Pathfinder 2E Any review of the Strength of Thousands AP?

[Jfdlsjfd]

Hi,

I've been looking into a "magic school" adventure and I two current (is it the zeitgeist?) products emerging, Strixhaven and SoT, I am trying to get informations about them. My google-fu failed me... Is anyone playing it and having some hand-on experience with it (despite the last episode not out yet)? I am looking for any kind of information to decide if it's good. Thanks in advance!

 

[!DWolf]

I wrote a summary/mini-review/comparison of the first adventure of SoT and Strixhaven in this very forum. I haven’t had a chance to run the SoT adventures though, still doing prep. Overall, I like the adventure path but I am going to slightly restructure everything past the first adventure to make it flow better.

The only reviewers that I am aware of that have also reviewed both strixhaven and SoT are the gaming gang.

Their Strixhaven review is here.

Their SoT reviews start here

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

Thanks, and also a lot for your comparison! I hope the rest of SoT will be as promising as the first adventure!

 

[bert1001 fka bert1000]

For Strength of Thousands, the 6th module is not out yet so hard to judge the complete work. But my read so far from 1-5 without playing it:

Pros

• fun concept with a "studying" and "practical research" subsystem to model being a student and professor over longer period of time -- months/years (also a con see below)
• setting is great in general -- Mwagi Expanse -- and you get to move around a bit and see some of the cool parts
• lots of cool NPCs outlined for roleplaying
• Individual elements of plot and set piece combats vary from decent to really good
• much less combat in a row than typical PF
• some challenges are open to non combat solutions
• cool book 5

Cons

• the studying and practical research subsystems tend to have you make checks every month or semester or so with like 1 smaller vignette type encounters during this period. Some of the vignette encounters are cool but most are low stakes. Also it might be tough to have a good flow with this passage of time and "cut scenes".
• books 2-4 are very tenuously linked to the main plot and feel very disconnected.
• the victories achieved in book 2-4 are not really worthy of the PCs levels IMO and the stakes are not really outlined. With the exception of perhaps book 4, but that has it's own issues in a bad ending.
• the main villian is not set up properly unless you already play in Golorian and have seeded their myth
• suffers from some execution issues. from example, the diplomacy in book 4 is an awesome idea but just isn't set up that well. Would be better if there were competing factions that the PCs could choose to side with/help and the outcome would be slightly different depending on whos "votes" they decided to get to form a coalition. Another example, is that they go to this potentially really cool archeological site but what they find if they do research is not described, you just get points toward your branch. Give us a secret to disclose so we don't have to make it up!

Overall:
I think it has a lot of promise but requires a bunch of altering/work by the GM to make it an amazing AP. The bones are decent though.

If I run it, I plan to have a seperate Plot B regional enemy that they get to encounter in bits and pieces in books 2 and 3, and then defeat in Book 4 as the alternative to the people that attack the city (trying to be no spoilers). That way the PCs get a nice meaningful regional victory before rejoining the main plot in book 5, which is even bigger in scope.

Trying to keep vague but can go into more detail if this is a spoiler thread.