Golden Orb

Quentin Coldwater's page

***** Venture-Agent, Netherlands—Utrecht 1,621 posts (6,215 including aliases). 127 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 42 Organized Play characters. 11 aliases.



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Fun, but nothing amazing.

3/5

(I played this.)

I don't have any real complaints about this scenario, but I also don't have any real praise for it, either. It's a very solid adventure that doesn't try too hard, I think. There's a nice red herring in the story that might be setup for the second part in the series, but other than that, the story didn't really impress me. There's a fun escort quest that rewards out-of-the-box thinking, but that's the only standout for me. That's a shame, because up to now, most of season 7 impressed me a lot with its creative scenarios.

The only real niggle I have about this is how the story doesn't really evolve over the scenario. You're tasked with finding out out about something, but you're given most of the information from the start and even after the boss encounter you don't really know much more.


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Cheesy, B-horror movie fun.

4/5

(I GMed this.)

This is a great adventure purely because of how silly the entire premise is. The story is easily forgotten and I won't waste any words on it, but the way it's presented is amazing. A big Zyphus-style deathmatch is an amazing setting to walk around in. It's a bit of a shame most of it has already passed, I'd loved to have seen some traps triggered "in the background," as it were, but a creative GM can go nuts here. I invented even more (triggered) traps just to keep my players on their toes, and they loved it. Easily worth playing just for this experience.

What I'm less enthused about are the combats. One combat has a big, scary monster just standing there waiting to be put down. Another encounter, in the lower tier, has

low tier spoiler:
TWO swarms waiting for players, in an already cramped and hazardous environment. Low-level players can't be expected to deal with that unless you've really stocked up on alchemist fires or Burning Hands. I'm glad my players decided to play up at the last moment, as they couldn't possibly deal with that encounter. The middle tier is even easier, so I'd just switch those two encounters if it was up to me (with a minor tweak).
Other encounters were fine, if a bit unimpressive.

Bottom line: if you ham up the ridiculousness of the scenario, you'll have a great time, despite some problems.


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Boring. Can't even muster the enthusiasm for a witty title.

2/5

(I played this.)

This is an unexciting scenario. It doesn't offer any challenges, narrative twists, or interesting locales. Fights were on the easy side and I never felt like we were in danger, other than the one confirmed critical from an arrow. Granted, we were a fairly optimal party, but if the only thing our Summoner does is spam Guidance because he's otherwise not needed, things are wrong in the combat department.

Now, it might just be our GM, as he tends to handwave some social encounters, but I felt like the NPCs were very boring and only there to fill some spaces on the map.

Also, another reviewer praised the Cheliax faction mission, but I disliked it very much. I wasn't of the faction, but I like to read it because Zarta's writing is usually amusing. This time, though, she comes off as outright evil and xenophobic, which is a shame, I feel. My own faction mission was also pretty boring, and I got the impression the others at the table weren't much better, either. It felt like the faction missions were an afterthought and only there out of obligation, rather than expanding the story, telling a unique thing about the world, or be a fun diversion. They had no real right to be there and felt terribly out of place.

Anyway, bottom line of this adventure: it's terribly boring. We finished it in three hours, including optional encounter and a lot of messing around. I still gave it two stars because it's a decent adventure without any glaring mistakes (other than being dreadfully boring) and I don't actively hate it. A shame it follows an adventure I really liked, I had high hopes for this one.


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Simply amazing.

5/5

(I played this.)

From a player's point of view, this adventure is almost perfect. Great story, great combats, cool locations, good challenges, generally a cool adventure, lots of opportunities for roleplay (both between party members and to NPCs) without leaning on it too much, everything. The way it ties several loose threads together (at least three, I can tell), and manages to produce a memorable (recurring?) villain and a new storyline is an awesome feat in and of itself. The scenario also manages to dose the story out in little bits, giving you a real sense of discovery most scenarios lack, where a lot of exposition is dumped at the end, or not explained at all. Enemies have some tricks up their sleeves and it rarely devolves into just hitting it with your sword.

Some slight spoilers about the encounters:
I like how they're on the tougher end, but you're usually limited to one fight per day, so you can go all-out. I do wish it was communicated better beforehand, though. Our GM warned us beforehand, and it helped a lot. I also love how the final boss is potentially very deadly, but there's little to no penalty for dying. Sure, you're missing out on a cool fight, but it feels much better than having to spend money on Raise Deads.

