Pathfinder Society Scenario #50: Fortune's Blight (PFRPG) PDF

3.00/5 (based on 11 ratings)

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A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 5th to 9th level characters (Tiers: 5–6 and 8–9).

You're sent to the wild River Kingdoms to find and kill a green hag who holds the last fragment of a powerful ancient sword called Passion's Edge, sundered into three pieces a decade ago. Things aren't as simple as they seem: the last creature to control the fabled sword wants it back at any cost, ghosts of the sword's past seek revenge for wrongs committed by former wielders of Passion's Edge, and the Pathfinder Society wants the sword whole again before being returned to Absalom. Madness, murder, and mayhem await you in the River Kingdoms!

Fortune's Blight was partially outlined at PaizoCon 2009 during the "Design a Pathfinder Society Scenario" seminar.

Written by Adam Daigle

This scenario is designed for play in Pathfinder Society Organized Play, but can easily be adapted for use with any world. This scenario is compliant with the Open Game License (OGL) and is suitable for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

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PZOPSS0050E


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Average product rating:

3.00/5 (based on 11 ratings)

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Still challenging for groups of 4 or maybe 5 players

4/5

I’m surprised how well this scenario has aged if you’re going to play this with a party of four. It’s not an easy excursion as is the case for other season 0 or 1 scenarios. You will actually find yourself challenged by some of the encounters. This is especially the case for the second encounter. Depending on your composition, I can see some casualties for sure. I guess it’s a great reminder to be ready for just about anything.

The storyline isn’t amazing or innovative, but it gets the job done. There’s a nice mixture of opponents and a couple of great opportunities to roleplay. In particular I’d like to mention the first encounter. Our party was warned and so we kept ignoring the NPC and ridiculed the entire situation. We were asking nonsensical questions and bickering amongst ourselves in a friendly fashion, which got everyone at the table laughing like crazy. We managed to discuss and joke in character amongst ourselves for over 15 minutes with the NPC getting more and more desperate. It was one of the best laughs I’ve had in a while, though I suppose you should have been there to really grasp what I’m trying to say here.

Again, this scenario aged well. The combats are still challenging for a party of four, more so that most of the other scenarios of season 0 and 1. The cursed item made sense but wasn’t too much of a hindrance. I think I’d actually recommend it to smaller groups, though with the warning that this scenarios has a nasty bite to it and shouldn’t be underestimated. Things can get scary fast.


Looked interesting but led to early TPK

2/5

I liked the idea here, and the first encounter (settled purely by roleplaying) was a lot of fun. However the second encounter simply killed the entire party. With our mix of characters I think that was more or less a forgone conclusion: they couldn't do enough damage to stop it from killing all of them, and it's impossible to get away from it.

There were also a lot of small annoying logic issues. The McGuffin item is played up as being a big deal but it's only a big deal when it's hurting the PCs--it's not useful or impressive otherwise. The curse is annoying without being flavorful. The Venture-Captain's information is more than usually useless--she knows both too much and too little. A building gets referred to as a "cathedral" and a "chapel" in alternate sentences--those are not the same thing! And most of the faction missions are really one mission split into two parts, so there isn't much to do with them. (Once you can get a piece of such-and-such NPC, getting two pieces is hardly an additional challenge....) One faction mission should properly represent an extended investigation, not suitable for the pace of play here.

On the positive side, the NPCs are really colorful and I like the backstory. I just wish it had gotten more chance to shine. Five PCs, level 5, with one of them a summoner so effectively six PCs--we abandoned the fight after two rounds because it was clearly too onesided. The player was particularly angry that there was no warning or time to prepare.


yeah, okay

4/5

Not bad. Nothing super-special, but at least it's interesting.


Short straightforward (and somewhat deadly) scenario

3/5

Fortune's Blight was a short straightforward scenario. The scenario was simple, it didn't involve any sandbox play, and you are pretty much lead from encounter to encounter.

Blight can be a challenging scenario. It's especially deadly if the PCs have the wrong group composition or make the wrong decisions. The challenge level of the encounters can vary dramatically, depending on the tactics the GM uses and if he runs the NPCs correctly.

