Pathfinder Adventure Path #159: All or Nothing (Agents of Edgewatch 3 of 6)

3.70/5 (based on 3 ratings)
Pathfinder Adventure Path #159: All or Nothing (Agents of Edgewatch 3 of 6)
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When the Edgewatch agents receive a much-deserved promotion and transfer to Absalom's interjurisdictional Starwatch company, they find that with increased responsibilities come increased risks. Following the trail of clues left behind by the murderous Norgorber cultist called the Skinner, the agents find themselves caught between two sides of a gang war in the Docks, and they must choose which gang to tip the scales in favor of in order to get the evidence they need. Their investigation takes them to the Lucky Nimbus casino to perform a daring heist, then the gladiatorial arena known as the Irorium to stop a devastating plot that threatens thousands of lives!

“All or Nothing” is a Pathfinder adventure for four 9th-level characters. This adventure continues the Agents of Edgewatch Adventure Path, a six-part monthly campaign in which the players take on the role of city watch officers and dole out justice to Absalom's most nefarious criminal elements. This adventure also includes new rules and inspiring details about some of Absalom's infamous gangs, the different contests of strength and agility held in the Irorium, and a hoard of new monsters for urban fantasy campaigns.

Each monthly full-color softcover Pathfinder Adventure Path volume contains an in-depth adventure scenario, stats for several new monsters, and support articles meant to give Game Masters additional material to expand their campaign. Pathfinder Adventure Path volumes use the Open Game License and work with both the Pathfinder RPG and the world's oldest fantasy RPG.

ISBN 13: 978-1-64078-268-6

Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:

Hero Lab Online
Fantasy Grounds Virtual Tabletop
Roll20 Virtual Tabletop
Archives of Nethys

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3.70/5 (based on 3 ratings)

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Great overall!

5/5

While book 1 was the best of this adventure we've played so far, my group and I really enjoyed book 3!

There's a fun variety of challenges beyond just combat within the story of this book, using a couple different victory point systems, which felt really refreshing after book 2's HEAVY combat focus in its last chapter. The (very much optional) Irorium challenges in the back of the book were also really fun to do before/in between the events of the book! There were also some challenging combats that my players enjoyed, especially towards the end.

As in any Adventure Path, there are of course some plot contrivances, but my group didn't find them distracting. I'm very invested in Absalom as a setting, which made it easier for me to buy in and make some small adjustments to make things run smoother. Because I as the GM fully bought in, my players were happy to suspend their disbelief. Being familiar with the events and characters in future books also helped with making everything feel connected and being able to build up for future events.

Spoiler-filled section:
My players really appreciated the promotion received at the beginning of the book. After being under Lavarsus's thumb, the increased legitimacy and recognition felt really nice, and they enjoyed the level of freedom it gave their characters. It also felt like a very natural progression for our group, since they had already been working with the guards in other districts in order to do their job as security for the radiant festival.

The one serious flaw I think this book has is that, at the end of the heist in chapter 2, the characters essentially get NOTHING except for a new lead. That lead is key to their investigation, but it feels very bad, like they're just on a wild goose chase to find this mysterious device that they know nothing about. Rather than having the vault be completely empty when I ran it, the lockbox instead contained a rolled up blueprint mistakenly left behind when the device was stolen. That way they still had something to find and analyze, so that they didn't come away empty handed, and my players felt plenty satisfied with that. It gave them more information, without allowing them to find the bomb early or mess with the plot progression.

My players being able to do some Irorium challenges long before they knew about the eventual attack on it was really fun, made them more invested in protecting the place, and made their eventual silver swordpin feel more earned. My familiarity with Absalom as a setting, and knowing that Captain Runewulf, who they interacted with in book 2, was also a swordpin made it feel really special to them. They also appreciated being able to see other members of Starwatch acting as backup, helping the crowd escape once the poison bomb went off.

Overall, my group and I really enjoyed this book. There were a few small hiccups, but with a little bit of editing, book 3 was a great experience! :-)


And this is where the problems start

1/5

What is up with third books? Well this is the first book that frustrated players. Its kinda funny to realize in retrospect that its technically a filler book despite being Infector's "master plan".

Anyway from now on I can't really give feedback on books without spoilers, so massive spoiler tags it is:

So first thing first, this is the book that starts the bait and switch from "Town Guard AP" to "National Security AP". I guess police procedural inspiration was "You become FBI". AP really likes introducing new characters in watch that never get focus on and no matter who you work for, you don't get that backup.

