Sebastian Hirsch's page

Paizo ate the first review so:

Big dungeon crawl, not terrible as they go, and not a huge amount to prep but I feel like less might have been more. There are not a lot of varied encounters and experiences, and I think the occasional skill challenge or RP interaction would have helped.
Seeing the same sort of dungeon layout is also not exactly easy on the eyes.
As dungeon it is fine, but as the ending of this AP it feels somewhat out of place.

There are likely things to say about the AP as a whole and where it shines/struggles but there really isn't a good place for it.

short review Paizo at the long one:

Good AP volume, but I think the AP benefits from a more experienced GM and players that have previous exposure to the setting and game.

Maps, honestly not happy that the Hazards are burned in, but that is more of a production issue I suspect.

stub review - lots of nice setpieces, but I found it rather hard to run, there it is certainly not an AP(volume) for new GMs. But there is plenty to like, for more experienced GMs.

Your group will likely get a lot more out of this AP, if they are more familiar with the setting.

The start is pretty darn brutal, and I really had to hold back.

One of the bigger challenges, excluding the surprise in the new world, is to keep your players focused on the plot, especially considering their mobility options.
I had to add in more breaks in the action etc. it really starts with a rush and I feel like it is a bit too hard for that.

In other words, as listed above, this needs an experienced GM that knows when to use a light touch.

3.5 out of 5 - but honestly a couple of issues are just based on the Starfinder rules and how they can be pretty darn brutal.

Just played this scenario, obviously, my player reviews are worse than my GM reviews as those include me reading the scenario. I will update this review in case I run this one.

--- This is the review I wrote during the session, some of my earlier assumption are later proven wrong or things get context, just thought it was interesting to preserve it like this for once;

The start is a bit perplexing and there are a lot of "things are going to go sideways" warnings in the air.

The prison is already a shameful aspect of Society and while closing it is good I am not sure what characters are supposed to feel here.
Talking to the prisoners feels a bit weird, the setup feels rather awkward because the player's organization has been illegally imprisoning these people. They are likely guilty as sin, but... it seems incredibly awkward.

When the action suddenly started, I was honestly surprised by how quickly the adventure sort of lost interest in the premise and got bored, and detonated some explosives.
This really makes the Starfinder Society look rather... incompetent, but I guess that is all part of the setup here.

The location is rather large, coms are tricky, and the entire combat feels rather messy, With various light sources, dim light, etc. it's all rather messy to resolve.
Arresting prisoners that have given up is also a potential time sink, partially, because there is only one cell key.

At this point of the scenario, I can't stop myself from writing down how very much I dislike this mission. Not necessarily how the author has written it, but the core outline of the adventure idea. Being prison guards for the day as a concept feels a bit tainted - but the whole story of the adamantine bastille already feels a bit like uncovering your ancestor's dirty laundry.
That is a storyline that was started earlier, so the author is not to blame, but I can't help but still dislike it.
When I started Starfinder Society with Season 1 it felt like rebuilding a decent organization, and the current story sort of rubs dirt over all those memories.
Complaining about the metaplot feels very much unfit for this particular review, but I felt like I needed to add it since it very much affects my perception of this scenario's story (so I very much admit to my biases).

Chase skills are a bit narrow for my taste, but I am not sure about the consequences of failure (and I played a character that did excel at any of them when I played it)

I appreciated that the escaped prisoners had some dialogue that advanced the story somewhat, but it was not much and during combat other characters tried to find out more... but it was rather clear that this was not something we could learn yet.

Learning about what happens and that the players got played is fine, but then we stood in front of that door... it gives the perception that the Society is yet again getting hacked, and tricked, and that we are generally less than competent. And being in our own damned prison just makes it worse.

The last fight was... fine, though it seems we arrived late.

How bad or incompetent are we, that a high-security area can be breached this easily?
Datch escaping is the, same issue to be honest, at some point the enemy's intelligence, and not accounting for it no longer makes them look smart, it makes us look dumb.

Maps, maybe this is because of the narrative of the underground prison, but looking at prison cells and map tiles... does get rather dull over a whole session.

Learning new information after the fact, absolutely helps with my previous complaints listed above. And softens my complaints somewhat.

The last encounter page is large, and maybe larger than it needs to be, though I am a bit salty for spending two rounds to get into melee
The final encounter (low tier) was not a pushover, which I appreciated

The story ends up with a mystery that will get a follow-up later.

The investigation after the prison break, is interesting, not sure it is not a bit of a break in the action. I guess it counters some of my comments earlier, though not the perception, which is why I kept the review in this state.

