Designer
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Bringing over an echo of a post from the product page -
Has anyone corrected the treasure drops for this scenario? Reading the third encounter it says you get 1 treasure bundle for completing the first 3 waves (there are only 3 waves) and another 1 for completing the final combat. Even worse, the final encounter says you get 1 treasure bundle for each of the 4 combats that take place, but you only run 1 of the first 3, and then the final 1. So, it seems like there is no way for players to get all of the treasure bundles, which just seems to be written so wrong.
Looking over this to prep it myself I have the same concerns, anyone else have thoughts?
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Creature: The deans conjured a mimic with a summon entity spell. The servant it finishes devouring when the PCs arrive is just an illusion cast as part of this setup. The mimic doesn’t give any clue to its identity, trying to lure PCs in to flip the table or otherwise touch it so it can use its adhesive on someone, before opening a fanged mouth in the table’s center and rearing up to attack. As a summoned creature, it only has two actions per turn, and engages in straightforward combat tactics. It uses Stealth for initiative and fights until killed, or until 9 rounds pass, at which point the summon duration expires and it vanishes.
If we're going to remind GMs about what summoned creature rules, it would help to also mention that summoned creatures as minions don't get reactions either; the Mimic has a particularly nasty reaction and it's set up perfectly for a PC to fall into the trap and get one-shot. But unless I'm missing something this reaction is not usable.
It's an easy thing for a well-intentioned GM to miss, and it could dramatically up the encounter difficulty.
IMO the creature should be named "Summoned Famished Mimic," have the Minion trait on its statblock, and the Object Lesson reaction removed or noted that it is unusable.
Venture-Agent, Colorado—Colorado Springs
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Bringing over an echo of a post from the product page -
Looking over this to prep it myself I have the same concerns, anyone else have thoughts?Has anyone corrected the treasure drops for this scenario? Reading the third encounter it says you get 1 treasure bundle for completing the first 3 waves (there are only 3 waves) and another 1 for completing the final combat. Even worse, the final encounter says you get 1 treasure bundle for each of the 4 combats that take place, but you only run 1 of the first 3, and then the final 1. So, it seems like there is no way for players to get all of the treasure bundles, which just seems to be written so wrong.
I have this concern as well, although in cases where the scenario doesn't really have all the opportunities to earn the Treasure Bundles, I assume they earn any that aren't really achievable. They can't lose the three mentioned, so I add the other Treasure Bundles they can earn to the base of three.
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My players really liked the "betrayal" at the end. They viewed it as a fun throwback to the good old days, except with kid gloves on.
Had the same criticism as James mentioned. I don't mind indifferent VC's (or even a new Shadow Lodge!) but the mixed messages in the scenario were thematically jarring. Westyr literally says "Remember that you don’t always have to fight your enemies." Shaine also mentions that you don't need "brute-force" because the Scrolls "do things with more... finesse.”
Then Shaine and Westyr, along with Marcos, literally railroad you into a brute-force battle were beating an NPC to unconsciousness is the only option.
Why? To see how the agents handle it when "a mission takes an unexpected turn."
A mission can go South in other (and more interesting!) ways than railroading combat on the PCs. It's also a TERRIBLE lesson for the Society to teach and when new players come in and resort to violent means in other, inappropriate situations in other scenarios… it's time to look in the mirror about the kind of community and gaming lessons being fostered here, and not at the players who are often pegged as "murderhoboes" or "bad actors." People are what they eat, and if they are constantly spoon-fed content like this they will get the wrong ideas about what PF Society is about.
This encounter should have had other options to achieve the "solution." Ideally, three, one for each theme of each of the schools. You know, to dramatically embody the lessons the PCs were supposed to be learning this whole time. Fighting SHOULD be one of them, but it does not need to be the ONLY one.
Side note, but I continue to be disheartened in the longer path we're treading here, with such combat-heavy modules and APs and the habits we're transferring to new Org play players with content like the Beginner's Box and Pathfinder Trials, were walking in and slaughtering a whole tribe of intelligent beings, or passing a "final exam" by beating someone unconscious is seen as the only solution to the conflict at hand.
Don't get me wrong, I love a classic dungeon crawl or climactic battle after a sudden betrayal, but a scenario like this should offer other options for the players; options that are in stride with its overarching theme. Like three paths to conflict resolution based on the Scrolls, Spells, and Swords themes. But perhaps in the end, the Society most highly values beating and killing people to solve problems.
