A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 5-8.
Renowned as one of the greatest explorers following the advent of Drift travel, Jelev Rasheen left behind a legacy of adventure and exploration, not to mention countless alien relics, technologies, and treasures recovered from her travels. Her disappearance in the Vast, along with rumors of her final treasure fleet, has inspired adventurers for centuries. Now Radaszam, head of the Acquisitives faction, has uncovered a lead on Rasheen's last journey into the Vast, and he wants the PCs' help in finding what befell Rasheen.
I love the idea behind this scenario. This promises to be the first of many scenarios that can be linked together at future conventions as The Final Voyage of Rasheen (or something along those lines). I hope that future scenarios will be at this tier or higher so that individual PCs can adventure through them in succession.
Exploring the starship is interesting. I enjoyed the way that the two encounters are linked; that makes for an interesting encounter. However, it feels like there should be a little more here. Another combat or hazard on board the ship would have been great.
Problems with area A7:
There is a trap on the door to room A7. Please reference door traps before the boxed text to make sure that they get used properly. When I ran this a second time on short notice, I missed the trap until it was too late.
Let’s talk about the map. The scenario labels the map as STARFINDER FLIP-MAT: STARSHIP. Naturally, I pulled that map out of my collection and brought it to the game. Imagine my surprise when neither side of the flip-mat matches the picture in the scenario. Fortunately, the layouts are similar enough that I was able to make it work, but it was somewhat annoying. Thurston Hillman’s list of maps in the product description is correct.
The fight in encounter B is a real pain with fog covering the entire battlefield. I appreciate this as a counterpoint to the scenario with the snipers (i.e., sometimes you just have to fight up close). But it just makes for a painful fight to run especially since a tabletop game doesn’t lend itself well for a fog-of-war scenario. Spellcasters and ranged characters have to fire into total concealment and that slows down the fight. Could we do this again with a lighter fog (e.g., total concealment after 20 feet instead of beyond 5 feet)?
The starship combat (high tier only) is just a waste of time if the PCs have a competent pilot. If the PCs can gain position, the enemy starship is useless.
Problems with enemy starship:
In high tier, the Eoxian turret weapon is a light EMP cannon; an EMP weapon is only usable against a starship with its shields down. Once the PCs get their starship out of the front arc of the Eoxian vessel, the EMP weapon is useless since the Eoxian ship is using gyrolasers (1d8 damage) to attempt to knock through shields. If the Eoxians lose initiative, the only real chance for them is to attempt a Fly-By maneuver; but the turn radius of 2 makes that impossible if the PCs have gotten behind the Eoxian ship. The combination of a poor turn radius and a turret weapon that doesn’t do damage is a killer.
From a story perspective, this is a disappointment. Rasheen sounds like an interesting character. Yet we learn nothing about her; we learn nothing during the course of the scenario. We aren’t told about any specific to her explorations. We could have at least had a culture roll for PCs to know details about some first contact mission (perhaps foreshadowing another future scenario). Please breathe some life into Rasheen; there’s so much potential here.
Rasheen’s Riches sounds at first like a classic treasure hunt — in space! Which is only partly true. Its more accurately described as a treasure hunt where you’re aiming to find another piece of the treasure map. As long as this is clear to your players by the end of the mission briefing (which it should be) you won’t have a problem with any players feeling let down. However, if players think they’re off to find unimaginable riches they might be a little disappointed. I know my kids would say “That’s it? But where’s the treasure?!” Be sure to adjust those expectations a little. Haha.
I enjoyed this scenario. It’s got some environmental challenges to overcome, an interesting investigation, illuminating player handouts, and a battle against some tragic enemies. It’s got an air of a mystery about it, which I liked. I absolutely adored the descriptions of this moon. The entire atmosphere of it — and the creatures that you encounter there — worked really well together. Definitely a highlight of the scenario for me. The starship combat was straightforward but enjoyable. I like the social encounter it begins with and the artwork of the ship!
Spoiler:
It looks like some kind of skeletal Batplane!
Overall I thought this was a really solid scenario that will — hopefully — lead to further adventures on the hunt for Rasheen’s riches!
(based on 2 ratings)
