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This scenario shows you what it means to become a seeker level Pathfinder. The rules have changed, and you'd better adapt quickly.

Only having played this once and not having GM'd it, my experience pretty much completely matched Beckett's experience below (in different games, probably different parts of the world).

The scenario is mostly a dungeon run, and the thing is I usually like that, and for what that is, I guess it's not bad. The bizarro puzzle really threw us off course and the whole table, including the GM, really struggled to try and work out what was going on with all the facts we knew. We stretched every nugget we could've pilfered from that puzzle to get us a little closer to solving the puzzle, and eventually we did, but even then it didn't really make a lot of sense. Usually when this happens, I'm pretty switched on to a GM making mistakes, but my spider sense didn't tingle here - it's just a really, really weird puzzle.

But as I said, the other encounters were reasonably enjoyable for your standard dungeon run. The first set of rooms dragged on a little more than necessary due to what was in there, but authors probably need to get a little creative with those kinds of mechanics, and we didn't let it drag.

I felt like it would take only the most hardcore Golarion lore lovers to have any real appreciation for that ending!

But whatever, the scenario isn't terrible - but don't expect anything amazing in part 1 either.

We split the party (oops) and ended up being separated from the others for 2d4 ingame hours - our GM rolled two 4's, so 8 hours. At the time, we didn't think we were going to be travelling that far, but if that's as long as it takes, maybe it's not as big of an issue as it seems, right? Wrong.

In a scenario where an assault is coming based on a time constraint, that is a fairly big blunder to write into the scenario, even if you expect that the party will stay together.

This likely isn't fair on the rest of the scenario, but this was my experience with it, and I'm glad I'm not the only reviewer.

Played at high tier, 4-player adjustment. I think we did so well only because we had some specialty characters that suited this scenario so well.

This scenario has some really strange things going on. It's a bit like the issues that First Steps 2 had, but on steroids.

The setting never really feels like you are where you're told you are - at the Gloomspires. The maps just don't resemble anything like it.

The secondary success condition (from what I understand) is bizarre - it's the kind of thing you might only coincidentally do, relying more on what you do as a player rather than as a character. If you're the kind of player who is better at taking mental notes and reporting verbally, you might get penalised for it.

Overall it's not a bad scenario, really, but it's pretty straight and narrow, and I'd recommend at least one character who's gone down the optimised route a little here. Level 1 characters new to PFS should steer clear.

Maybe it was built up quite a lot after part 2, putting this scenario at a disadvantage - I dunno. As a rule of thumb, I'd say if you're playing this and ever feel like you're on the cusp of whether to save those mythic points or use them, go ahead and use them.

We played up and ended up saving too many. I was playing my level 4 paladin in high tier, and our classes and levels were very varied across the group (3 to 7, 3 melee fighters, 3 casters). I was really quite terrified to be playing a mythic scenario out-of-tier, and while it wasn't a total cakewalk (there are genuinely scary bits), I really had nothing to worry about.

On its own, it'd be a fine scenario. But this is the final chapter in something that is meant to feel epic. And it doesn't - especially now that we're past season 5.

The book is, in a nutshell, a short extensions of the ever-amazing Advanced Class Guide.

It has a few extra hybrid class options (like Investigator Talents), an extra archetype per hybrid class, feats, spell options from other sources for the hybrid classes, a bit more magic gear and a table for hybrid class pre-requisites for existing prestige classes (from the CRB and Paths of Prestige).

Noteworthy, it strangely doesn't include the extra retraining options for the hybrid classes mentioned in an earlier blog post (like how the Shaman can use the Druid's retraining options). Probably a page count omission.

For the price, you get what you pay for. It's not terribly useful for the most part, but probably still worth grabbing if you liked the ACG and need that little bit extra.

I was really worried about season 6 scenarios in general because I felt like it would be all about hardness and robots. I'm happy to say this scenario turned that idea on its head - this was actually a pretty enjoyable scenario. Played on tier 4-5.

First off, the Technologist feat tax was handled very badly. I don't know how we can have a scenario that was not intending to use that feat and yet there's no fix in the rules that have some sort of workaround for this (some people have suggested a boon would've been good). If a GM were to discover similarly harsh rules in the same way (like in the middle of an encounter, detrimental to the characters) at the last minute and were to enforce them, there would've been blood.