Second thing is that this is first book that explains Twilight Four's plan in any respect. So far no big problems with it, but problems once again become a thing in later books related to it. But for now, gist is this: Infector makes heavy use of contingency plans and making use of his pawns, but his masterplan to take control of plot is basically "Do his part early, ruin other two's plan, pray norgorber rewards him with victory". Aka it paints him as fanatic and not the mastermind with plans upon plans fourth book tries to portray him as. You can sum Infector's plan with "step 1: explode bomb early step 2: ???? step 3: I'm primarch because Norgorber says so"

Problem 3, book really assumes the players ally with gang against the worse gang to get information on Infector. When this gang was introduced as kidnapping victims for Skinner's cult. You know the skin people alive torture murder cult. Yeah I wonder why our group started to feel like AP liked to pressure pcs to making deals with criminals. Yeah this is where book 2's copperhand thing came to bite us back because most of players were really unhappy with having done that and here with gang appearing with overwhelming numbers... It kinda broke camel's back. Maurisa is kinda meant to be neutral "not as bad as other criminals, potential antihero in some situations", but that has holes as result of other thing. So to save time with us wanting to clean her gang afterwards, our gm did rather cool move with having blackfingers do something threatening and try to poison both gangs around same time to silence them meaning after sweeper's gang leader was poisoned into coma we rushed back to save her from poisoning and then arrested her.

Either way yeah, I don't think idea of "anti hero criminal for players to have choice to ally with" is bad idea (as long its actual choice), but this being same gang connected to kidnapping people for Skinner made it feel inapproriate.

Problem 4, it become really silly to everyone in table that each individual gang member was tougher than regular skinsaw cultist. Like I really think gang toughs should have been level 5 with maybe couple "elite" named level 6 members and only gang bosses to be like level 9(or even 10) out of them. Pathfinder might have level scaling, but it still needs to justify how dockworkers with wooden boards are level 7. You could justify diobel sweepers being tough with mutagens or something I guess.

Plus it didn't help with party's exhaustion. So after exhausting fight with cult, we get thrown without much of downtime into this operation to dismantle Twilight Four and even gang members are now suddenly rather tough. With switch to Starwatch there aren't really anymore "normal town guard" events and now even gangs feel really tough when they should have been breather to show how tough we have become.

Additional chapter 1 nitpick: party really found a chase obstacle solution of "fix wagon's wheel in alleyway with craft check" instead of just jumping over it or something too ridiculous. Like its not like it established wagon getting stuck in cramped alleyway without ceiling or something :p

But oki, so after this shenanigans, we finally get to name sake of the book, aka the casino heist! Which... Is extremely extended scene for middle chapter where you learn "Oh, someone else stole the thing first, but you know who stole it!"

...Party felt like their time was wasted and extremely angry at that. Plus its kinda non sense that only after safe is opened can you follow a smell trail. But really, if scene was going to be "only clue you find is name", it really shouldn't have been this extensive, it should have been as long scene as like... Well two pages at most? Well thing is this is 21 pages long extensive skill/roleplaying challenge with few surprise combats, large npc cast, infiltration, planning, and for what? "Congratulations, your device was already stolen, but you know who stole it". Yeah party just felt like their time was wasted, it was rather underwhelming reward.

It feels harsh because scene itself is great, but at the end it feels like it wasn't respecting tables' time and effort.

So okay, let's say in alternate universe chapter 2 had either better ending or was just two pages of "find place, break into place, open the safe, ah it was taken, now we go forward" that didn't take our table 3 sessions. What about next part? Well umm... Next part is kinda harsh too.

Our party was at this point kinda annoyed at having to move at Norgorberite's pace so kinda rejected Asilia's infiltration plan(since it would put civilians at risk in our opinion) and just instead got police dog to follow "distinctive smell" of bomb to locate it.(thus we defeated Franca and found bomb before Oggwurm encounter). Let's say we hadn't done that. (we did chat with gladiators though)

Well its another neat cast of npcs that won't return again. The ap is really harsh on concept of recurring npcs. But besides the fight before climax is "severe encounter" with this description "This isn’t intended to be a particularly challenging fight, and it should be over well before the agents have expended all of their best resources (since they still have to delve into the Irorium’s under-level to find and defeat Franca)."

