David E.'s page

Lots of exploration for little value. The combats are under tuned and frustratingly simple. Its a good base but it just doesn't kick it up.

Its good fun and a unique situation. But it follows the same tried and true formula of several other adventures. You seek out into the unknown, you find a mystery, you have several skill checks to solve the mystery, and you have a couple of neat fights. The final fight felt a little under powered but still had a cool backstory. (I played with a full party of 6 on low tier.) I'm giving it five stars because even though you have played this formula before the setting and the flavor of the npcs adds to the adventure. Its good fun with a mystery box surprise and lots of very unique and incredible lore.

I really like the cornered rat series, and I despise Datch. Solid adventure that runs a little long. (4 to 6 hours) mostly due to starship combat.

Its enjoyable but it is hell on your GM. Lots of prep time and lots of moving parts. Hence 4 stars instead of 5. - Players will love it, GMS will need some prep time for it. - David

You expect to be able to have a fun RP session, one that would really challenge your non-traditional builds. Instead it just devolves into trial by combat. Disappointing and cliché. I expected better with Zoe, maybe Boston Legal, sledge hammer, or She-Hulk attorney at law but instead got hit with a huge nothing burger that turns into absurdity.

Its a solid one-shot. It does however suffer under the same curse as all Starfinder adventures do. You can't replay it. This module is really good and once you play it, you start to realize that it could be a great foundation for a drift crashed character. But then you're locked out of it. I hope with the coming of stafinder 2e they just let you play all the mods again and again on different characters as some of these one shots and APs have been the best Starfinder can offer. - David

I hated the Red Shift Rally. I wanted to like it. I had watched several podcasts on YouTube about this adventure and thought it was going to be an amazing race.

Instead We would have 9 players rotate in this adventure, ultimately settling down to 4 players in the end. It was terrible. As a pick up group none of the players could work together with the material and the constant rotation of PCs into the story just broke it.

The adventure really plays on how your team interacts with the media and the spotlight. If your table breaks early on I strongly advise just to drop the entire mod as it can't pick things back up.

Your Players also need to be in synch and willing to play to lift. Otherwise you will get one operative trying to do everything at the expense of the entire group. It didn't work and was not fun to play. - David

The start to the adventure leaves a really bad taste in your mouth as the plot contrivances are really heavy. We almost lost one of the players at our table as they had brought in a custom starship and the way the ship was lost hit them very hard. There are better ways to do this than to just hit players with a huge loss like this that they can not avoid all to move the plot forward.

This means the entire adventure is tainted with, "will the story screw us over again," and "do any of our actions matter '', "when is the next deus ex machina".

Waiting for the next shoe to drop really tempered any of the feel good vibes for the rest of the adventure. In the end it was bitter sweet. - David

Great job all around in this special. I really loved it! Lots of action, lots of good combat, and it keeps the pace!

Tries too hard to be a little bit mysterious. Its a unique situation where you get a new way to start the mission. Also don't gate keep what the mission parameters are behind a skill check. If you fail the skill check you don't know what you need to do for the mission. This really is strange. Which makes the "classic star finder twist" or moral quandary more vague then ever. Do you save the data? Do you destroy the data? In a bounty such as this with very little lore, do you even care about this institute? In the absence of everything trying to make a decision has the same weight as flipping a coin.

Then their is the rub, you have to pay to land the ship. I really hate modules that take your pay check away from you. Bounties don't give much in the way of rewards to begin with and now your literally being punished for choosing to play and you are now playing the module for free.

In the end with world building, RP, and a mysterious story; this would have been a lot better as a module and not as a bounty. Their is a lot going on here and should have been fleshed out as a true module instead of trying to short change things as a bounty...

Finally an adventure that you can't talk your way out of! This one is a lot of fun and helps tamp down any player who has main character syndrome. You know the type, the one that wants to run their mouth and hog the entire table. Fortunately this adventure runs long, due to all the combats, which means a good GM is going to curtain any side conversations. If you are playing a combat character you will love this adventure. Lots of combat with little chance to rest in between. You need to think, manage resources, and use a little strategy in order to survive this one. Its a lot of fun but suffers from the same issues you have in any pick up game. . . .And the Starship combat sucks.

