A Pathfinder Society Special designed for 1st- through 8th-level characters (subtiers 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 & 7-8).
In the Eye of Abendego, the storm has receded just enough to reveal two particularly interesting new sites: one is a wrecked Pathfinder ship and the other an ancient island associated with prophesiers and demons. With some help from an old pirate friend, the Pathfinders are kitted up in order to investigate these two new occurrences, however it seems like she wasn't the only pirate with her eyes on these strange new prizes. The Society will have the face the dangers of sea and storm as they sail to their goal, hoping to beat their rivals to the hidden secrets!
Written by Rigby Bendele and Jacob W. Michaels
Scenario tags: Exclusive, Repeatable, Glyph
Note: Due to the special nature of this product, it is NOT part of the Pathfinder Society Scenario Subscription. It will be made available upon request to conventions with event support after Gen Con 2024 (August 1-4) and will go on sale to the general public in August of 2025.
[Scenario Maps spoiler - click to reveal]
The following maps used in this scenario are also available for purchase here on paizo.com:
This deserves a significantly longer review but.. it has some construction flaws, that I had hoped that org play design had left behind.
Ascalaphus covered some of the issues, but I am just playing it, and the encounters that vexed me as GM managed to become really unpleasant as a player.
The vertical encounter is an interesting idea but the setup is pretty flawed and without that rather forced setup a normal map would be so much easier.
Edit:07 12 2024 - I found myself playing it again and the thing things that have bothered me before really are grating, it might have managed to completely turn me off playing these types of scenarios... or touching them at all.
Cutting so many encounters early, just broke me and I though that this was something that earlier scenarios had already solved.
Story, theme, written content: 5 stars!
The story, characters, theme, and everything related to that were awesome. It really connected with players, they had fun, it was easy to follow. This mission felt important, provided history, added new lore, and felt immersive in the set pieces.
Out of the 3 specials I have ran so far, this was the best story of them all. And really one of the better stories in a scenario imo. Would like the "made for tv" version of this to run as a regular scenario for one table.
Mechanics, setup, time: 3 Stars.
4 acts seems too much. The first two acts went way too quick and had so much exposition that could be missed because of the short duration. The timing needs to really be reworked for future runs of this.
While I really liked the conditions, and bonuses they did kind of fly in and fly out so quick. Again cause of the pacing design.
I think there was too many hazards. They can be confusing to begin with in PF2E and adding that many to a time sensitive special was too much. "Whats the trigger?" "Why couldn't I see it before it triggered" "Do we try to reduce HP or disable" "How many actions, how many disables" "How long does it last" etc etc you get it. Now imagine 4, 5, 6 of them in one scenario.
This is defn a me problem but it was easy to miss {and I did miss} the first two "Events" at the end of act 1 and 2. While Act 3 and 4 were very clear 5 mins until moving on to the next thing.
Overall I really enjoyed the story, can't wait to run it again next weekend as well. Going in Ill be able to warn or steer the group into a more cohesive experience even with the timing. Just by letting them know up front a little.
I played this yesterday, I've slept on it a bit and this is how I feel about it.
The story is pretty fun. There's a fair bit going on, there are a bunch of interesting encounters, and numerically it all seems reasonable. Some harder and some easier encounters, some chances to rest up. All in all that's fine. The nautical theme gave it some extra cohesion which was nice.
There is one really big problem though, and that's the number of hard scene cuts. Too often you're in the middle of an encounter, and there's an announcement and you have to go on to the next thing. I think overall there were SIX hard cuts, across four acts. That's just way too much. It happened especially often in the first couple of acts, which had a very limited time budget. But that set a really bad mood. After two combats where we got canceled before finishing the first round, we got cynical. Whenever we had a choice of encounters we'd just pick the skill encounter over the combat encounter because we didn't think we'd get the chance to complete the combat encounter anyway.
It did get a bit better in the later acts, which had a bit more room and fewer hard cuts. And after looking in the scenario with the GM it actually says the house GM running the multitable is encouraged to adjust the timings if they think it'll be better. So "RAW" you're allowed to massage the timings to soften the cuts a bit.
But I still think this is a big structural design flaw in these scenarios: many hard cuts. It's quite noticeable compared to older PFS1 and SFS multitables which tended to have only three acts instead of four. And often in those specials it was less "you must stop your current encounter and switch" and more "okay, we have enough successes on submission A, nobody can start A anymore, people still in A will get their points counted elsewhere".
