Pathfinder Society Scenario #7–24: Dead Man's Debt (PFRPG) PDF

I have run this once in core mode and played it. Overall it left little impression on me which was disappointing as I wanted to like it.

The story has a lot of potential and you visit some interesting places but the mechanics really let this one down. They range from rather fiddly tracking mechanics for disease (once again Paizo demonstrates that they don't really like their own rules) to opposition which presents little threat while simultaneously being annoying to fight.

I don't think I have ever seen so many flying opponents in a 1-5 which clearly frustrated some people both when I ran and played it.

Overall I would have given this 2.5 if the system allowed it. Still, it was nice to learn some more about the Ekujae.

Having run a second time now in regular my opinion has not changed and has probably worsened. The end encounters in particular are pretty much terrible and present little to no risk. I ran at high tier both times and even the level 1 character in the core game was rarely challenged.

I GM'ed this for Quentin, a low tier, for a table with levels 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3.

When I read the scenario I figured it was going to be a 4-star review, but I'm a bit disappointed by the actual playthrough. It was a nice scenario to prepare, fairly simple for season 7. Well-edited, with cross-references to stuff the GM needs to keep in mind. No big new rule systems to learn.

I also like the story. There's enough opportunity for players to figure it out, there's a bunch of nice flavour touches. The enemies you run into make sense in the story and help along the message.

Another tidbit I liked is that there's something for literally every faction to achieve on their journal card, without this being an obvious faction adventure. (In some cases you need to look quite closely however.)

Where it fell flat however was just in how easy it was. There were a few highly optimized PCs playing, but most of them were just normal healthy characters, and there was never any real threat to anyone. Enemies lacked both offensive punch and defensive staying power. They were also sorely outnumbered to the point where it starts to look like a 4-player adventure. It doesn't help that encounters were spread over multiple days.

I believe for an exciting combat encounter it has to look like the bad guys could hurt the PCs. That means they need to be able to actually hit PCs on more than a fluke high roll or live long enough to buy time for... something. These enemies could do neither.

I really want to like this adventure, because it's got a coherent story and variety of encounters and nice rewards. But because it's so easy I'm going to keep it next to the Prince of Augustana as an unofficial "total beginner" scenario.

(I played this.)

There isn't a whole lot to say about this scenario. It's a rather simple, but still enjoyable scenario without any frills or subsystems I've come to expect from Season 7. Maybe I've gotten spoiled with the scenarios lately, but I feel this was... lacking somewhere, but I can't put my finger on it. I think nothing in this scenario really stood out for me in plot, mechanics, or combat. In the low tier nothing really posed a challenge, and afterwards a player asked the GM "are you sure we didn't play the four player adjustment?" These felt like season 0 and 1 combats to me, where power level wasn't really determined so they lowballed it. Spoiler tag just in case.

Besides that, there's no real complaint. There's some discussion going on in the GM forums about something that I understand both sides of the situation of, so there's no clear answer. Either way, this scenario had enough small quirks and fun little touches that it didn't become a slog to me, but I can see how your mileage may vary.

This is based on playing at high tier.

I liked a lot of the story but it just seemed far too grueling a slog and far too random for a low tier adventure. Lots and lots of saving throws and rolls which seem to leave a very high chance of any low Fort save character being diseased.

My unchained rogue was almost completely useless in this scenario. A dex based character so he gets no benefit from the McGuffins (all the wpn choices are utterly useless for a wpn finesse based character). A melee based character so nearly useless against the various opponents that one couldn't close with.

I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that my experiment to see if an unchained rogue is a viable character is coming to an end with the clear answer of "nope. Still sucks rocks. Just a little less"

I ran this for a table of 6 earlier tonight, we ran low tier and had a blast. The lore was super interesting and the combats were fun. Lots of roleplay opportunities, and the final boss was really interesting and cool. I would definitely recommend this scenario, myself and my party had loads of fun.