 
Sign in to create or edit a product review. The digital renders for this set had my hopes flying really, really high. I've gotten all of the Iconics sets to-date (it's a great feeling when you're a PFS GM and have them to loan out to new players who in turn get excited about having the exact mini on the board!), and thanks to a holiday gift, was able to grab this one too. After tonight, though, this may be the last Iconics set I buy. Apparently a few sets ago the physical sizes of the minis changed (got smaller) compared to the minis that came out with other boxed sets and I just didn't notice until recently - something I'm not a fan of, but if it was to help the quality, I could live with it. Unfortunately, I fear that the smaller size combined with the complexity shown on the digital renders isn't working out very well. Hakon's facepaint looks somewhat comical, as does whatever that is on Crowe's forehead (just a blue smudge, I'm afraid), and Lirianne's hair looked like it was attached to the underside of her hat. The worst part, for me, was the knowledge that I was paying $5 more for this set...and two of the pieces immediately fell right out of their bases when I first turned the box upside-down to start cutting at the tape - Jirelle and Lirianne will both need superglue to get their feet-pegs to go back into their bases. I had been hoping that with an increase in price, there would be an increase in quality as well, but t'was not to be. As an avid lover of all of the Pathfinder Battles minis since the Rise of the Runelords set, this one caught me way off-guard with just how disappointing it was. I always feel bad leaving negative reviews, especially for a game and company I absolutely adore, but...yea, this one was a really big miss with me. Edit - Jan 2018: I'm seriously not sure what happened, but every set since this one has been back to 5-star amazing quality. Outliers happen everywhere, I guess. As such, I'm going back to this review and bumping it up from a 1-star to a 3-star review, in light of the last 2 years of amazing product ever since this one. Before even running this scenario, I found it very refreshing. Both of the previous two years' "evergreen" (1-2 repeatable) scenarios were fairly formulaic: Location X, GM rolls 1d6 to determine what's there, Location Y, GM rolls 1d4 to determine what's there. That is not to say that they aren't fun - in fact I do very much enjoy The Confirmation (#5-08) and Wounded Wisp (#6-10), but this one was good enough that I wanted to write a review saying so! The Consortium Compact poses three challenges to the PCs, and lets them decide on which two to tackle. Unlike in the previous two evergreens, though, there are many different ways that PCs can approach all three of them. Got a combat-oriented party? Tackle Option C and go in guns blazing! Sneaky? Try Option B, and maybe C too! Talky-Diplomatic? Option A screams for player and GM creativity, and so does Option B! And those are just the "examples" that the scenario gives for newer GMs! That, in and of itself, is another great thing about this scenario - it lends itself well to GMs of all levels. New to being a GM? Stick to the suggested encounters. Veteran GM? The scenario calls out "GM creativity" many times, which was great when I ran it and my party strayed very far off the beaten path going after Objective A! The "roll 1d6 to determine what's there" does come up, but only at one location near the end of the scenario, and even there, PC/GM creativity and PC ideas/plans really dictate how the encounter(s) transpire, rather than having the either-or of talking-or-fighting (the only two options in several instances of the other evergreens). Want to be sneaky? Aggressive? Sly? Diplomatic? Something I haven't mentioned? Anything can work! Having the PCs go after 2 of 3 options means that replay will likely never be dull, as you can go after different objectives in different ways, and the final area that is "fixed" has random elements that contribute to it (different entrances/exits used, different gear found, different enemies) that has been a strength in previous evergreens. Combine all of that with good writing and no major editing flubs in box text or GM instructions (an unfortunately regular bane in many PFS scenarios), plus a very strong chronicle sheet for level 1-2 characters...in my book, that all results in a big 5-star scenario rating! The only error I noticed:
In Area C, the ladder is in the northwest corner of the map, while the scenario text says northeast.