That was my PC's in-character takeaway; she was coming from the Beginner's Box (GM credit) and has now quit society after these trials; after watching her whole tribe killed by adventurers she is not interested in joining an organization that has such values.
*
Edit: I want to be fair to the author too, and acknowledge that this kind of repeatable is difficult to write and tie together thematically, and probably has other editorial and thematic constraints than what I, as a player of GM, am not privy to. The plush dragon is just…the best thing I have seen all year.
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My players really liked the "betrayal" at the end. They viewed it as a fun throwback to the good old days, except with kid gloves on.Had the same criticism as James mentioned. I don't mind indifferent VC's (or even a new Shadow Lodge!) but the mixed messages in the scenario were thematically jarring. Westyr literally says "Remember that you don’t always have to fight your enemies."
The corollary to that is sometimes you do have to fight your enemies.
I do not want to go back to the days of the tyranny of the diplomancer. Sometimes a fight is going to be a fight.
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The corollary to that is sometimes you do have to fight your enemies.
I do not want to go back to the days of the tyranny of the diplomancer. Sometimes a fight is going to be a fight.
I don't disagree with that, though I don't think I mentioned diplomacy in particular. Of course you have to fight sometimes… this is Pathfinder! The Swords School's arena battles captured that quite well!
In the context of this scenario's supposed object lesson — that each school represents one approach to problem-solving — the railroaded battle seems really off the mark. In a way that disappointed on both the in-character and out-of-character level.
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I hammed up the "betrayal" at the end (taking the combat option that allows a check for that, and having the other opponent be a bard both helped with that.)
That seemed to help soften the blow. Having an alternate path to resolution would not have been a bad thing. And certainly "creative solutions" should be rewarded. (Such as the PCs defeating the first encounter, and then deciding that a fight with an experienced and beloved pathfinder is a *bad* idea, and making a run out the gate and not stopping till they got back to the grand lodge...)
I had a lot of fun with the body guard shaking hands with the fighter who dropped her in a single, brutal crit, and saying "Respect. That was a good hit" before going off and sulking in the corner about "stupid pathfinders and their stupid games. That hurt, I better get a bonus for this."
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Creature: The deans conjured a mimic with a summon entity spell. The servant it finishes devouring when the PCs arrive is just an illusion cast as part of this setup. The mimic doesn’t give any clue to its identity, trying to lure PCs in to flip the table or otherwise touch it so it can use its adhesive on someone, before opening a fanged mouth in the table’s center and rearing up to attack. As a summoned creature, it only has two actions per turn, and engages in straightforward combat tactics. It uses Stealth for initiative and fights until killed, or until 9 rounds pass, at which point the summon duration expires and it vanishes.If we're going to remind GMs about what summoned creature rules, it would help to also mention that summoned creatures as minions don't get reactions either; the Mimic has a particularly nasty reaction and it's set up perfectly for a PC to fall into the trap and get one-shot. But unless I'm missing something this reaction is not usable.
It's an easy thing for a well-intentioned GM to miss, and it could dramatically up the encounter difficulty.
IMO the creature should be named "Summoned Famished Mimic," have the Minion trait on its statblock, and the Object Lesson reaction removed or noted that it is unusable.
I am kind of annoyed, with all this *beautiful* artwork we got for this adventure, that the picture of the mimic is a chair, and the description is a table...
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One of the optional encounters is against animated objects - which are IMMUNE to nonlethal damage.
Same question came up when I played it, but we had an Inventor with a Construct companion.
We obviously went with the spirit of the encounter but it made for a good laugh imagining this little wasp being an indestructible juggernaut.
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I would say that since constructs cannot be killed or go unconscious (and since inventors constructs aren't destroyed at 0 HP IIRC) that the enchantment doesn't trigger, and the weapons deal lethal as normal.
For spells I had Marco's grumble a bit before allowing enhancement spells, but insisting on no damaging spells.
I probably should have had him relax that rule for the drake fight. The caster heavy party got destroyed by it. (That said they also got destroyed due to a combination of bad luck and not spreading out.)
Also their mocking him to his face over how easy the first two rounds were was probably tempting fate.
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Venture-Agent, Colorado—Colorado Springs
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I ran this today, after getting the clarification on the Treasure Bundles. A couple of things came up.
