| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Have the [redacted for spoiler] float off into space and picked up by another group, so it gets reintroduced into the story for the later books.
Um... how?
Neither the Hippocampus or Surnrise Maiden are equipped with explosives, and I doubt you could blow up the Drift Rock with lasers.
Raised that very question in the other thread they started.
It's in the Deads Suns forums, rather than General.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's actually fine. The module won't really be affected.
If both are still in the drift rock when the PCs destroy it, then 1) it's easy enough to grant them a new ship as a reward. Perhaps the corporation they aligned with gives it to them as thanks for ensuring the other group doesn't get it. Or perhaps the Starfinder Society grants them one for a job well done.
And 2) It's easy enough to have the computer talking about the Stellar Degenerator not get destroyed, but rather flies out into space, where it's picked up by another group. The knowledge is then disseminated via rumors around Absolom Station, and then the Starfinder Society sends the PCs to learn more, leading them into Book 2.
So yes, the module can handle the drift rock being blown up just fine.
You could theoretically just ablate the entire thing, but depending on the rock, it might take a few hours and/or the plasma cloud makes it difficult to get anywhere after a certain point/ causes the rock to accelerate away from the ship.Um... how?
Neither the Hippocampus or Surnrise Maiden are equipped with explosives, and I doubt you could blow up the Drift Rock with lasers.
How would you theoretically stop Absalom Station security from intervening given that it's under quarantine?
Station security throws the PCs in prison indefinitely, the corporation arranges for them to serve as slave labor the rest of their lives to pay off their debt for the destruction of the property at dispute. Roll new characters hired by the Starfinder Society to follow up on the info the PCs recovered.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's not fine, they blew up a valuable piece of property under litigation and subject to quarantine and protection by Absalom Security. They also did it as agents of the Eox ambassador, hurting his credibility. They go to prison, and after serving their sentences enter indentured servitude for the rest of their lives to pay off the debt they owe the successful claimant on the property they destroyed. But since they'll never do that Eox or the corporation probably has them killed as an object lesson. Roll new, hopefully smarter PCs. Or they escape in their ship, flee the Pact Worlds, and can never reappear there in their real identities. Create a new custom campaign.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's not fine, they blew up a valuable piece of property under litigation and subject to quarantine and protection by Absalom Security. They also did it as agents of the Eox ambassador, hurting his credibility. They go to prison, and after serving their sentences enter indentured servitude for the rest of their lives to pay off the debt they owe the successful claimant on the property they destroyed. But since they'll never do that Eox or the corporation probably has them killed as an object lesson. Roll new, hopefully smarter PCs. Or they escape in their ship, flee the Pact Worlds, and can never reappear there in their real identities. Create a new custom campaign.
Also a very reasonable idea. One I like much more than just handwaving away the problems.
The SFS* can even send them off, claiming they've been sent to a prison planet (but in reality are sent on a mission - Book 2), while the political infighting continues to happen at Absolom Station. They'll never be allowed back at Absolom Station until this is all cleared up and the SFS finds a way to make them justified in their actions (such as finding and destroying the Plot Piece for the campaign.
*Depending on how the laws are in your game, this may or may not be reasonable. The SFS could claim them as their own and as such they have the right to issue punishment, or the Absolom security could claim it. Yet another contentious piece of the campaign!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Something to consider: the Drift Rock was at one point a...
Would it even be possible for the PC starship weapons to destroy something like that?
Did you take into account that the Drift Rock is...
... and thus probably resistant to PC starship weapons?
I mean, they KNEW they were hired to help determine rightful ownership of a particular object. They KNEW that this was a legal dispute between a major corporation and a major mining collective. They knew a primary ambassador from a Pact World was involved, and they KNEW they were being filmed by a drone.
If the PCs were absolutely determined to completely derail the entire adventure and do something which would be obviously, explicitly a BAD IDEA:
I would ask them why they don't want to play in the adventure path. I don't see this as any different than deciding that they aren't going to join the Starfinder Society, or they aren't going to take the mission, or they aren't going to work for the ambassador.*
I would decide if you want to run another adventure for them, or if you'd like to run the AP for another group.
I'd also ask them to let you know in advance if they are unwilling to work with you on a particular story line in the future, so you don't waste money and time prepping an AP that they aren't going to use.
It's a WHOLE FREAKING GALAXY. Theoretically, the PCs can go ANYWHERE and they don't have to stay together when they do it. There's gotta be a basic assumption that the group agrees to tell some sort of story where the GM can prep for it and the group can play together. That's not railroading.
