Pathfinder Society Scenario #6-09: The Power of Legends

Power is a very suitable (if overly long) adventure for high tier.

I played it at level 11-12 with six highly optimized level 11 characters.

For us, the scenario ran slightly more than 5 hours and we bypassed one of the encounters, and skipped the roleplay, the story, and the investigation in the castle before the finale. We were a very highly optimized and powerful group of PCs that quickly crushed all of the combats. It could have easily taken 7 hours if all content was included or we were slower. I’m not sure how you complete this scenario on time. This was at a convention too.

Overall, I wish there were less combats and more story. I thought the last combat was very epic, the other combats... they were OK but I could have gone without. Less is more. The first combat, a random encounter, was especially filler and should have been left on the cutting room floor, it could have been narrated.

The mythic rules could have been greatly simplified and wasted time to start the scenario. The only mythic ability we used was to re-roll dice. Meanwhile there were 2-3 pages to read. I feel it was included to entice us to buy mythic books, but it instead did the opposite.

I liked that there were special rules for killing monsters. Unfortunately, time was short and learning about this took more time, and lengthened combat as well.

I didn’t actually like the roleplay (and I believe influence system) in the middle of the scenario. The NPCs were not interesting and not anyone we’d want to know (or have time to know).

I would have liked more time, exploration, and exposition in the castle at the end, but it was all cut because of time. Was it good? I don’t know! But it certainly seemed like something I'd be interested in.

The finale is extremely swingy. You NEED 6 players. Either you have a high initiative and/or you're successful on your saving throws (or re-rolls) and it's easy, or you fail them and you're doomed. Save or suck. We made our rolls and had an easy time. And perhaps our GM didn’t know all of the rules, how to use the monsters she had, or how to be tactical. It was complex. But then again, we were out of time anyway. When I looked briefly at the stat block, if it was me GMing, I’d need to softball everything or I’d end up TPKing most groups.

Also, there was a mechanic in the finale that prevented you from losing, if you were successful in the roleplay encounter just before it. We didn’t end up needing or using this benefit, but in general I wish these were not included. It seems to me other tables did not get this benefit, otherwise I don’t understand how they TPKed.

The art was fantastic, it's unfortunate that GMs are not better at sharing it with their table.

I feel this was a good time to talk about season 6 in general. The theme of Gorum dying and pieces of the God falling to Golarion, offering power or mutations, was a great idea. I love that PFS is following the APs again. This is the part that I liked from season 6, please continue to follow and be inspired by the Adventure Paths. Also, I do appreciate any high level scenarios you offer, thank you.

Overall: I thought Power was a very suitable high level scenario with high level stakes. I just wish there were less combats, more story, simplified rules. Lots of effort and thought went into this scenario, I want to experience it! Scenarios are supposed to be 4 hours long, I don’t understand why some scenarios continue to be 2 hours long and others are 7 hours long. (7/10)

I played this at PaizoCon2025 at 30 cp as a 2h striker fighter, with a party of a summoner, a shield/tank fighter, a champion, a maestro bard, and a Kineticist.

I think this is a good step in the direction of additional high level scenarios, and the author should be proud of the content. High level adventures are difficult to balance and get right, and the author did well because the combats did seem well balanced. That the boss fight is tough.. makes sense. It's a MYTHIC boss fight. If they keeled over after you just glared at them, it wouldn't be very fun, right?

I like that this scenario does an excellent job and really leans into the exploration and combat pillars of RPGs. There is a roleplay opportunity, but with the massive amounts of combats, it was rushed and I don't really recall any roleplay aspects of it. There was enough content here that the scenario should probably have been edited and split into two scenarios. The author put together a lot of great content, but the scenario needed better editing to parr down the amount of content, and Paizo dropped the ball on the Mythic system.

The _FIVE_ (5) combat encounters contributed to the scenario running long. The mythic system might provide some dubious boons to my player character, but the duration gives my real human soul the Fatigued condition. It took 40 minutes of prep and setup to get this scenario launched, due to having to explain the mythic system and other technicalities. Ultimately, it seemed like the Mythic system got more in the way of it feeling like a fun, heroic adventure than the system helped to make it more enjoyable or make players feel more "powerful." I would like to spend all of my current and future Mythic points to Rewrite Fate for a do-over on the Mythic system's rules.

I would recommend keeping the Planar Interference encounter as mandatory, but have Eando shout something about how the items deployed in the environment are more highly effective in this situation as a hint and prompt for the players to make use of this rather than their normal kit.

