[SFS/Shifty]#1-05 The First Mandate (Inactive)

Game Master Nik B.

OOC thread here :)

Hey Shifty! Thanks again for running this! I am excited to see this. Medrick has finished 2 adventures so far but the second is waiting on the chronicle (it finished about 2 weeks ago) so I get the chronicle before you start, I'll update, but otherwise, I'll just play a chronicle sheet down.

That being said, what pregame info do you want from us?

Jump over int the maps and handouts and fill in the relevant info on slide 2 :p

Checking in. Thanks for running this, Shifty!

Agreed. Thanks for running this. Much appreciated. It will be good to finally get some SFS game time instead of just GM'ing.

Taking 10 on day job.

Dealing with flooding all day yesterday and not looking promising today. Will post as soon as I can. Sorry if I hold us up. I would say bot me, but this isn't the easiest to bot. Sorry again.

Coming along nicely guys!

I'm traveling internationally tomorrow. I will likely be out of pocket until Friday. Feel free to bot Jaxon. Though, I don't feel like he's the most useful in this situation.

Cheers, I appreciate the notice! :)

Hello! Sorry for the lack of posts! I laid up with a cold for the past two days and have wanted to do almost nothing but sleep.

So where do people think Markar's Athletics, Acrobatics, Survival, and Culture would be useful?

Markar, my guess would be that Royo or Zo! would be interested in Culture of some kind. Royo's support may be out of reach after last round's fiasco with Tamon and Medrick, so maybe focus on locking down Zo!'s support?

Jaxon, it looks like Naiaj and Zo! may be almost there. Maybe focus on Iteration-177?

Ceolor might have just locked up Zo! hopefully.

Ha! Just noticed my last post was with my main forum name instead of my character alias.

Still getting used to these forums so it’s probsbly not going to be the last time it happens.

@Woodenman, you may want to look into Paizo Campaign Tools for Firefox or Chrome.

Among other nifty benefits, it auto-populates your character for each different campaign you're in and makes the My Campaigns page much easier to read.

I don't know why Paizo hasn't just incorporated them in to the main codeline already. Highly recommended.

No clue that was a thing... but I need to look into it!

Late work night tonight, then this Friday I will be heading off to a con for the weekend until Sunday, will be sketchy ability to post during that time :P

Fixit is probably best to stay away from Royo as he is a Dataphile.

He can tell some stories but he probably needs to do an aid another as he doesn't have the skills to do much else in this situation.

Im hoping that Ceolor will have another go with Iteration so I can help.

I will be away for work between friday noon - sunday night.

During this period I will only have occasional net access assuming I can access my phone, and assuming we get some sort of signal. I don't get much/any spare time in these happy jaunts, but will keep an eye on this thread as I can... even if via a phone, which is never ideal.

Normally I would have Fixit have everyone prepare for potential combat (including himself) before pushing the "final button" to open the door. Please consider this the norm for any future door opening occurances. If need be, you can bot Fixit through the same T20 Perc, T10 Disable, T10 Open checks as well.

Then he could have taken a shot before retreating.

But seeing as Ive not mentioned it previously, I'll go with the posted move.

I can offer support from my security agents, the Obsidian Spiders. This will allow you to focus on confronting the assassin while the Obsidian Spiders handle the explosives.

I don't want to meta-game, but here it seems like this is a reasonable suggestion for our Starfinders to accept. But if it's going to result in a missed boon or Fame not gained or similar cost, then I think most of us will want to find the explosives ourselves for maximum character benefit.

Unless our intrepid GM wishes to provide guidance on this (and there's no reason this would be necessary or possibly even allowed), I would suggest we take the safe route and find the bombs ourselves.

Yes, I hear the irony in that last sentence. :-)

Unfortunately, I can't reveal the bonus (or lack of) - so it is up to you how you want to run with it.

'Safe' isn't a word I'd necessarily use though... risk/reward.

That sounds like a “do it yourselves” to me :P

What does disarming explosives come under? Engineering I assume? Fixit is happy to take on that side of things.

Maybe someone could wing it with Physical Science?

Explosives are normally dealt with via the Engineering skill.

Seems like the spiders are there for parties that don't have anyone with engineering.

Can we ask to try and deal with both but have the spiders on standby in case we can't disarm the bombs?

Up to you guys which way you want to go :)

Quick question, could Ceolor spend the RP and get his stamina back? It'd be nice not having only 8 hp.

Sure, you have time in the taxi

Just checking to ask if we are on schedule to finish before Outpost?

We are, this is the final scene.

Since this is my 701 and his first scenario, I don’t suppose you could quickly issue me a “Welcome to Starfinder” boon? *he asks nicely as he watches the sky and whistles*

Do you REALLY want to come to and look alive at the feet of the knife-wielding crazy lady set on escaping?

Ok I can see you are in a bind.

Realistically you have quite a nasty assassin (Operative) cornered as she tried to escape, and unfortunately it’s a case of holding a tiger by the tail. Medrick could withdraw, or he could chance a low roll from her.

From a broader perspective, you struggled in the social encounter, but did rally quite well.

From a combat perspective you guys wrecked the electrovores in moments, and that played into your strengths.

Where it has gotten harder is you chose the high risk/ high reward approach - however the risk materialised and the bombs went, so that has happened but Luwazi is still alive, you guys all went after the assassin anyhow but are now feeding into her like a conga-line which is perfect for her but bad for you.