Having said that, we made the best of what it was, and it turned out kind of alright. While every now and then someone would groan "but we don't know that because we need the feat", we roleplayed our ignorance quite well, making up names for the doohickeys we found, and it was really quite entertaining. For me it was sometimes so cryptic that I didn't understand what we were talking about, but I was playing a 7 wis/12 int paladin, and the investigator and alchemist handled most of the "tough stuff", so that worked out.

Our region has come up with a "tier 2-5" so as not to kill off newer players without warning, and this scenario certainly qualifies for it.

The scenario ended up being fun, but with the difficulty and the feat tax, I can't reasonably give it a third star. I really feel like it was the group of players and the GM that made it fun, and the scenario did more to get in the way of that, rather than to help us.

Have played (10-11) and run this (5-6), in that order, and this is the first special I've run.

I thought the first part of the scenario felt pretty samey when I ran it, but when I was playing it, it seemed pretty cool. It wasn't until we thought the special was coming to an end that the special really kicks into high gear, and it's this that really makes the special amazing.

While both playing and GMing, our tables felt the pressure to get moving quickly. Justifying the use of timers in a special in this way hasn't happened before, and it was fantastic.

A few problems:
- For players: No 4 player adjustment, again. (a table might survive with 5 players, though)
- For GMs: Stat blocks. The appendix is woefully lacking. Act 2 was accounted for, and that's it? Add it to the page count, guys. We need it. Thanks to whoever added it to PFS GM prep, because without that, we'd be screwed.
- For GMs: That puzzle's colours don't print well. There's an alternate version in PFS GM prep for this as well. I played using the original version and GM'd using the alternate version; everyone I talked to thought the alternate was superior.
- For GMs: Knowing when to report successes isn't especially clear. Scars of the Third Crusade had a similar problem with advancing the 2 tracks.
- For both: You can't reasonably run this special in 5 hours. VO's need to allow leniency on the timers for players to enjoy this one: you want 9-10 hours (which includes a ~45 min lunch break). It might have been possible without Act 5, but I think that's pushing it.

Player perspective, tier 10-11, 5 player party, good class mix.

It's the middle of season 6 as of this writing, and I'm reminded of the difficulty of what season 4 was like, especially when you play with the amount of players that is equal to the dreaded number of death - no scaling down.

Combat should teach you to be prepared for every encounter, but at least one encounter in this scenario feels like it was set up to be unfair. When it gets to the point where there is almost nothing you can do, unless you have an obscure magic item or ability that breaks the game, something is wrong with the design of the encounter. I haven't seen the stat blocks, but I don't have any reason to think that our GM didn't run it as written. It's a shame that softballing an encounter compared to what's in the book is the only way to make it seem like a fair encounter.

That goes double considering this is a scenario in the season's plot arc, and it's a scenario most players will not want to avoid. They need to be written with a really high standard of quality.

It's good then that the rest of the scenario is actually really well done, so long as the GM can pick up on very important subtleties that are key to making the scenario not become a disappointment. Creative solutions probably have to be welcomed a little more than usual.

There are a couple of puzzles here that I thought were great. They can get a little frustrating and they encourage great Pathfindery discussion. One of the earlier reviews mention how a puzzle got overwhelming, but the book apparently has a fallback rule on that, so to GMs, I stress again - prepare.

If the combat in this scenario was fixed, this could really be a top notch scenario. If you've got a table of 6 hyper powergamers, the star rating probably goes up to 5.

Player's perspective, subtier 7-8, with a party of 9-9-10-10 (APL 9.5), playing down with 6-player scaling. Reasonable class mix.

We weren't sure what we were getting into, and did a little over an hour of short-term preparation. Long-term preparation (expensive items) might helped us a lot more, but all of us made mistakes in that area.

My character knew both of the bad guys in his lifetime (I have a lot of characters and play them each maybe 5 times a year), but I really have no idea how it came to this point. These were some really cool villains and the way it ended just seems like "okay, now we have a chance to kill them", and that's what we do. Really? I have missed a lot of scenarios, so maybe it's my fault.

