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Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber. *** Pathfinder Society GM. Starfinder Society GM. 2,123 posts (2,681 including aliases). 5 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 28 Organized Play characters. 9 aliases.



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Solid offering and rapid errata

4/5

I've run the two scenarios released so far and in general I'm very happy with how its gone. I've been able to run from the journal directly without having either the PDF open, or printed in on my desk. Definitely has saved me at least an hour per scenario of prep.

I had some feedback after the first one regarding the CP scaling macro that was confusing some users, and they've already fixed it. (asking the user to select high-tier versus low tier AND also the total challenge points -- the former is derivable from the latter). The token placement marco works well.

At launch there was some problems with easily sharing some images from the inline journal versus the art appendix, but again, fixed within a week of reporting.

4-star versus 5-star for me, because there has been any useful aids for the more complicated skills checks. (For instance the closing scene of 5-02, probably should have a aid for the six locations with descriptions and maybe listing the skills usable, etc). If we get a chase/influence mini-game I would expect some form of visual aid, for instance.


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Decent story/theme/encounters, but pacing felt a little off

3/5

This scenario ran 4.5 hours for me -- most run 3-3.5 for me, so this might run rather long for groups that routinely run full time on most scenarios.

I wasn't thrilled with a second elemental theme after PFS2 5-01 -- but I think this one did it better than 5-01. If the whole year is going to be elemental, rather than Golarian exploration I'm going to get burnt out on the theme I think.
Some of the players commented on "yet another rescue mission" and I agree it feels they've become very common of late.

I liked the return to the swamp, I liked how the plots of Intro 1/2 were woven in in ways that feel continuous. I liked the hints that there are more ruins to explore (setting up a recurring exploration destination to use across seasons is great -- similar to Pallid Peaks or as a counterpoint to the recurring Dacilane silliness -- all of which are useful arcs for generating fun callbacks for players who have played a lot, while still being accessible to first-time drop in players. I feel these slow-burn cross season arcs are extremely valuable to the health of OP and I'm glad to see the threads being set-up and pushed forward. At times it feels like the increased percentage of metaplot scenarios (increased percentage mainly due to lowered total number of scenarios) was pushing out some of this flavor of development and I'm glad to see it ticking up.

The scenario did a good job of highlighting the unstableness of the area, IMO, without wrecking the party (ie the Nixret rune to ensure they don't use their wood/metal weapons, etc) The party enjoyed the narrative elemental transforms.

The scenario is a bit heavy on skill checks, maybe too heavy, and I think people would have preferred fewer, but deeper ones.
1) Initial investigation -- people felt more invested here and I think would have enjoyed more to discover/piece together here. My party did roll 2 successes and 2 crits, so it went fast mechanically, but slower narratively as the players really felt invested in learning what was going on.
2) Hope Points -- this one felt truthful emotionally, but rather out of place/pacing for the players -- they want to learn more what's going on, and how to fix things, so spending the time rallying the troops felt off. I think making (1) longer/more detailed and this section shorter/skipped would have been a better use of word-count/playtime budget.
3) Elemental Fields -- Highlighted the mutability of the demiplane nicely, players enjoyed it thematically, but found the 2nd and 3rd to be too much Athletics, needed more variety for how to engage (and I had two characters with swim speeds so I think an average party would fare worse).
4) Ruptures -- Good variety/flavor, however any time you end up with more than ~4 locations it can be very hard for players to keep track of their options/what they've learned even with aids. It made sense for the scenario, but definitely something to keep in mind for future ones-- don't get sucked into always having all 6 planes involved.

(Numerous other smaller skill checks, but those were fine)

Combats)
Both of the first two encounters went well and players found the opponents interesting. Players really enjoyed the shape changing of the metal elemental, and the sloth's insect reaction. Party tended to heal the NPCS, in combat, more than I think the scenario expected, so a little more tactics for how they can contribute rather than just being passive people to be saved would be nice (even if their weapons have been destroyed)

The final combat, I felt could have been written more cleanly, especially about the hazard. Its interactions with the rust scarab's extra resistances felt confusing. The various disarm/disable approaches felt a bit more complicated/opaque than I'd like -- return 6 elements (but returning 3 is enough to stop all resistances?), destroying spikes removes actions, some disables disable the entire thing, etc. It felt less clear than I'd like and more complicated than desired at the end of an already long scenario. Use of a magma map, but no indication of the danger of falling into the magma.

The Faction missions felt tacked on.


