Pathfinder / Pathfinder Society / Year 5: Year of Unfettered Exploration
Paizo Inc. 
(based on 6 ratings)
Add Mind $8.99
A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 9th- through 12th-level characters.
Her identity finally revealed to the Pathfinders, the Waterfall makes a final request: have a group of senior agents travel into the mindscape attached to her and extract whatever it is that ties her to entities unknown. With any hope, this will give her the privacy and security she so desires and deserves after her life. Within her mindscape, strange aberrations lurk, and even stranger are their motivations and how they plan on keeping the Pathfinders away from the center of her cerebral maze.
This adventure is the final part of the four-part Equal Exchanges metaplot arc in the Year of Unfettered Exploration. This arc began in PFS2 #5-04: Equal Exchanges – Necessary Introductions and continued in PFS2 #5-09: Equal Exchanges – Skymetal Hoard and PFS2 #5-11: Equal Exchanges – The Hidden Current.
Written by Ivis K. Flanagan
Scenario tags: Metaplot (Equal Exchanges), Glyph
[Scenario Maps spoiler - click to reveal]
The following maps used in this scenario are also available for purchase here on paizo.com:
Note: This product is part of the Pathfinder Society Scenario Subscription.
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PZOPFS0518E
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Average product rating:
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High level means high challenges (and imposing reveals)
Zoomba —
Played this at the high-end of low tier.
This was an extremely fun high-tier scenario. The premise was refreshing and unusual, the fights (mostly) varied, and some of the things you encounter and discover really hammer home that this situation is slightly above the heads of even the Society's most experienced agents.
I particularly adored the exploration system used here. After a year of (over)use of the 'Chase' subsystem, the way the Activities are set up here is both wildly creative and well-executed. Our party really had to think and make decisions (and trade-offs) in how we wanted to approach it.
Difficulty-wise the final encounter's 'boss' is exceptionally hard yes. Though the scenario does broadcast that fact and give the PCs a choice not to engage, which seemed fair our own party got fairly lucky in bringing them down quick, but that can happen when two maguses both roll very well. My least favorite encounter was the penultimate one - one of the enemies' abilities meant that while we never felt in real danger at all of dying to them, it came across as massively reducing our chances of winning any subsequent fights which felt excessively punishing.
Overall very fun, 4 1/2 stars.
Now, how do I feel about how this fits in with the Pathfinder Society as an organization?
Metaplot thoughts:
Badly. 322/Waterfall/Csilla stole from the Society, murdered one of its leaders, then later stole from it again to impersonate/become a Decimverate member for years. Even if the circ*mstances surrounding her past actions are being considered along with her intent to redeem herself through good works - which I could buy, though its comical how every NPC accepts this so quickly and that the sole leader who objected to it (Eando) upon its reveal here makes a huge show about going 'nevermind, I was wrong, we cool' - it makes the Organization look insanely incompetent. Apparently if a PC steals the right fancy hat they get to be in charge of everything no-takes-backsies.
The resolution of this thread (or specifically the lack thereof) is greatly lowering multiple of my character's opinions of the organization they are a part of, some PCs to the point of re-thinking 'why is a person like me committing myself to such a deeply unprofessional group'?
But that is a 'metaplot'/larger developer note. I'm not holding this specific scenario at fault for it :)
Pirate Rob —
Dangerous and varied encounters are good.
Custom exploration activities to represent a super dangerous location.
Related mechanics that mean you can't sit around indefinitely.
Cool bit of metaplot/story at the end.
It's basically everything I want out of a high level scenario.
Great adventure with a slightly overtuned final boss
GreyYeti —
Overall I liked the adventure.
Spoiler:
It has the maybe best skill challenge/variant obstacle chase part I have seen in PF2 so far.
My one minor nitpick is the final boss. Taking the final boss from an obscure Dark Archive adventure where their overpowered abilities made sense in context of the party getting ways to counter them, and putting it in here without these counters was not that great and is the main reason this adventure does not get 5 stars.
schattenstern —
This scenario has a very good story, a great skill challange, that made a lot of sense and good combats.
Spoiler:
The boss is NASTY, but at least at the highest level of lowtier it was managable.
Tapestry of Death
Jason S —
Tapestry is a combat and skill challenge orientated scenario with plenty of reveals and PFS story lore.
The good parts about Tapestry were the story lore, easy to understand box text, the reveals (I was genuinely surprised), the combats, artwork, unique opponents, no influence system, unique environments. It finished in 4.5 hours and it had an epic vibe. It also has a big effect on Golarion lore and future Pathfinder scenarios. It continues the storyline from one of Pathfinder 1s most iconic and recognizable NPCs. It’s basically everything you would expect from a level 9-12 scenario. It’s the best (or one of the best) scenario from seasons 4 and 5.
On the other hand, at subtier 11-12, Tapestry was several times more difficult than any scenario I’ve played in PF2 (including The Thorned Monarch). Although we were successful, it was too difficult. It’s on the same level as “Salvation of the Sages” and other hard mode scenarios in PF1. Our group was the most optimized and twinked party I’ve seen in PF2 , our GM softballed everything, and we still barely made it. I thought our group was skilled, but we failed the skill challenges.
Mild spoilers only:
There were punishment combats, we barely made it through the first one, if the GM hadn’t been lenient, the second punishment combat had a good chance of TPKing us and even if we won, we wouldn’t have been able to finish the scenario. I don’t want to spoil, but one of the encounters had a (unique) effect that has around a 20% chance of instantly killing a PC and effects most PCs.
One of our PCs died. If played straight I can see it being too challenging for many groups.
It's very possible that this plays out differently at subtier 9-10.
Overall: Tapestry is a dangerous epic experience, with a great story and Pathfinder society lore. Proceed with caution. (9/10)
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