CelticDragon38's page

I'm a paleontologist running a party of six that includes three other paleontologists through this, so they were absolutely stoked when they saw the title. They determined to recruit as many different types as they could for the zoo they've been building for the entire AP, and to release as many others as they could from the xulgaths. They were excited by the pteranodon attack and we were all very much appreciative that they weren't put in the dinosaur category like in 1e.
They were furious at the brughadatches for their treatment of the people at the gambling hall. The party found Ledorick exasperating, but in a "we love to see what ridiculous things they're doing now so we can add fuel to the snark fire" kind of way. They were a bit surprised at how strong the Banyan Boys were given their earlier impressions of them. That's the unavoidability of interacting with small town defenders at high levels, but the surprise was good in the moment. Their help in that boss fight was also very much needed given how tapped the party was after going through the rest of the dungeon. They really enjoyed planning out how best to help the town prepare for the siege, then strategizing which key points to attack first.
The array of encounters was well-balanced. They had been mostly trouncing things, so having the stakes upped at intervals added needed tension. The creep factor of some of the encounters, and the unknown of why they were having dreams which sometimes left them tired, added to it. They absolutely loved the unique mechanics of the tallow ooze. They thought the azure worm encounter was really cool---sometimes it's nice to encounter scarily strong creatures and negotiate so that no one gets hurt.
I ended up bringing Zashathal back up to full and not fatigued for the final battle because I knew they would get more out of the fight that way. It was a hair-raising battle, just like a book's final fight should be. The mechanics of it (the quralith in particular) forced them to change up their standard tactics and get creative. They rose to the challenge in some very clever and hilarious ways, and that session had them on the edge of their seats.
Some of my favorite art pieces were: the gahlepod, the siege tower, the Bokrug statue, the aukashungi swarm, the various xulgaths, Unakite, and the shrine map. I also liked that the Banyan Boys actually bore a familiar resemblance to one another.

We ran this three times at our lodge this weekend, and it was a big success. 3/11 players were new to PF2, and two of those were eager to play more afterwards. One player is about to start a homebrew pirate campaign and remarked that it fit perfectly as an opener with the ideas he was trying to come up with.
There was some consternation over puzzles at some points when players went down wrong paths of thinking and some weren't listening to GM nudges (no fault of the game). But the groups that worked together and listened to each other enjoyed them.
Working together is actually very important for this game. It can be deadly if they don't and the dice aren't in their favor. In one game, players weren't working in concert, in another they didn't think of some tactics, and in the third the group worked together well and combat went much more smoothly. GM rolls were on fire for the second crew, so things went south even faster.
The map, the art, and the NPC backstories were other aspects people said they liked.

All that being said, release of his game seemed very rushed. There were tons and tons of typos and rules mistakes which began being caught by GMs as soon as they started looking over it. Some were rectified a few days after release, but this game could really stand to have edited versions uploaded after some serious combing-through.
E.g., The two characters with Battle Medicine don't have healer's tools. The character with crafting and a shield doesn't have a repair kit. The boss fight box text describes it having a scimitar when it actually has a gaff. There are two statues on the map, but the second room's box text describes a plaque, not a statue.

I loved running this game. It's a creepy investigative scenario, much like The Golemworks Incident—another I love to run. I ran it at the horror end of the suggested continuum and my table had a lot of fun, giving visibly and audibly disgusted reactions to descriptions of the body horror and actually letting NPCs give entire speeches showing how unraveled they'd become without interrupting them (not a thing that happens often!). They also appreciated the irresolution of the ending.

But some words of warning for players—this seems like the sort of scenario where whether it's enjoyed or not is completely dependent on your GM's acting chops and preferences. If your GM is not acting out either people on the edge of sanity and hope or campy exaggerated hijinks—and doing it well—it'll probably be hard to engage with the NPCs in a way that organically results in them providing most of the information you need while also conveying the intended mood, and you're probably not going to enjoy it. Definitely don't play if you just want to smash and bash. It's probably also best to play with a group who has the same preferences as you so the GM can turn the dial up to 11 in one direction or the other. I think it works better on the horror end of things, but that could just be my personal preference.

GMs—don't slide on the secret rolls for this one. Do make them all yourself. The uncertainty that breeds in the players will make the situations in this scenario that much more immersive. And they need to be immersed in this one.

Mechanically, this scenario is a good way to get people used to some of the new healing mechanics, and to some of the altered and new conditions. The new scaling systems for both combat and exploration (higher DCs since there's a higher probability that someone will roll high enough with more players rolling) worked perfectly. The bad guys lasted long enough to give the PCs pause, putting one in danger of dropping, but didn't make the players feel like they were overwhelmed. Mostly they hit their DCs; sometimes they didn't. An appropriate success rate for brand-new adventurers.

I normally won't run a table of seven since combats get bogged down and people get left out of roleplaying, but I decided to try it for this one to see how the new system handled it. It worked remarkably well! The personalities and situations they encountered were varied enough that all seven players had opportunities to roleplay and/or rollplay their character contributing something. Combat moves so much faster in 2e that it didn't feel like it took forever to get through a round.

And Haru's response to a probing question? Amazing call-out of a common player expectation that doesn't make sense in-world.

This is my all-time favorite scenario. It's an excellent Germanic epic with fun for rollplayers and roleplayers alike. It's absolutely vital that GMs prepare this one well in order to bring the story and NPCs to life. If you're worried your GM won't be prepared, can't improv well, or isn't a good storyteller, hold off until you find one you're more confident of. It's well worth the wait.

The new venture-captain is very well-done. My players went from dread at needing to interact with him (worried about communicating with a deaf person) to really engaging with him and even going on to use his signs for peoples' names throughout the game.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW

The event in town had my players unsettled. The eerie, otherwordly encounter in the woods had them on edge. The early dungeon gives them clues as to what happened. It also lulled them into a false sense of security before throwing some scary, shocking, and delightful encounters at them. They got loot that will make some melee characters very happy, then found out the scary dungeon encounter wasn't the boss battle.

The boss battle itself is epic. The cinematics are amazing. PCs may die. If a player's itching for a good death, suggest this scenario to them.

Then at the end, they have to take the hints they've found and use their brains to figure out the connections between them in order to convince both sides of a longtime feud to reconcile, while also telling a good story about what happened.