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********* Venture-Captain, Germany—Rhein Main South 196 posts (291 including aliases). 49 reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 70 Organized Play characters. 1 alias.



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4/5

This was a very solid story with fitting encounters.
You can do more of it.


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5/5

This was a very interesting and challenging scenario. Especially the sceond combat was extremely interesting.


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4/5

This scenario has a interesting story and a very unique and interesting final encounter.
I would like to see more encounters like this that are that interesting and use unique environmental options that are flavorful and fit the theme that well.


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The worst replayable in all of organized play

1/5

The setup for the scenario seems to be a fine follow-up to the earlier iruxi scenario, BUT…

The number of enemies is completely out of line with what PCs can reasonably save against (hightier with adjustments). This was the worst developed encounter I ever played since the catastrophe that is 3 Seugathis or 8 mummies in PF1. This encounter design is prone to TPKs, unfun to play and even the incapacitation trait ONLY matters for level 6 players. While this would make a fine balancing for a encounter for a group of only level 6 players this makes it completely unfun to play but also WILL lead to one or more players going AFK for quite some time.
I hope whoever is responsible for this NEVER writes/develops anything again, this is BAD design. (and similar encounters were already very hated/criticized in earlier scenarios so there is no excuse of “trying something new”)

This encounter alone is responsible for a 1star review.
The scenario is also a fail regarding being a repayable as there is not a lot of variance in it (and especially with the story of the first encounter being that illogical that it breaks all suspensions of disbelief…). This was one of the worst experiences I had in 6 Years of organized play… Congratulations on topping “gems” like SFS 2-02 or PF 8-05 or PF2 1-16/1-17 in a negative way. The final skillchallange is too overtuned and mathematically stacked against the PCs. This all contributes to this being the worst replayable currently offered in all of organized play. (4 out of 6 in skills where you realistically need to be expert to have a chance to meet the DC 22. NEVER EVER do something like that again where every check is a skill where there is a chance to not be trained in)

The second encounter showed a lot of potential, but the number of effects cause a bit of confusion at the table.
By far the funniest encounter was the optional, as it had a great RP-setup. (If not for the MASSIVE problems with the first encounter it.


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2/5

The scenario is ok-ish, but it does not capture fe feeling of the maze (mostly extraplanar stuff) and the revieal of the "traitor" was not very... interesting.


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5/5

Player review:
This scenario was great. It served as a great finisher of the dispassion storyline and delivered good background on Datch.
Mechanically it has one of the best spaceshipcombats and a very interesting boss encounter. The skill challenges fest fair, but the scaling of the saves in that challenge was weird as they used the same table as the skills.


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4/5

The scenario was quite good, the story was interesting, and the skill challenges felt fair. Especially allowing perception (so everyone is at least trained) was a VAST improvement compared to the other 3-6 two-parter.

I played it in hightier and felt the combats more annoying rather than challanging. A big offender here was the Encounter B.


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3/5

I felt the scenario started a good plot"line" but the encounter felt slightly undertuned as the CR was too far below us.

Spoiler:
I felt the saving of the allies was a bit undervalued in the secondary sucess condition.


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Good scenario but again one shitty mechanic

2/5

I liked the scenario, it explored a new facet of the world and had interesting NPCs and interaction.

The scenario was a bit short but done well.
If I would rate it based on that it would be 4*, for the crap of requiering a crit sucess for a treasure bundle (and then on a hard check AND only allowing one skill) I remove 2 stars for a final verdict of 2*.


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4/5

I liked the story and combats in this adventure and the skill challange in the middle felt different enough to make it novel.


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4/5

The scenario was good and the story was ok, but the briefing included the most facepalmworthy moment since a very long time. In-world the setup would not be solved by the level 1-4 PCs but by the stewards, especially if in the current plot with datch the society would not be able to risk the possible fallout.

Spoiler:
As a player of the Swarm AP: WHY no dretchers?


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The worse part of the worst two-parter in all of pathfinder

1/5

Well if it were not for the first part of this two-parter, this would be by far the worst scenario of the second edition, if you include the first part it only is the worst.

This suffers from the same problems I already explained in that review: Having a connection to the metaplot that is only revealed to the GM and the players only get a complete mess of incoherent stuff. Having the GM explaining for half an hour what happened in the two-parter AFTER the game is not a sign of good writing.

