Moskau's page

Without getting into spoilers, since this scenario is a bit of a callback for those who have been playing since PFS1, my only real complaint is the pacing. I feel like the layout of the main map leads to a lot party indecision, coupled with a lot of lore dumping in the end that most people might not get or care for. My party mostly had newer players, so the impact was really lost on them. It would also would have been nice to touch upon the associated legacy boon, but c'est la vie.

Otherwise, the scenario had a very creepy vibe that could be exported to home games. Combats were solid and flavorful, particularly at the end. I'm excited to see the conclusion of he Equal Exchanges metaplot goes. I was intending to sit out this PFS season until this one was announced.

Played high tier with 6 at 31 ACP. Party was a Fighter, Monk, Thaumaturge, Barbarian, Summoner, and Wizard with a few archetypes splashed in.

The plot really didn't feel cohesive. Go revisit automaton; apparently there are a bunch of onlookers, but only really 2 matter, defend automaton, automaton wanders off. Likely setting up an ally for a future scenario/special maybe?

Encounters felt like they skewed easy, with most of the difficulty coming from distances vs. enemies with strong ranged attack, difficult terrain, and two strong hazards. We were obviously a combat heavy party, but must enemies were at or below level so often were just deleted within a round. Biggest gripe encounter-wise was an issue with 3D combat without relative heights listed. We just know there is a platform high in the air we need to access, but we don't know how high it is from certain spots in the map. The GM can resolve most of problems away, but a lot of rounds devolved into "can I reach X spot from here if I do Y"

There are also social influence rounds, but they feel arbitrary. 1 at the beginning, likely acting as a tutorial, 2 at the middle, and 1 at the start of act 3. A lot of lower DC skills are fairly obscure lores or the same skill, so certain parties might struggle if they don't have those skills readily available or have poor roles.

All in all, I probably won't remember anything off the top of my head about this scenario, but it wasn't a bad one either.

Played at 34 CP with 5 level 8's and a level 7. All references will assume party level of 8. Party comp was skewed heavily toward martials, so GM intentional chose more combat heavy encounters. Table went almost 6 hours before the GM called the last encounter.

-First part went fine. Standard number of successes to meet threshold. We also had a lot of high skilled characters, so bit of a cakewalk
-Second part was a reasonable combat. 3 enemies at level-1 and 2 enemies at level-3.
-Third part was more skill checks, this time with primary and secondary checks. Went fine with our investigator picking up a lot of the slack.
-Fourth Part was 5 enemies at level-2 and one at level+1, featuring a lot of battlefield control spells. This fight felt like a slog with half the party trying to overcome two stacked control spells for the first 3 or so turns of combat. This was was just dragged out far too long, and I'd rather have seen fewer, more difficult enemies.
-Ending enter felt really disconnected from the whole story, and at approaching the 6 more mark, the GM just called it after it was obvious we'd win.

Conceptually, I liked the core part of the story. Investigating items and meeting relevant NPC's feels great for a Pathfinder Society repeatable, definitely more so than a diplomatic mission. My gripes lay with the ambush encounter tacked on at the end and the adjustments. As levels get higher and creatures and characters get more and more complex, I'd say that I'd almost always recommend difficulty rather than headcount. I know this will eat page space, but I think it makes more sense than just a lot more bodies.

This was played high tier, 6 players with 26 ACP. Party was champion, fighter, monk, investigator, bard, and druid with some archetypes mashed in. Run time was approximately 5.5 hours, only partially due to some unoptimized combat tactics.

This is a very flavorful scenario, touching on a minor plot point from a PFS2 Season 3 scenario. It feels very Ustalavan, and characters who are academic or enjoy the weirder side of Golarion should have a field day. With that said, I think the story is a touch too elaborate, with the same information being conveyed from multiple sources depending on who does what and how rolls go. Not counting society quest givers and another reoccuring charcter, there are, by my count, 11 named NPC's involved in the backstory and current events. As events unfold, you pretty much learn about all of them to one degree or another and interact in a meaningful way with 7 of them. I feel like some characters could have been cut if not for the need to make sure the story flows forward regardless of party action.