The Giants skill challenge is excellent, and makes at last one combat optional. I love that there is a real consequence for negotiations going poorly, as a few other role play skill challenges in other scenarios seem to lack stakes.

The Lock skill challenge was excellent, no notes. It did not, unfortunately, add too much to the adventure and could probably be cut for time if the party wants to interact with it more than just throwing dice at the checks.

The Ensnared combat encounter is one that should unfortunately be optional. It had excellent foreshadowing and pre-combat build up, but contributes to the duration of the adventure.

The Umbral Fortress exploration was fun and flavorful, and exploration done well. Unfortunately, exploration has a tendency to drag out a scenario unless players have a sense of urgency and move through it at a fast pace.

The Statuary Hall encounter should be optional. It's fun, but nothing stands out about it in a scenario already flooded with combat.

The Stairwell of Souls skill challenge was easy for us as my party rolled three natural 20s in a row, but other parties may struggle. Neat and flavorful as a skill challenge. It should probably be an optional cut for time if the party has dragged their feet up to this point, and/or wants to interact with it more than just throwing dice at the checks.

Other folks have commented on the BBEG fight, and I do not have any additional notes to add. If the other combats were removed or optional, this fight would have more "weight" and emotional investment to it. As is, due to all of the prior non-optional content, we arrived to this encounter with only a few minutes remaining in the scenario slot, and had to rush through it. All of those hours spent enduring the scenario setup just to end with a rushed payoff boss fight never feels satisfying.

I played this scenario in the last slot of Paizocon 2025 with a 6-man party in high tier, and first and foremost, I liked this scenario. We went to exotic places, met interesting people, fought terrible monsters, and came back heroes.

The setting and story were interesting - though the story itself was not explained very well to the players. We had to ask the GM after the game was over because we had so many questions. When he explained it all to us, we were able to appreciate what the author and Paizo were trying to do. Still, I feel the backstory could've been better presented to the party in a way that made things clearer from the get-go. All the callbacks to previous seasons were also fun and appreciated.

The fights were all interesting encounters too, and I loved the use of the first flip mat (I never see that one getting used) and the optional environmental mechanics. The use of the tile set in the third encounter was a little underwhelming though, as another reviewer has already noted.

However, while on the subject of fights, I know that a few reviewers have talked about how deadly the final fight can be. I honestly didn't see it as too big a deal. The big boss didn't really have a very impressive spell list (I downloaded the scenario and looked it over after the game, so I can confirm this). She had a few dangerous spells, but the party also has mythic points to save against her (so I really didn't find her to be all too threatening). The boss's minions could be dangerous, but when my group played through that encounter, we just had multiple frontliners rush the big boss and beat her down fairly quickly. The fight was pretty much a foregone conclusion after that. No one even went down to dying 1 in the final fight, I actually thought it could've been more challenging, especially since we were given mythic power and all.

Now, this brings me to my biggest complaint. I don't know how the full mythic rules work, but I kind of despised the simplified mythic rules in this scenario. Why does it take a special action to do a mythic strike? Another player and I were both using barbarians, and any time we Sudden Charged we could not use mythic points because Sudden Charge is a unique action and mythic strikes are another unique action. Why couldn't we Sudden Charge with a mythic strike? This could be an issue for other classes as well, like Monks with Flurry of Blows or Magus with spell strike. Also, why couldn't we use mythic points to reroll our attacks like we could do with hero points? Another reviewer called out the stabilizing too - and that also seems ridiculous that you can be "god-like," but still die more easily than a normal hero. I constantly found myself during the scenario thinking, I sure wish I had hero points instead of mythic points... And if I'm thinking that, then I feel like the mythic system has failed in some way.

I will admit that my issues with mythic points could be resolved with some house rules (allowing players to get hero points in addition to mythic points, or even just allowing mythic points to do everything hero points can already do but better). Still, in PFS play houserules are typically frowned upon, and in a scenario billed as being all about the power of legends, I often found myself not feeling very legendary (we had so many misses in our game that we couldn't reroll)...

So overall, a fun scenario that I would recommend. However, there were some issues with the scenario and the mythic subsystem that kept me from rating it higher than 3 stars. Good, but not legendary.

You act as pathfinder, you test the mythic system and at end you fight a big bad.

I love this. Mythic lay of hand Go!

Although... If you are not prepared don't play a low tier in the higher tier. It can be dangerous.

As a player, you should expect to spend 5-6 hours playing, and know that there is probably a 50% chance of a TPK in the final fight. If that sounds like fun, enjoy. It was not fun for me. The final boss fight comes down to initiative and a save or suck mind control ability. This has never been a good way to design encounters, and continues to be frustrating as a player.