So, I'm scoring it like this:
* Story, encounters: 4 stars. Fun story but not the best I've ever seen. It's hard to compete with specials that had more metaplot stakes.
* Hard cuts: -1 star. I was going to actually take off 2 stars, but it does get better in act 3 and 4. And the house GM could improve things.
If we're going to run this locally, I would advise booking this in a SIX hour slot instead of the expected 5, it'll really make it much more enjoyable.
The strongest points of this one were the theme, the characters, and the narrative. I especially loved that some player characters got a chance to shine in ways they usually might not (and can't wait to play it with my deckhand!)
I strongly encouraged my players to choose what I felt were the missions that focused on the narrative or introduced new characters. One recommendation I have would be to mark those on the player handouts so players can prioritize them.
Two other innovations I liked were: one of the maps (a player remarked, "this is the first time I've ever seen an encounter like this," and I agree!) Super cool; and, combats counted as 2 successes in reporting, which respects the fact that they take longer. (My table still struggled to finish even one though...) Players remarked that they appreciated the emphasis on diverse non-combat encounters, and I agree with that too.
One recommendation for future specials: maybe "less is more?" Three acts seems like it might be the sweet spot...? Still want enough content for repeated play throughs though, to be fair. (Loved the continuation of the various innovations from PFS2 4-99).
I've run all of the PFS2 specials and this is definitely in my top two. I'm looking forward to running it again, and will hopefully get better at it. And looking forward to playing it, too.
One slight modification of my prior review: there is a required combat where the opponents fight until destroyed, with no option as-written to spare them or even really talk with them. Given who they are (I won't spoil it), I would have preferred an option to not kill them. Or at least, if they had a surrender/"wake up and smell the coffee" threshold, that would have been highly preferable. Also, I don't necessarily agree with "crank up the difficulty"; Having nearly TPKed in a special, let's just say that TPKing would not be special.
Good But This Special Did Not Feel All That "Special"
I played #6-00 Salt of the Ocean in the Level 3-4 Tier at Gen Con 2024. No spoilers, I promise.
Overall, my friends and I had a good time, but the scenario had some flaws that took away from the experience. The pirate theme was a good choice and used well during the scenario. The various tasks we worked towards felt appropriate and the selection of critters and opponents we ran into was excellent. Calisro Benarry and Eando Kline were the perfect NPCs to lead the expedition. They played off each other quite nicely.
Combat options were used simultaneously with exploration, social, and puzzle options to complete tasks. On paper that sounds good, but it did not work in practice. Tables can tear through exploration, social, and puzzle options much faster than a combat encounter can be resolved.
Twice my table chose combat first and never got past the first round before the task was complete and the scenario moved on. I think this was a major flaw in the scenario. We quit choosing combat because we knew we wouldn't get to finish or enjoy it. Alternatively, when the entire collective of tables engaged in full combat encounters, they were too easy. We never really felt challenged by the scenario, just rushed to finish.
My suggestion to players attending this event. Avoid bringing heavy combat characters. Focus on the social, exploration, and puzzle options and bring a character who will do well in those. Even when combat does occur, the encounters are not difficult.
My suggestion to Paizo. Time to crank up the difficulty in these specials. We need to feel like there is a chance for failure. Failure can be interesting too! Also, do not pair combat encounters alongside other options. Let social/exploration/puzzles shine on their own and then let combat shine when it happens.
This product has been announced! Cover and product description are not final and are subject to change.
Please note that the release date is an August 2025 release to the general public. This special will launch at Gen Con 2024 and be available exclusively to conventions for the following year.
Huh ._. I learn new things about english language, I thought that was prophet
It normally is! As a native speaker with nearly 50 years of life in the church including five years in ministry, I do not recall ever coming across the word prophesier. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it was in popular use in the early 19th century, but is very rarely used today.
I have run this scenario twice now - once at Gen Con, and once at TheLittlestCon on Find the Path's discord server online. The first time, I ran the 3-4 tier. The second time, I ran the 7-8 tier. Any comments that I have may not necessarily apply to 1-2 or 5-6. I haven't solidly looked over those two tiers yet.
