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Gotta hand it to Paizo and Alison Cybe for such wonderful lovable character sketches.
[I worry they’re going to decide it’s easier to hide out with friends back home than in a new, unfamiliar city.] "Friends"? If they try to communicate with any of these friends in advance, they will quickly realize they likely do not exist, or assume they have been "gotten to" or something like that.
Not from Book 1, but I did from Book 3.
Hi as the title says i am looking for a good murder mystery adventure for 1st level characters or one that can fairly easily be adapted for them. Would anybody be able to suggest one official or not. Book 1 of "The Threefold Conspiracy" Adventure Path is a murder mystery. It is intended as a start to a longer, more complex adventure, but can hypothetically be edited into a standalone. Probably 3-4 sessions long, in my experience, but editing out the background plot details would definitely shorten it a bit.
From page 5 of The Chimera Mystery: "...Zaxo and his team have orchestrated a plan to replace the imposters...The PCs are those clones." The Adventure Background here in Bk 1 makes it clear that the PCs are all clones of Reptoids in deep cover as people in the Pact Worlds, a mix of "important leaders" and "assistants to the powerful". From page 37 of The Cradle Infestation: "...dossiers on each PC. Each profile is accompanied by a picture and brief biography of the individual the PC is a clone of..." Yes, having each party member be assigned a concrete template individual by the AP would be convenient in some ways, but it also makes it less flexible. The writers presumably wanted it to be adaptable, so they just went with having one PC being a clone of a known, named individual who has a specific role in the final book. This of course gives plot hooks for future adventures should the party and DM want to go further. Personally, I'm having the 3 other party members realize their templates are all GTFO, after the media ruckus from the Llaoe Arae incident. The only one who doesn't of course is "Erem" (differently named in my game) becuase of their lofty position. "Erem" just attempts to spin the news and do damage control for their own power's sake. The other Reptoids (who operate individually, not in a unified cell) are impersonating less-public and less-powerful individuals, but choose to withdraw or hide in various ways, and won't be relevant to the final Book of the AP. First session of this arc begins today for my party, and will be soem homebrew fill-in material to get them back in character between Llaoe Arae and Absalom Station. I'm having them take a 1 week mandatory "vacation" on Bretheda, courtesy of Confluence and the Stewards, both of whom are debriefing them and getting their pieces in place for how to best use this mysterious party of strange doppelgangers. Going for a roleplay-heavy so the party can grapple with the story twist in character, and also do some Session Zero-esque planning for what they expect out of the story and their characters for this final arc.
It's happening! After nearly a 4 month hiatus (!!), the escapees of the Chimera's mysterious disaster will at last be heading to Absalom Station to reckon with the fallout of their conflicts with the various Reptoids with whom they've clashed, and to deal with the looming mindf&%$ of the Grays' revelations about the party's real identities. Session 34 is next weekend, May 1. Anyone who's planning to run Puppets Without Strings, or is already running it, feel free to hit me up with questions on how this insanity goes. There's a lot of moving parts in this Book.
"Weird universe"..."lurking dangers"... Aucturn. AUCTUUUUURN. Give us mind-warping horrors on Aucturn! :D
I have not modified the twist. Building on the writers' suggestions in Books 3 and 4, I spaced out several doppelganger situations (a holo-guide by a famous athlete, a cookbook by a celebrity chef, a glimpse of a doctor on a holostream from a government hearing, etc.) to seed the twist. Even before that, though, so much is dependent on making it clear what "style" of adventure this is, so players are more primed for the twist. Those who start to have issues with the X-Files type story will have more of a chance to jump ship before the twist.
I sincerely hope Paizo will do this soon. And that part of it takes place on Aucturn. We could also use an Apostae/Drow-influenced adventure, and something that hits Aballon's machine cities... The possibilities are huge.
