Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-02: Rain Falls on the Mountain of Sea and Sky

Interesting encounters and a fantastic tie in for the Godsrain

First played it and then GM'd it.
Loved it both times!

Really starts out with a bang! :D
My players had the very reasonable "what are we gonna do about this!? We are level 1!" reaction to the intro.

One of them commented that this felt very much like the beginning of a long term epic campaign!

I ran this one yesterday in low tier with four level 1 to level 2 PCs.

I went great. I made a warning previous of the session : it was a combat scenario with little to no investigation or diplomatic challenge.

The first combat was the hardest : those creatures strike way harder than their level may suggest. One of the characters would have died before even acting due to 2 crit back to back, if I didn't rule that the enemy canceled the second one when the first blow made the target unconscious and dying 2.

The second one is the most uninteresting, and I whish it would have been the optional one. Those creatures have very little options outside of spamming 3 ranged attacks per turn for very low damages and so less health that they vaporize when hit.

The arrival to the top was extremely early and the only diplomatic part went great. The last fight was not very threatening but cool, as the enemies have some pretty nasty spells.

The early cinematic event is obviously the main reason to ever ran this scenario, and I liked to roleplay it even if it's hard for a GM to report on such a cataclysmic event.

I ran this one in the high tier recently and everyone has a fun time with it but there was definitely one big issue for us at least. The first combat was way more dangerous than advertised and the final combat was much easier.
The enemies in the first combat were fairly tanky between their AC and HP pools. Between their tactics and attack modifiers it nearly turned into a TPK. If we didn't have an unarmored rogue at the table the monsters would have downed both unarmored casters before they got a second turn.
Inversely the final combat was way easier than expected. The weaker enemies' health an ac were so low one got one shot by a caster who rolled a 15 on their attack roll with a cantrip. The main monster wasn't exactly weak but it found itself 1v4 against a party that was decently equipped to counter it's defenses. The encounter quickly went from severe to trivial.
All this said it was still a fun time, in terms of pacing the difficulty of the scenario the only change I'd make is switching the first and last combats

This scenario had a lot of promise on the page but as written, having the journey up the mountain that makes up the thrust of thd adventure all be combats puts a lot of pressure on those combats to be demonstrative of the effects of the Godsrain.

I do not feel this was really accomplished at all outside the first combat.

The use of setting here was also really disappointing. I was excited to return to the Mountain of Sky and Sea and to see its themes expanded upon and that simply did not happen. This could have been set anywhere with nothing lost.

Overall its not a BAD scenario but this was seemingly a slam dunk to be a GREAT scenario, so I cant help being a bit disappointed.

I review a lot of wrestling matches as well and when one really fails to make an impression but was solid i always say "it was two professional wrestlers having a professional wrestling match" and thats how I felt about this scenario too.