I had an absolute blast playing this scenario on subtier 14-15. It was the single best experience I've had playing in a PFS game. The encounters reminded me of a good LG battle interactive, such as the battle for Niole Dra at the end of LG in Keoland. The story was extremely compelling; especially to my Paladin of Abadar. Nothing screams awesome like an abyssal siege on a metropolis. The final encounter I was anticipating for months, it did not disappoint. (Even though it got 1 rounded. It was still epic.)
I had a lot of fun running this special as well at a local convention later in the year. Did a bit lower subtier at 10-11, but the encounters still challenged my players and were a lot of fun. One of the randomly determined early encounters in particular seemed especially brutal with 3 flying critters that could unleash havoc backed up rounds later by a big guy. Had my players were scared; but didn't result in any deaths. Best experience for everyone.
Hope we go back to post level 11 gencon specials next year!
Holy wow! I loved that first fight. I'm writing this review simply for the amount of hate it seems to be getting on here.
It was clear; at least after playing an earlier season 5 7-11 that the combat that was causing such a stir was coming in the scenario but the biggest thing that should have tipped players off as to the likely brutality of this scenario were two simple words on the front cover: Kyle Baird.
That being said; normally with such a strong first fight, this would get at least 4 stars but I feel the scenario seriously dropped the ball from there forward. We were expecting tough subsequent fights, and just weren't given any. The scenario culminated in an amusing way; but one of the mechanics involved sealed this scenarios fate at 3 stars. It made the whole party just stand around for about a half hour of real time; but while not feeling threated in the slightest. So it was simply just boring.
My table played this scenario shortly after it was released at a midnight madness table at a convention in New Jersey. The GM we had did a great job, but despite that I hated this game. I went in expecting something along the lines of Waking Rune or at least Portal to the Sacred Rune. The scenario delivered in being true to its blurb, being combat heavy and satisfying in some extents due to being able to personally kill a certain NPC. That being said, none of the fights were at all difficult unlike the previous two season enders and the whole thing was kind of anticlimactic. We just walked through high tier, with very little issue. The most interesting encounter was the filler encounter at the beginning due to a cool terrain feature. After that it was just badly designed cake walk leading up to a fight in which the BBEG was so terribly out gunned and stuck between a rock (Paladin) and a hard place (Huge Allosaurus Druid) that he was just simply forced to teleport out. This before he could do anything to affect the party in the least.
This was one of the best scenarios I have played so far in my society career. My local VL thought it would be fun to schedule all the modules thematically leading up to this one in the weeks prior to us playing it, so we all played: Cultist's Kiss, Feast of Sigils, Refuge of Time, Words of the Ancients and finally this scenario over the course of a few weeks. I highly suggest doing this since it made this scenario all that much more epic in the end.
In usual season four fashion, the fights were interesting and there was another awesome puzzle type encounter. Being the season four finally the fights were of course deadly if you didn't bring the the right team for the job, we played at high tier and on hard mode. Multiple fights had very really chances of killing characters, and the final had a TPK threat. It had our optimized zen archer and my optimized paladin a bit worried, which is truly saying something. Ultimately we prevailed, but pretty much solely because we won initiative. This scenario isn't for the faint of heart but for the seasoned pathfinder that is prepared to die it is truly a blast. Best way to hit 12th level that I could ask for.