This one drags; they try a new approach to starting it but it feels very rough and unpolished. The first combat is surprising and has some new twists to it. There are a variety of skill checks so you don't get locked behind a skill famine. But if your party does not have computers you are going to be screwed. Still; long winded insufferable NPCs make this a chore to slog through. And it always sucks when you find piles of treasure that you can't use as just plot items. As the story unfolds the stakes get pretty ludicrous, especially for a low level party. And why introduce such complex mechanics for a fight? (You will know it when you see it.) It just feels like between 6-99 and 7-01 the new theme is science fiction horror with astronomical stakes. Not really a fan of it. Furthemore the ending is all set up and no pay off. They are trying to write a story of discovery that will take multiple episodes to resolve and it just leaves this one flat.

It's a good solid adventure but suffers from the same problems that all specials do. It is time locked; your party has to know the rules; your GM has to be on the spot, and you need to be able to make quick decisions. Otherwise you tend to miss parts of the special. It can be very frustrating when your group wants to explore the game but you have the one person who hogs the spotlight.

We have been told not to really go into spoilers by Paizo Con. So I'll just say. There is tension and excitement and it's a good time. Still I wish there was more time to explore the special as it felt more rushed than the specials usually are.

This mod had a promising concept, but unfortunately, it fell short in terms of challenge and engagement. While the idea is cool, the gameplay lacks difficulty, making it quite boring after a short while. I'd love to see more challenging elements incorporated to keep players hooked and coming back for more. Nothing special here and after a week or two you forget you even played it.

Fortunate enough to play this early; it starts off a little weird. As if they try to set the mood but it just comes off odd. It is as if Starfinder wanted to get rid of the Bastille but they don't want to get rid of the Bastille. They go out of their way to try and make you feel uncomfortable as you go into a "clean room". It just feels like its another strange thematic shift in season 6. You don't need to set things up this way but the author wants you to feel a sense of impending dread and secrecy. Then its time to go off to the Azlanti Star Empire.

Mechanic issues: We all know the Azlanti Star Empire is horribly xenophobic and anti-alien. I fully expected that we would all be forced to race change into humans but this is hand waved. Its a missed opportunity. The same with the back lore of previous Azlanti modules, nothing is built up from previous modules in the Azlanti empire and it feels very disconnected from the previous meta; especially the meta from the APs.

So you have a typical "we have to rescue a spy mission" but you are told nothing about what the spy is doing. Yet when you start rolling culture checks it is kind of obvious what is going on. With the prep work and the back ground you loose about an hour in the mod for a set up that doesn't really pay off. They set up a lot between the Azlanti and the Vesk battle cruisers but its just fluff.

This is a really terrible module as it keeps rail roading you again and again. I can not say how poorly this module is.

You meet with your contact; and after some very awkward RP you get the data package. Then you are on the map so you know an attack is coming. Which turns out to be a situation between the vesk and the azlanti. you then have a situation to defuse. But what makes this terrible is that one or two players can dominate the situation as you only need the minimal amount of skill checks to succeed. That makes 4 out of 6 people sitting around waiting to play. This is a terrible game mechanic, as once more you have the loudest players at the table dominating the game.

The theme for this module is lots of set up and no pay off. I keep saying it; stop hiring fan-fiction writers to write adventures. Sure the story is great to read but the mechanics and game play are shoe horned in their. They spend way to much time trying to set up the theme and narrative but they ignore the physics and the rules of the Starfinders universe. Their is a lot of hand waved stuff that says we need X to happen so we have this widget that does this. Stay within the rules of your own universe and world building.

I can not recommend this module at all and was extremely disappointed in it. I mean this is a high level mod and it is so badly written on a mechanical level that you can blow away most of the skill checks by taking 10 and then having your bonuses added to it. It is not challenging and god awful. I really love the Azlanti as bad guys and this module does not do them justice at all.

