Pathfinder Society Scenario #5–21: The Merchant's Wake (PFRPG) PDF

This is without question my favorite scenario so far. It has roleplaying, complete with amusing side missions, it has action, it has the potential for a serious plot twist--it seems really obvious unless all the clues get missed due to certain rolls and then wham it's out of left field--and the chase scene uses a new mechanic that I sincerely hope becomes the new standard because it actually works. It's delightful.

I do wish it had seen some better editing; it's rife with typos and at least two are in player handouts, which means the GM needs to fix them before they go out. Or not--the DC 17 Swim check to break down a door does tend to get a pretty good laugh out of the table.

There's nothing wrong with this scenario, per se. But my table wasn't wowed by it either. I ran it this past Sunday. We had a 5 players, two of whom had negatives to their social skills. Because those players pretty much had nothing to do but sit around for the first part of the scenario, I let the party sabotage a certain item in a unique way. This led to a certain NPC projectile vomiting. Good times...

Out of character, they all felt like they could see the plot points coming. Nobody was surprised when the "evil mastermind" was revealed. The general sense I got from the table was essentially: "Meh."

The first combat encounter was interesting, and it's probably the reason that the table upgraded their collective feeling to "Meh." from "Bleh." Again, this is because half of the table had nothing to do for much of the scenario. (In their defense, that half of the table is new to PFS. It's not their fault that they neither had well-rounded characters nor more appropriate backup characters.)

Clearly, it would run a lot better with experienced players who specifically wanted an RP heavy afternoon. I personally enjoyed the NPC Jakti al'Awar. Playing him was fun!

Yes it seems petty and not very constructive, but I will always rate a scenario low if it has a chase scene. I dislike them that much!

This is a well written adventure with a nice mix of story and combat. The PCs are sent to represent the Pathfinder Society at a unique and somber social event. While negotiating some interesting cultural traditions the PCs must also build influence with several key NPCs. With such a gathering of powerful individuals, it is hard for someone not to try to take advantage of the situation, and things quickly get chaotic. While the PCs are trying to sort out the maladies of the night and maintain their newly earned influence, they must fight their way through some interesting and challenging combat encounters. This is a good scenario for groups that enjoy both interesting social interactions and challenging combat, although if your group is heavy in one or the other they may suffer for it.

This is a great, solid scenario which does a good job weaving both social interaction with combat.

I've GM'd the scenario but not played it. There's about 7 pages dedicated to the major roleplaying section where you have 5 major NPCs and 2-3 supporting NPCs at the wake. There's also a point system to handle how the PCs tackle the social interactions like other prior social scenarios. I highly recommend GMs read through this section a few times in order to run the whole influence/favors smoothly and avoid having to flip through several pages to see if there's a skill check required for what the PCs do.

There's a couple rough spots where you're not sure if some of the most major NPCs will speak at the wake. It seemed like they should even though it's not specifically called out in the scenario (I looked 5 times) as there's an early mechanic where the PCs can affect their performance. A cheat sheet/cheat card could make this part a lot easier to run and I expect will pop up on the shared prep drive sometime soon.

The combats are pretty challenging at the 4-5 subtier as there's a lot of conditions that can be carried throughout the scenario as an unprepared party won't have time to clear them. My table had mostly veteran players and several were hurt or dropped unconscious by the first and last fights. With fig accuracy there were some "Are you serious?" moments at the monster used early on and a certain risk of death to a lower level playing up on both that fight and the last.

All-in-all, I think we had a great time and this is certainly in the top three list for Season 5 because it featured both great roleplay and challenging combat. And the way the roleplay works, each person at the table will get an equal slice of the pie in which to shine.

It definitely needed better editing/proof-reading. Humorously, there's a part of the scenario that suggests the PCs can make a Swim check to break down a door. :) The editing gets maybe 2-stars as a quick read through or play through uncovers at least a dozen clunky editing errors, many in read-aloud boxed text which will trip up some GMs. Justin Juan's work nets the full 5 stars as this is a high point in Season 5 for so many reasons.

EDIT: Played the scenario now and it held up brilliantly. Upgraded to 5 stars from 4 stars seeing all the intricacies in this one.