A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 3rd- through 6th-level characters.
A demonic cult recently performed a ritual to great success, part of its leader's grander schemes. Her work near Nerosyan complete for now, she left a token force to guard the site, no longer needing it, and prepared to travel elsewhere for grander plans. This activity, though, has been noticed. The ritual site was supposed to be completely abandoned, but a group of traveling merchants noticed the strange activity. This was reported to the Nerosyan leadership, who in turn have pressured Venture-Captain Jorsal of Lauterbury to get involved. Jorsal has decided to send the PCs, to investigate the site itself, assuming that a place so near the city likely isn’t much of a threat.
Written by Michelle Y. Kim
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:
Demonic Afterparty is an adventure for 3rd-6th level characters, written by Michelle Y. Kim and developed by Josh Foster. The story sees the heroes explore a mostly-abandoned cult compound to uncover the truth behind strange disturbances happening near Nerosyan. Despite the implied mystery, this scenario is more of a classic dungeon crawl where PCs will move between rooms, battling enemies and discovering clues. It's straightforward and runs a little short -- even starting over 1 hour behind schedule, we still managed to finish it within our allotted time slot.
There are several issues that I have with this scenario's design and mechanics. First, I found it overly-reliant on point tracking mechanics which did not significantly enhance gameplay or narrative. These point-tracker skill challenges only ever modified a subsequent encounter, and even then only barely. There is one exception to this, but that encounter comes off as awkward to run, at least behind the scenes.
Skill Challenges:
The investigation points while investigating the bunker entrance only affects your chances of noticing the Deskari Effigy's trap, and the Labyrinth points only impact the Locust Knight's initiative modifier. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to do this other than to pad out the runtime and give the PCs dice-rolling busy work, which is what these skill challenges felt like on the GM's side of the screen.
The entodemonologist's conversation points are the exception to this, but that encounter has its own problems. The demonologist has nothing that I can focus his personality around--not even a name, and having the PCs make skill checks through the course of a conversation to generate his CP felt a little stilted and awkward. I'd just as soon rather the character chat with the PCs and offer them opportunities to draw out additional clues.
Second, the writing is stiff--very video game-like. The room's descriptions assume the PCs have tripped some cutscene trigger for an enemy to deliver a sentence's worth of dialogue and then attack, even if it wouldn't really make sense for them to. The overall effect comes off as somewhat railroading, and sometimes I felt like the scenario just wanted me to lead the players around by the nose to their various encounters.
As a brief aside on encounters, they're OK. Not great, not terrible, just OK. The rooms don't really give PCs a lot of interesting options, and the enemies are mostly straightforward with their tactics and abilities. I don't have too much to say on the matter beyond that.
My third issue is editing. Someone, somewhere, missed several numerical errors that somehow made it to the final "print" of the PDF. Astute GMs might notice these errors, but many other GMs will probably not, leading to unfair interactions that require PCs basically to roll natural 20s against certain events.
In many ways, my thoughts about Demonic Afterparty are similar to my thoughts about Michelle Y. Kim's other Pathfinder Society Scenario, 5-04 Necessary Introductions. The author provides a rather linear dungeon crawl with a map that's not quite fit for the task, with decent fights and somewhat clumsy implementation of subsystems. The difference this time around is that while Necessary Introductions had the benefit of some fun characters and an interesting setting, those things aren't present here.
Nothing of what I've said so far should be taken to be a deal-breaker for the scenario. The players had fun and didn't become lost or confused at any point, which is more than can be said for some other scenarios. But a clunky execution of the scenario's mechanics and themes prevent if from being truly memorable. The ideas are there, but it needs work.
If you like linear dungeon crawls, you'll have a good time with this one. This may also be another one to revisit once the whole story of Season 6 is revealed, since it might give GMs added context they can use to inform the scenario's backstory.
I love me a good dungeon crawl scenario. They've always been some of my favorite scenarios. But this one....Oh man.
The scaling is just completely and utterly wrong here, and there's at least one, if not two, too many combats for a "single day" of adventuring. Especially for the low tier. At higher tier, I could see spellcasters still having something big to use in the later combats, but all the spellcasters in my party were completely out of slots by the time we made it to the final combat.
The scaling is absolutely what ruined this. Running the numbers, with the scaling we had, the scenario turned into, essentially, 5 severe encounters in a row, with a hazard or two sprinkled in.
And, uhh, what was up with the plot in this one? "Go collect evidence" very quickly and suddenly turns into "Defeat the cult", and it seems the initial premise is completely discarded once we get in. I'm all for subverting expectations, but discarding them is another thing entirely.
This was an absolutely miserable experience for my entire table. Please stop making the scenarios have 5 encounters plus multiple hazards and multiple roleplay segments.
Too much going on and really bad for more than 4 players
The scenario was simple and easy to understand, but the PLs were drawn in, and there were scenes of lively conversation with NPCs, and the balance between combat and skill challenges was well received by the PLs.
It was also well received by the PLs because it was a story leading up to the 6th season and they could feel the flow of history created by Paizo.
One complaint is that there is one battle encounter with no MAP.
Perspective: Played this at high tier (bard 6, oracle 4, summoner 6, psychic 6, Valeros 5 and Ezren 5)
Combats & hazards
Most combats and hazards went pretty easy due to a few good rolls on our side and a well-working party composition. Our BBEG fight was very challenging and had us scrambling with Valeros cutting through the party like butter.
Skills
The skill challenges are nice and varied, without any mechanics that shouldn't have been there.
Flavour & Lore
The theme is communicated very clearly and very quickly: This used to be the Worldwound, and the descriptions and lore remind you of that in a good way. Make of that what you will. Don't miss out on the warning for season 6!
All-in-all, this scenario reminded me of the PFS1 scenario Thralls of the Shattered God, which is one of the best dungeon delves I've played. This scenario does a very good job and feels like a worthy spiritual successor of that one. Kudos on this scenario!
This was a thoroughly enjoyable and (from a player's perspective at least), well written adventure. The rooms and exploration had so much detail and flavor, the encounters were interesting and varied, and the combats had interesting characters and mechanics. Tons of fun and sets a high bar, looking forward to more adventures like this.
Giving a hazard encounter just one possible skillcheck and that at expert is just rude honestly. if you dont have that you can whack a hazard for half an hour
I think some of the modifiers/DCs in the hazard stat blocks are wrong.
problems:
The hazards' Stealth modifiers are about 5 levels' too high, except for the Effigy of Deskari. Example: Shining Shooting Sphere has a Stealth Modifier of +23, which is the Extreme modifier of a level 9 hazard. If you subtract 10 from the modifier, it lines up with the Hard DC of a level 5 hazard, which is what it is.
This problem appears to exist for all versions of the A2 encounter and A5 encounter.