Encounters were a little generic for my tastes but still satisfying. Everything was justified in world, but I think enemy selection could have been improved.The scenario went with the add more than make tougher route, which still provided challenge without overwhelming the party. I feel like one map choice could have been improved as the descriptions don't make sense as depicted.

All in all, I think it's a pretty fun scenario, just the dragging at certain point can hurt the flow.

It's fun to see such a small, but expressive niche in a world that I love.

This was a very fun scenario, but I think my party comp removed a lot of the teeth that other groups might have experienced. We had 2 cloistered clerics, 2 cosmos oracles, a bard, and barbarian. Each were level 7 or 9, so we hit right at 18 CP.

We finished sub 3 hours with an awkward silence amongst the players. "Was that it?" I asked myself. All the combats were creative, encouraging unusual tactics or bringing unique enemies to the front. Then there's potential for a unique setpiece battle, but it just kinda...ends after you're already invested? I would have rather preferred playing it out without the timer. It might have worked better in the Sagamore for an interactive, when the big bad boss is defeated, and everyone cheers. It just hits different sitting at a computer, and not in a good way.

It's still quality content, but I wish it maybe lasted longer.

All the other reviews say everything I can about it. I wasn't mad at the scenario when it was done, but I could hear annoyance between players and the GM as we moved into hours 5 and 6.

The only thing I might add is I feel like the novel mechanic to assist PC's could have been implemented better. A lot of players forgot about it, a lot of time was wasted on who it would affect, and sometimes it felt like it was not even helping toward the later stages of encounters.

I played this at Paizocon Online Friday night. We played low tier with a cleric, wizard, and 2 fighters. We were done sub 2 hours. I don't think anyone went below half. We rolled extremely well and our fighters were both power attackers.

There was a lot of interesting things happening around the scenario. The Venture Captain was extremely interesting. There were NPC's that could have played a much more interesting part. In short, it felt like do a lap around the dungeon and go home. Nothing was too challenging, nut neither was it engaging.

Played this as an author table at Paizocon Online. Table played at high tier max difficulty, most either being casters or having caster dedications.

Section 1 was the highlight. I'd love to see it (or something similar) become a future bounty/quest or even just a new player demo.

The middle we were able to overcome much of the difficulty due to class features and clever tactics. The encounters lost a lot of their teeth, but you could see how they would be dangerous. Definitely a lot of flavor to the second combat.

The final section came with a decent warning and had two players cast Augury just to see if it was worth proceeding. When the combat started, it appeared challenging. Round 2 appeared overwhelming, but again, through clever tactics and smart battlefield control, we were able to overcome.

I will say this is not a scenario for everyone. Those with negative experiences are completely right and I think if I suffered as they had, I might look less favorably at it. As it stands, this is far and away my favorite of the season.

I played this high tier in a 4-hour slot. CP 29 with a 6 person party. Towards the end, the GM was rushing us through, and we made have skipped an encounter or two.

The adventure is an interesting one, where you are going as a part of a diplomatic mission to establish trade relations. You're competing with the Aspis Consortium, and you can't outright fight them, so you have to find a way to best them in negotiations by undermining their undermining efforts.

Where it breaks down is how it's presented. The players should notice shenanigans very early on but are warned to find evidence. What they don't realize is how much evidence there is to gather, so they spend 20 minutes discussing a single roll to gather a fraction of the evidence. I think if the scenario was rearranged a bit, players could get a perspective and formulate a better, more concise plan.

There is a MAJOR fight toward the middle of the scenario, and I think this elicited the biggest gripes from the table. I can't speak to the other reviews on what is and is not correct, but the encounter I played just felt like lucky crits or complaints about high AC.

There's a lot of good ideas in this one, but maybe there is a bit too much player agency with no clarity on exactly what we're supposed to do other than beat the aspis. I think it might have worked better if instead of a timeline of talks and investigation, instead it was a series of suspicious events for us to respond to, and then gather evidence at the end.

