***Note that I do not offer a review of Heresy of Man Part I as I merely played in it and have neither read nor run it. As such I don’t feel qualified to review it. That being said, we had A LOT of fun playing it. ***

Heresy of Man Part II for the player is a rather straight-forward smash and grab dungeon crawl. It does have some great encounters, interesting descriptions, and fun puzzles. As part of the series, it is a fun, and integral episode, but it suffers from the curse of the “bridge” installment.
The major downside is that the Background to the adventure is a tad confusing with all of the names, historic events and the like. Further, if you are searching for more about the background in the Inner Sea Guide, don’t look in the Rahadoum entry (where the adventure is set) look into Thuvia—there you’ll find it, and it will make things a bit more clear.

Thus, the adventure suffers from something that other Society mods suffer from—the lack of player/character knowledge into the Background of the adventure. Without that, the adventure loses some of the intrigue and detail and would make this much less of a dungeon crawl. As a player, I would think this mod was simply a series of random encounters occurring during a rescue mission. The “goal” of the mod is the key to Part III; however, the characters don’t know this, and therefore might leave at the end with a sort of empty feeling.

I would recommend it, but only to the GM with the time and energy to add in some more background for the players to discover and a compelling reason for them to continue beyond room two.

First the disclaimer, this adventure was my first ever PFS character death and (near) TPK so that certainly colors my opinion.

The railroad tracks on dungeon crawl are obvious and clichéd. The introduction makes it sound like this is a problem solving/ mystery type adventure but then once you solve one fairly mundane puzzle or make a skill check all the discovery is over. For the rest of the adventure there is no question what you were doing next because there was only one way to proceed through a gauntlet of puzzles and contrived feeling challenges.

The story here is largely absent which is quite disappointing since part one was interesting and hinted that the second and third parts of the adventure would be tied in. There are some slim additional ties but in the GMs flavor text but as players we were left wondering why they bothered to call it part II. You can certainly play this without having played part I or even out of order if you change the names of a couple NPCs.

The creatures felt... metagamed. Like they were built to maximize how nasty they were per CR rather than around an interesting concept and it took a fairly high DC check for a characters to figure out their 'gimmick' which in our case wound up killing our party since we were had no clue what the creature was or what it's vulnerabilities were.

The only reason I rated it two stars is because I thought the riddles and puzzle were fairly interesting which is pretty rare for me.

The regular scuttlebutt has missed the best nuances of this adventure. The attention to detail provided by a keen and experienced author provides context, color, and strategic insight for the GM that create a well rounded experience. The battle tactics of Verdizaam Charad in particular are delightfully wicked.

That said, if you were looking for an scenario that plays itself like a choose your own adventure novel, filled with hollow thrills that fail to create genuine risk, look elsewhere.

In my experience, the best moments of the game are the ones that always push the limits of your party. If the adventure was not written to give the GM the ability to do this, then the adventure will fail to entertain. Simply put, there is no reward without genuine risk.

Good show Vaughan, good show! Keep 'em coming.

This product is 25 pages long. It starts with a cover, and credits. (2 pages)

Next it moves on to the adventure background and summery of the adventure. (2 pages)

Getting the adventure started, with a player hand out and IC instructions for the PC's from a NPC on what they are to do in the adventure. (2 pages)

Act 1 – Getting Under the Skin (2 pages)
This section is a small section with 2 encounters in it. It also has a full page map of the crypt.

Act 2 – Playing Possum (3 pages)
There is one encounter in this section which for some might prove challenging depending on the makeup of the group. Or very easy for the same reason. There is also a chance to learn some information in a odd social encounter.

Act 3 – Trophy Room (1 page)
This room is another room with a odd social encounter and possibly another encounter.

Act 4 – Sandtrap (1 page)
This is a optional section depending on the time left for the adventure. If there is enough time you use this encounter if there is not then the room is empty of the encounter.

Act 5 – Pride and Pestilence (3 pages)
This section has one encounter in it. It can be fairly tough or fairly easy I think depending on the makeup of the party.

Act 6 – Riddle Me This (1 page)
This section has one encounter that can be a social or combat encounter. At this point the PC's might be beat up enough to make this tough. But there is hints earlier in the adventure at how to make this a social encounter only.

Next it has a conclusion of the adventure and talks about the fraction missions. For the most part they seem pretty easy to attain. Though the Andoran and Talador both have one point that might be hard to achieve. (1 page)

It finishes with 2 pages of handouts, OGL, Adventure fill out form, and 2 pages of ads. (6 pages)

Closing Thoughts. All and all this seems like a fairly well done adventure. A couple of the fights might be challenging but a lot of that would depend on the makeup of the party. For some it might be hard, while for others it might be very easy. The only critics I have, is that two of the faction points might be very hard to get. Also the riddle at the end of the adventure is kinda hard if the PC's didn't get or understand the clues earlier in the adventure. So because of those things I am going to give this one a 4 star.

A Note to those reading my review. I have never played in PFS before. So I am rating this on what the adventure is meant to accomplish, from a home game point of view. I am unsure how party makeup's are decided in PFS and that could have a big effect on how tough this could be. But isn't that always true?

This module has several critical design problems [see discussion] that make it unfit for play in Pathfinder Society Organized Play. I do not recommend that anyone buy or play this adventure.

I really dislike scenarios where the primary objective is to kill as many characters as possible. I actively dislike both this and part one, and will be avoiding anything by this author.