David_Bross's page

This scenario has a lot of really cool stuff going on. That said, it is entirely too long. There is no optional encounter, and the terrain is used to great effect, but are two complicated terrain encounters necessary? Furthermore, the time/distance between parts of the scenario should be clarified. This was not helped by the mechanic for traveling in the compound, which felt a bit like needlessly ticking off charges of CLW.

Finally, regarding individual combats

I've only GMed the 1-2 subtier at paizocon, and that was an incomplete playtest, so I'd imagine that not having the final piece of the scenario hurts, as our table got very repetitive at certain points. The scenario is a class dungeon romp, with pathfinders delving into the ruin to discover the secrets of this large dungeon. I like the tie-ins between the Year of the Demon and the Year of the Sacred Key, and this is an excellent kickoff for the latter.

I think higher tiers do much better, in that they have a lot more to pull from (based on what I read), and I think that the final completed product does a better job not requiring so many successes to kill time at certain points in the scenario. I may revisit the "repetitive" review when I GM this later on the full version.

I will say this scenario made excellent use of non-traditional damage resources and party resource drains at the 1-2 subtier.

Anyone who played Bonekeep part 1 knew that part 2 would follow suit, and it does. Excellent challenging scenario that rewards the prepared, and punishes others. If there is one element I dislike in this one it is how the boons played out.

I loved the NPCs. I loved GMing this. I loved playing this. I played it with my Ulfen barbarian and had the best time ever in this scenario.

You're asked to go assist a friend of the society, and wind up investigating what is wrong with him. The investigation part is rather short, but that is alright, since you end up on a fairly straight and narrow path to carry out some vengeance.

This scenario has a fantastic premise, you've been invited to a dinner party. It has rich NPCs, involves the PC in the role-play along with them, and then the rest of the scenario follows.

This scenario suggests what actions the PCs take, and they are given some sense of urgency on some elements, but in the end the PCs skill checks and course of action determines exactly how the scenario goes. As a player driven scenario I love the design choice here. I'm less crazy about the faction missions which are no longer called out in scenario blurbs, although apparently knowing continents rather than nations would help here.

I'd also agree that the scenario is lengthy.

This scenario suffers from a number of issues, the foremost of which, is the feat Technologist, which basically guarantees almost nothing in this scenario can be done with skill checks. This wouldn't bother me, except it also has the consequence of making all the of the neat technological items that PCs recover unable to be identified. After you get past that basically nothing in the scenarios can be discovered by the PCs you have brutal combats, and NPCs who you can get epiphany points with, but unless you get enough, you'll never really get the opportunity to get more. The ways you could get additional ones just aren't very obvious. I'm not sure how to fix technologist without amending how it works in PFS, because as it is, having the ability to have one PC participate in 7 scenarios backstories and skill checks just seems very poor.

This scenario has a very sand boxy feel, with you investigating what exactly is going on and who you have to deal with to secure the mission objectives. The combats are good, although the final one has some minor issues in how you initiate/ how you reach the area. These issues are the main reason I detract 1 star.

I may be biased as I played this with my wild speech druid who is forever in tiger form. In "Rats of Round Mountain" how could this be anything but awesome? I will say that part 1 is better though.

The role-play in this scenario is fantastically fun and the final fight is memorable and awesome. I personally love the fact that this is mostly a social scenario and that the combats in it are both memorable and challenging.

This scenario has a good plot, which I agree can be somewhat limited by the fact that people who don't play the earlier seasons don't necessarily know the NPCs. The final fight in particular is one of the most memorable ones in a 1-7 scenario, although I agree that it is probably a bit much in the 1-2 subtier. Personally I've run it in 3-4 and played it at 6-7 and found both fantastic.

Everyone loves Fey right? One particular encounter can be somewhat lethal in the 1-2 subtier, but generally the challenge level is just right. Furthermore the premise of the scenario and the execution are fantastic. This is a fun scenario, and should be taken for what it is.

