Sebastian Hirsch's page

I just played this, and this review is made before looking at the GM-facing material in this scenario.

It's pretty solid, and what you tend to expect when you go to an adventure in this area of the world.

Not sure how relevant the repeatable components are but the version I have played, seemed like an above-average repeatable. If I could I would give it a 3.5, but for a higher score I would really need an interaction, set piece or NPC I personally really like and that is just not the case here.

Towards the end, the exploration and encounters on that final map were, not exactly my cup of tea, but the group size certainly had a role to play here. It likely has a stronger emotional impact if you are resonating with the story the adventure tells, but in my case, I struggled with that.

Dealing with a divine weapon in this way at this level feels very weird, if it was definite as an echo or splinter, that might have helped to fix the weird disconnect with the scale of that plot point.

However, I can totally see how this one would resonate much better with a player or GM that is really into the setting/area, and "cute" NPCs, that is not me today, but I can unfortunately only give my own feedback here.
Certainly, an adventure that I consider prepping and running, after that my feelings will likely shift in either direction.

I struggled to find a good place to start, the DCs, the concept that required a trigger warning (in a repeatable...), or that the adventure really wants players to use nonlethal damage against a lot of the enemies.

It's questionable why these people are getting that attention, but it is unfortunately a fact that a lot of classes really struggle to do nonlethal damage.

The Godsrain plot, seems very similar to how it started in 6-02, and honestly, thus far I am not really impressed.

The concept of having to endear yourself to people that you are there to rescue feels forced (and using the subsystem for it feels more involved than is really called for), and only seems to be there to give more weight to the situation at the end.

I have no idea if I will actually run this one, as it seems like an excellent way to annoy my players. The fact that this sort of story is repeatable just does not make sense to me.

This deserves a significantly longer review but.. it has some construction flaws, that I had hoped that org play design had left behind.

Ascalaphus covered some of the issues, but I am just playing it, and the encounters that vexed me as GM managed to become really unpleasant as a player.

The vertical encounter is an interesting idea but the setup is pretty flawed and without that rather forced setup a normal map would be so much easier.

The scenario is functional if at times confused in what it tries to accomplish and what it tries to communicate. The map and location markers do it no favors, having played and prepped it.. a lot of locations do not make sense, and many encounters barely fit where they are supposed to happen.

The plot is vexing and at times nonsensical particularly since the real BBEG uses a useful idiot to deflect blame, yet intentionally adds connections to them.

You can likely have a decent time with it, and I might even run it for new players who are not burdened with having a lot of exposure to PFS1.

I will likely be able to give more extensive feedback once I have actually run it, but as a review of the pdf as published, it fails to reach 3 stars.
With clarifications and a GM that goes off-script it could likely reach 3 stars and work as a decent repeatable.

I just played the scenario yesterday and while I had the chance to quickly flip though the pdf, that is very different from actually running it.

While it is using the setup and some of the NPCs of the previous adventure in this location, it is a very different scenario and arguably starts with a bit of a bait and switch.

I was looking forward to this session, since I really enjoyed playing and running the previous adventure here, but this new adventure is mostly the Godsrain plot. Unfortunately due to how it was promoted and how it is spread over various product lines, I am already bored with it. Some restraint might have helped to keep it fresh, but here we are, sometimes promotions are your own worst enemy.

By linking the name so closely to the previous scenario, I expect a scenario that used similar themes, but that is not what we got here.

After playing a of Paizo APs, particularly in Starfinder, one would expect that I am used to it by now, but I very much did not get what I was hoping for from this scenario.

It involves a lot of combat, the last encounter felt particularly hard for our group, but that might have been caused by our group makeup and class choices (one level 2, 3 level 3s, and a level 4 swashbuckler) that ended up causing some issues dealing with a certain resistance.
I am not blaming the scenario for this, this spread and level range is always awkward due to the effect of striking runes in PF2, and particularly a level 2 spellcaster struggles in tier 3-4).

While the ascent uses some skill checks to track the player's progress to the top, I am happy that the adventure resisted to further add subsystems like a chase or use a full-fledged influence system for the paracha.

Our GM tried their best to focus on any RP opportunities and lore, but the core of this scenario is a LOT of combat. Followers of Gorum might actually have a good time here.
This is actually a thing I feel like praising, the adventure is competently done, and there are not too many issues or complicated subsystems, which I guess could mean that the adventure is a good fit for a new GM.

