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So to clarify, this is super good story, super good characters and fun combat, but the skill challenges range from confusing(does it want one or multiple successes) to requiring really specific skills (there are multiple dcs that seem important for doing something really important that require really specific lore) and hazards are really painful. Like, multiple hazards require entire party to participate for total 6 successes or like despite requiring really high dc specific skills only one in party might succeed in reliably. Like some hazards feel like they assume every character has same skill as master. There is also things like encounter where simple hazard can trigger multiple times despite that should have complex hazard damage.

But yeah my tiredom upon seeing that if I run the final hazard as written, party would have tpk'd aside, I love the adventure overall also <3 captain vasoya and commander eiran. bit bummer I didn't manage to finish running it before survey ended. Basically I think I would have considered it 5/5, then dropped to 4/5 from skill and hazards, then dropped further to 3/5 because my players walked away with experience of "we did great, kicked ass, then run into hazard where adventure said you created characters wrong"

Enough said really. Cool space walrus lore reveals, cool adventuring, boss fight is super hard though especially for party where nobody has right equipment for it(one character did have the fusion, but not on underwater weapon) and we failed to pick up hints that the one weapon in room would have been really useful in chaos of it.

I do think its okay to have more difficult encounters like this occasionally, but I do feel like I have to take one star away (I think this is 4 star otherwise) because the encounter is super brutal and I don't think you are really able to prepare for it because let's say you get the hint about hauntings with dc 25 knowledge check or have seen the cover? Well you still need to invest money on fusion AND underwater weapon and not everyone has lot of money left for that purpose. Encounter itself is in such small room that boss' certain ability always triggers and it has so high damage potential that level 5-6 characters are really squirming.(not to mention boss having high dcs and multiple aoe options to disable characters) We did almost win it even with us almost having tpk though, but we were forced to retreat since everyone was almost dead and almost out of stamina and even then that good situation was because gm allowed us to retreat once to take 10 minute rest before coming back. Still though while its bummer to fail, it is nice to have difficult fights in SFS as well, though I have feedback on encounter too.

I wasn't expecting to get answers to big lore questions like couple names of gods Rovagug ate, why Eye of Abendego exists and why Ghol-Gan fell to ruin, but that was neat xD

But yeah, it is fun adventure to read I like, my only nitpicks is that I feel like resolution to villains feels about as fast as 1e boss fight combats(and one of them was pretty on the nose about his true identity xD) and that I feel like we didn't really get chance to see Merisiel's "normal" perspective since for most of adventure we are dealing with her insecurities regarding old Calistrian way of life and her having changed and learned to trust her friends, so while we get to see Merisiel's cocky side occasionally from outside perspective, her own point of view is for most part rather anxious.

Liminal space take on Ghost Levels is good and fascinating, but it does lead to combat encounters feeling like grab bag of random elements to test out variety of stuff. It does fit liminal space idea, but it definitely feels play test-y

Anyway, my party had mostly absurd amount of luck (lot of 6 hp enemy fights resulted in things like "soldier attacks with area weapon, rolls 8 on damage dice, every enemy fails reflex save) so they managed to avoid lot of hard parts in this adventure (like they critted animated statue on first attack), but there are definitely lot of tough fights mixed in and some encounters could be really grueling with wrong skills in party like one of final hazards in adventure, considering that it has hardness 12 if party wanted to break it without skills.

Biggest problem with adventure is editing really, it was unclear in adventure itself whether Newborn had born yet (Midwives shouldn't exist if it hadn't hatched, but certain characters speak about newborn as if its birth was imminent) and nothing in adventure itself clarified its basically meant to be in the "egg has hatched, but its still stuck in placenta" stage. Chapter 2 was also confusing to read since it was mixing of "roleplay with quest giver, quest they give" moments where it went back and forth rather than either listing all locations and then all quests or location followed by quest given.

Part 2 even with all editing problems IS the most fun part of adventure though, there are lot of memorable moments and npcs are given enough depth that it is easy to run them and thus they are easier to actually be endearing and I appreciate extra information given on them as well which isn't necessary for running adventure, but gives them extra depth.

