Pathfinder Society Scenario #14: The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch (OGL) PDF (based on
14
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A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st to 7th level characters (Tiers: 1–2, 3–4, and 6–7).
When four statues of unspeakable power were found in a tomb in Osirion and then stolen, the Pathfinder Society assumed they were gone forever. When they appeared again in the illicit inventory of a Qadiran smuggler in the massive trade city of Sedeq, the Society wasted little time dispatching you there to recover them. Finding the smuggler dead and a familiar face from Absalom responsible, your task quickly becomes a race to retrieve the statues before their brutal power can be unleashed on the citizens of the Satrap. Can you find the statues in time or will Sedeq be swallowed in a plague like none Golarion has ever seen?
Written by Jonathan H. Keith
This scenario is designed for play in Pathfinder Society Organized Play, but can easily be adapted for use with any world. This scenario is compliant with the Open Game License (OGL) and is suitable for use with the 3.5 edition of the world’s most popular fantasy roleplaying game.
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Egad. This scenario was horrid. I don't say that lightly - it really, really doesn't fit within the PFS world. Spoilers below.
The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch:
So, the entire time, you are basically robbing four shopkeepers blind, stealing artifacts from individuals who arguably legitimately purchased them, and to which the Society doesn't seem to have a legitimate claim to in the first place. The encounters close off creative solutions or diplomacy, basically forcing every encounter into a fight. The Society comes off as a bunch of brutes rather than as the organization of experts that it is now portrayed as. Grandmaster Torch is also rather unfortunate in this scenario, acting wholly out of character when compared to his newer status as a faction head.
In the end, I think that one part really summarizes my frustrations with this scenario. If your party decides that looting a store's cashbox is too immoral, then they are given half the gold as a reward. The scenario simply says, "That's the price of honesty."
Really?
REALLY?
We do not allow evil characters in PFS. This scenario seems to punish non-evil characters for no apparent reason. I can't recommend this, I won't be running it again, and I hope that this only gets played ironically or as the ONLY remaining scenario for someone who has played EVERYTHING else.
This scenario is a romp through Sedeq, where the PCs apparently get to beat up whoever they like... with absolutely no consequences! This scenario is good for players who want to create mayhem, because apparently you can get away with anything in the streets of Sedeq (probably thanks to the PFS legal team and GM Torch).
There are a lot of problems with this scenario:
1) Lack of maps: Maps (even flip maps) are provided for only 2 out of 4 combat encounters.
2) Lack of Challenge: This scenario isn't challenging, even compared to other season 0 scenarios.
3) Lack of Gold: You'll receive a lot less gold than normal at subtiers 3-4 and 6-7, and even less if you're not a thug.
4) Thugs: There's only one way to solve each encounter (guess how?) and no guidelines for alternate solutions.
5) The plot doesn't make sense.:
The biggest thing that didn't make sense in this scenario was the overall premise. Grandmaster Torch sold defective artifacts to customers, so in order to not look bad, he then gets the PCs to rob and kill these customers. I would think that having his customers robbed specifically for the artifact he just sold them would ruin his reputation even more than admitting his mistake and refunding his customers. Especially given that GMT has ties to the PFS, was last seen with the PCs, and the PCs will stand out in Sedeq (and will probably not be wearing disguises). Terrible.
One of the encounters is in a high security market (including an anti-magic field, weapons search, and only one way in and out!), and yet the PCs will be allowed to basically beat up and rob one of the stall owners with no consequences. The PCs shouldn't be allowed to rob a business in the secure market let alone leave it freely afterwards. Isn't that the point of the secure market??? Diplomatic or other social solutions weren't even suggested in the scenario, it's assumed to be a combat encounter.
The only reason to play/read this scenario is because Grandmaster Torch is in it. Having said that, it's a forgettable appearance and will make your players dislike him more. I suppose the other reason for playing this scenario is to emphasize that Pathfinders aren't "good guys" necessarily.
Ratings:
Length: If the GM is prepared (with handouts, maps, etc), you can run this in 2 hours.
Sweet Spot: Subtier 1-2 with brand new level 1 PCs.
Experience: GM at subtier 1-2 with 4 players.
Entertainment: Surprisingly fun, which is probably why it hasn't been retired. (8/10)
Roleplay: OK. Will be better if GM adds fluff about Sedeq. (4/10)
Combat/Challenges: Too easy and alternate solutions aren't considered. One PC can finish the scenario. (1/10)
Maps: The last two encounters don't even have maps. (1/10)
Boons: There's a cool (fluff only) boon in this chronicle, but it's never used in future scenarios that I know of. (6/10)
Uniqueness: There's very little that's unique about the encounters in this scenario (with one exception), but I suppose the overall plot of mugging citizens in the streets of Sedeq (and getting away with it) is unique. (7/10)
Faction Missions: The faction missions are actually pretty good, especially Taldor's. (9/10)
Overall: It had the potential for more with better development. I want to give this scenario 1 star, but the truth is it's actually fun to play despite its faults. (4/10)
This was excrutiating to run for a Paladin and Lawful Good Cleric; robbery and murder are not very heroic and lead said types into an atonement spell faster than cookie monster can scarf down macaroons. With a less savory group this would have been a better run, so make sure you know who your audience is prior to running.
This may be the worst PFS scenario I have ever seen, though I say that after fully admitting that even though I started at Gencon of Season 0, I happened to only play Season 0 scenarios that weren't retired, so there could be worse.
