PaizoCon 2019 Pathfinder Society Scenarios

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

PaizoCon's one of our biggest events, particularly for new adventures. Not only do we finish all of the May adventures early to send out to GMs, but we add in a multi-table interactive special to boot! Phew! Thankfully, the first two waves (for PaizoCon and Origins)are done with the Gen Con adventures still ahead, so while we can breathe a brief sigh of relief, there's always a whole lot left to do. And if you're at PaizoCon, you'll be able to see all of us there. If you're at Origins, Thurston, John, and Tonya will be in attendance to kick off the new year of Starfinder Society content.

But let's focus on today's real stars: the new scenarios!

In Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-20: Countdown to Round Mountain, a Tier 7–11 adventure written by Jerall Toi, the PCs are part of a massive Pathfinder Society expedition into the Darklands beneath Tian Xia. They're tasked with obtaining any information they can from a cavern known as The Old Rat's Broken Heart, as well as evacuating anyone currently inhabiting the area, before the Hao Jin Tapestry ejects the geographic oddity known as Round Mountain and sends it crashing back to earth.

Illustration by Tadas Sidlauskas

This is no mere spelunking expedition, however, as the PCs have to exercise their archaeological and investigative skills while negotiating with the inhabitants of The Old Rat's Broken Heart. As though coordinating an archaeological expedition on a tight and deadly timeframe weren't enough, the PCs face additional complications in the form of dangerous threats like this fearsome metallic warrior.

For our next adventure, Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-21: Slaver's End, author Vanessa Hoskins takes us on a Tier 5–9 mission to track down traitorous former venture-captain Phlegos Dulm. For over a decade, Phlegos served as the Society's primary connection and coordinator in the markets of Katapesh and the barren wilds surrounding the city, often undermining the efforts of Katapesh's other two venture-captains, Wulessa Yuul and Aurora Steelbloom. Phlegos was ultimately driven from the city when an alliance of Katapeshi goblins, the Liberty's Edge faction, and the rest of their Pathfinder allies revealed the half-orc poisoner's perfidy and drove him from the city.

Illustration by Teresa Guido Sidlauskas

Karisa Starsight, a steward for the Liberty's Edge faction, has uncovered documents indicating that Phlegos's betrayals may have been even more profound than initially realized. As it turns out, several groups of Pathfinders reported missing in action under his purview may actually have been captured and sold as slaves in the slave markets of seedy Sedeq, located on Qadira's southern peninsula. Karisa calls upon the PCs to join her in Sedeq and help her track down Phlegos and the missing Pathfinders. Unbeknownst to Karisa, another old foe lurks in the shadows, using Phlegos's corruption to her own ends. Who is this dangerous corsair, and what dangers might her involvement portend?

Pathfinder Society Scenario #10-98: Siege of Gallowspire is the final interactive special for Pathfinder Society using the First Edition rules. It is a Tier 5–16 scenario, with Subtiers 5–6, 7–8, 10–11, 12–13, and 15–16.

From the earliest days of creating this adventure, we knew that we wanted it to have a grand scope, and to feature a way to include more than one PC per player in the story. We also wanted to be sure that the story was satisfying without being complicated, while still giving definite nods to the journeys the PCs have taken to get to this point. Finally, we wanted to offer a challenge for those wanting to dial it up to eleven!

In Siege of Gallowspire, the PCs confront the plots of one of Golarion's most infamous villains: the Whispering Tyrant. This ancient lich has begun a ritual that threatens to create new armies of undead to serve him, and it's up to the Pathfinder Society to stop the ritual before it's too late. The situation is serious enough that even the famously jolly Master of Swords Marcos Farabellus isn't smiling, illustrated below by Sebastian Gomez.

So how does this scenario include multiple PCs per player? Players bring one usual character, and they can also bring up to three of their other PCs to act as Aid Characters. Aid Characters are PCs of level 5–20 that have two roles. They create personalized Aid Tokens—special benefits that players can hand out to other tables after each encounter. Aid Characters can also participate in special Aid Missions during the scenario. Each Aid Mission is led by one of the Pathfinder Society's most famous venture-captains. These missions are dangerous, but they could have big payoffs! To use a PC as an Aid Character, you do not need all of their Chronicle sheets and papers. You just need the most recent Chronicle sheet that character has earned. If you don't have enough PCs to fill in your three Aid Character slots, that's OK too. You can use 4th-level pregenerated characters instead. They aren't as effective as your own PCs would be, but they can still participate in the story.

