What made this whole scenario work for my party was Hustavan. The comic relief and situations they found themselves in wouldn't have been half as much fun without him around. At low tier, they had a hard time finding the multiple traps, and thus became overly-cautious, which is the intent from Mr Frost's comments. It did slow the game down a bit as they checked every situation for a while.
The encounters were fairly bland and the BBEG wasn't very difficult to defeat, but the tension was real getting there and the foolishness of Hustavan kept everyone laughing.
All in all, the scenario without the comic relief might not have been more than a low 3-star adventure, so be careful if you struggle to GM the follow-on character. Ultimately, in our game, it was one of the more fun times we've had at the table.
Played this over the weekend with a table of 4 at low (8-9) tier. The concept was good and the players loved the unique feel. One said it was Star Trek-like (I think that was a compliment?).
The initial combat with the ship's defenses was outstanding. Challenging and thematic they struggled against it at first, but eventually their superior firepower took over.
The first battle below decks was well done. Difficult but not impossible.
The exploration of the ship, which is poorly laid out in the adventure--the GM having to flip back and forth between area description and encounter descriptions, was a little choppy. The teleportation mechanisms and the area descriptions were light on detail and the consequences for messing with one of the parts ended up killing a well-loved animal companion (could've been a PC, but random selection got the animal).
The ending was another combat slugfest which they liked. At the very end, the scenario suggests the party has one hour to leave the ship, but doesn't detail how that can be accomplished. Some of the teleportation devices look to only work one direction and the strange portal is specifically said to be one-way. I had to fudge that part quite a bit.
Would recommend for the uniqueness of it, but don't get too bogged down in what's missing.
This was fun for my home game. The puzzle stymied the group at first, but they solved it after a few run-throughs. The crazy painter was hammed way up and they liked that also.
The scenario really should come with an unkeyed map of Cassomir, which is required to solve the puzzles. I could've gotten a wiped PDF, but didn't realize the hidden location was keyed on the map before we started. That should really be hidden or have a blank map as a handout.
The combats were light, with a touch of challenge at tier 3-4. The final combat was "anticlimactically easy" according to one player. They liked seeing the recurring villain who they thought they had dispatched in part 1.
All in all good, not great, with a technical problem to overcome before diving in as GM.
Ran this for a group of 5 players at lower subtier. All in all, between the chaos of Act 1, the roleplaying in Act 4, and the bad guy in Act 3, they had the most fun playing this of any of the Season 0 scenarios so far.
The good: strong story, fun battle scene in Act 1, and very difficult enemy in Act 3. Great RP opportunities in Act 1 and Act 4.
The bad: The act 2 bad guys were pushovers. The BBEG is not very tough against this level heroes. Even with his minions the fight was over in two rounds, and very anticlimactic compared with the combat vs the cover enemy in Act 3.
Overall, based on my own opinion and that expressed by my players, this was the best Season Zero, and one of the best scenarios of any season, we have played/run.
GM'ed today for table of 4 in 6-7 tier. Players had fun with initial encounter even if it ended quickly. The bits of RP and investigation go well with the theme of the adventure, and they players were quickly into it.
The only complaint is the chase scene. Having run chase scenes before in AP's and PFS, I am familiar with the mechanics but this one seemed off, and was over quickly. Depending on initiative order, the players caught the Mauler before he could even act, so what might have been fun turned out sour.
The final fight was a challenge until the barbarian made a critical hit. The players commented how good the scenario was without an provocation, so I guess that's a good sign.
