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Pathfinder Society Scenario #14: The Many Fortunes of Grandmaster Torch (OGL) PDF
Paizo Publishing, LLC
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 product is a Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for 1st to 7th level characters (Tiers: 1–2, 3–4, and 6–7). 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.
Are there errors or omissions in this product information? Got corrections? Let us know at
webmaster@paizo.com.
Product Reviews
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I disliked this scenario at first, but after running it a few times I am willing to write a review with a fair mind. To begin with, players hate being railroaded—and they are taken for a ride in this scenario. I always apologize to the players when this happens, and I explain that certain things need to happen in order to play out the rest of the encounter. Everyone wants to kill Grandmaster Torch, he’s just too ripe of a peach for the players not to pick. After they accept that he’s only there for display and can’t be had, the game can proceed. The rest of the scenario the players take out their aggressions on the unsuspecting population of Sedeq. It’s simply ridiculous that they can get away with so much murder, theft and mayhem and never get arrested and punished. I think that’s another negative mark on this scenario. Conventional wisdom says that the Pathfinders should be arrested and the scenario should be over after the second encounter. The absence of consequences leads to many chaotic characters having a blast being naughty, while lawful or good-aligned feel unable to accomplish anything without forsaking their principles. Most of the combats are disappointingly easy and too brief, but there’s one that takes players aback and separates the men from the boys (so to speak). I loved the faction missions simply because they were so atypical of Season 0 and created some controversy. There was good campaign world flavor as well, and the many role-playing opportunities really saved this scenario from being a burden to GM.
This adventure was a surprise packet. I played tier 3-4 and in a party of six we were overpowered in some acts. You do get to fight huge creatures under the correct circumstances.
I rated this low as it did go on a bit and has one too many acts for my liking. The ending is weak and there is the distinct possibility of TPK in this adventure as it traps thinking PCs. I was expecting more out this scenario.
This, I tell you, could have been done so much better I can't even begin to tell. Instead, possibly due to the absurd page limit, the scenario is just another scripted combat encounter after another. They repeat themselves to oblivion, and frustrate the players.
If you are going to run this, come up with something much more interesting. Replace maps, tactics, and add possibilities for diplomatic approaches. That's what this needs, since I doubt your first reaction in an urban environment is to blast everything into smithereens.
Grandmaster Torch was popular when he first showed up, but this adventure seems to use him just to use him again, as he isn't in the same place or situation he was in originally, and can easily be mistaken for the guy that the PCs are suppose to bust.
Faction mission, if taken literally and if the PCs aren't looking for a specific instance to come up, but taking the mission at face value, can cause some PCs to read what they are suppose to do as committing major crimes, which is suppose to be discouraged and potentially treated the same as death.
Same faction mission frames the other PCs for the chaos caused and as agents of a foreign power, which seems to go against the "don't work against the other PCs" spirit, even if they don't immediately suffer consequences.
Finally, there is a bit of a lack of challenge in many of the encounters in the scenario.
The overall plot was good and the story was interesting. But..
Spoiler alert
Encounter 4 is WAY too easy for the bad guy to get away. Properly run, there is no way he is not, unless the players are a little suicidal. As a DM I had to slow down the bad guy in the interest of fairness. Also if a person has a pathological aversion to something, give them ways to avoid it once it happens (without giving something away)
The final fight was the most interesting, but one of my players (the min-max guy) didn't like being robbed of his players role. I thought it was great, but it is a proper warning for a player.
The upside is that the faction goals were not too easy and they were fun. The factions are making the game more interesting and the best selling point.
Overall it would be nice to see an enemy's armor classes be a tad bit higher. Men in light armor with 10 dexterity are appearing too often, esp. for 2nd level.
A low level spell caster once in awhile would be great. We prefer human opponents to monsters as a group, but we hope that that they are more than yet another warrior.
The use of terrain in this mod to challenge players is great and should be used more often.
Overall a good module.
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Now available!
(Actually, available last Wednesday, but we didn't say so here.)
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Hey, not fair Josh! In the UK we have been away at Conception running the Pathfinder Organized Play for the last five days. (It was great and all the 5 slots I ran were 200 percent over subscribed by players.)
I would have snapped up these two recent modules with the rest of my January purchases and used the voucher you sent out. Now I try to buy them and the "Add to shopping cart" doesn't work and the expiry date has passed. Why didn't you make these new modules public last Wednesday?
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Angel Gabriel wrote:
...the "Add to shopping cart" doesn't work...
Sorry—I broke that earlier today. It's fixed now.
Angel Gabriel wrote:
Why didn't you make these new modules public last Wednesday?
They were available. I was too busy last week to send out a notifying e-mail, but we did mention them in our store blog all weekend. We just didn't create a discussion thread here.
The last Wednesday of each month is the scheduled date for all scenarios, by the way. (I can't promised they'll never be late, but that's the scheduled date, and Josh and crew work hard to meet it.)
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Vic Wertz wrote:
Angel Gabriel wrote:
...the "Add to shopping cart" doesn't work...
Sorry—I broke that earlier today. It's fixed now.
Angel Gabriel wrote:
Why didn't you make these new modules public last Wednesday?
They were available. I was too busy last week to send out a notifying e-mail, but we did mention them in our store blog all weekend. We just didn't create a discussion thread here.
The last Wednesday of each month is the scheduled date for all scenarios, by the way. (I can't promised they'll never be late, but that's the scheduled date, and Josh and crew work hard to meet it.)
They were only available for pre-order when I checked earlier and now they are available for actual download so they would never of been eligible for the holiday discount.
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Wintergreen wrote:
They were only available for pre-order when I checked earlier and now they are available for actual download so they would never of been eligible for the holiday discount.
That was just a display issue; the product was indeed available for purchase. (You can't actually preorder a PDF on our site.)
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