Jason S's page

Crocodile features the influence system with far too many rounds. The influence system took 2.5 hours of non-roleplay to complete, and all of players at the table were very bored. As I’ve explained, the influence system snuffs out imagination and roleplay and promotes roll-play.

The worst part was, the influence system and all the work you did, will have no effect on the outcome of the story. All of the work you completed was for nothing.

Overall: Scenarios just need to go back to their classic roots. (1/10)

Crisis is a short scenario that is a mix of the influence system, chase, and easy combats. It took us 2.5 hours.

I think the story is good, although it’s a non-epic story in a long list of non-epic stories.

I dislike the influence system, but it was relatively short lived, and the NPC was relatively interesting and well written. The encounter would have been better without the influence system.

The obstacle system in PF2 doesn’t work. If there is a locked gate blocking the party, why does every member of the party need to unlock it? After we unlock it, do we close and lock the gate for the next person going through it? If 5 players can squeeze through an opening, why does that allow non-mobile player #6 squeeze through the same opening? It doesn’t make any sense. And in terms of fun, it’s just more roll-play.

I liked that the skill challenges included only a smaller subset of skills, but this lead to some skills being used repetitively, and if the group doesn’t have these skills, they will fail (as Andreww stated).

The combat was too easy. Both combats were over before the end of the 1st round (some players didn’t get to act). Only one player took a few HP of damage the entire scenario. Perhaps combat was too easy because we easily passed the skill challenges (our dice were on fire)?

Overall: For me, the PF2 subsystems are being overused and are ruining the game. (3/10)

Battle is a scenario that extensively uses the influence system and has some combat.

I think Battle really illustrates how the influence system doesn't work. The influence system is non-organic, restrictive, and most importantly, not fun. When you finish speaking to an NPC, it's not fulfilling, you're always wondering if there's more to do.

With the influence system, it kills creativity by restricting your approach, your roleplay is NOT important, what's important are your dice rolls. And getting enough check marks. And that... is boring.

The scenario starts off with the PCs riding a cart to the site of the golem. For some reason, we need to use the influence system and engage the cart driver (really?) and a merchant. This process was forced for several rounds, and had no (known) impact whatsoever. It felt like we were fishing for information, but all we got was a backstory of a random NPC.

We then continued using influence at the dig site, for no apparent reason, on a wider variety of NPCs, for several rounds. The golem was the only one where it actually made sense to speak to, and we certainly didn’t need the influence system for that.

The "boss" combat at the end was extremely disappointing.

Overall: Pointless roleplay followed by underwhelming combat encounters. (2/10)

Heart is a scenario that is mostly exploration and skill checks, with some combat.

There wasn't much of a story in this one, just a long series of skill checks. The last combat involved some terrain and was OK, but overall the combats didn't feel particularly unique.

Considering this scenario is a race to find two separate locations, navigating in uncharted territory, in a dangerous hostile desert, you would think that a skill like Survival would be used extensively, maybe even overused. My character did not have the chance to use Survival a single time, which was disappointing. If PFS were realistic, every PC would need Survival; I find it funny that it’s one of the least used skills in scenarios.

Perhaps we were too good at hexploration, with spells, and we bypassed both the Survival checks and other encounters. We had 2 combats encounters, 3 encounters total. I’ll rewrite the review after I GM and run it.

Our particular group did not have a problem with making "the choice". I think important choices are what makes RPGs great and PFS doesn’t have enough of them. We made a choice and although it was unexpected, we had time to complete both objectives.

Overall: While there is nothing wrong with this scenario, there wasn't anything memorable about it either. (5/10)

Symphony is a combat scenario with several unique and gimmicky combat encounters.

I want to like Symphony, but I found that the scenario lacked story, there was no roleplay, and that made it bland and flavorless. Our mission is to "search and destroy" whatever exists in the fortress. We didn't know what was there, so we had combat without knowing who or what we were destroying. The combat encounters could be too tough for some groups.

I don’t believe too many groups will be solving the puzzle, and quite frankly GMs don’t give you enough time to do so, or a hint.

Several treasure bundles were behind skill checks, and some of the skill checks needed a master level in the skill, which was only available to a few classes. Technically, quite a few groups should not be gaining maximum treasure bundles.

This map is beautiful, generic, extremely versatile, and has seen a lot of use (perhaps too much) in both PFS and outside PFS.

It's the not-so-nice house sibling to the Pathfinder Lodge flip map.

Blessings is mix of combat and skill checks.

Blessings is a very decent special event. If you like specials, you will like this scenario. It was well organized, themed, and there is excellent voice acting for it as well.

At subtier 7-8, the combat was just right. The skill checks had some roleplay involved and were somewhat amusing (not sure if that was meant on purpose).

