Jason S's page

Grave is a short skill and combat scenario.

The theming, story, and lore around Grave was fantastic.

The combats, at subtier 3-4, failed to deliver the same epic vibe and were far too easy, especially the “boss” combat.

Overall: A short combat scenario that will scratch the itch and not be too challenging. (7/10)

Chains is a well themed skill-based scenario with some combat.

The encounters are well themed and it highly favors skilled characters over combat characters, and favors thinking over bashing. It’s by far the best scenario in season 4.

There are only two blemishes on this otherwise great scenario.

The first is that some encounters favor skills so much, bash-in-the-door combat is not viable. As in, if you try, you will probably have a bad time and end up writing a bad review (see Kizan's review above). In the last encounter, my group apparently did everything right (with skills), and it made the last encounter quite easy, where most groups really struggle. This was at subtier 5-6.

Narratively, I don't understand why the boss would wait for us for hours, and wouldn't escape.

Overall: A must play scenario for season 4. (9/10)

Mask is a short combat scenario with some interesting lore for follow-up scenarios.

I actually really liked the lore in this scenario and where they are taking upcoming scenarios involving Razmir.

I also like vampires as enemies, although they can be some of the toughest opponents in PF2. Subtier 5-6.

What I didn’t like, is how the scenario starts off with the leadership and box text expecting the enter a vampire forest at night. Our GM did not give us any agency to change this other than to bail out of the carriage. I cannot think of a more stupid way to start the scenario or approach this problem.

I’m not sure if my GM made a mistake or whether vampires were intended to be fought like whack-a-mole, but this aspect of combat was ridiculous. The scenario could have been over in 2 hours but this not only made the combat more deadly, but it also dragged the scenario out to 5 hours.

There are several incapacitation effects in this scenario and it's quite deadly.

The last combat was very swingy because of a certain spell, which made it overtuned because our dice were cold. I still liked it, but we came within one die roll of TPK. I’m not sure the GM had us in the right subtier, because the encounter as written would be listed as Extreme.

Having said that, this scenario was enjoyable and refreshing because of the lack of a skill gauntlet.

Overall: A OK story (albeit short) but it just doesn’t compare to scenarios like "The Cultist's Kiss". (7/10)

Linnorm was a skill and roleplay-based scenario with trivial combat.

Being a chaperone and servant of a bunch of psycho entitled brats, isn’t my idea of a good time. Next time, leave the option open where we just kill them all and fail the mission (like Frostfur Captives). I would have taken it. There are enough entitled brats with no accountability in the real world already, we don’t need to waste our fantasy time about it.

In addition to the obnoxious roleplay, it felt like a never-ending gauntlet of skill checks. The scenario ran long, more than 4 hours.

It was also annoying that Linnorms, who only have animal intelligence (which distinguishes them from dragons), had Linnorm CHILDREN that were often smarter than most NPCs!

Another annoyance is with Paizo overall. Why is everything that was evil, now being turned into something cute? Are we in some 1984 experiment? The list could go on and on for pages, but Orcs, Goblins, Hobgoblins, Kolbolds and now Linnorms were all evil, but are now the good guys. There are no bad guys left. Oh, I guess there are the Duergar, because, you know, slavery.

Overall: A never-ending skill check gauntlet while taking care of a group of psychopathic entitled brats, without the agency to correct them, was horrible. (1/10)

Pallid is a combat scenario with some skill checks.

There is not much to say about this special. The story was very plain, there was no roleplay, it was very generic.

At subtier 5-6, the combats were extremely easy and the scenario was extremely forgiving on taking rest breaks. There was no danger whatsoever, but maybe that’s what was needed after a long hiatus from Pathfinder. The combat was likely super easy because the scenario was made for levels 3-4 and then adjusted for 5-6 by adding more weak mooks.

Overall: Generic, easy going combat fest that won’t ruffle any feathers. (4/10)

Wondrous is a skill check scenario with some combat.

Wondrous is a repeatable and I really like how they made it repeatable if I were to play it again.

Out of the 4 artifacts we identified, I found that only one of those missions had a good story or good lore. One mission was extremely boring (long series of skill checks). The other two were OK.

Wondrous is not particularly memorable… which is a good thing for a repeatable... right?

Overall: A fun excursion that you will probably forget in a week. (7/10)

Enter is a short scenario that has a mix of everything in it.

Perhaps the best use of Enter is to teach new players the game. It’s a railroad, very sparse, and it runs very quickly (2 hours). As a matter of fact, most of the scenario is spent in the exposition and background of the adventure.