I can't think of a single Pathfinder Adventure path where the PCs couldn't just decide to do something objectively stupid and awful and screw the whole thing up from encounter one. If a group decides to do something that has already been established as NOT A GOOD OPTION, they must have some reason for it.
That was my thought the ships you have any access to don't really have the power to really blow up the rock and what damage they could do would take a really long time. I doubt they would have been given the time to do any major damage.
|
That was my thought the ships you have any access to don't really have the power to really blow up the rock and what damage they could do would take a really long time. I doubt they would have been given the time to do any major damage.
Except that they did. Whether or not they should have even been able to is now out of the question because the GM already ruled it happened.
So there are a lot of things you can do with this, and I don't think at this point the AP is unsalvageable.
The first thing I would do is shift every Astral Extractions attitude to hostile for future encounters (pg 140). I would probably set the DC modifier to +20, +15, ... etc. unless the PCs do something specific to get them into the good graces of Astral Extractions.
You might also consider shifting everyone else's attitude (whomever may be involved with the situation) one left to represent how the action, no matter how well-meaning, is not received well. I hate to bring politics into it, but consider how polarizing the NFL players kneeling during the anthem has become. Your group is now the players, and they're going to find out they are now infamous. Returning to station can be real uncomfortable, and may come with repercussions, especially from Nox.
I have no direct idea, but from what I've gleaned from the boards here, the game is about to take a significant shift. With the drift rock gone, NPCs will want to interrogate the players for any information as opposed to gain access to the rock, so it is entirely feasible that the AP continues on as laid out.
GM to GM advice: Sometimes you have to say "No, you can't do that", especially in a published AP that you haven't seen the whole of. Case in point: Duravor Kreel. In order for the story to move forward, his death has to happen. It's easy enough to justify that ships' weapons don't have any apparent affect on the drift rock. It's survived this long without any meteor damage? Something must be up regarding its construction.
Each table to its own.
My group also has a goblin pit crew; they found their zaniness adorable and kept one of them as crew (the other got killed during the adventure).
Forget the asteroid. How have the Goblins not blown up the PCs ship?
The first thing they'd do is destroy all of the labels on button (reading is bad) and then open up the drift core and use it to set everything on fire. Maybe the step between labels and drift core is "eat PCs."
As to the issue you asked about. Yeah, the PCs' careers in the Golarian system are over. I could see Eox offering to turn the PCs undead and have them Sovereign Glue the station back together.
Also they have a pit crew of goblins helping run the ship... Its basically the team of cowboy bebop + goblins.
The first thing they'd do is destroy all of the labels on button (reading is bad) and then open up the drift core and use it to set everything on fire.
Do space goblins still have a problem with reading?
If something is so dangerous that blowing it up is both the best option and an avialble option, I don't see why the pc's wouldn't do it.
Hell, even if there were legal ramifications, I can see some pc's blowing it up for the greater good and then running or offing themselves to avoid punishment.
I don't think destroying the big dangerous thing even though it's against the law is an unreasonable decision to expect.
Chaotic good is an alignment that exists.
And if the goventment is so horrible that it provides grotesque punishments like becoming undead or indentured surviture as a response to a ship trying to eliminate a huge threat, then I don't think the players that would blow up said planet would be encoraged to play a diffrent way, but instead to rebel against said government.
---------
That said, it seems odd that players would have such a tool, but I don't play starfinder anyway, so what do I know?
|
It's not fine, they blew up a valuable piece of property under litigation and subject to quarantine and protection by Absalom Security. They also did it as agents of the Eox ambassador, hurting his credibility. They go to prison, and after serving their sentences enter indentured servitude for the rest of their lives to pay off the debt they owe the successful claimant on the property they destroyed. But since they'll never do that Eox or the corporation probably has them killed as an object lesson. Roll new, hopefully smarter PCs. Or they escape in their ship, flee the Pact Worlds, and can never reappear there in their real identities. Create a new custom campaign.
this seems to be an overly harsh response to the players actions, no reason to essentially tpk a party over it.
besides they did nothing that numerous sci fi and action heroes would not have done :)
|
|
People are forgetting that by the time the players get off, the thing is no longer infested nor dangerous. It's just another empty rock in space.
There job was investigate and secure, not destroy.
Also, this is a huge chunk of rock. It's not going to be destroyed by the little pew pew guns of the players level 3 ship. By the time they've started doing surface damage, the station and surrounding fleet would detect it and intercept.
This isn't just bad decision making on the players part, this is a pretty poor call on the DMs part. However, it's his call and his campaign.
As pointed out already, it makes no difference to the campaign in the long term from what I've read. But the corporations are going to be extremely angered by this.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Did you take into account that the Drift Rock is...