The only knock on it was that it wasn't particularly memorable and I'm not sure how it narratively concludes season 4 or advances the metaplot.

Overall: Blessings was an enjoyable evening. (8/10)

This product should be called Forest River Crossing. Every map is a river crossing, with the following crossing points: bridge, rocks, log, or none.

Why does each map in this set feature a river? It's a tad redundant.

In addition to all of these maps featuring a river, we already have:
1) A River Crossing flip mat (which was all that was needed and doesn't get used very much)
2) Bigger Forest also has a river crossing.
3) Falls and Rapids also has a river crossing in a forest.
4) Deep Forest also has a river crossing.
5) Battlefield also has a bridge river crossing.
6) Enormous Forest has river crossings on BOTH sides, when it should have featured forest terrain other than rivers!

How many forest river maps do we need?

These maps are 5 star in quality, but I find they are very redundant with each other. This product and Enormous Forest are especially disappointing with their redundancy. We need new ideas.

Flooded is a mix of everything, but primarily roleplay and combat. Runs about 3 hours.

The thing I like best about Flooded was that the party decisions in the middle and end of the scenario were interesting and it felt like they mattered.

Overall: A fun and interesting adventure. (9/10)

Heist is an investigation and roleplay scenario.

There are very limited high-level scenarios, so it's unfortunate that this scenario, meant for levels 5-8, feels like a level 1-4 scenario. It does not feel epic at all. I could literally change the stats in the combats to level 1-4 in 5 minutes, and it would feel like your average level 1-4 scenario. So that in itself is disappointing.

Gone are the days of Sheila Heidmarsh being competent and ruthless. Instead of locking artifacts inside vaults, she chooses to use unlocked desk drawers in rooms with regular windows located beside easy-to-climb nearby trees. I'm surprised it wasn't left beside her toothbrush in the washroom.

The investigation in this scenario starts very slow and contains several red herrings and time wasters. In addition, a lot of time was spent discussing an adventure that would never happen.

The entire premise of the scenario is illogical, the thief doesn’t even need a distraction, he is long gone, without a trace, before the distraction occurs. The culprits are very obvious but you are of course forced to go through due process to get enough "points".

Boss combat lacked creativity and belonged in a level 1-4 scenario.

This scenario can run long (5 hours) potentially. We didn't have time for the chase. Played at subtier 7-8.

Overall: A slow non-interesting investigation that should have been designed for levels 1-4. (5/10)

Prank is a skill and roleplay-based scenario with a challenging combat.

You are a chaperone to children at the Dacilane school, as they run around playing pranks on each other for the day. Your job... is to help them make pranks, keep the peace, and judge the pranks. How did we go from defeating dragons and trolls to helping children make spooky animatronics, whoopy cushions, and stopping children from disturbing animals??

Prank runs for far too long before anything eventful happens, which is too common in PFS scenarios lately.

The stupidity in this scenario breaks my sense of disbelief. Concerning the narrative, it’s stupid and irresponsible to have a prank war when Dacilane knew that a fey caravan was inside Absalom, which also contained dark fey. When this... incompetent is informed, he refuses to stop the prank war.

The combats would have TPKed us (twice), but our GM called both of them (for time). Having said that my table had some players who didn't know how to play Pathfinder (Barbarian doing 1d4+0 damage), so it's hard to say.

Prank has the potential to run long (5 hours).

Overall: Another silly scenario that takes too long to get to the action and feels... meaningless. (5/10)

Vibrant is an investigation and combat scenario.

This is another scenario trying to make yet another monster, this time ghouls, into something “good” and cute. Honestly, I found the ghouls all evil and if this was a campaign, I’d hunt the entire village down and destroy them all. I regret letting Macron live. This makes me want to stop PFS and run campaigns.

Evil is not cute.

One of the final encounters was meant to be a certain way, so my GM ended up taking away my player agency, ignored my actions, so that the encounter could be run as scripted. Not sure if that was the fault of the scenario or the GM, but it's wrong.

Having said that, this was one of the better written scenarios, was interesting, and the combats were decent.

This scenario uses the same map as "Flooded King's Court", where we met Macron. This alone should be enough to give this scenario 1 star. Is the editor or author even following the campaign? I'm not sure how they would make this mistake. In practice, most casual players won't notice.

Overall: An interesting scenario even if it tries to make another monster cute and "good". (7/10)

Unfettered is a short skill and combat scenario. It was over in 2 hours.

Basically, the idea is that you distract someone while a party is being setup to promote them to venture captain. You get into some trouble and powerful allies either do nothing, disappear randomly, or are completely useless. Sigh.

