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petrea_mitchellEvery Pathfinder Society season, which runs from Gen Con to Gen Con, there are a few scenarios designated as part of the "metaplot", an overarching story thread that runs through the season. I've now managed to play all the ones for season 1 of the second edition. In fact, I think this may be the first time I've played any metaplot scenarios during the season where they were released.
Continuing the adventure log, again with no spoilers but a certain amount of extraneous commentary...
PFS2 #1-11: Flames of Rebellion: The Pathfinders are dispatched to track down the fate of another of the earliest Pathfinders, only to be distracted by a more immediate and interesting problem once they have that worked out.
This is as close as I've seen in 2e to a traditional dungeon crawl, though it still includes a difficult problem which has to be sorted out in some way other than fighting.
The party for this one included my elven wizard and an alchemist, both at the high end of the level range for the scenario, and then three low-level character. Alchemists are really best when allowed to stick to ranged damage, so Losseyel got to be the tank. Armored up with all her protection spells, this actually turned out not to be a horrible idea.
PFS2 #1-00: Origin of the Open Road: I'd resisted this one for a long time because it forces you to play with pregenerated characters rather than using your own, and it feels weird to me to add a chronicle sheet to a character for an adventure they didn't actually participate in, but I have in on learning it was part of the metaplot. Here things are set up when the pregens go to visit one of the oldest Pathfinder lodges and uncover some odd information about the founding Pathfinders.
This scenario uses the "iconics", characters that each exemplify one available Pathfinder class. They're available at a variety of levels, so they can be used as fill-in characters to play any adventure, but only 6 of them are available at the level of this scenario, which simplifies setting up the party.
OTOH, this scenario features mostly opponents that most of the party has limited ability to damage. Not sure how that happened but I expect it was just the scenario author not knowing exactly which characters would be available.
PFS2 #1-07: Flooded King's Court: The Pathfinders have to convince a self-appointed goblin king to let them explore some recently exposed ruins in the Society's own home city. This turns out to involve a wider variety of challenges than you may expect.
This isn't a metaplot scenario, but it is highly relevant to Losseyel's Society faction, and she was nearly levelled up too far to do this one. I'm glad I got the last minute chance to play it, because this one was a lot of fun, even despite one player who barely had any idea what was going on and vanished for a whole hour in the middle of the adventure.
In addition to fun, this was also a very fast one, clocking in at a bit under 2.5 hours compared to the usual 4-5. Partly, I suspect, because one person was able to convince our opponents in what was supposed to be a combat encounter to settle things with an armwrestling match instead. One of the things I like about PFS is that you get the same amount of XP no matter how you resolve things.
PFS2 #1-20: The Lost Legend: The Pathfinders retrace one of the last missions of another of the founders in the hope of better understanding what was going on back then.
A frustrating scenario, this one. Part of it is that it's a very simplistic one, where you go to point A, fight, get a thing, go to point B, repeat, etc. Part of it is that you're aware that you've recovered a huge amount of information, but you don't get to find out what it is. Presumably the crucial bits will be revealed in the big special debuting at Gen Con.
Continuing the adventure log, again with no spoilers but a certain amount of extraneous commentary...
PFS2 #1-11: Flames of Rebellion: The Pathfinders are dispatched to track down the fate of another of the earliest Pathfinders, only to be distracted by a more immediate and interesting problem once they have that worked out.
This is as close as I've seen in 2e to a traditional dungeon crawl, though it still includes a difficult problem which has to be sorted out in some way other than fighting.
The party for this one included my elven wizard and an alchemist, both at the high end of the level range for the scenario, and then three low-level character. Alchemists are really best when allowed to stick to ranged damage, so Losseyel got to be the tank. Armored up with all her protection spells, this actually turned out not to be a horrible idea.
PFS2 #1-00: Origin of the Open Road: I'd resisted this one for a long time because it forces you to play with pregenerated characters rather than using your own, and it feels weird to me to add a chronicle sheet to a character for an adventure they didn't actually participate in, but I have in on learning it was part of the metaplot. Here things are set up when the pregens go to visit one of the oldest Pathfinder lodges and uncover some odd information about the founding Pathfinders.
This scenario uses the "iconics", characters that each exemplify one available Pathfinder class. They're available at a variety of levels, so they can be used as fill-in characters to play any adventure, but only 6 of them are available at the level of this scenario, which simplifies setting up the party.
OTOH, this scenario features mostly opponents that most of the party has limited ability to damage. Not sure how that happened but I expect it was just the scenario author not knowing exactly which characters would be available.
PFS2 #1-07: Flooded King's Court: The Pathfinders have to convince a self-appointed goblin king to let them explore some recently exposed ruins in the Society's own home city. This turns out to involve a wider variety of challenges than you may expect.
This isn't a metaplot scenario, but it is highly relevant to Losseyel's Society faction, and she was nearly levelled up too far to do this one. I'm glad I got the last minute chance to play it, because this one was a lot of fun, even despite one player who barely had any idea what was going on and vanished for a whole hour in the middle of the adventure.
In addition to fun, this was also a very fast one, clocking in at a bit under 2.5 hours compared to the usual 4-5. Partly, I suspect, because one person was able to convince our opponents in what was supposed to be a combat encounter to settle things with an armwrestling match instead. One of the things I like about PFS is that you get the same amount of XP no matter how you resolve things.
PFS2 #1-20: The Lost Legend: The Pathfinders retrace one of the last missions of another of the founders in the hope of better understanding what was going on back then.
A frustrating scenario, this one. Part of it is that it's a very simplistic one, where you go to point A, fight, get a thing, go to point B, repeat, etc. Part of it is that you're aware that you've recovered a huge amount of information, but you don't get to find out what it is. Presumably the crucial bits will be revealed in the big special debuting at Gen Con.