I'll be starting this final volume sometime in the next two months (waiting on an original party member who had to take a perfectly-timed hiatus for the birth of his first child!), and want to get all my ducks in a row. I've read and reread this volume several times, and I honestly think it's almost like a separate min-AP all its own. There's a massive cast of NPCs. A number of complicated tasks that can be done in almost any order by the PCs. Several combats with specific floor-plans, and several other "quantum combats" that could be inserted at various points, triggered by various PC actions, but without specific maps (the Fleurasik enforcers, Tavin Arill's ambush, possible entanglements with House Rycast). It's honestly a lot. I have the maps finished for the Jynma encounter on the train/tram, the : ambush, the face-offs with "Erem" (named differently in my campaign) and Vora Rinn and Thylas Starhammer, and of course the big dungeon at the end on clone : . But there's a ton of connective tissue that's so dependent on the party's choices, all of the actual investigating bits, and I'm not sure what the most efficient way to prep for all that is.
Zaxo's Grey ship Is anyone else prepping this volume or already GMing it?
They were a little blown away by the revelation, but also, hindsight 20/20, it immediately explained their doppelganger problems and the whole Chimera mystery I kept casually reminding them was never solved. Only time will tell how they adapt/move on form this--for now, they're keeping it secret, so our eventual follow-up session will partly be dealing with the repercussions of their newfound knowledge, plus the growing media reports about a Director lookalike, from smuggled fight footage. Yeah, Book 3 is honestly one of the toughest, with the strange events on the Voidcrier and then Dr. Nodens' interrogations...it's a real tough book to navigate successfully. Don't forget to have the charade be up the instant they kill a Reptoid though, which will revert to tis natural form! That's always a "aha!" moment. (My party luckily hadn't yet gotten hooked on the whole "nonlethal damage, let's take captives" deal, that came later in late Book 4 and early Book 5.) I'd be willing share my original email content from Zaxo to Gyru and vice versa, but not the dossiers themselves, which I formatted as "Subject" (PC) and "Template" (the NPC they were cloned from) columns. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an Attachments function here on the Forums.
We finished the book! We're now on hiatus for a bit while one of the players welcomes their first child, so the party has some time to absorb the terrifying, world-upending news: They're clones! Of Reptoid infiltrators scattered throughout the Pact Worlds! I mocked up an actual PDF that read as a series of emails from Zaxo to Gyru for the party to actually read once they found the files. Then we "debriefed" to ensure they understand the implications, and setting the stage for the story to continue in Book 6. Some things for other DMs to note: 1. The party may not choose to share this information with their allies immediately, so when following up afterward, the fight footage from Llaoe Arae that gets leaked is crucial to helping put the pressure on and clue in the party's new ally, Director General Lin Camulan, in the subsequent and final book. 2. Overseer Gyru was a decently tense fight due to her Greater Invisibility, but I forgot to engage some of her other defensive measures from being a Witchwarper. If you want to max out the tension, definitely brush up on all of her spells and abilities! Or, just give her a 2nd Gray operative to act as frontline fodder.
I had never thought about this, despite playing an operative. (Never got knocked prone.) I don't see this addressed in the FAQ yet. Until it is, I agree that RAI likely meant to negate the operative's penalty to AC when prone.
What happens when reptoids die? Do they revert to their natural form, like lycanthropes in Pathfinder? Do they stay in their chosen shape indefinitely? Or is it up to the GM to decide? Book 6 seems to confirm that their form reverts. I've been using it since my party's first battles with Reptoids in Book 3. "Oh, look, our hunch was right," they got to say.
Update: They have captured Nevintsi and most of the other Dycepskians, been ambushed and almost wiped by Grays (I prepped Dr. Kalita as a CR 6 Healer Mystic to help them out a bit), pursued the Grays into their hidden facility, are almost out of resolve points, and have taken one Gray engineer captive for telepathic interrogation. They now know a component of their starship is in the hands of Overseer Gyru and have figured out the Grays can't phase through walls while in this facility. I am sincerely hoping they fall for the Ooze ambush a couple rooms down...
How did GMs handle the existence of an NPC (the Scully android) who has Glimpse of Truth as an ability but is mysteriously unable to find or believe in the existence of shapeshifters her partner has told her about and that she could easily see if she just used this ability? There are a couple ways to do this... 1. Reptoid shapeshifting isn't considered detectable by Glimpse the Truth. 2. Glimpse the Truth costs a Resolve Point. Even an NPC like Ephecta only has a few Resolve Points, typcially, and would only use it if prompted to. It also only lasts 1 round...
