This series of 4 encounters is very well written and gives a colorful introduction to what the Pathfinder system has to offer. Each Bash Demo focuses of a small set of skills and aspects of the system.
The skills & aspects covered include: Traps, Diplomacy, Knowledge Skills, Hidden Caches, Hidden Enemies, Puzzles, Stabilizing Wounded Characters and Damage Reduction. Also each includes one challenging combat.
The Bash Demos are also very versatile. While they are written for the Beginner Box set which has a smaller less complex rule set than the Core rulebook they can easily be run with the Pathfinder Society PreGenerated Characters.
Recently at a local Con we ran the Bash Demos 12 times over the 3 day weekend including 1 on Sunday. I estimate conservatively that 80% of the people that played the Bash Demos were new to Pathfinder in one fashion or another. Many hadn't role played in a long time, so we used the Beginner Box PreGens exclusively.
A large portion, I'd guess over half, continued to play in one or more Society Scenarios over the weekend and wanted more information on playing locally. The Beginner Box Bash Demos provide a great balanced introduction to the Pathfinder RPG and running them alongside a Society event is a valuable addition to any Con.
Rebel's Ransom is a superb cinematic dungeon crawl overcoming more traps and deadly puzzles that bad guys. And those bad guys are well places and quite challenging, especially if the players are having trouble with the puzzles.
The over land travel to get to the Tomb is a nice addition, putting the characters in an unfamiliar environment that could impact their effectiveness at the Tomb.
the was a refreshing break from the standard scenario format. More roleplaying, discussion, and skill checks were required. Our party got to places in the adventure where we were sure of the bad guys, but couldn't quite pin it on them.
It seemed that the scenario is meant to run on triggers, when the Players do this, move to Actx. If the players get stuck they may wait perpetually for that move to that next Act.
Seemed to be a well written scenario with lively NPC. I look forward to unleashing it on my FLGS soon.
A who done it style adventure geared towards using the Who's information to locate the one that done it. The NPCs are some of the most creative fleshed out ones I come across. The combats had a thematic location that avoided the 'run straight smash approach', a more thought out maneuver and attack was necessary. Then there is the whole clock ticking aspect, can you solve the mystery before another murder takes place and capture the BBEG in time.
I played this as a 6 player tier 3-4. The faction missions were nicely woven into the story, with some being more interesting then others.
Either the investigative mechanic had some hole or we were missing some thought to be obvious links. We managed to plod along figure out the instigator's plays. The final act was really cool and the PC could really take advantage of certain factors to get a 1 up on the BBEGs.
Our GM did a great job providing a background for the scenario and sticking to it.
I'm looking forward to running it and playing in the rest of the series.
I rand this at a recent convention with a party of 6 fairly well balanced experienced players at sub-tier 3-4. The juxtoposition that takes place really wierded out the characters, none of whom had the appropriate skills to identify what was really happening. The combats were challenging, requiring the party to work together to get past some of them. Although the final BBEG is not much of a match for 6 players, unless they roll really bad.
The unknown creepyness presented in the museum that makes the players want to make a double take to be sure that they are seeing what they are seeing. I really hammed up the atmosphere and the fact that any of the displays could be hostile. The Andoran Barbarian freaked out over the room of frozen experiments. He was ready to cart the whole family off for making the Penumbral Accords.
As a GM I recommend spending some time enticing the by explaining the odd shifting going on about them. It will be worth it.
