CorvusMask's page

So hmm. This book has a kinda weird trend of starting with in media res in chapter 1, later on being in chapter 2 being like "if players felt cheated by chapter 1's start, you can soften things a bit here" and then in chapter 3 being like "if you players are very skeptical about the direction of adventure, convince them to trust you". Like there are multiple iterations of adventure being aware that it's involving something players might hate and then kinda being mixed on whether you should change things or stick to as written. It's kind of "Now listen, I know players usually hate mandated failure scenes, but trust me, it's going to be great this time!" energy.

It kinda feels like adventure has a tendency to use railroading to ensure the scene happens as cinema intended if that makes sense?

What is up with third books? Well this is the first book that frustrated players. Its kinda funny to realize in retrospect that its technically a filler book despite being Infector's "master plan".

This book is overall still good book, making it second best in AP I suppose, but it has its issues. If first book sets up the problems for rest of AP, this book is where cracks widen and start becoming noticeable.

Biggest issue overall is lack of guard pcs feeling like town guard. Whenever there is raid or operation, its assumed that PCs deal with it on their own with guard at best just circling building on outside to prevent escapes. Why? Because adventure is written to treat PCs like normal adventurers instead of town guard. Town guard's normal thing is coming with overwhelming numbers, but AP doesn't commit to exploring that feeling or in general providing feeling of comrade in arms. Other edgewatch officers from first book didn't get many appearances, but here they disappear completely.

Heck its kinda weird how little book does to justify leaving outside precipe quarters to solve crimes on other districts, you'd think Lavarsus would at least lampshade it. It kinda seems like Muckruckers and Sleepless Suns are all too happy to have Edgewatch's aid(Token Guard isn't even talked to) and Graycloaks are only one to complain about jurisdiction so clearly its not normal while Lavarsus/Ollo practically sends you out of precipe quarters to solve the case.

Well end result of that is that this book misses on opportunity to develop more connection to Edgewatch officers and Precipe Quarters in favor of setting up Twilight Four's plot being city wide. Plus and cons, but it starts of what results in book 3's bait and switch problem.

While book also says to give about week of break to PCs after first book(I have to note that its still weird how each eyes on absalom cover newspaper art implies the whole ap takes place in little over a month and how Radiant Festival's lenght implies ap has to take place in 3 months), it also is rather fast to throw pcs back into neck of things. Like I kinda wish there was more "mundane guard officer duty" like patrolling streets and solving civilian disputes, this is basically last book that does that, but everything here is connected to bank robbery and ultimately to big bad of the book.

But I digress, first chapter of the book is pretty decent crime solving(bank heist plan originally in game seemed silly, but reading it I actually get it now). Chapter 2 is were cracks start to be visible when pcs are thrown to take care of thieves guild on their own without backup, which at these levels is really exhausting and dangerous since it doesn't really feel natural to take 10 minute rests between combat.

Anyhoo, so chapter 1 is pretty fair even with lack of backup (muckruckers are poorly equipped, token guard is corrupt, okay, good enough excuses), chapter 2 has players fear high amount of enemies without backup, but oki, it could be worse. Chapter 3's dungeon is absolutely massive, has several overtuned enemies (and really tanky mooks) and pcs once again have to deal it without backup(it was tough even with gm having graycloaks help us). At least players should be able to rest until they have reached final part of dungeon (even if it feels bit odd to do that) but once they do retreat doesn't make sense anymore and final part of adventure is rather meatgrindery if party doesn't happen to counter enemies perfectly. If nothing else, it kinda started to feel like book assumes fighter and cleric in each party or something.

But okay, plot wise nothing too silly happens yet(only nitpick is editing mistake regarding two different description of what happens to big bad post capture, at least this book still remembers pcs are supposed to use nonlethal methods for most part) and worst of book is really the difficulty spikes being really harsh. At least you get to do crime investigation even with lack of back ups on raids.

Oh and Vudra article is good.

...Its also giant meatgrinder with multiple overtuned encounters and tpk opportunities at level 1 and at the final boss.

Its still best crime solving book out of entire ap, even with its issues(the labor strike/hostage thing as written is yikes in many ways), because this is before Twilight Four's nonsense starts, but part of why later book suffers is problems starting from this book.

Like for example, this book's adventure toolbox article lacks campaign outline that actually explains what is Twilight Four's history and plan, so GM has to put it together from over course of reading multiple books... And their plan seems to be kinda poor for master criminals.

Its hard to review Edgewatch books as a player who is now reading the ap because biggest problems of Edgewatch relate to ap as campaign. Like its fairly clear the AP would have been better as 3 part one, timescale of AP makes no sense(why does it need to take place during Radiant Festival exactly and why couldn't festival be as long as chicago's worldfair festival it seems to be inspired by?)

While this is also only book in ap that remembers players should prefer to use nonlethal combat methods(ap was clearly written with different assumption than player's guide), its also the one that misses opportunity to use automatic bonus progression rules or create campaign specific loot rules and instead just handwaves it with "edgewatch is acting with privateer laws for duration of ap"

Its also feels like straight up false advertising when this ap was promoted as police procedural ap while book itself says "Since the focus of this Adventure Path is fast-paced action rather than legal paperwork,"... Well I really disagree with take that town guard ap should be cop action movie, it really should have put more focus on crime solving and investigation and etc thing than just rushing pcs into next action scene with tiniest amount of downtime and breathers.

Devil at the Dreaming Palace in itself is memorable and brutal adventure, but yeah its best ap because its self contained from later books weird issues.

Its pretty much as advertised, its collection of Scoured Stars metaplot main scenarios adjusted level wise as milestone 1-15 adventure (and content wise with some encounters swapped or changed, some minor plot holes tweaked and some retcons and clarifications.)

