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Quick read through...
Okay, Called it with stocking up on fire extinguishers. :) Fortunately the characters don't know that they're there, so my Ysoki scholar will merely have the 1 fire extinguisher in his cheekpouch at the ready.
If the PCs as a group make it to the center of the mind maze do they all get the boon or just the ones that made it? Mechanically the best option is to have only your smartest party member Even try this while the rest wait on the sidelines. I don't want to penalize an 8 int vesk's player for helping the party by not trying to help if i don't have to.
Starfinder Society Developer
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Quick read through...
Okay, Called it with stocking up on fire extinguishers. :) Fortunately the characters don't know that they're there, so my Ysoki scholar will merely have the 1 fire extinguisher in his cheekpouch at the ready.
If the PCs as a group make it to the center of the mind maze do they all get the boon or just the ones that made it? Mechanically the best option is to have only your smartest party member Even try this while the rest wait on the sidelines. I don't want to penalize an 8 int vesk's player for helping the party by not trying to help if i don't have to.
The extinguishers on a Chronicle sheet HAD to pay off ;)
And yes, as long as one PC gets to the center of the maze, all the PCs earn the appropriate boon.
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So, I'm prepping to run this in about a week. Reading through this . . . I have a question. There seems to be no good way for most characters to get from the control room to the room below to fight the Hellknights. Is this right? I mean, there's the little hole that requires a decently hard acrobatics check to get through, but only if you are a small character. Otherwise, if the PCs want to engage the Hellknights in melee, they have to throw a grenade at their own feet, blow up the floor (further damaging the library they are supposed to be protecting), take 3d6 unavoidable damage (2d6 rubble, +1d6 falling), land prone and destroying the fire-suppression console in the process? Is that right? Seems . . . harsh. On the other hand, if the PCs are good enough, they could just fire freezing jets at the hellknights who have no means of escaping? Can the hellknights below blow up the floor? Are there some stairs to get down? How did the hellknights get down there in the first place?
Edit: Found it in Loomach's tactics, he can blow up the floor, but that still punishes the PCs even if they are on top of things. So even if they are careful and don't blow up the floor and take out the guards super fast, Loomach still blows up the floor, dealing 3d6 unavoidable damage and making all PCs prone from falling unless they have decent thrusters, I guess?
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I played it the other day and what we did was to shoot the window out with a sonic weapon, which triggered the hellknights to throw grenades and blow up the floor, but it's another way out of the room.
That’s actually pretty clever, but not presented as an option (no rules for the HP of glass, etc) in the scenario.
Still, pretty creative.
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That’s actually pretty clever, but not presented as an option (no rules for the HP of glass, etc) in the scenario.
Still, pretty creative.
I was the GM of this particular table I consider this to fall under the following guidance from the guide,
"Additionally, the GM may consider utilizing terrain and environmental conditions when those effects have been written into the flavor of a scenario but the mechanics that are normally associated with them by the Starfinder Core Rulebook have not been added to the encounters."
The glass has been written into the scenario therefore I consider it to be a piece of terrain. The general rules for glass walls are written on page 408. I adjudicated that the 9 points of damage was enough to break a square of glass as I ruled the glass was not more than 8 inches thick (the amount of glass that would be broken by 9 points of damage based on 1 point of hardness.)
I also considered this under the creative solution section of the guide,
"Sometimes during the course of a scenario, your players might surprise you with a creative solution to an encounter (or the entire scenario) that you didn’t see coming and that isn’t expressly covered in the scenario." While this is generally applicable with regard to rewards, I think it equally applies when talking about problem solving generally.
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That’s actually pretty clever, but not presented as an option (no rules for the HP of glass, etc) in the scenario.
Still, pretty creative.
I was the GM of this particular table I consider this to fall under the following guidance from the guide,
"Additionally, the GM may consider utilizing terrain and environmental conditions when those effects have been written into the flavor of a scenario but the mechanics that are normally associated with them by the Starfinder Core Rulebook have not been added to the encounters."
The glass has been written into the scenario therefore I consider it to be a piece of terrain. The general rules for glass walls are written on page 408. I adjudicated that the 9 points of damage was enough to break a square of glass as I ruled the glass was not more than 8 inches thick (the amount of glass that would be broken by 9 points of damage based on 1 point of hardness.)
I also considered this under the creative solution section of the guide,
"Sometimes during the course of a scenario, your players might surprise you with a creative solution to an encounter (or the entire scenario) that you didn’t see coming and that isn’t expressly covered in the scenario." While this is generally applicable with regard to rewards, I think it equally applies when talking about problem solving generally.