This was a strange introduction to the season. Was this scenario supposed to show that new portals are opening up all over the maze? Most players won't understand and I'm not even 100% sure myself.

Environments were OK, but combats were over too soon. The riddle was OK.

Some of the low-level enemies had feats that are available only to level 4 and 6 characters. I guess they had better training than Pathfinders? If you’re going to give opponents abilities outside of their level range (which is not a great idea IMO), have only one. Enemies shouldn’t be more "special" than the PCs.

Pathfinder scenarios are getting really silly lately, and not in a good way. Nothing is serious (baby shark do do do do do do) and we are often doing tasks that are meaningless. Seasons 4+ have a very different tone compared to other seasons and organized play campaigns, including Pathfinder 1, which is clearly superior in every way. PF1 scenarios were popular because they had a classic appeal, this is just... goofy.

Overall: Another escort mission of a task unworthy of even low-level Pathfinder agents. (3/10)

Mantis is a rare sandbox infiltration scenario featuring many skill checks. It’s hard to say how much roleplay or combat the scenario will feature, that will completely depend on the players and the approach they take!

While the module didn’t contain any awesome (AHA!) moments, it was well written and easy to prepare.

This was played for Pathfinder Society with 3 stealthy PCs (2 rogues), one pregen (Eteleon), and one non-stealthy PC (it was a huge mistake taking a PC without Stealth and almost ruined the scenario for both the party and himself).

The pregens were well crafted, interesting, and well suited to the module. Having said that, none of their abilities were explained. I’m not sure how you fit this module into 3-4 hours unless the GM adds lots of notes to the pregens or the players get the pregens before the session.

While I liked the Preparation section and the awareness mechanic, I found the Obstacle section (and infiltration point mechanic) to be too strict and inflexible to describe the situations that would occur. There should have been guidelines only.

In terms of Pathfinder society, I thought this scenario was so unusual from the normal PFS railroad, with too many choices, that group took forever to make choices (no matter how hard I encouraged them). What should have taken 3-4 hours took them 6 hours.

Also, the context of the assassination was a little creepy for some players. Somehow, it’s OK to kill when rampaging through an area like a barbarian, but it’s not OK to kill quietly, in cold blood?

I thought the instant kill mechanic was silly considering they can't fail (not even on a crit fail), they take no damage, and they can only instantly kill opponents in this module. Without this exploration mechanic, they might not be able to kill some guards without several rounds (at least not by themselves).

Although not the author's fault, while the Red Mantis should be terrifying, their actual class mechanics makes them very underwhelming opponents.

The final encounter was very underwhelming, and with only 3 PCs the battle was over in 2 rounds, and the party took hardly any damage.

Overall: The idea of playing this scenario was more fun than actually playing it. (8/10)

Both sides of this map have been used several times, in both Pathfinder Society and outside of it, to great effect.

It's a beautiful big map and a welcome variant to the simpler Cathedral flip map.

Doom is a sandbox scenario (if there is such a thing in PF2) with an equal amount of combat, skills, roleplay, and investigation.

The thing I like best about Doom, is that the middle and end part of the scenario were approached in different ways for all 4 groups that I ran through this scenario. People had lots of creative solutions and they really appreciated it.

There are a few things that drop this from a 5 star experience.

First, the investigation mechanic in PF2 is not organic. If I had enough successes on our first investigation check (the man who was knifed), what information do I get to move us to the next location? There is no logic in PF2 mechanics, it’s just a roll off for “points” and then you get to go to the next location. Please bring back logic to investigations and dump this mechanic.

Next, the middle encounter should have used the Cathedral flip map. The location was supposed to be in a secluded (almost rural) location, but the map that was used was in a dense urban area.

Finally, none of the combats were challenging despite the final encounter being severe. I’m not sure why. GMs really need to play up the environmental effects.

Monarch is a scenario that is epic, intense, flavorful, but flawed mechanically.

It’s hard to rate this scenario, because if you have a cleric and skilled PCs (especially at subtier 5-6) it's a 5 star scenario, but if you don't have those things it can easily be a 1 star scenario.

There is a chase at the end, that is overtuned for subtier 3-4, and if played by the book, will lead to a TPK potentially, especially if you don’t have a healer. (The scenario does not adjust the DCs for subtier 5-6, but this is good because the DCs are otherwise too high.). At ST 3-4, my group was caught twice (I fudged to give them a chance).

It’s also not clear in this scenario when you can and cannot Treat Wounds. It’s very possible your GM will think there’s no time to heal until the final encounter. Regardless, if you don’t have a cleric, a TPK is likely.

In Monarch, it’s very easy to lose treasure bundles from failed skill checks, if that bothers you.