There are some minor errors/confusions (I know ports of call said Thyr are from Bastiar-7 and so does this book, but this book also calls Bastiar-7 both ice giant and gas giant (with "icy rings of Bastiar-7" fitting ice giant better in my head at least) and description of "ice giant" Bastiar-8 fits with how Bastiar star's description says it has gas giant with three dozen moons with Bastiar-8 having most moons with missions in it. So either Thyr are from ice giant of Bastiar-7 or they are actually from Bastiar-8?) and with retcon of matoh being from scoured stars I'm curious which planet they are from. (all planet get briefly mentioned at least once besides Agillae-3, which I think I heard from forums is underwater planet, so I forget when that tidbit was originally revealed or if it was changed)

Clarifications I'm hyped for include Ailuros' title as herald and what happened to figures impaled on Jinsul Wargod ship ;D So lovely to see extra space being used to clarify things.

The book also sets up new jinsul bad guys for Starfinder 2e and does lot of hints about future plotlines, with mentions of Apostae Assignment and retcon about fifth mysterious shapeshifter civilization from scoured star that has resemblance to astrazoans. Overall I really got what I wanted from book :D Its really delicious to also get Starfinder Society history mini article, this really did good for SFS & metaplot lore in general

This scenario does have its issues, but its challenging and pretty much what I've been wanting to happen in this season. Like I think we had too many months in row with varying degree of light heartedness, this one we have classic scenario of meeting up with new people and investigating a mystery and this one does have its fair amount of gore and gravitas. Good drama is nice, though admittedly the amount of combat means there isn't really that much roleplaying time(its bit obvious to me that out of only few detailed characters which one is the bad guy, but I do personalities of keycast at least comes across through well and fast)

My first issue is that there isn't really introduction to Ukuja or Matanji orcs in scenario itself, so considering I think this is first scenario where pathfinder society makes contact with them its very much likely that society only players have no idea who they are or what the first wall is like. Second, and the main issue, is that there are lot of small editing errors that make me think there were behind the scenes production problems, like its kinda weird that first flip mat has "ante chamber" be located on what is clearly a chapel of church while second one seems to assume route to be linear to the final room, but the map itself seems like the two encounter rooms are so close to each other that enemies should be hearing the fighting.

(there is also that having one low, two moderate and one severe encounter especially at these levels likely takes more than 6 hours unless party happens to be optimal for situation. Like I think one of encounters could easily have been cut or at least there should have been two low encounters instead.

This one has kinda weird feature of featuring mostly being mechanically forgettable(hazards, weaker animals and elementals/fey) with most of interesting parts being lore regarding star guns and the retconning with syrinx.(still not sure I like philosopher owl badguys being kinda whitewashed to beloved cousins of strix since that is kinda opposite of what they started out as, but I do get why they got severe rewrite) It is always fun to face off another of bad guy group's members though.

My gm did great job with running this scenario so while I did notice it first time around, I didn't really let it bother me too much. But with season 5 around I've kinda gotten annoyed about light hearted stuff finally.

The main issue here being that I don't get why they introduced Biglock and Glovely AFTER what is supposed to be tense moment with big bad. Like... That is very much tension breaker. It just kinda makes Aslyn feel sillier. Those two also don't really have much of witch fairy tail theme going on, they feel like puppet show comedy duo, so they feel rather out of place here. (also I how is unseen servant awakened anyway? It kinda feels like two should really just be awakened chest or pair of magical intelligent gloves or maybe pair of ghosts possessing chest and gloves. Mimic plus unseeen servant duo just seems kinda random and now they are ogl'd.)

Year ago I was like "Eh its not my thing, other people like it decently" but this year I'm like "time to actually give feedback"...

...So uh... I just found the children to not be that memorable? I mean, their art is kinda ugly cute like pugs, their personalities are various form of children character archetypes. Aka... They don't really feel like linnorms?

Like idea of babysitting young dragons is perfectly up to my alley. But this adventure could have went for more xenofiction kind of approach where they could have treated children less like human children but large reptiles. As they are written, you could give exact characterization to giant toddlers and nothing would change about the characters. That really bothers me because it feels like good premise isn't used to its best to make something fascinating.

Like umm... What happens in this one? Bunch of shenanigans that distract you from doing your mission which are all kinda random and reliant on stuff like "npc gives semi long speech, then leaves before hearing you out". (also whats up with all the rats? It kinda feels like the minor joke about ratcatcher in treasure vault was expanded to "apparently rats are major invasive problem in dragon's vault" or something? It feels extra weird when implication was that kobolds' ratcatcher is doing really good job regarding them and Ziik doesn't even show up here. I kinda feel like Purepurin is less compelling in this adventure than in treasure vault book because uh... Who like npc who forces pcs to do things because they just didn't listen? Like I always saw Purepurin as more clumsy than kinda dumb? Well at least her art is nice due to retaining kobold mean edge

I'm still not super fan of "since goblins are core, now they are everywhere globally" thing (I kinda liked how in 1e the avistani ancestries were uncommon and tian xia had their own common ancestries) but the spicy chicken challenge just seems randomly thrown in because its supposed to be funny. Could it at least has been spicy dog meat or something?

That said scenario isn't particularly non-light either, so it does fit pattern of entire season so far feeling unusually light even if its higher level one, it does have lot of "we should give chance to people who made mistakes" vibes which is the second "lesson learned" thing in scenario.

But nothing in it even in the full context of the season is triggering my "Welp this is worrying" part of brain. Though it is slightly annoying to be reminded of when there is 2e and 1e goblin art in same scenario that 2e goblins aren't allowed to look edgy anymore :'D That gremlin like quality of them was really part of what made goblins fun. Now they tend to be just silly since they aren't allowed to have mean bone in them. Skittermanders in starfinder were amusing since they were like opposite of goblins, but goblins don't feel like opposite of skittermander anymore.

Well that sidetrack aside, its good investigation with interesting things to it. It does kinda efel funny though it seems to be using mix of remastered and current format with old npcs having alignment, new name dropped ones not having ones and term nephilim being used, though without recognizing Ayavah cameo I would have been confused of what kind of nephilim npc was. Like it made me realize that nephilim as term doesn't say much to me since it could be anything from aasimar to tiefling to aphorite to ganzi :'D I do hope paizo figures out clearer way to convey that kind of information to gm.