(also the heist mission was weird to run for party without any of assumed skills and I soon figured out it does miss lot of information that would be helpful for pcs to plan the heist x'D Also I think as written it says "turning off generator gives alarm, also if turn off generator and improperly disable remote ability to turn it on causing it to explode, that pings alarm" is either editing error or redundancy if it really is meant that its impossible to disable generator without alarm ping)

I just had to include that funny text editor shenanigan in the title, I kinda hope it was on purpose and not just text editing putting spaces between letters in that word particularly x'D Anyway, Run at low tier for four characters in three hours

My biggest nitpicks personally are mostly some of the art. Its good looking art, but it feels off from the design point. Like I haven't seen ghouls having their iconic pathfinder super long tongue post monster core much, but these ones look outright cute more like dhamphirs than undead flesh hungering emaciated creatures, they seem to be done by same artist as one other new npc but art for them looks like vampiric version of other npc. Gezlek is supposed to be goblin, but they have very human or halfling head, face and torso proportions making them look more like dromaar halfling at best. Vim has both lips and human like teeth, I kinda think goblin art is at best when it still retains paizo goblin iconic features like needle teeth and the lipless grimace, let the goblin child have the gremlin design qualities!

Overall really loving the megastructure and precursor exploration and with upcoming info on Riven Shroud in cosmic birthday's setting update info, I really have hopes of more of similar stuff in sf2e as well x3 Yay great times. Scenarios/metaplots like this give me more passion to work on my portfolio

But yeah my love of First One mystery lore exploration and megastructure metaplots aside, run this for 4 level 2 characters and took about 3 hours. There was nice amount of time for exploration and combats didn't drag, so I feel it was a good experience mechanics wise as well.

This scenario was thought provoking, feels weird it is repeatable considering how most of them feel kind of "mundane" in terms of importance :O

But yeah, some of DCs seem high enough they could be mistake, but it seems like the more intended design is that players will fail at least some of the checks since the checks don't seem to have as big consequence in that segment as you would think. And influence scene was handled well, I got scared when six npcs were introduced, but the amount of rounds was short and they didn't have that high thresholds.

(This review is being influenced by really good run of the scenario so thanks to the gm xD But yeah, whole premise of scenario is good for philosophical debates, I have sidenote though: I'm liking so far how Godsrain feels like major presence behind multiple scenarios this year unlike Drift Crisis which wasn't important to most of non drift crisis scenarios, but was occasionally brought up in the manner of "if you run this during drift crisis, mention this".)

So hmm. Mechanically scenario is fine, besides having a simple hazard capable of massive damage death in both tiers in the season intro scenario feels pretty harsh. Replayable parts is nice, the combats are fairly easy but right fit for intro scenario and there isn't mechanical segment that stays around too long. The main thing that feels off is plot details.

Like, Peacebuilders Alliance is a new thing, right? But it feels like something I've seen either in 1e or Starfinder that I can't put my finger on... At the very least it feels like Society is starting to rely a bit too much on the "someone complains about society's mistakes" and this reiteration of it is starting to feel like "I want to speak to your manager" level which might be intended? Either way, it feels absurd to have the character in this scenario as if Knights of Lastwall were never a target of attacks by undead and other monsters. Or if Absalom hadn't had multiple adventure paths set there in the past five years. Encounters happen outside of society as well, this is that kind of a world.

Sidenote: that it felt like there could be an improvement in the pipeline of how many npcs to introduce at once, since only a few of them will be relevant in a given playthrough, so introducing them all at once is kinda tough for gm even if you want to roleplay them for funsies.

But yeah back to main point: I don't really get full connection of how demon ritual connects to Whispering Tyrant fans, but that's probably be explored later in metaplotline. But I do kinda feel like the scenario misunderstands other characters? Like Nuar Spiritskin felt off character in the scenario. It's hard to believe level 9 oracle running scared off this scenario. Then there are minor details like "Lamashtu" being considered notable deity in Worldwound in the trivia quiz event, which is technically correct, but worldwound book and ap was all about Deskari and Baphomet and other demon lords with very little notable influence to her particular. Like Iomedae felt more notable than she did.

