A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1-4.
Theft cannot be tolerated, especially when the culprit is a former Starfinder! The PCs travel to the red world of Akiton, hot on the heels of a deserting Starfinder who stole a magical relic from the vaults of the Lorespire Complex. Things get complicated when they discover what should be a dreary town in Akiton's wastelands is now positively jubilant. Could this revelry, not to mention the re-opening of town's formerly defunct mining operations, be related to the wayward Starfinder?
Written by Jim Groves.
Scenario Tags: None
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There's a lot to love in this scenario. I've played it (6 players) and GM'd it (4 players) in Tier 1-2.
The premise is straightforward: go catch the thief. I greatly enjoyed the setting and the background of the NPC motivations, but as others have said it all felt a little under-utilized.
It was a little railroady and runs short, but it was enjoyable. The final combat was challenging when I was a player, but was over in 2 rounds as the GM. I dropped an unlucky Technomancer with the confrontation with the "fan club" in town. It was my first time as a SFS GM that a PC hit 0 hp.
The investigation. This was the one bit that felt a bit unfinished to me. I'd have liked a few locales in Maro where the PC's could go around to gather their info.
1 out of 5 stars for this
Act 2:
The roadtrip & Wild West town. This was awesome. The town was described well enough, there was enough information to make a lively bar. The possible fight was reasonable enough, and the forced fight made it perfectly clear how people saw a certain person.
5 out of 5 stars.
Act 3:
The mine and final boss fight. This is where I have a bit of an issue. The scenario places valuables in locations that make no sense to me. Why is there so much random loot still in a formerly abandoned mine? The main antagonist hasn't had any need to stash stuff there and other valuables have been sold off/removed already. In the economic climate on Akiton I had expected people to loot the mine more efficiently.
The trap also feels a bit over the top, mostly the difficulty to detect it. I managed to oneshot the level 1 engineer's hoverdrone with it. Luckily it was just the drone :).
3 out of 5 stars.
Runtime of this was around 3 hours, which could've been expanded a bit by adding some things to act 1, but I don't think they should be much longer.
From running the Quests it seems that Space combat will be the main point that causes scenarios to run long, and that's something that's not in this scenario.
Overall a solid 3 out of 5 and I'd like to see more of a certain town and it's developments :)
I ran this scenario last night and, overall, I am liking the direction of the Starfinder Society scenario design. Unlike PFS scenarios, which really struggle to cram four or five combat encounters into a single session, SFS restricts itself to a more measured, reasonable pace. The end result are sessions that end at a reasonable hour, and with everyone in relatively good spirits and energy.
The scenario itself is a bit simple, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. A thief embarrasses the Starfinder Society, and in order to maintain face the organization orders its agents to come down hard on the culprit. The agents track him down, and discover the situation is slightly more complex than they thought (but still not so complex as it presents a moral quandary).
There is a lot of room to role play in the first half of the scenario, especially in the second scene, where players can learn all the information they need without rolling a single d20. I like that, because I prefer it when players are actually able to express their characters beyond how they fight (an all-too-common pitfall of Pathfinder Society scenarios).
My biggest sticking points were the combat scenes. I'm not overly-wowed by combat in Starfinder, and while I liked where the fights were set, the enemies seemed a bit uninspired, especially the villain. Enemy tactics also cleave too closely to the bizarre Pathfinder setting logic, where everyone fights to the death for no other reason than those four words appear in their tactics line.
Overall, I think this is a solid scenario, but it could still use some work. Hopefully these issues will be addressed in future scenarios as Starfinder grows into its skin and begins to feel more comfortable with lore and its setting.
I have both played and run this scenario, at Tier 1-2. While not the worst thing in the world, Fugitive on the Red Planet has some serious issues.
Let me tell you them:
First of all, there's a lot of potential in the milieu. The city of Maro is pretty cool, and woefully underutilized, and the desert town of Tasch is just pure space western. This is cool stuff.
However, they're not really used to their full potential, which is kinda weird since the scenario is really short and could've easily fit another encounter. When I played this, we were done in three hours and when I was the GM, I was handing out chronicles at the 90-minute mark, and while I did keep the session going at a fairly brisk pace, I did not particularly hurry.
The structure of the story feels off. Talbot's whereabouts are so trivially ascertained that it barely counts as an encounter. I think the better way to go would've been to write up the investigation in Maro into a scene unto itself. This would also have been a good way to squeeze in some flavour for the big city Maro, which in turn would highlight the podunk nature of Tasch through contrast.
And then there's the whole AbadarCorp thing. There's enough material to unpack in the words "theologically-motivated megacorporation" for an entire adventure path, and Fugitive on the Red Planet does try. It just doesn't quite pull it off. The themes are muddled.
Philt, AbadarCorp's representative, is a colossally unsympathetic character and really, a far clearer villain in the piece than Reynald "Hero of Canton" Talbot, who in the end doesn't really get much personality. However, one of the scenario's big rewards is dependent on staying on his good side. I am not opposed to unequal rewards dependent on the players' choices, and I think a "dealing with the devil" scenario can be very interesting, but here it doesn't quite feel like the players are given an entirely informed choice, and besides, the payoff comes across as an afterthought.
However, there's a tantalizing promise of interesting stuff in the air here, and I look forward to encountering AbadarCorp again, through the intermediary of either Philt or some other interchangeable corporate shill.