---

I will update this review once I have run it(it is certainly not flawed enough to not run) but I come back to the same starting point. Not anchoring the story to this location would have done it a lot of favors.

The preceding reviews have already covered things well

I have run this yesterday for a group 3 of my players that happen to also be in the same AP... so very close to the best-case scenarios as far as friction and delays are concerned.
We took about 2.5 hours, if you have a bigger group or one that enjoy more RP there is absolutely space for it here, but I could absolutely see a group like that needed and filling 4 hours of gameplay here.

As usual for this product line, and at this point I am likely praising/blaming the developer for the ways they experiment with established subsystems, this one experiments with a variant of the influence system (while also including 2 more subsystems which need more word count and time to talk about that I have right now) and I feel like the experiment is a success in this case.

TLDR: For players, this is absolutely worth your time, though I can see players who want to solve everything with combat experience some friction here.

For GMs, this has a lot of potential for RP, the setting is brutal in some ways, and I could see that some players would absolutely embrace some of the worse endings for character development and art updates.

Having just run the Quest 18 - this is a similar experience, but earns a higher rating as the previous quest as some issues, mostly in the GM facing material (as I mentioned in a way too long review).

I like the various challenges and chances to interact with the NPCs, and this is a good fit for groups that enjoy non-combat content.
If have he bad feelings that I am going to compare other scenarios with this one, but not enough time to explain how and why this one succeeds.

If your group of players is mostly looking for a traditional dungeon crawl and lots of combat Quest 15 might be a better fit.

This adventure can be a bit short if your players do not enjoy spending a lot of time on RP with the various NPCs and run a bit long if they do, so plan accordingly.

Spoiler Free review for potential players;

This can be a good experience for the players, despite the flaws and questionable choices, a GM can absolutely avoid some of the tricky spots and deliver a fun adventure.

If I had based this on the player experience I could deliver now after running it twice I easily would give it 4 stars. Unfortunately, it has some issues that are mostly GM-facing or require the GM to avoid focussing on things and paraphrasing others.

This adventure is worth your time, though needs about 2 ½ hours for a full table of players.

Despite the praises and concerns below, I will absolutely run this one again, partially because the series 2 quests are easy to fit into a time slot, and I rather like the quest despite the flaws.

Will update once I have a firmer grab on it.

Will update the review once I had the time to transcribe all of my notes, but it is one of the experiences in this session that appealed to me.

Mission struggled to explain why we are doing jobs for a dragon, I know that it is implied at the end of the last scenario, but even something needs to be able to stand on its own and set the scene in a way that is explained to the player characters.
—
Intro via text is not always ideal, particularly since we were apparently close enough to deliver the items to the VC at the end.

The handout from the dragon was fine, if you ignore the issue of the dragon and our connection to them not being explained, but the letter from the VC was just pointless, and the writing felt rough and stunted when I tried to read it aloud. It does not seem to really help with the mission and mostly spends time on generalities.
While I know that the VC appears in this season's intro, he has not left a positive memory in this one.

Just because this is part two of this metaplot, recapping what happened in the first part would have enhanced the start.

Main mission: "Go there, fetch my stuff" can easily feel like busy work instead of adventure, particularly since the adventure does not provide the players with a more extensive motivation/context than the dragon wanting it.

Vibe: Once you leave the ship the scenario sets up a vibe that is somewhere between returning to Jurrasic Park for someone's forgotten Mcguffin and the Alien movies. That is a pretty nice thing, unfortunately, the early parts (before there are tentacles everywhere) could use some more content to make the most of it, because after the kids hatch, there is just the chase.

Unfortunately what we recover is "just" star metal and while it can be expensive.. it feels like this was anything but time-critical. After all, metal tends to last, and if you leave it in some temple on some island, it just feels off.

Local sprits: I suspect, that this plot point was inspired by some real-world mythology, Paizo tends to care about things like that. Unfortunately, the plot point does not get enough space to breathe, mostly because the adventure doesn't do enough with them.

Befriending spirits on another island in another adventure had them turn up to help deal with a rather nasty final boss.
It might be a personal weakness of mine, but I rather like the plot point of your allies coming to your aid in times of crisis.. and here the just give a skill bonus.. once.

The adventure seems to really care about players not "excessively harming the natural surroundings" but in the framing of org play, the player characters are sent on the mission, if they send a fire kineticist what is that character supposed to do?

I am not entirely certain what sort of super destructive methods the scenario is expecting and wants to react to.