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TLDR: Not my cup of tea, I did not really get the RP encounters I personally like, and some of the concepts involved were not really what I want from SFS.

I just played this one with a good GM, and players I already like, so my opinion is rather good right now.

Seems like a good fit, for new players, and could rise to 5 stars, but I really need to read it first to give useful and fair feedback.

I think running 4-01 (optional), 4-05, and 4-10 in quick succession is likely the best way to experience the story. Personally, I might try to schedule them on the same weekend, not sure.

In retrospect and after talking to the GM, I would have liked some way for the final encounter to last a bit longer. This is something I have been seeing a lot recently, the final encounter or BBEG sometimes struggles to last long enough for the GM to show of all/most of their features.
This is less of an issue in higher-level adventures, and admittedly our table played at the upper end of low tier, which in my experience tends to result in encounters with a lot of somewhat lackluster (just talking about combat difficulty) enemies.
It would be lovely for the scaling to be a mix of adding more enemies and buffing the existing baseline enemies somewhat.

This might be a PF2 issue, at least at the low levels, and of course, org play has rather large level bands and mixed character levels, which makes scaling substantially harder than in other adventures.

I have my issues with this one, and they deserve a longer review, but having run it, I am really not keen to run it again or play it. The mechanics are fine, I have some issues with how the story unfolds. The scenario gives a lot of artwork to NPCs but gives me as the GM barely anything to work with.

Not a badly crafted scenario, but it is pretty good at hitting aspects I don't personally like.

Update: I actually played it days after my review so I can expand a bit:

- The scenario tries to make it more likely to experience the second of two potential combats, either the bar or the constructs. Personally, I understand how it makes sense to balance things and have at least two encounters however, I have narrative concerns.
Both encounters are those that players don't really want to fight, beating up the confused people is not really enjoyable. Fighting the constructs is at best a crying shame considering how this one forwards the narrative.

The mechanics that make it less likely to be able to avoid the second encounter feel a bit forced, like getting the symbols from the group downstairs.
I would have preferred some sort of unrelated combat encounters if that is the design goal. I know optional encounters are not super common these days but I think this would have been the place for one.

- The faction missions do clash a bit/are a bit nebulous, but that is partially because the group of ruffians is not really described, they literally lack a group name. To be honest I did not love how they seem to be some sort of choice between the factions. Though I am not entirely certain that this was intentional and not just the perception of the players (and the GM).
Having experienced this sort of clashing incentive and goals in PFS1 I am not a fan of the implementation.
Branching choices are all fine and good, but with individual players wishing to advance their particular rep with a faction, I feel like factions missions should be none of them.

- Featured and illustrated NPCs: This adventure features a fair number of NPCs and I have some issues with that. 2 of the NPCs look like they could almost come from our world, or were inspired by something contemporary. Since I wear glasses, that look rather similar the former Pathfinder really bothers me, to the point where I was hiding his artwork in my VTT files. The diamond merchant gives me a similar contemporary vibe that drags me out of the experience.
In general, I don't feel like the various NPCs the players meet this early in the scenario do not have a lot to tell the players, even worse when I ran it players were trying to act upon what they were learning, unfortunately, that is not really a viable option in the scenario, and once the story advances after going to location A and B... the previous information is not really all that relevant/adds very little.

- I rather liked the idea of the school (and found the story of a location that spends some focus on teaching species that are traditionally seen as monstrous very interesting - unfortunately I feel with all the other things, the scenarios does not spend as much time on it as I would have hoped) and even the connection to the bar, however, I feel like finding location B, just seems to result in a worse story. Even if you avoid the combat up top, the skull will reject that accusation of being the missing arclord (that also gets outed by their creation - which feels very jarring to me)

Location C, honestly I have mixed feelings, the library subsystem is rather complicated and gets to show up relatively late in the game but the surprise attack at the end really helps the adventure to end on a high note. Or it would, maybe it was because the faction missions/conflict between the gang and the constructs, did not really sit all that well with me, that I feel like that part after the combat feels a bit tacked on. I seems necessary to resolve one or two of the faction missions, but if feels a bit like artificial conflict in order to fulfill the requirements of a template.

There are certainly more things I want to praise on this one.. but should have written a review much earlier, since I really enjoy scheduling and GMing this adventure.

The book contains some items I was looking forward to, mostly more druid-friendly armor, but if I am sincere, also a couple of things that feel like they could still use errata.
For my own APs and things the book is essentially in quarantine and players have to ask permission even for common options.
That is genuinely something new, and in many cases, it's about magic/alchemical items with a significant power level increase.

