Pathfinder Society Special: Siege of the Diamond City (PFRPG) PDF

I played this at a Seeker table at GenCon in the midst of nearly 1000 Pathfinders. My table was six 13th level Venture-Captains playing subtier 12-13, with good balance except without a dedicated healer. Our GM was solid, the atmosphere in the Sagamore Ballroom was outstanding, and the interactivity between tiers was excellent (we really appreciated the help from the tier 1-4 tables). Overall it was as satisfying a play experience as I've had in PFS, surpassing all previous PFS Specials and most interactive events from previous OP campaigns.
I GMed this at Brewfest, running a subtier 1-2 table of four players at an event of approximately a half-dozen total tables. My players were tacticians who worked together well and achieved multiple successes in both combat and skill encounters. The interactivity between tiers was critical to the ultimate success of my table and the entire room.
This event is a battle interactive, and smart players who enjoy tactics, teamwork, and/or efficient play will enjoy it very much. Those who don't enjoy that kind of challenge, or who play at a table or event where not everyone is cooperating and contributing, will not have a great experience. This event maximizes the fun of the interactive format whether the event is five tables or 100. I enjoyed it so much that I hope to replay it someday.

The other reviews sum up this special pretty well (the good and the bad). There is something that many don't seem to have noticed yet.

If you're about to be seated at a 4-player table, WALK AWAY.

That is, unless you don't care about your character. This special has no scaling through it and some (not all) of the fights are anywhere between very difficult and downright unfair.

This was a module I was much happier to play in than GM, which I can say is a bit of a problem as it stands. The GenCon experience was a let down for this module as there is a whole lot of worthless stuff going on and even an experienced GM would still need a lot of prep time to do this right, which most GenCon GMs were lacking.

Secondly, at higher tiers, being told to run around and tell guards where they are supposed to be and to help motivate them, seems like a total waste of valuable resources. When we finally have a real combat during the second leg of the adventure the fact that our group had 2 well developed Paladins was the only thing that kept if from being crushed.

In the finale, the comments made by many of the other reviewers are right, this felt completely like an MMO Raid. Lots of people doing combats at tables until eventually someone shouts that it is all over.

All in all, while it is not a bad module, it's just not as impressive as it feels like it should be. At the end of the day the group effort concept seems to be negligible to non-existent.

I've only played this scenario. Our GM was rock solid, well-prepared and had a good command of rules and roleplay.

Being a special means that at a convention, everyone will play it together and there's excitement and enthusiasm for a big shared experience. I'm going to try to review this purely on the written scenario itself and separate it from some the halo of a shared experience. Although, ultimately as a shared experience you want to provide players with the ability to reminisce afterwards and years later about how they each "solved" the scenario in different ways. This scenario doesn't really provide for a lot of unique takeaway stories (like say Temple of Empyreal Enlightenment, which I'd give 5 stars). It provides a lot of running around doing mini-quests inside a city under siege, and then a lot of fighting the same demons in an open field to end the night.

Story [2.5/5]: Demons are attacking the city. But Why? They're demons! There's not a whole lot of story here. I have high expectations when demons are involved, especially after solid novels like the Worldwound Gambit.

Setting [3.5/5]: It's Nerosyan! The Diamond City! That said, most of the encounters here don't take place at noteworthy monuments or in districts that have much of a unique feel to them. You'll be in the middle of a city street, down by the docks, and outside the gates, but if it wasn't for the fact the city was being attacked by demon hordes, you could've been in any other city.

Roleplay [2.5/5]: There's a couple token roleplay moments in the middle of the demon invasion. I believe it's random if a table would get these, and they are for the most part swiftly concluded with a dice roll and can be handled cold (i.e. you don't need to meet one NPC, suss out some information and roleplay giving that to another NPC).

Combat [2/5]: Our particular table fought the same kind of demon over and over again. In one particular fight, wounded soldiers kept appearing on the battlefield and required healing. It felt a lot like a repetitive MMO, where there's a battlefield that keeps re-populating itself as both wounded soldiers reappear spontaneously and need saving, and monsters reappear and need killing. I was very much reminded of similar scenes in Warcraft. I suppose if I were running it, I might try to embellish the fallen soldiers. The one on the right is wearing a holy symbol of Abadar, the one on the left of Sarenrae. You'll probably only have time to save one... which one? Instead, it didn't matter which we saved, they all give a random d6 (?) benefit upon being set up (like an MMO where they may give you a Fortitude buff for using banadages on them).

Variation [2/5]: There's some randomness to seeing what encounters you'll run into, also depending on which district you go into. However, as mentioned above in 'combat', at the end there's not a lot of variation, at least at the 5-6 subtier.

Intangibles [3/5]: As a special, everyone's super excited and ready to play one big shared experience. At the con, there was a big map that showed the city and color-coded the districts. As expected, folks went to the districts that needed the most help and those went from red to orange to green. I'm not sure this led to much strategy for the tables though, besides go to the district that needs the most help at the completion of the current encounter. There could've been a great story opportunity here by having a certain district green the entire time because an NPC faction "had it under control" and then having it change sides as that NPC faction's leader gets corrupted/replaced/etc.

Overall [3/5]: I even feel a bit generous giving this a solid 3, and that's largely influenced by the fact that the Worldwound is truly a great venue for adventuring, as will certainly be evidenced by the AP set there. Outside of the "schtick" of having the city's overhead map up on a big screen TV and color-coding the districts, there's not a lot that really captivates one's imagination or thirst for an otherworldly venue.

UPDATE: I've now prepped and run Siege at a local convention. I'd suggest that now that I've seen the GM side, that there's been a little more added to Act III (at least in terms of the variety of foes). I'd probably prefer if it wasn't random, but was escalating in some manner to give folks in the 5-6/7-8 subtier a guarantee to fight some sort of "end boss" (versus now it could be random and never happen). Run by a prepared GM, this scenario provides several hours of intense combat. If that's your sweet spot, this scenario's a 4 of 5. If that's not, this is still probably a 3 of 5.