It didn't even dawn on me until much later that this was a season finale. The challenge was there, but even that felt it was more our mistake, and not the scenario's setup. What kind of reaction should we experience from that?

Player's perspective, tier 1-2. I was actually a little apprehensive to play this scenario because I don't usually like this kind of adventure, but good execution really does it... justice.

This scenario comfortably forces your characters to determine the truth of a crime that may or may not be legitimate.

Add some interesting characters to the mix - that you can visit throughout the scenario - and some interesting exploring mechanic, and this plays out in a way that can have you feeling like you're doing well for the first half of the game, and in the pits in the second half. You must stay on the ball.

I was really quite impressed with some of the answers our GM gave to our curveball questions, which I'm sure couldn't have all been in the book. I was none the wiser, and I can't say I'm not slightly worried about where to find those fairly necessary answers to potential questions.

Great book. Includes 10 classes, archetypes for every existing class and even the new classes, a new set of feats, a new set of spells (existing classes and new classes). Even designing classes/archetypes if that's your thing. The new classes themselves are APG quality, satisfyingly complex.

What it doesn't include is rules on how to retrain into these new classes, including which classes give synergies to others. This is a pretty big oversight for a guide on new classes; especially important for taking advantage of the book in PFS.

Spoiler: you're not going into a refuge, and you're not traveling through time. The title does make sense in the scenario, but keep this little tidbit in mind and you'll be able to leave that bit of disappointment at the door.

The best thing about this 7-11 scenario is that it runs pretty quickly. You're looking at a 4-5 hour game, which is a welcome reprieve from the many 7-11's that run 7-8 hours or more. It's one of season 4's finest hours in that respect. Removing most of the faction missions helps a lot here. There's one faction mission in particular worth doing here, and players will know it just by reading the mission.

Apart from that, the scenario has a lot of problems:

There are a few good points as well:

The boon is a nonsensical-rule-breaking mixed bag:

Steve Miller's provided some fantastic feedback for GMs about several of these problems, many of which are fixable at the GM level. The boon is the biggest problem, as it's ongoing and apparently has no good answer.

I've got a mid-level bomb-focused alchemist in PFS and I had just started to look into what alchemical items were available from Ultimate Equipment to create a proper alchemical arsenal in my backpack, when I found this book had come out. There's some underwhelming reviews here, but I took a chance anyway.

Seems that the reviews before mine are pretty spot on. Spontaneous Alchemy Poisons are the only categories of feats the book covers, and there's only 5 feats in the whole book. Homonculus maintenance, Ooze crafting and Mythic options. The dreaded "a DC 13 Fortitude save negates this effect" rears its ugly head in a few of the new items, rendering them fairly worthless.

Having said that, there are a few items that do stand out - Focusing Flask lets you throw several of the same splash weapon at a time and raises the save DC (700gp). Winged Bottle lets you drop a splash weapon from above from 130ft away, and it flies there (1620gp). Durable Arrows (1gp) don't break on a hit or a miss with some minor exceptions (among other "Alchemical Archery" options like this).

Spontaneous Alchemy isn't terrible - the idea of creating items like Antitoxins, Alchemist's Fire, Trip Arrows, Desiccating Lubricant, Tanglefoot Bags with a standard action, at the cost of a feat is pretty cool. Poisons, Drugs and Alcohol never fall into this category, which are reduced to a minimum of 1 hour instead. If you can take advantage of this, it's probably the best part of the book, and there's a nice 2-page table that covers the details pretty well.

There's 6 more fireworks, 4 new "ales" to buff then break you, 16 new "alchemical reagents" that function the same as the Adventurer's Armory alchemical material components (which are great, but I don't see any stand-outs, and all of them are consumed when used). There's actually more if you include reagents that aren't listed with the other Alchemical Reagents on the front and back covers, such as Pesh (under Drugs) and Ginger Extract and Mugwort Extract (under Herbalism).

I thought there was an Alchemist archetype in the book, but I can't see it. The book says it covers options for Alchemists, Barbarians, Bards, and Rogues, but there's only a single archetype? Based on a alcohol drinking barbarian?