I mean, two kobold npcs being the ones with art given to them being really soft and cute is probably part of first impression, but it kinda seems like scenario is going for "wholesome inspiring" vibes? Or maybe I'm taking "inspiring hope" skill challenge too literally. There are opportunities to be nice to npcs and a wolf literally called "Good Boy".

My main observation here is that this is rather dense scenario, there is three encounters and a LOT of stuff to do. Like could easily see scenario running long.

Anyway, yeah, I don't feel like scenario feels too off tone wise(its not trying to be comedic at inappropriate times), though I guess I use this opportunity to say that I don't like Nixret's and Lolly's art are drawn so much differently from other kobolds, they kinda lack that mean looking edge. Still art looks better than kobolds from free rpg day one, those ones were super goofy.

Its... Extremely awkward for me to review scenario based on what is a wider PFS trend and tone/lore thing rather than scenario in vacuum or mechanics of the scenario. Especially when its something that doesn't bother me personally because I have extremely high suspension of disbelief. But its starting to gnaw on me ever since I've heard few players who don't tend to give feedback on paizo.com comment on it.

But yeah, there really is trend where increasingly every scenario tends to attempt include a npc that is clearly meant to be either memorable, endearing or silly through methods that kinda... Feels blatantly trying to be funny and kinda feels out of tone with rest of setting?

On bit of tangent, I do also kinda wish there was more examination of what society composed of non evil undead would be like. I kinda see non evil undead as something like BG3's Dark Urge, they have these invasive thoughts urging them to murder or otherwise showing antipathy towards living creatures, I think adventure kinda glosses over that interesting aspect by just providing solution on their need to feed(at least until crypt runs out I guess) and not discussing it further than that. I also can't help but wonder "so... Wait... Do all of these friendly ghouls lack the most uncanny valley traits of ghouls in the art? Where is the overly long tongues? Weirdly long tongues were cool!" Even besides none of ghouls demonstrating most ghoulish traits, the wider PFS has thing with them doing things in art that don't really make sense (like cute round eyeglasses on a reptilian snout) for sake of trying to make them look amusing or appealing?

Its... Yeah. Like whenever new kobold/goblin/leshy characters shows up in scenario nowadays, they always have that mascot like funny/cute quality going for them. They aren't really allowed to have gremlin or cool qualities in PFS anymore it feels like. And its not just mascot ancestries, last season introduced a comedy sketch duo. Then that scenario with linnorm children felt like it was downplaying gravitas of linnorms for a funny bit. This one has silly pirate. What I'm asking is "What is Pathfinder Society's tone supposed to be?" Are we supposed to take the world and npcs seriously or not? I don't think people complaining about more humorous stuff would complain if it was more funny* or if it was more seldom(frostfur captives was brilliant because it stood out from other scenarios) thing, but it feels like writers believe those kind of things are popular, so we are getting too much on tone trying to be "comedic" and its kinda watering down the whole mystery exploration and darker or serious themes of the setting. The npc in particular feels like he would fit much better in Battlezoo's Indigo Isles, wacky pirate tone is perfect fit for that setting.

*(as in, starfinder setting and SFS does delivering comedy and balancing it with seriousness much better. Its different to be silly and to be funny, you can be both, its accidentally easy to be just silly. It helps that its hard to feel anachronistic in scifi setting and that starfinder setting has more inbuilt silliness to it leading to that guardians of the galaxy like feeling, meaning suspension is disbelief is easier and tone is more consistent.)

Few months after running this, I've really soured on the "baby shark song" meme reference after someone made me realize that was what was up with the baby brine shark with completely different abilities from adult one :'D (also why does it have legs?)

(I do like the possible scene of certain someone uppercutting a shark, but yeah scenario is perhaps bit too light on the tone)

Oh right, just remembered I was also really really confused by the poem hint and how it was supposed to help characters. It just made players more confused.

Well first one is positive, but they didn't leave score on the site itself, so it high lights mostly the two one star reviews(I get feeling they might have been at same table or at least at paizocon online?) but I think I understand why after reading scenario. My own table experience had bad luck with party members having skills, but always interacting with npcs who asked for skills they didn't have xD (we did have good luck with rolls themselves, such as character with +1 diplo consistently rolling 18 on it)

But yeah, the thing with this one is that for most part its actually written as pretty freeform, so how it comes across is heavily gm dependent and table dependent. If players roleplay a ton it can stretch to feel longer than it is, or it could take about 2-3 hours. It IS pretty heavy on knowledge/social skills, but its not really a skill challenge scenario. Most of the skill checks are for flavor and the ones that aren't are really just for acquisitive faction goal and reporting conditions, but players likely don't know that so people frustrated with bad dice luck or skill combos will assume they are just bumbling around.

I do have some criticism though, some of the checks can impose -1 or -2 penalty on rolls which is actually pretty big for level 1 characters, so I think that one was bit of overkill. Still though its not difficult scenario and the edginess of the boss is fun

Ya know, its really refreshing to get AP plot line that's whole theme is about Age of Lost Omens :'D Like we sometimes get APs related to Aroden, or things started same year Age of Lost Omen's started(like worldwound), but its much rarer to get adventures directly about lost prophecies and such. Plus its nice to have first harrow themed adventure in 2e as well(note: interesting to notice that some of the names have changed like The Mute Hag to The Silent Hag. I don't know if it was old names were offensive, but paizo is playing it safe I see), I really liked Crimson Throne and have wanted to run carrion crown because it also has harrow theme but haven't yet gotten around to it :D

Anyway so a globe trotting artifact hunt ap with fun villains, cool lore callbacks(npc from The Harrowing makes a cameo :D seems like Harrowing will be referred to in next book as well) and interesting philosophical theme. This one starts in Absalom and makes use out of the Grand Bazaar book npcs which is cool to me.

