A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1–4.
An important data package requires that the PCs travel in person to secure it. When the simple mission goes awry, the PCs find themselves trapped in a high security corporate office. With no way of contacting the outside, the PCs must make their way through the complex, avoiding the activated security systems and the agents of those responsible for the sudden office lockdown!
The premise of this scenario presents an interesting situation that would make for a highly memorable adventure for Starfinder. Unfortunately, it's marred by shockingly poor execution.
It's not just simply hard. At best, the scenario is a boring slog with a single, dreadfully long combat encounter that puts PCs in an unfair situation and takes away all elements that could make it fun.
Spoiler:
The entire scenario is essentially one giant combat encounter akin to Die Hard. The party is trapped in an office building without their weapons and have to fight their way out against killer robots and death traps. This would be fun if not for the fact that:
1) The combat is horrifically overtuned. With unavoidable deathtraps that reset and multiple tough enemies, this combat should be at least a CR 8 encounter against a bunch of level 1-3 PCs.
2) The scenario does not account for the fact that low level PCs have extremely limited resources. A level 1 character usually has no gear outside of a weapon, armor, and maybe a healing syringe or tool kit. Take away their weapons and such a PC is helpless unless they're a spellcaster or a solarian with a solar weapon. This scenario would work better as a 3-6 Tier where it's assumed each PC has resources to prepare for such situations.
3) The scenario goes out of its way to block any creative solutions. You can't trick sensors. Computers and doors are pretty much un-hackable. Walls are indestructible and there's no stats for the cubicles. There's armor a PC can pick up, but they have to waste a turn putting it on and have to trigger multiple deathtraps to get it.
4) There is little to no opportunity to rest after dealing with the deadly opposition. As soon as you deal with the initial enemies and get your weapons, more enemies show up. As soon as you leave the office, you get trapped in a room with poisonous gas and three enemies that can easily finish you off. My party never got to recover stamina.
5) The scenario has several "screw you" moments. The way you entered the office is blocked with an indestructible door that cannot be hacked or teleported through. The scenario deliberately never telegraphs the existence of this door -- even NPCs don't know about it. So, the party has to waste another hour of game time to backtrack. The deathtraps reset. The poison gas room ignores environmental protection. Other elements that seem to accomplish nothing but make the scenario more of a slog.
6) The PCs have to protect an unarmored NPC. Yep, it's an escort mission ontop of a "you lose your weapons" mission.
Ontop of all that, there's no social encounters, few roleplay opportunities, and the story is minimal and makes little to no logical sense.
The scenario is just a single, long, brutal, boring combat. It traps you in an unfair situation and takes away all creative options to deal with it.
This is far too deadly at low tier, particularly given how little information the players have up front to avoid any of the hazards. It feels like it was written thinking about all of the things players have and enjoy and taking them away not in the service of story but simply out of spite. It's a pity because the basic idea of trapped and sneaking out of a secure location is a good one, its just wasted at a level where this sort of lethality is wholly inappropriate. Worry that this being someone's first (or worse, second or third so there was some character investment) module would likely result in them walking away from the game entirely.
Played this at the 1-2 tier table with five players, and it was a lucky thing there was a level 4 and level 3 soldier there or everyone would have just died, no question. Fights with no weapons, death traps everywhere that deal tons of damage, and high DC saves that the game requires you to subject yourself to to succeed. Like I said, I was a level 3 soldier playing down and my character STILL almost died (was 2 HP from going down, and we were out of healing serums, spells, and no one in the party had medicine.)
Like I said, I don't know how low-level players are supposed to survive this at all.
This had a very fun concept playing with toying with the basic structure of one of these adventures and it had the potential to be very very good.
The first problem is this one: getting the players hooked on the plot vs mission at stake. This one was surprisingly difficult. I had assumed the players would simply naturally be very interested in WHY this happened. Instead, I learned that if you put a puzzle in front of players that activates the puzzle solving portions of their brains and they tend to begin shutting off the roleplaying side.
For the mission itself, there were a number of mechanics and natural things players wanted to try that weren't really addressed in the scenario. For future adventures, writers who want to put players into a sandbox like this should keep in mind that the players are gonna interact with every little thing you place in the environment so things like hardness and hit points of say cubicles would be good to have in the scenario at hand.
Additionally, it seemed there was a fine line to tow when it came to IDing the security measures in place and a little extra guidance on that considering how central it was to the environment would have been helpful.
Finally, the fights at low tier were a bit overclocked. I get that they were theoretically avoidable for a more a skills oriented party but theyre still difficult to avoid for players who lack omniscience. Had the party not been carrying a level 4 playing down they would have been in quite a lot of trouble.
But that's just the areas for improvement.
Overall, it was very good. The atmosphere was one both mundane yet off-putting and the details were all very good. The roleplay potential of this one is immense and the variety of methods that may be used to 'solve' the issues at hand are appreciated and were interesting.
I had been hoping for a more intrigue oriented situation with a bit more actual choice available for players but this was still pretty good.
Honestly, I had a blast playing this, which isn't something I frequently say about RP-light action heavy scenarios. The setting, mood, and pacing were all excellent. The PCs are outmaneuvered, outgunned, and under pressure essentially from the beginning and things only get worse.
Could have been a 5 star module, but the other reviewers are correct - the encounters and hazards are brutal and borderline unfair. We were a hair's breadth away from a TPK on no less than three occasions. Balanced party compositions will struggle on this, as will classes that don't come into their own in combat until later levels. I won't be surprised if this goes down as the most killer module of the season (at least top 3).
As a GM, things I might do to mitigate this without changing rules as written or stat blocks would include:
Scenario Details:
After the blackout occurs and PCs exit the office, have them see an employee move to near a terminal and get electrocuted to death. This alerts PCs that they should think through their actions carefully.
Scenario Details:
Emphasize how deadly the Ooze enemies look when the PCs encounter them. Given their DR 5, a level one party of ranged combatants may not even make a dent in their HP, and get taken down rapidly from their high hit % high-damage attacks. Our party ran from these things, and that's probably the right call for most parties.
Scenario Details:
Encourage the PCs to plan their actions carefully before they enter the Smoke Room. A 4D6 acid trap trigger (on a very likely wounded party), followed almost immediately by another challenging fight is basically death.
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Thursty said on Know Direction that it will feel like a Shadowrun mission, so perhaps it will be Faction (Ares Macrotechnology) or Faction (Aztechnology). I am very excited for this one!
I believe, and Thursty will come on here to correct me if I am wrong, that this scenario actually has no tags. There's one big custom map.
This scenario was a challenge to write; it's very different than other scenarios, and poses some really interesting obstacles for PCs. The Shadowrun feel is absolutely intended. I think you'll like it!
Was this intended to be unavoidable instant death for low level characters? because Medium Radiation is a CON poison, and so it deals 7HP dmg/round whether of not the PC succeeds on the save. That's instant death for a 1st level Ysoki Technomancer, and the scenario gives no indication that its there before you hit it, so if a has to end their turn inside the area, they take 14 damage, which is enough to kill any level 1 character and most level 2's.
Because telling a player "Sorry your character just died to something you had no chance of detecting" is a good way to never see that player again.
** spoiler omitted **
Because telling a player "Sorry your character just died to something you had no chance of detecting" is a good way to never see that player again.
Umm, don't all player armors have environmental protection by default that lasts days or at least hours?
** spoiler omitted **
Because telling a player "Sorry your character just died to something you had no chance of detecting" is a good way to never see that player again.
Umm, don't all player armors have environmental protection by default that lasts days or at least hours?
Environmental protections only give a +4 bonus against that particular save.