First of all, there is not nearly enough time for the first two "Events." Both times, while GMing with players who are familiar with the game and know how to plan their turns ahead of time, I was only able to get through one round of combat in both the fight on the crashed ships and the first underwater combat. These fights have the potential to have some really cool things unfold and my players were very disappointed both times when we only made it through one round of combat before we were told to move on. I think there needs to be more time built into these sections so that players can actually experience some of the uniqueness of the fights because its there, its really cool and none of my players got to experience it fully.
Some of the hazards are very deadly for the 3-4 tier and I don't imagine it's much better for the 1-2 tier. There's one where I knocked two players unconscious in the 3-4 tier. One crit failed the save and one failed it. For the one who crit failed it, the damage very nearly instantly killed them. Then on the higher level table I ran, I don't think the damage was terribly different. I feel like the hazard scaling for some in particular could use some improvement.
Vertical combat! I love the concept of it. I wish it existed more. However, I don't feel like it's practical at the lower levels. Unless someone randomly has combat climber, which isn't a feat many usually take because it doesn't come up much, they cannot fight while climbing as climbing requires two hands. When the creatures tactics specifically say they stay in the water until players come to them, that makes it hard for players to fully engage in the fight when they cannot climb and swing a weapon simultaneously. At the higher levels, the vertical combat was a lot of fun and the players have more tools at their disposal to make it work even if no one has a climb speed or combat climber so it works much better there.
Lastly, the final combat feels rather easy. Again, the villain has a lot of cool abilities that I like to show off because someone somewhere put a lot of effort into creating this amazing character. And they were dead before I could really do that. The players did enjoy getting to actually get through a whole fight, but I definitely think they would've appreciated getting to finish a fight that's a bit more challenging. The challenging fights mostly got interrupted and the last fight was two rounds.
I know that seems like a lot of negative stuff, but I do really really like the story that is baked into this scenario. I think it is well crafted, unique without feeling weird, and lays everything out in a way that players can experience rather than just hear about if they pick the right challenges along the way. The guide to the connected adventures really helps make this possible when used the right way.
For a final point, I would like to state that I am in no way perfect and I may have missed things that would've made some of my comments less necessary. When someone puts a lot of text in front of me, I do struggle to read all of it completely. I did go through this scenario several times, but like most specials, its a lot of text and I find that I notice new things every time I read through it. That's on me, not on anyone who contributed to this scenario's creation.
Overall, LOVE the story, LOVE the statblocks of the unique enemies, wish I had more time to show off the villains before they died, wish we had a bit more guidance on vertical combat, and think the first two acts need a little more time baked into them for the combats at their ends.
//Loved the story, felt the mechanics were a little off. I left a review with more details. But it gave me an idea. Maybe you thought of this before and it doesnt work idk but ...
I had a general idea, that could be applied to any PFS/PF2E content. Writers shouldn't have to also do the mechanics and encounters. Writers should focus on the story and intent they want to get across. And then you could have "mechanics" come in and insert the encounters and skill DC stuff.
It could look something like this:
Writer: This is an incredible story, here are the characters the party will meet... story... story..
First encounter: Bandits in an alley. The party will meet bandits that are from X group and will fight to the death. Extra flavor bit for leader of bandits. [ Mechanic will then come in and flesh this out with the right scaling, abilities and monsters]
Second encounter: Party will have to convince NPC to give them widget but as they do the widget is stolen by a BEAR! Party has to navigate the crowded streets and eventually be lead into the forest to catch the BEAR to get their widget back. Any extra flavor bits. [Mechanic comes in and again fleshes this out with skill checks etc.]
Letting the writers write, and someone else really focused on the rules and mechanics seems like itll produce a better product overall. I have no inside information but this seems like itll allow the writers to write more, or richer, and itll allow for the rules/balance/scale to be consistent across all formats by having a group focused on it completely.
Similar to how you have illustrators and writers, now you just add in mechanics!
Paizo, is there any way you'd consider bumping the release date for these specials forward by a couple weeks? Dragon Con is always on Labor Day weekend, and we're always scrambling to try and read/prep this scenario with only a couple of days to work with.
Paizo, is there any way you'd consider bumping the release date for these specials forward by a couple weeks? Dragon Con is always on Labor Day weekend, and we're always scrambling to try and read/prep this scenario with only a couple of days to work with.
I'm always able to grant scenarios to convention GMs early, though this August has been difficult between my various outages. According to my records, DragonCon GMs were granted their scenarios on August 12; if you did not receive them, please contact your convention coordinator.
Organized Play Coordinator