I love how the high level adventures in 2e acknowledge the high level options, like multiple mentions of possibility of party having Talking corpse spell :D I also realized that I love the deck of destiny's mechanics and Harrow Court because its closest I'm gonna get to feeling of playing something like Hand of Fate(cool video game ;D) in trpg format. Though admittedly adventure does kinda remind me of Age of Ashes in that its also adventure that involves using portals to traveling to distant locations, but here it is in larger scale than just inner sea. We even get to visit Halana Theocracy(still wondering where do Syrinx live and if they have their own nation or just city states :D) Term "Mivanian" confused me at first because I first mistook it for Mivon related thing due to reading few letters wrong. Also surprised of the new category of fiends called lilu(from akkadian mythology) related to pazuzu. Its always neat to have new things.

But yaeh all of the cards being located in locations that explore newer of 2e lore is fun :3 Like I've been saying for while that finding out Vudra has hole in ground where horrifying aberrations grow up was one of my favorite details and we get to visit there and see the cool new flesh monsters in the bestiary :D Awesome ya. This is also first adventure where you get to visit Nagajor! (I think, I'm not sure of 1e pfs)

I'm also glad to see some old familiar monsters from 1e back such as rust devil and cabal devil :3 Man this one is just up to my alley

Okay, you could tell writer had tons of fun writing this one, this adventure infects you with enthusiasm reading it :'D I also see Augunas used chance to make prominent kitsune npc in the adventure xD But yeah as it is obvious I liked book a lot, so time to get nitpicks/oversights out of the way first:

Adventure acknowledges that Kuzori hasn't been member of Architects for long, but initial conversation with him makes it sound like he has been member of them long enough to grow guilty and suspicious, which feels weird since AP doesn't really have downtime so he could have been member of them for less than a week(or even just couple days) and his dialog seems more natural if he has been member for few weeks or months. That and I'm surprised Architects let newbie join them considering they kicked out everyone outside their club from Nexus, even if they put him to unimportant grunt work.

Oversights I noticed was that Zolas and Unwitting Programs don't have alignment listed in their statblock at all. I'm also confused of whether book assumes Zolas dies from the cascading glitch that happens post his surrender or if he survives but the glitch separates from his avatar.

I like what adventure tries to do with starship combat, but I don't know if it works in practice without trying it. Either way I'm worried of the possibility that only one character in party has piloting. Still though, the way minor screw actions work means the party might still be fine as long as more than one of them have good bab and dex.

I like that dataverse works like dreamscape and doesn't spend your real life items nor that you can bring them outside of dataverse, but it means the adventure kinda forgot at end of adventure to say "you are rewarded with three levels worth of money for your heroic deeds" :'D

Some of the math in adventure toolbox's additional uses for computer seem bit weird for me. Like identifying program is 10 + 4 × the level of the program. With max level of 10, that'd be dc 50 which is harder than level 20 challenging dc(before enhance at least). And one more nitpick before gushing: I wish Bright's message was as cool as Casandalee's and Epoch's ;D

So yeah this adventure made me kinda sad that Dataverse has such exclusive access to it because it really filled that part of me that loves megaman battle network, concept of decking and various cyberspaces from different cyberpunk settings :'D Like there is lot of fun stuff here, malware that is basically siren head, lot of programming and internet inside jokes like setting's version of Clippy(I almost wish there was EULA where Triune asks permission to use your private data ;P They seem to be gathering it without permission anyway, that's ground for being sued by Abadar! xD), I actually ended up feeling it would be cool to have more adventures in dataverse.

I also think the book ended up making decent justification for "Why this isn't level 20 adventure"(though tbh, solving drift crisis still sounds like level 13-20 ap to me) with

It is also neat that we got more insights into status quo post drift lanes in continuing the campaign article (and hey acknowledgment that Devourer's cult's fleet in drift was doing just fine during entire crisis with them just chilling out there it seems xD)

Also whoever dropped that new bit of Shivaska lore gets all praise from me x'D

Starting writing this review, I have no idea what end score will be. Thing is that I don't like braggart half of firebrands, I don't mind them, but I have heavy dislike of celebrity and social media influencer culture and mixing them with folk heroes doesn't really help that to me. However that doesn't mean book is necessarily bad, the "its good book about firebrands" and "I find firebrands great" ARE two different things, but it admittedly makes it really hard to review this one because that I prefer the more serious cloak and dagger revolutionary half does color my view on the parts that talk about the other half.

Well let's start with introduction and life as firebrand articles. While its not necessarily new information, I do find that this part of the book does make it easier to take firebrands more seriously as a whole. Like I can see the dynamic "serious firebrands are frustrated by the showoffs and then as showoffs pull of something unpredictable and random they have to redo their plans to incorporate showoffs into the plan". Its classic dynamic and players & npcs could be on either side of it. I really got feeling of "its not just because braggarts/blazes are good distractions, its also because they realized they really can't stop people from claiming they are firebrands anyway so they decided to roll with it" that I'm not sure if its intended, but it helps to sell me idea of why firebrands tolerate the braggarts.

Another thing that always bothered me is that the mark reputation system seemed to me to reward braggarts and incentive them to be even louder, but book made it seem like its actually more of a nebulous reputation system of "Who gets the job done and actually changes things for better" because book did do good job with selling idea that braggart firebrands have harder time standing out and are forced to spend lot of time on PR management if they hope to remain famous and not be forgotten. Meanwhile the quiet ones create lasting effect that is remembered.

That said, that is also part of my annoyance with this section, book tries to balance around both subtle and unsubtle firebrands as equals same time downplaying that "braggarts aren't all firebrands are" while also popping up constantly "that doesn't mean braggarts are completely left to dust as unimportant useful annoyances". Like... I do believe good aligned faction books should focus on showing good parts of the faction(otherwise I get flashbacks to how chronicles of the righteous keeps insulting celestials), but the firebrand book seems to ignore what makes sense in favor of "what is more funny".