And that archetype isn't referenced in the (very-weak) Contents page. Thankfully the following page has a second sort-of-Contents page that points to pages that have the new alchemical rules in the book (which aren't bookmarked in the PDF version).

Player perspective, tier 8-9. A high 3.5 stars.

I didn't feel like this was the most memorable scenario comparatively speaking - a bit of a mindless dungeon run in some places, if somewhat difficult (I'd recommend 5-6 players here, not 3-4). What really stands out here is the roleplay of the setting. And the bathhouse.

The bathhouse encounter is probably the most worried (read: terrified) I've ever felt about What Could Go Wrong with its setup. No other scenario has done anything quite like it. Our party didn't overly discuss it (which was good, I think) and went on instinct, and a large part of that led to tactics via desperation. The way we left that encounter, as a result, was hilarious.

That was easily the standout of the whole scenario, and more scenarios could benefit from learning to put players in similarly innovative situations where they have to think outside the box.

Played tier 1-2 with a bunch of level 2 characters and one level 3.

This is the kind of scenario I'd been after for a while - an advanced version of First Steps 1. Pathfinders with a bit of experience should be ready by now, they should be ready with more than just combat-oriented characters (probably not recommended for level 1s).

The "infamous" character the scenario deals with really begs for a lot of player knowledge about him (maybe not necessarily character knowledge), which the GM might not be able to fill players in about enough. They can disregard the shady past and be none the wiser, but that robs the players of part of the experience.

Personally I played part 2 before playing part 1, and those two scenarios worked reasonably enough out of order, unlike trying to play part 3 before part 2, where it can cause a pretty big problem. I never felt like I'd wished I played part 1 before part 2 - it feels different enough but still a good prequel to make the pieces fit into place.

I was in a bit of a unique position with how I played this - a level 2 paladin playing out-of-tier in 4-5, alongside some strong level 4/5 classes.

I think this scenario really begs for a good party composition. Especially considering the very tough battle in this one, and some bad numbers on the dice, we were fairly lucky to survive. I'm not sure what it'd be like at tier 1-2, but since I was the one playing the low level guy (who had a lot of hit points, thank god), it feels like the combats are geared a little towards the powergamers.

There was an enormous amount of fluff in the scenario that I honestly struggled to keep up with, and didn't really complement my poor level 2 paladin's lack of knowledge skills. Again, at subtier 1-2, I can only imagine this would have been suffocating. Newbies would have little chance digesting it all. Some players will love this though - this scenario is made for them.

The scenario really loses points for me only because of the too-hard aspect which puts me off, and the extreme level of detail. The latter should make for a better game, but my personal experience was just information overload, and again, that doesn't fit my style of play.

Unless the character you play is really tough - advise against playing out of tier in 4-5 where possible.

I walked into this scenario thinking, how good can a scenario that revolves around a market be?

As it turns out, it can be nigh on perfect. Jim Groves has nigh on perfected an art here.

There is a great balance of roleplay and combat, and the weakest part might be the plot, but that's more than made up for with the setup of the market itself. It isn't hard to imagine the dire consequences that take place during the game.

Players will likely feel the atmosphere in this scenario, and that's what gives this one the stars it deserves. It captures the heart of what this game is meant to be about.

GM'd this at subtier 7-8 (and I think I played it at 7-8 as well, but that was years ago). With 5 players and optimised characters in the party, this felt really easy for them. At this subtier, I'd probably recommend 4 players unless the character's power levels are really toned down. Otherwise save this for subtier 10-11.

Good roleplaying by both the GM and the characters is really what makes or breaks most of this scenario.

It's a bit of a shame that there wasn't more in this scenario like the very first encounter, which gives the setting a lot of potential, despite an enormous amount of rule-checking that nobody in the online GM community seemed to be able to answer. Season 5 does the Worldwound more justice.

This is my pick of the best of the 3 "Among" scenarios in the trilogy.

The difficulty in this scenario is pretty crazy, and I don't believe it's because it's a season 0. Admittedly, my 6-player group played this at 3-4 with a combination of character levels ranging from 1 to 5, so that might be why.

