A cry for help from deep within the sun leads the heroes to dive in once more. Forces loyal to efreet from the Plane
of Fire have conquered the deep-sun settlement of a peaceful species, threatening to destroy their way of life. The heroes must infiltrate the occupied city, find allies within, and defeat the fiery oppressors. The group acts as a strike team, assisting the rebels, taking out high-value targets, and helping to restore order. But even if they accomplish these missions, the heroes still have to face the enemy commanders—including a mighty solar dragon—and the discovery that this attack is merely a beachhead for a larger invasion that threatens the Pact Worlds' power on the sun!
"Solar Strike," a Starfinder adventure for 9th-level characters, by Mark Moreland.
A gazetteer of Kahlannal, a deep-sun city built by a new species, the anassanois, by Mark Moreland.
A survey of beings native to the interior of other stars in the galaxy, by Kate Baker.
An archive of creatures, from the telepathic anassanois to enormous giants and the colossal Daimalkan xaxmellia, by Tracy Barnett, Eleanor Ferron, David P. Gregoire, Mark Moreland, Owen K.C. Stephens, and James L. Sutter.
Deck plans and statistics for an anassanoi starship that is an amalgam of smaller vehicles, by Mark Moreland, and a planet of corporate intrigue, by Tracy Barnett.
ISBN: 978-1-64078-139-9
The Dawn of Flame Adventure Path is sanctioned for use in Starfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure Path and Chronicle sheet are available as a free download (1.2 MB PDF).
Other Resources: This product is also available on the following platforms:
Solar Strike brings the primary plot of Dawn of Flame back into direct focus in an urgent way. At the end of the last book, the PCs got a psychic plea for help directing them to Khalannal, the deep-Sun city of the Anassanoi, an alien species that has not yet gotten into direct contact with the Pact Worlds. This mission of aid brings them back into face-to-face conflict with the main antagonists of the adventure path, the disciplined and militaristic forces of General Khaim's legion. The book follows directly on from hints and set up from books 1, 2 and 3, and brings the threat of invasion from Khaim's forces into crystal clear relief. It's a payoff that's been waiting for several books, and it largely sticks the landing.
Though I do have some complaints about the book and many of its encounters, it serves as a great way to tie the plot together, and the "against the odds" rebellion against an occupying military force is a solid adventure structure. There's a lot of good stuff to like here, and there is enough supportive material to build it out as a GM to enhance the parts your group particularly has interest in. Not many Starfinder adventures/settings are built robustly enough for that, so it's a pleasure to have it here!
Ultimately, it was a crowd pleaser, and a welcome improvement from the previous book.
The Good:
Missions Feel Important - The PCs are provided a variety of self-directed missions as suggestions to weaken the efreeti occupation. These generally seemed logical, had a good integration with the city's layout, and had enough freedom for the PCs to feel in control. I only wish there were more direct perks and mechanics associated with their completion, something the players can really see in action.
The Spire Assault Sequence - This sequence felt great. There's some variety in the encounters as you climb, there's cool descriptions of the fights outside while you ride the elevator up, and there's really punchy fights once you get up to the top. The time pressure is clear, and the encounter difficulty felt sensibly balanced until the top floor. Linear but cinematic.
Anassanoi Internal Conflict - There's a good internal societal conflict in Khalannal between isolationists/traditionalists and their political opposites. While normally isolationism would be obviously a poor choice, the efreeti invasion has brought new reasons to support the isolationists. It's a juicy and multifaceted conflict, something incredibly rare in the oftentimes shallow feeling Starfinder setting. The nature of the plot of this books brings the PCs into the midst of this, and it's quite fun to explore.
The Bad:
The Maps - The maps for this one are really surprisingly flawed. They're not ugly by any means (in fact, they look great!), but there are things like missing walls, missing sections of the grid overlay, and the depictions of many objects are are hard to reconcile with the descriptions. I was particularly confused by one building that appeared to lack an exterior wall, as well as a section where elevators are depicted as bubble-like spheres with no indication for doors or way to access any rooms from them. It's fixable with some photoshop editing, but it did lead to some player confusion.
Combat Tuning and Enemy Reuse - There's a lot of the same foes getting reused here, particularly the ifrit and azer footsoldiers. It does lead to some samey encounters, but it's not too difficult to make a few substitutions to get more variety. The bigger criticism is that these two statblocks are reused many times and they aren't near each other, leading to a lot of page flipping and bookmarks every combat they show up in. There's also several underwhelming encounters vs. solo casters or ranged foes in small rooms where the foes have no coherent plan to win or escape. Finally, the final encounter vs. the dragon is very overtuned. I actually downscaled it for my 5-man group and they barely scraped through. The combination of top-quality spells, blinding aura, incredible speed, and an above-average melee attack routine all add up to a devastating threat. It also comes at the end of a gauntlet in the Spire, which doesn't help!
