Will MB's page

I GM'd two Quests back to back yesterday. This was one of them. The group was five players, including four brand new Pathfinder 2 players - one of those had never played any RPGs before.

This Quest was simple to set up and play. The themes and storyline were compelling and direct enough that everyone kept focused and understood what the goal was.

The skill checks and structure made it easy to teach four brand-new PF2 players as we went. Everyone had fun, and the new players got moments to individually shine. We used the Iconic Pre-Gens. One more experienced player said that character creation and upkeep seemed really involved in PF2, but the system itself is intuitive and easy to learn.

I also enjoyed it as a GM. It took about 50 minutes to run the whole quest. After I finished both short Quests, several players wanted to keep going. Running this and Quest #6 took about 2.5 hours total, with a break between and some hanging out beforehand.

I GM'd two Quests back to back yesterday. This was one of them. The group was five players, including four brand new Pathfinder 2 players - one of those had never played any RPGs before.

The entire adventure took just over an hour to play - the vast majority of that was the final combat, which was really tough. I'll just throw out that having vast swathes of immunities handicapped the two spell casters. Everyone still had fun, and the skill challenge(s) were appropriate and taught some basic game play concepts.

Well done overall, and this was a nice adventure. The PF2 Quests are more situational, I often have a hard time rounding up a regular table for only an hour or two.

I GM'd this a few days after it came out. While there are a couple of rough spots, such as a slightly unclear timeline for the goals, the pure notion of an urban adventure set in a bureaucratic city is fantastic. I opted to give a 5-star review because the entire premise and design was so novel for a Society scenario that it outweighed minor flaws.

The writing is great, challenges are appropriate, and there's specific call outs for skill checks that I've only ever used in non-Society games. My group was heavily focused on illusion, deception, and stealth. The combat encounters made them sweat a bit, even though the fights weren't difficult by most Pathfinder standards.

Well done, I'm hoping that March 2020 sees equally good adventures with the two-part social intrigue plotline.

Four stars for a well-written, solid adventure. Missed five stars for some minor issues: a sidebar for when players attempt to de-escalate combat would be super helpful (in the Plaguestone game I'm GMing, the druid takes this approach with wild animals, which is to be expected).

Also, there's a few points at which combat seems to be the de facto solution, even when the storyline is written for other outcomes. After playing through the later portion, my group concluded that diplomacy should have been an achievable option, but instead it was a Kobayashi Maru setup (guaranteed failure due to structural design).

The NPCs are well connected to the plot, and all the major on-stage actors have motivations that explain their choices. Paizo excels in that aspect of adventure writing - there's very few moments with Paizo content where I step back and question the narrative because of plot holes.

Being sanctioned for Pathfinder Society is also great. I typically focus on PFS as a play choice. An active community and flexible tables for GMs and players alike make for an easier time getting actual play time.

Nice adventure, took my group of 4-5 players roughly 30 hours to finish this. Overall, there's some weird plot holes and lots of needless combats. One thing I appreciated is there's not a 'grind until you're leveled up' aspect - I was able to use a milestone method for leveling, so my players didn't attempt to slaughter everything they met for gold and XP. Also, nice work adding in NPCs that have some depth. I enjoyed that the goblins aren't monsters, but can instead become staunch allies (and help progress the plot).

Pleasant adventure, well designed. Lots of skill challenges, and it gets right into the action. Good storytelling, solid moments for more skillful characters to shine. I agree with other reviewers that there's a lot of various interactive bits and pieces, so a little prompting by the GM could be warranted if play time is an issue.

I agree with other reviewers that the introduction takes a long time. It took over an hour to get our missions and get going, which was rough because we had a time limit (the local game store staff want to go home!) Also, the entire adventure seems focused around Golarion lore and previous NPC cameos, which isn't my focus as a player. My focus is to play Pathfinder - my character wants to be a hero or die trying, not watch the PFS NPC credits.

