HolyFlamingo!'s page

I think the premise of this adventure is really neat, and the antagonists had some fun flavor to them. However, my party absolutely steamrolled through every encounter, despite me triple-checking the difficulty adjustment math. Antagonists being total pushovers seems to be a recurring issue in a lot of PFS scenarios, and while I understand not wanting to be too hard for the sake of new players and mixed-level parties, it just made the bad guys feel like wimps.

That said, I like how this set up for future adventures, and there's a morale/surrender mechanic that's pretty neat. Catching one of the antagonists alive made for some fun roleplay, and I wish the module had given my more information about who they were and what they were planning.

Also, I feel like the module could have done more with a certain hobgoblin wandering about the adventure. As-is, that particular gimmick only mattered once.

This was the first ever scenario I played, and it was... kind of boring? Maybe it's because I joined society in early 2024, so it was already worn out as the repeatable go-to and thus just routine for everyone else at the table, but... I had trouble getting invested. I liked the NPCs, and the final boss fight was tough enough that I got to feel smart when I played well, but overall there was this heavy "who cares" aura hanging over everything.

I don't think it was anyone's fault in particular. I haven't read or run Lions myself, and the GM/other players were perfectly friendly. I wish I had been around to experience this when it was fresh.

You'd think an intro scenario would be a great place to jump in for a new GM. Nope! There were SO MANY characters in this and I knew exactly none of them. Thus, I started off this adventure feeling very confused, and kept feeling that way until I'd finished running it.

The pacing is also... weird? It seems like the greatest, most intense danger happens at the beginning, and then it's kind of just goofing off from there? The module also goes out of its way to have the party pick up new friends as they adventure, and then very obviously finds ways to have those friends not participate in encounters. It felt very artificial.

I'm glad my players had fun, but this just wasn't for me.

I wound up at a table running this scenario on a whim and didn't know what to expect. I'd never played SF1 before, and thus was completely green when it came to navigating my character sheet. However, I had a really good time! The adventure moved at a fast clip, had some great setpieces, and even the callbacks to previous adventures were clear and light enough that I didn't feel overwhelmed as a newcomer. It ran a bit long--I think a couple scenes could be cut without really losing anything--and the final confrontation was brutal, but not impossible.

One thing that turned me off about it was that it highlighted how easy it is for operatives to outshine other party members and essentially solo entire modules. It just so happened that all the skills and combat proficiencies necessary to make the adventure happen were the ones my character--a pregenerated Iseph--was the uncontested best at. It felt like I was unwillingly being dragged into the spotlight while all the other, more experienced players were left to find things to do around the periphery. This was super awkward for me and unfair for everyone else. Despite this, however, I still think most scenes were well-designed and well-paced.

Shoutout to the SFS community for being so fun and welcoming, by the way. I really enjoyed spending time with you guys.

This is one of the silly ones, so give it a skip if you don't vibe with more light-hearted adventures. That said, it's a VERY GOOD silly one, and makes for a nice little collection of puzzles and combats that my PaizoCon table seemed to enjoy. The adventure has a ton of mechanical variety, with each self-contained scene offering something new to the table, and the NPCs are a fun bunch of rascals that were a joy to roleplay.

One thing I didn't like was the amount of prep time it took to run this thing physically. If you don't own the tiles, you have to draw A TON of maps, and that feels bad if you're not sure which scenes your party will actually pursue. Luckily, since this was for a convention, my local society members were able to help everyone prepare their physical materials together, so I saved myself hours of work via community help.

All in all, this was the highlight of my first convention run, and I think it makes a great introduction for kids especially.

NOTE: This is a review in-progress. While I have read the adventure cover-to-cover, I am only about halfway through it as a player. Thus, it is possible that my opinion may change after I either complete it or run it myself as a GM.

The structure of this adventure is a socially-driven sandbox sandwiched between two bite-sized dungeon crawls, with a very intense final string of encounters at its climax. It runs the tonal gamut from cozy slice-of-life to sweeping cosmic horror with some classic D&D tropes sprinkled in for flavor, all knitted together with Jarzabski's usual compassion, humor, and because-it's-cool-and-I-felt-like-it inclusions. Others have expressed confusion over its organization and hazy timeline, but neither of those were a problem for me.

Unlike my other reviews, where I rate conservatively and recommend GM-side improvements, this one receives a generous rating with a caveat: it's possible to make it suck if you don't know what you're doing. While every single adventure benefits from being read cover-to-cover before launching, this one especially needs to be understood holistically before ever hitting the table. If you want it to shine, you need to give it the prep time it deserves, and you need to be willing to lean into every NPC and strange creature and spontaneous roleplay moment that emerges. This adventure is absolutely not a script, and running it as such will sap the life out of it. This goes for hostile encounters as well: a few enemies fall flat if you run them as simple HP removal devices, and others have nasty little gimmicks attached that can absolutely blindside your party if you aren't careful. This module lives and dies by the love and care you put into it, moreso than any other playtest adventure.

So, while I personally rate it as a four-star adventure with a whole lot of heart, it could easily drop to a three or two if you don't put in your heart in return. It also might bounce off players who don't care for dungeon crawls or human interest stories.

Well, I say "human" interest, but let's be real: it's Starfinder.

I GMed this adventure for six close friends as a Halloween treat. Star rating is based on the product as-is and not the modifications I made to it.

This is a very obvious Alien pastiche with a fantasy twist. And you know what? I love it for that. Atmospherically, this adventure rocks. The Bloom makes for a fantastic hostile environment--you can do so much with a living starship, and Catalan happily delivers while still leaving room to add your own material--and the antagonist is both conceptually frightening and mechanically well-designed.