At subtier 3-4, the combats were extremely simple, hardly any damage taken and over in 1 round. The biggest worry was making sure everyone could take an action.

The puzzle was solved via skill checks, I don’t remember it being especially easy to solve without players knowing lots of Golarion deity knowledge.

I’m noticing a huge amount of variability between tier 1-4 and 5+ scenarios. Tier 1-4 scenarios are too easy and level 5+ scenarios are often too hard. It would be nice if they could be in between.

Overall: A short, very generic scenario that is unfulfilling at the end, except maybe to quickly grind out some XP.

Opal is a mix of roleplay and skill checks and is one of the most flavorful scenarios in Pathfinder Society.

As many have mentioned, the scenario shows you a culture you have never seen before, which was the highlight of the scenario. I wish more scenarios were like this, because it just didn’t tell us about the culture, it showed us the culture.

The big drawback to this scenario is that it runs long. My session ran 6-7 hours. My second session ran 5.5 hours.

One of the things that PF2 isn’t doing well in its scenarios, is making skills checks fit into an awkward, very mechanical, non-creative, obstacle framework. The obstacle framework kills creativity and just doesn’t work most of the time.

Also, the edge point mechanic didn’t really work in the masquerade, my PCs earned too many edge points (12 edge points), meaning it was basically impossible to fail the dance since they needed only 18 dance points. I made them do it anyway. The edge points might have been better implemented as free re-rolls, or perhaps not at all. A highly skilled group was already going to succeed at the dance, the edge point mechanic just made it so that highly skilled group didn’t even need to do the dance.

At subtier 5-6, on paper the fights looked deadly, when in fact they were cake walks for my group. At subtier 3-4, the fights were much tougher but not overwhelming.

The method for opening the vault wasn’t well described and my game stalled there after delivering too much damage to my PCs.

Again, I’m not sure how you do this scenario in 4 hours without a lot of handwaving and calling off battles early.

The custom art in this scenario was fantastic.

Overall: A very flavorful journey and one of the best examples of how trips to foreign lands should be in Pathfinder Society.

Seven is a skill-based scenario with limited combat and roleplay.

Seven is a short 2-hour scenario that is difficult for a GM to run well the first time.

There is no roleplay in this scenario. I advise anyone who runs it to allow a conversation with the students and the principal before they investigate. It will also help a lot with the story.

The mystery is really awkward and is not done well IMO. I wish skill checks were done more organically, for example, if you succeed on a craft check, you learn this. If you succeed at an Occult check, you learn this. But somehow, you get to pick between 4 skills (which in many cases made no sense) and then get information unrelated to those skills. The mysteries were also not mechanically relevant at the end, not even for reporting. Sigh.

The final encounter, and how it is meant to be run, is not explained well. As such, you’ll have huge amounts of variation as GMs try to do what was intended. For many groups, it will be a dissatisfying conclusion.

I had one group dislike this scenario and one (kids) group thought it was OK.

Overall: I like that Seven is a different type of scenario, but ultimately the limited roleplay, uninspiring mystery, and final encounter will make it dissatisfying for some players.

I can't believe this mini is my most used non-PC mini.

I use it mostly for zombie brutes. But it's a great fill-in for many different large opponents. The mini is so gross and creepy, everyone appreciates it.

Anyway I just wanted to give a thumbs up to this mini.

Never is a skill-based scenario with some roleplay.

A lot of the scenario is spent with the GM reading box text and exposition. And the players rolling skill checks that are specified at each location. As I've mentioned in other reviews, it's not a satisfying experience and is a really cheap and lazy way to make scenarios. Go here, read description, use skill XYZ, next.

The roleplay is mostly with the skull, is mostly exposition, and will vary from table to table. For us it was OK only.

The combat encounters were almost identical to any combat encounter you’d have in a level 1 scenario. Fighting creatures we’ve fought many times before. We’re in Quantium, arguably one of the weirdest and most advanced cities in Golarion. I felt the encounters could have used creatures not typically seen, or who were unique. At least skinned differently?

Again, I dislike the cartoony season 4 artwork and much prefer artwork from previous years of Pathfinder.

Wonder is a skill-based scenario with mundane encounters, and several interesting NPCs.

Before continuing the review, I just want to say that I really dislike the cartoony season 4 artwork. Please, stop, have Pathfinder use more realistic artwork like we had in season 3 and previous years.

