A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st- through 4th-level characters.
A talkative skull with glowing eyes was among the many wonders that recently turned up in the Pathfinder Society's vaults. Thanks to the Society's efforts in the magic-rich city of Quantium, the skull has rediscovered her identity as an influential wizard and magical researcher, whose spirit came to reside in her bony body after a magical mishap. She had been attempting to ritually protect herself from dangerous forces, and while her efforts did allow her to evade her pursuers for a time, they also left her true name in tatters. Can the Pathfinder Society help her piece together the mysteries waiting in her magical home before these forces return to steal her secrets?
The lore is cool, even if some of the flavor gets ruined a bit with the Remaster's reimagination of magical schools. The encounters are interesting, and meaningful since they all manage to convey a story. The skull has been amazing in every scenario so far, and the scenario is not afraid to show its power without overshadowing the players. The skull's background and personality lends itself to casual ridiculous ostentatious displays of magic, and I love it.
Skill wise, this one is fun: The skills are reasonably varied (within the range that you can expect) and DC's are right.
My only gripe is with the boss encounter: Once more the BBEG stats are disappointing, suggesting they lack any will to live (though that may be an issue limited to the low tier, as its stats are somewhat more reasonable in the high tier). If all the other encounters have more survivability than the boss fight, then what's the point of a boss fight? This seems to be a constant for the lower level "part 2" scenario's of Season 4: Smug bosses without any real capabilities, which makes you wonder how they even managed to get this far with their plans.
Abode had a silly puzzle that didn't seem solvable by players (perhaps it was presented poorly by the GM), but it was basically skipped by a skill check and didn't ruin the scenario.
Authors should know that if puzzles are too complex or not easy to solve, they will likely be skipped or bypassed when the scenario is run.
I ran this scenario twice for Paizocon, and found it to be a lot of fun! The skill challenges are unique and well-paced, and the difficulty feels right on target (aside from the last encounter feeling a bit short depending on the scaling). I felt the narrative flowed better than 4-05, and players seemed to find it more gratifying as well.
My one gripe (spoilers for conclusion of the scenario):
Spoiler:
I really wish we had art for Alyreha's human form to show at the conclusion of the scenario - I recognize that it takes time/effort, but it feels anticlimactic to complete the entire arc and never get to see Alyreha outside of her skull form and statue. There's even a blank spot in the game aid appendix that another piece of art could've fit!
I just played this one with a good GM, and players I already like, so my opinion is rather good right now.
Seems like a good fit, for new players, and could rise to 5 stars, but I really need to read it first to give useful and fair feedback.
I think running 4-01 (optional), 4-05, and 4-10 in quick succession is likely the best way to experience the story. Personally, I might try to schedule them on the same weekend, not sure.
In retrospect and after talking to the GM, I would have liked some way for the final encounter to last a bit longer. This is something I have been seeing a lot recently, the final encounter or BBEG sometimes struggles to last long enough for the GM to show of all/most of their features.
This is less of an issue in higher-level adventures, and admittedly our table played at the upper end of low tier, which in my experience tends to result in encounters with a lot of somewhat lackluster (just talking about combat difficulty) enemies.
It would be lovely for the scaling to be a mix of adding more enemies and buffing the existing baseline enemies somewhat.
This might be a PF2 issue, at least at the low levels, and of course, org play has rather large level bands and mixed character levels, which makes scaling substantially harder than in other adventures.