Basically start of the metaplot feels like its retreading bits you see in other scenarios and for lore hounds it feels bit off or like characters are acting differently than they should be. (I'm still surprised Csilla is just staying around as leader, but I guess that's just the overall metaplot direction now). If you are new player, you'll have enjoyable scenario, but more in know you are more things just feel weirdly off.

So I'm in general invested to see where paizo version of Sarmak goes and themes of precursors and mega structures, but I've yesterday played scenario and today run it. My run went under four hours with four players (two level 2s and two level 3 playing higher tier) so while there is lot of material in scenario, its surprisingly speedy one and there are nice amount of alternate options for non engineering/computer party (though this is scenario where you want those, but its good to provide backup options)

I also like how scenario has multiple points where it muddled the occam's razor conclusions pcs could come to by reminding them its too early to make final conclusions. Like, one of locations is obviously munitions factory for massive robots capable of city wide destruction, but mechs exist in setting, and whether the lexicon's foreboding words refer to the robot schematics or to something else or is even inaccurate translation is muddled enough that you can interpret it multiple different ways. And the final reveal is mind boggling since it can be interpreted in so many different ways. I kinda hope it isn't the obvious conclusion most people probably come if they don't read text carefully.

I do feel like there is stuff you can trim from scenario(my biggest nitpick is that final encounter honestly feels like filler, like the climax encounter was before it, but scenario wasn't confident on ending scenario on rather haunting exploration segment so had one more combat in case that falls flat. Or maybe if there were four scenarios in metaplot, this would have been split into two scenarios? Not sure, but yeah, final encounter was fine but unneeded, it would have been fun to end just on the exploration segment), but I feel its very plausible to run in four hours even with how much it has and its exciting start for the metaplot.

Scenario I guess scenario does have bit of frontloaded roleplaying segment with two npcs after intro speech, but its rather quick segment. I also love first meeting with Those Who Call member because there is plenty of fun foreshadowing and roleplaying in that and it ends on haunting note.

Also noticed that three of four combats had all hazard mechanic to them and this time hazards were all simple to run, so they didn't cause me to forget them or slow down combat. So that was fun and creative. But admittedly the random roll based one might make combat really chaotic depending on results and I'm still not sure where to find dc for escaping a grapple from one of effects here.

What else. Well there was short trap segment that is rather easy to solve with just some thinking if rolls don't work out. The skill challenge segment was also rather simple and quick implementation of concept, though I think if character doesn't have acrobatics or athletics, its also confusing how character would escape the grapple that can happen as result of failure since I don't know how party members would have time to help in the scene.

Oh right one more thing: I love that conversation with specific character avoids Q&A format and instead uses "this is what npc talks about and thus what pcs will learn over course of conversation and this is what they only mention if pressed upon) format, its much more easier to have natural conversation AND know what information is considered "plot important" and what is considered "only told if pcs bring conversation to that direction". Q&A format often includes delicious tidbits of information that players never stumble upon because players often don't think of the really specific thing to ask, but this scenario uses format correctly for chit chatting and small talk while having dramatic plot important conversation follow more natural format.

While reviewing entire season, I noticed there has been going round subsystem burnout with players. I guess it makes sense since ratio of subsystems in this season is higher than in a single adventure path, but I do feel like people make bigger number of them due to fatigue and due to scenarios recently being on longer side in general. In this case, I think case to determine difficulty of hazard in next encounter is good idea, but I do think chase could be shorter by few obstacles since five obstacles with target of under 7 rounds for easiest reward is still lot of rolling even if they roll perfectly and make past it in five rounds. Like maybe target number could be 5 rounds for best situation and three obstacles?

Either way, its fun sequel to the previous one and I'm shocked by end reveal, in good way, though if it happens for third time then the super rare event starts becoming too common plot point. Funnily enough while I can see why people have had conversation about fans joining the honor duel, I have my different thoughts on that encounter: I kinda feel like that while the encounter's consequences are primarily reporting conditions and secondary success, its nature as kinda plot based almost optional encounter kinda make me wish it didn't have any scaling at all and would just be "extreme solo for four characters of lower level of tier, severe solo for four characters of higher level of tier" type of thing. Like with that setup you could still have fans or paladin mook join in for parties of 5-6 players, but honestly i think it would be okay to have fight being on little bit easier side for 5-6 characters rather since I think fight is more about emotion and story than gameplay balance and solo character likely would still have chance to show off their badassery in their final fight.

