Minireview: Pathfinder #21, The Jackal's Price
The Jackal’s Price (by Darrin Drader) forms the midpoint of the Legacy of Fire adventure path. Like the previous parts, it’s good and fairly lighthearted Arabian Nights -flavored fun. In this installment, the PCs have (presumably) retrieved something from the House of the Beast and need to figure out what it is. Unfortunately the closest option for that is the largish trade city of Katapesh, where free commerce is king (shades of Exalted’s “Nexus” here). So off the PCs go. The travel there isn’t totally trivial and provides some options for encounters…. it might be good if these were used to foreshadow some of the parties involved here, otherwise some of the antagonists and events might seem to come out of nowhere to the players.
Once in Katapesh, it’s presumed that they meet up with a specific scholar, and ideally become allies & house guests. Surprise surprise, many parties are interested in what the PCs have – but it’s assumed that the PCs are willing to sell it, for a high price (this seems like a reasonable guess, knowing most players). Various events happen which I don’t want to spoil here, and in the end the whole thing takes a quite unexpected turn (which leads directly to the next adventure in the series).
A nice, mostly city-based adventure, with lots of options for social scheming and intrigue. Some of the events need heavy foreshadowing by the GM, ideally from the very start of the adventure path, otherwise they’ll risk seeming quite arbitrary to the players. Also, the end is somewhat railroady; it’s assumed that a certain specific trigger event occurs. To the the module’s credit it does talk briefly about “plan B” scenarios if the PCs resolutely make that event impossible – mainly, that involves jumping directly to a later part of the adventure path, with some in-between adventures inserted. Doable but not ideal, since the thing that the trigger event leads up to is really quite cool, so both the GM and players probably want it to happen (the PCs, not that much).
Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:08 Posted in Books, Games
Tags dungeons and dragons, legacy of fire, paizo, pathfinder