No, I totally get that, and would have done the same were I in your situation, I was just saying, if the writer had intended that to be the solution, I think they would have included it in the scenario. I was just wondering if there is something I missed. As a player and as a GM I hate pulling tactics where I just say “Take X damage, no there is no way to avoid or mitigate this.” So I Just was wondering if there was an intended way to get down that doesn’t involve 3d6 damage and falling prone. Shooting the glass is something I hadn’t considered.
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Venture-Agent, Online—VTT
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So, after the vision in the mindmaze, Roy mentions a relic that caught the previous First Seeker's attention and started the whole Scoured Stars expedition. Most players I have had would immediately ask what kind of relic it was.
Is there some answer in another book that I missed? Because having some brief description to answer the question that I know people will ask that is central to the season plot would be nice.
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I find it interesting the SFS would be willing to work with the Curators, given the latter's penchant for actively seeking out and destroying knowledge in order to keep what they have "unique." It seems like they would have clashed in the past. Perhaps there's an untold tale there for a future scenario.
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How do you guys interpret the general Starfinder rule about resting for 10 minutes (and spending a point of resolve) to recover stamina? This scenario seems to indicate that as the PCs rush from one tower to another to confront the Hellknights that because the journey takes 10 minutes it can count as "resting." This would make sense to me if they were in a vehicle of some kind, but they're on foot. I wonder if I've been interpreting "resting" too strictly and should generally allow PCs to get back stamina while walking from one place to another? Or do you think this should be treated as a special exception limited specifically to the scenario?
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TOWERS OF RECONDITE LORE
The shuttle whisks the PCs across the surface of Athaeum for
roughly 15 minutes before stopping at the feet of the Towers of
Recondite Lore.
The tower of the oma is one of them. So the PCs are 15 minutes away by a shuttle thats in no hurry to get them there. Either the hellknights just happened to move into the tower next door on an entire library planet, or when they say 10 minutes they mean 10 minutes by shuttle thats racing to a fire.
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I interpreted the shuttles as travelling only along the surface (it says on stone rails). There are only walkways (bridges) that connect upper levels of towers to each other, and that's what the PCs are taking to get from one tower to another.
The Tower of the Oma (where the PCs start) and the Tower of the Ellicoth (where the Hellknights are) are both parts of the Towers of Recondite Lore (because all towers in that area are named after magical beasts). So it makes sense they wouldn't be too far away from each other.
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TOWERS OF RECONDITE LORE
The shuttle whisks the PCs across the surface of Athaeum for
roughly 15 minutes before stopping at the feet of the Towers of
Recondite Lore.The tower of the oma is one of them. So the PCs are 15 minutes away by a shuttle thats in no hurry to get them there. Either the hellknights just happened to move into the tower next door on an entire library planet, or when they say 10 minutes they mean 10 minutes by shuttle thats racing to a fire.
The Towers of Recondite Lore - There are nearly two dozen towers in all, each named after a different magical beast and filled with individual vaults of unusual lore.
The Hellknights are in the Tower of the Ellicoth which based on the structure of the scenario is one of the aforementioned Towers of Recondite Lore.
Also "The Tower of the Ellicoth is roughly 10 minutes away from the Tower of the Oma via the connecting bridge"
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There are no trams discussed in the scenario. Only 1) stone shuttles on stone rails that take the PCs to the Towers of Recondite Lore and 2) the bridges that connect one tower to another.
Anyway, that's not really the point. Assume, just for the sake of argument, that we are talking about walking. Is that normally enough of a rest to allow recovery of stamina?
Venture-Captain, Tennessee—Murfreesboro
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I ran this over the weekend and had a few questions that came up.
(1) I had an Operative who "hacked" the Lore Wardens (he has a base +20 to Computers and rolled really well) to get root access and shut one down. Afterwards it occurred to me that these are not really computers, they are constructs. However, I can't find anything in the rule-book either way to say whether technological constructs can be hacked. Thoughts?
(2) Same player took several shots through the glass in the control room. His basis (and I didn't have time to look it up at the time) was that lasers "can pass through glass or other transparent barriers." I have since read more about lasers and the rule-book says, "These beams can pass through glass and other transparent physical barriers, dealing damage to such barriers as they pass through." My take on it is that yes, the laser passes through but it is going to affect the glass first (hit points minus hardness) then possibly hit the target. I also see that glass has a hardness of 1 and 1 hit point. Should the 2 points come off damage before the damage to the target? Does this shatter the glass or simply create a small hole?
