Pathfinder Society Scenario #23: Tide of Morning (OGL) PDF

It's often hard to combine high stakes and realistically leaving it to low-level adventurers. This one does that nicely. There's a good sense of urgency throughout the story.

It's also a good mix of talking and fighting. The fey can be fun to talk to.

The fights themselves are on the tough side with some hard-hitting enemies. I wouldn't recommend doing this with a party of newly made characters; better to have a few wands and suchlike at hand. When we played this with some pregens along those had a rather poor time of it.

Typically a morning is associated with being beautiful, if we are to trust various songs and lyrics. It is a description that in my opinion is also fitting for this scenario. I enjoyed it a lot. There’s just something whimsical and fun about dealing with fey-like creatures. It’s also not a creature-type you frequently get to face either, which in itself is a nice change of pace. I like facing uncommon creature-types, so it instantly gains some bonus-points in my book.

The storyline in this scenario is pretty straightforward and not all that unique, but it’s the encounters that really add a bunch of flavor and hilarity to the scenario. Let’s start by commenting on the role-playing aspect. You get to talk to fey. I think that says enough. One way or another you’re going to either burst into laughter or end up being completely baffled.

As for the fights, I can say they were rather challenging. Granted, we didn’t have an ideal party. Somehow we made our way through the first few scenario’s rather quickly - a crit from a musket has that effect on opponents at level 1 – but we really came close to failing our mission in the final encounter. We struggled tremendously and we only barely managed to prevent the insert-evil-plot-here from happening. It was the closest I’ve had a level 1 scenario be to date and that itself made it rather memorable.

Overall I’d say it was a challenging scenario. I can easily see other parties struggling as well. Still, I would definitely recommend this scenario, not in the least because of the whimsical nature of some of the encounters. Simply put: it was a blast to play.

Perhaps I've been spoiled by more recent scenarios, which seem to be more thought out, but after running ths scenario tonight, I'm had pressed to find what it is I liked about it so much when I first played it a few years ago. Granted it is straightforwards. Your group will be put in straight into the adventure. The action doesn't stop, the gnome encounter is perfectly timed; it's short, perhaps even too short, but that isn't my gripe with it. I have issue with the lack of details, and some of the tatics used. The tactics for some of the npcs don't make sense, npc initial placement isn't indicated and the act 3-4 location isn't very well described.
Other than that its' a very efficient little scenario.

Also, if the chance presents itself to play up, do it if your party is well-built.

I really enjoyed running this scenario. Unlike a lot of adventures from this era, it takes some finesse to do well. The final fight requires some creativity on the part of the players, and is unlikely to get steamrolled like a lot of the other scenarios from Season 0. Well worth the time.

This review comes from A GM point of view. Table played low with 6 players (3 new 3 experienced).
This is an old scenario and the age shows but not quite as much as some other scenarios of the season. Overall I consider this to be a middle of the pack scenario with the potential to frustrate players as the entirety of the scenario is basically made to stymie and aggravate. Some of the low tier encounters seem disproportionately difficult compared to their high tier versions.