Some slight spoiler on the research part:
I like how it rewards specialised characters, but people who didn't aren't left out. Also, the range of skills is pretty diverse and it isn't unreasonable to think you've maxed out at least one those skills on most characters, unless you're particularly starved on skill points. I do wish the way to reduce KP was a bit better, though. I happened to have the higher die to roll, but due to crappy rolls I still rolled lower on average than the other party member. I'd rather have had a bigger static bonus, which at least guarantees I have a bigger impact, but I guess rolling a bigger die is flashier, and I don't hold it against the adventure.

On the GMs end, it seemed like a nightmare. Our GM had to riffle a lot through the scenario, and one encounter had the monsters on three different pages. It also seems like a big hassle to prep, so don't run this cold.

In the end, this is one of the biggest recommendations I can give. Easily a place in my top 10, probably even in my top 5.

EDIT: After running this two times, the research part can be frustrating if you don't have a very skilled party. I saw some people's attentions fade here and there, that does knock it down a bit. If your party isn't that skilled, I'd rank this four out of five, but still a big recommendation just for the lore alone.


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Fun, but nothing amazing.

3/5

(I played this.)

As others have commented, this is extremely railroady. The NPCs literally tell you where to go and players have no real input. I don't mind that too much, but others might. Regardless of that, there's room for some roleplaying and some fun NPCs to interact with, so it's not as if there isn't anything to do at all.

Combats were fun, with the middle one especially interesting, though possibly quite dangerous. Other fights weren't as deadly and I feel like they could've been upped somewhat in lethality (we played up). The first encounter has a moderately scary monster, but with small mooks surrounding it that posed no challenge whatsoever. I'd rather have seen several decently statted enemies than one "sub-boss" and a few mooks with a handful of HP each. These fell simply because of unfair action economy on our side.

Some spoilers here, so in tags.

Final encounter spoilers:
There's a chase scene in this. There's some hatred against chase scenes, and while I understand it, I don't mind them terribly, as long as they're handled well. Unfortunately, this one isn't. There's an over-reliance on certain skills, and some characters can't pass certain spots because they lack the skills, especially some pregens. I never progressed past the first spot because I couldn't make a DC 18 with a +11 bonus seven times in a row, but that's just bad luck and I won't hold it against the scenario. But still, some characters will have trouble with some checks, and while I know you're not meant to be good at everything, I think some combinations of checks could've been better thought out. A fairly high DC on either Bluff or Stealth is pretty hard on Fighters, Clerics, Paladins, and so on, while some low-Strength characters will have trouble passing the Climb/CMB check.

What's even worse is that the chase scene leads directly into the final encounter. The scenario admits that people will most likely arrive in waves, but in our case our Druid had such a head start (he had a movement speed of 80, so he double-moved every time) we couldn't possibly keep up with him. The boss damaged him pretty badly and all he could do was try to delay until help arrived (which, sadly, wasn't coming). Now, this was all our fault and I won't hold it against the scenario, but I'd appreciate it if authors would keep this in mind. I think other chase scenes didn't lead directly to the final encounter, and I appreciate that. There's less at stake there.

One final thing is that the secondary success condition is directly tied into the primary success condition. I'm fine with not always getting full prestige rewards, but failing both conditions at once seems like bad design to me. In our case, the boss got away, but didn't kill Rutowski. In the conclusion it says that if you fail, the town will catch him the next day and kill him, thereby also exposing him. Preventing his identity from being exposed is the primary condition, and curing him is the secondary (along with preventing the murder of Rutowski). Which means that if the beast gets away, you immediately fail both conditions, which is a bit of a letdown.

One final complaint is the Paizo editing. I saw the GM constantly flipping between multiple pages. Paizo still has lots to learn in this department. Since season 6 they're putting creature stats in an appendix, which helps a lot, but I feel things could still improve.

Despite our somewhat sour ending, we still had a fun night. We made some mistakes and those are all our fault, not that of the scenario. I like Crystal's work and I hope she gets to do more.


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Absolutely amazing.

5/5

(I played this.)