...Its severe encounter, that by definition is difficult encounter that spends resources. And thats without creatures being overtuned and having potential of stunlocking party with bad luck as single action aoe(sure party is immune to it for 10 minutes afterwards, better roll goood).

So oki, assuming we defeat severe difficulty encounter without losing resources, and assuming we didn't manage to take care of Oggwurm in advance somehow, we would be rushing to Irorium, have 2 moderate encounters, severe boss encounter with Franca, then head out to see gas bomb attack in progress and have extreme encounter. Encounter which is supposed to be TPK level without full resources.

Yeah this ap loves to be meatgrindery :'D

On final note, Franca being presented as possible rehabilitate feels kinda odd because nothing about adventure itself foreshadows it, so it feels like players are unlikely to take that option since at this point pcs have learned to assume worst of Twilight Four plans (since we started with skinsaw cult). So her being brainwashed would have been nice thing to foreshadow at her apartment better.

Oh yeah one positive thing: I legit love twist that Gage is actually legitimate businessman :p


5/5


Paizo Employee Webstore Coordinator

2 people marked this as a favorite.

Announced for September! Product image and description are not final and may be subject to change.

Dark Archive

3 people marked this as a favorite.

Docks gang war, casino heist & arena battle sound like three very cool & diverse rpg locations.

Paizo Employee Developer

5 people marked this as a favorite.

Oh, hello there!

This adventure is basically three adventures in one! What a bargain!


Looks pretty sweet!

Liberty's Edge

Will this AP have an underlying mystery or underlying storyline? Or is it „just“ those non-connected cases which the agents have to solve?
Don‘t get me wrong, I like what I read for the first three installments of this AP, I just wonder...

Liberty's Edge

I have a definite Die Hard feeling about this one. The whole AP sounds pretty innovative and exciting.

Dark Archive

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

While I agree with that, I just find it funny that main reason why this AP feels so fresh is that Lawful aligned published campaigns are incredibly rare since everyone assumes PCs will be just pure chaos (even if they aren't chaotic) all the time xP

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Oh hey cover updated


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber

Sounds awesome!

Grand Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Wait.... is that Seelah in a disco suit and wielding a bow? XD

(I know it is not a disco suit... but...)


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Elfteiroh wrote:

Wait.... is that Seelah in a disco suit and wielding a bow? XD

(I know it is not a disco suit... but...)

I don't know.... it might be a disco suit!


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

The heist in part 2 is SOOOO good. I can not wait to run this.


So what critters show up in this bestiary?


Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Benjamin Tait wrote:
So what critters show up in this bestiary?

Hopefully whomever posts them here puts them behind spoiler tags.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Benjamin Tait wrote:
So what critters show up in this bestiary?

Toolbox Creatures:

AVAREK Creature 8 amphibious fey: basically sea urchin fey creatures that like to cause shipwrecks

BREGDI Creature 9 large sea animals: coastal hunting ray-like monsters with claws

EMBERARK Creature 10 huge beasts: called flint beasts, they can spit oil and set it aflame

BARNACLE GHOUL Creature 9: sailor ghouls

RAVENILE Creature 14: mutated Iruxi

SVARTALFAR (Killer) Creature 8 medium fey: mostly assassins, native to the shadow plane. Don't try to pay them in gold.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

Is there a reason that there is no single file PDF?


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
David knott 242 wrote:


Is there a reason that there is no single file PDF?

Thank you to whoever fixed that!


Is Jeremin Hoff in here with stats?


GM Facepalm wrote:
Is Jeremin Hoff in here with stats?

Nope. Quick search of the PDF shows Hoff isn't even mentioned.

Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

So the two bonus articles this time are criminal gangs and contests in irorium? Yeah I don't think I can justify buying this book of ap I really want to play spoiler free just for articles x'D

Dark Archive

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Still going through this module, but I am digging the Gangs of New York vibes this portion gives off.


Huge miss for me. I didn’t even want to finish reading it.

I knew going into this AP I would have problems with it, but the first two entries gave me some hope. I don’t want to spoil, but if you have problems with how police are typically depicted in media, this is not the adventure for you.

I don’t want to leave a review, because that wouldn’t be fair to the writer or other customers, but did want to give a heads up to others who might be deciding what and what not to buy.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

That's gotta be one of longest wall of texts I've written in a review.

Anyway, yeah this book does have good things to it, but its overally really really harsh experience :'D

I'm honestly surprised there aren't more reviews. This one really needs to have feedback given about it because it feels like clear example of problems with lack of communication.

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