enaudible's page

After playing and thoroughly enjoying this with a great group of players and GM, I can't imagine trying to squeeze this into a standard PFS slot. A 5-star rating here is contingent on having time to do the adventure justice. If faced with hand-waving key RP/optional/variable/hard-mode/BBEG encounters due to time, the experience surely would be different.

A key element for this type of adventure is player buy-in. I was graced with a great group of players that were invested in the story. The author and development team really did a great job pulling in the recent season story arcs in a way that left us constructing various theories on what was going down and who was in who's pocket. This extended to the immediate scenario as well.

Even without all of that, the scenario felt 'sandboxy' and used enough interesting combat/tactical options to keep even a new player using a level 13 pregen interested in the action, if that were a thing... (note the PFS inside joke - no pregens were harmed in completing this scenario... in fact, no level 13 PFS pregens exist, but all you veteran PFS'ers out there probably know that... )

(I'd also recommend playing/running/reading The Sun Orchid Scheme prior to this adventure for an expanded experience.)

(my opinion shifted considerably after reading the scenario...)

All of the critiques listed to-date added up to a very negatively received scenario. Overall, it felt contrived and was tedious for a non-optimized mid-tier group.

A scenario that I wish I had never played and would never want to run and advise anyone else to avoid playing winds up as the least enjoyable scenario I have played to date. (This changed after reading the scenario - it motivated me to want to run it so I could try a bit harder than my GM to do it properly.)

This type of material (GMing, ultimately), encountered regularly, would discourage me from playing PFS entirely. As it stands, I reconsider my interest in higher tier content. Congratulations on a clever, well-built scenario that eroded any sense of pleasure as a PC (thanks to the GM).

Edit: After reading the scenario, it appears the GM used a flip-map in place of the proper map for the final encounter, as well as applying the 4-player modifications incorrectly (affecting NPC reach and size) and positioning the NPCs in a highly disadvantageous location (immediately adjacent to all the hostile NPCs) relative to the intended scenario placement.

Edit: After re-reading the scenario, the GM ran the first encounter ignoring the tactics written and somehow giving 2 critical NPCs the equivalent of blindsense/tremorsense/scent when the only thing they have is "blind-fight". How a highly experienced Venture-Captain GM can make so many egregious errors, I do not know. This was the 3rd time he reportedly was running this at Origins, so that would be 18 players subjected to the thorough incorrect running of this scenario.

What we have is an experience that goes from a no-star review, to a one star-review, to a two-star review, to a tentative three-star review. I'm thinking this scenario is considerably better than what I experienced, but I will likely never experience it as intended as a player. A cautionary tale, perhaps?

1 square = 10 ft... really? Since when?

I am not sure of the rationale behind it, but it is wreaking havoc on my ability to reproduce the map in a reasonable way that doesn't undermine what at first glance seemed like some fun and interesting maps...

I haven't made it through all the dungeon levels yet for my group, but I would otherwise probably rate it a 4/5 thus far based on writing and design.

FYI - this is the SAME map included with the Inner Sea World Guide with 2 small differences...

1 - Higher resolution

2 - Additional landmark labels

Worth another $14 on top of the Inner Sea World Guide? I think not...