Run time:
We needed about 2.5 hours and we had tech issues at the start of the session, part of the reason it runs so fast is that the main area of the scenario just doesn't have any NPCs to interact with. This is a genuinely bad choice for any "social" character.

If you cut the first unsatisfying encounter (barely did anything felt like a huge letdown even though the concept of traps felt interesting though the adventure does not do a lot with them) this would be a nice length for the series 2 quests... which sort of showcases that this one does not have enough meat on it's bones for a scenario.
While running long causes issues, being done early and having to entertain players for another hour or two is... not exactly great. There isn't even much where the GM could play for time by having the players interact with the environment or each other in ways that feel like a good fit.

Verdant Wheel rep... this one is totally out of the blue, while players can harvest from the akata's (while you are in theory packing up and trying to not trigger even more of them) I find it questionable that a lot of players will come to this conclusion. Since you are inevitably chased by them it feels irresponsible to even suggest giving up a couple of minutes head start.

I was not worried about losing a treasure bundle, but now reading the scenario the fact that we are losing it because we did not risk out lives and the entire mission to take some samples is... quite vexing.
I could see the Vigilant seal reward the very same action and call it threat assessment.

It feels like a weird oddity that does not really mesh with the surrounding framing and content.

The ability to greedily harvest noqual from less developed cocoons sounds... somewhat... well if this was a movie the people doing that likely trigger traps and get killed.

Akata normally do not have pack attack, and considering the D&D term that snuck into the first version of this scenario, I am sort of thinking the author was more familiar with that system where "just add pack attack" is already the subject of jokes.

Maps: Sometimes it feels like scenarios exist to sell Flip Mats, particularly if the maps are not a really good fit for the region. I am happy to say that the chosen maps are a great fit for the island and what area they are supposed to represent.

Art: You meet the VC and the kobold in the end and can have a debriefing, reprinting their art would have been welcome for those GMs that might not have ready access to other scenarios with the NPC (or the blog). Since there are 3 empty squares on page 25 there was absolutely space without increasing the page count for those that print scenarios.

Chase: Rather liked the chase, maybe a tiny bit too long, but I liked the reminder at the start that reminded GMs to be open to creative solutions and other skills/ability uses.

Ending: The adventure really seems to expect the players to care about the area and the local people... but outside of the captain you never met any of them, so when and how are people supposed to have formed a positive association?
This is like asking how you liked your vacation when your plane crashed and you had to subsist on a rocky shore for 2 weeks until the rescuers arrived. Either a substantial amount was cut from this scenario for some reason or there is just some level of disconnect here.

The first two parts of this adventure are barely conceded to the plot they claim to be part of, or alternatively, the plot has a very light touch, at least in the first two scenarios.
The core of this scenario might have been a stronger story without the connection to one of this season's metaplots.

Chronicle: How do"crafting materials for a druid's crown make any sense" there is no discount, the item is not uncommon, having players buy specific purpose-bound materials to craft a particular item, is a downside, not an advantage. It’s particularly odd with this item since part of using it can involve recreating it from local materials. Using Akata material for it is a choice I struggle with.

Played recently, has potential but also a couple of unfortunatey choices regarding the narrative, and maps involved.
Worth running for groups that crave a fair bit of combat, but runs long.

Short review after running it twice.

The altered influence system is an interesting experiment and I hope that org play continues to itterate and experiement with the subsystems from the GMG. Not so sure about the second one, I have run both twice and am not sure if the second one was really all that necessary.

Chase was fine, one group struggled a lot the other had some advantages and creative uses of skills an abilities.

The encounters is where I am personally not very happy, the optional encounter feels very unsatisfying to have and to run (and the players really wanted to avoid it), the encoutner against the other group of cobolds could have been interesting, but gets called too early.

The tone is very unusual the Sewer Dragons go from "they are our enemies" to wanting to recruit them in what feels like seconds - partially since the combat was called so early.

The final encounter with the antagonist.. I have yet to see the fight happen, and players thus far were not keen to resolve the issue with combat, particularly since the antagonist is not particularly unfriendly towards them.

Afterwards the antagonist switches very quickly from "time for a civil war" to "oh I am soo sorry, here have some gifts" that the whole endeavor just confuses me. The tone feels odd, and I struggle to take the Sewer Dragons seriously.

The experimentation and some other factors keep this at a 3 stars, but the combat encounters, and the weird tone, certainly do not help.