I played this in high tier at 25 challenge points, with a spellcaster heavy group of monk, cleric, cleric, cleric/champion, ranger/alchemist, and wizard. I'm fortunate enough to have the author as a local Venture Officer, so that was an added bonus for their insights.

Without gettings into too many spoilers, the Pathfinders get called in to deal with behind the front line threats, which is something I always appreciate. It's a great way to give the feel of a large battle without breaking out mass combat rules. The repeatable aspect comes from the threats that you deal with, with an opening and final encounter being mostly fixed bookends. From what I played, they've very flavorful encounters. After the session, I was excitely telling my partner about one of the set pieces. While every encounter was challenging, I don't believe anyone in the party felt overwhelmed or anything was unfair(although there were gripes about one creature's special attack).

The only reason I'm reluctant to give this five stars is a lack of in-game preperation. You get thrown into the thick of things and don't really have time to adjust. If you go into this scenario blind (i.e. you don't realize it's likely going to be fighting aquatic threats) and your default is something that the scenario hampers, it's going to be a rough go of things.

So, I played this at an online con, and, due to some technical mishaps, the GM was somewhat flustered. Overall, I'm happy to report it was a great experience. Our party composition was fighter, champion, investigator, rogue, and two clerics, with most everyone having a sprinkling of multiclass, and we played in high tier.

It's a great spiritual sequel to 2-01 while standing on its own. The encounters are clever and fair, and they make sense for the story it's trying to convey. I might have removed the optional encounter completely and replaced it with a hazard, but that's a very small gripe. I will say we did solve a puzzle which prevented one encounter.

The only reason I can't give this a 5 star review is I felt like the puzzle has slightly too much complexity. Other reviews can provide more details on this, but I would have tried to simplify it.

I was the GM for the review beneath me. A lot of what made their experience 2 stars was a lot of prep, interpretations based upon forum discussion, and knowing the general direction of the "plot." If a GM ran this cold, I would have gotten up from the table.

It's a great premise. It's going to be an interesting story, but the story isn't told in the game. You're just doing grunt work to justify the story to come, which you may never get to play.

In the scenario, you have days upon days of the exact same downtime activities with artificial restrictions mixed with an unrelated aspect of the scenario with over a dozen NPC's that can require multiple interactions. It's a scenario that can be solved in 10 minutes but has to be played out in HOURS. Heavens help you if you try to play it with just the unamended handout. Once you complete that trudge of downtime, guess what? More downtime with new actions that really don't impact anything. Dessert is some toothless combat that fizzles out at the end because who cares anymore.

Once everything is over and done with, your character doesn't feel like they've progressed or grown. It feels like Tom Sawyer tricked you into playing the fence for 5 hours, and everyone just wants to go home.

I really, really want to like this one. This has the potential to be one of the most fun boss fights I've ever seen in Paizo's OP, but the entire scenario needs to be well prepped, or otherwise, it is overly punishing to the players. My GM misread many a rule and both the party and players suffered as a result.

I could seeing this being a 5 star scenario in the right circumstance, but my playthough and followup reading was a 3, so I'm averaging it out to a 4 star.

I ran this at my local FLGS for free RPG day. My table consisted of 5 players, with a doubling up on Poog. Everyone had an excellent time with the silliness and writing. While still following the format of the series (goblin shenanigans, followed by adventure), this one had really good pacing so the shenanigans didn't bog down gameplay. I personally enjoyed all the callbacks of references to early scenarios. I felt like the Goblins series was getting kinda stale, but this was just refreshing enough for one more romp.

I can say this scenario was the peak of my gaming life. It was expertly crafted in that everyone had spotlight time, it was not bogged down by combat or grind, and that final boss battle is something amazing. This is the bar I think any scenario should strive for, and I will still be talking about this game for years to come.

I played this last night, and truthfully, I felt like this was kind of a dud. I'm not sure if it was poor prep by the GM (which definitely detracted from my enjoyment) or just the way it is written, but this felt kind of like a cakewalk in tier 4-5.