Hello hello, Spoilers follow! This past session, my players reached LLAOE ARAE, a very spoiler-ific location for multiple reasons. I had been planning for this part of the story for quite some time and was very excited. But I neglected to properly foresee my players' possible actions. FIRST: due to their high level of paranoia regarding the Dycepskian menace, and the very real threat that their foe Nevintsi poses to BRETHEDA, they immediately started hounding random patients and staff regarding any recent experimental treatments, who had done what, and were literally THIS close to figuring out that a random Barathu patient was in fact a Dycepskian, per the book. SECOND: They rooted around in the janitor's closet a little more closely than I'd anticipated, and found the knocked-out Doc, woke her up, and proceeded to quickly interview her. I had to do some seat-of-my-pants delaying tactics on both of these issues, cuz I seriously thought it was all about to devolve into one big shooty mess before Nevintsi could spring his trap properly. Players, man.
Correct, I misread. The AoO can provide the pre-req for a subsequent bonus, but doesn't benefit itself.
Is the bonus to damage on the second successful attack in the round +1 or +2? So, if I'm reading correctly, you attack successfully for the first time, you get a +1 on your 2nd attack. If you are attacking three times (e.g. operative's triple attack), then, you have the opportunity to get a +2 on that 3rd attack IF both previous attacks landed. Same logic applies with a pair of successful attacks (normal full attack) and a subsequent successful Attack of Opportunity.
I'm considering the following house rules - any thoughts? Other house rules people use? I'd be very cautious about your proposed house rule for upgrading weapons, and somewhat cautious about the medicine DC changes. Remember that with traveling between locations, the party has anywhere from a few hours to a week of downtime, typically on a starship from end of Book 2 onward. They have time to heal by resting normally, and do a daily med check, or twice daily with the medlab/adv kit if I remember correctly. They should also figure out quickly that serums of healing are awesome, and either craft a couple during downtime or buy some when they hit civilaztion finally in Book 4. Many enemies and map locations also have them as loot in Books 4-6. As for weapons, the hardest part is Book 2 and 3, I think, but the little bit of loot including UPBs for normal upgrading rules should suffice. If you want to give them an edge, just drop in some bonus loot instead. That's just my opinion.
Another question...as far as I can tell, the only original of any of the PCs who is specifically identified in the AP is Erem. I'm happy to come up with others, but I'm confused about whether the other PCs are all clones of reptoid imposters, or just some of them. OK. So, this is one of the trickiest parts for me as well. However, I definitely interpreted all of the books of this AP as instructing that indeed, every PC is a clone of a Reptoid infiltrator uncovered by the Grays. This raised some questions for me early on: if the Grays cloned Reptoids...why didn't they get Reptoid clones? I answered this by deciding to presume that when a Reptoid is in infiltration disguise, their DNA magically matches that of the individual they are copying. Thus, when the Grays clone them, they don't get another Reptoid, but a "locked-in" version of that Reptoid in its disguised form. Now, getting back to your main question, not every Reptoid is a high-placed official like Erem (whose name I discarded, for my own story reasons*). Some, as the book suggests, may be in positions of subtle power, out of the public eye. Others may be seemingly powerless, but high profile, like celebrities. Some may be specifically powerful, like an industry leader. Or, again, more subtle, like a government under-secretary or senior attache or a company's department head or high-level analyst, not necessarily the CEO. But yes, every single one of the PCs is a clone of an imposter. Which does make this AP unique in that the overall motivation to learn the truth, defeat the various conspiracies, etc., is heavily tied in to the characters' identities from the end of Book One, making a character death pretty significant. I have definitely been pulling a few punches here and there to keep my players' original characters alive precisely for that reason of continuity, and the expected emotional upheaval that will occur when they discover the truth of their identities at the end of Book 5 (just 2 or 3 sessions away, for me!). *I decided early on to have the clones' doppelgangers have anagram names of the PCs so as to make it all the more ridiculous and trippy. I have decided that Zaxo's lab Grays for this experiment had a weird Gray sense of clinical humor, and called it "Project Anagram".