However, this module has two flaws that keep it from being a five star adventure for me personally. The first is that it requires the party to fully commit to the premise--the Bloom is their problem alone, and they're going to have to put themselves in harm's way to solve it--or else the GM will have to improvise reasons and twists that force them to stay aboard and complete the mission. You might have to do a little railroading to make sure the climactic confrontation at the end actually takes place, or build your own using the presented materials as a base. Granted, this is a problem with a lot of horror modules with somewhat scripted endings--anyone who's ran Call of Cthulu or Delta Green will be all too familiar with the issue--but it's a curveball that can catch less experienced GMs off-guard. So, read the whole thing in advance and get ready to adapt if the party does the unexpected.

The second flaw is more of a personal taste thing, but I don't think this adventure is brutal enough to really deliver on its harrowing premise. I felt the need to punch up a few encounters and add some hazards of my own, even after following the guidelines for larger parties. However, my friends and I have been playing PF2 together for years (and plenty of sci-fi RPGs on the side), so we might be too sweaty for our own good/more mechanically experienced and genre-savvy than the intended audience. So, keep an eye on how your party's doing and hit the gas/pump the breaks as needed.

Despite this flaws, I am overall quite satisfied with this adventure and had a blast running it.

I experienced this adventure twice: once as a player, and then again as a GM. Star rating is based on how it plays out of the box, but a little flexibility and elbow grease easily bring it up to a 4-star affair or better.

The lore and environment presented in this module are fantastic. Others have said it feels like old-school Star Trek in the way it condenses a fascinating premise into a single, bite-sized episode, and I agree. However, the adventure is really let down by its format: a very lengthy and somewhat confusing investigation scene at the front, followed by three back-to-back action sequences at the end. This can leave groups bored during the first half, and rushing to finish in time during the climax.

However, if you take this adventure apart and remix its many scenes into something more naturally paced--where tension and mystery can ebb and flow in response to the party as they poke around the investigation site--it positively blossoms. You can also straight-up not use the second map and just have the climax happen around the central feature in the first, which actually makes more sense as it lets you more easily improvise a true resolution scene that takes place concurrently with the final battle. All you need is a little creativity and some improvised check DCs. Of course, this is still extra work, and that can be a turn-off for GMs looking for the adventure itself to do the heavy lifting.

All in all, a lovely little scenario that just needs room to breathe. Treat the adventure text as a toolbox rather than a script, and you should be fine.

3.5 stars. Brimming with imagination, this book is a GM's playground, and the first Lost Omens title I read from cover to cover. However, it's held back by a few editing errors and not making the most efficient use of its incredibly tight page count.

HITS. By far, the greatest strength of this book is how much personality it packs into each monster without stifling GM creativity. Each creature's section opens up with a short work of fiction, followed by a general description of its appearance and behavior, speculations on its origins, and how it relates to its surroundings and the people who live there. But the real triumph here is the lavish detail given to each stat block, which does a great job paying off all the build-up provided by the previous pages. Some even have alternate mechanics attached, emphasizing the flexible roles these creatures can play without sacrificing what makes them pop. Reading this book was lots of fun, as both flavor and mechanics work together to make each monster feel impactful enough to cast as the centerpiece of an adventure.

The monsters themselves are delightfully diverse, covering multiple levels, tones, geographical locations, and degrees of threat. You could throw a dart at a map of Golarion (or even our own Earth!), and there'd be a rockstar monster nearby. Their tales range from terrifying and bizarre to somber and sympathetic, and each has enough flare to spice up nearly any campaign, regardless of whether the party actually faces them down directly.

I also really liked the in-universe writing and artistic depictions of the monsters. It made them feel like a genuine part of the world (although none are so specific that they couldn't be lifted into another setting). The variety of TYPES of text--letters, poems, works of fiction, and so on--helped each chapter feel fresh, in addition to setting up tone and genre expectations for the monster that followed.

MISSES. There are three main weaknesses that hold Monsters of Myth back from being a surefire recommendation. First, there are a couple very obvious errors that repeat often enough for me to wonder if someone in formatting or editing was asleep at the wheel. For example, the text cuts off in multiple places without being continued on the next page, and Bestiary 6--a PF1e book--is repeatedly cited as a source for how to apply the Elite/Weak template (the correct citation is Bestiary, PAGE 6). There were also a few typos and passages with clunky wording, but the cut-off text and incorrect citations stood out the most because they kept happening.

Second, given how short this book is, the "how to use" sections feel like repetitive wastes of space. I think bullet-point lists of adventure prompts would have been of much higher value, rather than spending multiple paragraphs on a singular adventure outline that more or less just summarizes what was already in the lore or alternate abilities text. I also got a little irritated with the amount of "just homebrew it" suggestions that came up in reference to mechanics, locations, or creatures that have yet to be implemented in PF2e. Maybe suggestions for reskinning existing creatures or items would have been more appropriate?

But the biggest thing holding MoM back is its length. For such a short tome that only highlights 20 monsters, the asking price feels a bit steep. Granted, I know profit margins in the industry are narrow, but the entries provided were so fascinating and flavorful that I can't help but want more. On the bright side, this makes it a quick and easy read.

WISHES. I desperately want to see a follow-up to this book, as the actual content was incredible; it was mostly held back by its brevity and a few editing errors. Perhaps said follow-up could include a couple one-shots and maps as drop-in options for existing campaigns, both to allow GMs to use the book right away, and to provide examples that newer GMs can follow in their own adventure creation. I'd be more than happy to pay extra for a beefier page count, so long as that page count is utilized well.