One word describes this first Season 4 scenario: Perfunctory.

Standard monsters, standard dungeon, standard everything--well, except for the odd, disconnected faction missions that felt like indigestible bits in this bland stew.

Our six PC party (Tier 1-2 ninja, gunslinger, summoner, wizard, sorcerer, bard) waltzed through this in just under four hours. Nothing stood out, even when the GM gave it his all. You've got to have something to work with, and this scenario just exists.

After some strong momentum coming out of Season 3, this was disappointing. Thankfully, 4-03: The Golemworks Incident is one of the best scenarios I've play in two years of Society play, so there is hope for the season still. You just won't think that after the dullness of 4-01.

Everybody loves goblins, and this scenario reminds us why. I think it's a very challenging scenario for most parties, both in RP and in combat, but isn't particularly deadly unless a party member does something *really* stupid. Mind you, doing something really stupid seems to happen a lot in this scenario, but it's still there. Even though this is, at heart, a dungeon crawl, it does have some great RP moments and a memorable character that my local lodge has grown to love.

I loved everything about this scenario, except the faction missions. It felt like the author wrote it, then was reminded they had to do faction missions. So they were thrown in after the fact.

First the disclaimer: I only played this scenario, so I can only comment on it from that perspective. That said, I didn't care for this scenario at all.

The faction missions felt totally slap-dash. Five minutes in and the party immediately splits up to pursue their individual faction missions. The missions had no overlap and had nothing to do with the main plot of the scenario. As other reviewers noted, PFS players should be warned, this is NOT a four hour scenario. Given that the main body of the adventure already runs long, the poor mission structure is especially egregious.

Although the idea of a chase scene is fine, using the rules from the Game Mastery Guide wasn't a great idea. The rules are rather obscure, and counter-intuitive to players unfamiliar with them. Again, halting the game for 10 minutes to learn a sub-system is problematic for PFS play.

I thought the dungeon, thematically and practically, was kind of a dud. It played like a kobold lair, not a goblin one, choc-a-bloc with simple traps and terrain tricks. While I understand that it's supposed to feel like a real, lived in facility, the empty rooms are problematic. It's just basic player psychology, they will investigate everything in sight until they find something. It's even worse when there is just a little detail to get the players' attentions with nothing significant behind it. I thought the combats were decently designed encounters, but they needed a little more variety. Most of them boiled down to players see goblins, players can't reach goblins, goblins taunt players, players reach goblins and pulp them. Fun set-up now and then, but it's frustrating when that's the bulk of the combats.

I will give some credit for the goblin NPC, most of the players enjoyed the interactions with her. I personally don't like the whole cutesy goblin schtick in Golarion, but I can appreciate that some folks really dig it.

The art was excellent, the story was a bit predictable and the treasure offered was very useful. What really excited me was the chance to get all the faction missions taken care of BEFORE the adventure, allowing the Players to focus on the mission at hand. The interactive ability and thought that went into making the choices for Players more varied than previous scenarios was a breath of fresh air. I am looking forward to more Season 4 scenarios of this caliber or higher.