Imo, the story aspect of this scenario is overrated (the 'novelty' of homosexual themes is overused), but the story could also get lost depending on the storyteller. I found that it was very easy to get confused with regards to the story, especially if the GM reads the box text only.

There were noticeable stat block errors in Blight (in Sevenarches, on beach), as well a story inconsistency (the reason to kill Tylaca). If I saw this much with my naked eye, there are surely plenty more.

Regarding the recovery of magic items. If Pathfinders are going to recover magic items/artifacts, could they please be more powerful than +2 items? Sometimes it hardly seems worth the effort (1-3 months of travel, time wasted). Especially when several of us were using much more powerful 'artifacts' ourselves.

Length: 3 hours. Could take less/more time, we took our time, didn't have a lot of roleplay, but we finished combat quickly.
Sweet Spot: Both subtiers seemed appropriate for the story.
Experience: 6 players at subtier 8-9 (2 pregens). I also read the scenario afterwards.
Entertainment: Slightly entertaining. (7/10)
Roleplay: It's really up to the GM to add roleplay and liven it up. (6/10)
Combat/Challenges: Definitely challenging but not unique. A PC died even with 6 players at the correct APL. (8/10)
Maps: I didn't like the maps. Also, map packs and flip maps could be used. (5/10)
Boons: Best "boon" I've seen so far. Finally, something that makes sense. (10/10)
Uniqueness: Average. (7/10)
Faction Missions: Average. (7/10)
Overall: Short, simple, straightforward scenario, with a touch of deadliness. (7/10)

I think it's really up to the GM to liven this scenario up, convey the story in a simple and straightforward fashion, and play these deadly opponents to the best of their ability (especially for optimized groups).


Story does not compare to the creatures.

1/5

The creatures in this scenario are fantastic. A thrill to run and the players enjoyed besting them and the trials it took to do so. They were let down by the story though. Since Pathfinder is all about the story I cannot suggest a GM pick this adventure as written.

This is no reflection on Adam’s work over-all which I enjoy.


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Announced!


#50 is unfortunately delayed another week until June 9th. My apologies for any inconveniences this may cause. :-(

Paizo Employee Chief Technical Officer

Now available!


Yay! Adam Daigle's first scenario!

Paizo Employee Director of Game Development

Thanks for the excitement and developer work, Josh!

This was fun to work on. I hope everyone digs it.

Contributor, RPG Superstar 2009, RPG Superstar Judgernaut

Woot! Way to go, Daigle-san!


Looking forward to weaving this into my Kingmaker campaign somehow... and a hag focussed adventure to boot - happy days here in Scotland, thanks Adam

BD

The Exchange

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I was so looking forward to the knight... but a hag/harpy combo works too!

I like how the people in the seminar got credit in the adventure. Really looking forward to running this.

Paizo Employee Director of Game Development

I wasn’t in the seminar, but I got the notes. I worked with some of the specifics (almost even changing the broken sword into something more interesting), but I’d like to think I kept with the prevalent theme. I was afraid my treatment would upset some of the folks in the seminar, but I had to think beyond that, knowing that in development, things change. That’s just how design happens. In this case, the scenario went from the seminar, to Josh, to me, and back to Josh. Some of the things I did in the original turnover got changed in development, and I trust that Josh knows what he’s doing for a PFS scenario far better than I do, so I know all in all, the piece is better for it from the start to finish.

Again, I hope folks dig it. There’re some fun encounters in there that can go a number of ways. I’m interested in seeing how individual games play out. Also, I'm glad y'all like the harpy/hag action. They've always been two of my favorite monsters and I was stoked to work with them in this way.

Sovereign Court

Could someone edit Ronin3567's review so it doesn't have blatant spoilers in it? I know some of my players will be reading them and might accidentally read it and get to know all too much from the scenario.

Contributor

Deussu wrote:
Could someone edit Ronin3567's review so it doesn't have blatant spoilers in it? I know some of my players will be reading them and might accidentally read it and get to know all too much from the scenario.

Done.


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Is this part of a series where people were collecting the first two parts?

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