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Pathfinder Society Scenario #3-18: The God's Market Gamble (PFRPG) PDF

4.00/5 (based on 31 ratings)
Pathfinder Society Scenario #3-18: The God's Market Gamble (PFRPG) PDF

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A Pathfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1–5.

Valuable relics of religious natures have been disappearing on their way into Absalom and the Pathfinder Society stands to lose countless irreplaceable artifacts if the cause isn't found. Amid the bustling markets of the God's Market in the shadow of the Starstone Cathedral, the Society sets a plan in motion to ensure the parties responsible for the recent thefts are caught and brought to justice.

Written by Dennis Baker.

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 Pathfinder Roleplaying Game.

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Who's Taking Our Stuff? Part 3

4/5 —

Market is an investigation scenario with a few unique strategy and roleplaying elements.

The initial investigation acts are average, however the subsequent acts of hunting down the poacher makes up for it.

**SPOILERS** The main thing I didn't like were certain story elements:

I thought parts of the investigation were contrived, although it wasn't bad enough to ruin the scenario.

For example, if you're an assassin, why would you use unique arrows that can be traced back to you, unless you WANT the crime to be traced back to you? You might as well leave a business card.

Part of the plot revolved around the boss dropping arrows. I can see her dropping an arrow at a single crime scene, but from what I can remember it happened more than once. It seems unlikely.

And if you're blackmailing someone, why not use a disguise (or even better a Hat of Disguise)?

Some GMs say you should be able to use the spell Locate Object to track the keg/arrow and find the boss. Unfortunately, the spell doesn't work that way and is extremely limited. With a scroll, the range is a 540' and you have only 3 minutes to find it. You'd basically have to be in the same location already for it to work.

My group thought the warehouse scene was the weakest act. It took at least 40+ minutes (going round by round and needing checks every round from each PC) and my group found it uneventful.

Warning: There's a chase scene. Chase scenes get a bad rap, but for my group this was actually the best part of the scenario. That's because the GM ran each stage as a mini-roleplaying event, and it ended up being quite funny for us. It's unfortunate that a lot of GMs remove this encounter and that more GMs haven't learned to run chase scenes so that they're actually fun.

The final act has a well designed NPC (finally!), so most players will enjoy the challenge.

Overall: Once you get through the initial acts, Market is a fun little investigation scenario. (7/10)

Double down on this gamble

5/5 —

Exciting. Dangerous. Sneaky. Those are words that can describe this wonderful scenario. This has a lot of everything in it. The BBEG is pretty tough, and for each of the 3 times I have ran it, the players were able to win, but just barely. They also used completely different tactics. The ambush is fun to run, and wishes there are smarter NPCs in other scenarios.

The other encounters here are not typical. A few different thing happen, which some PCs are completely unable to prepare for. The warehouse is cool. The interviews with NPCs are fun, and lead to great RP opportunities. The BBEG can be deadly.

Take the gamble. Its worth it.

5 stars, and lovin it.

Excellent Scenario, but As Usual in PFS...

4/5 —

...too much combat. I ended up narrating Acts 4 and 5, the latter would probably be what I'd cut out of the module entirely next time. Act 4 needs to be simplified, too. Even with these methods of speeding things along, the module still took us six hours.

That being said, the foundation is excellent, with nice Law & Order investigation. This is one of the best of Season 3's modules, though I recommend not playing this one with a time limit.

A tip for the future::
Chases are great! But the chase rules need some work. I improvised a few ways to make chases better, and if I run this again, I'll likely improve upon them even more in preparation.

-Matt

God's Market Gamble

4/5 —

My group train-wrecked the scenario at the end, but before that, they did very well with the investigations. Fun to read. We had the chase deck, but used the chase chart from the scenario to keep the deck a bit fresher for our group.

SPOILER: I liked the idea of the sorcerer sisters and gave them both quarterstaves so the group thought it was the same person. They were sure I was cheating and kept reminding me how many actions she was supposedly taking per turn. That was fun.

A great time

5/5 —

It is one of the most enjoyable times I have had in PFS as a GM and my players said they had a blast. It has a great balance of Role-playing, investigation, chasing, traps, and a really hard final encounter. This does mean it will force GMs to utilize many tools in their GM utility belt, so it might not be the best scenario for beginning GMs. A word of warning, one review said the final encounter was a “murder machine” at the high tier. It can be in the low tear as well. On the bright side, some of the best encounters are ones where the players really don’t know if they will make it out alive. It adds tension and gives the players a sense of accomplishment.

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Announced! Cover image is a mockup.
Paizo Employee Director of Narrative
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Rock! A new one from Ogre!
Liberty's Edge

Looking forward to this one tonight Dennis. After Sewer Dragons (which remains my favorite scenario from Season 3 so far) you've set the bar pretty high!
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4

Awesome! Congrats Ogre!

It comes out today? Oh no! Maybe that really is the real cover!
Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Scenarios are generally released at the end of the day they're set to go live, so look for this around 6 or 7 PM Pacific time.
Paizo Employee Director of Brand Strategy

Now available!!!
Shadow Lodge

Wow, I love the cover art! I just finished skimming it and all the artwork and layout looks great. Really excited about this.

Thanks guys, hopefully this lives up to your expectations.
Dark Archive

Looking very good so far: Investigation, roleplay, complications, link to an unusual piece of setting background.

A couple of possible tactics/spell errors I spotted on first skim:

Was there a miscalculation or resize of the, erm, maguffin?