I've only played a handful of Larry Wilhelm scenarios so far, but with this one I'm sure he's my favourite PFS author. This scenario absolutely aces it on theme and atmosphere, and I'd like to see more of this. Forgotten Koor, also a Wilhelm gem, was very much like this, which is also in my top 5 favourite scenarios so far. Koor had a wonderful Arabian Night feeling about it, but I've never felt this scared in an adventure, and I loved it.

As said, the theme was amazing, but the story could use a little bit more improvement. Our GM made some handouts to flesh out the story a bit, and they really helped make the scenario pop. I really loved the final encounter, with a boss that isn't just a moustache-twirling villain, but has an actual reason for being what he is. I loved the fact that we got an insight in the psychology of the villain, something that isn't often explored. Most of the time, it's just assumed the villain's evil just because he can, but this one's different.

Fights are pretty tough, especially the final encounter. Be sure to bring along your best. The middle wavers a bit, which is fine (I don't need to be scared all the time), but the first and final encounter were certainly standouts. Final encounter was maybe a bit tougher than was necessary, with a big map and difficult terrain, but it wasn't a deal-breaker.

In short, I have only nitpicks about this scenario. Absolutely recommended.


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Great scenario, with only a few minor hiccups.

4/5

(I played this.)

Great scenario, awesome followup to the Destiny of the Sands story. Interesting combats, great setup for a story, fantastic use of interesting spells and situations, good implementation of an investigation. Just one minor complaint: we were under the impression that time was of the essence, and therefore rushed a lot of the investigation parts. In the end, it didn't matter a whole lot, but it's weird how information is disappearing around you at an alarming rate, and you get the option to pray at a statue for 10 minutes.
Also, the final encounter seems pretty complicated. Our GM had to pause for a bit to reread everything because it was apparently spread across multiple pages. There was stuff happening across an entire battlemat and while I like complicated encounters, this might've been a bit too much.
There were also some nasty skill checks tied to a couple of parts. You really need some specialised characters to get maximum enjoyment out of this, I feel, but if you do, you'll like this a lot.

Final conclusion: great adventure with lots of hectic action, some cool decisions and a fun story. Highly recommended.


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Good dungeon crawl with fun monsters and an interesting puzzle

4/5

(I played this.)

I loved pretty much everything about this adventure. There's some good challenging combats (with unique and well thought-out monster combinations), a good puzzle (though it can be cheated, more on that later), and a great environment. This goes in my "want to play again"-pile.

However, there are some negatives about this scenario: though the environment is pretty unique, you don't get to know anything about it. We merely see a backdrop that's not to be interacted with, a glimpse of the past. I want to delve into the history of the place, know the background of why it ended up being here.
There's also very little room for roleplaying. Okay, not every scenario should hinge on it, but there's only one small part where you could possibly talk to some inhabitants and that's it. It also feels pretty perfunctory and could be expanded upon.

The final encounter failed to excite me. Maybe it's because of lucky initiative rolls, but he got one attack off and then he died. It might just be our fault for not giving him a chance, but after the previous encounters I'd hoped for a fun challenge, but it sort of disappointed.

For the puzzle part, here be spoilers:

Puzzle spoilers:
It's a good puzzle in theory, but we discovered that the numbers were in numerical order, which made solving it rather trivial. I can imagine it being a lot tougher if you don't see that, though. I like how some puzzles depend on logic, rather than "put object A in slot X". The fact that you need to speak a specific language can make it difficult, but luckily we had it available to us. Then again, by this tier you should be prepared for things like this.

All in all, I really like this scenario. It has its flaws, but its strengths more than make up for it.


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Plague mechanic is maybe a bit shoehorned, but otherwise fun.

4/5

(I played this.)

I liked this scenario. It's a bit bare-bones on story, but it does what it wants to do really well. The skill challenges are fun and everyone is able to contribute in some way. Combats were a bit on the easy side, though. The fights weren't the real enemy here, but I like to be challenged in some way. First combat started off good (tier 3-4), but the rest was sort of disappointing. The disease was on the tough side, but we didn't really suffer too much from the detrimental effects, maybe we did something wrong there. I've read some reviews complaining about how tough it was, but if you have a somewhat balanced party it's pretty easy to get the cure. I would recommend stocking up on Lesser Restorations in some way, though.
All in all, I thought this was a fun scenario, though the disease is a bit more oppressive than I'd like.


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No bells and whistles, but still great.

4/5

(I played this under TheDegraded.)