First of all, welcome! We number legion! Er...well, maybe a dozen of us. Ahem. Regarding Question 1: my party lacked a proper spell caster until Book 4, where I began supporting them with an NPC technomancer who is in Book 3 but was supposed to die. I play him in a light support role, and as a useful mouthpiece for when their investigations sometimes get sidetracked. I'm a bit more concerned that there's no tank/beater in your party. I see a Vanguard, but honestly don't have much experience with them. Also, Mechanic is definitely helpful with the many computer-related sleuthing tasks that come up more and more in later books. (Exocortex all the way though, drones are annoying.) For Question 2: most of my party's players didnt do much reading about the setting beforehand, so I gave a brief summary of "current threats to the Pact Worlds" which included a casual mention of the Unseen. One of my players, though, made up his mind that his character is already a paranoid ex-detective who is on a mission to find a missing partner, so he was first down the rabbit hole. In short, they adapt as they go--so long as they know this is a mystery/espionage/murder type adventure. The hardest part...is likely the wee little fact about their in-story origins. They should be suspecting foul play and weirdness from the end of book 1, and the later books should occasionally reinforce that, but the Book 5 confirmation can still turn some players' heads upside down.
Yeah, I didn't like this either, so I allowed my party to rest in the escape pods before exploring the facility. Later on, I think I let them rest one more time, shortly before heading into the reactor area. Don't give them any "1 hour till the reactor blows!" Or any other time cue. This book can be pretty rough. If ypu don't like that, and want them to feel the countdown pressure, no prob with hiding a few serums of healing here and there--just never allow them to take 20 on Perception.
The adventure just piles on nonlethal weaponry, so I feel like this is more common than you think. My party is doing the same thing. Oh, most of my party didn't even bother with those stun weapons from earlier. But the Operative, who is role-playing as an ex-PI (to his knowledge lol) struggling with morality, decided to get the Merciful fusion on his main weapon, and has successfully used it several times to knock out Reptoids etc. Meanwhile, the ninja-style Qi Adept Soldier "panda" (homebrew race for fun role play) also has innate nonlethal, and unless he's angry, will typically try to knock out opponents as well. It definitely complicates the narrative, but now I'm onto it, and am adapting.
I've noticed that the adventure does not include maps for events two through six. I'm wondering what maps other GMs are using for these encounters. So, the Upwell/Roselight story arc is where I did a lot of advance prep on Roll20, since we play online. Some stuff worked fine with theatre of the mind, but I made sure that they didn't have actual story-relevant encounters without a map. I made:
Did anyone else notice that the knockdown advanced rail gun used by one of the enemies in Book 3 violated the knockdown fusions requirement that "Only weapons that deal bludgeoning damage can benefit from this fusion"? I...did not notice that. Huh. Yeah, I'm fine with the fusion working anyway, my party's Exocortex mechanic has been using that weapon for a while now. Guess the writers/editors just missed that caveat on the fusion. Can't speak for Organized Play though--there might be a separate subforum for Society stuff to post in?
My DM says that an AOO takes a single melee actionif I take my AOO then that signal attack uses up my attack action the next round. A character in Starfinder gets a Swift, move, and a Standard during their turn in a round. They also get, once per round, a Reaction. If you take an Attack of Opportunity vs. an opponent who provoked on their turn, you are consuming your Reaction, NOT your next turn's Standard Action.
So, my party is still in Book 4, about to set out to raid the Gamut Bio facility. It'll be a dozen sessions or more until they beat the final bosses in Book 6. But I wanted to see if anyone else had given some thought to designing a follow-up adventure arc? One of the story ideas given in the back half of Book 6 is confronting a Vesk admiral who's actually a Reptoid, and who has launched a preemptive strike on a Pact Worlds-allied colony world. It's a cool idea, suggesting a starship blockade to run, a frenemy situation with some Veskarium secret agents who also want to defuse the explosive situation, tangling with brainwashed troops, and the Reptoid themself, whose plan for this conquered world are unknown. Alternatively there's the general story hook of finding the remaining PC doppelgangers, all Reptoids who are surely up to nafarious deeds. In my game, those surviving doppels would be a biohacker in a high interstellar medical post, a Starfinder captain exploring ancient ruins and making first contact, a celebrity chef on an opulent cruise, and a celebrity wrestler-turned-corporate shill for a deep space mining project. So who's gotten that far in the story yet? Or who's thinking about what might be a good adventure for when your party does get there?