Spoiler:
Shrink Item is 2 cubic ft per level and by my calculation the item is over 28 cubic ft so unless we have a 15th level spell shrink isn’t happening. So it looks like we either have to resize the maguffin or ignore the tactic or be "creative" about hollow objects and shrink item RAI. Also as specified I think it would weigh three quarters of a ton when full which seems a bit much. Dropping the size of the item by 1 ft in each dimension would fix it.
Otherwise this is a fun and smart tactic.

This is a city based encounter and I don’t think you can

Spoiler:
Entangle without plants.
There are two/three instances of this.

Spoiler:
That entangle issue causes a lot of debate on the forums...I hope it doesn't do that at a table!
The Exchange Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

@ZomB

Spoiler:
The keg is nearly empty, with only some dregs in there. There is a reference to this in the description of the item but reading it, I can see how you missed it. "The keg has old char marks on it as if it had been in a fire, and it still sloshes with the remnants of hops and ale." I thought I'd said it explicitly, but looking at the text, it's not very clear. The keg is empty with some dregs sloshing in the bottom.

With regards to shrink item, I suppose there is a question of whether an items volume includes the empty space inside of it, or just the item itself. My assumption was that so long as the contents of the container, plus the physical container were less than the total volume you are fine. If this bothers you then perhaps a smaller keg might make sense or increase the caster level of the scroll.

You can either assume a small amount of grass and plants is growing in this relatively un-trafficked alley or just use an alternate spell, the two of them have a fairly decent mix of spells to pull from.

Dark Archive

Thanks for clarifying use as intended.

Spoiler:
My comment about weight when full was to point out it was very large, possibly infeasibly large. I appreciate that excluding air the volume is probably only about 2 cf.

It may trigger player mutterings using Shrink and Entangle in that way. I wouldn't normally rule that either of those spells worked like that.

Entangle applies to the last encounter too. Though there may be a market stall or two that provides the greenery for a fun application of it.
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16, 2011 Top 32, 2012 Top 4

Nice job, Ogre!
Shadow Lodge

If you are GMing:

Sczarni faction mission:
There is some potential confusion about the Sczarni faction mission which mentions the fence specifically but he doesn't have the list the players are looking for, the list they are looking for is in the warehouse.

Perhaps, have Barnell tell the PCs he gets all his clients from his contact.
Shadow Lodge

Wow... I just want to catch up and pass on a big thanks for all the positive reviews.

I'm really glad this scenario seems to have gone over so well, I enjoyed writing it a lot.
Wayfinders

Just ran this one over the weekend (with only an hour of prep - last minute change) and it was great! One of my favorite scenarios so far.

The optional encounter(s) are too good to miss. Try to fit this in if you can.
Dark Archive

Aye, it is truly a great scenario. I had a blast running it and my players thoroughly enjoyed playing it. The God's Market Gamble felt very cinematic, thanks in large to the chase scene, and my players really immersed themselves in the investigation.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 4
0gre wrote:

Wow... I just want to catch up and pass on a big thanks for all the positive reviews.

I'm really glad this scenario seems to have gone over so well, I enjoyed writing it a lot.

Big thumbs up Dennis. I'm really happy to see this go so well. I'm sure this is just the beginning. Congrats again! :D

I'm new to this but I'm so down for this one torromow... Sign me up
Grand Lodge
1 person marked this as a favorite.

I am GM'ing this at Gencon on Saturday, so I whipped up a visual cheatsheet for myself on all the acts, characters, clues, and information.

It can be found here (Flickr link). I probably missed/messed something (this is a meaty scenario). Cheers!
The Exchange Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

That's pretty cool.
Grand Lodge
Sozin wrote:

I am GM'ing this at Gencon on Saturday, so I whipped up a visual cheatsheet for myself on all the acts, characters, clues, and information.

It can be found here (Flickr link). I probably missed/messed something (this is a meaty scenario). Cheers!

Already withdrawn. i.e: 'this photo is not available'

Dammit, i wanted that.
Grand Lodge

Thanks! BTW, flickr image url appears to have become borked; please use this link instead
Dark Archive

Hey, question regarding the end of the Chase scene:

Spoiler:
How is Barnel suffering from constitution damage? I was under the impression that medium spider venom is a strength poison.
The Exchange Contributor, RPG Superstar 2010 Top 16

Spoiler:
Not sure what I was thinking there, maybe there was a change in poison type. I suggest you just run it how it's written and not worry about it too much.
Grand Lodge
1 person marked this as a favorite.

Gencon session last night was a blast - party really loved this scenario. There were four dwarves at the table, and at one point in the scenario the game turned into a spontaneous pub crawl. When they encountered the Maguffin

Spoiler:
the last keg that Caiden Cailean drank from before the Test of the Starstone
,

the game temporarily turned into a giant drinking party. Good fun.
Scarab Sages

I just played this today. It was a lot of fun with the variety of challenges and character driven plot.

I have only played the scenario, I have not read it yet. I do have one big question/point of clarification.

Spoiler:

In the final combat the setting was the market place. The BBEG is 20 feet up in a crow’s nest. The GM said the scenario specifically states that the BBEG has a clear line of sight to "every square in the marketplace". Huh? Why? It’s a busy market. There are carts and small shops all over the place. Why can’t a player duck behind an Orange Stand to gain Total Cover? This seems perfectly logical and a really fun way to use the artful terrain provided. Otherwise just have it in an open courtyard. Having no cover is frankly murder on level 1 characters. It makes no sense to me. Please clarify the intent of that phrase in the scenario and how it’s supposed to work.

Grand Lodge

I did double check this and I made a mistake when I said that. The words said: Nearly everywhere in the market. So I gave cover to people with no clear line of sight during the combat. It was early on in the original initiative order as well. (1rst round) So it was corrected and I blamed myself for not reading it correctly :)

Sorry
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