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Very happy with the product,

4/5

I ran 4-13 using this package at PaizoCon Online 2023 and found it to be a very solid product. I did run into two surprises:

1) It was missing some of the artwork from the scenario, at least I couldn't find any pre-loaded artwork for Hatahasi in either the journal or as an item.

2) The scaling macro is amazing, but doesn't respect configured global/default token settings. Ie. I normally run with health bars visible, so had to manually configure each token after the macro runs.


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Had a great time with this scenario

4/5

I agree with some of the reviews that it could still use some work -- the overall story isn't quite held together at times -- some due to the amorphous time that based between some of the events in the backstory and just needing to make everything work. And it felt like there's a fair bit of pointless obfuscation (unknown status of too many named peopled). But I think it still worked.

The combats were generally interesting and instead of just shutting certain builds down, tended to have interesting ways to work with the situation. The ooze room however had issues with the size of the room -- the mix of oozes and incants, especially the non-splitting ooze -- was really well done and made for an interesting tactical combat.

I probably would have wanted more about Lumna. The party I was GMing for wanted to get more information out of Narcela about Asylnn and the names of the other children to be watching for. The party enjoyed interacting with Lumna and Revecka.


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Fun, well rounded RP heavy adventure

4/5

I've GM'd this one four times now and its been a pretty fun/easy one to GM.

The mission briefing felt just the right length -- some of the recent adventures initial box text has felt a little too long. I would have liked a couple more "likely questions". While I'm fine adlibbing answers, I always appreciate the wit/character that the author inject that's better than what I do. A bit more in-character background of Irrisen/Witches from Bjersig's or Othlup's perspecitve would have been nice.

The skill challenge over the mountain felt useless, assuming everyone has winter clothes, its just a waste of time at the table; while its setup causes players to really worry about getting it right.

The first combat is well done, with alternative victory conditions that strongly encourages terrain usage and athletics skill feats. I wish the bear's trample was a two-action ability rather than 3, just because I've never gotten to use it and its super flavorful -- too many Slows, or crit hits with bows immobilizing it for an action/ etc. The fire rays have always made it interesting once people gain elevation.

Player & characters seem to have enjoyed the Russians. The diploacy checks here have sucked up a lot of hero points, but so far none of my tables have fought/surrendered, all have succeeded at diplomacy. Tables have wanted more details than are present about the relationship between the local Russians and Anastasia however.

All the little vingettes before the feats have been well received and offer a lot of good RP opportunities. A bit more about Chesjilawa would have been nice, the general theme of "not as bad as she could have been" is good for exposing that a diplomatic solution might be possible, but players typically want to know "well what did she actually do".

The post-feast bits are probably the low-lights of the scenario for me. The card game, hockey, and dancing felt a little too simplified to be interesting, but after the 1-2 hours of RP that have typically happened by that point, the party is typically ready for something faster/change of pace. Had their been a combat somewhere during the town interactions (defending from a non-Chesjilawa force to drive home that the village could benefit from her protection, might have helped the story, and provided the change of pace needed here).

The Baba Yaga cameo was nice and post players/characters were suitably impressed. For those who wanted to do a recall knowledge check on the old woman, I typically ran with a "you're not sure if its just the drinking talking, but you think that might have been Baba Yaga. Wait there's no way she was really here, was there?" and PCs typically ran with that. All of my parties have hit the 10RP threshold, so I think some of the checks might have been a touch too easy. And my GM-immersion has always been a bit broken here about _why_ those Respect Points event's particular outcomes are the ones that earn her respect. Ie at least for all the after feast activities, it feels like participating, and _losing_ gracefully would be more respectful rather than simply crushing the locals at their own games.

The meeting with Chesjilawa has always gone well, some groups have wanted to negotiate (and some of those failed), and some have just sided with the Russians without any real thought. At high tier, the scaling of "just add more Redcaps" feels a bit too easy. One of my tables was a 36 CP (all level 8s) and adding more level 5s makes no real difference.

Finally, a bit more detail about why the Russians (experienced soliders) wouldn't already have made the sorts of maps the party is looking for would be nice, it doesn't really change the scenario, but every party has asked to copy their maps.

Compared to 2-07

Spoiler:
which has a superficially similar structure, parties seem to have enjoyed this one more. The vingettes here seem to work a little better than the scene setting for each round of the influence system, and while the skills aren't necessarily more varied, I've seen fewer people tuning out that 'there's noting I can do here'. However, for players who have played both, I've caught a bit of a regret that neither of this month's scenarios was a combat heavy scenario for them to let loose with their high level characters.