A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 3rd- through 6th-level characters.
A mysterious genie appears before the Pathfinders as they finish settling into the Sedeq Lodge and asks for assistance in seeing that their previous binder sees justice. The Pathfinders must infiltrate the home of the genie binder and free the elemental beings that he's bound to his service before finally confronting him for his meddling in the freedom of other beings and trying to overthrow the Pathfinder Society in Qadira. Unfortunately, his powerful benefactor tipped him off, so he's just as ready for the Pathfinders as they are for him!
Written by Matt Duval
Scenario tags: Faction (Envoy's Alliance)
[Scenario Maps spoiler - click to reveal]
The following maps used in this scenario are also available for purchase here on paizo.com:
We ended up playing this at Gencon after our GM for another table ended up sick and unavailable, so fair warning we kinda were dropped in at random to this one.
My first thought — it was intensely obvious that this was a Part 2 or 3 in a storyline even though nothing about the adventure makes that obvious at first blush. There was a mild bit of disconnect because we had no idea about the prior adventure/s, but we still had a good time despite that.
Party was a Rogue 5 (me), ranged Champion 5, Druid 5, Druid 4, and Cleric 4.
Things felt pretty straightforward for the adventure from the get-go. We knew that we weren't necessarily supposed to kill the various enemies, so we were on the lookout for creative alternatives to each encounter, and thankfully, we had the skills to pull those ideas off. Felt a little too obvious sometimes, but a number of the encounters still felt fun even when the preferred option was quite clear.
Having no grounding from the previous scenario/s in this storyline, the BBEG felt over-the-top to a silly degree, and we never took him seriously. Little added details throughout his lair just kinda made him feel all the more sad and pathetic, and we spent much of the build-up to the final encounter just dunking on him repeatedly.
As for the the final fight, I find a disconnect with a number of other reviews here. The BBEG was a cakewalk for us, though I will freely admit that we dropped five crits on him in the process between us. It only served to highlight our perception that he was a sad, pathetic loser who was truly obsessed with our party to an unhealthy degree. There was also clearly a hook for future adventures too, so clearly, the storyline continues.
Fun times. Nothing mind-blowing, and I'm aware we literally wandered in haphazardly and unintentionally to the middle of a storyline, but there was nothing to clue us in to that when we had to choose a backup scenario to play.
TL;DR - Loved this plot arc. Hated the BBEG. What a joke to call this a skill adventure.
I think the reviewer Rhapsodic College Dropout and I might have been at the same table at GenCon 2023. As we had similar experiences.
The absolute pounding that the ONE combat we had was not survivable at 5-6 lvl, and the adventure tops out at 6th! The GM insisted that all was done "so the players would have fun", sha-right. By the end with two players bleeding out he told the table "take the L" (as in take the loss) and he'd give us chronicles. Yup, that's really going bring back those new players.
NOTE: If the GM doesn't modify the end combat or at least not insist on playing the BBEG it to the max... this is a combat adventure. Period.
The final encounter is beyond insane, and clearly was not playtested. A villain with the ability to cause frightened 1-3 (can try every round as a single action), improved trip, attacks of opportunities, crit negation, and summons additional monsters when negating a critical hit. Realllly bad.
We played this in person with four level 5s and one level 4. Two characters were new Pathfinder players with pregens. I don't think they'll be back. This ended with two players cashing in hero points to stabilize at dying 3, and the survivors carrying them out. This adventure smacks of the days of having a bad GM who was going to have their super awesome bad guy win, no matter what. Avoid this one if possible.
I really, really wanted to like this one. But there's some glaring issues that literally left people fuming as they left for the day.
It started great. Really fun non-combat ways of solving things. Clever puzzles.
And then we got to the second area.
What is with the inflation of these numbers? We had a table of average characters and couldn't hit. The stats for the fire encounter are ridiculous, especially in low tier.
And that final fight...There's a big difference between a creature taking a penalty to it's AC, versus a creature being flat-footed. And those abilities? Most, if not all, of these should be either restricted recharge like a dragon breath, or two actions. This thing is just overtuned. And there's crit negation. STOP with the crit negation. Nothing feels worse than crit negation.
I wanted to like it. It started great and then fell so flat it ruined the entire thing.
The last scenarios of PFS Year 4 will be released in July, and the new season will launch at Gen Con 2023. Still a couple more months that haven't been posted yet.