I have only ever played this one, thus my insight is limited, particularly since I played it with my regular Starfinder AP group, and a GM I rate very highly. Since I had fun, I am likely not as critical as I might otherwise be if the table went less well.

Centering the narrative around Envar has the advantage that both his fans and detractors have the motivation to find him

The first planet we encountered was pretty interesting kaju fandoms, and a rather nice setup for how "normal life" works out on the planet, even if it makes things sound pretty tame compared to my reading for the planet descriptions years ago.

The largest ball of twine was magnificent.
I am a sucker for more content that fleshes out the various species in the Starfinder universe, and I feel like the Brenneri section worked pretty well.

The "How to Jam" rules feel surprisingly deep, I like how it allows a large variety of players to contribute and find ways to describe their actions. Irrespective of a potential time slot concern, I like how linked to a relevant skill check, that matters in the scenario, players and the GM can craft some interesting RP, particularly since it allows characters to express themselves.

The twine, I liked that the adventure already thought about a couple of interesting ways to interact with it. My character and the party pathra were crushed... though the kitty was enjoying it a fair bit more ^^

Next planet is rather dark, we are slightly worried about vampires, but trying to get a permit worked out pretty well, as that enabled some characters to strut their stuff (corporate connections). The forced invitation to have a chat with the questionably legal entrepreneurs felt a bit forced... it felt like "fighting is not an option" and it felt a bit forced/railroady. A different setup/presentation might have avoided this friction.
I did not love the interaction with them.

Like the "totally not a stargate" to the plane of shadows, the creatures that came out of it seemed potentially pretty miserable, or at least scary, we had no real problems, but confusion effects are certainly something players take seriously. Apparently, the 4 player adjustments were quite fitting here.

At this point, we were thinking about throwing Envar into a volcano.. and providence struck as we saw the last world with some very prominent volcanoes. I sort of expected the extreme cooking challenge - as one does - I did not expect for the author to Battlebus us, but I loved the skill check to make it look cool.

The cooking contest sounds like a lovely idea, and I am very much on board.

I have feelings about a Sebastian who isn't a butler, but since the art our GM has shown to us was of a suave-looking person, I will forgive this deviation from narrative convention :P

It really is a lovely idea for a setpiece, and I feel like as a final setpiece for this adventure our GM made the right call for this group.

-----

This is a great adventure, the somewhat forced interaction mentioned above is slightly dampening my enthusiasm, but this seems like an easy adventure to suggest to players. However, having seen a spectacularly prepped VTT table, it is not super easy to present to players, at least online.
I have yet to open the adventure and look at the provided handouts, those could also improve the experience, particularly help set the mood and are visually appealing.

Normally I avoid repeatable content like the plague because it can be very hard to introduce significant elements that alter it on a repeat experience. I am pleased to say that while the core concept of being a repeatable adventure was obvious, it did not detract from the experience.
As far as repeatable content is concerned, I feel like the outline worked very well, and that the author managed to fill all locations with very interesting set pieces, it is a wonderful template.

This adventure does some new things, and a lot of familiar things are done in a somewhat novel/odd manner. It starts by building up a grand complicated plot that links back more than 10 years into PFS1 scenarios, and while I do not think, that this does it any favors, it is also completely irrelevant to the story the player characters can experience.

That interaction did not set me up very favorably for the remainder of the adventure, despite the fact that I know the old lore (I just despair trying to get players without that to care for it).

The tone of the adventure and a certain element really feels more like it would be a good fit for Starfinder... actually, the adventure might make more sense if moved to Absalom Station.

The pdf seems to have a couple of issues, personally, I hope that it gets some more attention, especially in areas where combat descriptions and enemy stat blocks constractic one another.

Right now my suggestion would be to wait, this one feels like it needs some more time in the oven. Right now you can still absolutely run this, if you select the options with the least questions and find your own answers but I will have to come back to this review and extend it significantly.

Edit: The fact that the adventure has a "this is outside the scope of this adventure" is deeply unsatisfying, despite the fact that the quest spends/waste a lot of page count at the start.
Players can learn about the mysterious person who started the rumors, but are left with not way of following the story.

In this aspect, this adventure feels like a scenario that was pruned massively, and that leads to a very unsatisfying ending. Not sure if this an attempt to see storylines in this product line, but I hope this does not become a new standard.

I have run this recently, it worked great at the table but I found myself trying to de-emphasize some aspects, where the mechanics can be a bit overwhelming for new players.

