[SFS/Shifty] #2-24: Cornered Rat (Inactive)

Game Master Nik B.

Name Ronnam
Character name Gremvest
SFS # 3769-701
Faction Wayfinders
Notes n/a
Day Job Take 10, so result of 24, so 48 credits extra

I'm good with whatever the party decides. Ending the scenario with him dead or alive is fine with me either way, as long as we all live.

Ditto. Especially if there's a risk of death to Rawksim if we keep fighting.

Can one of you that are conscious ask him to get rid of his "clones" if he wants to parley.

OK so we reached the end.

Thanks for that guys - that was a really hardcore adventure with a shedload of moving parts. It was also a really good opportunity to take a lot of deep dives into the ruleset for a whole bunch of things (dying, class abilities, the abundance of boons) and a really complex end boss with a bunch of really interesting (and deadly) abilities.

That last combat was clearly staged to draw melee combatants in close then shred them brutally through the ability to do switcheroos, tail spins, and a range of other melee-unfriendly tactics. Notable was the almost complete lack of ranged capability from the encounter - just one knife that could be thrown (albeit a nasty one) once per round.

It was pretty cool, and Dispassion was a very strong opponent - he was down to his 'parley' threshold so you still chalked up the victory. It was just a case of 'next solid hit ends things', but he was fresh out of aces and in deep trouble.

His AC was pretty high, he had bulk HP, but eventually, the action economy was going to see him lose. 11-12 was a truly horrific encounter.

Thanks for running! Definitely the closest I have come to death in the ~100ish tables of Starfinder I've taken part in. That rat didn't mess around :D

Rawksim is definitely buying an auto-CPR unit after this..!

Thank you for GMing, Shifty!

I really enjoyed this scenario. The more nerve-wracking a battle is, the more interested and invested you get. I too have never been that close to dying / that low on RP. I can't believe it was on this high-level adventure I would finally use the "Welcome to Starfinder" boon to save my skin, ha!

Great starship combat at the start too. I enjoyed the "terrain" in space.

Also, I appreciate your fealty to the rules, and not pulling any punches. For instance, I genuinely didn't realize how lax I'd been about jump jets, both as a GM and a player. Thank you for the clarity on those.

Cheers guys.

Gremmy yeah for this one I felt it really important to really keep things tight on the rules front, which was the only way to ensure fairness in the case of fatalities or the potential TPK.

The bad guys were designed to be serious opponents so I read their tactics and kept it as by the book as it was going to get. That meant playing hard and no punches pulled - which being the ultimate super end scenario of the season (and one that qualifies as a 'special' for 5th Nova) I am glad that it really delivered.

In some ways it would have been a let down if it was just a rinse-repeat and you guys were yawning - but every combat was serious.

I have to say that the high point was that slow that landed - then the creature legging it away and the party wondering what shenanigans had taken place.

Hey team,
Thanks for a good game. This one is a challenge. I am sorry I was so unreliable throughout. I had no idea life and family would be so challenging.

I did try to post one more attempt to draw them into conversation while being ready to act if needed. Maybe I just previewed and didn't post? I know I was rushed. Anyway, we ended up going that way and everyone lived. Yay!

I hope you each have had an enjoyable Christmas, or at least a relaxed day if you don't celebrate Christmas. I also hope to play with each of you sometime in the future after my life settles down.

Sheets out in about 24 hours! :)

Thanks Shifty for running another fun session. I definitely appreciate you sticking to the rules and not giving us any breaks. That was the closest I've had a PC come to death, not including 1st level characters. Thanks to everybody on the team too. It was a lot of fun playing with you all and I really enjoyed every PC's unique personality.

All three encounters were challenging and fun for me. I enjoyed the starship combat quite a bit. This was the first time I've used so many resolve points during a session. That was a pet peeve for me since I feel like you have a ton of resolve points, but you never use them. I hope I get to play with all of you again soon.

All three encounters were challenging and fun for me. I enjoyed the starship combat quite a bit. This was the first time I've used so many resolve points during a session. That was a pet peeve for me since I feel like you have a ton of resolve points, but you never use them. I hope I get to play with all of you again soon.

QFT, all of that.

I am sorry I was so unreliable throughout. I had no idea life and family would be so challenging.

Don't sweat it. Everyone had fun, and IRL is IRL and always gonna get in the way to varying degrees.

In some ways it would have been a let down if it was just a rinse-repeat and you guys were yawning - but every combat was serious.

Absolutely.

I've not had a lot of opportunities for Gremvest to use Gravity Boost, and this final battlefield was perfect to showcase that Solarian ability. I really appreciate good 3-D elements to a battle, and this one brought i.

I think it's awesome we prevailed. We were five 9th-level characters who had to fight an enemy of equal difficulty as if we were six 10th-level characters. After we won I downloaded the scenario to read it because I was dying of curiosity. Dispassion's stat block says his CR is 13. Per the Core Rulebook (pages 388-90), five 9th-level characters fighting one CR 12 creature is "Epic" and the highest on the difficulty chart for building encounters. At CR 13, Dispassion he was one tougher than that, so we should all be proud of ourselves!

He had some funky elements for sure, and certainly worth the CR 13 rating.

That -4 con critical hit was a good chunk of a problem for him, and as he was saving his switcheroos for Rawk - so it was well-timed and well delivered with no real way out. Basically, that one hit was almost half the fight won :p

I was tracking that Dispassion was pretty safe from melee, but the casting could present problems - hence it was a case of prioritising the party into a hit list and then getting to work. As the switch was based on reactions he had to save them up and couldn't blow them willy nilly. He 'wore' the first attack from Rawk as he wouldn't have identified Rawk as a caster (hence my earlier questions about the mechanism of flight - eg what can the bad guys see, and thus what assumptions would they make) - so when Rawk flew in on a jetpack it didn't look like magical flight and no initial connection was made.

You'd also have seen that crazy maze and why in PbP we had to abstract it - it was really PbP unfriendly.

Anyhow, good times.

You'd also have seen that crazy maze and why in PbP we had to abstract it - it was really PbP unfriendly.

Yep.

I would imagine fairly difficult in person too, or VTT. But for PbP, impossible

CHRONICLES!

Let me know of any omissions - I'll get the reporting done shortly, have a bunch of Into the Perplexity and others to input (a lot of Xmas gaming going on)

Thanks again!

My chronicle sheet looks great. Thank you again for running! That was a blast.

Chronicle downloaded.
Thanks again for running. I hope to hop into another of your games once life settles a little. Maybe even catch a game in person sometime in the nearish future.

That would be awesome! Whenever you head near Sydney let us know :)