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Ok, my opinion,

The change was needed. I loved the nation factions, but they had some limitations. And fewer factions is good too IMHO - more manageable.

So Sovereign Court is ok - a nice shift from the Taldor faction. Not perfect of course. I love Taldor, but my Taldan characters will fit here nicely I think. I never liked Gloriana Morilla. She is too boring for a Taldan (could someone assassinate her please). Jacquo Dalsine was suitably decadent for a Taldan and reminded me of Londo in B5. Coolest faction ever IMHO in the old days.

The Exchange - a combined faction is difficult. I think it suits Qadirans better than Sczarni. I'm not sure the name quite suits either, but I'll give it time. I hope there is still some Qadiran moneybags feel, but I think this will be lost. I really don't think Sczarni will be happy here. The Sczarni concept is cool, but the way it turns out in game can be too nasty to fit IMHO. Perhaps they had to go. A pity.

Dark Archive - the flavour of this one has really changed quite a bit. I liked the old Zarta Dralneen sleaze and I hope it's not completely lost at the Dark Archive. Cheliax was always kinda special too. I will still dream of her at night (sorry!). Can we still spend prestige to have an Imp for one game please?

Silver Crusade - no change. Kinda good for all the good guy pathfinders out there. Better than the old Andoran faction that way. I like Silver Crusade for my really good characters.

Scarab Sages - good change for Osirion. I think Scarab Sages retains more national flavour (Osirion in this case) than any other. It's a better name for this faction with the word Sages in it, rather than Osirion.

Liberty's Edge - again I think this is better than the name Andoran. The Andoran nation is troubled anyway. I always found it hard to relate to this faction as Andoran. I'll see how things go with this change. Liberty's Edge sounds both lame and cutting at the same time. Maybe it will transform this faction.

Grand Lodge - no change. Pardon me, but boring. And yes I have a character of this faction. Doh! I think if we ignore it, it might go away.

All in all I'm ok with the changes. I think the campaign has come a long way since the days of the nation based factions. I loved those times, but they are long gone. The new factions overall look good. Time will tell.

Most GMs where I game are good about things and I don't think that they ever go out of their way to cause deaths, let alone TPKs.

But I have heard of a lot of local deaths and TPKs recently and I don't think they are due to nasty crits or silly actions at the tables. I think a lot of year 4 games are still being played now, which is the reason for some of it (some are deadly). Also, groups of 1st level newbs tend to struggle to get to 2nd or 3rd level.

I love Pathfinder and PFS, but I see that deaths (and TPKs) impact both on the players and the GMs, especially new players and new GMs. We need to always be mindful of the hardness of the game for new players.

As for player numbers, I definitely prefer 4 or 5 at the table and for private games this is what I try to plan for. At public gaming 6 is sometimes what you get. I tend to find games with 7 are very trying, both for the players and the GM.

Abundant Ammunition

For whatever reason, I am not bothered by this one. My GS has never used abundant ammunition, and I have no plans to. She pays for all of her ammo, and it costs quite a bit each scenario. No big deal. But I also don't see a problem with this spell.

Check out Abundant Ammunition and Named Bullet. I heard of a gamer stacking these two for cheese.

Of course we're really off topic here.

We were lucky enough to have Mike run Bonekeep for some of us in Melbourne last week.

Truthfully I was scared of the reputation and intent of this game. It just isn't my kind of thing to pit my characters against impossible odds. Nonetheless we had a great time and only had ourselves to blame for the deaths at the table. Although I wish I could have done more to save our gunslinger.

Deadly mod. Good fun. We pushed one room beyond our capabilities and paid the price. Thank the powers that be for Dimension Door or there would have been more carnage.

I don't think there's a rules issue with using a holy weapon, but how does your character feel about it? It was probably created by being blessed by the power of a good god (let's say Iomedae). How embarrassing to walk into your local temple of Asmodeus with this weapon.
I play an inquisitor of Asmodeus also who would probably not be too concerned with using a bless weapon to help defeat a foe, but would never allow himself to own a holy weapon.
Of course the practicalities of getting through DR are a challenge. My inquisitor has a cold iron weapon which helps (and a silver secondary in case). Sometimes you need good and cold iron (or silver). That's a problem. Inquisitor's bane the your best weapon. It's very powerful.

This is a hard issue and one where there is mostly only opinion to go on.

But (to answer Nosig), have a look at the Guide to Organised play. You'll find in the Alignment Infractions section that Alignment Infractions are to deal with Evil Acts, not Good ones.

When I GM I am not completely comfortable giving out an Alignment Infraction, but when I did, the act committed was both evil and it disturbed the enjoyment of the other players at the table. It fell in the 'don't be a jerk' category. Perhaps I should have asked the player to leave the table. I dealt with it in the way that I felt was appropriate.