Challenge (2/5)::
The encounters in the module are all pathetic except for the vermin. The time I played this in Subtier 3-4, the vermin were substantially harder than the hypothetical fight consisting of all the other enemies in the scenario coming at you at once. Granted, in this instance, the GM had some hot dice for the vermin, so I'll go ahead and figure that the vermin are about right in difficulty.
Interesting Encounters (2/5)::
The author tries pretty hard to give at least some of the encounters varied conditions, rather than straight up fights. Unfortunately, some of these are pretty big fumbles in my book. One of the worst parts of the scenario is the inflexible way that the scenarios turn into combat, detailed more below. Fighting in an area with no weapons or magic could be cool but just came out feeling cheesy. The chase against the invisible opponent into the spice factory has some potential, but it's likely to wind up as bothersome, with the PCs forced to contend with the unrelated guards of the place who they don't really have a reason to fight. The vermin fight and protection money thugs are pretty standard and uninteresting.
Roleplaying Opportunities (1/5)::
I really like Grandmaster Torch, and there is an opportunity for roleplay with him here, but in the end he seems to have been stuck into this scenario as a gimmick, and the way he interacts with the PCs probably hurts his status overall and yields people who just hate him and aren't interested in ever seeing him again (or want to kill him) as I've heard about on the forums. The real reason for the 1/5, however, is the ridiculously railroady and anti-RP nature of the mission here. You are tasked with essentially mugging four people for their artifacts. When I first played this adventure, our group decided to take it another way, and explain that the items were stolen merchandise and that they were actually dangerous to the owner (as we had discovered along the way), and we assured the owners that we knew they were duped by the thief into buying stolen goods, so we wouldn't press charges. Our backup was to offer to buy the items back. In no instances did the scenario allow this to work. One guy (running guy) uses a 300 gold piece item to run away from the party, even if they are completely non-threatening and have no intent to harm him whatsoever. What the hell? That's a lot of money down the drain. This railroady there-must-be-a-fight aspect earns Many Fortunes a rare 1/5 from me in this category.
Golarion Flavor/Continuity (1/5)::
There's two ways to think of this mission as the VC describes it. There's the rational way, where the Pathfinders are trying to reason with some unwitting purchasers of dangerous items that will release a plague in order to neutralize the threat and recover the items. Then there's the absolutely insane way, where the Pathfinders are going on a jolly mugging and killing spree through the streets of Sedeq, murdering citizens whose only crime may have been unwittingly purchasing stolen goods (you can't very well leave them alive, as they surely can point out your party to the guards and get you all arrested immediately). Also you probably have to kill all witnesses for good measure. Now, usually a PC who presents that second plan will be scowled at by everyone else or directed away from it by the GM or the scenario itself. But--you guessed it--in Many Fortunes, they assume that you use the crazy plan. In fact, if you don't try the psychopath plan, the adventure railroads you into fighting anyway, and all NPCs react to you as if they knew you were going to be treating them that way. At least they will sometimes be attacking you first? Fortunately, there are apparently no consequences to the PCs for blatantly murdering all of these people. For added bonus points, the Taldor mission encourages terrorism and mass murder (generally ending in an explosion killing dozens of innocents) and the Qadira mission requires an assassination of some random guy the Pasha doesn't like using a poison that was selected for its unbearable agony. I haven't even gotten into the weirdness of the giant antimagic field on the market and what implications its existence has for all of Golarion as a whole.
Awesome Factor (1.5/5)::
This category exists for things that just make the characters call out "That's awesome!" On the other side, it includes things that make them groan, but I've named the category after the positive side of the aspect. The weird magical appearance of the giant bugs was actually kind of awesome, I guess, but the ridiculous assumptions of murdering people in a big city with no consequences, combined with the evil faction missions, are very anti-awesome. If you are a paladin in Taldor, Qadira, or Lantern Lodge (particularly Taldor), PvP rule be damned, you should be losing your powers if you don't sabotage your fellow faction members on those missions, not that you had a great chance of keeping your paladinhood through the main scenario anyway...
Overall Analysis (1/5): I don't judge often in extremes. A scenario will truly have to be something to get a 1/5 or a 5/5 from me in any category. This scenario managed to get a 1/5 in two categories. I know some reviewers tend to rate high, where a 3/5 would be a product they didn't like. For me, The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch's 1 star rating means that it has serious problems. It would actually be fine with some major adjustments for a non-PFS GM who is allowed to change the scenario around somewhat. But given that you aren't supposed to make changes in PFS that actually modify the challenges in the scenario, I have to rate this scenario based on that. It's not easy to get a 1/5 in my rating system, since I rarely give a 1/5 or 5/5 on any given category, and you need to average 1.5 or below to get a 1 star review. This scenario should almost certainly have been retired, and I'm guessing that Grandmaster Torch's appearance is the main thing that allowed it to stay. That's a pity, since as I said before, this scenario actually leads to character decay for GMT, so I am willfully avoiding it for my group that has the most interplay with Torch.
Aside from the things already listed, the biggest complaint I have against the scenario is that in the last Act, the only instructions it gives is if the PCs DONT ask for the statue, which leads to a fight. But what if they do? Is it ok to sell it to them? For how much? Roleplaying through that encounter wouldnt have been a hard thing to type up, or added much to the word count. It's definitely something that shouldnt have been overlooked.
I do think it was a good scenario, but it definitely has it's faults.
