A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 3-6.
A routine business deal goes awry when a spiteful drow noble seizes a shipment of weapons destined for the Starfinder Society. The PCs are sent to the gloomy world of Apostae to retrieve the stolen arms. Granted 24-hours of diplomatic immunity for any actions taken against the thief, the PCs strike at the rebellious drow noble and retrieve the shipment. Whether through guile or sheer force, the PCs must prove that the Starfinder Society is not an organization to trifle with.
Written by Mikko Kallio.
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Based on my experience running at my local gaming store...
The first 3-6 scenario does some things good, but unfortunately it also misses the mark pretty consistently. To be fair this is not a terrible scenario for the most part, and I considered bumping it up to three stars, but the way the scenario is set up from the very beginning to the scenario's success conditions made me bump it down. I think a group can play 1-06 and have a good time, as long as they don't think about it too hard or (frankly) do too well. Details in spoilers below.
The beginning
Spoiler:
The Starfinder Society has recently finalized a weapons shipment purchased from a minor drow house X on Apostae that major drow house Z brokered. Before the Starfinders can take possession of the shipment, however, a rogue noble from house Z kills house X’s minions and steals the shipment for herself! Now the Starfinders have to go to Apostae and negotiate with another noble in house Z for the opportunity to try to get the weapons back. Sound confusing? It is! As one player at my table pointed out, why isn’t house Z getting the weapons back for us? Or why isn’t house X showing up demanding the shipment back so they can complete the sale – wouldn’t they lose all of the credits the Starfinders would have paid for the shipment otherwise? Or did the Starfinders pay 100% up front before taking possession of the weapons (a dumb move, to be sure)? Given that this is “the future”, could the Starfinders just cancel the payment (since this is presumably an electronic transfer of credits) and/or demand house Z give them a comparable weapons shipment instead of having to go convince the family of the group that stole the weapons that the people who bought the weapons should be able to track down and acquire (steal back?) the weapons they rightfully own in the first place? If the Starfinders steal back the weapons from house Z, do they have to pay house X at all since house X didn’t actually deliver the weapons? Lots of questions as to why the Starfinders are involved in this one the way they are.
The middle
Spoiler:
After finding the warehouse where their stolen weapons are being stored (I did like the mechanics of finding the warehouse, for what it’s worth), the PCs have to infiltrate the warehouse and acquire the weapons. The weapons are stored in a basement accessible by a freight elevator, so the PCs broke in via the door closest to the elevator, hacked the elevator, and proceeded straight to the basement. They completely ignored the first level, which made sense from a tactical point of view, but in doing so (had they not gone back later) they would have forfeited a ton of credits and item access based on how the scenario is written. If the goal is to go find the weapons and get out as quickly as possible, the scenario shouldn’t assume/require the PCs to check out virtually every room in order to get full credits on their chronicle sheets.
The end
Spoiler:
Once the PCs get to the forklift, as far as I can tell the house Z noble just knows the PCs are there stealing (back) the weapons even if no alarms have been tripped. The party that I was running for wasn’t flawless, but I feel like if they had been flawless they shouldn’t be tripped up based on plot fiat. Also, by skipping straight down to the end, they hadn’t dealt with the majority of the drow guards on the first floor. The scenario (based on my reading) didn’t clarify one way or the other, but it would make sense for the noble to grab all of her drow bodyguards when she comes down the elevator, potentially creating a situation where the PCs effectively fight three combats back-to-back-to-back or, perhaps even more accurately, fight one combat followed immediately by a double combat! Again, this is silly and actually (potentially) punishes the players for doing well during the infiltration.
Now, there were some good things about the scenario. The combats were pretty fun and it provided a different flavor than previous SFS scenarios. The set up just had some issues, and, more importantly, the way the scenario had the reward/success conditions set up ran counter to how the scenario would’ve ideally been completed.
I'm finding that Starfinder Society scenarios are either feast or famine when it comes to quality. I enjoyed The First Mandate, but not this one.