The Unseen Spores challenge states the antechamber is 10 feet wide by 20 feet long. My group chose the satchel with the Glitterdust spell. The scenario states "Glitterdust or faerie fire both reveal spores, making the spores in the first two squares visible." Implying the Glitterdust will only cover a 10 by 10 area. The description for Glitterdust states it is a 10 Foot burst, and can therefore cover a 20 foot by 20 foot area, rendering the challenge moot.
The Drake got 19 damage on the first Caustic Mucus, dropping two of the front liners in the first round. It was tough, and one of the players would have died without the nonlethal conversion in the arena. They did finally succeed.
I also ran the "The Equestrian Witch" encounter. The text states she casts "Mirielle casts shillelagh immediately before entering the courtyard." I found it odd that her statblock doesn't have her staff with shillelagh listed in her weapons.
Players were having a heck of a time with reflex saves, failing most. Between the Caustic Mucus and the Witch using Burning hands, they were having a rough time.
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This is a worst 1st level adventure I have ever seen. Good concept, but 1st level characters are subject to massive damage, even with non-lethal damage.
TPK the party on the final fight, should have lost a character to massive damage.
I would have given 0 starts if I could have.
Spells and other effects with the nonlethal trait that reduce a creature to 0 Hit Points knock the creature out instead of killing them.
Given that Massive Damage will almost certainty reduce you to 0 I think you're pretty safe. (Although there does appear to be a weird corner case that if you had enough temporary hitpoints that a blow dealt you massive damage without actually reducing you to 0 it would still kill you)
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I think it took down 4 of the 6 of us, in like 2, maybe 3 rounds, then used its last action to Stride adjacent to my 10 Con Alchemist, who went next.
I just turned to face Farabellus, humbly dropped to my knees, and forfeited, because the lesson was clearly to realize when you had bitten off more than you could chew.
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So, I've got a question... there will probably be more.
Dancer-in-the-Gilded-Eye only speaks Abyssal and Protean. It is likely that none of the PCs speak either of those. Of the four, they are the only one that does not speak Common.
How are they supposed to talk to the PCs?
This seems a bit of an oversight...
Also, was Ygracix really supposed to have 63hp?
Granted, the PCs are not supposed to fight her, but if they do for some reason, she is going to be really hard to take down. That's only 48 more HP than the normal imp...
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Darn, I missed that.
On a similar note, the emerald grasshopper requires you to be an expert in athletics and make a DC 30 athletics check.
"You are a lot nicer than the last Protean we met. He made us do their homework. "
"Oh! You met my Uncle S! They're weird aren't they?"
*swims out of existence.*
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Also, was Ygracix really supposed to have 63hp?
Granted, the PCs are not supposed to fight her, but if they do for some reason, she is going to be really hard to take down. That's only 48 more HP than the normal imp...
I don't know, but I kind of like the idea of her just sighing, taking the damage until it gets to her initiative, and then flying back to Shaine, trailing the party behind her. "Shaine, you said I wasn't allowed to hurt them and they weren't supposed to hurt me. Can I hurt the now? Come on... just a little?
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Ran this the other day, and will be playing tonight, and running again tomorrow.
Feedback:
The protean wasn't as bad as I thought, because Kreighton's clue of it likes destruction was enough for them to look for something to break.
The sprites we are a fun encounter, but mostly due to the way I was playing them up as fey.
The players were not a fan of the drake fight. It was way too nasty for this tier, even though they were guaranteed not to die, they felt like it was just setting them up to fail (or feel like they were). I might suggest that Marcus Farabellus give them the option for a tougher challenge, so that it doesn't feel like they have failed if they are all knocked unconscious.
The mimic is definitely tough, but GMs need to remember that it only gets 2 actions, and no reactions. This will help a lot.
I ran the "betrayal" with the bard being very campy. His performance was over the top, with a lot of "resounding blow!" and the like (which he did regardless of whether it was his strike or one from a Pathfinder. As the three deans were close enough to observe, I also did a secret check for each PC to see if they noticed them, which helped to make it feel more like a test than a real betrayal.
This one isn't as bad as it seems, but only if it is handled well.
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Venture-Agent, Online—VTT
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Yeah... the Master of Swords trial genuinely feels like it was written to ensure that any new player will leave society and never come back. I can't actually find any way to justify using level 3 bosses bumped up with an elite template in a level 1 only scenario, ever.