So, the Dycepskian menace is actually the main intrigue for most of books 4 and 5, with the canonical threat being represented as one with huge ramifications. Additionally, these books involve a fair bit of investigating and infiltrating as well as travel, so it would feel organic and not rushed, I think. To illustrate that threat and make it real--to demonstrate that thus fungal parasite can infect and convert anyone, over time--I was hoping that a slow-burn, growing horror/awareness accompanying some sort of spore counter mechanic would be useful. And, if I wanted to model it on the corruption concept from SOS, I could even give out some boons that come with unfortunate side effects. Kind of a devil's deal thing. "Oh, this weird fungal rash helps me do XYZ, it's not so bad..." Does that make better sense? Not sure what other DMs have reached this point in the AP.
Serious narrative spoilers below for THE THREEFOLD MYSTERY adventure path, AND the SIGNAL OF SCREAMS adventure path.
The main narrative centers on learning of Gamut Bio's new HepatoDyne implant, which is in final testing phase, and is actually a secret Dycepskian infection tool. The PCs have to raid Gamut Bio's HQ, then follow the trail of their CEO, a Barathu, who flees to a moon around Bretheda, infecting some folks at another research facility, then onward to a Barathu hospice for victims of the Brethedan blight. I've been wondering...the book makes it clear that implanting one of the HepatoDyne devices is likely to cause infection by the fungal tissue, and take over the victim, but what about a more subtle, growing threat? In another AP, Signal of Screams, the characters have to deal with a form of slow-growing corruption caused by the twisted energies of the Shadow Plane. This is measured with Corruption Points. I'm considering doing the same here in The Threefold Mystery with "spore points", but am still struggling with the exact exposure parameters (e.g. save DCs), and the overall cumulative effects of the spore counters, which in theory, should threaten to culminate in effectively destroying their identity and making them one with the fungal mass mind. Thoughts? Suggestions? Feedback? Are you too already one with the Dycepskian mass mind? Glub glub glub? *mushroom sounds*
Agreed. Find a way to stall if you can, or deus ex machina some support for them. In the game I'm running, back during this sequence I almost had multiple players' characters die, but b/c of the rigged simulation aspect, decided to keep them going with unexpected support from NPCs or suddenly convenient Serums of Healing. During my Jincheroga fight, immediately after the party dealt with 3/4 goblins separately, I needed to sacrifice the pilot NPC, Grath, to give a last-ditch heal to two players, and I also had Lozu providing harrying or covering fire for most of the combat. But yeah, Jincheroga is a tough fight. The goblins not as much, but don't underestimate their action economy.
Sounds very cool! Care to share what bits of intel your players may find behind which DCs? I haven't actually drafted my notes that far. My players just arrived at Roselight from Upwell, and will likely be making Xych Vorsen's acquaintance next session, encountering that troublemaker DeBrie, and possibly having some trouble at the ice cream parlor. I map on Roll20 about 1 book ahead at a time, so I've prepared most of The Cradle Infestation now. But I only do pre-session notes about 2 or 3 sessions ahead, with only bare outlines for anything past. So I probably won't start preparing the Absalom Station sequence of events until they've at least finished up at Gamut Bio, which could be between 3 and 6 sessions from now. I'm curious to see how others are planning that last book, though. For my party, it should be interesting, in that everyone's stated intention was to get to Absalom Station when they first started their journey on the Chimera. It's been a running gag that at every location since, two of the characters--both big dumb frontliners with oodles of personality--have mistakenly celebrated their "arrival at Absalom Station". So I'm back-burner thinking about hwat sorts of serious/dramatic and humorous stuff I can weave into the investigation of the politicians. Gonna reread the Pact Worlds entry on Absalom Station, see if I get any ideas.
Like, if I wanted to know more about my Congressional candidate, who in the world would go to the pub and ask people instead of going to google? I plan on treating this section as a set of different tactics: computers (easy) to learn basics, computers (hard) to learn fringe dirt on the targets (buried by Infosphere manipulation), and diplomacy (moderate to hard) to specifically learn about these candidates' personal lives, where they hang out or live, etc. Also Culture checks to give background info on how government is set up, how society works in general, etc.
No, they're not... Though this now raises the question: how did the Grays create the PCs if the original beings were all replaced by Reptoids? Does taking a sample of a disguised Reptoid only yield the DNA of the being the Reptoid is pretending to be??
