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Well, in the time since I made this post I've ran this twice. Once at 1-2 and once at 3-4.
I still don't mind the chase mechanics, but I've had players tell me never to run another scenario with a chase again. :'(
The warehouse is still brutal, but it was the 1-2 table that decided to just rush in to get the stuff they needed, and not try to put out the fire. They didn't have a single casualty, while my high tier table wound up with 2 characters unconscious from the fire/smoke and lost some of the treasure in the fire.
Parani is a beast in 1-2. I was (un)lucky enough to get a hit and then a crit in the second round against a level 2 paladin, but my poor damage rolls kept him just above negative con. The rest of the party took her down with ranged attacks before she could drop a second target.
All in all, I really enjoy running this one. The investigation and the gambit are fun enough to make up for any hard feeling in the warehouse, and the final fight is enough to get the blood pumping and the players engaged.
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I finally had the opportunity to run this scenario (tier 4-5), and found it well thought out, but too long and very easy to take off the rails/fail.
The players were impressed with the tactics used by the thieves (They didn't cause any damage to my players, just mired them down and almost got away with the keg). The final fight was really deadly. Our pregen Valeros sucked up the first full round of shooting and went into negatives early, and I ended up killing a PC with a lucky great axe critical just as the battle was winding down (they had scaled the tower and had her on the ropes, when natural 20/crit confirmation happened).
Six acts is a bit much, given the amount of RP investigation that takes place and the encounters with the thieves and warehouse can really bog down. I think that the first encounter should have been the optional/cut, instead of the chase scene (which are awesome and should never be cut for time).
Finally, given the tendancy for PFS characters to kill BBEG's I found that the anti-boon on the chronicle to be a hard pill to swallow, especially after they came so close to being wiped out by the final encounter.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I played this today and have mixed feelings. Oh, I died (low tier, level 3 human slayer, final encounter) but got better (barely).
On the one hand I like the general idea of the scenario. The scenes make sense and flow into each other naturally.
However, mechanically there are some issues.
Chase: wow are these mechanics dated. I'm glad modern chases (Merchant's Wake, Kavaa Quarry) use smoother mechanics. There are quite a few problems in this chase.
As it was explained to me, you have three options: either a double move (check to move square and move if succesful, then another check to move a square), single move and standard action, or full-round check. In the latter case our GM had us roll for an obstacle on the first card, obstacle on the second, and jump over the third one (assuming all goes well of course). And the quarry's tactics are to only double-move.
The quarry's optimized for the chase. Since he moves two squares and starts with a lead, the PCs basically have to full-round or double-move constantly to even keep up with him, they never actually get to do actions to him. It looks like this chase is impossible.
Of course, it turns out later that the point of the chase isn't to catch him but to be near enough to him to stabilize him after he gets shot down. But starting out a scene with "this is your objective - but the game mechanics make it impossible" is bad writing. A mechanic that makes the players want to give up because it looks this rigged is broken.
Fire: My GM ruled that putting out the fire is a full-round action, and that climbing the crates required DC 10 climb checks. At a DC 15 survival check, that makes it rather improbable that a low-tier party can put the fires out. Reading the scenario I realize the full-round wasn't actually specified, but neither was standard. After a few rounds we assumed the scenario doesn't intend you to put out the fires but rather that you're supposed to search a burning building. Though with the smoke incapacitating you that's quite hard. I find it dubious that this smoke would be more incapacitating than say, Stinking Cloud.
By this point my take on the scenario is that the idea is not "you have to make it through 90% of the tests" like in a typical scenario, but that a lower amount will do. The DCs are just too high for anything else. The rest of the scenario does support that though; there are several different routes to gather sufficient info and meet/convict the BBEG.
That's interesting, but has the potential to leave a bitter taste, because we've been trained with different expectations. Something that it may be good to be aware of as a GM so you can handle that.
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Then the BBEG. That's just nasty. Basically it's someone with a build designed specifically to kill you. We fared rather roughly, and she chased our rogue and monk off the roof after they got on. I'd thrown an alchemist's fire on top of it and that meant she eventually had to come down as well. By then we were all pretty beat up though so it came down to a melee slugging match. I got some unlucky rolls and eventually she was at 0hp. Rather than surrender, she makes one last attack before dropping unconscious. Which takes me from 5HP to -14 and I'm dead :(
With chipping in from the party I got back to life though. But, ouch.
I think it's a cool combat though and as has been said before, gives a good glimpse in what it's like to be on the other end of a nasty archer. My gripe here is that the structure she's on isn't really described. If that's where a fight will happen and you may have to climb to her or bring down the structure, the thing really needs more stats. Climb DC at the least, hardness/HP info preferably.
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I know this is a bit dated but I have some questions.
The chase says CR 2 or 5, but the enemy uses the same stats in both. Are the DC's of the chase supposed to be made easier or made harder or is the chase really the same for both tiers?
Is the choking in the fire supposed to skip your turn or just start the suffocating rules for not being able to breath?
This seems super rough for a low tier party. I don't think a low tier party can make it though the chase, and they'd die in the fire if they lose a turn from the smoke.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I'd say treat the coughing as being Nauseated for a single round. The rules implications for coughing are too vague to hand down a rule from above. If as a GM I have to make it up myself, I reach for a nearby rule that is well-understood and simulates coughing people fairly accurately (compare Stinking Cloud). It's also merciful in that PCs can still try to stumble away to safety and open doors.