** spoiler omitted **
... and thus probably resistant to PC starship weapons?
Also if you look at most of the bigger ship frames they start getting basically damage resistance so you have to do more than X damage in a shot to hurt them. Given the origin of the drift rock I am pretty dubious the first shuttle you are given access to or the other ship option in it are capable of doing any actual damage to the important part of it.
Even if it is capable of harming it you are going to need to sit their wailing on it for a good long time giving plenty of time for the local authorities to weigh in on the matter.
If the GM already okay'ed it than it is what it is but it still kinda puzzles me that they did not just ask hey do you have access to capital ship weapons? If not then sure you can shoot it as long as you like but all you are going to accomplish is vandalism of the surface of it.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This isn't just bad decision making on the players part, this is a pretty poor call on the DMs part. However, it's his call and his campaign.
I'm going to disagree on this.
It's poor decision-making from your point of view. From the other players it made perfect sense and I could probably (it's too early and pre-coffee to be making guarantees - lol!) justify it under most of the good and neutral alignment spectrums.
- Corporations are hiring gang members to assassinate people. Innocents are getting caught in the crossfire.
- There is going to be no clear winner in the outcome, and will have repercussions for years.
- That this much of the drift rock was investigated and cleared is good, but we can't take clean scans of the rock to verify there are no other chambers. Abberations and drift beings in the normal universe are terrifying; especially ones that like to dissect us and make 'macaroni art' out of our intestines. What happens if one of those get on station?
This isn't just bad decision making on the players part, this is a pretty poor call on the DMs part. However, it's his call and his campaign.I'm going to disagree on this.
It's poor decision-making from your point of view. From the other players it made perfect sense and I could probably (it's too early and pre-coffee to be making guarantees - lol!) justify it under most of the good and neutral alignment spectrums.
- Corporations are hiring gang members to assassinate people. Innocents are getting caught in the crossfire.
- There is going to be no clear winner in the outcome, and will have repercussions for years.
- That this much of the drift rock was investigated and cleared is good, but we can't take clean scans of the rock to verify there are no other chambers. Abberations and drift beings in the normal universe are terrifying; especially ones that like to dissect us and make 'macaroni art' out of our intestines. What happens if one of those get on station?
"I found some dead bodies and live goblins and ghosts from other explorers. Fearing that unknown chambers might harbor other life and there was a chance such life wasn't a fully protected citizen of the Pact Worlds who I'd be murdering, I blew up billions of credits of property that wasn't mine because I think third level dudes with a weak salvage ship are the best decision makers and last line of defense when parked next to the best defended and most sophisticated center of government in the entire galaxy. When do we get our heroic parade?"
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Seems unrealistic. I wouldn't have let the players do this at the GM. Shooting at it your tiny shuttle wouldn't work, and the players are too poor to afford massive bombs.
Whether or not you would allow this in your game is rather moot. Easy to say you would do it differently and means little to the OP. Does it affect the grand scheme of things? Only if it was an important piece of the device. Otherwise it is probably not going to affect much. Should there be repercussions? Absolutely. Many have been suggested. At minimum I would thin it may make things more difficult later on with the enemies they make wrecking other people's property.
|
After release of book 2, I'm starting to think this AP does need that player's guide. I mean this thread and book 2 confirms what I assumed: AP assumes players will be starfinders aka ACTUAL archaeologists. The second book starts with joke about recurring mention to wannabe glory seeker archaeologist's whose style was more "blow shit up" and I'm pretty sure blood thirsty mercenaries wouldn't be let inside university let alone be asked to make professor say they are sorry for their insensitive lectures <_<
(that being said, bit confused if drift rock can even be blown up, I mean its basically piece of mysterious ancient artifact sooo uh, I think it needs bit more to blow up than space ship?)
Also, you are lucky they at least decided to destroy it after the whole dungeon right? Because otherwise the part 2 of ap is completely derailed because the live camera feed is why cult of devourer and corpse fleet start to search for the superweaon.(which means, yes, this ap is incredibly easy to derail if players don't trust ambassador and destroy the camera early on)
|
|
"I found some dead bodies and live goblins and ghosts from other explorers. Fearing that unknown chambers might harbor other life and there was a chance such life wasn't a fully protected citizen of the Pact Worlds who I'd be murdering, I blew up billions of credits of property that wasn't mine because I think third level dudes with a weak salvage ship are the best decision makers and last line of defense when parked next to the best defended and most sophisticated center of government in the entire galaxy. When do we get our heroic parade?"