This is a great scenario. The story is fun, understandable, and falls together greatly. My main issue with the PFS narratives so far has been that story either drips to the player in very small bits (or not at all), or all at once in the wrap-up. Here you get a premise and you gradually piece things together. The players can see what happened by using logic, rather than having the evil plot explained to them by the villain.

I also really appreciate the variety in combats. They all felt pretty lethal, and they used different tactics each time. And finally Paizo seems to understand that final encounters need to go wide, rather than big. One big bad gets beaten down easily due to action economy, but here the last fight had several moderately tough enemies, which made the fight much more exciting and tense.

One compaint, though: the encounter with the instigators felt quite clunky. Maybe it was just our fault for not understanding we'd already convinced the audience but we needed to go after the instigators, but our GM pretty much had to start combat himself in order to get the scenario going again. Again, maybe that's just our fault for not picking up the cues, but I felt it's a shame we couldn't really talk it out.

In the end, a fun scenario for everyone. Some social encounters, some interesting fights, and a good storyline. Recommended.


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Starts out great, then limps to an ending.

4/5

(I both GMed and played this.)

Kaer Maga is a fantastic city, and when I explained to my players what it was, they were eager to explore it. The scenario starts out with two great combats, then gets bogged down by social encounters. I like roleplaying, and so did my players, but in the end there's too much pressure on those encounters and not enough attention to making this scenario fall together.

Plot spoiler:
Me and my players found it difficult to actually find some useful information through regular roleplaying. My players wanted to interrogate the goons, infiltrate the Kiln, and wait for Ardoc back home, but the first were unreasonably unhelpful and the latter two seem reasonable option, but are never explained. I kept having to point them back at the scenario and tell them to ask random people on the street. And even then, they kept asking the same character over and over, rather than jumping to a new target.

The social encounter part fell a bit flat, as you can read in my spoiler. Two sentences isn't enough to make memorable characters, especially if they're implemented in such a clunky way. I'm reminded of Shades of Ice 2, with a similar disappointing mechanic. You'd think that a season later they'd have learned from their mistakes, but apparently not.
The meeting with the information broker was very memorable, though, and I would have liked to see more of that, impress the hostile nature of the town on the players. The Taldor faction mission is great, though silly.

And then the final encounter. Hoo boy.

Final encounter:
When will Paizo learn that one big guy isn't a proper challenge? I'd rather have three or four enemies of roughly equal skill, rather than one overly specialised enemy three or four levels higher than the APL. Players will just wade through the summons as if they're nothing, then face a horribly outmatched opponent. He was statted in such a way that he could maybe take out one or two party members, and then be out of juice. Now he blew his wad and then he was helpless against a full party heading his way.

I did like the encounter difficulty. I've mostly GMed earlier seasons, and there they just wiped the floor with every encounter. Here, (barely tier 3-4), every fight was a challenge (though also through terrible rolls by the party, I must admit), though not insurmountable. I did see quite a bit of errors in statblocks, though. Also, why are there so many potions? In the second encounter, all enemies have three potions of CLW each, that's way more than my party needed, especially since they also got seven from the first encounter.

In short, great adventure with amazing atmosphere. Too bad it sort of petered out in the end.


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Fun and atmospheric, but not amazing.

4/5

(I GMed this.)

In itself, this scenario is pretty unremarkable. Only one stand-out fight, simple story, regular environment. But my players still managed to enjoy them thoroughly with this adventure. It's a bit dated by current standards, but it's still fun enough. There's some weirdness with the map (WHY draw a side-view if it only makes things more confusing?), and one encounter and a few NPCs didn't really make sense to me, but other than that, it's a fun scenario. Enemies are big and scary, and though my players easily outclassed them, they were still on their toes at fist, which I like.

In short, I think this could do with some reworking, but it's a fun romp through the jungle. Don't expect to be wowed, but at the very least entertained.


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Warning for GMs: take your time on this one.

4/5

(I GMed this.)

I love the setting in this. Someone clearly spent a lot of time and energy on making this scenario all come together, and it shows. But, even though the thematics shine through greatly, some other stuff was paid less attention to. As a GM, this was horrible to run. There were some big mistakes here and there, a lot of flavour text is missing, and it's just plain chaotic in its structure. Also, it's pretty easy to get the drop on the final encounter, invalidating the majority of her tactics and leaving her neutered. Which is a shame, I feel.