(3) As mentioned above, the Hellknights are "10 minutes away" via a connecting bridge but the scenario specifically says, "which allows the PCs some time to prepare on their way to confront the Hellknights and to take a rest to recover Stamina Points if they need it." However to recover Stamina Points from a 10 minute rest requires actually resting - or is this special to the scenario?
Otherwise, the group enjoyed the scenario. I thought some of the DCs were low, especially the DC 10 Int check for the mind maze. The PCs who decided to go in had a base of +7 or more (one had a base over +10 so couldn't fail.) That to me should have been more challenging but whatever.
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Otherwise, the group enjoyed the scenario. I thought some of the DCs were low, especially the DC 10 Int check for the mind maze. The PCs who decided to go in had a base of +7 or more (one had a base over +10 so couldn't fail.) That to me should have been more challenging but whatever.
I think the DC is low because it is a pure Int test, not a skill test. Not many bonuses apply to that.
I'm not sure how your PCs got base Int bonuses of +10 or +7, because that's Intelligence 30 and 24, both of which are impossible for a 6th level character.
Or are you talking after some scenario-specific bonuses they had those scores?
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Venture-Captain, Tennessee—Murfreesboro
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Otherwise, the group enjoyed the scenario. I thought some of the DCs were low, especially the DC 10 Int check for the mind maze. The PCs who decided to go in had a base of +7 or more (one had a base over +10 so couldn't fail.) That to me should have been more challenging but whatever.I think the DC is low because it is a pure Int test, not a skill test. Not many bonuses apply to that.
I'm not sure how your PCs got base Int bonuses of +10 or +7, because that's Intelligence 30 and 24, both of which are impossible for a 6th level character.
Or are you talking after some scenario-specific bonuses they had those scores?
I had one player who had an Int of 20 (18 plus synaptic accelerator +2) and had the Royo boon for a +2 insight bonus - so base +7. on top of that, add "aid another" from 2 other PCs outside of the maze and you get auto-success (+9 to the roll before you touch the die.)
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Venture-Captain, Netherlands
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Also, the outer hallway description, section B1, really sounds like the double doors to the control room were supposed to be connected to the same surrounding hallway as the stairs down into the library. I'm actually wondering if the map was drawn wrong.
I ruled it this way too.
The text in the scenario indicates that this was the way it should be. I think that the map was never updated accordingly.|
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The hellknights ifrit class flamethrower has the blast mechanic that incorporates a -2 modifier to hit. Is that already incorporated into their stats? It is difficult to tell.
This is the reason I intensely dislike Starfinder's NPC and creature generation. It can be impossible to determine whether they are built right, or whether there a lurking typo that will kill a PC or two.
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The hellknights ifrit class flamethrower has the blast mechanic that incorporates a -2 modifier to hit. Is that already incorporated into their stats? It is difficult to tell.This is the reason I intensely dislike Starfinder's NPC and creature generation. It can be impossible to determine whether they are built right, or whether there a lurking typo that will kill a PC or two.
I'm prepping to run this, and just noticed that as well. Plus, they have the brutal blast gear boost that should be increasing their damage by 2...I wonder if it was maybe added in as a bonus to attack or something instead. Also, their ACs are too low. Armiger Hellknight Plate is +4/+5 with a max Dex of 2, so they should be EAC 16 KAC 17. I have no idea how 14/16 was determined.
With nothing posted as far as I'm aware related to the Area B map, I'm probably going to follow Hammerjack and Tineke's suggestions.
Thanks, everyone, for posting what you did here - it's making my prep a lot easier!
Necromancing because I've reached this adventure in my home game. I have comments!
1. I'm left wishing we knew a bit more about the modern Hellknights. Why? Because this scenario features the Order of the Pyre, which, according to Starfinder materials, is no longer listed among the major Orders. Instead, the new Order of the Furnace seems to have taken their place. Unfortunately, we don't know anything about the Order of the Furnace beyond the class abilities they receive from the Star Knight archetype.
Which leaves me wondering: What distinguishes the Order of the Furnace from the Order of the Pyre? Does the Order of the Furnace have different goals than the cult-hunting Order of the Pyre? (Or, as a tiny voice in the back of my head keeps asking, should the Order of the Pyre presented here have just been folded into the Order of the Furnace?)
2. My PCs really enjoyed Iteration-177's dinner party and interacting with the Hellknight officers. Since it looks like the Starfinder Society will be returning to Athaeum under the leadership of its new First Seeker in future seasons, here's hoping Paralictor Kelria returns for a level 10-12-tier showdown.