Yeah, I dont think they should all match, but there should be some overlap on capabilities and interests with some of them. This would align with the Reptoids wanting to specifically replace persons with certain skill sets or in niche positions, and would still translate along genetic lines to their unwitting clones. That being said, there should be at least 1 with wildly different skills, to throw them off. Like an "oops" in the cloning process. And personality should definitely be different for all of them--Reptoids can be clever actors, but their natural cruelty and ambition usually presents. Plus, each PC should have a unique soul, per Starfinder universe lore. I also think it's funny to see if the PCs think THEY are the originals who have been cloned, not the other way around.
The cookbook first appeared in an old cabinet in the galley aboard the Voidcrier. That character is constantly eating or looking for things to eat, so it seemed like a fun tease. I seeded it early, b/c the party actually skipped the part of book 2 at the Gray station where they would have found the nutrient goo and the evidence of one of their doppelgangers. The footage was seen while doing an Infosphere sweep to catch up on news when they first arrived at Upwell. The cybernetics one can be discovered accidentally when hacking the mainframe at Gamut Bio, in the form of intercompany business communications, but no connection to the main plot. The Erem reveal will be a slow roll, with the doppelganger's name, then face, being briefly seeded in newscasts from Absalom Station. Of course, once the party successfully defeats the Grays at Laoe Arae and hacks their communications, they will get the full dossier on themselves. But by then they should already have the unsettling knowledge of having doppelgangers in strange positions of power.
My party is now in Upwell, taking temp jobs for cash and starship upgrades and, ahem, speeding along the passport applications. So far, 2 of the 4 party members have uncovered their doppelgangers' photos: one, from a celebrity cookbook; the other, from posters of a Solarian/wrestling tour. The other 2 members of the party will eventually find that their doppelgangers are "Erem" though I changed the name and some other circumstances, and an amoral cybernetic weapons developer who won't appear in the adventure (sequel material lol). They also so holo-CCTV footage from the Pact Assembly where a familiar face was talking about an incident in the Diaspora involving a "signal-based contagion". It was the doppelganger of a 5th party member who is sadly gone.
The environmental protections are for temperatures PAST that range: below -20, above 140. Without armor enviro protections, even 90 degree heat requires a Fort save. (See https://glasstopgames.com/sfrpg/rules/game-mastering/environmental-rules.ht ml) The cool thing about the thermal regulator is that it does not appear to have a charge capacity or usage, so it saves you the trouble of activating your enviro protections (which do consume a type of charge). Plus, it grants you fire AND cold resistance.
Loved this! Fits in nicely with some of the world-building in the latest AP, The Chimera Mystery, too.
Without giving too much plot away, we're in Book 3 now and I just DMed one of the silliest sessions of tabletop I've ever experienced. The Half-Elf Operative has been flirting with K.B., who shared her misgivings about O.P. and the Stewards. The entire group hatched an outlandish plot to gain access to O.P.'s office, involving the Shobhad feigning his arms getting stuck in the toilets (he failed his Athletics check and actually DID get stuck), and the homebrew Panda soldier character convincing the Steward constables to help free his trapped friend; a Ysoki mechanic making not one, but TWO exceptional Stealth rolls while the Strix Biohacker chatted up and Bluffed the hell out of another constable, so the Ysoki could then make, again, not one but TWO great checks (ENG and COMP) to crack the door to the office and then the computer. Oh, and then, cuz the Operative's first attempt to open the door failed, and a silent alarm was tripped, he and K.B. pretended (semi-successfully) to be "in the throes of passion" when more Constables burst through the door to check on the office security breach. Oh yeah, and this was all after a series of montage-like debriefings and hypnosis sessions with the Dr. R.N. During which the operative nearly shat himself. And after which the paranoid Strix then put everyone through a "deprogramming" sensory overload with the help of the Mechanic (flashing lights, freezing cold, and shocking smells). Not a single attack roll this session.
No significant spoilers here, just a question about one of the maps in The Hollow Cabal, Book 4. In the back of the book is a map for a Roselight Oracle, a type of patrol ship the PCs may or may not encounter (but possibly will in the next book?). However, I can't figure out how one deck leads to another. It might be that it simply implies an open vertical space, seeing as Barathu can fly, but the map still doesn't show exactly where an opening would be from the room below into the room above (the bridge), and there are obvious mapped stations on said bridge, implying a floor. Thoughts? Feel free to post other map questions below, any other GMs of this AP.