That's how good this scenario is - I had to nitpick to find anything wrong! Having been to the "home of the Hodag", I think the fact that this mini exists is awesome enough to give it a 5-star rating. Now I need to get as many of these as I can and get them to all my Geology-Gamer friends (since Rhinelander, WI is a regular stop for my alma mater's Mineralogy class trip). With some players in my local lodge being *very* arachnophobic, and still others having mild-moderate entomophobia/insectophobia, I've found that nobody reacts badly to these minis on the table. They are my go-to for anything "creepy crawly" that I need! Locally, 10-12 of us pool money and buy a sealed case through our FLGS and then do a "draft". People send in their top picks, which we try to sort through to guarantee everyone 1-3 of their top 5-6 sculpts, and then we go round-robin (most/first money in gets earlier picks, last/least money in join the draft in later rounds). We've almost got it down to a science, but the end of each draft is always tough since invariably the minis that nobody wants are left in large, glaring groups. This has started to discourage people from putting in too much money (which in turn makes getting people together to go in for a case harder), since they tend to end up with several minis they really have little/no interest in at the end. However, for Dungeons Deep, we saw was fierce competition for all of the sculpts right up to the final picks - there weren't 5 wollipeds sitting around that nobody really wanted waiting for the people who still had picks left at the end this time! For me personally, the only one I didn't really have an interest in was the jelly - I think it looks cool as heck, but its shape meant that I couldn't really have it share space on a flip-mat with a PC's minis (whereas a blank base or alea tools large-sized marker could do the same and still have PC minis standing securely on top), but that worked out okay since those jellys went very early in our drafts! I changed up my wishlist for minis from this set so much that I ended up taking things that, based on the digital renders alone, hadn't caught my eye as much - the Frost Giant and Gnoll Spellcaster looked amazing, and I may put in more $ to buy a few boosters to try and hunt that Gnoll down since I missed out on it (but I got the sarcophagus, which was my #1, so I'm still happy)! GM and player alike, everyone had a great time fawning over every single sculpt that came out. As far as durability goes, we're used to a handful of minis breaking pulling them from shells or from transit - our case this time only had two - a dracolisk "clear pole" that pulled out of its base (and was easily glued back in), and a baykok that lost its mace-thing. Not only high-quality detail, but also very well put together, this set! I've heard some comments about the faces of the dwarves, but for us, we liked the way they looked, and I feel lucky that I got my hands on a single Sundering Axe before both them and the barbarians got snatched up! Even though we only drafted last week, I've already used the dungeon dressing in two PFS scenarios and two sessions of Skull & Shackles AP already, and my players love seeing it on the board (and now they think *everything* could be a mimic, which is awesome too)! Major kudos for this whole set, Paizo! I fully plan to expand this review in the near future, but let me say that this is one of my top five scenarios, modules, or AP sections of all time! Perhaps the tactics aren't "perfect" for every single encounter - eh, so what? The roleplay opportunities, on the other hand - from the players' reactions to their very first perception check at "the gates" to the final combat forgone conclusion are just dripping (dare I say hanging?) with rich plot! Rather than retype past posts, here are two other times I've gushed about this scenario in the past. If your players like deep roleplay, nonlinear plot, powerful monsters (see most recent reviewer before mine for [redacted]), and potentially personal-paradigm-shifting plot - run this for them!!! Mike Bramnik
PS - This is one of VERY few scenarios prior to John Compton taking the helm where the PCs can learn all of the scenario's backstory during the scenario itself! A major plus in my book! PPS - I really wish I could GM this for the first two reviewers who left only 1-2 stars for this scenario. This one might not be best for a convention setting where you have to rush to fit a tight schedule, but is much better for when you really want to take your time and enjoy the RP! This was a solid, hard-fighting scenario. Elite challenges for elite agents only - PCs who walk into this one unprepared will be destroyed, trounced, and annihilated (keeping pace with the author's reputation - be it deserved or no). The reviewers prior to me cover a lot of the sort of things I'd go into already (which makes my review that much easier to write). Leave yourself lots of time for this scenario! This scenario could possibly run up to 7 hours - the first fight (10-11 no difficulty adjustment) took the party I ran through it ~2 hours alone. Even with the party talking their way past 1.5 encounters later, we still ran close to 6 hours. This is also one of the more challenging scenarios to prep as a GM in recent memory - lots of mechanics to know, lots of spells to know, lots of different monsters and tons of templates (plus one out of Bestiary 4, which was difficult since as of the time of this review that book is not on the PRD yet and I don't own it - luckily for me the Archives of Nethys are always awesome at getting stuff like that available). Each combat is unique, which most of my players loved - if it wasn't for the first aid gloves from the PFS Primer, there would have been 2 PC deaths and several destroyed magical items. A big thing for me as a GM, and my players as we talked about the scenario as I was handing out chronicle sheets, was with how much everyone was excited to be doing "a sequel to Where Mammoths Dare Not Tread!" only to have the scenario go in a totally unrelated direction after the first act. Even post-combat-afterglow from the combat-heavy PCs who loved the challenging fights, they were a little disappointed. So, for me (always starting with 4 stars as my "base") -
So, overall, solid - 3 stars. My new favorite module!
CanisDirus
(Contributor)
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I ran this for some very experienced players recently, and the more I prepared in advance, the more excited I was. Unlike many modules which are dungeon-delves or where everything is seemingly preordained in the module itself, The Midnight Mirror presents the story in such a way that the PCs can take almost any approach, any order of events, and the story remains coherent and tight. (My players caught the subtle "butcher, baker, candlestick maker" bit, and thought that was a neat joke to slip in under the radar, by the by) Many times in PFS scenarios and some other modules, a rich backstory is developed that the GM gets to read and enjoy, but there are no good opportunities for the PCs to learn about it, and the motivations behind NPCs and their involvement in the story - Midnight Mirror has those connections in spades, and my players (especially the ones who were more investigation-focused than combat-focused) loved digging into the history of Karpad and the Shae/Kayal of the past and the present. I only have two criticisms of the module, neither enough to warrant less than a 5-star review from me: 1 - Stats for Stepan would be nice, in case the PCs decide to turn on him, or if Nicasor goes for him and the PCs are engaged to try and protect him. 2 - One of my players caught a potential plot hole: Spoiler:
If those trapped inside the mirror do not age as part of their eternal imprisonment, how is it that Manar and Sorin were born/aged inside the mirror? Is it just that people brought in from outside don't age, but those born within can be born, age, and die? That bugged some of my players for hours after they finished the module and had convinced Stepan to raise Sorin as his own. I found this module to be rich in story, and flexible in terms of numbers of combats depending on the PCs' approach - a more diplomatic group (like mine) could talk through many encounters, whereas a more aggressive party would be able to enjoy fighting through everything, and the story would still be solid. As the title of this review says - this is now my favorite Pathfinder RPG module!
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