In all, great to play, terrible to run. Would recommend playing this, but only with a GM who knows what he's doing.


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Great story, otherwise average.

3/5

(I GMed this.)

I must say, I adore the backstory to this adventure, and I love that it features so prominently in the scenario. I do think that it's a bit infodumpy, but it's much better than what I get from a lot of other scenarios, where you barely get to know anything.

Other than that though, it fails to really excite me. It's a big boring railroad that doesn't give players many options. People kept attacking the group for no reason and the way it's written, Diplomacy doesn't work, which is a shame.
There's an encounter in the middle that I sort of liked. It's set up as a trap and it makes sense, but is maybe too easily avoidable if your players have half a brain. I set the scene and took my time explaining, but once my players solved it, they had this "that's it?"-feeling I couldn't really alleviate.
Fights are either pushovers or life-threatening. First combat is pretty explosive, but then nothing ever really came close to that. If monsters had slightly more HP they would've posed a challenge, right now they're just a speedbump.
The environmental challenges were a bit weirdly worded, which didn't really help for me as a GM. This could've benefited from some more editing.
Something similar happens with the roleplay encounter. There's a big chunk of text devoted to it and it's hard to filter out the necessary information. A bit more structure would've been appreciated.

I do love the help you can get in the final fight. It's something that made sense and it's something that I haven't seen yet, both of which are pretty big pluses. In the end, it wasn't really necessary, but it was a nice addition.

It's a nice way to end a trilogy, but I'm not sure why they thought this would make for an epic story. With multiparters I'd expect something above the norm, but this series felt really below par. There's nothing really there that stood out for me, which is a shame, because the last part did a valiant attempt to save it.


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Has promise, doesn't deliver on it.

2/5

(I played this.)

This scenario had a great premise, but it completely faceplants halfway through. The idea of a town that disappears at random intervals could lead to many interesting adventures, but the one that's chosen here isn't one of them. The leadup to it is fine; nothing amazing, but fun. Some fun stuff in town, for sure, but once that puzzle kicks in, everything's thrown out of the window. The entire scenario grinds to a halt and devolves into pure trial and error with increasingly frustrated players and GM. Our GM graciously gave some hints throughout, some of which were helpful, some less so.
In the end, we managed to solve the puzzle, but it took way longer than it should. A brain-teaser every now and then is fun, but players don't have enough information to complete this puzzle to properly tackle this sucker. A puzzle whose answer, in retrospect, is this simple shouldn't take more than an hour to finish. Then it's simply badly designed.

In the end, this scenario isn't a total waste, there's fun to be had, but be wary for (how ironically thematically appropriate) the timestopper in the middle.


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A new instant classic.

5/5

(I played this.)

Oh man, I have nothing but praise for this scenario. Everything it does is done right. Great callbacks to the past, but still a solid adventure on its own. Great roleplay, but also good combat encounters if you wish to fight. More insight into the history of some of our favourite Venture Captains, and a great moral choice at the end. And a great spunky sidekick that's a good showcase of what the new occult classes are capable of.

Black Waters was a great adventure, and this manages to top that, I think. You can talk your way out of every fight if you wish, but you won't feel bad if you don't, I think.
I wish every adventure could be of this quality. Everything just clicks together, something that's been missing from a lot of adventures in the past. Highly recommended.


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I struggle to remember what I did.

3/5

(I played this.)

Maybe it was because I was tired, but this scenario failed to leave big impression on me. The premise is interesting, but it fails to deliver on it. The opening act is interesting and the mission you're sent out to do is intriguing. But then it sort of falls apart for me.

The scenario becomes nonlinear, with a social encounter and a fight encounter. The setting for the fight encounter is interesting and you learn a lot of backstory for what you're sent out to do. The villain here is a bit cliched, but overall pretty fun. The social encounter was on the iffy side. We were thrust in a clan cold war and tasked to sort of solve it, but for me it all came too sudden and without much explanation, even after asking the GM out of character for more information. It wasn't that we didn't ask the right questions, it's just that it's all very bland and failed to leave an impression on me. Again, that might have been due to me not being at full brain capacity, but introducing three clans in the span of a few minutes, all with similar-sounding names caused me to confuse a lot of NPCs with each other. I brought my social potato, so I wasn't a lot of use to my party, but I won't hold that against the scenario. We did have a great time talking to these people (although we were getting slightly frustrated by the lack of cooperation), but what ruined this part for me was how scripted a certain event felt. It's sort of out of nowhere and it felt as if it'd happen regardless of our presence there. Pathfinder is great for empowering players: I play because I want to feel like I've made a difference in the world. That particular scene felt completely unnecessary and could've achieved the same thing by letting your players be more involved in the story.