Railroad with obvious traps. It is a beer and pretzels game but not much in the way of RP or anything memorable. Lots of combat and the session runs really long. Took 6 and 1/2 hours to complete and we were on point in the combats.

Another Dud in season six. Good story, mad mechanics. I swear it feels as if they hired fan fiction writers and then tried to force game mechanics into it.

Played this in high tier; it is not connected to the meta at all and feels like a filler episode for season six. Would have been much better to release this much earlier in the schedule as it just feels out of place this late in the season. This episode suffers from cliché's and bad writing and you have to really suspend your disbelief to make this one work in your mind. It could have been a really good compare and contrast situation very similar to how the Amish or Shakers are presented in the U.S.A. verses the current social media culture but it doesn't go that route and instead devolves into the traditional cliché culture of a "hippy artist commune" vrs the traditional establishment. Its tired and played out. But they don't really establish what the traditional values are for the main group and instead its all left with huge plot holes. It would also be better if they started integrating the new PC speaker instead of promoting the lame duck 1st seeker.

Lots of bad game mechanics by design. They lock you into just one skill you need to capitalize on and if your party doesn't have that skill you are out of luck. Terrible design for a pick up game as you can never tell what skills you have. Ouch.

(The story also feels like a bad B-movie version of Romeo and Juliet - in space. And a lot of the items they present to you, that should be clues according to basic writing troupes, are nothing. Not even red herrings. It is so weird and frustrating. This would have been much better as a line module or a pain train as it just gets all out of order in sandbox mode.)

The module has a very hard start and tries to play sandbox by letting the players explore a city and the inhabitants. The module tries to set the setting of a world of panic but its very dependent on players asking specific questions to even start the mod.

Several challenges are dependent on computers; if you have a team without computers you get locked out of the first third of the module. It is bad game design as you have no other option but computers and if you don't have it their is no alternative.

Bunch of mini-games which are like the traditional skill spams in Starfinder. They are neat encounters but easy to miss as they feel like just exposition and not true encounters.

The Chase scene is fun, narratively, but it is written so only the pilot does anything. Its disappointing as you have 5 people just chilling while 1 person engages with the story. Unlike most chase scenes that let you use a lot of different skills to try and engage with the story you are extremely limited here (combat or piloting, that's about it) and it just sucks.

Big Spoiler: Starfinder loves beating a dead horse. You will know when you run into it. . . .Some things never die.

Their are also a few editing errors that made it hard for the GM to respond quickly.

Once more my observations of season 6 is that the story is great but the game mechanics are not very good. Almost as if they had someone write a very good story and then tried to shoe horn it into the Starfinder system. Its another disappointment among season 6.

It is well designed for players that like combat. You have to think strategically. I enjoyed it but it might not be a good fit for players who do not like long drawn out immersive combat.

This is a very complicated mod to run. Lots of creatures, lots of special abilities and tactics, lot of timed events. Even if you are prepared its easy to get lost in the mod when running it, one way or another. Our group did not have any computers or engineers, except for hier lings. But since you cant use a heir ling in combat your kind of screwed. Without engineering or computers you have a few scenarios where you are screwed. Their are also several shut down mechanics that take you out of the fight and then; well its not fun having to sit on the side lines while everyone else is engaged. ITs got a few fun spots but with the auto shut downs I just didn't enjoy this one.

This is a real Gem of an adventure path. It seams straight forward but has a lot of twists and turns and lots of great oportunities to roleplay. I loved every minute of this one. Its just incredible. - David

It is a really nice adventure and one where you will have a good time.

I enjoyed this mod but it is kinda forgettable. Did not realize that I had played this a year ago until we got into the engine room. So its a good game to play but it doesn't stick with you.

Its a tough nut to crack and it has some really cool boons in the story. I really liked it.

It a well written bounty and has a very good story. It has a good mix of skill checks, relevant RP, and a nice little dungeon crawl. It packs a lot for a bounty and I hope we can see these NPCs again and again in the future.