Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber. Starfinder Society GM. 18 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 9 Organized Play characters.
Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber
This is the first adventure where the absence of a Player's Guide really does feel conspicuous, given the advice for GMs up front. The introduction contains a lot of useful information, but it's all laid out in a way that I really don't want to share with my players. Tips like
Introduction Spoiler:
"Any ancestry is good for this adventure, but Ancestry X might be especially relevant in Chapter Y, when the players discover Z!"
more or less spell out the main story beats, don't you think?
Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber
I've been on the "wait and see" side for the SFS changes, since that's a new system and comes with the all-games-repeatable, make-any-level-character, etc. changes. On the PFS Scenarios front, the more times I read through this the worse it seems for me. Maybe I would feel differently if I ran my Society tables online, where these changes might not feel like obstacles. Maybe it won't feel like an imposition to lose in-scenario statblocks for someone who can just have another tab open, or a second monitor, or just have the monster built out in Foundry. Maybe it won't be too much harder to fill tables when your player base is simply "The Internet." Honestly, these changes feel a lot to me like they're geared at making games better for online tables, and maybe I can't fault that; perhaps the majority of paying GMs in a post-COVID world are shifting to a VTT model and it's just better business to design things for that market.
For me and my players, though, who couldn't get back to the table fast enough, all of these changes feel like they exacerbate the worst frustrations of the system without any positives to counterbalance them. I'll echo what the others in the thread have pointed out, and emphasize that filling a level-appropriate table is hard enough without cutting the range in half.
My players don't want to use iconics; they are a grudging necessity for the times when the only other option is not playing at all. I've used every encouragement in the book, from "a chance to try another class" to "you still get all the rewards" to "at least you can play and have a fun evening with everyone." Plus, even my regulars who *do* have a handful of PCs at various levels grouse about making their 4th or 5th L1 while they wait for more players to get their characters up to L5 so they can play the rest of the metaplot. People like playing their characters, simple as. Making that harder to do does not feel like a positive.
On the statblock thing, this puts more time and money strain on the GMs for prep, which (as pointed out by others) are the backbone of the Society system, and a voluntary force at that. Yes, statblocks are free on Nethys, but good luck to anyone trying to enforce "Well, to use this character option you need to own the book" when we're not even setting the example ourselves.
Even disregarding that, best case scenario, that's now on me to go print off each individual monster, and god forbid I print the ones I think I will need and then the number of players changes and I need elite adjustment or added minions - or I have to go "OK, steel mephits so I'm bringing Rage of Elements, Leaf Leshy from Monster Core, and oh they have a boss handler written for the adventure, so that's three sources open on the table..." It's an added cost for my library, added time for prep, and slower combat at the table. I don't see an upside.
Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Just want to put a big Thank You here to the design team who put this volume together as a PDF. I just got mine, and I was overjoyed to discover that the image issues we had in the FFoD series are completely gone. Everything in this book, at first glance, looks like it is formatted for ease of use on VTT and remote play, and we still got the standalone interactive map pack, to boot.
This makes me so happy as a GM and I can't wait to start putting a group together for this!
Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber
I've just read through this adventure and it makes me so, so happy. I cannot wait to run this for my players. Major kudos to Christopher Wasko and the team.
Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Dracomicron wrote:
I'd like to report that the starship combat is not bad at all and we finished in like three rounds
Do you mind if I ask how the rest of this scenario was?
Some concerns:
I'm trying not to be overly negative about a scenario I haven't run/played yet, but I've read through this one, and... I mean, is there anything else to this one but "Combat! Ship combat! Combat again! OK go home!" at all? Near as I can tell there is zero story or plot to this. It's a backdrop to trot out some monsters that don't get used a lot, and nothing else. There are literally not even any ramifications to the society; the debriefing is just Naiaj saying "Hey good work, thanks."
I get that not every mission a Starfinder takes is going to involve an amazing discovery, and sometimes you gotta make those credits, but... really, this is such a plotless scenario at first glance that I'm wondering "why bother?" I guess I could use it to help teach the combat system to new players, but as a 5-8 scenario I have to imagine my players are going to be severely unimpressed by this. After anime mecha fights at a SMC concert and epic tales of survival after starship crashes, this feels so hollow.
Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Sparrowhawk_92 wrote:
If you're continuing being generous, can you share what the new themes they added or anything else interesting from the player's guide?
Generosity achieved!
This generously spoils a lot of stuff, fair warning:
So, the player's guide is about 10 pages long. It includes a number of content hints regarding the nature of the adventure and how players should expect to interact with the world; a list of suggested themes and why they'd make good fits for the adventure; two brand-new themes - "Prole," which seems pretty on-the-nose, and "Vaster," someone from an isolated world or settlement without a lot of access to shopping or infospheres; a list of plot-hook backgrounds that the players should take which will give them ties to key NPCs; some new company-made gear, and a lot of fun flavor text about working for the fastest-growing megacorp across two major star systems!
Hope that helps. :) Any word on the whole 'incredibly difficult-to-use PDF' thing?
Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Ixal wrote:
Sounds like you have the adventure. Can you answer, in Spoilers:
1. How believable law enforcement is?
2. What is so experimental/special about the ship?
3. How do the rules about buying and selling cargo work?
I do have the adventure! My subscription PDF showed up last night - and I dove right in; still very excited to run this, assuming my technical issues can be addressed. As to your questions, these are obviously some BIG OL' SPOILERS, so only click through if you don't mind hearing core plot hooks!
You've Been Warned:
1. This is actually an interesting look at what it means to operate on different worlds with different levels of authority and consequences, at least in my opinion. At this stage in the campaign, the PCs aren't exactly notorious interplanetary adventurers; they're working stiffs trying to scrape by, and aren't likely to draw the attention of, say, the Stewards. There are a few opportunities for the PCs to do 'illegal' things, and the consequences actually vary depending on where they are, and how badly they break the law.
In a crowded Castrovel city, this means being detained by cops and having to spend a lot of time and effort in bureaucratic fines and procedures (and they're on a short deadline for the job, so this is real bad). In the Akiton Hivemarket, this means the Khulan showing up and potentially murdering them. Other locations are ruled less by laws and more by might, and you can guess where that leads.
2. There's only the first level of hints towards the ship's capabilities in book one - there won't even be a map of the Oliphaunt until book two - but the main attraction is null-space cargo holds. Imagine being able to haul a massive freighter's worth of goods in a shuttle! The applications for legit business, smuggling, and more are obvious. I'm sure there's more to come, but book one is more about setting up the PCs' crummy situation and dangling the ship as their ticket out.
3. There's a whole 5-page section on this which I clearly won't duplicate here, but the summary is that you can now have players earn BP for their ship by running cargo instead of doling them out as level awards (though of course you can still give them out that way, too). There's still a system to gate how many BP you can spend on the ship based on party level, so the PCs can't just "let's just earn a Tier 9 ship before heading for the main plot." Plus you also spend the BP back on new cargo shipments and other cost-of-living expenses. Rules are included for how to find jobs, how to make ideal profits, and how to add complications so it's not just a bookkeeping "go here, drop off this" addition. What if the goods are counterfeit? What if the buyer is a jerk? But it really means all of the rules about flight time, maintaining courses, and making the most of your downtime start mattering more.
Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Am I remembering incorrectly that maps and assets from new PDFs were going to be made more compatible with VTT for those of us who are stuck playing in isolation? I've been terribly excited for Fly Free or Die, and I eagerly downloaded my digital copy the moment it became available - only to find it's going to be an utter nightmare to run for any of my digital groups.
Every single asset in the PDF is cut into 5-6 image pieces, making it almost impossible to easily export into roll20 or any other VTT of choice. Previously, I could simply pull a map image out of a PDF, without the numbers, and import it into my VTT to give my players the great, colorful, detailed maps as-is. For some reason, the layout of this PDF has made that nearly impossible. Even the smaller maps are made up of two or more images, while the larger ones are in 6+ pieces of varying sizes, making it nearly impossible to properly size and lay out in roll20.
Everything about this adventure looks fun as hell, and I can't wait to run it for my players, but now I'm not sure how. Why was this changed? Is there a separate maps file coming?
Starfinder Society GM. 18 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 9 Organized Play characters. 