Not just that, but a fair number of items also felt like they break some design guidelines I had assumed existed in this edition of Pathfinder. Like the helmet, I had level 17 AP players ask if they could buy this relatively low-level item..

There are a couple of other instances of items I never hope to encounter at a table, but in general, if a GM chooses to include everything in the book in their game, it will have a measurable effect on player power.

Of course, the book also adds a fair number of new interesting options, but some of what some might call power creep negatively affects my perception of everything else.

short review until I find the time to update it

Not a bad experience, though I have some issues that prevent it from reaching 5 stars for me.

My issues were very likely part of the outline for this project, so I can't really blame the execution, but yeah, plenty to talk about in a longer review.

I have a lot to praise about this one, I really like the art and that it gives the players a chance to interact with a lot of NPCs.

This one really deserves a longer review, but I forgot before... I will update this very short review once I have the time to do so.

Normally I would not be so keen to spend this type of money "just" for fancy tokens, but the quality is absolutely there, and they even altered some of the artwork to fit certain monster variants. That kind of work is just amazing and sets a darn high level of quality that other products and VTTs might struggle to match.

If it was just "tokenizing every piece of artwork in the Bestiaries", I might be less impressed, but as you can see in the description, they worked hard to illustrate as many monsters and variants as possible. And it really shows.

Though this should not be surprising, after all, after buying the Beginners Box earlier, their level of production is just stellar, and I hope that the tokens sell well. Arguably they might still be an excellent resource for GMs that do not play Pathfinder 2.
Frankly, if I was still just a GM that played offline, access to those high-quality assets and tokens might be worth it, to create my own handouts and pawns.

Their pricing is really in that point where I could justify the expense despite having a lot of tokens (since I have been running online for a fair number of years).

I just played it, and have a bunch of notes, but the short version is that this is worth your time, however... this can run longer, and I would recommend people schedule a longer slot for this. It might fit into a shorter slot of the GM and players focus less on roleplaying and more on fast successions of skill checks... but I would absolutely not suggest that approach, you have a lot of potential or RP... and I would suggest actually taking the time to experience that.

The number of and names of NPCs and where they are coming from can be a touch overwhelming at the start, and my personal suggestion for situations like this would have been to give GMs a fake/custom band flyer, with headshots, character names, and the bands they are normally attached to/with. I feel like this sort of approach would have helped at the start.

Good handouts matter and can make things more memorable, and possibly even leave GMs with something they could hand out as they do chronicle sheets. Something like this would have elevated the final product.

Some sort of visualization for the various areas might have been a worthwhile idea, my GM got the visual representation from another GM, but some sort of included visual aid might help many beginner GMs.

I enjoyed the way the story was told via and between skill challenges, and while the setup of "one roll per group with a lot of aids" is not a bad way to do this, I personally prefer skill challenges that require a certain number of successes with different DCs (often showcased in PFS2).

We played down, but I really liked that the skill challenges allowed for a lot of skills, so many characters could feel like they contributed - I appreciate that point a lot, and appealing to many types of characters (and not just operatives etc.) is an important factor for me when I am choosing what to offer.

Receiving an item as thank you (the aegis) felt like it drew the players a tiny bit out of the narrative, though the shape is certainly appealing. I suspect a set of limited edition pins, without a game effect would have been valued more, by the type of players I tend to encounter.

I like the artwork in the scenario, (though I personally am not the biggest fan of the gnome art which might be intentional - and the vampire looks a tiny bit... alive). The eyeshadow breaking feels a little bit forced, as normally you could likely find some way to rescue it.

It's a good scenario, and I can recommend it, but the length might be an issue for some groups.

Since I have only played it, I will have to come back and update my review if/once I have read/GMed it, as that will give me more things to say regarding GM guidance, clarity etc.

TLDR: Fun scenario, bring the right type of character, and do not skip this experience.

I knew what I was signing up for and played this with a group of fun players, that enjoy "fun" scenarios.

Fortunately, the description signposts that quite well, had I turned up with a different character, that does not really fit funny scenes like that, I would not be as happy with it.

I appreciate, that the scenario mostly focuses on characterizing 5 distinct NPCs and I feel like that is likely the perfect number. The artwork was absolutely essential here, and a great use of the art budget.

Frankly speaking, I might find things to praise or to complain about in the original text (since that session was not run in English) but right now I am happy since I had a good time.

If I end up prepping and running this one, I will update this review with my updated experiences.

I have just played it, and I am somewhat tired.