Illustration by Sebastian Gomez

When it comes to challenge, Siege of Gallowspire has two difficulty modes. The first, Soldier, is a little bit harder than a typical special, but players also have more resources than normal to help them out. The second, Champion, is akin to the Hard Mode option that has been offered in past scenarios, offering an additional challenge for tables of players who prefer to face stronger foes.

Check back this afternoon for a preview of May's Starfinder Society scenarios.

Michael Sayre
Developer

Linda Zayas-Palmer
Developer

More Paizo Blog.
Tags: Organized Play Pathfinder Society Pathfinder Society Scenarios
The Exchange 1/5 5/5 ***

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Can't wait to run the last PF1 Special at GenCon!

Scarab Sages

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Battles Case Subscriber; Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Huzzah!

Love the whistle!

Sovereign Court 2/5 Venture-Lieutenant, Alaska—Anchorage

Impressive!
I would like to know more on the Aid missions.

3/5 Venture-Agent, Georgia—Atlanta

Are Aid Characters at risk of dying? Might affect my choice of which ones to bring.

1/5 * RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16

Can you play/run this scenario twice: once in soldier and once in champion?

Grand Lodge 2/5

Can an aid character be a Core PFS character if the table is playing Standard PFS?


I can play a scenario where I bring up to 4 of my own characters as my own personal "Avengers" or "Guardians of the Galaxy" team. W-in-TF?! Damn thats cool.

Any chance of seeing this idea for a Starfinder special as well?

Scarab Sages 5/5 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Netherlands

ROUND MOUNTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN

3/5 **

It would be nice for those who cannot attend to have access to the scenarios that are being played.

Grand Lodge 4/5

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

You will, on the release date. Which is the last Wednesday of the month, in this case the 29th.

Grand Lodge 5/5

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Rulebook Subscriber

Odd choice for Tier 5+ I get the content will be harder, and having meaningful tier 1-4, but outside of gencon we often see specials run with 5-6 tables in total, but with 3-4 of them being tier 1-2, and tier 3-4.

Okay that is a mouthful of numbers, the general point is that smaller cons will have a harder time not running this with a bunch of new players at tier 7 with pregens.

Shadow Lodge 4/5

If you haven’t played any scenarios you will not appreciate the events as much. This is the season finale, so new players should try to get some backstory in first.

Dark Archive 5/5 5/5

Abraham Z. wrote:
Are Aid Characters at risk of dying? Might affect my choice of which ones to bring.

Yes; one of mine died on the very first mission.

Scarab Sages 5/5 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Netherlands

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Leg o' Lamb wrote:
Abraham Z. wrote:
Are Aid Characters at risk of dying? Might affect my choice of which ones to bring.
Yes; one of mine died on the very first mission.

I am proud of you

Shadow Lodge 4/5

There were a few risks of injury for my table, but we brought almost no one below 10-11 tier and did quite well.

4/5 Designer

7 people marked this as a favorite.

PaizoCon's Avengers-style teams of support characters rocked the socks off the aid missions. I was very impressed! Some people brought in even higher level Seekers outside the tier ranges for the adventure, and those really helped.

But my favorite part was the table of new players, half new to Pathfinder entirely, all playing level 7 pregens in 7-8 soldier, who managed to survive the entire event but also rack up about twice the average successes of the other 38 tables, tipping the room over the edge in one tense moment for a minor benefit everyone gained on the chronicle sheet. Three cheers for those brave, savvy, and lucky new players!

Dark Archive 5/5 5/5

3 people marked this as a favorite.
Tineke Bolleman wrote:
Leg o' Lamb wrote:
Abraham Z. wrote:
Are Aid Characters at risk of dying? Might affect my choice of which ones to bring.
Yes; one of mine died on the very first mission.
I am proud of you

Thanks...

Also, not even mad when I went from 102hp to 1hp during the final encounter.

Spoiler:
When the critter can beat a 36 touch armor class and I fail the will save, I have zero reasons to complain.

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

It’s my own fault I went from full to -56 in one round. Had to roll that 2 on the save...but at least I wasn’t alone?

4/5 **

I heard at a recent convention that you can run this with 3 tables instead of 5. Can someone verify this for me? We have a small local convention coming up where I'll be lucky to get 3 tables, let alone 5.
Tia

Grand Lodge 4/5

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

Siege of Gallowspire has a minimum table count of 5, not 3.

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