As for the combat encounters, I felt that the fight with the Reynald Talbot fan club doesn't really bring anything to the story, and comes across as slightly random, especially if the PCs have taken pains to keep their heads down and avoid attracting attention. It looks like a filler combat encounter. Giving the encounter some flesh in the form of interaction before rolling initiative would've been a good idea, and it could've been used to flesh out Tasch and Reynald Talbot's role in all this far better than just going straight to combat. Maarbadvae would've made a good face for the town.
There's also a trap in a location where it makes no sense to have a trap, in the main thoroughfare of a semi-active mine.
To conclude, Fugitive on the Red Planet has potential, but it is poorly structured and thematically confused.
First, the bad. As other people have mentioned, this scenario runs a little short. We played through it in about 2.5 hours. This was all of my players at least second session, if not their third so folks were starting to get comfortable with the system.
The Good: Can't say this enough, the flavor of the Scenario was a lot of fun to play with. Most of the detail is in the spoilers below.
Spoiler:
My players distrusted the AbadarCorp group almost right away and never straight up told them why they were after the antagonist, however they did agree to hand the antagonist over to AbadarCorp once they got what they needed from him.
It was fun playing up the crusty downtrodden town in the midst of almost a celebration. Players felt uncomfortable right away when they heard who was the reason for it!
In regards to other reviews: I have listened to a fair number of interviews by the developers and they have made it abundantly clear that NPCs are not beholden to the same build rules the PCs are in Starfinder the same way they are in Pathfinder. So there is a good chance that when a GM breaks down a statblock, they will be unable to place where all of bonuses are coming from. Now for some details on the final fight:
Final Map:
First, let me talk about that 3d6 Laser Trap.
It can possibly knock some players to 0 right away, but with some friends around, they can probably get 1 HP back from the medkit that was found in C1 (or a Mystic can heal). Then they can spend Resolve to get their SP back. It also reminds player's that Traps are still a thing in Starfinder and the future. My players were not being particularly careful in the tunnels, and this was a harsh reminder for them.
As for Tasch,he was in the cart right away, dropped the first PC that he say with some help from his henchmen. This is including the fact that I gave the bad guys a surprise round because my PCs took 10 minutes after the laser trap blew the stamina away from the Mechanic. After the first full round and the first PC dropped, the players now knew combat was dangerous, and also quickly wanted to know how to get into the cart with Tasch. Remember, that cart holds three medium creatures. The Operative and Mechanic (Exo) both jumped into the cart with their survival knives, forcing Tasch to go from his fancy Static Arc Pistol to a survival knife as well. His damage tanked, and he only barely dropped the Operative in the last round of combat (Tasch himself only has 2 HP left).
EDIT: After reading some reviews though, it does appear that I overlooked his Holographic Clone, so he would've been a little tougher, but I still stand by this fight not being as tough as some make it out to be.
In closing, the last fight isn't necessarily as hard as some say, especially if your players have some tactical acumen. I can see though how it can be difficult for some players, especially if it is their first Starfinder session
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
So, is there any word yet on what all the Starfinder factions will be? I know we have been told about the Dataphiles, but what other factions are there?
For anyone who has managed to acquire and download this scenario:
Does it give any rules about adjusting to and from the lower gravity and thinner atmosphere on Akiton, or is it simply assumed that everyone adjusts each way without difficulty?
For anyone who has managed to acquire and download this scenario:
Does it give any rules about adjusting to and from the lower gravity and thinner atmosphere on Akiton, or is it simply assumed that everyone adjusts each way without difficulty?
Spoiler:
The scenario assumes the PCs are not adapted to the planet's weak gravity and thinner atmosphere. They are advised at the very beginning to get light armor or some other means to deal with the atmosphere. There are also a few places where the ability to jump higher, etc., is taken into account.
It seems to me that either the "monsters/NPCs are built different from PCs" rules are not as great as they were sold OR the developer didn´t use them correctly.
Of course, with them not being out yet and only coming up in octobers "Alien Archive", it´s hard to say if the version used in here was the "right/final" one...
I guess it's the case of people theorycrafting and being upset that the theorycraft doesn't work they way it did in PF. Without checking out how this works in practice, of course.
Is it possible to get the scenario tags added to the preview blurb for these? It would make it easier to post these or for players to look and decide what they want to play.
Recently, this scenario received an updated version. The email incorrectly matched the updates with another scenario we intend on updating in the near future. For clarity's sake, here's the compiled list of updates to this scenario.
Spoilers for #1-02: Fugitive on the Red Planet:
Page 5: Under the Pitfall for Diplomacy (Gather Information) updated the beginning of the text to read: "If the Diplomacy check failed by 5 or less..."
Page 11: Updated the Subtier 1-2 ysoki ambushers to include the correct EAC of 11.
Page 15: Updated the ranged attack bonus of the Subtier 1-2 miners to +3.
Page 16: Updated Subtier 1-2 Reynald Talbot's static arc pistol ranged attack bonus to +8 down from +10.
Page 16: Updated the ranged attack bonus of the Subtier 3-4 miners to +5.
Page 16: Updated Subtier 1-2 Reynald Talbot's thunderstrike pistol ranged attack bonus to +10 down from +15.
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