In the end, it's not a deal-breaker, but I've certainly played better scenarios.


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In dire need of a rewrite.

2/5

(I both GMed and played this.)

Okay, there's a great premise in this story, but it never pays off. The books are intriguing, but are only treated as plot items, rather than an actual danger. The story is bland, but could easily have been more memorable if there was more focus on the alienness of the books.

That's excusable, though. I've had lots of scenarios that were lacking in story but compensated with their encounters. But that's where this scenario fails as well. The first encounter in the high tier can be interesting, but doesn't have the room to do its thing. The second encounter is a pushover (as the scenario admits itself) and is only there to waste time and/or resources. The optional encounter is honestly the highlight of the encounter, at least in the high tier.

But the biggest disappointment is the final encounter. Here's where the scenario falls apart. It's easy for it to get surprised, and its tactics work against it. He's built as a quite competent melee fighter, but has a crappy spell selection to back him up, and to top it off, his tactics make no sense and don't take advantage of his strengths. The GM forums are full of how terribly designed this encounter is. And again, his tactics defy all logic and don't work rules-wise.

The puzzle in the middle was cute and poses a challenge for certain builds, which is fun. When I GMed this, it was easily solved, which was a letdown, but when I played it, we actually spent a fair amount of time dealing with this, so that shows that not everyone will have the same experience.

Also, from a GM perspective, why is that map 10 by 10 feet per square, rather than the usual 5 by 5? It makes no sense to scale it like that other than that it was convenient to do so.

All in all, this seems like it had potential, but was the product of a rush job. A terrible shame. I don't know why anyone would want to recommend this: the story is barely present, there's a smattering of roleplay, but not many skillchecks to be rolled, combats are generally on the easy side, there's a fairly easy puzzle to be solved, and there's a nice but unimpressive boon at the end. Play only if you've run out of other things to play, or if you're allowed to rewrite pretty much everything to give your players a challenge.


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Decent, but unexciting.

2/5

(I GMed this.)

As others have said, this is a good introduction to PFS. It's fairly standard and hits on some important elements of the game: some puzzle-solving, some roleplay, some traps, a lot of fighting, and so on.

The story's basically nonexistent. Go in here, go fight, get object, get back. There's no explanation other than "she was bad, go spank her." I struggled to make this interesting. The possibility for roleplay halfway through is a nice touch. The puzzle is trivial (as the game expects it to), but why put it there in the first place if it's not supposed to challenge players? It also doesn't help that the solution's already spoiled by the order in which the pieces are listed. My players asked to hear them again and went, "yeah, in that exact order," which is a bit of a letdown.

The dungeon itself isn't that interesting either. It feels bare-bones, having only the bare necessities to make the dungeon work (the first encounter is described as a townhouse in a middle-class area, owned by a wealthy family. Yet there's barely enough room for one person?). Moreover, the dungeon is too small to be any fun. Most fights ended up in five-foot corridors and half of the party not being able to attack or maneuver past the enemy, making for a very static fight. Luckily, my players passed it off as challenging, rather than frustrating, but I would've preferred some bigger rooms.

I like how the enemies teach players to come prepared. A lot of enemies here have different DRs, so it's important to diversify. The Alchemist player was having a hard time, though, because enemies resisted most of her attacks. I also really like how tactics change between tiers, really making use of the enemies' abilities. The 3-4 tier fights seem most interesting to me. The final boss is an interesting challenge, with some quite powerful spells. She's well built, and would've been a bigger threat if she weren't alone.

In the end, I'm debating whether to give it two or three stars. It isn't totally worthless, but I've certainly played better. There's too little information given to make it memorable and the fights can be a slog, especially in the cramped rooms, but they're also pretty entertaining and educational for new players. I finally decided on two stars, purely because it just failed to wow me at any point.


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Tests are always fun.

4/5

(I GMed this.)