The final encounter contains incapacitation effects, which can easily make it a wipe.

There is a spot in the scenario where it’s very possible to gain infamy without being given a warning. What is Infamy? Hopefully your GM also doesn’t know.

Despite all of this, if the group has a cleric and the mechanical issues can be resolved (or the scenario played at subtier 5-6), then you have an epic scenario that could be a lot of fun.

I’m not sure why some reviewers are commenting on the big boss battle, saying there needs to be mooks included. There were, but perhaps your GM didn’t include them because the final combat was already too difficult.

Spark is a scenario with a little bit of everything, including a puzzle.

The story and overall encounters of Spark is good.

As others have mentioned, the puzzle isn't very good and could not possibly work. As with most puzzles, we handwaved it with a few skill checks.

Overall: A good story and interesting encounters with a silly puzzle. (7/10)

Citadel is an exploration scenario with a mix of everything except roleplay.

The main reason this scenario is 2 stars is the exploration phase of the different parts of the citadel. Lots of skill checks, lots of time, and very little happens.

The encounters were very average.

This scenario was the first time I've seen the flip-tiles in person, and after seeing them I now know that I don't wish to purchase them.

Overall: An average dungeon crawl wrapped in a tedious exploration.

Castle is an epic high-level scenario with several combats and skill checks.

I thought the way Castle was laid out was well done. Everything from moving around the abstract location, to choices, NPCs, to powerful enemies.

You could definitely feel a vast power difference in this scenario compared to lower tier scenarios. Several lower tier scenarios, felt too easy. This scenario does not play around, I thought we were going to wipe, a few times, and the players were really good. In general I’m not sure if this is a good scenario for “the average player”, but I enjoyed it.

I thought the first encounter was a little over tuned and no one likes to be CCed, but as long as the encounter is properly explained to the players (ours wasn’t), it should be OK.

Overall: An epic mission and destination with tough fights, which you would expect from high level play (8/10)

Signal is a combat scenario with a lot of investigation and story behind it.

I thought the story in Signal was interesting, but very convoluted. We spent a lot of time asking the GM questions, trying to understand the story.

I thought that the combats were well themed, interesting, and featured unusual creatures. Simple but good puzzle, completely optional.

Again, I wish that Starfinder and technology would stop invading Pathfinder.

Overall: A fun exploration into a house with a strong story and unusual encounters. (7/10)

Star gun is a boring roleplay scenario with some trivial combats thrown in.

In this scenario, I liked traveling to a new location, Arcadia, and learning more of the lore that surrounds it. I didn’t see any pictures of Arcadia, but they would have enhanced this aspect of the scenario.

The real failing of Star Gun is that the roleplaying interactions were long, and they were extremely boring. The NPCs weren’t interesting, almost all of the leaders were strong stoic female with almost no personality. In addition to that, we were forced to endure at least 4 rounds of conversation with these NPCs. Star Gun was trying to be a scenario, similar to “Bid for Alabastrine”, but didn’t have NPCs you wanted to speak to, or an interesting setting.

The combats were also extremely easy and didn’t make a lot of sense considering we were supposed to be under protection.

Lastly, I wish Starfinder would stop crossing over into Pathfinder. We don't want to play Starfinder, OK? Didn't Paizo get the message in PFS Season 6? Please, no more SF maps used in PF either. And not all SF authors should crossover into PF as well.

Overall: Star Gun fails to deliver an interesting roleplay experience. (4/10)

Abode had a silly puzzle that didn't seem solvable by players (perhaps it was presented poorly by the GM), but it was basically skipped by a skill check and didn't ruin the scenario.

Authors should know that if puzzles are too complex or not easy to solve, they will likely be skipped or bypassed when the scenario is run.

Besides the puzzle, the exploration was OK.

Grave is a short skill and combat scenario.

The theming, story, and lore around Grave was fantastic.

The combats, at subtier 3-4, failed to deliver the same epic vibe and were far too easy, especially the “boss” combat.

Overall: A short combat scenario that will scratch the itch and not be too challenging. (7/10)

Chains is a well themed skill-based scenario with some combat.

The theming for Chains is fantastic. And so are the encounters. It highly favors skilled characters over combat characters, and favors thinking over bashing. It’s by far the best scenario in season 4.

There are only two blemishes on this otherwise great scenario.

The first is that some encounters favor skills so much, bash-in-the-door combat is not viable. As in, if you try, you will probably have a bad time and end up writing a bad review. In the last encounter, my group apparently did everything right, and it made the last encounter quite easy. This was at subtier 5-6.

Narratively, I don't understand why the boss would wait for us for hours, and wouldn't escape.

Overall: A must play scenario for season 4. (9/10)