A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 5th- through 8th-level characters.
On the border of Numeria and Ustalav, there sits an abandoned manor filled with strange technology and shuffling undead named the Crushed Meteor. Once a stronghold of the Technic League, it has fallen into the hands of the Whispering Way and the Pathfinder Society has successfully lobbied with Kevoth-Kul to finally handle the building and exterminate those within. However, a leader of the Whispering Way sits inside the building, considering its many secrets and offers the Pathfinders a choice: let her finish her research and gain information on an enemy, or perish. It's up to the agents within to make a choice that may sacrifice the values of the Society for valuable knowledge!
Written by Chris Bissette
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:
The notion of giving Pathfinders a genuine moral choice is well worth pursuing. However, there a lot of compounding issues with that choice and the scenario generally, and that makes it hard to recommend to most GMs.
Compounding Issues:
The info given for the negotiable characters is wholly inadequate, in part because the box text is so aggressively framed that the vast majority of players wouldn't consider negotiation, but also because little to no info is given on how the character would know the group has the item they're negotiating for. There are also potentially 6 encounters, one of which is in a space so untenably small that both sessions of it ended with multiple characters unable to contribute, and/or triggering different rooms and further straining GM attention. (I had to run three rooms of this scenario at the same time.) Another encounter is against a vampire whose coffin is never mentioned, leaving the GM to scramble to decide where it is on the map (or whether it's even on the map). A third encounter is in a mostly undescribed map that is used for a research subsystem, but if the players go any direction other than the room containing that encounter, the GM has to either ad-lib room descriptions until they go to the right room, or explicitly railroad them into searching the correct room.
On the bright side, the setting of "Numerian tech meets the undead" is at least delivered, and characters invested in either half of that formula will feel rewarded. But I had to spend extra hours disentangling issues with the scenario before I could feel comfortable running it, and even then I felt drained from running it compared to most other PFS scenarios.
Overall, this scenario left me thoroughly exhausted to prep and run, but only somewhat satisfied to play.
Perspective: I ran this low tier for a party of 3 level 7 players and one level 5 (14 CP).
The good
I'm very happy to see more Numeria scenario's, and this one presents an good story and an excellent setup and atmosphere. The alien-ness and the encounters are very well flavored to the setting.
The problematic
There are however a few major issues that lead me to considering this a problematic scenario:
- I'm happy to see the subsystem used in the first part of the scenario, and even though I think the DC's are fine, the required skill set is just far too narrow. I do think there are non-negligible odds where a small party simply cannot progress due to not having anyone trained in one or two of the "must have" skills for this challenge.
- I think the stats of the basic combat encounters are fine, even though they have some issues. Where I'm under the impression that the combats fail, is whith the CP adjustments: I'm not sure the adjusted encounter budgets are spent in a way that makes the combats more interesting, as the defenses of the creatures are just too low to make the combats last longer than a single round.
- The map for the second part of the scenario is cool, but impractical for the encounters that are meant to be had there. You just can't reasonably place Large size creatures on a five-foot hellscape.
The bad
What I'm most disappointed about is related to the creature stat blocks and the chronicle:
- There are multiple glaring errors in stat blocks.
Example of a stat block error:
An example for this is a variant creature that has a 0ft Reach despite having become Large (basic creature is Tiny)
- Many creatures get a "Variant" of an existing creature together with a Rare rarity tag, where the only difference is comparable to an Elite template. This just feels like an arbitrary +5 DC increase to Recall Knowledge on top of the already increased DC for increased creature level. So I'm not talking about creatures with Numeria-specific alterations, since those are rare enough to warrant the tag.
- The chronicle has incorrect prices for the unlocked items.
Chronicle errors:
A +1 weapon costs 35gp, not 41gp: This simply looks like a mistake.
A +1 Striking weapon costs 100gp, not 71gp: This looks like an unintended discount, as there is no mention of either a discount or a limit.
Pathfinder Society adventures should be written to maximize opportunities to participate. This scenario stalls or completely fails early on if you don't have a very narrow list of mental skills. And the only payoff for success is advancing the plot. More effort needs to go into translating good stories into good adventures. This has been an ongoing problem which is underlined by the truly great scenarios that don't fail on this point.
Worse yet, immediately after that is an encounter where the map prevents most of the party from participating. It's not quite as bad and frustrating as Lions of Katapesh, but it's close.
A real decision is nice, one of the enemies a potential problem
(Played the adventure at 28 CP, then read through parts of it)
Summary: I like the fact that there is a real decision to be made. Though it can lead to kind of a huge diagreement at the table, since the choice is one of unknown consquences and based on morals and goals.
The rest of the adventure is more or less a dungeon crawl and a research part. The enemies are, despite being modified, nothing really all too special. One of the final ones, though, is of a type that can be extremely problematic if certain abilities are used.
More in-depth:
The good:
- The adventure tells you that you will go up against undead. And that is exactly what you do. They have a couple of special abilities, but if you prepare for / against undeads, you will be able to use that quite often
- There is a real, impactful choice to be made. Compromise your morals for information on a potentially biggger / more immediate threat
The bad:
- There are some fights in really tight hallways. We had one with 6 PCs and one Animal Companion against 5 or 6 enemies in a hallway of 5 feet width. Fortunately enough we had one melee with a reach weapon and a lot of ranged options, but I can see this being a problem for some groups
- The adventure contains four fights plus two optional ones. Since fights start to take longer at this level range anyways, that can lead to the adventure running pretty long. We skipped on of the optionals and the GM sped things up near the end (and didn't use one particular ability - see below) and we still needed the full five hours!
The ugly:
- The research has no "failing forward" - if your group doesn't have the right skills, you might be stuck at 30% into the adventure. Or you can just keep rolling since
- The research part is missing urgency. There is no maximum number of turns and no consequences for failing until you have everything. If you don't do that, you will lose treasure bundles. And the harder two rooms only allow for one general skill each. So it might take a lot of rolls to finally get there
- One of the enemies has an ability that can completely break a fight. There is no counter available at the level range of the adventure and a critically failed save (or even a few failed ones) can lead to VERY dire situations in a fight that is already pretty tough
Spoiler:
PLEASE stop putting vampires in scenarios! The Dominate Ability is just AWFUL to play with / against!
Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, LO Special Edition, Maps, PF Special Edition, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Cover for this scenario has tags for Metaplot (Immortal Influence), Grand Archive, and Vigilant Seal, but those tags aren't present here on the product page. Should they be ignored on the PDF? For what it's worth there aren't any faction specific missions in the adventure, though the reporting website asks for the results of extra missions for both.