Party comp was a Bloodrager/Investigator, Barbarian/Oracle, Kitsune Swashbuckler, Halfling Swashbuckler, Skald, and Cleric, all 4-5. One of them had an owlbear companion, as another player with a pet ape left it back at the house.

The adventure is divided into two parts, linked together by several scenes for rp. First, the now defunct faction missions lead into a chase scene. The table was in an uproar because no one has experienced consistent ruling for chase scenes. -_- This was my first, so I can not comment on it. This might lead to a captured goblin, which you can interrogate. This leads to a diplomacy check with an NPC, which leads to the dungeon.

The dungeon is a standard series of rooms filled with stock monsters. I will say there were some clever traps laid out for those who like to charge into melee, but when the bulk of the npc's are incredibly weak for tier, it's a cake walk for experience and prestige.

I feel like this was meant to be an evergreen with a high tier tacked on. Again, my experience could have been soured by an ill-prepped GM, but otherwise, this likely rates as one of the worst scenarios I've played in terms of pure enjoyment.

I played this today was seven players. Cleric/Wizard 5, Barbarian 4, Gunslinger 3, Barbarian 2, Wildsinger Druid 1, Magus 1, and Bloodrager/Lepidstart Inspector Investigator 3. We played up tier, and it was a challenge. Just not the good kind.

While the atmosphere of the adventure is really cool, a lot of the encounters rely on numbers for difficulty on top of stuff low tier characters might not be able to handle. Our lower levels healed or cantriped as best as they could, but a lot of the adventure put them in danger of being mobbed. At one point, I had 16 attacks on me during one round, all with a chance to disease or paralyze.

I was one of the lucky ones in that I didn't die or take ability drain. Essentially, this scenario (for high tier) is mob, ambush, mob, optional encounter with significant difficulty.

I played this in a low tier online game this weekend, and it was rather enjoyable. There was an apparent mix of role-play and combat encounters that made it seem as though a variety of approaches could have worked. My group, we just kinda murderhobo'd it. The combats were challenging, but not overwhelming, especially considering we triggered three combats at once. I also liked the revelations at the end of the adventure, which feels a lot more interesting than some of the stuff in earlier season 6 scenarios.

What kept it from being a five star, for me, was table issues. I feel as though if you didn't drop the key words, you were stonewalled.

A plain language review:

Layout-Two columns, archetypes sorted by alphabetical order. There are some moderate issues with how material is listed (things that replace later levels coming before things that would be replacing earlier material) Overall, it's readable, but always read your archetype in full when leveling up.

Fluff-Little blurbs accompany each of the archetype, meant to tease and hype the archetype in question. Nothing new here.

Crunch-I suspect another review will rattle off a basic summary of the archetypes, or you can find it in the discussion thread for the product. After reading the ACG, I began to worry that adding grit/panache might make a default archetype for any class. Guns follow the rule of cool, and generally speaking, you can just swap out the abilities granted at level one with a pistol, gunsmithing, and grit. To me, this feels lazy. I imagine how a monk would use a gun to be very, very different than a traditional gunslinger. Turns out, no so much. Other archetypes are lazy in other ways, like the divinely bound ranger who gains a familiar and some additional spells for his animal companion.

With that said, there are some fairly interesting ideas in here. I praise the weird musician, who uses music to warp his companions and hex his enemies. The monster chronicler fills a niche I think has been lacking in the game, that of an expert on monsters and how to slay them. These archetypes, and some others, are both flavorful and mechanically interesting.

Overall-I'm giving this 3/5 stars. With 21 archetypes, not every one of them is going to be a hit. The skewing of archetypes toward paladin (3, with one having an antipaladin variant) and to a lesser extent rogue(2), if these classes don't interest you, you might find the offerings lacking. If you're a fan of player options, by all means, get this. You'll get an amazing bang for your buck. For me, if I didn't get a free copy, I wouldn't have purchased it, and the odds of me using it as a player are close to nil. As a gm, there's much more of a chance if only because they are either unexpected or interesting archetypes. I just wish there was a bit more work put into some of them or they were better thought out.