First, the fact that PCs and NPCs have different rulesets is ridiculous. That concept alone boggles the mind and is a major detraction from the system. The 24-hour time limit was a good piece of this, as was the infiltration aspect. Once the final encounter started, since we weren't given any preparatory time to heal up and reposition, the extra waves of guards and thugs, as well as the final enemy only didn't turn into a TPK because of time. We had to stop, so we called the scenario. If we had tried to finish the combat, we all would have died.
I can't think of anything we did wrong, except perhaps not roll consistently well on our attacks.
Frankly, the fact that you can't actually build any NPC using strict character creation rules is something I find disgusting.
Great research and infiltration, lackluster finale
I ran this last night for a group of two 5th level PCs and 2 4th level pre-gens in a non-organized play game.
The setting is fun and original and I'm sure many people will be stoked to get to meet some drow and their home world.
The first part, the negotiation, was tough but fun and I especially liked the variety of skills that could be used.
The second part, the research, was also fun and again a nice surprise, that even the Hacking Team could use skills other than Computers to contribute.
I especially appreciate, how streamlined the first two parts were and how the 24 h time limit helped to give some meaningful choices to the players: should we push onward to get more info or should we not waste any more time?
The third part was fantastic. The infiltration was fun and very well balanced (for our party) and the ghost operative had a chance to shine. This section felt like a stealth tactical game and we loved it!
The last bit in the warehouse was a little underwhelming. Basically you find three waves of half-orcs and more of the same drow you already fought upstairs. The final boss is also just a standard operative with no "special something" beyond higher damage output to make that final boss really feel like a finale.
In summary, we enjoyed this scenario and I think it can go a lot of very different ways depending on the party composition, which I think is a good thing. Play it for yourself and find out!
Giving PC's a carte blanche for pretty much anything is probably going to be bad idea. I for see this scenario providing us lots of infamy, which isn't a bad thing.
super excited about this scenario - more information on Apostae and its arms dealing rulers!! Just how much mayhem can a group of adventurers cause in 24 hours with diplomatic immunity.......I'm drooling at the prospect :o)
Thanks to the infamy mechanic, that is an option—albeit an option that's not necessarily good for your character. That said, our adventure design aims not to require infamy-earning actions in order to complete a scenario satisfactorily.
super excited about this scenario - more information on Apostae and its arms dealing rulers!! Just how much mayhem can a group of adventurers cause in 24 hours with diplomatic immunity.......I'm drooling at the prospect :o)
I'm very glad to see people are excited about the scenario! Infamy will definitely play a role in the scenario, but as John pointed out, doing bad things is totally optional. There are several ways the PCs can track down the weapons.
How are society characters intended to be Level 3-6 by now?
1-00 is 4th level pre-gens. It's not reasonable to assume everyone applied this to a level 1.
1-01 1XP
1-02 2XP
1-03 3XP
1-04 4XP
1-05 5XP
Not enough to be level 3 for the next scenario
1-06 Forced to play a pre-gen?
No problem! I had to do the math a couple times myself to be sure how it all shakes loose. But playing the Quests is a great intro to Starfinder and I recommend them highly!
We wanted to make sure that we had something right away to showcase that we aren't forgetting about higher level content. You can expect to see a few scenarios stepping back into the 1-4 routine after this, but we'll also be introducing more and more 3-6 scenarios in increasing number.
Bought this through the Starfinder Society subscription. Despite getting the paizo.com order emailed to me about 5 hours ago, this isn't in my downloads - it just says "pending" on the order. Would love to be able to read through this - am running it on Monday.
Bought this through the Starfinder Society subscription. Despite getting the paizo.com order emailed to me about 5 hours ago, this isn't in my downloads - it just says "pending" on the order. Would love to be able to read through this - am running it on Monday.
Same here (except that I'll be running it on Saturday).
Organized Play Lead Developer