This scenario featured too many skill checks. Random skill checks are not fun, and it feels like this is the direction that many scenarios are taking. It’s really a cheap and uninteresting way to make scenarios. Go to this location and roll X, Y, or Z skill. Yawn.

To make matters worse, this scenario had some of the most cliché and mundane encounters you could imagine for level 1.

At the end we failed (multiple times), it seemed we were dead, but everything was OK.

Crossroads is a scenario that is mostly investigation and roleplay punctuated by a few dangerous encounters.

This scenario cannot fit into a 4 hour time slot. I've run it two times now and it took 7 hours (indecisive group) and 5 hours (decisive group). I don't believe it can even fit into a 5 hour time slot if the first encounter is used.

This scenario is a sandbox (there are many ways to solve it) but the way that the scenario is written, it ASSUMES certain choices will be made. If you plan to GM this, you will need to spend a lot of time preparing it and understand the motivations of the NPCs and the choices the PCs have. It’s not super clear and a lot goes unsaid. This scenario isn’t a railroad, some GMs just didn’t prepare enough and/or have enough imagination.

The encounters (as written) are not simple, can be extremely long and drawn out, and are potentially deadly. The problem is, there's more than one encounter like this, and it doesn't work in the time constraints.

Overall: If you have 5-7 hours to play this, I think it’s worth it. Everyone at both tables loved it. (9/10).

I'm giving this book 4 stars more for its potential and the framework surrounding Korvosa and the campaign. You can use Anarchy "out of the box" but IMO you need to tweak it.

The main problem with this book are the plot hooks. They're just terrible. The main plot hook that unites the PCs is revenge. Not only is this goal dead simple of accomplish, but it's over in one session, with nothing remaining to keep the group together. To keep this AP going, it's imperative that the PCs care about Korvosa and wouldn't want it destroyed. Instead, if you make the AP about revenge, it feels forced to keep the PCs together because in reality they would probably go their separate ways after XXX is dead. This is a significant weakness.

The other significant problem with Anarchy is that it wasn't made for Pathfinder. In 3.5, a CR 1 fighter was level 1 (and weaker than the PF version). In Pathfinder, a CR 1 fighter is level 2. If you look hard enough, there are fan based resources that can help.

I also felt that too much word count was spent on NPCs that didn't matter and had backgrounds that would never be known (Ex. Vancaskerkin).

Another criticism is that some of the mini games aren't relevant. Knivsies is cool, but not if it's easy to kill Devargo without bothering. Harrow points ... could have been better (I made them allow free rerolls).

Although that seems like a lot of criticism for this book, it has the outline to be a fantastic experience. You can basically put whatever "spin" on the locations and NPCs you wish. There is fun to be had.

The NPCs in this book are also compelling (if given a chance), which is a strength of this book. When I ran it, we did a lot more roleplaying than the book suggests.

So by all means, play Anarchy, it's great. But just realize that you'll have to do some work to make it awesome. 

Struck is a combat-based scenario that is very repetitious and uninspired. No roleplay, no investigation. And at no point was it challenging.

I was looking forward to the boss fight and thought it might present a challenge but he died in 1 round too. Sigh.

I agree with the incompetent review. One punch will leave the enemies crying for mommy.

Important information was missing from the scenario, such as what happens if the PCs rest 10 minutes? 20 minutes? 2 days? It also didn’t talk about light sources.

The scenario was easy to read, but several things could have been simplified even further. Such as the items that were given to the PCs.

Confirmation is a mix of investigation followed by a dungeon crawl.

The best part about Confirmation is the main NPC, Rains. He is cute, unwise, and can add fun to the party.

Paizo needs to understand what make a good renewable story. It’s not about changing monsters necessarily, it’s about subtle changes to the story, or what needs to be done.

The main problem I have with this scenario is that there is no theme around the encounters. It's just random creatures, thrown together. I really dislike this. The repeatable nature of this scenario doesn’t add anything for the player and makes it more inconvenient to prepare for the GM, adding word count where it's unneeded.

There was also some redundancy that added to the word count.

One last comment. If you want your scenario to be found, put it in a season. For months I missed this one because it’s at the bottom of the main page, uncategorized. Or perhaps put it in both a season and at the bottom of the main page, like you do with other introduction scenarios.

Overall: An OK scenario with a cute NPC. (7/10).

Trials is an equal mix of investigation, puzzles, and combat.

Whatever this scenario was when it was first released, is not what it is now.

Except for the final combat, the combats and challenges are relatively easy and even my group of children age 7-11 were able to figure everything out.