Other problems include the same problem regarding having everyone roll in skill challenges (and expecting over half of the players to succeed) MIGHT work in subtier 1-2 but in tier 5-6 the question is only if the untrained players fail or crit fail as they have no reasonable chance to contribute. This is BAD game design especially if you require MORE than half successes. This is just annoying and especially bad if 2 of the 3 blocks require you to use skills from the same set of Skills (all Wis based in one and all CHA based in the other block) Also some of the checks (for example the Athletics Check in A) are completely inconsequential.

The Chase: Who thought this was a good idea? No scaling for high/lowtier and needing as many successes as players is just insane. Whoever did this part did not think about any the consequences this will cause. So this is just complete mess and one of the least thought out mechanics I have seen since the reverse influence in the wayang adventure in PF1.
Also having the treasure bundles not adding up is another problem with either the writing or the development of the scenario.

And you should REALLY include in EVERY note to your writers for PF2 Scenarios: DO NOT USE SINGLE BOSS ENCOUNTERS. They do not work at all in the system. And doing one after an encounter and a chase which will have the players damaged without time to recover is just plain stupid.
I really, really hope to never see this kind of adventure design ever again. This two-parter ranks at the worst 5 things I have seen published by paizo even if I count the whole emerald spire levels as single releases. It is exceedingly rare to see a scenario that is a complete train wreck mechanically and story wise.

I cannot in in good conscience offer or schedule this two-parter.


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Please change the skill challanges

1/5

The metaplot is here somewhat relevant for the first time but the messaging to the players is not that coherent. The GM gets information, but it is not given to the players in a reasonable way.

I think the skill part of this adventure was completely unfair.
Forcing everybody to roll on checks and requiring a lot of successes for the is plain unfair. Especially with the penalties for failure/crit failure are very harsh as you are forced to roll untrained checks for after the first/second round most of the time.

The first encounter is just BAD.
Having a hard timer of 5 turns for 2 encounters is very optimistic and giving one enemy at will of an stall spell is bad design.


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Worst Organized play adventure ever

1/5

After the forum ate my long review here is the short version:

This scenario is the worst scenario I have ever played in organized play (281 sessions PFS and 56 sessions SFS)

The encounter mechanics are needlessly punishing (AOE autodamage with autostagger), the setup for the "run away encoutner" is so bad that the players have no idea that they are expected to run away until it is too late and the one choice that seems relevant does not even have a reporting condition.

I can only HIGHLY advice to never run this for newer players or in lowtier (where a crit can likely permanently kill a PC because of massive damage)


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4/5

This scenario was very fun to play but it was far too easy in the lower tier. We managed to bypass every encounter but the final one (and after hearing what they were they would have been very easy).

One thing I really like about this scenario is the skill mechanic in the final encounter and the debriefing, this solves some problems of the "I aid automatically" and "He has 40 bluff, I don't need to talk at all"

The only real problem I have is that the encounters are too easy especially if you can bypass them easily and the final one is a not difficult enough if you consider that the players will likely have had none combat before.


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3/5

This scenario was a very interesting one with a ver great illusion of choice at the beginning but the forced choice in the final encounter feels wrong compared to what we can expect from other scenarios in this season.

Mechanically everything seems fine but the difficulty was very erratic between the encounters.


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THE best replayable currently available

5/5

I played this scenario 3 times (two times high tier, one time low) and it was a blast every time.
We had always different challenges and some of them were pleasantly nasty. I love this kind of concept for a replayable and the fact that we now have a 3-7 replayable (and that this is the first replayable with no “noob protection”)
The challenge can be customized for the group present and ranges from relatively easy to “Do your worst” All kind of PC should feel necessary because skill and combat oriented characters can contribute (more or less depending on the chosen arc.)

The only warning I can give: NEVER run it cold or try to roll everything at the table because you WILL miss some important parts.


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2/5

When I played this scenario yesterday we had a group of 4 lv 9 and one lv 10 so we played at the lowest possible high tier. (with adjustment) We had a very fun experience while interacting with the NPCs in the camp and the ones in the dungeon. The exploration of the weird stuff we found was also very satisfying BUT the mechanical part of this adventure seems completely underwhelming. ALL encounters were far too weak and we got even the “harder” version of the boss.

