Once Upon an Encounter: The Scorpion and the Frog (PFRPG) PDF

The second installment of Flaming Crab Games' "Once Upon an Encounter"-series clocks in at 11 pages, 1 page front cover, 1 page editorial, 1 page SRD, leaving us with 8 pages of content, so let's take a look!

This being a review of an encounter-set-up, the following has SPOILERS. Potential players should jump to the conclusion.

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Only GMs left? All right! So, the PCs head towards one big stream - thankfully, an innovative, oxen-powered paddle-barge is offering cost-efficient means to cross the river - it should be noted that the barge is fully mapped. The set-up is as follows: We have Captain Ty, two ox-drivers, oxen, a guard and one other passenger, a man named Silus, who is sea-sick....or not. You see, Silus is pretty much an insane alchemist trying to blow the vessel up...while on it.

Two variants of the set-up are provided...and then, the encounter becomes awesome: With a 10-round spanning, round-by-round breakdown of what's happening, strange slugs that breed bomb-like larvae (full stats provided) and a fully mapped vessel (including a handy sinking-version that shows the level of water per round - this is pretty much the definition of going the extra-mile...even before the inclusion of the paper tokens handily provided. Obviously, the vessel also sports full stats!

Conclusion:

Editing and formatting are top-notch, I noticed no glitches. Layout adheres to a printer-friendly twp-column full-color standard. The cartography is more than serviceable for the low price point and the pdf comes fully bookmarked in spite of its brevity - nice!

The first "Once Upon an Encounter" already showed promise...and here, Alex Abel and J Gray deliver on that promise, in spades. The unique, interesting twist on the classic tale, the cool variants, the awesome new animal provided - this oozes creativity and heart's blood. It is one great encounter-pdf that is definitely worth the fair asking price. fun, uncommon, evocative and with some very nice supplemental material, I have nothing to complain here. My final verdict will clock in at 5 stars + seal of approval.

Endzeitgeist out.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of the pdf from the publisher.

The Scorpion and the Frog is a (combat) encounter for the Pathfinder RPG. The adversary is build with material from another book by the same publisher but the rules necessary to run the encounter are presented in this pdf.

The pdf is 11 pages long, including cover, one page of legal information, two pages with the OGL, two pages with a very simple but useful map and one page with tokens, leaving 4 pages for the encounter itself.

The title illustration is what looks like a detail taken from a medieval illustration and a clip art of a Scorpion. It is fitting and does its job, but nothing special.

The first page of the encounter contains a box with a little trivia on the fable. I would have preferred a short summary of the original story, especially as it might not be as well known as the author presumes (Disclaimer: I live in Germany. I remember the fable from my English classes, but none of my players did, most knew the two other fables mentioned in the trivia). Since the encounter is inspired only very loosely by the fable, knowing it is neither required nor especially helpful.

The first page also contains a superficial description of the location and the NPCs. There really isn't much to remember here, the characters seem pretty bland and basic. There is a piece of product placement here that isn't as much bothering as it is painfully unnecessary. Since there is a pre constructed product placement with the build of the adversary, this one really shouldn't be there.

There are two encounter variants depending on the perceptiveness of the PCs. The second variant is continued on a round by round basis. This is probably the part with the most potential, but also with a crippling problem – there is only one adversary that pretty much can't take a beating (there is also a new monster, but it is of the 'plot device and more like an item kind').
In play, a second level party (non optimized, Bard, Sorcerer, Cleric, Fighter) took him out in before he could even act (variant one). I asked my players to play out variant two, where it took them two rounds (they had a little extra action later trying to help the NPCs, none of which was supported by the encounter). I simply see no way how the combat would draw out long enough for the environment to play an interesting part. I see little to no possibilities for this to be solved as a non-combat encounter.

The outline of the adversaries character is superficial, his motivation is paper thin, although he might be an interesting villain in an urban adventure.

Did my players have fun?
Yes. My players enjoyed the layout of the encounter, talking to the NPCs (though there is little in the pdf to support this). The rambling of the adversary at the beginning of the actual combat drew a few laughters, the impact of the second encounter variant pused the players to do a little creative thinking (again, not supported by the pdf), the combat was to short to leave any kind of impact.

The maps are very basic, but could be useful if the combat takes longer somehow. The tokens are neat, seemingly taken from the same illustration as the cover.

Considering my players had fun and the tokens, the creature/item and the main adversary could find other, probably better use (I found it inspiring enough to see some events of this encounter play out without a direct confrontation leading to continued use of the adversary and possibly a very different battle against him) , I give the encounter weak 3 stars – it is cheap enough to try out, but not good enough to really recommend it.