Firebrands Braggarts make most sense if they were vocal minority that is infamous part of organization for both good and ill and if most of time they just went around making up stories and tall tales rather than actually doing explosive acts of flashy heists.(sidenote: I really need to see faction guide phantom thief council of thieves in 2e x'D) It makes sense to me that people might be inspired by stories of folk heroes and such. It doesn't make sense that "People claiming to be firebrand for wrong or evil reasons will get ousted by commoners eventually and because they know firebrands are good guys by reputation" because 1) real life shows that people can be manipulated to work against their own interest by propaganda 2) it doesn't make sense to me that small town in varisia would know about infamous act of firebrand flashery from cheliax because this is world before telecommunication, the news don't travel THAT far without major telephone game effect. The modern celebrity culture of firebrand braggarts makes more sense in starfinder than in pathfinder.

Heck its kinda weird idea that firebrands police themselves since isn't the whole point that they are decentralized cells of groups that can work together but are mostly independent? How the heck they can tell apart tyrannical government propaganda and actual false firebrand cell?

Like even disregarding my opinion that firebrand braggarts should be vocal minority instead of major part of the organization, I think firebrand braggarts would make more sense if 1) its acknowledged that information doesn't travel THAT far that fast in current pathfinder era 2) its acknowledged that their presence has both positive and negative influences on PR 3) that its acknowledges that they wouldn't be universally popular everywhere or that pretending to be firebrands is a valid tactic for tyrants. The later parts of book acknowledge the nuance of firebrands in good and bad, so why can't this article acknowledge it about the braggarts as well?

But yeah moving on to Firebrand Relationships: there are a lot of fun details here and first of the nuances I mentioned. Like pathfinder society is listed as both their ally and foe because sometimes firebrands and pathfinder clash on matter of glory and loot :'D Its also fun how one of sidebars mentions Rahadoum having retaken Khari from hell's vengeance's article so yay something cool slipped from it into canon xD Hellknight part just kinda reinforces idea that lot of Firebrands just troll hellknights because "lol its funny" though.

Among the firebrands articles are next starting with Factions. As said its nice to get the acknowledgement that most firebrand groups don't have long shelf life but that ones that do are quite interesting bunch. Lot of them lean more into "flashy" side(Fire's Finest kinda gives me mixed feelings because at same time I love idea of group of adventurers with giant robot, but at same time that sounds like disruptive group of npcs to use and they aren't really rebels, they ARE the annoying prankster type I was wary of. They are third mark for some reason, but I guess having giant robot makes you easily standout.) I do kinda like that some of firebrand cells demonstrate that there can be npcs in the world which show that even silly pcs can fit the world, but at same time if I find behavior obnoxious in PCs, I find it obnoxious in npcs and that includes making light of everything :'D still though all art including fire's finest is great, book in general has lot of great art.

Well that tangent took lot of word space, so quickly on other major factions: Nightwave(I much prefer Torius Vin but these guys fill the role of mostly good guy chaotic trickster pirate archetype and their leader is loveable enough despite being beginning of braggart firebrands when he declared himself one to escape Hurricane Queen's judgement), Salt Breakers(one of the serious rebel groups so I like them, much more than the other sea based group), Silver Ravens(nice to see them expanded further, kinda getting feeling that devs are working around hell's rebels pcs being unavailable by adding more important npcs to the faction), and there are some fun minor ones but most of them are silly jokey ones as lot of firebrand braggarts are...

On notable figures I won't comment much besides that some of minor ones mentioned are most gonzo characters ever mentioned in setting, and that while I like story of dead guy called Snackary Barkiss it does kinda just add to the feeling of firebrand spirit being "lol that was funny" based on my players being much less amused by the story. But yeah in short: This is coolest picture of Sapphire Butterfly so far(usually she looks kinda silly), Mockingbird is cool, I like Iishi Bunji and Karthival, and I like Passenger despite them being leader of Fire's Finest.(I don't need to specify I like the serious rebel ones right? Right?)

God article is good and I like all of new ones. Well okay Picoperi is just "Eh I think I would like him more if I didn't get annoyed by lot of prankster firebrands earlier in the book" x'D

Firebrand mechanical options are cool though and I like variety of them being spread to so many different archetypes. Some nice spells and items as well, even the silly ones work good for bards. Plus hey service table is great!

Best thing about firebrand effort? The continuation of the escapee groom picture ;D No seriously I just love the story continuing in pictures in new books. But yeah Vaunter's carnival is silly but article has nuance about local reactions and I think its fun enough. Mwangi Expanse article is good, but I'm not sure I like firebrands being able to see through Shosenbe's lies instantly. Not to mention the "any outsider can easily see through his empty promises" part kinda implies "they need outsider to save them!" storyline which isn't really something I'd like. I'd much prefer if they were skeptical of his stated goals(after all anyone who is now the new leader can suddenly turn back on their promises) and were trying to investigate more into him to uncover the truth. Old Cheliax: I like isger getting bit longer write up and in sidebar mention of certain hellknight centaur's sister ;D The Shackles: I like references to underwater stuff and reminders that Azlant exists, I don't like Mediogalti Island being target of firebrand pranks because it downplays scariness of red mantis.

Galt article is nice for telling us after math of night of the gray death. Katapesh one is where I have to comment on the real life thing: paizo might have rushed the abolition storyline, but I like that when they decided to do that, they didn't pretend it wasn't as sudden in universe as it was in real life, so as result they are now exploring consequences of it happening this fast both in Katapesh and in Cheliax.

Other campaigns also has a lot of neat details, but I'm getting exhausted. So any final nitpicks?... Well I had one thing I was slightly confused about but that got addressed in product thread

So if previous book was setup for "this is the situation" and also technically the one book where you help Casandalee's sect, this is where you help Epoch and Brigh sects and then take fight to Architects after clockwork museum. Architects were pretty much unseen in first book, but here they are constant threat(though I find it kinda amusing they are consistently evil in the kind of mustache twirling way since I always thought they were LN/N/CN extremists rather than actively malicious :D) and speaking of which, this book does great job at giving various foes you face tons of personality(it helps that almost all of them have a surrender threshold and interrogation information in the book), my favorites being the pahtra mercenary pair.

