 
Sign in to create or edit a product review. Im a fan of infiltration type scenarios, and this one was done well. Additionally, it appears that it could be quite difficult for a party full of PCs incapable of successful roleplay who just want to kill everything, which is another positive in my book (punishing murderhoboism, I mean). Im a fan of this chase. It was interesting and unlike some of the other ones. I am, especially, a fan of the overarching plot this scenario help builds. The Zarta/Tancred story has been my favorite plot done in PFS for a long time, and this really really impressed me. This opens up so many questions for me about how all of this is working out, and now I have to wait hoever much longer to find out where the story goes next? Is the Society going to war with Cheliax? Is Taldor (or at least Morilla) in league with House Thrune in trying to get rid of Zarta? I want to know now! -1 star for you for not giving me the answers now! jkjk :P So... 4/5 stars for an excellent scenario! Once I get a chance to run this thing, I'll likely up this to 5/5, but I want a chance to run a table of it first. I was fortunate enough to get to play this under the author last night and I had a great time. The scenario offers several situations where a party can opt to roleplay instead of just hack and slash. The story was solid, and I love how the ending plays out, what you learn about your goal and your inability to complete it at the time. This is a great first work by a new author, and I cant wait to see more by him! Edit:
Yes, this IS an intro module 
Disturbed1
—
My local venue ran 5 tables of this on Free RPG Day for a total of 20 players (several of whom used the pregens) and a pregen to fill the fourth seat at one table. 9 characters were killed through the day. 9 out of 21. That's crazy. First, the good stuff:
~The setting was cool. I really liked the idea of exploring a pyramid. ~The room layouts were solid. I especially liked that there were many secret doors. ~The module was well written and very flavorful. ~The wives encounter was cool, though I wish it had a bit more opportunity for roleplay than for them to attack as soon as their 'secret' is discovered. And now the bad:
~ The first encounter is ridiculous and can outright tpk parties far too easily. Im not opposed to having a character die at my table, but I dont think having it be the first encounter is appropriate, especially in a Free RPG Day event. ~There does not need to be a creature encounter in every room. The elementals felt tacked on. The mimic, while amusing, seems out of place (how did it even get in here past the pyramid construct?). Three skeleton encounters (even if they are different kinds) is tedious. ~I feel like it could have used more traps. Perhaps some of them magical. ~The pregens were not picked well for this module. I like them all well enough individually, but Jirelle has no real place here. Crowe and Oloch can dish out the hurt to overcome the Hardness and DR of the monsters. Quinn can take care of the traps. They needed a dedicated caster as their fourth, not another melee person. ~Speaking of overcoming Hardness, make sure the methods you are going to give the characters to do that actually work on the encounters you want it to. *facepalm* Basically, I feel like this would have been better as a module for level 4 PCs than level 3. Also, I know some poeople have been defending this as 'not an intro module', but it is. This product is what Paizo decided to release to showcase its system, and try to attract new players through Free RPG Day. So while it might not be an intro module in the traditional sense, it very much is one, as it is likely the first thing many people played of the system. And you gave them a meat grinder with no real roleplay opportunities. I love that this scenario ties in aspects of so many other scenarios, and not just the ones from season four. I found the level of depth in the roleplay to be one of the best, and I hope to see more scenarios like this one. The combats were challenging, but not too hard to handle, so no matter which side of the swinging pendulum your character falls on (combat or roleplay heavy), you should have some way of contributing. I agree with the two previous commentors (see below), this scenario left me wanting. I want an explanation for how the bad guys got there. If this will be explained later on somewhere/somehow, that's fine, but if not, an explanation should have been included. Multiple combats against the same type of bad guys (cave inhabitants and generic bad guys) gets boring, even if they are a bit different in combat themselves (bow opposed to sword).
The lack of flavor of the setting made it pretty boring to run, and the scale of the cave was annoying. Also, along that line, if the map is on a 10ft scale, that means the 'human made bedrolls' in one section of the map were somewhere around 10ft wide and 12-15ft long... Faction missions were decent, though some were far too vague to allow the player to know what he was even looking for, and the description of the sought item didnt give any hints that THAT would be the McGuffin, either. Unlike whichever of the previous reviewers said it, I liked the optional encounter being after the BBEG. It was a change of pace from the regular, though the puzzle was poor and gave no way of how to handle the situation if the PCs are unable to make the required skill check, but still want to give it a shot. I found this scenario very well done. The combat encounters were well thought out and difficult without being too hard, the traps made the dungeon interesting, and the puzzle very clever (the party I GMed for actually solved it by hand and got it right on the first try in about 5 minutes real time). My one and only complaint about this (and it's really minor) is that there are grates on the bottom of the lower level that lead directly into the swamp. That makes sense for it being in a swamp, but not for it being where it was supposed to be...in a desert. Aside from the things already listed, the biggest complaint I have against the scenario is that in the last Act, the only instructions it gives is if the PCs DONT ask for the statue, which leads to a fight. But what if they do? Is it ok to sell it to them? For how much? Roleplaying through that encounter wouldnt have been a hard thing to type up, or added much to the word count. It's definitely something that shouldnt have been overlooked. I do think it was a good scenario, but it definitely has it's faults. Both sides of this two sided map are beautiful to look at, and work very well for any kind of cave you might need a map for. Seriously good buy! |
