Kurt Wasiluk's page

Reading the reviews, I’ve been dreading running this one. I finally ran it Monday and it mostly lived down to the reviews.

The first problem is clearly the mansion map, which others have covered in their comments. I needed to block off doors and areas to keep players from potentially going right to the boss fight, which I don’t believe is intended as an option.

Second problem is that we have another adventure that is just not going to fit into a 4-5 hour time slot for most people. There’s potential here for 4 mid- to high-level combats plus puzzles and plot. We ran 5.5 hours before we had to call it.

Third, it just didn’t seem scaled right. The boss fight (low-tier, 17 CP) was lethal. If this was a video game and the players had multiple takes at it, they might have had great satisfaction in winning, but with one pass, it was ugly.

Fourth, this is the continuation of a plot that’s been running for over a year through multiple scenarios. A high-level recap would have been beneficial.

On the good side, I’m finding the plot interesting and appreciate the development of an ongoing significant villain. There were some interesting ideas and moments of flavor in here too.

Clearly, from reviews, this is a deeply flawed scenario but still a key one for an ongoing plot. I wish Paizo officially recognized and addressed the problems through errata or forum comments rather than letting this thing fester out there.

Four fights in a higher-level scenario are just too many. We had mid-range high tier at our table and the players had to fight too many high HP opponents, several with auras requiring saves every round. Worst is the addition of opponents with Possession, which can be VERY challenging and time-consuming. The scenario took us 5.5 hours even with removing one of the fights. It's a shame because the plot and setting are so interesting. It would have been better to be less rushed and immerse ourselves in it more. The opponents were interesting and appealingly deadly too and would have been great in a less time-constrained game.

This was an entertaining and challenging quest for my players. I liked that the tone was more serious and deadly than the lighter tone of other recent Quests. The players especially enjoyed the suspense of the boss battle that knocked more than half the party out but resulted in an exciting win. I agree with the other commenter that this Quest risks going very long. We had three combats, taking the full three hours. If we'd had a failed set of skill checks, it could have been five combats, which is way too much for a 2-3 hour adventure.

I thought this adventure did a good job of giving us a first look at the Starfinder 2e rules. It provides one challenging combat and another easier combat, lots of chances to use skills, and an interesting plot to hold it all together. I played at Gen Con and then ran a couple sessions last night. Two of those sessions came in the targeted time of ~2 - 2.25 hours. The third came in more like 3.5 hours but it was more due to people struggling with figuring out how to use their characters on Foundry. I plan on running this more in the future.

I liked the back story to this one and the way it sets up an interesting plot for the season. The full-page art was good and fun to show to my players. I also thought the use of existing flip-maps was well-done.

The two reasons I’m not rating more highly are length and difficulty.

Based on the numbering (1-00) and name (“Origin…”), this seemed like a good adventure to use as a kick-off to the new season and rule set. However, with the amount of activity (skill check sections, encounters) plus time for handling player questions on the new rule set, we went over our allotted time even without reaching the final encounter. Keeping this in a tight 4-5 hours with new players may be tough.

This also has an encounter that can be brutal to your players if they don’t learn some key info about their opponent or bring the right mix of pregens. Our gang enjoyed the story/new rules but were crushed by this encounter, ending the scenario prematurely.