Djarrus Gost

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Goblin Squad Member. **** Pathfinder Society GM. 11 posts (56 including aliases). 47 reviews. No lists. 1 wishlist. 84 Organized Play characters.



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A Great Escape!

5/5

The scenario deals with smuggling refugees out of a dictatorship. It scores high in terms of capturing the feel of such endeavors.

There are a variety of approaches that PCs might take; each requiring ingenuity, some leading to unforeseen consequences or costs, and all leading to tough choices.

The NPCs include a fine range of characters that tend to populate totalitarian cities, each compelled by circumstances to be secretive and suspicious in different ways.

The personalities of these ordinary people really makes this scenario special. The scenario makes it very hard to know who to trust, which forces PCs to make educated gambles vis such trust -- leading to real suspense.

Lysle has a real winner with this scenario!


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Great fights!

4/5

The scenario has a number a good story points.

There are a variety of fights that are differently challenging to different groups. While it's possible, I guess, for “just the right party” to breeze through every fight, or to be in danger of party wipe in every fight, it seems to me likeliest that most parties will have a good mix of “oh-my-G-d-we're-all-going-to-die" moments, and fights in which they can feel their characters to be “in control” of the situation. The scaling of the fights seemed right – they nicely avoided the boring old “add some more X” methods.

The fights also encourage/permit innovation in movement and terrain use. A real swashbuckling element, usually missing in “indoor” fights.

The adversaries and others are interesting, with interesting motivations.

Unfortunately, the physical layout of the maps seemed poor. Out of game the tiles are so obnoxious to assemble that we end up laying out other terrain pieces “close enough.” I am glad that the battle areas/maps were “compact” – it gave a claustrophobic sense of the encounters, and kept the table from being too crowded!

In-game, the history/design of layouts makes no sense. Who the Heck would plan the design of a building to leave X in that space, a Y in that space, and/or a Z in that space? Places need to make sense for suspension of disbelief, just as NPCs and adversaries do.

I'm not usually a huge fan of dungeon crawls, but this was exceptional. Definitely worthwhile, but not everything that it could have been with more careful editing.


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A little linear

3/5

The NPCs are good. And there are some well scripted scenes.

But as with anything, the advantages also signal the disadvantages. Good NPCs are "protected" -- the module scripted to keep one from find out too much before it's time. And the scripted scenes, by definition, beg to be played -- which means a significant degree of linear movement through the adventure, and the inability to have the excitement of resolving or discovering something on one's own time.


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Great!!!

5/5

This is a wonderful man-vs-nature scenario. The tests were interesting, challenging, and could be approached in any number of ways. Good opportunities for innovation in combat, too.


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A scenario that does its job

3/5

This introduces major NPCs and some lore.

The mini-quests feel a little too "insignificant" in the context of major NPCs sendng you off on errands during a party -- but once they are underway, and you forget the context, they are individually interesting.


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Nice try

2/5

Disappointing. The main combat is not challenging and a little too virtual, getting rid of much tactical challenge or choice. The fact that it includes an element that can just make a player twiddle her/his thumbs for a while does not add any joy. The rolplay encounters a little bit too straight and by the book, too.


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Breathing life into some lore

5/5

The feel of this scenario was great. The lore explored didn't feel tacked on, but part of and woven into the scenario. There were a variety of approaches to the challenges given.


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Not exactly an adventure scenario . . .

3/5

The scenario was almost a scenario of my favorite sort -- a man vs nature story, that offers interesting skill challenges, and demands inventiveness.

But, except for one unavoidable combat encounter, there was no feeling of risk for most of the scenario. And that's because all of the challenges are essentially part of a carefully monitored track-and-field meet being carefully overseen by rangers and woodsmen who make sure the PCs are "fit enough" for the next challenge.

Responsibility was not on the PCs. Threat did not hang over the scenario. There is some effort to raise tension by dropping hints about the combat encounter -- but as every scenario has at least one combat encounter, it didn't add any feeling of suspense.


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A very well structured quest

4/5

The scenario is mostly about a reasonably challenging fight at the end. But the fight was integrated into and with interesting checks and NPCs along the way, which meant that the fight was part of the story, rather than being only a tactical encounter.


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Solid repeatable quest

4/5

Dungeons are not my favorite settings . . . They are limited, tend to be linear. But they are reasonably good for repeatable scenarios -- vehicles for new tests or challenges.

This one isn't bad. Complete with an interesting NPC interaction. Yes, worth repeating.


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Very strong for a replayable scenario

4/5

This scenario offers something I like to see in Pathfinder scenarios -- finding paths. The forest path and built-in mystery add some sense of urgency, trying to catch up to the lost caravan. There is a sense of burden on the PCs to choose wisely how much time they spend gathering information, because of the realization that the longer they take picking a direction, the likelier it is that they will find the caravan too late.

The spiritual visitors seemed a little too slapped on. The same sort of challenge and information could have come from a more corporeal source. But that's a personal preference -- using something magical or other-worldly for an un-magical effect feels to me de-mystifying.


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A mixed bag

3/5

Combat was not particularly interesting in this scenario. The stakes generally were high enough, but it didn't feel like the PCs had much stake. The NPCs, putting more trust than is sensible into the characters, did not increase any sense of investment -- it gave the PCs the feel of Mary-Sure characters.

