I was enterntained and had a good time while playing this scenario. However I got increasingly more frustrated and uninterested as it became apparent that our choice of actions and our skills had no real bearing on the progression of events in the scenario.

Many OP scenarios railroad players through a predetermined set of events/encounters, but at least have a sense of purpose and manage to give players an illusion of being able to choose which course of action is take.

The randomness of The Asmodeus Mirage takes even that away and made me loose all sense of selfdetermination. The scenario absolutely succeeds at making me feel lost as in wandering through endless dunes, but more in a frustrating way than in a wanderous desert exploration way.

We had fun however the faction missions where well thought out.

This adventure is NOT for the faint of heart, but I actually consider this one to be one of the better PFS Scenarios. Why? Because the atmosphere, if adequately evoked, is unique, has a surreal touch and is just plain fun. I ran this as a part of my home campaign with slightly modified motivations (each PC got a faction mission from one of his acquaintances) and had a blast running it. My players also loved the utter "strangeness" of the mirage. It's not perfect balance-wise, but the flavor and feeling is unique.

This is a good mod but fails miserably because it is a 1 rounder that should be a 2 rounder. The scenario doesn't let the party rest. After 8 hours and 6 or 7 combats later it was finally over. I can honestly say most people were just glad it was over. I don't think it is really the authors fault. I think it is more Paizos fault. They should have made this 2 rounds. I think if the encounter were cut back to 3 or 4 I would have actually enjoyed this mod a lot but If you go into this mod thinking its one round you are going to be disappointed.

I wish to add my input to Chad's. I played at the same table and we were expecting a blood bath. We prepared accordingly. We spoke to everyone who didn't immediately try to bash us to paste (and we were surprised to find such denizens weren't all that rare), used our strengths to counter or neutralize those of our enemies, and found good success on this adventure. I wish to reiterate that we ONLY found good success BECAUSE we prepared and used our collective experience as players. This is NOT a suitable mod for the inexperienced. A poor table mix could cause problems as well. Play, but play with caution.

Most of the Pathfinder Society scenarios I've played to date have not needed extraordinary measures to complete. Having been warned of its difficulty, our group listened to the material, took appropriate precautions, and used coherent tactics. We did very well at the highest tier (at a table with 2 bards no less). This will be difficult for pick-up style convention games with players that are unfamiliar with each other.

I would like to state that I only gave this scenario a 1 because there is no 0 star option.

I played this mod this last Saturday and a few things that happened to me and my friends that played.

1) The fighter/rogue with nearly 24 AC (normally) almost got killed in the first encounter.
2) The ulfen fighter was inches away from being slain due to the last encounter.
3) Our ranger/rogue/druid buddy got hit really hard a few times and had his little bear cub companion turned into a rug in the last encounter.
4) My sorcerer nearly died twice, once in one of the encounters where we got swarmed by the critters shown on the cover, and the guardian of the crystal skeleton.

If you are a person with a good heart and don't want what could end with a near or full TPK...never run this mod. If however you are sadistic, cruel, and love making players squirm then feel free to run this mod.

Apologies to Christopher Self. This is the worst PFS scenario I’ve played. It makes almost no sense. The encounters are a pushover at the low tier and rapidly ramp up at the higher tiers. Opportunities for interesting environmental effects in the desert are missed. It encompasses too many combats to come near to finishing in four hours. Creatures with immunities like hardness, DR and fast healing cause almost every fight to drag on and eat up precious time. There’s no plot, there’s very little role-play and it amounts to the same thing in the end. I played this and then ran it once and I don’t look forward to doing it again. The maps were very hard to draw because there were scant guidelines given. Campaign world flavor was absent, this could have been set in any campaign. Faction missions were forgettable. The only positive thing I can say is that the author’s next submission has to be an improvement over The Asmodeus Mirage.

I played this adventure at tier 3-4 with my 4th level ranger. It perfectly suited my dunewalker character as well as my spell selection. :)

I actually picked this adventure as a filler to end my GenconOz 2009 experience but I was really surprised. There is a real threat that the party will be trapped in the mirage. The hot sun and heat does strange things to travellers and it is hard to believe that you can finish this adventure with a tribe of lost gnolls as your prize.

The travelling is very confusing but is designed to be as it is part of the challenge. This is not a good adventures for inexperienced players and demands respect... it has a dragon in it. :)

I ran this module at lev. 3-4. The concept is very interesting in this module, and it caused a good bit of tension for the players. There seem to be some unbalanced aspects and encounters that are out of place or are not fully developed, and the rewards do not add up. This can confuse the players. As long as you read the module ahead of time and have a good feel for the concept, you can flesh out missing pieces when presenting it to the players to keep them from being confused. This was more difficult for the players than many lev. 4-5 modules, and it took more time to prepare, but the whole idea was very interesting to run and to play. We had a good time with it.

I ran this scenario at a con recently. As a Judge, my opinion is that the module is written poorly, the encounters (at all tiers) are poorly balanced, and the designer failed to put in a mechanism for the random nature of the adventure. Ultimately, because of the very randomness, the adventure becomes repetitive and un-enjoyable.