Goblin Squad Member. Organized Play Member. 337 posts (346 including aliases). 2 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 25 Organized Play characters. 1 alias.
Ran this adventure yesterday; thought it was fantastic.
Pluses:
The army aspect is quite fun.
An interesting encounter with a single bad guy at the end.
Troops are really cool and interesting foes.
The army combat is very well-tuned. I've ran two of the adventure paths that had mass combats, both times they ended up being duds. This time I and my players enjoyed ourselves.
Minuses:
Mostly the army-combat map. First, you can't click the map in Adobe and copy it to paint with the hexes attached; so if you want to print out the map you have to manually add in the hexes or do a print screen and edit out the troop placements. I'm sure there is some way to do it in photoshop, but I'm not particularly savvy. Secondly, the map is somewhat dull; there are a number of locations that are marked but aren't mentioned in the scenario, and of the two locations that are mentioned in the scenario, neither is really fleshed out. Third, I felt that the hexes that counted as hills were a bit ambiguous. Finally, the terrain didn't have much of an impact on the adventure; the giant canyon in the center slowed people down a touch, and the hills didn't even come into play.
Overall: I found this to be a fantastic adventure. The complaints listed above are all minor nit picks at worst and when I ran it everybody at the table had a blast. I'd rate it a 4/5.
I played this earlier today, High tier with the 4 player adjustment. Too difficult. Swarms with fire resistance+flying monsters with DR that is difficult to beat without consumables = pain (so even if you are prepared, you'll have to spend two rounds prepping in order to help while the rest of your friends are fighting). I was the last man standing with one foe and one swarm remaining, and even if I had beaten the last demon, the swarm would have eaten me alive and I couldn't do anything about it.
Afterwards, since the GM was running it as a slot zero, the GM went over the rest of the scenario, and each encounter is either as difficult or more so. I get that people have been asking for harder scenarios, but this is going too far. Despite the fact that this was offered as a slot zero, specifically for GMs to play it and then run it for their player base, I will never run this scenario. I would sooner expect a group of brand new players with pregens to best Day of the Demon than expect a group of average Pathfinders to successfully complete this adventure. Due to all of the constant save or suck I can't imagine even a winning group having much fun with it.
I like difficult encounters. I like feeling like I have to work for my wins. But in the end, I play Pathfinder to relax and have fun with my friends. If winning means that I have to build every character to be ridiculously optimized and that I can only play with other similarly designed characters, then I guess I'm out.