The slavery discussion is a tough one too. Those who imply that because some nations permit slavery, that it is a non-issue seem to imply that therefore no evil occurs with slavery. I think it does (opinion). Capturing a person and depriving them of their liberty for the purpose of making financial gain is committing and evil act in my book, and while that doesn't make everyone in a slave based country evil, it makes the slavers people who commit evil acts.

In Cheliax they deal with Devils. It is a nation in the thrall of devils through the Thrune family. Devils are evil and the people who summon them to keep themselves in power and the nation in thrall to them, are committing evil acts. But that doesn't make every Chelaxian evil. Once again, a Pathfinder visiting Cheliax will know about that nation, and if he has a mission to complete then he should decide on a way to deal with completing his mission regardless of the state of the nation. He isn't there to declare war on Cheliax. The same way in a slave nation, the Pathfinder isn't there to declare war on Slavery.

Anyway, this is highly based on my opinion. Keep it in mind if I'm your GM, but I will always speak to a player about potential evil acts before taking any action, and I will discuss these thing with other GMs and VCs VLs in my region to get a general feeling of how people feel about things.

Yes I have troubles with some 'morality issue' behaviour exhibited at PFS tables Matt. You are not alone.
I think most of us are fairly tolerant of most behaviour and always keep Explore! Report! Cooperate! in mind, but some players like to push the boundaries. I think those Pathfinder words sometimes become a shield to hide 'ill' aligned characters behind. Somewhere it has to stop.
Just because slavery exists (even legally) in some nations doesn't mean that characters (even from that nation) have to like it. Still, it would be naive to visit these countries and expect to single-handedly end slavery overnight. So all Pathfinders are likely to visit nations with slavery and should know how to act without starting a war.
A Pathfinder character who openly advocates slavery, owns a ship (vanity) named Spirit of Freedom and has the aim of capturing NPCs in game and adding them to his slave property is likely to push the boundaries of a lot of characters (even those who aren't paladins).
In the past as a GM I have given the pirate with the Spirit of Freedom an alignment infraction on his chronicle sheet. I think the player has moderated his pirate character's behaviour. I've played with him since and would again.
This is a hard issue and tough to talk about constructively.

Hi Damalon01.
I hope you don't stop playing PFS at cons. There is a lot of fun to be had and cons are a great place to meet gamers with similar ideas of fun play. Arcanacon seemed drastically down on numbers this year and even the PFS seemed down on numbers. It would be great to encourage more players to come along. PFS can be great fun.
IMHO games like Race for the Rune Carved Key don't do a lot to encourage new players. We need to get new players into the game and we need to find fun games for them to play. We can't keep running the same old games, because the older players have played them, so some new games that come out need to have some focus on story and fun, not super-overwhelming mega-combat.
I'm really pleased to hear your voice Damalon01 because if we don't give feedback then we can't expect anything to change. I hope you spoke to the VC on the day and know about the local gaming groups and opportunities to play.

I was also playing this game yesterday, but not at the same table as Damalon01 and I also was very unimpressed. That being said, it was a game designed to be a mega-challenge and that isn't my kind of game. In the future I won't play or GM these games. There is no fun in them for me - too much cheese and they just encourage more cheese at character creation in order to survive. I would prefer more story and in-character fun. But I recognize that we players aren't all the same - different players look for different things in a game.
As for chase scenes,wow! I don't think there is a worse mechanic in Pathfinder. The need for a suspension of disbelief is ridiculous. How can I succeed at two checks, move three cards forward and fling myself over walls and past guards without even dealing with them. The sooner that this chase scene mechanic is ignored the better in my eyes. Can I use a chase scene to put distance between me and an NPC? It reeks of 4E skill challenge. Please no more chases with this mechanic.
Anyway, thanks to the organisers and GMs at Arcanacon. Overall I had a good time, although since the last game was Race for the Runecarved key, it left a disappointed taste in my mouth. As I mentioned above, it was not my kind of game.
Could we see some encouragement for story and in-character stuff in future PFS?

To the OP and those echoing his concerns, can you please cite specific examples of encounters that you found too difficult or scenarios that felt plotless? I have several suspects in the first category, but the less vague this sort of feedback is, the more it helps the campaigns authors and those of us working on scenario development and campaign management. Thanks for the honest feedback; we appreciate it.

Sorry that it has taken me this long to get back to this.

It is hard to speak with too much certainty on the encounters from particular mods that I have played because I don't have access to the mod to read it unless I download it to run it. To think of a few -
Goblinblood Dead final encounter where we seemed to combine two encounters through no fault of the players.
Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment where someone (an NPC) summoned some creatures with DR (two of them) that gradually killed the entire 1st level party. Apparently there was a 50% chance of this summoning (how ridiculous at 1st level!).
Any encounter in Severing Ties really. This mod seemed to be designed to kill 1st level inexperienced characters. No offence to the writer, the plot and idea of the mod was great, but the combats were too powerful.
In Rise of the Goblin Guild the alchemist encounter was not a TPK, but how many alchemists will be met in rafters or on an almost unreachable (for 1st level chars) ledge. Surely this warrants a CR adjustment. Give me that alchemist on a level playing field any day.
Anyway, I will try to get hold of copies of some of these mods and then I can look at what went wrong in the encounters more carefully.