The scenario begins with a lot of callbacks to previous scenarios in these locations, and a lot of names and NPCs, and would argue that it can be a bit overwhelming, particularly since the players are really supposed to focus on the 4 NPCs they meet later. This might have been the reason why we did not actually spend a lot of time interacting with them, and then were surprised in the arena. That felt a bit forced, almost as if the author did not want the ruse to be discovered, to surprise players in the arena. Personally, I think some sort of passive/secret checks for the player characters, indicating that something is wrong.. would have helped (though at this point in time, I have not read the scenario).

My experience is shaped by playing at level 10 in the high-tier version of the scenario, but my Solarian did not have a lot of things they could do as far as contributing with skills is concerned. The story is rather interesting and motivates players, but I am getting the not-so-uncommon reaction of "this skill challenge was built for operatives" or at least other classes.
I might have been unlucky, with my skill choices, but it did not feel like I was contributing much outside of combat.

The final encounter felt very, very grindy..up to the point where it felt like it was actively making the scenario worse.

Reading it might improve my perception, but I am getting the feeling, that's unlikely to happen.

I was following this story for a couple of years, but the ending of this one has left a bad taste. At this point, I just want it to end, as with this scenario the plot has overstayed it's welcome for me.

Edit: It has come to my attention, that some choices by the table GM on how to represent things, and how to run certain things, have negatively affected my experience, here. I will try to actually prep and run this to give some more useful feedback.

My current score would be about 3.5 there is some potential and strong characterization, however, it seems to struggle in some aspects, which caused a less than stellar experience on my part when I was playing it.

I will update this review with more details once I have time, but I felt it worth posting that this scenario is absolutely worth your time, as a player or GM.

Some aspect and choices of this one really does not make it a good fit for beginners, there is a rather aggressive clock, and an enemy type with a lot of immunities that really needs some sort of loot, that helps with teaching.

I could totally see people drop Starfinder like a radioactive potato if this is their first experience.

As a secondary issue, I am sick and tired of working for evil regimes, the actual plot helps but.

The volume of skill checks and the very specific checks it sometimes ask for, make me feel like this was written for operatives. That's likey not what happens, but my personal perception.

Even without the issues listed above, an mentioned by others, the story is not super appealing to me.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I am still in the process of playing this scenario and will update the review, but.. the fact that I am writing a review while playing likely tells a lot.

I could kick myself for not writing a review earlier.

I have played and run this, and honestly, I have zero interest in running it again, and less interest in playing it. That is mostly a case of personal taste and less of a complaint in the quality of production, editing, and mechanical implementation.

But let's look at all the parts involved.

Story: Could have used a spoiler warning for the last scenario of last season, particularly for the GM that gets to learn a lot more than the players. That sort of stopped when I first looked at it because at that point I had not touched the conclusion of last year's story.
I guess it introduces some new NPCs and plot points, though at the time of writing I am not sure that they are going anywhere. The newly introduced NPCs are popular, though they certainly drag the tone of the scenario more of a light-hearted joke.
The new talking skull (and I suspect that this story gets expanded upon in 4-05, honestly just lacks substance, even if the players are interested. Actually the same applies to the other two NPCs, surface introductions but nothing to deep.
Beating up a tiny shard of the BBEG of the season at the start feels a bit, like a Pantomime and I feel that is very much intentional.

Artwork: Lighthearted and fun, particularly looking at the two NPCs you meet towards the end... to be frank, I had to cover up the artwork of Zarta in the pdf, because it bothered me (cover artwork is fine). Kinda like a monster that has killed your friend and is wearing its skin...
The artwork of Alsynn bothers me a bit because it is like all the other artwork quite... comedic? Doesn't really inspire the dread expected of a character like that (though I have seen previewed artwork of a later scenario.. which leads me to believe the tone is very much intentional.

Map./Location: Being limited to a single flip mat players might have seen a fair number of times before absolute limits this one, there is some value for GMs that do not want to bring a lot of different maps with them, but it does cause the visuals to be kind of one note... had this been a quest or bounty, it would not have lingered so much.

Repeatable elements: I dislike scenarios that have the repeatable tag without significant alterations, but while this one does have a fair number of random elements, I don't think they are really providing a different experience.
The change to the rats is more cosmetic than something that really changes the encounter, because you are always righting rats, and depending on your setup and the substantial buffs you might have received through finding a +1 striking weapon you will barely notice it. I am not entirely certain if the 4th rats variant is not just making this one even less rewarding for spellcasters.
Regarding the piles of items, secret checks are not a terribly unfitting way to resolve this, but from what I hear, after playing this once, the players just tend to all flock to the pile that grants them the biggest power boost - it something like this is done again, it certainly might be worth it to relocation and mix up the more powerful boosts. Since repeat players are inevitably going to game this aspect... I really, really want to avoid replaying this.