I do feel kinda like that Emerald-9 isn't as developed as either Maia or Grixia is, but either way I like that Grixia has chance to interact with party enough for party to get to know them (though admittedly npc article for Grixia would be really nice since its not same situation as that one attack of the swarm book where one npc showed up so much that we could learn their backstory from multiple scenes). Plus all recurring npcs get multiple chances to show off their personality which is awesome. And I like the one off npcs too (mostly Hikka because it means hiccup in finnish which is cute xP)

I admittedly kinda feel like the name of the ap is kinda like if Burnt Offerings was named "Attack of the Bunyips". Like it is cool name, but we have like only one Clockwork Demon in the clockwork museum ;D That said its kinda hard for me to rate how interesting the "dungeon" is without having run or play it, but it did stick out to me as memorable set piece with memorable encounters in there.

So yeah as fun of opportunities for roleplay, non violent problem solving and for chances to interrogate bad guys, this adventure has tons of things that appeal to me. Plus additional content in the articles is quite awesome.

Anything to nitpick? Well I was initially worried if first encounter is bit too soon considering its likely in same day as last encounter of last book, but on further examination it doesn't seem THAT bad. I also noticed few times where author sneakily saved text space by avoiding "(alignment species gender)" format for couple minor named npcs ;D

So this book is good overall, but it suffers from being the setup book for rest of ap. Since book 2 and 3 are about dealing with Architects, this book is mostly for showcasing effects of Drift Crisis on people of Alluvion, helping refugees and solving problem of The Dark district that existed before drift crisis but got made worse when it got populated by monsters from ethereal plane. I kinda feel like this adventure is lot more effective if GM has run players games in Alluvion before, kinda makes me wish there had been module there at least once, but it is cool to compare dead suns Alluvion article and Alluvion in crisis article(I wonder if we will get post drift crisis Alluvion in later book, maybe a planar one?)

I won't get into my usual "I wish starfinder aps had npc articles" soapbox, so instead I note that I like how many different npcs you get to meet and help during the different events(I also like they tend to come in group of threes, even if that isn't intentional(I suspect it is for lot of them) its nice nod to Triune xD). The various events give lot of good chances for PCs to be big dang heroes.

On reread of this, I was much less enthusiastic on the drone race and gambling segment. First time reading it I liked how many different solutions and options it had for pcs, I still do like that part of it. On this time I realized that it took six pages for one small side segment that feels disconnected from rest of book, like I get its supposed to be break from doom and gloom, but I think its kinda like how people's least favorite attack of the swarm book tends to be the one without any swarm units to fight. It also feels kinda weird to me that even though it got six pages to it, it feels like stuff got cut from editing(like I kinda expected at least mention of "And yeah obviously if characters didn't cheat, they are golden") Its still fun skill challenge/roleplaying segment, but I feel like I would have preferred it to be shorter and more page/text space dedicated to other things.(note: I also realize it serves the role as "during crisis people try to distract themselves with various things" showcase which is nice, but my issue here is that while its lengthy it doesn't really focus on that aspect a lot since primary goal is to "how to get this ysoki out of gambling debt" which isn't really related to thematic nature of the area itself.)

Then there is The Dark segment which feels kinda weird to me. The Dread has cool art and all, but its just big obstacle monster than villain or big bad of the book. But the biggest thing that bothers me about The Dark segment is that it simply comes down to fixing the power obelisk after which power is restored and cybernetics don't malfunction again. Like... Does that mean the locals could have fixed it at any time if they researched how to fix it, but took long time with it because they figured out "Its gotta be Triune's will that it isn't fixed yet"? I was kinda expecting The Dark segment to reveal WHY The Dark existed in first place, like that there was something in the area causing technology to malfunction or whether the negative energy plane collusion theory was right.(I guess it might still be right if undead are here because of combination of it and etherreal plane?) But considering none of the monsters are behind it as they appeared with drift crisis, and the ysoki having spent research on how to fix it, it really feels like "Oh... So it was ordinary malfunction all along?" Which just makes me wonder why Triune didn't bother fixing it or sending anyone to fix it. I guess Triune is hands off god who prefers their worshippers to solve problems on their own without being told to? Yeah I was expecting bigger answer or at least hints of grander mystery related to existence of the dark.

But yeah, as said, lot of stuff I like, but as setup book I think it needs something surprising to make it as exciting as books it is setting up. Its fairly what you would expect from the shop blurb premise

So high level 1e aps are always hard to rate because PCs always break them mechanically making them quite easy :P So in case of combat heavy dungeons with less roleplaying, it really comes down to how memorable encounters and how inspiring content itself is.

Well I have run this thought it was couple years ago so it isn't as fresh in my memory any longer, but I remember feeling mostly positive on dungeon being fun enough though it doesn't have my most memorable dungeon npcs or moments I think(it IS essentially book you can skip because its not super main story relevant). Still though rereading it I did feel warm and fuzzy on lot of small things(malenti are rarely seen and vampire aboleth is pretty memorable), art is great and there are fun bad guys here. One of things I really like is that the Q&A section with Auberon the Drowned is formatted in "this is what he knows about this topic" rather than giving exact quote from the character because I really find it more useful as gm when I can put it in my own (take of the character's) words rather than adjusting written dialog to fit party. I also like how dungeon has several dynamics part to it like that allying with the lich is possible and the local variant of "minion rivalry causes them to ally with pcs to kill each other" was amusing as well.

So yeah with fun articles and bestiary, I think its fair to give this one 4 even if mechanically all of baddies get killed rather easily by 1e characters :'D Sigh, maybe we can get 2e underwater shenanigans one day. I liked this ap a lot.

Taking break and coming to reread ap part with new eyes is sometimes really handy, while its easier to review aps as whole when you read all six parts in row, its much easier to notice strength and flaws of individual part when you aren't exhausted from reading all of them. In this case I can start that while I haven't run the adventure, I can tell that most of combats don't feel like they are there just for exp besides nyssholora one which feels like randomly out of nowhere pacing wise.(though I think lot of other people might feel otherwise about part 1) So I feel pretty decent about combat encounters even if I don't know how they feel like in practice.