On the plotless point, perhaps in some cases the plot was felt to be plotless once all of the characters at the table had been killed. TPK is a deflating feeling. Anyway plot is hard to discuss from memory - I've played quite a few mods. I would say that there has been a general feeling among the players that plot is getting overwhelmed by brutal combats. Quest for Perfection Part II comes to mind immediately for limited plot.

I think that the toughness of some of these mods is obvious. I really suggest playtesting encounters with 4 (and 5) iconics. Remembering that new players (who we seek to encourage) actually know nothing about the creatures and won't unless they make a Knowledge check. Things like gaze attacks and DR mean something to an experienced player (but if they play their character perhaps they should feign ignorance), but they mean nothing to a newbie and should be avoided for mods involving 1st level players.

Bring back iconic, fun creatures for low-level. I would like to see more Goblins, Skeletons and the like at low-level. And see an end to the summoned outsiders, the swarms (that we used to see), the animated objects (a golem with DR5 at higher-tier replaced with an animated object with Hardness 8 or 10 at lower-tier) for Tier 1-5 mods.

All of this being said, I think we need to think hard about 1st level character survival in Tier 1-5 mods. That is the main thrust of what I am trying to get across. At 1st level, it can be hard to hit AC14, a FORT saving throw of 13 is a challenge, and Knowledge checks to know about creatures are always difficult. Keep it in mind writers.

I have played a number of PFS games recently and found them to be very much different from the games that we played in the early years of PFS. Some aspects of these games are making it more difficult to play and run the games and have fun. I have not mentioned anything here about this, but now I feel I have too. I was waiting to see if the next game would be better. And the next and so on.

Firstly – The encounters are ridiculously tough. I don’t believe that the last five mods that I have played at Tier 1-5 could be successfully completed with a team of 1st level adventurers. This is a problem because the new players play 1st level characters (often the iconics). It seem to me that games need to be playtested against a team of 4 (or maybe 5) iconics and the iconics should win 90% of the time. They don’t! In fact some of the games (the last five I have played) could never be completed successfully with a group of 1st level iconics. TPK in these mods ends up with the players not returning and GMs not wanting to GM games where they think they’ll just destroy another adventuring group. The GMs feel that they have responsibility for the outcome. It all just creates bad feeling in an environment where we want the players to have an awesome experience.

Secondly – The games that I have played recently seem to lack in the plot department. I really hate to say this, because I have loved my PFS, but I think that the overwhelming encounters are also overwhelming the plot. Players are struggling to find any in game character motivation. It is hard for a short adventure to create a plot that will engage the players for the length of the scenario, but I feel that there has been a deterioration of plots in recent times. Many games just seem to be - go from encounter 1 to 2 and so on. There have been chases (which are odd) and investigation (which is sometimes good), but overall plot seem to be coming a distant second to challenge. And don't get me wrong I want some challenge too, but I crave plot (both as GM and player).

Thirdly – Faction missions seem unnecessary now. They seem to be getting the players to do something for no particular reason. In early seasons players would sit at the table before a game and discuss their support for their faction. They would entertain themselves before the game with in character chat and teasing about one faction or another. This doesn’t seem to happen any more. The faction talk at our tables seems to have died down, and I think that faction mission completion has become a little cared for bother to be added to a game. Things that are done because there is a benefit, not just for love of the faction. Don’t get me wrong, I love the factions in PFS (or I did), but I think their flavor and the way they are done is killing them. I do think that the number of factions has changed things, but also the fact that once all of the factions had an interconnection. Now some have no real connection.

I am writing this because I care about the game. I hate to give such negative feedback, but I mean it all, and I feel that if I don’t things will not change. The 1st level problem is a very serious one. Perhaps a special starting character Tier needs to be created. Currently I would say that Tier 1-2 is a myth. It is really Tier 2 and if you play with a team of first level characters then bad luck. Remember that all of the starting characters and players will be 1st level. We need them in our game. The characters in the game are the focus and they are expected to beat the baddies most of the time. Please don't suggest running First Steps for the starting characters. I think we are all bored with these games. Tier 1-2 games need to be ok to play with a group of 1st levels. Otherwise back to the drawing board.

I really am a keen PFS fan and have played since the beginning of the campaign, but right now I am not keen to GM, because I hate to murder the party, and playing has not been much fun either. I have discussed this with other players and our local VC and while I don’t want to speak for them, I think that there is a lot of the same feeling.

Regards

Disillusioned PFS fan