Aslynn: So at first you can't really interact with her and have to use skill checks, which is fine though it needs a bit of imagination, towards the end, it resolves as a "normal" encounter. I am not really sure the scenario gives players a good way to differentiate those situations, other than the GM asking for skill checks.

I usually spend a fair bit of time prepping a scenario, and I did spend a lot of time on this one... but for some reason, I really do not want to run it again. That does seem to be specific to certain aspects of this scenario, I have run 4-02 several times and while it has some issues, I feel that on when it comes to roleplaying and interacting with a theme, it gives me so much more as a GM.

This is a good example of why I enjoy Starfinder, just played it, but if this is a good example of scenarios in this season, I need to free up more time in my schedule to play.

Only having played it, my feedback is a bit limited, and I might upgrade it after the fact, but I felt like this is exactly what I was hoping for as far as Drift Crisis integration is concerned, and this is yet another reason to motivate me to run the AP. ^^

Looking forward to more material for this author.

The second part of the scenario was a bit more tedious, we played high tier and the combats felt like they need more time to resolve - and as is often the case with certain enemy effects a failure spiral can happen all too easily.

Edit: I am not entirely certain what it would need for me to rather this one higher, but usually that includes excellent GM guidance in the written scenario, which at this point I had not had the opportunity to read.

I just played this and despite the GMs great performance, honestly, the story felt a bit fractured, very much like tying for bounties together with some narrative twine.

While the GM did spectacular levels of prep, I am honestly not sure if adding a vehicle chase at the end really is all that appealing, since you end up having to explain a subsystem that players might have never experienced to the players... after a lengthy session.

It's not bad... but particularly the first two missions feel rather random, and I had a hard time connecting those questions to the main plot, that changed later, but I still think... this could have been a better experience as a "normal" scenario. With so many worlds and settings, the theme does change quite a bit if you like variety... but I felt like it made it harder to set a consistent tone.

This is a very personal scoring, and I can totally see giving this one a higher score, some others have mentioned that this would be great for new players... but despite excluding Starship combat( which I don't want in an experience for new players) I feel like it focusses on some of the more unusual places, rather than some of the core Starfinder experiences (which would be my choice for an introduction).

If I could give this one a 3.5 I would, unfortunately, it just does not come together enough for me to give this one a 4.

Nice experience, slightly let down by the included map/quality and one aspect of it, and honestly, the pregens likely could benefit from players adjusting them a bit (like the adventure suggests.)

One of the reasons, why I can't give this a better score, is that one of my players had a really bad time with the mystic (that might be based on the spell list, or other factors, but I would suggest updating the spell list a bit).

What I really appreciate, is that the pregens are actually rather simple so you could use this to introduce the system to new players (though I would alter the pregens a tiny bit more, particularly the feats as some of them can lead inexperienced players into a bit of a trap).

Without going into spoilers, the streamable nature of this adventure was a great fit, even without an active chat.

Thus far I have only GMed this, and I plan to do so again ^^

It's fine, I wish I could write something more interesting but it feels a bit like the middle child, and I am not entirely sure if this scenario mostly serves as a setup for 3-98.

I had a good GM, and no major issues when I played this, but I am having a hard time getting excited about what I experienced. This might be because I don't tend to love dungeon crawls without a stronger narrative element... I am not saying, that this hasn't been done well, it's just that I am really not the target audience.

That is essentially all I can say as a player, I likely have more insight once I have prepped the scenario.

Edit: it might absolutely be the case that the preceding scenario, this one, and the upcoming special form a greater whole, and if that is the case I plan to update this review.

TL/DR: This is not a bad scenario, but all the issues and callbacks are really distracting from the main narrative, and if run outside of org play, I would personally suggest cutting a lot of rooms and descriptions.

Fun scenario, I am missing a lot of plot since didn't manage to actually play a plot-related scenario this season, but it felt like a good ending to the storyline (despite the regrettable fact, that the number of scenarios had been cut down to that degree).

The fights felt quite fitting if anything I feel the scenario could have used a bit of custom art, though it was nice to see a custom map.
I played this one at the higher end of the low tier and we had some level 8s (among them mine) so I can't really comment on the difficulty (though the players were rather proficient).

We finished in about 3 hours but that is not that unusual for this kind of location.
Personally, I appreciate the fact that while this was involving a ship, it did not necessitate any starship combat.

My appreciation for this will likely change a lot once I dive deeper into this season's plot, but I had a good time.

Edit: I ended up running it after I had played it and, I still really enjoy it ^^