What the adventure really had going for it, is that the PCs are really left to figure out how to approach the situation. An opportunity for each character to be her/himself, do what s/he does best, and let personality shine, is always fun for everyone at the table; it lets them take ownership of the scenario.


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Not a bad little quest

3/5

There's a martial arts movie feel to this one. The tropes are amusing, but can be a little tiring. I liked it as a tactical scenario, but the "get the widget back" plot didn't really create a lot of sense of investment in the outcome.


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Fun enough

3/5

We had a good GM, which helped the scenario along quite a lot.

The scenario suffers a bit from role-playing encounters at the start that remove player agency (being told/asked to take on and voice particular roles). Combat encounters that remove such agency are bad enough, but when the scenario already has a conclusion written as well as the path to get there, there isn't much left.

Once down to the scenario proper, though, it picks up. Combat is not particularly challenging, but the tone and tenor, flavor, and mechanics, make up for those shortcomings.


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No

1/5

The pregen characters are weak and uninteresting. If one must use them in an adventure, the plot has to be more engaging and tell more of a story.

The skill test wasn't. No strategy, no challenge, and ending up in the same place -- a waste of time.

And combat was too random to be engaging -- and against a foe that could leave people out of play for too long, perhaps only making 1-2 characters relevant.


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Something of a slog

2/5

There were a lot of combat encounters. They had good flavor, but were not chat challenging.

The module itself seemed to rely on tone and tenor a lot. But it didn't engage or click, feeling a little hollow.


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Not fun

1/5

The combats were tough, but not engaging. In particular the last battle, that leaves some players essentially waiting (and rolling) turn after turn, to see if it will be possible for their characters to participate.

Nothing interesting skill-wise came up. NPCs were not particularly engaging.

Kudos for trying something interesting tactically in the last fight; but cancelled by having done something that limited character choice and responsibility, rather than offering tough alternatives.


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OK . . . but

2/5

This scenario seemed to be mostly about product sales, introducing the new lizard-folk society. The Iruxi were presented in a spotlight as something so very new and exotic -- but were just a "normal" scale fantasy spin. Adding more spotlights didn't help.

I felt like the PCs were not invited to roleplay *with* this new society -- but to be a trigger point for descriptions *of* this new society.

The challenges were fun, but not particularly challenging.


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Surprised and pleased!

4/5

I am surprised and pleased!
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Let's face it, most PFS scenarios are walks in the park, designed to grind through levels, where the worst disaster to befall most parties is the loss of a second prestige point (gasp), or maybe the use of expendable slightly more resources than the 1/4 the gp reward. The greatest scenarios are, of course, the ones that pose challenges; eg Bonekeep, The Haunting of Hinojai, The Waking Rune.
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Well, this isn't that tough, but -- at least with the foe we faced -- it was tougher than the bulk of PFS scenarios. And it's evergreen! If the other enemies are equally challenging (or more challenging) this will be an awesome replay!
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Yes, the pretext for the adventure is weak. But it's a reasonable excuse for a dungeon crawl. It's hard to make a replayable scenario in which NPC interactions and character motivations change; it's doable, but I wouldn't count on it.


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Thank you, Kurtis!

5/5

This is a great addition. There is a special joy that comes from seeing characters (from any media) that make you smile, in this format. Perhaps this is the first of several from Paizo? The characters are well designed, and pleasantly tongue-in-cheek (especially equipment lists). The use of teamwork feats to show how they work together is also a bonus.

I'm sold. This month I will be running a re-skinned PFS scenario for this world and these pre-gens. If it goes well, perhaps this will be the first of several? https://tinyurl.com/pjqjr2r

Thank you, Kurtis!


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Boring . . .

2/5

I usually love specials. This one, not so much.

One long running combat. The extent of player choice was "Which part of the city would you like to help defend now? Not that you will have any hint about the nature of the challenge or the fight until you get there."

I don't mind interesting tactical encounters. But for a special? Where all sorts of players and all sorts of players play?

Not to mention the one cool thing about most specials is the capacity for tables to interact. It was killed in this special, and replaced by "see what parts of the city have cleared up a bit so you know which other tables to root for."

Will I take a hand at GMing it? Maybe, mostly because I love running specials. I will purchase it when it's out and decide whether or not there is enough room to breathe some personality into the encounters.

I can't believe this is the guy who gave us Blakrose Matrimony and Song of the Sea Witch, or the guy who gave us The Disappeared or The Dog Pharaoh's Tombe!


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A GREAT roleplay scenario

5/5

This scenario has plenty of tough challenges; scaled just right for the group I ran (sub tier 1-2, one lvl 3 one lvl 2 four lvl 1). But there is not one moment -- including the midst of tactical combat -- that problem solving and role-play were not absolutely critical.

The faction rewards are hard to earn, and require some ingenuity from the players (no simple widget hunts here).

If your PCs are of the, ahem, hit it over the head with a stick and tie it up variety, this module could be pretty boring. They would miss out on much of the information that can be gained by working *with* their goblin captives; but even worse they would miss all of the *fun* of playing with the sadistic amusing goblin captives. Do not run a group of non-roleplayers thorough this -- you'd be casting pearls before swine.

It is hard to run in the allotted time. We had to skip the optional encounter and still went to 6 hours. But it was worth every second. This adventure is a GREAT companion adventure to "We Be Goblins!"

Meanwhile, the goblin cult of "Deezna the Destroyer" is gaining traction in the world -- thanks to "warlord-shaman Reynaldi."


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