Poor Utilization of Side Characters - This adventure brings in a lot of side characters, from the Anassanoi rebels, to the DCI friends. However beyond bringing them in, it completely fails to make any use of them within the adventure. It's a fine hook for the GM (and I certainly expanded their roles manyfold) but it would have been nice to have more to work with.
By power of procrastination, I'm continuing my review backlog!
So I still find this one bit hard to review since it IS mostly combat encounters, but after four years of time since I first read this I think I've seen enough starfinder adventures and run campaigns to have better impression of material even without seeing it in practice.
And in this case, that experience tells me that Solar Strike feels weirdly incomplete outside of combat materials. Like, DCI npcs can come with you, but the adventure doesn't ever tell what they can or might do during the adventure(outside of like two mentions of them tearing up or being excited at the end). Like all burden of them is put on GM and there isn't guidance for how they react to things, how they can mechanically help PCs or anything really. It feels like "Well what if players don't take them with them? Better to not waste page pace on what happens if they do". Starfinder in general is kinda awkward about how to handle npcs being interesting, I think some of later adventures does it bit better, but its consistently one of biggest issues I have with adventures, so I think even though this is four year old ap the feedback on this should still be useful to paizo.
One of the things that really feel incomplete to me is that there is constant recurring mention of the mole working for bad guys and his twin brother which he really wants pcs to rescue once he is unmasked. Well you'd think the consistent mentions are building up to something, but nah his twin brother is dead by time pcs find him. Was he dead all along, did he die when he failed to capture pcs, is he still alive if he DID somehow successfully deliver pcs as prisoners, adventure doesn't make explain that or make any further mention of either mole or his dead twin making it feel like something got cut out from draft by editors. Like it being bummer downer ending is fine, but in that case I would expect one final mention of mole's reaction at his twin bro's fate, but nah its just ends and gm again has to figure out what to do if players somehow got invested to that minor subplot.
Yeah there are lot of these small non combat things that feel just kinda off. Like one npc its mentioned that if they die, then more resistance members die at the end during the big fight, but there isn't really any context on how many (besides "less than expected") die in first place, so does that mean if they died then they took about as many casualties as they would have expected? It feels like throwaway line "GM: Oh, there are consequences for pcs failing this part? Players: Well what is it? GM: Umm more people died? Players: How many more? GM: Err, more." Like was there supposed to be some sort of "pcs get victory points, more they get less losses" mechanic that got cut or is it just attempt to give extra consequences for pc failure that doesn't really clarify how big of consequences are?
But yeah map quality is still great and I do think there are some nice possibly memorable combat scenarios. But my favorite parts of the book really are the Bestiary, anassanois' city article and Deep Cultures article. I do like the cheeky nod to Outpost Zed(i've noticed that after against the aeon throne, Outpost Zed has gotten so many cameos even though none of APs have been canonized into timeline yet. I still hope that happens at some point because it needs to be acknowledged that all Eloritu runes have been discovered by now on side of new locations being introduced x'D). But yeah, anassanois and other deep cultures better make future appearances ;D Adventure itself is pretty okay, but I don't feel comfortable with giving this one four stars just because I like articles, the adventure feeling weirdly off regarding non combat stuff puts the overall nature of it down for me even if it turned out all combats are super fun in practice.
For anyone with access to the PDF:
1. How much rules content is there in the Deep Cultures article?
2. What are the name, type, subtypes and CR of the monsters in the bestiary? Are the anassanois playable?
1. How much rules content is there in the Deep Cultures article?
2. What are the name, type, subtypes and CR of the monsters in the bestiary? Are the anassanois playable?
I got my shipping notice less than 24 hours later. Anyway:
Spoiler:
1. One archetype
2. Yes, anassanois are playable. The full list:
Anassanoi CR 5 N Medium Humanoid (Anassanoi)
Chomurk CR 8 N Large Magical Beast
Devil, Hacker [Lislaroth] CR 10 LE Outsider (Devil, Evil, Extraplanar, Lawful)
Genie, Shaitan CR 7 LN Large Outsider (Earth, Extraplanar)
Giant (Grafts: Fire, Slag, Sun)
Planar Scion, Oread CR 1 LN Medium Outsider (Native) (also playable)
Xaxmellia CR 17 N Colossal Magical Beast (Colossus)
Something I’ve been wondering about (and probably reaching), but in the opening art spread does Navasi have a date?
Honestly been wondering the same, I can't really tell if she is one of Deep Institute members from previous books since I don't have all of the books or supposed to be character from her backstory <_<
So uh, another book I can't really review yet since its mostly combat(most of roleplaying is quest briefing and negoating surrenders/interrogation). This book also kinda suffers from the adventure only being 37 long and Starfinder AP books being 68 pages.
Still bestiary has cool stuff in it and deep cultures article is very cool even if it takes long time before any of new races there will be detailed further :D
I ended up finally reviewing this one because I felt like lot of feedback related to this one are still relevant to modern starfinder adventures (even if things have gotten bit better on npc front) :'D Like it doesn't feel like case of "in 10 years adventure writing style changed so much that feedback doesn't apply anymore"