Since I am scheduled to run this again, I plan to return and update this review, but it is pretty neat.

I recently had the opportunity to play this adventure, it was a fun table with other players I enjoyed a fair bit. Unfortunately, in this case, this is more despite the adventure than because of it.

In general, I agree with some of the points raised by the other reviews, if I could give points out of 10 or fractional points it would be 2.5 but since this one has been on my mind for more than a month we end up with a 2-star review, I really hope this is not a permanent choice of direction.

- Map: Reusing the final map used in 1-07 - and likely the more memorable ones once you go underground, is very disappointing. This makes it harder to first run the preceding adventure since putting players on the same map in short succession tends to be bad for their immersion. Similar to reusing the Museum flip mat so much, it tends to rip players out of their immersion if they find themselves on the same map that is supposed to represent vastly different locations (usually without any significant changes to the flip mat)

- Marcon: I don't dislike the artwork (which at the very least is a boon to someone running 1-07, since the normal ghoul artwork was a bit akward) and my GM spent quite some effort to run the NPC with an accent so deep that I struggle to understand it.

My main issue is... which is he here and not dead? I got the impression running 1-07 that there were essentially 2 outcomes, he dies close to the area where he was imprisoned, or he is brought back to the Grand Lodge so he can pass on the information and generally just die. The fact that he survived is more of a distraction to me, as I have assumed, that he died 4 years ago... so any sort of presence, no matter how well represented and written only really distracts from the story.

- Drendle Dreng: This character's inclusion into previous seasons' storylines was not received well when I ran it, because while PFS1 players had a lot of exposure to the NPC that was not necessarily going to be the case for new PFS1 players. Now we are learning
that apparently he had the time to set up a settlement for a very specific flavor of undead.
The connection to our somewhat overused Maze of the Open Road is... oddly convenient, and honestly might have been enough to justify and adventure here without the involvement of Drend and Marcon

- The Shark Captain: .... why does he look like some sort of humanoid shark mix, as others have mentioned, I would not have been shocked to see a character like that (maybe excluding the undead element) in something from Battlezoo, but it's very odd.
The character is immediately suspicious, depending on how people tend to roll, but it still ends up with a betrayal towards the end.

Having only played this I can't comment if/how players can resolve the issue of the shark early, but in my personal experience... NPCs betraying player characters is a really poisonous chalice, as it encourages players often called "murderhobos" to be more aggressive when it comes to NPCs.

- The town and setup for the island: It's weird, it's weird that apparently the Society was involved in setting it up, it's super weird, that the due to the weird reaction or the major and the IIRC first mate, they did not seem super surprised by the betrayal or really care all that much - but that might have been because the adventure ran super long.

- Arodenite dead: Having a large supply of human beef jerky to enable the town to persist a bit is (while everyone does not seem super keen on dealing with the inevitability of the corpses running out) is a weird plot point. The fact that those who eat any part of them get part of their memories.
I think I watched every episode of the show Izombie, but getting memories from eating someone's shin is peculiar.
Without looking in the scenario pdf and doing a lot of research, I am not sure if this is new lore or if it is a bit of established weird lore (not unlike the charge of the gorgon mentioned in 1-01 Abaslom Initiation which was introduced in the PF1 Absalom book).

- There really seems to be no one who actually wants to deal with their desire to eat corpses, which is essentially just kicking the can down the road. I think there is a significant difference between this colony and the skeletons the Pathfinder Society recruited/rescued in the Gravelands.
The Skeletons are "just" victims, and despite looking scary, do not pose a threat to anyone. The ghouls eat people, they only seem to eat them when they are dead, but historically ghouls tend to have few qualms about turning living people into dinner. When they are hungry, they are always going to be a threat to others until that is resolved. Pending unlucky seafarers fortunately the colony is pretty far from most population centers, but since the Agents of the Whispering Tyrant have found them..

The issues above tend to distract from the actual story of this adventure, the fact, that a village of corpse-eating undead is getting infiltrated by Agents of the Whispering Tyrant. That's not a bad story, but the setup for the village, and the connection to the Pathfinder Society via Marcon distract from that core narrative.

To be fair, I might have been more understanding, but our session took about 6 hours, and at that point, everyone was tired and in a hurry. If the encounter with the plants had been optional. that might already have helped the perception a bit.

If I end up prepping/running it, I will attempt to update this review with any additional context.

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 ate 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.

---

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.