I totally missed withdraw when I went to look for it. Don't know since it is right there. All I found was guarded step and that wouldn't help me here. Am I allowed to change my action to a withdraw action? I understand if it is no, it will just be what I do with my next round, if I get one.

But regardless, he to hit is extremely high, if my understanding of operatives is correct, she can only fail her bluff check by rolling a 1 or 2, and the damage is enough to almost enough to drop a character who is built to be a tank in a single hit and dropped another character in a single hit. I am not sure there is a situation that she is not going to best a level one group in unless RNG is very merciful. Just seems like a very powerful enemy for a level one adventure. I just hope we can survive so we can be better prepared for future scenarios.

I appreciate you running this adventure since so many of us requested it and I think you have done an excellent job. Just surprised on how punishing this system is to new/low level characters.

Yeah I've been quite surprised as well. Like have the assassin information hidden behind a DC25 Computers check. And some of it was hidden behind 2x DC 25 checks. That's tough for first level characters.

A fully decked out Computers check at level one is +13 so such a character still needs a 12 or better.

I'm fully aware of the our conga line approach and how unideal it is. There is not much we can do about it. If we had all come across her together she may have put us down one by one but while that was happening the rest of the party could have been shooting back. In this case that's not happening because we are spread so far apart.

Fixit's out of the fight for good now as spending RP to get back up & into the action will likely get him outright killed due to massive damage.

In an ideal world, the party was to deal with the bombs (directly or via the Spiders) and locate/confront her.

A planned confrontation against a whole party would be difficult for her to overcome, and her main motivation is escape, not be committed to an engagement. She is a serious foe, for sure, and 2nd levels would have a better time of it.

If I can break the wall on you for a minute, the main condition was keeping Luwazi alive, secondary is about preventing an incident and winning over guests. Chasing the fouled assassin is your own initiative...

Ohh, I would not of guessed that this fight wasn't something necessary. Very interesting adventure but I think the level of difficulty is pretty hash and takes away from the potential to be a super fun scenario. I would understand if it was a higher tier but this is pretty brutal. I appreciate you explaining this. After the adventure, would you mind explaining what was expected of us to stop the bombs? because that part is what confused me the most. But yeah, thank you for running this and explaining things.

Yeah, I would also be interested in hearing what we were supposed to do.

I'll give you a backbrief on the 'ideal' pathway in the post-activity hotwash.

I guess (as a group) I'm happy for us to make a call as to whether you are keen on bringing her down still, or whether a 'tactical withdrawal' is the party decision, as it is she's only taken relatively minor damage.

Fight on, or let her escape?

At this point, assuming we can get Fixit out safely, I'd say let her go. She'd be pretty dangerous if she decided to come after us.

If our primary mission is just to save Luwazi then I guess I’m happy.

If she came after us (ie left the elevator), I think we would have any easier time of it as you would all have access to shoot at her at once. Plus have potential backup from the other guards etc. Though given her actions so far, I think it’s extremely unlikely to happen.

If she has taken 18 damage and that is realtivly minor injuries, I say we need to get out of there else we all will be rolling new characters.

Yeah, I was hoping my last magic missiles would take her down. If she's still relatively healthy then we're looking at a TPK pretty easily.

By the end of that last round you got her down to about half, so I guess she would have been 'tough but achievable' had the encounter been set up differently.

Overall you did all the right things leading up to the finale, the guests were difficult but you got 4 out of 5 across the line, you only missed one by one success.

When it came to the end you had two options - the safer mode including the spiders, or the difficult mode where you go it alone and handle everything, but for a higher payoff.
The key here was the instructions "You’ll need to be subtle in your search for the bombs or keep the assassin distracted so she doesn’t simply detonate them early".

An an ideal world, this is achieved by locating the assassin and having someone distract her (she was back in the sound booth - back room) or having someone get up on stage and start rambling on (Diplo checks or Profession) - if you had enough influence with Zo! he could also be asked to get up on stage and talk up his new show (auto success) - so you were on the right track engaging with him.
To find the explosives with her NOT distracted was a combination of Bluff or Stealth AND a Perception check. Once the first explosives are disarmed, there were a few other NPC's that help with others (Ykris).

It is pretty tough, but possible.

The safer 'normal' mode is the Spiders get the explosives handled and you guys then go locate the assassin and confront her. That allows for the explosives to be taken out of the equation and then it's just a case of handling her - once again though, her main motivation is escape, but with a party all up against her at the same time she'd have been pretty hosed.

Thanks for the explanation, Shifty. Sounds like you ran it exactly as designed, but I'm not sure I want to run any of my other characters through this one.

I like the scenario design and overall idea, and there was plenty of interesting content, but T1-2 is always tough as there is a pretty substantial difference between a party of 1's and party of 2's.

The choice of Spiders in/Spiders out was new, and to some extent allows people to set a challenge rating. I hope they keep that sort of choice in for future games.

On a different note, you'll be seeing those NPC's again pretty soon - 'Live exploration extreme!'

I have completed reporting and chronicles, and have included a copy of the Welcome to Starfinder boons if any 701's still need.

CHRONICLES

Would this boon help in the situation? Did I miss out on any fame?

If so, can I use one of the 3 uses of the boon.

Thank you for running this. I appreciate it. This was a rough one. Fun ideas and think it would be really interesting to run the higher tier one. Maybe I will GM it sometime.

Also thanks for the explanation of what was going on. I would not of ever thought to get on stage like that haha. Also, I am signed up to play Live exploration extreme! at Outpost with this character.