UnforcedError's page

Initially I felt really intrigued by the trees and the tower defense mechanism, I very much enjoyed the first two fights. Then our team got unlucky as we didn't get some items from the camp (interestingly they have some random leftovers which just happen to be useful at the final fight), and we didn't manage to learn anything about the trolls beforehand. So we went into the last encounter blind, knowing that we had no way to kill all trolls in time. Hence we engaged the final boss directly in the tunnels which proved to be impossible with our resources already depleted by the previous battles. We didn't have the right spells to fight the trolls. And we TPKed. After SEVEN hours. (Five players.)
When I ran it yesterday I blocked off the tunnel with the trolls (as their main mission was to stop the players from stopping their boss) and Clouded Quartz spent the first rounds digging undisturbed. The party also critically succeeded on the scouting checks and they got the items from the camp and they did manage to get the most important recall knowledge info before the battle. They didn't have the right spells though. They were not even close to getting past the other trolls when Clouded Quartz reached the camp, and the battle proved to be challenging nevertheless with some characters going down and others having difficulties manuevering. We finished playing after SIX AND A HALF hours. (Six players.)
All in all the mechanism itself is interesting but the design is flawed. The final fight is way too difficult for an average random party composition (Clouded Quartz herself is a beefed up version of a lvl6 creature AND she's a full caster, I don't even understand where that CR9 is coming from). The trees are interesting but they require a lot of time, player discussions at the beginning on what kind of trees to plant and where, tree management during the fights, players keeping forgetting about them etc... This scenario is not viable to be run as it is written now. I would probably make the first two fights shorter by adding less enemies and making them move towards the camp more agressively to build up a sense of urgency in the players. And nerf the final fight obviously.

The initial idea of this module is probably the best I've seen in this season so far. While the opening will inadvertedly raise some remarks like "not another test, this is getting old...", the initial skill challenge is fun and crazy enough to start off an intriguing story with a mysterious caller and some unseen foes. Combat scenes are interesting and challenging as well. The final ritual has a great design.
However, I will give this a 4 instead of a 5 as the cosmology part was wonky at best, with the cave puzzle description being so vague that I came up with various possible interpretations to how the rotating cylinders might be situtated. This should really be edited.

I loved playing and running this one. I even made an investigation board for the players to aid them in their quest :) All in all I would love to see all scenarios being like this, lots of things happening in the module with the initial motives being sufficiently crazy and intriguing. Combat is nice and challenging with some interesting custom foes. The murky swamp theme is excellent. The only small problem I had concerning the investigation was that...

The story itself is really intriguing. I love the idea of the dino rodeo and the court room scene is adding something unique to the theme as well. First combat is very challenging. The biggest flaws I have found with this scenario have nothing to do with the module per se. First of all the minimap in the intro is dead wrong. To F2F players this might be a merely cosmetic issue, but in a VTT GMs tend to include the minimap on the game's welcome page, and in this case you'd see a nice green Mwangi jungle instead of an island city. Also, as it was mentioned previously, the scenario has no variable parts as you'd expect with a replayable game.

Loved playing and running this, it's definitely one of the most enjoyable ones :) As usual, running it online requires several extra maps and some extra art (kids and Jaldan, some of the camp inhabitants...). The story is good, the setting is compelling. Nice NPCs :) Shame that completing the secondary objective only hinges on one or two skill checks.

While playing the scenario felt almost completely pointless. There didn't seem any option to talk to people and investigate the issues except for Vionnia's skill challenge which was essentially super boring and neither of us rolled any successes anyway. The backstory makes it a lot better but of course not all parties will be able to learn anything.

Loved playing and running it. Great theme, nice backstories for the custom made pregens. Runs faster than the average PF2 scenario. Adored the puzzles, it was a welcome change to the unimaginative skill checks provided in some scenarios. Nice buildup on the fights too, some easy ones at the start to help players get acquainted with their combat skills. Linear adventure, easy to run even for starting GMs.

I'm yet to run this one but I sure as hell enjoyed playing it :) I't a fantastic setting with really flavorful, memorable NPCs and some nice combat, lovely story. Well done :)
I will probably add some more details once I've run it.

If you ever want to spend 4 hours rolling the same skillcheck over and over (lots of them in turn order even to make it more fun I guess) and fight a lame monster at the end, then this is something for you. Otherwise you better avoid it. I certainly don't plan to run it. It would require lots of extras to make it even acceptable.

I adored this scenario while playing it and even more so while GMing. Nice ambiance, lots of backstory to find out, interesting encounters, flavorful villain. Liked the fact that characters could interact with the story in different ways depending on their background knowledge (aka skills). As a GM you might want to do some additional background prepping just in case.

I played and ran this scenario before the revision as well. I really like the changes to the end-game which now doesn't feel like the Society consisting of mean idiots wanting to play highly dangerous (and probably really costly) pranks on some poor initiates who stupidly signed up for the trials.

The biggest charm of this scenario is its relative shortness (when played with experienced players). Replay value is good. Goblins are one-dimensional but fun, combat is somewhat challenging on low tier but survivable.

If this was a non-repeatable scenaro, I'd give it 5 stars. I love the winterland atmosphere with the human vs nature feeling, the race, the various teams and the stalker. Unfortunately the replay value is relatively low, hence the 4 stars.

My favorite replayable module. Nice stories, lots of interesting Tian Xia background. Perfect atmosphere. Great replay value, although the variable encounters don't seem to be completely balanced. Module should be re-edited though, to be more GM-friendly. GMs must make various cheat sheets for this to have all the infos handy. (Otherwise they'd have to scroll back and forth in the module to grab the necessary data for a single encounter.) Some artwork is missing for custom monsters, but that's no big deal.

My least favorite replayable module. The replay value is relatively low, even with the random elements. Some nice roleplaying opportunities with PFS high society but way too many names for new players. The first part feels extremely forced. Also, the adventure runs very long with the ball part and the four missions.

Played and ran this multiple times. Colorful NPCs. Good replay value. Fun bar fight :)
Downsides for me:

I played and ran this one multiple times now. The backstory is flavorful and interesting. New PFS players will definitely profit from all the information given about the Society. The only problem I have is with the scaling of the different variations.