This is a great scenario. Not perfect, but it's pretty close. On the GM side, it was pretty hard to keep the NPCs apart, and keep them interesting. I only get a single sentence to describe each one, and people moved through each other so much I lost track of who said what. I could've used some more handholds to roleplay each one.

The tests themselves were maybe a little on the easy side (I allowed an animal companion to join in on most of them, and it pretty much passed every single test it was capable of performing), but they're an excellent moodsetter. Again, I wished I had more handholds to praise or chide participants other than "his eyes shine with pride" or "he shakes his head disapprovingly."
The final trial was great, with an enemy that uses great tactics, although she got horribly overwhelmed. Action economy simply is against her. One point of complaint on the GM side is that if you make a mechanically complicated character, I'd like to see more explanation. I'm not 100% familiar on what each class can do, and the interaction between class abilities, feats and spells came become quite complex. Season 6 did a great job of including statblocks in the back, but I'd like to see this improved upon by giving shorthand descriptions of more obscure feats. I really like how Paizo's starting to design PC-like enemies (meaning, actually giving good feats and using synergies player characters also abuse) so they actually are a match for parties, rather than copy/paste the same vanilla humans over and over. The only downside is that it greatly increases complexity, but one or two enemies per scenario should be manageable.

Other combats are pretty great as well, but there's not enough room for maneuvering. It simply became a corridor combat where half the people couldn't do anything because they couldn't physically reach the enemy. The final encounter is a bit lacklustre, IMHO, because of their limited capabilities. Again, not enough room for movement leads to uninteresting fights, and though there were some nasty detrimental effects going on, they were simply hoops to jump through, rather than a real challenge.

There were some small mistakes that should've been caught in editing, but those are all described on the GM thread (how some creatures can survive in certain areas without protection, and so on), but that isn't a big issue.

All in all, great scenario that might run a bit long if players take their time. There are some flaws here and there, but that should not prevent anyone from enjoying this.


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Somewhat of a letdown.

3/5

(I GMed this.)

While my players had fun playing this scenario, I still think things could've been improved somewhat. The story was only so-so, the setting was below par, and the combats trivial (though that might also have been due to my extraordinarily bad rolls).

The story: Maybe it's because I'm not completely read up on the storyline, but the introductory text sort of came out of nowhere. "We found the Spider, she's Person X, go find her." I would've preferred a little more mystery in my opening text. And in the end, after the final encounter (which my players solved really well), the conclusion undoes all of their actions. Also, being powerless to act during "that scene" left my players a bit miffed.

The setting is promising, but ultimately had no payoff. We had a bit of fun roleplaying the gambling den, but ultimately it was inconsequential. It then proceeded into a very small dungeon without much flavour. If you throw in a dungeon, at least make it interesting, I would've expected more resistance from The Spider.

Combats were uninteresting as well. They had a good mix of people, so all bases were covered, but due to the four-player adjustment (and consistently bad initiative checks on my part), the fights were trivial. Hardly anyone got damaged, and I got the feeling my players weren't really challenged. I don't want to make it super hard on them, but considering this is the climax to the storyline, I would've preferred it if the players felt like there's a lot at stake here. Encounters with just two or three enemies just aren't that interesting for a decently built party.

Final encounter::
My players masterfully incapacitated Torch with a Hold Person, preventing him from using any of his two means of escape. In the end, the players felt let down that in the conclusion Torch gets away anyway, feeling like all their actions were for naught. They did get a nice boon, though.


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Instant classic.

4/5

(I played this)

This is just a great scenario overall. There's some roleplay involved, but it's not reliant on it if you brought a Diplomacy-light party (like we did). Fights were on the tough end, but enjoyable.

The theme is just perfect. Our GM really played up the creepiness factor of the dead children and the pervasiveness of the black water. This is the reason this didn't get the full 5 stars from me: our GM admitted that the story is pretty light on these elements, and he had to add a lot of his own to the story. Other than that, this is something I'd like to see more of: carefully thought-out social encounters, unusual NPCs, and amazing atmosphere. This is a scenario whose quality will only be matched again around season 5 or so.

Minor complaints:
- Five-foot corridors make combats really annoying, especially when the enemies get the jump on you and you have no room to maneuver.
- Not a big fan of throwing lots of monsters at you with debuffs. Potential paralysis, combined with the aforementioned (lack of) maneuvering room could lead to some nasty situations.
- As mentioned before, but it bears repeating: lack of details on the horror elements. This is a great scenario and could easily be pushed to phenomenal if you get the right handholds.