Either way, it is fun that paizo chose to introduce new shakeups to orc pantheon and lore through scenarios since they could have just easily been one of new tidbits learned in upcoming books :O

Four encounters, one infiltration and one influence scene. Considering that one 5 round skill challenge can easily take hour depending on party and roleplaying, that really makes this one of scenarios that is really hard to run in 4-6 hours without speedrunning things. That said though, there is lot of delicious plot and stuff happening in this one. Like, in PFS context scenario doesn't fit, but I think content is fun enough that I think you could run this outside of PFS as well and not be disappointed. Still in PFS its likely to be harsh since having two major skill challenges just increases chances that someone in party has no right skills and is kinda sitting around feeling like load for the part.

This one has three combat encounters, skill challenge, on top of at least five smaller roleplaying or skill encounters. There is basically too much content for 4-6 hour scenario to run in reasonable amount of time. As elemental romp it could be fun if split into multiple sessions, but that would mean running it outside of pfs rules. I can see players being really angry at duo over the mess though, which seems like intended outcome tbh. Though its honestly too presumptuous to assume players are automatically like "yeah, screw the rich" because scenario doesn't really convince you that the target really deserved it either, so lot of people would likely side with the law.

The past five scenarios not being as silly on tone does help tone wise though this year is still frontloaded on that front. Either way, this scenario is mostly okay, but I feel like compared to previous repeatable scenario in the year, there really isn't much of replayability. Like yeah there is different flavors and combat encounters, but not really different roleplaying scenarios, like the two out of six elemental characters who can appear are practically interchangeable regarding scene they appear in. Basically I just don't really see much of motivation to rerun or replay this one.

Like "wait, how did that person become Waterfall and when?"

Either way yeah, I do like the scenario a lot and it was fun to play and has good roleplaying moments, but admitedly I do feel like its bit of Numeria adventure (starfinder flip mats do contribute to this) since the facility feels like horror laboratory you see in scifi movies set in 1940s, but unlike in ruins of azlant where you run into azlanti ruin that has energy of magical megacorporation complete with completely white sterile rooms and magical announcer voice talking for the corporation, it feels like scenario doesn't really acknowledge how much of the focus on electromagnetism, metal doors working on electricity and clinical surgery tables should feel out of place. Like maybe with rise of inventors and stasian coils and exploration of numeria it could be more normal for pathfinders nowadays, but I do kinda feel like I'd wish scenario more explicitly talked about the eerie disconnect that comes if folks from renaissance showed up in 1940s, that was fun part of numeria adventures in 1e.

Still, tone of scenario is great and horrifying, and scenario does well with handling subject matter of dark crimes performed in the facility.

(that said, the haunt definitely almost caused tpk, but I don't think it being bit too deadly takes away from scenario)

I feel like there was some kind of last straw for lot of people here in review section were they are being unfair on scenario because they have had bad experiences with influence scenarios? Like, there are issues here don't get me wrong, but it is fun scenario so harshness really isn't warranted.

Like, there are couple things here that I find problem with influence scenario handling: too many npcs can be hard for gm to roleplay, especially when scene goes long and you don't want 4-6 hour session stretch over the limit, in normal campaign you could easily split this into two sessions. Some players obsessed with success can also miss that you often just need to fully influence two of them rather than all of them, but in general I think influence scenario might work better with 3 targets maybe?

Either way I remember influence scene as player feeling okay for most part even with one character who didn't have any of the right skills in the party. I think my main issue story wise is more of that influence scene is basically really long red herring mechanically. Like, at end of scenario, we didn't feel like we accomplished our goal of identifying rakshasa or finding any information out of them, but it didn't matter because scenario essentially turns to insurance scam(to not spoil what actually happens, I put it this way) halfway through and pathfinder resolve that situation unrelated to rakshasa thing at all. And considering vast majority of scenario is about the influence part which is really important only for the faction mission...

