have that many red herrings which means players are focusing their attention on the unfolding story rather than on irrelevant NPC's.
Combats: The descriptions of what happens in the scenes are iconic and definitely remind you of scenes in movies, but the combats were a bit of a weak point of the scenario, although they almost felt comical.
Combat spoiler:
Stat wise everything generally makes sense and the numbers hold up, but the enemies don't really have a punch to pack or a will to live.
Editing: [Con] I think some details and explanatory stuff were cut in editing, which is a shame.
[Pro] Most of what you're looking for is where you'd expect it. As a GM, both for the purpose of reading the scenario and for running it, I liked having
Editing spoiler:
all the NPC information related to the mechanics in the appendix. For the purpose of overview it might even be possible to add the general rules reminder there instead of in the scenario.
All in all I definitely did enjoy running this one: I guess this could easily be used as a second scenario to introduce players to Pathfinder since it gets players used to some often occurring mechanics (i.e. skill checks), and the not too punishing combats have some mechanics that occur often as well.
Oh, WOW!! An Arcadia scenario that isn't tied for Port Valen, a trip to Segada, and a star gun? I'm beside myself. And it comes out in my birthday month!
Grabbed this one once midnight rolled around, which shouldn't surprise anyone... and it's a fun romp! A linear little scenario, but a lovely adventure around Segada, somewhere I'm obviously keen to see more of. It's fun to see a variety of Arcadian perspectives on Avistani folk, and to know that they hate the Chelish all the way over on this continent, too. Excited for #4-13, and more Arcadian good stuff after it!
One very small thing: the Segada Protocol sidebar and other bits of this scenario seem to be acting like Canorus is still an active colony, but 1e canon was that it was an undead-haunted ruin, the survivors largely having fled to Anchor's End. Is it up and running again?
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Rulebook, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Overall, the scenario seems like it's going to be fun to GM, and I'm sure my players will enjoy playing it. And it uses maps that we don't see much anymore. I'm looking forward to Friday!
Was there supposed to be artwork for a specific NPC?
Spoiler:
Tekawenda is on the council AND featured heavily in the second info check. She seems pretty important. So I'm curious as to why we got new artwork for Rahaksenwe, a recurring NPC, new art for a sidekick NPC, but no art for one of the council members that you're supposed to influence.
That seems like an odd choice.
BTW, How do I get my scenarios at midnight? I had to wait until I got the email this afternoon.
This scenario's secondary objective section is missing the sentence that actually rewards reputation ("Doing so earns each PC 2 Reputation with their chosen faction"). As far as I can tell, this is the only PFS2 scenario with this text missing.
Is this intended? Can we get a campaign clarification or errata?
