schattenstern's page

I think this is the best Intro we ever had. It starts the storyline quite well and has nice encounters except the one hazard in the tavern which could be written more clerly (if that issue were fixed it would be a 5* scenario)

Final encounter alone sucked out any fun we had.

THe basline idea was solid and maybe the best execution of an aquatic scenario we had but being denied nearly anything to do in the final encounter between the environment and a permastun1 from the boss...

Alos that the sidebar for greek in golarion is here (and not in the Mythspeaker AP) as well as that instead of usefull stuff like STATBLOCKS ...

The characters of this scenario are an utter disgrace - the numbers do not fit, they are missing options or have made decissions that hurt them (while not adding to flavour/fit their Backstory)
Also they are missing essential tools to function (healer/thieves tools or ammunition for their own weapon) - or options to create LIGHT (like light spell/torch)
There are enough tools available to build characters (be it externally or paizos own manual character sheets) that you should not be missing muiltiple feats or similar.

I like the flavour (and adding on how the characters act/interact) but mechaically this is a debacle. With a a 1 3/4 hour duration it also is quite short.

Scenario was a challange (lowtier) but quite fun to play.

I can see where it can spiral out of control, but I feel the wave encounter was balanced quite well.

Story mighht be interesting, but the mechanics (DC35 save...) are idiotic and the scenario is far too long

Very nice story and a fitting end for the campaign.

Small gripe is the repeated use (more variance would be nice) of wave encounters with swarms.

If you want a low combat AP, this is highly recommendable.

This seems like it missed a lot of develeopment/oversight - It has parts of the scenario missing significant information and actively punishing players to focus on the mission (As they are told) is bad design.

Not getting full rewards to not find stuff you are not expected to look for is...

After having run this far too much as a introductory scneario at conventions for players with no roleplaying experience I have to say this is a great quest with the right mix of roleplay encounters (the quirky NPCs are great) and a small combat.

The scenario also manages to get in the right spot where it can provide a lot of story for experienced palyers while being understandable by completely new players.

Using a DC 30 Skillchek in this levelrange and NEEDING a success shows utter disregard for any guideline regarding challanges (as published in the GMG or any other kind of adventure is demoralizing and annoying players.

Requiering the use of nonleathal in a lot of cases is punishing for characters that do not use weapons (as they can not deal nonleathal in quite a few cases.)

That the scenario got a late addition of a trigger warning while not addressing the massive other problems with it is just icing on the cake.

This scenario has a very good story, a great skill challange, that made a lot of sense and good combats.

The basic idea of the scenario is very interesting, but it would be served a lot better with being a higher level scenario (both for the plot or for the enemies)

The influence part was utterly useless and a repeat of the most annoying subsystem of this year for no benefit. Looking at the scaling math it feels like someone did not realize the implications of scaling here…
Also having nearly the same skillset (at least for the early discoveries) to be the same is also bad gamedesign.

Please do no more influence encounters that do not add anything worthwhile to the scenario.

2 Points for the Idea/the setting (for a higher level scenario could have been 4)
+1 Point for the interesting nonstandard combat encounter design
-2 for the influence encounter
= 1 Star

The influence was pointelss - as it did not really clicked with the rest of the scenario and none of the rewards (bar one) affected the scenario - and dragged on far too long.

And the part after the influence felt disjointed - if I was not in org play why would i do research if the host of the party tells me everything is fine, the expert tells me it is fine... etc...

And asking players to bid in an auction starting with a minimum bid of more than their total wealth seems like a very well thought out idead (not).

Good part the battles were not botched that much (but scaling led to very crowded rooms)

Whoever designed the big eel encounter does not know anything about balancing or valuing the the players or GMs time...
An ability that requires this many saves per turn and this kind of enemy in an underwater environment is utter insanity and just plain stupid. This was the worst encounter I had in the last 3 or 4 years of playing starfinder.

This scenario has one of the best starshipcombats in the last few years.

[

] - If you can accept that gimmick, it is a quite solid diplomatic/starship scenario. It will not be for everyone, but some of the choices were a quite refreshing experience.

Having to deal with "starfinders" doing s*+# again is kind of tedious and lets you question why we still have these people in the society.

From an encounter standpoint the starshipcombat does its best to show the players EVERYTHING wrong with the system with giving them a bad ship (no turret and no aft weapon and the sides being weak enough to not really be there) and having the enemy have a superior ship (it can fire 2 weapons nearly every turn while the PCs can ever only roll one attack and have better statistics in every relevant kind.)

Whoever equipped the mechanic for this scenario did not consider the enemies.

Having over half the enemies resist or being immune to your main weapon is great and "fun".

Pregens should not be that missequipped for a scenario and feel useless in a lot of cases.

I must compliment the great use of skippable encounters in this adventure:
You can either do intelligent/creative solutions (and skillchekcks) or fight and the skill challenges were all fair to do. This was a pleasant surprise to me.

The scenario was a mess storywise and from a skill perspective.
It started with the worst influence setting I have seen in a long time… The skills are unfitting and force you to use sense motive as they do not really fit. Especially with the priests all being lorebreaking

and weirdly written this part does not work at all. Especially with the primary being dependent on having either Sense Motive or being able to guess unfitting skills for the one character that matters.
After reading through this section at least the success is dependent on getting everyone convinced which is a nice change of pace.
All in all this felt like a bit of a mess, which is helped by mistakes regarding the skills (Asking for non-existing skills like Society) The combats were fine(ish) but nothing to write home about and would have profited from another combat as it ran very short.

Whoever thinks an APL+2 Boss should EVER get an elite Template should never ever work on a second edition Scenario ever. (played in high tier)
This is something we complained often enough about but some people seem to refuse to learn.
The Story was solid and would have warranted a 3 star review without that final part, but the last combat is enough to deafault the whole adventure to 1*.

The scenario has atrocious success conditions and the balancing is a travesty.

And AGAIN requiering a crit success on a random skill check with no indication that it is important is something they should have learned is a idiocy 2 seasons ago (we complained enough about these checks).

This is assuming the clarifications are used:

This scenario is a good replayable with nice flavour and a interesting use of the chase rules.

Without the clarification this scenario is utterly insane and would get 1 star at best.

After a long time this is a good scenario in tier 1-4 that you can run without having too many problems.

This will be added to my convention reportoire for the forseeable future.
As this has easy forst combats to get new players into the system and the story not being bound by any gloarion specific tidbits but easily understandable.