Yeah I feel like the influence scene should have been shorter or maybe everyone's treshold should have been 3 instead of 6. It kinda just feels like the scene while fun to roleplay was waste of time scenario's focus wise because it didn't really contribute to the actual plot of scenario. Or at least that's the impression I came away as player and reading it for behind the scenes information didn't really make it feel like gm run it wrong. Like I get the goal here, its to foreshadow the rakshasa for later scenario for dramatic reveal while raksahsa is toying with pcs (and then unrelated event happens while rakshasa is snickering at chaos in secret), but it feels like heroes don't really succeed at doing anything for their actual goal even if they do something heroicly unrelated to that.

Its rather short scenario with fun bits, chase is great scene but information for it was easy to miss since its two pages earlier on sidebar, my biggest nitpick is "since when [spoiler] work like xenomorphs from later movies and base their form on the host? I mean its cool art, but I'm pretty sure they just spawn as bipedal tentacle quadruped thing and not in other forms, or are buso somehow special?" and scenario doesn't really explain "why" they exist, just says it can happen rarely (which is good enough excuse yeah I might use as gm as well, but is pretty handwavey), so it strikes to me as one of those non canon one off things. Zombie art in general is fun here.

Repeatable should have variants that differ for replays and I think this year both systems had repeatable that aren't just slightly different combat encounters but ones that feel interestingly different. I also like thematic irony with this one being "Well, starfinders lied(by absence of sharing information) for the greater good, so should you choose to do same this time as well or convince newcomer to be honest?" :D Its great direction to take newest yesteryear scenario

The variety of different feeling events this scenario can have is what you would really hope for repeatable, and its really handled well in this case.

Disclaimer: Continuing my reviews of season even if I haven't run or played scenario yet, so I focus less on mechanical stuff unless there is something obvious to comment on without needing to experience it in practice.

Thing I like about scenario is that even with things like the corrupt official dinner could be funny due to how sleazy the official is, but scene isn't written with especially comedic tone. Sewer race also could be run as slapstick, but its written in neutral or serious tone without tongue in cheek. Basically scenario doesn't use kobolds for comedy. Even the goblin tribe that shows up is just a goblin tribe looking for opportunity to get back at their enemies rather than being used for levity. The kobolds have valid concern and political tensions going on and it would be bad tone wise if scenario wasn't taking them seriously when their problem is essentially at its core a view that pathfinders don't really take them seriously as equals and see their relationship more give than take with all talented kobolds leaving to be pathfinders.

The kobold art does feel inconsistent though since they basically go through three different designs, I'm also bit confused that all Sewer Dragons seem to be blue now since I thought they didn't have specific scale color as tribe. Still its nice to have art for Yiddlepode too now.

Forgot to review this earlier but while I don't remember my thoughts exactly anymore, months later I feel like this one was five star one and thats with finale encounter almost being tpk to the party. Its really tense scenario and handles the dark subject well.

I was planning to rate this back in march when I run the scenario, but kinda forgot huh. Either way lot of year 6 Order Founder scenarios have really hard combat in scenarios that tend to easily run long time either due to amount of combat or roleplaying stuff.

I do remember this one having some kinda open questions like "wait, why are they doing this like this in character" but none of them bothered my immersion and I liked the latest version of ethical dilemma here even if I think paizo had already chosen which one they want to go with for rest of year at least. Either way, its kinda hard to rate scenario months later, but I decided on score based on how positive I feel afterwards. Its probably not most objective score, but I think I was informative enough here on what stuck out to my memory months later at least.

Its cool time shenanigans the scenario (I dunno how time mechanics actually work in either pathfinder or starfinder to say whether it breaks anything, but if it does, I assume it does because Project Dawn somehow) with couple supervillain type challenging encounters (that scale well for four player for change) and its really cool finale that doesn't stretch its welcome by having every single encounter being tanky as possible. So yeah, its very cool one. My only negatives are nitpicks (like that I do appreciate opportunities for roleplaying, but it is hard to make most use out of them in high level scenarios with more than 2 encounters without stretching over four hour session especially if you wanted to get most out of eight characters and also do super villain monologues during combat)