I have been running this AP since late March, all remotely through Discord/Roll20 due to social distancing. It takes a bit of prep each week, but I think it's worth it. If the initial setup and key end reveal of Book 1 and the initial bad guy reveal of Book 2 are planned for and carefully executed, it really draws the players in and blows their minds. I tried to memorize the who/what/why of the Chimera crew and guests, to have more natural interactions, and I allowed a little melodrama to occur too, some cheesy overacting and such. Now, they still haven't figured out, or at least openly suggested, the big truth of their existence yet, so that's still a juicy reveal waiting to happen. We just finished Book 2. The party seems to be really intent on figuring out how they ended up in the situation in the first place, and are on edge regarding any new NPC they meet. Its great.
What CorvusMask said. It's up to the GM to ensure each player character has some degree of background that will get upended and contribute to the character's shock at discovering their true origins eventually. What exactly that background is entirely subjective, of course, so yes, an android character might choose to start play fresh off the 3d printer. For them, the weirdness might originate from discovering that their doppelgänger whom they were based on is in fact some famous, accomplished pianist or diplomat or what have you. For an android, also, mass production isn't the only way for them to begin existence. They could be a lovingly created simulacrum that is entirely unique. Remember, within the Pact Worlds proper, androids are technically free and independent, and may not be enslaved, i.e. created for any use without independence. They face old prejudices, of course, but it's really the unethical corporations that still produce androids illegally, mostly outside the Pact Worlds, beyond the reach of law. SROs are different, though, I believe, as they are more "spontaneously attracted a soul by achieving AI sentience"
We haven't reached that point. I am reading ahead to prepare. We're in the middle of "Flight of the Sleepers" now. My plan is to clue them in with something like "You feel a sudden ringing in your ears and your vision flickers. Everything appears normal after the sensation passes." They are mostly a low-brains brawler group that is only a little worried about the Grey facility not being Absalom Station, their intended destination. The detective (operative) character, however, has been slowly sliding into an existential crisis with each strange revelation. He is very paranoid about shapeshifters now, having called the disguised Captain as an astrazoan earlier on the Chimera.
**SPOILER TOWN** I'm assuming the part of them mentioning the details of event 1 are exposition for the GM. What is everyone's interpretation of this event, how did it go over with your PCs? I am treating it as GM material as well, though discoverable to the PCs through investigation. Page 4 of Deceivers' Moon says: "Victims have no memory of the gray abduction and can’t recall what happened during this period of missing time." Some of the clues the PCs can use besides the overall missing time phenomenon are: wounds have been healed and conditions removed, there's signs of surgical investigation related to their previous lab "upgrades" from Flight of the Sleepers, technological data on board the ship, and of course the events of Encounter 1. This is an opportunity, like the majority of the first book, for the GM to subtly allow PCs access to clues to figure out the reality of their situation. Only once they've pierced that veil can they begin to put together the pieces and see what happened to them. Having the players themselves only know what their characters know is the only realistic way to truly create the kind of role play necessary for this kind of adventure. Every new revelation is truly a shocker.
I have a melee-focused soldier character with whom I thought I could find a way to make more effective full attacks. The plan was to pick up the "Multi-Weapon Fighting" feat at Level 6, followed by the Feat Boost "Multi-Weapon Versatility" at Level 7. This would mean that I "treat all one-handed melee weapons as if they had the operative special property" and is RAW intended to function with Multi-Weapon Fighting feat. However...does my now having all my one-handed melee weapons count as "Operative" weapons reduce my normal Weapon Specialization to half-Character Level?
Hi there, Running a Threefold Conspiracy campaign and one of the players has a Qi Adept character with the Aesthetic Warrior alternate class feature. He also has Natural Weapons. We have some questions about the Plasma Blast ability he gains in a few more levels. We've looked at the COM Errata already, where it specifies that this ability is "a special ranged unarmed strike that targets KAC, requires one hand, is not archaic, has a range increment of 30 feet, deals lethal electricity and fire damage, and has the stunned critical hit effect". Question 1: is this attack made with DEX or STR?
Would appreciate any insight on these applications of the ability.
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