Spoiler:
The technological aspects were integrated perfectly but the enjoyment of the scenario was massively reduced due to the overuse of one of the worst mechanics in the Game: Haunts. Nearly all encounters would have profited from higher CRed Monsters and the haunts did not scale at all. In my opinion, advanced CR4 creatures have nothing to do in subtier 10-11 and the boss could have vastly benefitted from some minions or a higher ceiling in the room to use his advantages.


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3/5

First things fist, I think this is by FAR the best Halloween themed adventure PFS has to offer. It is flavorful and very thematic. But I think the mechanical execution is very lackluster. The scenario is extremely short and no combat is even remotely challenging.

Spoiler:
In high tier the enemies have (except for one) far too few HP and it was the first time I have seen an enemy killed by a (noncombat) familiar outside of tier 1-2

The splitting of the investigation is nice but leads to unused encounters. This scenario would have greatly benefitted from one or even two optional encounters because our Group finished it in under 3 hours.


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1/5

While I liked the premise of the scenario the execution was very lackluster. The scenario had mayor pacing issues and the reliance on trained only skills with these DCs at level 1-5 is very problematic.

The fact that you are denied your most used problem solvers in the first and a majority of useful class abilities in the first and second encounter is something I not only despise as a player but will make this part a very unfunny experience for some tables.

The second part of the scenario is a pseudo-sandbox where you can only get the majority of useful information (and all that will bring some light in this weird plot) at a location where no player should go if they listened to their briefing. Also, there are major problems if the players want to step outside this railroad at any other point than the one the scenario seems to expect (but provides no clues for the players that this is an option) Also the final encounter seems very lackluster and not very appropriate for a final combat.

So, all in all, I can see a very interesting setup which has a terrible execution.


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4/5

The setting of this adventure is novel and very interesting but some of the mechanics are VERY stupid.

Spoiler:
nearly unavoidable fees at the beginning and too high Skill DCs with too sharp penalty’s for some races that are fairly unavoidable.

I very much liked the aiding mechanics used at the beginning of the scenario and hope they will be used more often -> they very much help to get everyone to roll and stop the discussions about who has the highest bonus. The Fights were a bit easy, but I think the tactics are to blame here -> especially in the final combat encounter.
The last skill encounter was very refreshing and exciting. The mechanic used there was very player centric and resulted in some of the most cinematic scenes in PFS I have ever experienced.


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4/5

This scenario had a quite good story but there were FAR too many skill checks -> Especially the knowledge checks were far too many. It would help to reduce the number of checks and collect them in fewer checks. Sometimes we rolled more than 7 Checks in one room and it became tedious sometimes.
The encounters were interesting and especially the Respect-Interactions were very nice. The encounters were easy.

Spoiler:
We did not fight in the final encounter so any Information about this encounter -> But I liked the roleplaying opportunities there.

I love the boon interactions but it is not useful to have the follow-up-boon to a 5-9 in a 3-7. Some of my players were very upset about this and my own Character was already retired.


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3/5

I liked the flavor of the scenario and the harrow aspects. The difficulty was quite low but I really liked the modular design and the different challenges.

Mechanically the scenario has some unclear points and the final encounter is a very complex but underwhelming encounter.

Spoiler:
I hate it when a rouge is used as the only enemy. And there were too many useless distractions -> The fire and crowd mechanics only delayed the encounter but had no real consequence for the success conditions.


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Pathfinder in Space

4/5

I played the scenario at a slot 0 and prepared to run it at our yearly convention:

It has a very interesting setting with memorable and interesting Encounters. It was fun to play and to prepare. The only problems are an overuse of certain monsters

Spoiler:
Earth elementals especially
and the gargantuan pile of negative Conditions which are very hard to remove. The only very problematic encounters are E1 with its use of a very hated mechanic which is flavorful but totally annoying and H2 which is mathematically impossible for some groups at the higher tiers and required to move on.

All in all, I like the scenario and especially the setting with its unique opportunities. It has the right feeling for a multi table-special but I hope we will get to see the ramifications of this scenario early in season 8. The difficulty feels right and I love the two special bosses with their ability to give even power gamers an adequate challenge.


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