Experienced players can at least have a laugh at how badly constructed those encounters are, but the idea of putting them in a scenario that presents as a good introduction is mind-boggling. The I think the only way to run this successfully is to play it up as a joke about just how terrible the administrators of these tests are.
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On the tables I have run or played, the biggest concern is not the river drake.
In fact, on 2 of the 3 tables, it was relatively easily defeated. That included a 6-person table.
No, it is the lesson of “don’t trust fellow Pathfinders”
The betrayal is what leaves a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.
The hardest fight, so far, is the creepers, with their darkness. Very unfair in a party of level 1 characters.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Hmm, Darkness behaves a lot more like Deeper Darkness now. Some notes though:
- Imprecise Senses, like hearing. Unless someone is actively trying to avoid those senses, you automatically locate people with them. So even if you can't see someone in the dark, if they just Stride up to you, they're only Hidden, not Undetected. And even if they Sneak up to someone, if they then Strike they'd drop from Undetected back to Hidden (i.e. you hear what space the attack came from). Of course they could Sneak again, but it does drastically limit the number of attacks per round.
- Other imprecise senses: like a Sensate Gnome with Scent. Since the enemies aren't described as taking specific steps against it (like scent-blocking alchemical items), such a gnome would know exactly where the creepers are.
- Light and Dancing Light cantrips can counteract Darkness spells. Since they're using level 2 darkness you'll need a Success on your counteract check, but cantrips don't run out. In fact, since it's only level 2 Darkness, you could even try it using your Wayfinder, if this isn't your first mission.
I think it's a good idea for a "teaching scenario" to teach that you need to be ready for enemies using Darkness. I don't think this scenario does a fair job of it. If you're not ready for it it can be so crippling that the whole thing becomes an exercise in frustration. A "darkness trial" should really have a lot more writing and guardrails about teaching how to deal with it.
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Hmm, Darkness behaves a lot more like Deeper Darkness now. Some notes though:
Also, at this level, Darkvision still sees through it. (And even when it advances to deeper darkness at level 4, darkvision still sees through it, but things are concealed, so in that aspect it is a lot less powerful.)
Target is now Area, not "an object."
This means it is no longer mobile, but that is less helpful with this enemy since they can cast it at will.
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I looked this over and decided NOT to run this for my Boy Scout group of players. I think it teaches the wrong lessons of what Society play is about. This is really a better scenario for a group of experienced players who are bringing Level 1 characters than a group of new players.
I want more "Explore! Cooperate! Report!" in an introductory scenario.
Hmm
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Venture-Agent, Finland—Tampere
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To be fair, it IS in universe for "for new but experienced pathfinders".
But yeah, I personally don't mind scenario too much, but if you do stop thinking it from mechanical perspective and think from in universe perspective then yeah it is really messed up x'D
But yeah I do think betrayal is best run with lots of ham
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I dislike this adventure and will never run it or play it again. It needs to be pull back and rewritten.I'd already concluded that just by reading the commentary :-(
When I played, I had my character dropped to dead by the mimic by massive damage. At the time, I was unaware of the rule in 2e that says that if something does non-lethal damage than the character can't die from massive damage.
GM did the right thing and just had me knocked out. Barely got back my hit points before the final act, which proceed to be a TPK because our main hitters started to roll really bad (sub 10s). My character was the last one to fall (again).
Really left a bitter taste in my mouth for this adventure.
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I am not sure if "we gave you that super hard encounter to chew you up, but had a breath of life ready, so we are square right?" is instilling a lot of confidence in new recruits.
Honestly, I would personally replace a lot of the enemies with illusions, kinda like an X-Men danger room, since that removes a lot of the issues, and would make it more believable that none of the enemies actually kill you.
Well, that would fix one of the scenario's problems, but at this point, all we can do is wait until they find a way to fix it... or if that's not in the cards just ignore it.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Did you know that the Deans are currently on an invisible platform about 20 ft above the final combat area, ready to cast Breath of Life or even something like Protectors Sacrifice? Me neither, but if someone dies, turns out it has been like that the entire time.
Replace that sentence with "literally anything to make sure that players don't die, no matter how silly or how it bends the game's rules", honestly some sort of reaction that prevents the bad thing from happening is likely the best way to resolve this.
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Organized Play Associate
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This product has been updated as of March 18. This is a significant revision which changes a number of encounters and brings the scenario more in line with what we believe the Pathfinder Society represents. GMs should download and use this new version and discard the old file.
