A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 7th- through 10th-level characters.
A mysterious abandoned laboratory is discovered in the Arcadian Ocean, with clear signs of occult experimentation having occurred at some point. The Waterfall, strangely fascinated by this new find, sends a group of Pathfinders to investigate and gather whatever research they can find inside, while also ensuring the building poses no further threats. Deep inside, a soul and forgotten memories wait, hungry to be found and revealed to the light. The research and artifacts inside seem like they'll lead to answers about the enigmatic Waterfall, though this information may turn out to be unwanted.
This adventure featured several callbacks to previous scenarios. (Unfortunately, the GM for our crew was a newer player who wasn't familiar with any of those, making some fall flat.)
We played this at low tier.
The incongruity of the island's science-fiction elements really should have been played up more.
Spoiler:
Electric doors, barriers, and lighting are each something completely outside most characters' experience. When running the scenario, I recommend that the GM emphasize just how bizarrely alien all this technology is to most characters. Unless they're from Numeria, most would never have seen anything like that. Instead of picturing a modern building, make your descriptions reflect a strange mixture of eras: The 17th Century meets the old 1930s Universal horror films' mad scientists' labs. This isn't a vision of gleaming stainless steel and clean paint like a modern hospital: It's a like a madhouse with strange glowing orbs giving light, bare wires running along walls on glass insulators, doors that buzz and click when a lever is thrown, etc.
The finale was waaaay too brutal.
Spoiler:
In the first place, there was no indication in the text that the woman we encountered was actually a ghost. The text didn't suggest that she was incorporeal or translucent, nothing suggested that we might make a Religion check while we chatted with her, and we were given no hint that a haunt was forming. The haunt triggered and we were then each hit with four attacks from the haunt before anyone got to go. This knocked down three of the five party members and the ranger's animal companion before anyone got to go. It would have been a TPK if the Champion hadn't been able to cast Cure to get everyone back up with 8 hp. As it was, it came down to pure luck: The party's ranger spiked her Religion roll and the cleric succeeded when she used her last Hero point for a reroll. This only succeeded because she had a Pathfinder goblin T-shirt giving a +1 to get the second skill success. Another round of those attacks would have TPKed the whole crew.
The way everything was presented, we had no idea that characters could leave the room to get outside the haunt's area. Now, that may have been partially due to our relatively inexperienced GM, but we were already running late in the time slot and started out with over half our party down, so we may not have been as calm and focused as we would normally be. Still, it felt like a bit more description before all hell broke loose would have made a huge difference.
Hidden is slow investigation sci-fi thriller featuring mostly combat. It was played at subtier 9-10 and took 3 hours.
The main problem with Hidden is that it starts really slow. A slow briefing. Lots of narration about traveling. Talking to the captain and crew (which is irrelevant). I think it took an hour before anything happened at my table. It just seems like the GM should (quickly) narrate everything until they reach the desert.
The investigation itself was somewhat interesting, but it needs to be sped up. Basically, not enough happens with the amount of time you spend searching through every room. There are a lot of empty rooms.
Each encounter starts off in an interesting way, but it's just cosmetic and the encounters end up being average slugfests.
More Starfinder tech (and maps). If we wanted to play Starfinder, we'd be playing Starfinder.
The boss encounter could be somewhat deadly. For us, we resolved it quickly and easily.
This scenario could (and probably should) be really short, maybe even as short as 2 hours. The horror elements were extremely mild, I'd call them creepy.
Overall: A short investigation scenario that has a sci-fi feel to it. (5/10)
I really liked this scenario, and going into it, I had no idea how much it would reference PFS1. I was absolutely floored in the intro briefing, and only continued to be more and more amazed that Paizo decided to pick up one particularly loose (and fascinating) thread from PFS1. SO MANY RELVELATIONS!
As others have commented already, these revelations might not have much of an impact on new players, but I absolutely loved them as a PF1 vet!
The fights were all interesting and substantially threatening. The final challenge was particularly deadly, but our GM gave us ways to avoid the damage (by leaving the room if need be). I also think that for a final challenge of the game, the deadliness was justified.
Again, as others have also called out, the tone was great. There were also some interesting opportunities for roleplay, and I liked being able to save a few new friends along the way...
Overall, a great metaplot scenario - and I would say it felt like one of the strongest story-wise since Season 2. I was not excited at all about the metaplot this season until I played this scenario, but now I'm really interested to see where the finale goes. Good job Paizo, and great job Michael Bramnik!
Like "wait, how did that person become Waterfall and when?"
Either way yeah, I do like the scenario a lot and it was fun to play and has good roleplaying moments, but admitedly I do feel like its bit of Numeria adventure (starfinder flip mats do contribute to this) since the facility feels like horror laboratory you see in scifi movies set in 1940s, but unlike in ruins of azlant where you run into azlanti ruin that has energy of magical megacorporation complete with completely white sterile rooms and magical announcer voice talking for the corporation, it feels like scenario doesn't really acknowledge how much of the focus on electromagnetism, metal doors working on electricity and clinical surgery tables should feel out of place. Like maybe with rise of inventors and stasian coils and exploration of numeria it could be more normal for pathfinders nowadays, but I do kinda feel like I'd wish scenario more explicitly talked about the eerie disconnect that comes if folks from renaissance showed up in 1940s, that was fun part of numeria adventures in 1e.
Still, tone of scenario is great and horrifying, and scenario does well with handling subject matter of dark crimes performed in the facility.
(that said, the haunt definitely almost caused tpk, but I don't think it being bit too deadly takes away from scenario)
Edit:
It didn't hit me at time, but I realized wait the ending reveal raises lot of questions like "so wait, they never did anything?" when it turned out decemvirate was infiltrated by non pathfinders and "anyone who gets the mask can pretend/become decemvirate" and they promised to fix that. And some of Aram Zey's friends' reaction to Waterfall's identity feels really off. I think problem with bigger metaplot isn't really fault of scenario, but I do feel like ending character roster reaction had some ones that felt so off character I had to edit score a bit even if rest of scenario is great.
This was great! Even as someone newer to the meta-plot, the reveals were very fun.
If you're planning to GM this scenario, I'd suggest adding more detail to the content warning for a pre-session discussion of lines/veils:
>>> Themes of creepy horror such as human experimentation, medical trauma, incarceration, torture, and brainwashing
^ That won't spoil the surprises, but it will give players the opportunity to request lighter descriptions/detail if they have a trauma history of their own.
I made a Gear Handout for all the strange equipment in this scenario and I included a bonus handout of the partial letter which the party is supposed to find (but for which we had no handout.)
All in all, I liked this one. Mike Bramnik captured the personalities of the Pathfinder Leadership as more fully themselves than we have seen in ages. The lab was appropriately creepy, and the story is great. As a bonus, it runs fast. My party of five got through in four hours. Not bad at all!
Plus, I loved all the PF1 callbacks. This one was a pleasure to run.
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