I love this scenario. It is has memorable fights, memorable haunts, and a great story and vibe to it.

More Jim Groves please!

I enjoyed most of this scenario but did not enjoy the fact that we pretty much auto failed the chase. That said, I read up on it after the fact and realized our GM ran the chase incorrectly. The rest of the scenario was a fairly standard dungeon crawl and I enjoyed it.

This scenario is just fun. The BBEG is memorable, and it all starts off with such a funny premise. There is plenty of role-play, fun combats, and generally stuff to keep your PCs guessing.

More of this author please!

I love challenging encounters and creepy places that make your bones crawl. This scenario has both in spades! It starts off so innocently, go check on those old ruins….

That said

This is a fun scenario with some large scale combats. I think some of the combats could have been improved some, and allowing some diplomatic resolution of some conditions would have been nice.

I love the plot of this scenario and certain elements. One encounter in particular is challenging to run with any sense of realism, and the way we ran it was to have one PC with the GM at a time, recapping turns. Time consuming, but we got through it. Generally the encounters in this scenario fall flat compared to the earlier scenario, but as I posted in the reviews of previous ones, its hard to compete with the raw flow of gold into PCs.

I had a good time playing it, and the final encounter is memorable, even if it could use a little tuning in terms of difficulty.

I played through this on my wild shaped druid who never left tiger form and has wild speech. Needless to say, I enjoyed the role-play scenes of this scenario a ton, and I had a great time playing it. The combats hold up very well, and again inventive use of monsters keeps them fresh. I think at this point the amount of gold received by the PCs, if nothing else, starts to make them powerhouses and it is expecting a lot of any scenario to challenge them, but this gave it a very valiant effort.

This scenario has some memorable encounters in it, although nothing to the standards of part 1. Your GM's prep and use of certain creatures really determines the difficulty here. There are plenty of nasty tricks that can be played, and at this level, you should be expecting them.

This is a fantastic scenario that kicks off high level play. It is easily my favorite scenario to date, with the difficulty easily scaling depending on your group (and in fact calling to do so).

I GMed this last night for several people who were newer to Pathfinder and a few veteran players, and generally speaking they enjoyed it. This is a good scenario with amble opportunity for role-play and some fun, if somewhat weak combats. Generally speaking quantity in a 1-5 means fairly weak bad guys, and with the exception of one fight, that is what you get.

I agree with other reviews that state this is a good scenario for newer people to PFS. Well built PCs will easily trounce through the combats.

Excellent water based scenario. You know you're looking for something in the Flotsam Graveyard, and looking for something like this to me is an actual PFS mission. It'd be nice if there was a bit more opportunity for role-play in some of the encounters, as there isn't a huge reason that it wasn't put in, and there still would have been plenty of combat with that minor tweak.

The high tier scenario has a particularly deadly encounter in it, so if that detracts for you, beware.

I loved the mix of challenging combat and role-play in this scenario. If tactics aren't followed then the penultimate fight can be especially lethal, particularly in the upper subtier.

This was a really enjoyable low level scenario that rewards PCs making skill checks, enables role-play, and has some enjoyable combats.

This said in the 1-2 subtier a particular encounter* could turn rather lethal using the tactics written, the editing has already been mentioned, and the part of the plot is rather convoluted**.

This scenario would have been ok, if slightly on the long side, for a normal 7-11. It simply lacks that epic feeling that S4 ended on. I'm not saying every season ender needs to have the fate of Golarion on the line, but it should feel epic. I realize that with the development of a new seeker arc in the line we are probably looking at more "epic" there, but I was certainly let down by the scenario.

Also, our GM spiced things up according to the tactics as written, and I'm glad he did, because if not we would have been sorely disappointed in the final encounter.

I can understand this given the reviews of other "killer" 7-11s, but this I'd much rather have a few good challenging combat encounters in a 7-11 than scenarios that just give multiple weak encounters. Personally I don't mind the killer ones at this tier.