Strengths of this Scenario:
* Incorporates multiple numerous opportunities to use skills.
Bonus points: The ability to creatively use skills.
* A very interesting story line that continues over multiple seasons and one particular module.
* Lore heavy
* Does not reward wanton murder, but investigation.
Weaknesses of the Scenario:
* If your party lacks skills, expect difficulty or failure.
* This scenario not only can easily result in failure.
* Player death can occur, particularly in low tier, for a party if one person goes off track.
The Grand Lodge faction challenge is particularly challenging but rewarding. The results connect the players to a larger overall story.
Overall I have really enjoyed this scenario. The story, the different dynamics, and the different sort of play style provides a good break from the monotony of the hack and slash scenarios. I highly recommend this scenario. My personal advice is try to have a balance party. Have people with various skill sets. This scenario is particularly enjoyable and fun if you have players who are part of the Grand Lodge for a mini-game that is in the scenario. The Grand Lodge faction challenge is particularly challenging but rewarding. The results connect the players to a larger overall story.
This scenario excels based on the following:
1. Epic Battles
2. Interesting Lore tidbits which can be explored upon
3. Not overly complicated, good intro scenario for a new player
4. Some Role play opportunities.
5. The setting is creepy. +1
The only downside was the final battle, was kind of anti-climatic.
This scenario is not an epic scenario, but a good one. Here is why. The fights are interesting and feel natural. Actually one certain encounter left a number of my players talking for a number of minutes afterwards about what happened. This is good. I only see this on occasions. The story itself contains a number of interesting bits about the lore of Golarion which is a good tease to help new players continue playing Pathfinder. The story has a set of interesting conflicts which players may or may not have to choose. The backstory on the characters in it to roleplay is sufficient to roleplay. The story itself does make you feel like a pathfinder and not some murder hobo or video game knock off. Overall I really enjoyed gm'ing this scenario and have enjoyed gm'ing it on multiple occasions now. This is not an epic scenario, but is a scenario that was well done. Good job Paizo!
Scenario’s like this are the reason I play and gm table top games. If the game master and the players take time and care to invest the time and effort roleplay this scenario; it is epic. The combats are epic. The roleplay is excellent. The story is not strictly railroad, though it does appear that way to the players. What is beautiful about this scenario is that there exists divergent paths players will unknowingly walk down. It flows so well that most players won’t even know at which points the story takes a left or right. This was an excellent start to season five and set a great tone and pace.
Honestly this is one of my favorite scenarios I have gm’ed: It has roleplay. It has action. It has story. It has lore. It is just good.
Personally I love to roleplay and was definitely looking forward to gm’ing this scenario after hearing and reading about it. Now after gm’ing this scenario, I absolutely pray I will never have to gm it ever again.
If you have characters that have good face skills, this scenario should run smoothly; if you do not, expect difficulties. If you are gm’ing this scenario, do expect to do heavy improve with wide open holes in the story to keep the story going smoothly. The reason I am ranking this as a two-star scenario is because the information provided felt extremely scattered, the few fights were anything but epic and were poorly written, and the characters in scenario we are to rp as gm’s felt extremely one dimensional. Overall I hope I never have to gm this scenario ever again. It was just that unenjoyable. It just didn't feel like it was up to the standards of the other scenarios out there and was extremely tedious to gm.
The only redeeming part of the whole scenario is the over-arching story was descent.