Ultimately this is a pretty good scenario if you don't mind a pure dungeon crawl with a small slice of Taldan flavour. Bring a comedy bard with you.

There's two big things I like about these kinds of scenarios.

(1) The straightforward explore, report, cooperate aspect of a clear location.
(2) A twist that changes the game. There's another season 4 scenario that did this especially well, and when it happens, it really ups the wow factor.

It requires GMs to run a game a little more than just by-the-book. They have to think smart about how they do it, ensuring a game is kept fun, kept cool. It's not hard as long as there's no me-vs-them mentality.

Played at 3-4.

I've got really mixed feelings about this.

The scenario had all the ingredients for a good scenario, and I think my personal opinion has coloured it - in that I don't mind when my characters have a mission that railroads them a little.

For the first time in my Pathfinder career, as we played on closer to the Worldwound, closer to chaos - entirely our decision, and not even sure it was the right one - there were many times we weren't sure whether to turn back and call it a day. Had we done enough? Could we handle any more of this, or were we walking into one deathtrap after another?

Because of that feeling of cluelessness for so much of it, because this scenario is so different, I feel like giving this an average rating, but I can't - because it accomplished exactly what it wanted to do, and did it surprisingly well.

Party Composition
I played this at tier 4-5 with 4 players, and our classes and skillsets weren't especially suited to the scenario (we could tell from the get-go). With a very clever bit of preparation that I won't mention here, my group most likely did much better than we would have without it.

This is important, because groups who are both not lucky and not prepared could run into some issues with this quite out-of-the-ordinary scenario. It can't be said this is a fault of the scenario. This is actually one of its strengths. Pathfinders should be able to think out of the box when the circumstances tell them this is going to be the case. Luckily it's a situation where any one person can do the same prep we did, so it's solvable.

I've since GM'd this, and it was a lot of prep required, and I couldn't keep up with the orchestra's timeline very well. It reminded me of a book I'd once read where the hero has to concentrate on so many different things happening all at the same time, one of which was a timeline hanging over him where he had to enter in the codes on a moving target, as well as deal with everything else that's happening.

Sort of like in Back to the Future 3 when Marty realises THE RED LINE'S ABOUT TO BLOWWWWWWWWwwwwwwww! BOOM

That's what it was like trying to keep it all together.

No other scenario has taught me the lessons of being prepared as this one did.

In the deadliest encounter in this scenario, our whole 6-person party forgot crucial equipment that would have changed the course of the encounter and instead we only managed to reach and absolutely grueling and unlikely stalemate.

Most reviewers have adequately described this scenario. It has to be said that my rating is based on some great GMing once again, and for GMs with less skill, there could be some fairly serious stumbling blocks along the way.

Later the scenario picks back up in difficulty again, and you could find yourself either in a fairly standard battle or the middle of an apocalypse from a source, or sources, that you'd least expect.

Overall, despite the deathtrap experience I had, I had a good time playing this and I think it was largely due to carefully crafted GMing overcoming the scenario's downfalls, and a little bit of luck from the dice.

There are a lot of variables in this scenario in terms of both difficulty and atmosphere. For any GMs, I'd strongly advise a lot of preparation for this scenario to ensure an enjoyable game - more than usual.

One last mention - it's an excellent precursor to playing Fury of the Fiend soon afterwards, which is where the real meat of this series lies (until Fate of the Fiend is released, at least).

This scenario was tough, and you'll want a good party mix going in (and you don't need hyper-optimised characters, though you won't want to be underpowered either).

Having said that, you're not likely to be prepared for what to expect here.

My experience involved a great GM, and a party that included two Hellknights, a tiefling, as well as two other unlikely party members - trying to get some suspicious Hellknights to like us and trust us. Little did we know what we were all getting ourselves into.

Chaos erupts in a way you'll likely not expect and the atmosphere takes on urgency that most scenarios don't capture as well as this.

Even after that chaos runs its course, you'll need to use some very creative thinking and your endurance and preparation will be severely tested.

While I'm not sure this is one of those scenarios you might consider perfectly designed, it will likely leave you sweating by the end of it with some great stories that you'll come away with - if you make it out of there.