Sam P 332's page

I love scenarios that bring in the minor subsystems and this scenario uses two. In the past that's been a heavy cognitive load (2-01 Citadel of Corruption), but here the Influence system was constrained to just a pair of NPCs, and it introduced a novel round-by-round shake up to the system. On the other hand, the Chase scene was overly reliant on a pair of obvious recurring skills (Athletics and Acrobatics) and could have used some more creative alternatives to involve PCs who don't have those skills maxed.

The final encounter is fun, but the scenario rewards incentivize talking down the antagonist rather than fighting. So the party rolls into the climax with enough time left in the slot to run a tough fight, but the good outcome is we roll a skill check and all go home early? Alternatively, the players fight a tough opponent, get the satisfaction of defeating them, and then find out they lose out on part of the scenario reward because they fought back against an ambush. Either way that's disappointing note to leave the players on.

This is actually the second encounter in the scenario that is statted out for a fight, but subtextually wags the author's finger at players who draw their swords. I could really do with less of that overall.

There’s a lot of talking to new NPCs full of expository dialogue that doesn’t really affect the scenario objectives one way or another. This feels a lot like someone tried to turn Rage of Elements setting lore into a playable adventure, which is an approach that has failed many a 1st edition PFS scenario. (I'm looking at you, 6-23 The Darkest Abduction.) The conversations play out in an unstructured format that, unlike in the Influence system, doesn’t really establish a sense of stakes or progress. The whole scenario feels like waiting for the scenario to actually begin. Then it ends after a weird and perfunctory combat.

The middle portion of the scenario takes place on a big PITA flip tile map that doesn’t really need to be in there. The only combat that happens on that map is an optional fight that serves as the consequences of screwing up a conversation. This chapter of the scenario has a recurring exploration activity that isn’t very well spelled out: does everyone roll or does one player roll? Critical success yields more information, but nothing actionable or tangible. Critical failure throws damage dice at the party, but without a foe in the area to capitalize on the PCs being on the back foot, it’s just a time waster as the PCs roll Medicine checks to recover from being suddenly punched in the nose. That was bad trap design in 1980 and I thought game design had moved past it.

There are some unusual mechanics surrounding the interplay of elemental energies. This “Elemental Double Dare” challenge worked really well in the past, especially 1st edition scenario 8-08 The Sandstorm Prophecy, but here it’s one too many distractions on top of juggling a growing cast of NPCs and the ever-present feeling that the players (or the GM) are a bunch of knuckleheads missing the real mission hook.

I haven’t revisited the scenario for a second playthrough, but I don’t see much in the way of variation, which is odd in a repeatable scenario. If the players opt into a fight instead of a conversation on the second map, they even lose partial credit. It all feels very set in stone: no variant monsters to fight next time, no menu of six encounters to pick four from. The only variation is in the “getting to the action” part of the scenario after the briefing and before the first initiative roll. So whatever makes a given playthrough unique doesn't even feel like part of the meat of the story.

Some of these skill DCs are downright silly. I opened up my Core Rulebook and penciled in DCs from the Level-Based DC table. I also brainstormed some alternate skills for some of the exploration challenges. I ramped down the damage in some encounters to a level where I could one-shot a healthy in-tier wizard on maximum damage, but a fighter would still be standing. This must have been a rough one to play or to gamemaster on initial release.

I also love me a good subsystem, but it's a bit much to have to teach the players two different subsystems in a single four-hour session.