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Has its moments, but also a lot of problems.

2/5

(I both GMed and played this once.)

Sigh. Great potential, terrible execution. This scenario has a lot going for it, but it never gets to that.

The opening is weird and my players didn't really knew what to do with it, though that might've also been a failing on my part as a GM. It's a fun cinematic moment, but if feels out of place in a game where you're always in control of your own character's actions.

Getting into the city is fun if you have creative players, that I like. Once inside though, it becomes much less exciting. Irrisen is a land of monsters, yet you never get to fight anything other than the thing on the cover, and even he's a bit lacklustre in powers. The story warns you of the threatening nature of its citizens, but you'll only fight vanilla humans, that's a big disappointment for me.

The story is pretty thin, something that continues throughout this trilogy. None of the encounters have something interesting to tell, and there's an infodump at the end that wraps things up.

And then there's the final combat. The one your second prestige point hinges on. I vehemently disagree with this fight. It's out of nowhere, there's no context for it within the story, and people at this level aren't really equipped to deal with it. Maybe I played him a bit too mean, but if he fights intelligently, the PCs have no real method of dealing with him.

All in all, my group had fun playing this scenario, but most of it's due to our interactions, not because of the scenario itself.


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Fun to play, horrible to GM.

3/5

(I GMed this.)

This is a great scenario, but it's brought down by a few flaws, all of which have been mentioned by others:

1. So. Many. Statblocks. Most of which aren't even complete. Slapping the Advanced template to something is pretty easy, but it's yet another thing you have to account for. I know the writers don't want to occupy too many pages, but now I have to print twice as many pages, because now I have to print out both the adventure and the separate statblocks (which were almost as many pages as the scenario itself). I really like what Season 6 has stated doing, with statblocks at the end for easy reference.
Also, don't spread out the statblocks too much. I had to leaf through multiple pages in a single encounter, because the high tier referenced low-tier stats and tactics. I'd rather have them on one page, so I can see them all immediately.

2. More freedom. This is very on-rails, and while my players weren't too bothered by it, each encounter just served to progress to the next and to fill the four-hour timeslot.

3. Better roleplay writeouts. I found it very difficult to easily find what needed to be done to convince each NPC to do what the players wanted them to do, and the interaction with them was pretty minimal. Something like bolding "When players do or accomplish X, do this" would've been welcomed, as now it all got lost in the background information of the scenario.
This is a bit personal, but I'd like to see a more detailed writeout other than a name, a description of their clothing and their favourite colour. Some people don't need as much structure, but I need something to transport myself into these characters, either by a giving more social queues, or more characterisation. Maybe it's a bit handholdy, but it makes the characters a bit more memorable both to the GM and the players, especially when you meet so many in a rapid succession.
On the other hand, I didn't find the lack of information on the gifts an issue. My players debated aloud what to give to whom, so based on that I could decide whether I agreed with their interpretation.

Other than that though, I really liked the scenario. The location is great, and the monsters pack some serious punch. You don't get to fight monsters this large this often, so if feels really cinematic when you're facing mammoths and megafauna. Four stars from a player perspective, three from GM perspective.


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Fun scenario, though underdeveloped in backstory.

4/5

(I've both played and GMed this.)

I really, really like this scenario, even though it has its flaws. The location is rich in flavour, but you hardly get to know anything about it, other than scene setting. Teenoch is a great character to RP with if your party is so inclined, but otherwise it's a dungeon crawl. Fights are interesting but bland; we're entering a demonic temple, why do we only fight humans and one guardian, rather than actual demons with interesting powers? The final encounter is great because of the use of party composition and chokeholds, but did the lower floor really need to be that big? I'm all for having some room to maneuver, but now we just spent multiple turns getting face-to-face with the enemy while they cast some buffs.

Minor quibble: the first encounter gives you the option to fight outside, but doesn't really give an idea of how the patrols work. I appreciate the map for some visual aid, but the encounter is much more interesting if it's inside, where the enemies are in prime position for an ambush and have the advantage of terrain.

In conclusion: Great fun scenario and I need to see more of Teenoch. Wish the story was a bit more involved and the enemy variety a bit more interesting.


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