PFS2e #6-18: Symposium on a Fallen God

[The.Vortex]

(I only have the premium module, so some or all of the issues I found might only be different in the PDF)

I am currently prepping this to run it tomorrow and found a few things worth mentioning:

1. The first skill challenge (Presentation) doesn't account for number of players at all! So a group of 4 players has 16 actions, while one of 6 players will have 24 - but the number of successes needed is the same.
This might be less of an issue if the secondary success condition didn't consist ENTIRELY of this skill challenge.
This seems like an obvious mistake to me, so may it would be OK here to give smaller groups more rounds? 6 rounds for 4, 5 rounds for 5 and 4 rounds for 6 characters? That way, groups of all sizes have (almost) the same number of rolls to accumulate points (24/25/24).

2. The second skill challenge (Investigation) also doesn't account for the number of players when it comes to the number of successes needed. But since this one only affects initiative a tiny bit, it doesn't matter as much. Also, the thresholds are easier (8/13 instead of 10/15)
Another thing about this one: It is indicated that the players can start whereever they like. But then it lists the different challenges as rounds? This feels like a leftover of a previous version where this was a more formal type of challenge.

3. Najid's "Fennic Scream" ability has two failure effects in both subtiers. Which one is the correct one? Stunned 2 or Stunned for one round?

4. Content wise, I have two issues with this adventure:
a)It feels kind of bad that this is a scientific symposium, but there is almost NO INFO AT ALL about the subject that is being discussed at the symposium. There is a short sentence about what the Pathfinder Society is presenting, but nothing at all about the results of the other factions! We have had adventures recently that were almost pure lore dumps. This one is lacking lore. Badly.
b) The Pathfinder Society are NOT the last group on the list of presenters. There are three groups that are supposed to present their findings after the players. Since the proceedings are interrupted, it makes sense that they don't do that right away. But the conclusion makes it sound like they don't present their findings later, either.

Those two points in conjunction strongly suggest that the whole theme of the adventure is pure window dressing and not meant to really do anything and thus wasn't spared too much thought.

5. On a more general note: The adventure could have used another round of proof reading! It is riddled with errors and weird sentences.

[The.Vortex]

A friend of mine confirmed that the issues are present in the PDF version of the adventure as well and not only in the module.

[The.Vortex]

I just GMed this at the high end of high tier for 6 players - the skill challenges were absolutely trivial. On the first one, they had 17 points after 3 of the four rounds, on the second one they had 13 points after ust two of the four possible investigations. The DCs are quite low, so with 24 rolls, it should be VERY likely that groups reach the highest possible thresholds.

Also, as I suspected earlier, there were quite a few questions about the content of the Symposium itself. It is a real shame that there is nothing in the adventure for more studious players / characters to sink their teeth in.

[Monkhound]

Ran this one today at 30 CP. Here are my observations:

- There are all these researchers from various prestigious institutions, and there is basically no interacting with them, and no exchange of knowledge: We don't get any info as to what the other delegating are presenting, which is a shame
- The first skill challenge is trivial for a larger party. After 3 rounds they had achieved the critical success condition. Smaller parties might need the forth round.
To be honest, I'm not sure that this really is a problem, as this is meant to be an upbeat moment: The culmination of a year of focused research by two of the Society's Masters, assisted by multiple teams of agents.
- The lack of information in the scenario means that players that have not played the Godsrain metaplot scenarios have no clue as to what the presentation is about, so the roleplaying may fall flat.
My solution to this was to give a quick summary of the findings from these scenarios (#6-02, #6-03, #6-07, #6-09, #6-11 and #6-17) after the initial briefing by Kreighton and Lolly. It resulted in the players who did play the metaplot scenarios recounting some of the investigations their character read about in the Pathfinder Chronicles as reported by their other characters
- The DC's for the investigation part are on the easy side, though that is mostly due to the benefits of doing well in the presentations. I think emphasising that the other researchers are somewhat distrustful but still very helpful thanks to a very successful presentation, helps convey the general positive and upbeat vibe of the symposium, despite the current situation.
- The combats felt somewhat boring with so many similar enemies having tanking abilities. Especially for the type of heist the Aspis agents did, I think there should have been more rogue like types in part C. Najid having these Exemplar abilities was really cool though, and I made a point of describing the silver flashing through his eyes when using his abilities, which kept the players on edge and wondering what was going on.
- It's good to hear from the Aspis Consortium again after all these years
- The number of typos and nonsensical sentences is an eyesore. Please, please, please do some additional proofreading

I do like the premise of this scenario, though I would recommend running this one only for a team that has seen most of the Godsrain metaplot scenarios, and only GM this if you're aware of said metaplot scenarios. Otherwise the whole story just falls flat, which would be a shame.