But yeah, after reading this few years ago and rereading now, I kinda have to agree that yeah fly free or die IS railroady. Like, I get feeling that the dev in charge of ap and assigning ap books to different authors had really strong idea what kind of story role each books fills and writers went along with it? I could be wrong, but it feels like best way to run ap as written is to basically at start of campaign give players handout "here are all story arcs/acts, you can prepare in advance thinking how your character will develop into these acts" kind of thing <_< Like it goes beyond the whole "players will go from rag to riches back to rags and then get their revenge" story buying aspect of it, some parts of different ap books kinda make assumptions about characters about do or ap as written goes off rail, even if some of the books provided the minor branching paths pcs could take.

Its not really fault of the book itself since it applies to all six books as whole and I do think its entertainingly written and enjoyable to read, but admittedly pacing wise its kinda weird that this book starts with "After taking revenge on other person who screw them over and learning of bounty, pcs try to live normal life for while and ignore the larger problem". Like yeah in book or movie you could justify with it being clear how untouchable the big bad is, but in trpg campaign players tend to be very proactive. (lot of things like this make me think fly free or die as whole would work better as a video game)

What kinda surprisingly make this worse for me is that book acknowledges this with sidebar, which just makes me think devs should have figured out more natural way to do the part 1. Heck it doesn't help that at time part 1 seems to go with "Look, we all know this is that part of story, this part can't happen if all pcs have great disguises and nobody recognizes them" while still allowing some minor encounters to be avoided with disguises (and then in part 2 allows disguises to work again. Heck pcs really might be masters of disguise considering the heist earlier in the ap). It just feels railroady because the part 1 is derailed if players do anything that deviates from assumption of "pcs try to return to regular work and don't try to disguise themselves 24/7 in public"

Like... The story and writing itself gets across the bittersweet frustration of "man everything is going to s#*# again, ignoring the bounty doesn't work" but I just don't see what kind of party would actually need all three events to be convinced to do something about it rather than the first one at best? Dr. Gulm one especially feels like railroady (so random passerbies recognize pcs and his medicine instantly gets destroyed when combat starts unavoidably).

Part 2 is pretty much best part of the book and I like Smuggler's Moon. if Smuggler's Moon was its own standalone module it would be easy 3 or 4. But as part of this ap it feels kinda convenient? Its new location that is 1) distant enough that players could hide there and Sinjin couldn't contact other goons 2) it happens to have several people related to Sinjin 3) it happens to be perfectly reasonably to be taken over by pcs 4) one of its rules is that bounty hunting isn't allowed. Like.... I honestly don't mind that its very perfect location for pcs' purposes. What I mind is that its new location disconnected to events or characters from previous ap books. Like I feel like final confrontation with Sinjin should either take place somewhere familiar to PCs or Smuggler's Moon should have been introduced way earlier in earlier jobs or even as temporary hiding place for pcs. If this is space trucker ap then it could have been one of the common stopping points for pcs. Considering that book 5 is the "and now all your good deeds and friendships pay off" book, book 6 feels kinda disconnected from stuff pcs do personally even if its mentioned that their friends can still help them.

Part 3 in itself is just "here is an example plan, but your pcs could really just come across with any kind of other plan, but try to uses statblocks and ideas to help you plan out what happens" which is good. (though I do find it kinda amusing that example plan assumes that players trust certain character to do their job well considering players might have done same thing to him that Sinjin does to him as well xD) And I do like the possible fate of smuggler's moon and variants of it(maybe pcs take control of it, let it stay on status quo, improve things and maybe mend relationship between two characters, etc) and I do like Sinjin's anime transformation(might have preferred more of Yakuza game reference though ;D). So I do think there is lot of great things to the book(ursolha from bestiary are one of my favorite monsters btw) but yeaaaaaaah.

Part 1's pacing in bigger campaign and weird zig zagging between "players can use their skills to minimize harm" and "sorry, but this is spot where things go bad because they get recognized" and "Your players might not need any convincing to go after Sinjin, but here is 15 pages of things going wrong to convince them to do so also so that they have enough exp but hey you can just replace them with assassins if needed to" combined with how part 2 feels disconnected from grander ap is what brings down my rating for this one. I don't think its badly written or anything and most of problems with it as problems with ap as the whole, but I really do feel like smuggler's moon would work better as standalone or gm should introduce it as much earlier as much more important location to pcs for this book to work better.

Maybe its because drift case files put me in investigation mood, but after rereading this years later, wow I don't think I had ever really noticed how good adventure this one actually is. The investigation section is detailed(and has lot of variances and events that all groups might not even see), all combats are unique and have interesting premises(I am bad at commenting how encounters work mechanically without running them, but its easy for me to tell when encounters are flavorful, have interesting roleplaying opportunities or goals for pcs :D Like there aren't repeat "and now players fight these mooks again", all of combat scenarios are unique situations), the finale of the ap is quite fitting and "epic"(I like how eerie and unusual it is. It manages to make our mystery bad guy who we don't know anything about fun one xD)) and even the continuing the campaign articles are great hooks.

This is also one of few aps that has been canonized by Devastation Ark confirming which members won the elections being the same ones from this book :D

But yeah, I wasn't sold on all books in this ap, but it ends on great note.

So I still find this one bit hard to review since it IS mostly combat encounters, but after four years of time since I first read this I think I've seen enough starfinder adventures and run campaigns to have better impression of material even without seeing it in practice.

And in this case, that experience tells me that Solar Strike feels weirdly incomplete outside of combat materials. Like, DCI npcs can come with you, but the adventure doesn't ever tell what they can or might do during the adventure(outside of like two mentions of them tearing up or being excited at the end). Like all burden of them is put on GM and there isn't guidance for how they react to things, how they can mechanically help PCs or anything really. It feels like "Well what if players don't take them with them? Better to not waste page pace on what happens if they do". Starfinder in general is kinda awkward about how to handle npcs being interesting, I think some of later adventures does it bit better, but its consistently one of biggest issues I have with adventures, so I think even though this is four year old ap the feedback on this should still be useful to paizo.

