Pathfinder Society Intro: Year of Immortal Influence

Perspective: Player, low tier 16 CP

Story wise this was interesting, and it was already set into motion during season 5. I'm curious to see what's going on here, though I'm not sure I like it.

Combat wise, the fights were not very interesting. Particularly the last fight makes use of a creature that should not be there at the level 1-2 subtier, ever, regardless of CP.

Mechanics wise, the GM described the part between the first and second combat as confusing. Also forcing at least 1 PC to sit out a whole combat should not be considered when writinga scenario: It works in movies and series, but not in a tabletop RPG, as you rob these players of a chance to have fun. Finally, basically have multiple scenes back to back without a chance at downtime is fine at higher levels, but for low level (and especially intro) scenarios, this is just not fun.

Skill wise, I like it: The DC's seemed reasonable and well spread out.

Mechanically a fine scenario that doesnt have any major glaring issues.

But ugh. This plot direction. Please stop.

The Knights of Lastwall come off as being a kind of griftery chariry organization and the Society runs afoul of the HOA.

What happened to just....a sense of adventure. You play Intro 1 and Intro 2 and get the promise of an organization going to interesting locales and discovery.

Then the season intro is local politics with the HOA. I can (and DO) get that at home.

Influence is a mix of combat, roleplay, and skill challenges.

I didn’t like the story in this scenario at all. Hang around a party until the evil guys do something evil, fix what the evil guys are doing, have the evil guys smile and giggle the entire time, have evil guys accuse you of wrongdoings, evil guys repeat and do it again and again. There’s no PC agency, just the PCs reacting to one situation after situation, forced to go with the flow.

Before anything happens, do some random side quests for NPCs you-don’t-know, because you are afraid of losing treasure bundles. The auction quest should have had a high chance of failure. Performing this criminal act was extremely embarrassing for the PF society (successful or not successful, word will get around) and damaging for our reputation.

Despite spending significant time with various major NPCs, I didn’t fully understand who they were, what their organization does, or why they are important.

Everything about this scenario felt forced and I didn't feel like there was room for player choice.

I appreciate that we're trying something new, after the lukewarm reception of the last few intros. That being said, this one...doesn't feel like an intro at this point. Yes, it's an introduction to a metaplot, but I feel like season 6's intro SHOULD have been 6-02, and this should have been a bit more. The scenario requires a bit of background knowledge to truly get, which really doesn't make as a good jumping point.

As for the meat of the scenario, the repeatable elements seemed well incorporated, and the combats were well balanced. I do have a concern about the location of one of the combats, but it definitely switched things up, so I'll give credit where it's due.

I feel this scenario would have made a solid level 3-6 repeatable, but it's really not the best at being a true "intro".

So hmm. Mechanically scenario is fine, besides having a simple hazard capable of massive damage death in both tiers in the season intro scenario feels pretty harsh. Replayable parts is nice, the combats are fairly easy but right fit for intro scenario and there isn't mechanical segment that stays around too long. The main thing that feels off is plot details.

Like, Peacebuilders Alliance is a new thing, right? But it feels like something I've seen either in 1e or Starfinder that I can't put my finger on... At the very least it feels like Society is starting to rely a bit too much on the "someone complains about society's mistakes" and this reiteration of it is starting to feel like "I want to speak to your manager" level which might be intended? Either way, it feels absurd to have the character in this scenario as if Knights of Lastwall were never a target of attacks by undead and other monsters. Or if Absalom hadn't had multiple adventure paths set there in the past five years. Encounters happen outside of society as well, this is that kind of a world.

Sidenote: that it felt like there could be an improvement in the pipeline of how many npcs to introduce at once, since only a few of them will be relevant in a given playthrough, so introducing them all at once is kinda tough for gm even if you want to roleplay them for funsies.

But yeah back to main point: I don't really get full connection of how demon ritual connects to Whispering Tyrant fans, but that's probably be explored later in metaplotline. But I do kinda feel like the scenario misunderstands other characters? Like Nuar Spiritskin felt off character in the scenario. It's hard to believe level 9 oracle running scared off this scenario. Then there are minor details like "Lamashtu" being considered notable deity in Worldwound in the trivia quiz event, which is technically correct, but worldwound book and ap was all about Deskari and Baphomet and other demon lords with very little notable influence to her particular. Like Iomedae felt more notable than she did.

Basically start of the metaplot feels like its retreading bits you see in other scenarios and for lore hounds it feels bit off or like characters are acting differently than they should be. (I'm still surprised Csilla is just staying around as leader, but I guess that's just the overall metaplot direction now). If you are new player, you'll have enjoyable scenario, but more in know you are more things just feel weirdly off.