"We found at least two dangerously harmful alien species on a rock that can't be fully scanned and we have no idea if there are more chambers hidden within and more of these abberations; one can phase shift through material and consume life essence, the other reproduces through its bite. If either species were to get on station, the death toll could be immense. The only logical thing to do, no matter the cost to us, is to destroy that rock."
A good GM doesn't force their point of view on the players. They act impartially, critically thinking about what the characters want to do, and using the repercussions of that action to influence future games. What the players did in this instance is the core of survivalist science fiction, with people taking a stand for the greater good no matter the personal cost.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
"I found some dead bodies and live goblins and ghosts from other explorers. Fearing that unknown chambers might harbor other life and there was a chance such life wasn't a fully protected citizen of the Pact Worlds who I'd be murdering, I blew up billions of credits of property that wasn't mine because I think third level dudes with a weak salvage ship are the best decision makers and last line of defense when parked next to the best defended and most sophisticated center of government in the entire galaxy. When do we get our heroic parade?""We found at least two dangerously harmful alien species on a rock that can't be fully scanned and we have no idea if there are more chambers hidden within and more of these abberations; one can phase shift through material and consume life essence, the other reproduces through its bite. If either species were to get on station, the death toll could be immense. The only logical thing to do, no matter the cost to us, is to destroy that rock."
A good GM doesn't force their point of view on the players. They act impartially, critically thinking about what the characters want to do, and using the repercussions of that action to influence future games. What the players did in this instance is the core of survivalist science fiction, with people taking a stand for the greater good no matter the personal cost.
That argument kinda doesn't hold up since none of those creatures are unique nor contained solely on the Drift Rock, which at the time is currently floating out in space. Just retreating and telling the Station about what was on it and they would just leave it in Quarantine, not bring it in.
This was an extreme over reaction, which in game is not really possible but which the GM handwaved as being possible.
|
|
The point isn't whether or not the argument holds up when armchair-quarterbacked.
The point is whether or not it made sense to the characters/players while they were in the moment. My stance isn't 'Is it a good decision?', but rather 'I can see how they came to that conclusion'.
From the other players it made perfect sense and I could probably (it's too early and pre-coffee to be making guarantees - lol!) justify it under most of the good and neutral alignment spectrums.
Again, repercussions, but I can defend how the players came to the conclusions they came to.
The point isn't whether or not the argument holds up when armchair-quarterbacked.
The point is whether or not it made sense to the characters/players while they were in the moment. My stance isn't 'Is it a good decision?', but rather 'I can see how they came to that conclusion'.
From the other players it made perfect sense and I could probably (it's too early and pre-coffee to be making guarantees - lol!) justify it under most of the good and neutral alignment spectrums.Again, repercussions, but I can defend how the players came to the conclusions they came to.
Unless they are preadolescents or wholly unaware of the setting and that Absalom Station has a population of more than 500, there is no way to defend this. No reasonable person could think this constituted a threat to the station (an attack by a planet's worth of high tech powerful liches with an armada didn't constitute a threat to the station) even if the rock was tied up to it, which it wasn't. It's in quarantine. Well armed ships are in the vicinity to stop anyone from boarding, leaving, or moving the rock without authorization. The Stewars can probably scrape together a dozen 10+ level guys for a strike team by looking under the couch cushions in their break room. This was a laughable course of action for low level nobodies next to the best defended site in the galaxy to make.
Also, you are lucky they at least decided to destroy it after the whole dungeon right? Because otherwise the part 2 of ap is completely derailed because the live camera feed is why cult of devourer and corpse fleet start to search for the superweaon.(which means, yes, this ap is incredibly easy to derail if players don't trust ambassador and destroy the camera early on)
One, yeah, you are assumed to be prospective Starfinders. That's the conceit which brought the party to the station and into Kreel's orbit in the first place.
Two, you are correct, kind of. The adventure texts states that even if your party finds and destroys the camera, the ambassador is somehow able to still electronically observe them and broadcast those observations to the station. According to the text, no matter how clever, careful, or paranoid the players are, those broadcasts still happen.
I admit, I hadn't thought of blowing up the rock prior to them even landing on it as a work around.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
What the players did in this instance is the core of survivalist science fiction, with people taking a stand for the greater good no matter the personal cost.
I agree with that.
However, they now have to face the personal cost. They blew up the only remnant of a millions of years old civilization, while working for an archeology organization. I doubt the Starfinders are happy. Astral extractions lost a valuable property, won't be happy too. The hard scribble miners lost the Acreon, and with it, any chance to pay the widows of the dead crew. And the Eox Ambassador lost credibility because the group he sent to solve a legal dispute blew up the issue.
None of those groups will cheer them.
It is totally cool that they did what they felt right, even at great personal cost. Now it is time to pay that cost