Morganator's page

I am currently working on a campaign I call the Azlanti Insurrection, basically X-COM 2 with the Azlanti Empire. I wanted to pay homage to the Against the Aeon Throne campaign by starting it on a Prison Moon. This one is more of a mine where those the Azlanti have captured are put to work, mining ore and then processing it for the empire. I am basing it somewhat on Terok Nor from Star Trek Deep Space 9, although on a moon to combine the mines and the ore processing.

I plan to start the players from level one and have them spend a few levels, balancing activities that help with escape, such as building relationships with fellow prisoners, mapping and finding vulnerabilities on the station, and gathering resources, with satisfyingly the Azlanti Overseers and managing suspicion.

Now, I have thought of two ways for them to make their eventual escape. One is to eventually hotwire a shuttle after causing a distraction, while the other is to acquire a map of moon gates, magical portals linked to the planet below, and make a break for it. I want to give my players options though, to let them pick what they want to play for, so any ideas offered for alternate methods would be greatly appreciated!

One point I will add is no method can result in them seizing control of the mine or saving everyone. I want them to spend time growing closer to their cast of fellow prisoners, and then having to make some hard choices of who they can bring with them.

Thanks for the help everyone. I'll have to do more experimentation to figure out what works best, but I really agree that is the NPC's have a crew advantage, that should affect CR. I'll also have to think about how I design their ships, and try not to overarm them with guns if they already have extra gunners. I really like the starship rules, but this question has been on my mind since I read the AP, and saw the vastly varying amount of crews.

I know you can only have one Captain and one Pilot, but I believe you can have multiple Science Officers. It's the multiple gunners that worries me, when I ran a fight where my four players fought a ship with a full 6 crew members, the NPC's ability to fire twice as many weapons was super rough to deal with, even after I started making them overconfident.

Hmm, I'm not sure I like the idea of always maxing it. As Wingblaze said, once you got into a large ship vs a small one, things would get rough. It also doesn't look like Paizo sticks with that either. Looking at the ships in the AP's, temple of the twelve has a freighter with 6 crew, but then splintered worlds has an explorer with 4, and the ruined clouds has an explorer with 2. I thought there was a system that told you how many crew members to use based on CR and party size, but I guess I was wrong. I may just have to test it, and wing it for a while.

I have read through the book several times, and while I have found what stats I should give them, and how many can fit on a class of ship, I have never been able to find where it tells you how many crew members you should place on an GM controlled opposing ship. I'm certain it's in there somewhere, so if someone could tell me where the information is, I would really appreciate it.

Please cancel my Pathfinder Adventure Path subscription.
Thank you