Pathfinder Society Scenario #4–19: The Night March of Kalkamedes (PFRPG) PDF

The whole idea of following or escorting an NPC is not a new concept. Having that NPC be a magically compulsed sleepwalker however is a pretty nice twist. It also adds a whole new dimension to helping an NPC navigate through different dangers. There's no convincing to be done, so instead you'll have to come with alternative solutions to traverse challenges. It rewards creativity, something that's preferable over being railroaded.

I also liked the whole 'hey, what's that gnome doing here' part. I'm sure it would have been a nice puzzle, were it not for the fact that we split up and accidentally woke up the final encounter from its slumber. That more or less forced to halt our investigation, something we would have easily succeeded at. The timing however ruined it for us, as was probably intended by the writer. It's a choice I personally don't really enjoy. Now I just feel like I was deliberately locked out of a fun puzzle by something that was out of my control.

I'm okay with not receiving the full reward for a scenario, but it should be a group decision that leads to that. Right now I just feel let down and disappointed I didn't get to experience the whole story. It doesn't sit well with me that I didn't get to understand the plot or can make complete sense of what was going on. That really bothers me and that will impact the final score.

That said, it's a rather fun adventure. Thinking outside the box to overcome challenges and having to solve some interesting puzzles is always nice. The fact you can miss out on some of the story, and thus understanding the bigger picture, is however a big flaw in my opinion. I'd still recommend the scenario, but with a note to others to take things slowly and one at a time.

I've played this scenario twice now. Once under normal PFS rules and last night under Core PFS. Both were on low tier, with the normal group having 6 players of various levels, and the core group consisted of 4 brand new pcs.

Overall feel 4/5: A very nicely told story, which rewards players who think creatively.

I can understand why some would think this scenario is gimmicky, but our group had an awesome time with it. Had to figure out interesting ways to protect that crazy somnambulist and I thought the puzzle was really cool. This might have gone very differently with inexperienced players though. Great times!

I waited 48 hours after playing this to think it over.
Perhaps my GM did not administer it in an appropriate way, but this is unquestionably the worst PFS adventure I've played.

It features the gimmick of following an NPC who is so dumbly conceived that he falls off of a cliff and takes damage multiple times from being a complete GM fiat "spend resources for no good reason." I wanted to let Kalkimedes die and leave. That others give this plot device praise is confounding to me.

Further, I do not think this adventure is new player friendly at all. If you don't have Linguistics in your party, you're doomed.

And then you need to fail a strength check to succeed at a key 'puzzle' and that is another unforgivable GM fiat. In a game where high rolls are successful, turning on anti-success die-roll conditions is counter-intuitive to new players. I had two new players at the table and they were beyond bewildered.

Finally, we failed enough rolls and were not given sufficient GM background to understand the final encounter, so we watched as the super-demon (completely out of tier and another battle the new players are going to foolishly enter in to) tore apart the focus of the mission, and we probably should have gotten 0 prestige and 0 experience, but our GM 'let us' pay for a Restoration spell for Kalkimedes so we could get 1 experience and 1 pp.

Just hated the whole 3 hour experience, and cancelled my next PFS game because this left such a sour taste in my mouth.

An entirely pointless story, badly told.