One of the things that really feel incomplete to me is that there is constant recurring mention of the mole working for bad guys and his twin brother which he really wants pcs to rescue once he is unmasked. Well you'd think the consistent mentions are building up to something, but nah his twin brother is dead by time pcs find him. Was he dead all along, did he die when he failed to capture pcs, is he still alive if he DID somehow successfully deliver pcs as prisoners, adventure doesn't make explain that or make any further mention of either mole or his dead twin making it feel like something got cut out from draft by editors. Like it being bummer downer ending is fine, but in that case I would expect one final mention of mole's reaction at his twin bro's fate, but nah its just ends and gm again has to figure out what to do if players somehow got invested to that minor subplot.

Yeah there are lot of these small non combat things that feel just kinda off. Like one npc its mentioned that if they die, then more resistance members die at the end during the big fight, but there isn't really any context on how many (besides "less than expected") die in first place, so does that mean if they died then they took about as many casualties as they would have expected? It feels like throwaway line "GM: Oh, there are consequences for pcs failing this part? Players: Well what is it? GM: Umm more people died? Players: How many more? GM: Err, more." Like was there supposed to be some sort of "pcs get victory points, more they get less losses" mechanic that got cut or is it just attempt to give extra consequences for pc failure that doesn't really clarify how big of consequences are?

But yeah map quality is still great and I do think there are some nice possibly memorable combat scenarios. But my favorite parts of the book really are the Bestiary, anassanois' city article and Deep Cultures article. I do like the cheeky nod to Outpost Zed(i've noticed that after against the aeon throne, Outpost Zed has gotten so many cameos even though none of APs have been canonized into timeline yet. I still hope that happens at some point because it needs to be acknowledged that all Eloritu runes have been discovered by now on side of new locations being introduced x'D). But yeah, anassanois and other deep cultures better make future appearances ;D Adventure itself is pretty okay, but I don't feel comfortable with giving this one four stars just because I like articles, the adventure feeling weirdly off regarding non combat stuff puts the overall nature of it down for me even if it turned out all combats are super fun in practice.

I was personally hoping for two more modules tho fill 13-20 gaps more(its great devastation ark is a thing, but its even better if we have two high level module series ;D I mean imagine things we don't have yet of examples in starfinder! level 20 starship combat, vehicle combat, soloboss, DA final boss fight was kinda on easier side. Or mechs! We haven't had many mech adventures, but having more of them would be good! But for real, having multiple reference points of high level content is useful for designing your own high level content) but I'm not getting more into that or my worries about future of module line here. There is however one negative I have to get out of the way first.

That being that the product seems kinda confused on its nature? I mean, it provides references to Starfinder Society Scenarios, provides level ranges for adventures as if it was SFS, but its still campaign mode only in the sanctioned chronicles. Like... I just don't like seeing the "level ranges" outside of the scenarios? Like scoured stars hardcover book is also SFS related thing, so I'm confused if this is testing grounds for future product formatting. If it is, I'd like to say that I would prefer to not mix SFS' formating style with standard adventure's leveling up systems. (I'm also hardcore exp system user x'D so paizo better not to move using milestones as standard with excuse of "that is what most people do nowadays")

One more nitpick that also isn't really related to adventure itself: it feels bit sad this is final non drift hackers drift crisis content because it really highlights how underused the drift crisis event felt. Like it ends up feeling in retrospect it was just excuse to change how drift works in setting but that paizo didn't commit to creating more drift crisis content for the year means it doesn't really "feel" like it was as important as it is in universe.

But yeah with my baggage out of the way, this book is great example of why anthology adventure books are awesome and we need more of them :P all the individual adventures are strong and none of them feel like filler to get to the cool point writers wants to write but can't yet. Heavy focus and effective presentation(such as with contact codex and it being incorporated into adventure text) on investigation theme is also appreciated as its bringing more changes for roleplaying that skill challenges you see in SFS usually don't. I feel that anthology format is also great for providing adventures where players are members of particular organization. For example, you don't need to convince players to play hellknight campaign, you can suggest them couple of longer oneshots to play as hellknights.

I feel like contact codex in general is step to right direction as it feels like we are almost having npc articles in adventures once again :D (though most of investigation adventures don't need them as much because as part of investigation you will learn lot about the characters, which is why it was smart move to make it about your informants and contacts) they aren't as detailed, but having full page of influence info for sidecast of your investigation is great and its great that they are actually incorporated into adventures even if some of them are optional sources of information.

Other thing that I love about these three adventures is that most of the characters aren't evil, even if they are creeps or doing bad things. It gives characters nuance that most of them aren't treated as pure evil so pcs are able to come to their own conclusions.

There is some shifting of art styles, but I like that they mostly stick to same art style in a particular adventure. Also use of flip mats, but the new maps are great looking as in most starfinder maps I've seen. Now onto adventures themselves:

Charmed Life: Fun family drama, I kinda like the L vs C thing going on here. I do feel adventure is more sympathetic to pirate side of things(they might be doing somewhat of robin hood thing, but I kinda associate space pirates with armed assault and robbery) and I do think one of the hellknights needed cooler more edgier armor. Still its great and fun family drama.

Family Heirloom: I love twists and turns with this one. I was initially wondering about ending and whether it feels like some sort of sequel hook, but I ended up liking that adventure doesn't do "btw its impossible for party to figure this out" and instead it made pretty good case of "even if party figure it out, how do they prove it or what would they do about it?" Either way a great story about multiple different people's priorities clashing together.

Twisted Business: Without spoiling much about this, it feels like it could be season finale of detective shows. As said good stuff, all three adventures are great and provide good variety.

EDIT: Oh right forgot I had one more comment:

I do think there are examples in the adventure that show there needs to be more oversight to keep lore consistent. Like second adventure seems to assume that Hylax the Forever Queen is physically present on Nchak when that is more of in universe belief philosopher worms have and its unconfirmed whether Forever Queen of Nchak (pictured in 1e distant worlds iirc) is physical avatar of Hylax or not.

Other thing is that third adventure has one encounter that seems to assume that fiends return to their plane upon defeat when fiends do in fact die in pathfinder/starfinder.