Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-23: Graves of Crystalmaw Pass (PFRPG) PDF

Back to the planes my gnomish interplanar real estate agent went. This time she was tasked with making an entire region economically viable and peaceful again, as well as retrieving a pathfinder. This time the environmental challenges really help bring the place alive and demonstrates how different the various planes can be. I prefer these challenges over the ones that we had to deal with in the other planar scenarios of this season.

What I also enjoyed was the fact that you had good mix of encounters. While you can opt to fight everything, there’s also a viable route of solving things by just talking to the NPCs. Given the objectives, we tried a diplomatic approach and talked our way through the first part of the scenario. While it’s not mandatory to do so, you do get rewarded for it.

The rest of the scenario features some fun puzzles, unique places and interesting fights. The fights can be pretty painful and you should expect to take quite some damage, but they’re fair. We had a serious moment of panic when we had to somehow bring a character back to life in a single round, but we managed to pull it off. This just shows that there is certainly some challenge to this scenario.

Long story short: there’s something for everyone to enjoy. A decent puzzle, lots of role-playing opportunity and some really challenging combats in a location that really comes to life with the environmental effects and challenges. It’s a great scenario. My only nitpick is the NPC you have to rescue. She felt a bit out of place and I found it hard to really care about her. Thankfully that last part worked in our advantage when we had to make a choice at the end of the scenario.

This scenario did a very good job of capturing the feel of being in a different plane of existence. The hazards are a little wonky and at least in our experience the fights weren't terrible difficult, but I thoroughly enjoyed the interesting creatures you get to meet. The puzzle was fun and took us a bit, but didn't feel like it bogged the game down at all. The author was good enough to put multiple options in for engaging certain encounters which is always appreciated.
My only real criticism is that looking back now, the mission you are given isn't really the mission you do, and the main NPC you talk to is kind of sketchy if you really think about what she is asking.
Still this was a lot of fun and fairly quick (2.25 hrs for us), would recommend.

I ran this recently at a local convention in the higher subtier, the players all had a great time with it. The encounters provide a very respectable challenge but nothing 6 players couldn't handle (everyone safely in the 4-5 level range). Good descriptions, a puzzle that's not too difficult and not too easy and overall just a solid scenario that moves the season plot along.

I GMed this at high tier and thought it went very smoothly, with good information and descriptions provided. The players also enjoyed it immensely.
This has a good mix of adventuring encounters away from the comforts of a city. The players are in a wilderness and that presents challenges. Some of those are potentially at the tougher end of the spectrum, but nothing here goes beyond a real sense of danger and challenge.
Looking forward to running this again this weekend!

I wanted to like this one and we did enjoy the story. However, the "challenge" includes one of the npcs apparently being designed to one-shot a party member or two before fighting to the death for no good reason.

When the table discussion is about which subtier is the most overbalanced it doesn't say much for the event.

It is not required that one should cater to the top 1% of min-maxers.