I really enjoyed this as a Society adventure. It's got an atmospheric story, decent player agency for a Pathfinder Society game, and was far less focused on combat as the only solution for resolving the plot. The ending didn't really have a strong plot thread to tie back to the rest of the adventure, but the entire story made sense overall (big points to the Paizo team for that!)

We ran this at the higher Tier because we had a lot of players, mostly ranging from Level 2-3 (no Level 4). I really enjoyed the story and narrative elements, but the finale easily stomped us. Ended up running right up against the store's closing time.

Solid, well-crafted adventure. Importantly, it can handle mis-cues very well (for example, I GM'd this for a party of 4 Tier 1-2 players, totally forgot about the sword, and things still played through without a hitch!) That's some next-level writing, because The Wounded Wisp fell apart on me when I mis-cued a minor point.

Combat is balanced, great opportunities for role-playing, and also doesn't mandate the 'murder hobo' mentality - this definitely rewards thinking and problem-solving over mighty thews and great-swords.

My group really enjoyed this, and it was also a pleasure to GM. It's set in Varisia (not Absalom City), which allows me to set up the party for a 4-6 month Varisian campaign (maybe a PFS module, definitely a couple of Tier 1-5 Varisian scenarios).

Average PFS scenario. Unfortunately, there are some logical encounter gaps at the end that you could drive a mammoth through - my players kind of paused and gave me funny looks when I told them about one of the middle encounters.

There's some great RP opportunity (which my players enjoyed, but didn't fully embrace) - the end fight would be a challenge at Tier 4-5, but at Tier 1-2 it was too easy (as is the case with many Tier 1-2 scenarios).

Definitely better written and scripted then a 2-star scenario, but not a 4/5 star adventure. There are some points where you can let players steer around fights, and I'd suggest doing so (don't steamroll the party into fighting needlessly, it's nonsense and also a big logical/storyline gap).

The whole premise of this Mana Wastes adventure is curious and fascinating - but this is one heck of a difficult run as a GM (and probably as a player!)

First off, the reviews stating that things hinge on a certain set of triggers is mostly fair. If the party is lacking a few key Knowledge skills, certain types of magical ability, and a strong sense of the mission, things can absolutely fall apart.

This scenario needs a forgiving GM (for both the finale combats and the general rhythm of things), but for the general weirdness/fear-inspiring aspects, the Twisted Circle is great. It's creepy, it's bizarre, my players kept being spooked by the RPG experience. It's almost like a horror-suspense adventure wrapped up in a scenario.

Other people who played through it commented that it would have been better as a module instead of a scenario - I agree with this. A gentle but firm hand on the rudder saved things from going adrift with this one. The Circle is not necessarily for novice GMs, but played well even at the Tier 1-2 level. There are some fights that are cut-throat brutal, but largely (and interestingly) the majority of the scenario is non-combat, mystery material.

As another point: There are several Occult Magic classes that could derail this straight off with the cognitive psionic-style powers, and if the players are really organized, they may need to have the end of Act 2 tailored a touch differently. This is actually a really difficult scenario to run purely as written, so go into it with a head for where things can get off track and be pre-emptive as a GM.

I both ran this as a GM (Tier 1, PFS table of 6 players), and shortly afterwards, played in it as a fill-in PC (Tier 1, PFS table of 5 players.)

Somebody else mentioned that the strengths of this evergreen scenario also mirror the weaknesses. The format is set up so that players can avoid having a duplicate experience (with the 2 out of 3 smaller missions), which is great - it would have almost been better to drop in 4 smaller missions so that a replay could be 100% fresh.

I do agree that the finale is a little understated, and while it can be spiced up, if played as a PFS scenario, it's uninspired. The strength is in the initial two Acts and the interesting, fluid shenanigans that can erupt in the last Act.

That said, both times I've played through this, it ran approximately 2.5-3.5 hours, even with a fair amount of chatting and tangents - so it could be a good fill-in if the venue or players have finite time limits (and, as an evergreen, it probably gets far quicker once it's been played through a few times.)

