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

I ran the 3-4 sub-tier version at Gen Con with a group of AMAZING dark elves with their characters of differing races.

The event itself was absolutely stunning. The maps and ambient music put it over the top. Only real downsides to the running were the lack of coordination with the warning signs and the fact that an interim report made many GMs think we were moving to act 3. Ah well, minor things. Because throughout the whole thing, there was an energy in the air of excitement, teamwork, and anticipation.

Now for the scenario itself, if it can get that much of a reaction from practically the entire room, it obviously did something right. It was a blast to prepare and run with excellent use of utilizing a minimal amount of maps for combat encounters and incorporating ample opportunities to roleplay and social interaction so every character had a chance to shine.
The timing was perfect and allowed encounters to be run with urgency but not in haste. They were also very easy to follow as a GM, a very nice touch when the encounters are entirely random.

My biggest qualms for the scenario as written are as follows:
- The sub-tier didn't seem very challenging for a table of six, with the exception of certain baddies in act 3. The group I had practically steamrolled most/all of the combat encounters, only narrowly getting some of the social encounter DCs.
- Some elements could have been fleshed out more, such as where or how many circles there were for a certain character's warding spell. It is possible to make this up on the fly, but standardization would be lovely for such an event.

The rest of my qualms were mostly GM error. Whoops.

Elsewise a great scenario! Wish I could participate at future cons either as a player or reprising my role as GM.

This is my first special and I have to say I had a great time!

Act 1 was equally divided between social and combat for my group (level 7-8)

Act 2 was also split pretty evenly between social and combat. Our combat drug on and on because we just couldn't get good rolls, but that's not the scenario's fault.

Act 3 was our group acting as medics. Perception rolls to find the wounded then healing/sending back to the city with demon encounters thrown in at the same time! We were blessed to have two clerics for the encounter which made us able to have one or two people searching for and healing injured defenders while the rest of the party beat down the demons! Being able to do both jobs at once made it a quite challenging and satisfying final battle / grind.

I played one of the clerics and spent the entire final battle fighting demons. Used most of my spell slots and over half of my channel energy (was holding some for channel revival if necessary) but we did well enough that no one was ever even in danger of dying. Honestly, I had forgotten we COULD retreat and then come back out! We also had "AID" from higher level tables we ending up not using, mostly, again, because we forgot it was even there to be used!

I had heard some not good things about the interactive specials, but this was a lot of fun! The city map that showed the effects of the battle raging throughout the city and outside the walls was an excellent addition to the experience, and the volunteers passing results in to computer central for tallying results was both fast and efficient. I will definitely do this again!

This scenario was interesting, challenging, and exciting.

Massive demon invasion? It definitely was that, and it felt like a credible major plot point tying in with so many of the non-Lissala plot scenarios in Season 4. I can't wait to see what the bad guys are going to do next.

The interaction between tables was smooth and fun. Our GM informed us that the color of each zone on the big map indicated different buffs and debuffs for the encounters we faced. Also, as a Seeker table (12-13), we were able to give aid to our nearby tables each time we finished an encounter. One of them actually cheered when I told them that the King of the Gnomes sends his aid.

We had no cleric, but we did have a paladin. We knew going in that our objective was to win the Race to Zero. With two barbarians hitting VERY hard, a conjuration wizard, and a very skilled sorcerer, the lack of true combat effectiveness from my rogue/Pathfinder delver was mitigated quite a bit when faced with enemies immune to precision damage. At least a couple fights required Breath of Life and similar types of magic. To me that says the encounters were well-done and presented a good challenge without being overwhelming. (Although we did not get the opportunity to fight our final "boss" because time expired.)

There are only two things keeping me from giving the scenario a full five stars. One is that because many (or all) of the encounters during Act 2 are random, we only faced one role-play encounter. We would have preferred more role-play scenarios, and I can't imagine tables facing all role-play or all-combat when that's not what they wanted to do. As I also mentioned, we ran out of time and were unable to fight the monster in the final encounter of the scenario. We might have been TPK'd by it, but it would have been a tale to tell - and that's what I enjoy most, having a tale to tell.

Played the event at a level 5-6 table with a level 7 (barb5/ftr2) grapple-monkey PC.

Seemed like while there WAS a battle going on, it felt like the PC's always got grabbed to do some side quest rather than getting to the battle (on the walls or in city streets or outside the city). Other people I talked to at the con after the slot had this feeling as well so it wasn't just my table.

Encounters we had were good, but the event was mechanically lacking in the "Ooohhh aaaahhhh" of a big show event. Maybe this is so that it plays well at home or at smaller shows with fewer tables. I guess I expected mass fighting in the streets and more and larger scale battles. We had an encounter in the street but with no seeming connection to other groups. I very much enjoyed playing last years at GenCon special (Race for the Runecarved Key) where other tables could effect our table. I really liked that. It gave the feeling that we were all in it together even if you couldn't directly "see" the other PC's.

The end encounter was OK with the rescue part. At least I was AT the battlefield if not actually participating in the battle. We got was rescue duty. Sigh.

Gave it three stars because I've played every special (usually at GenCon) and feel like I have something to compare it too. This was OK. Prolly run great at a home/small con venue. You'll get the same experience we got at GenCon (maybe minus the overhead map? but your mileage may vary if your con organizer puts one up). The changing map they used at GenCon WAS pretty nice. It'd be cool to have the as a downloadable map app for people running that slot! That would be very cool for home/small con play.

Thanks,

Kizan

Disclaimer: 1st time to ever play in a special. Played the 7-8 tier: YMMV.

The 1st half, with its interactive map & challenges which varied by area, was well done and very enjoyable.

Then we moved on to the 2nd half, and although I get the feeling there were high-tier tables with epic battles going on, my party found itself playing fetch.

As previously stated, the 1st part was VERY enjoyable -- easily 4 stars and edging towards 5. However, the fact that the less-enjoyable portion (almost tedious, though we found ways to entertain ourselves and our GM) was at the end definitely dragged my overall rating down.