Agaisnt the Aeon Throne basically did same concept better because this one is restricted by Starfinder Society parties not being guaranteed to have any disguise or shapeshifting or even deception abilities. Like it feels bit stretch that after warning about how serious the mission is, all party full of pact worlds species(or vesk) would need to visit ASE Homeworld is "correct licenses". Basically, this spy mission feels too easy, even the "authorities take 20 minutes to arrive to middle class neighborhood" feels bit like "well that makes azlanti sound incompetent and not that big of threat". Final boss is difficult but fun though, at least for 4 player parties. SFS format also prevents exploration of fascist imperialist azlanti supremacist state outside of vague "non azlanti seem resigned, bitter and depressed" statements since it would be weird to roleplay azlanti discriminating party members in convention games.

It also has mechanically some weird bits like how none of skill challenges scale if there are only 4 players available. Scenario doesn't stop there, but it makes secondary success much much harder for 4 player parties which aren't unlikely at these levels.

So this book is another weird one. Because its a fairly brilliant planar shenanigans adventure with cool super old-school lore callbacks, held back by it being the final book of Edgewatch.

Like I did kinda expect there to be at least one encounter with chaotic outsiders in law enforcement campaign, but as the book says the complete switch to outsider-based adventures and recommendation to give pcs a chance to retrain their entire characters is a bit of a red flag.

Overall it kinda ends up giving me the feeling that AP outline provided to writers was kinda vague? Hard to tell since this ap didn't have a clear campaign outline in book 1, I kinda assume those are essentially fleshed out outline of what was given to writers after they were finished :'D Finished AP does make sure that there is at least one foreshadowing of something in previous books, but a lot of things here still come out of nowhere in how sudden they are.

But... Yeah, there is only one more thing I can say pre-spoiler tags: Ultimately final villain of AP is essentially a political one, in the AP that skips all scenes dealing with politics to focus on action. As a result, it comes across as "main bad guy pulled political victory, off-screen, somehow" since they have made only one cameo in ap as written so far, and political shenanigans on the background are never shown in this ap, so we don't know how they managed to make meteoritic raise from obscurity to top of city besides "blackmail and genius maneuvering". With previous book's big bad essentially being the AP's actual main big bad, it kinda ends up looking like you could easily end ap on book 5 and wrap up Gray Queen with "and she got arrested since you had derailed her plans and evidence Rumormonger had"*. Heck, the adventure itself feels like it would be more fitting for level 15 adventure, most of the enemies are powered-up versions of lower-level outsiders(likely because there weren't many bestiary options for writers at the time) and ultimately adventure is kinda low stakes even with big bad's divine spark. Like the forum suggestions on how to change the final book are really good at upping the stakes, with this one not having a "what happens if pcs fail" paragraph it kinda ends up feeling like "Well Absalom is already a corrupt city, so at worst there is now mad evil leader for while." Basically stakes aren't as legendary as adventure should have for level.

*honestly the original plan with Infector does kinda make it confusing how exactly Gray Queen managed to still do her part of the plan without Infector's part. Sure players won't know what the original plan was, but to GM it makes it seem like Infector's part was completely unnecessary since apparently it didn't take much of extra effort to pull off, somehow.

So yeah overall I like a lot of things about volume individually, but as whole as part of AP it suffers.

This book is a weird one to review since while I have a lot of feedback to give, I actually like the book. The "railroad" part isn't really as bad as I thought it would be based on general reception, though it does have stuff to criticize. I don't really do the thing where I'm like "premise shouldn't be done at all", I tend to review things from a "let's say I accept the premise, how it's done" perspective, for most parts at least. Especially since it's ultimately the end of the last book that sets up this premise. I do still that the premise is something that works better as premise of first adventure.

I mean it IS the premise of Outlaws of Alkenstar more or less. That ap isn't really about playing as criminals, its about playing a bunch of people who got framed and turned into fugitives working as agents for Alkenstar, so Outlaws kinda takes the premise of this book and also the whole secret agent aspect of the latter half of edgewatch. That ap could have been called Agents of Alkenstar instead. Its kinda weird how as a result we have two different bait-and-switch premises meaning we lack a town guard focused campaign and outlaw focused campaign.