I thought the investigation was great, if roleplayed (instead of just checks), it can be memorable.

The puzzles were also fun and not overly difficult either, perhaps too easy.

The combat was also reasonable and without risk.

March is a combat based scenario with some skill challenges.

March is just a solid adventure. Having said that, some of the story was lost with convoluted explanations. I didn't understand the 2nd encounter until I asked the GM after the game.

I appreciated the quick scenery that was given, that would cause most PF1 groups to buff.

I've been playing mostly season 1 scenarios and I noticed that there was no explanation of challenge points or which subtier we should be playing. My GM didn't have it memorized and he needed to rely on me to figure it out. I think it should be included (we almost played at 18 challenge points instead of 10...).

I don't think the scenario is complete without doing the optional encounter at the end. Having said that, it is quite challenging and the scenario could run long.

Falcon is a skill-based scenario followed by a combat.

I’m not sure what the other reviewers played, but there was no roleplay whatsoever in this quest. Any roleplay was basically fabricated by their GM, who could fabricate roleplay in any campaign and any environment.

I also found the ending combat not particularly interesting or challenging.

Overall: An OK quest but nothing unique about it.

Parchment is a quest mostly focused on skill checks followed by a combat.

There are several things I didn’t like about this quest:
1) Not knowing the Qadiran language didn’t factor in the quest or any skill checks. At worst it should have made the quest impossible, at best it should have made even trivial tasks much more challenging.

2) There was nothing unique to Qadiran culture or nothing to learn about it. They might as well have been wearing costumes in a generic fantasy setting.

3) There were too many possible skill checks for each location. It’s not important to cater to everyone, especially when the penalty for failure was very low in this quest.

4) The skills checks didn’t make any sense.

5) The combat was very run-of-the-mill.

Overall: I didn’t like the skill checks, they felt almost random. I didn't like that Qadiran culture was like every other generic culture. But most of all I felt like I could have just thrown this quest together myself on-the-fly.

Trail is mostly skill checks and some roleplay followed by a devastating combat.

I'm not going to run this scenario for my group, it's too deadly for my level 1 group: Two rogues, a wizard, and a druid. I ran the stats, they don't have the damage output to win.

Bandits is an escort mission and pure combat scenario.

I really enjoy the odd combat only scenario and I thought this scenario had a lot of great ideas in it. The combat could get tactical in this scenario, which I liked.

I thought the box text was very usable, which is not usually the case. I also like how encounters are laid out for GMs now in PF2.

Unfortunately:
- The environmental factors make PCs much less proficient than normal, and it’s out of their control. Some players won't like that.
- The combats can last longer than normal but are non-threatening.
- There are factors where you can lose treasure bundles, maybe even significant ones, and most players hate that.

Living Lodge is a mix of mini-game, roleplay, and combat.

It’s pretty much as the other reviews say, the mini game will take the session easily over 4 hours, our session went 6 hours. And that was basically with skipping 2 of the encounters. If you want the session to be 4 hours, I’m convinced that you need to skip the mini game.

Also, regarding the mini game, some people will love it and some will hate it (as you can see from the reviews). I had one player love it and 2 other players hate it, 1 was neutral. And I had it organized well.

The PCs finished the mini-game 10 days early, and they literally finished everything. So, the order (and priority) in which they decided to do things didn’t matter, which made the mini game a complete waste of time.

The handouts for this scenario were more for the GM than the player. The NPC handout was too revealing, and the mini-game handout also had too many details.

Also, I found several editing errors. The most glaring are the lack of skill modifiers for the NPCs involved in the mini game. I also found some errors in the stat blocks, one which mattered.

Scarecrow is a mix of investigation, skills, and combat.

Scarecrow is a fun time and it has surprising depth for a bounty and can potentially even have a moral decision to be made.

The only bad thing you can say about it is how long it takes. For roleplayers, it will take much longer than an hour. For us I believe it took over 2 hours. It takes time investigating five locations.

Overall: One of the best bounties. I've GMed this 3 times now and every game we come to a different conclusion and finale. Just excellent.

Blooming is a mix of everything.

It's a well written scenario, almost overwhelming, that supports multiple solutions to several problems and a sandbox approach to the scenario. It should not be run cold.

There were several great scenes in the scenario.

I've GMed it three times now at subtier 1-2 and had a blast each time.

The only downfall to this scenario is that it can run too long. My last session ran 4 hours but the previous sessions ran 6 hours each.