Summary: I GM'd this for a party of 6 Tier 1-2 (APL 1.75 or so). Solidly playable scenario, easy set up, challenging fights, needs moderately more improv/GM finessing/'on the fly' role-playing skills than more streamlined scenarios.

it looks as if I disagree with the rest of the reviewers on Part II of Shades of Ice. My party seemed to enjoy it quite a bit, it offers a solid opportunity for role-play and adventure in Irrisen's capital, Whitehall.

I suppose one element of the scenario is that you can add role-playing elements to the scenario without turning it into a blood-bath - which I think goes a long ways to make the scenario both more fun and less a straight-up murder hobo slaughter of everyone opposing the Pathfinders.

I do agree that the scenario lacks backstory for the villains, but by introducing a bit of context, it's much more understandable. It's not as clear-cut of a RPG adventure as, say, The Confirmation or From Under Ice (which are both very well-crafted.) The last encounter is a serious challenge, and also comes out of nowhere - but I enjoyed the raw challenge that the adventure posed to my Tier 1-2 party, compared to milder scenarios.

I GM'd this for a table of new PFS players last weekend, and had a co-GM who was a great help setting up and prepping things.

The scenario requires a brutal level of prep to play decently. Also, there's so many small details and bits of info to fill in (not all clearly marked), that someone who is unfamiliar with Golarion could run into serious issues - again, without my co-GM to fill in the spots that both I and the players missed, this would have derailed several times.

I can see how this is a solid segue into The Confirmation, but overall I think The Confirmation is a better-written/scripted scenario.

Setting-wise, it's a great play - but it can take several days of solid prep to pull it off successfully. Even as an evergreen Tier 1-2 adventure, I won't run this for a group again.

As a note, I don't care about roles, archetypes, extra spells, etc. There's plenty of that available in the Core, Advanced, and Ultimate books without my chasing down supplements.

What I care about is understanding the story and setting of Golarion for my PFS campaigns. People of the North does that sufficiently, with a little extra combat material for those people who prefer new weapons instead of story lines. There's a decent quantity of details about the Ulfen, Jadwiga, Irrisen, and the general Frozen North setting - the great thing is that I can just let me players browse the book while we are playing to get a kenning for the North.

I'd actually go the opposite direction than some reviewers, and say more details (daily life, customs, epithets, religion, all that good Guidebook jazz), not more magical harpoons.

Great adventure. My players seemed to have a great time, even just playing the scenario within the PFS paradigm (not a lot of background ad-lib for the goblins, run the scenario by the book, PFS Organized Play rules). I can see how this could become a scenario with even broader appeal given more flexibility.

It took my group 3.5 hours to play (skipping one optional Act). Some battles ranked as a 3/10 or 4/10 for danger/lethality (where a 10/10 is a TPK). Chronicles treasure is light compared to The Confirmation. Well written scenario set in Irrisen - I'm currently using all the Irrisen adventures (Tier 1-5), as a mini-campaign within the PFS framework for my group.

Setting, adventure story, and social-first/attack-last setting makes this an adventure for thinking heroes. I just finished running it with my regular Pathfinder Society group, and they blazed right through it - because they leaned on their words, not their swords.

Excellent change of pace from the typical Pathfinder carnage that can emerge during sessions. High recommend it - another commenter stated that the Tier 1-2 challenges aren't very difficult, and I'd agree for the large part (things have the potential to go bad if players aren't very savvy). Still, my players had a great time and enjoyed the non-combat storyline.

Great adventure - ran it with 6 1st level heroes at our local game shop. It was my first time running a Pathfinder Society game, and The Confirmation was a solid 4 hour session. The players enjoyed it, there are a moderate variety of challenges, and the PCs get to meet and befriend a great NPC (hopefully we'll see more recurring NPC characters so that Chronicle Boons can be used!)

All in all an enjoyable session. Combat is probably a 4/10 for difficulty, which is A-OK. One important note, keep in mind this is an introductory adventure for a lot of new players, so if you've got to fudge the dice to avoid killing PCs, please do it - I remember reading that when new players lose their characters at a low level, they never return to RPG games, and write off the whole domain as 'not something they enjoy'.