Starfinder Adventure Path #33: Dominion’s End (Devastation Ark 3 of 3)

But the impression I got from John's (admittedly brief) answer is that sivv being "fairly powerful on an individual level" implies to me that they just have some natural, innate abilities that would put even a sivv civilian above, say, a level one soldier of an existing playable race. If that's the case then I have opinions about it but that's premature without having read their entry yet.

Hmm, I dunno, how's

So yeah, if they made Sivv into a playable species the abilities would be completely different than what the Sivv presented have.

What is the flavor of presented sivvs? Like are they "genetically engineered super soldier" sivvs or are they "standard recruited sivv veteran"?

John Mangrum wrote:

No. (They're fairly powerful on an individual level.)

That's... a massive disappointment. Like, sours my desire to buy this, level disappointment.

I'm still going to because I bought the other two volumes and I can only avoid the sunk cost fallacy in so many aspects of my life, but playable sivv stats was far and away my single most wanted thing from this AP.

If it's that much of a problem, go with the (incorrect) theory I tossed out when the AP was announced: The bantrids are the sivv. Or they were, until a failed slave riot on the Worldseed cost all the bantrids/sivv their memories.

The robots the PCs encounter throughout the AP based on sivv physiology? Based on a servitor race.

Puts a different spin on the final reveal: that there's been a population of several thousand sivv living in the Pact Worlds for a few years by the time the Ark emerges. Sivv, including sivv PCs, who may have *personally* helped exterminate sapient species. What to do with them? Are the "bantrid" sivv responsible for war crimes they can't remember?

For a less flippant answer, ** spoiler omitted **

But yeah, if all of that is too much to swallow, just change it for your table.

Of course I can change it at a table I GM, but I doubt that it will ever come up, partly because my interest in the AP is minimal because of the way it is written.

Still, I won't stop voicing my opinion that Paizo should stop to copy-paste Pathfinder plots into space and start to use common sense and realize with what kind of numbers they are dealing with.

A single ship conquering the Pact System is like an aircraft carrier conquering China. Not going to happen. And this of course not only applies to "what happens when the PCs fail", but to the entire storyline.

So instead of just doing stereotypical "Hero saves the world" Pathfinder plots I would like to see some original Starfinder APs which take the science fiction environment into account instead of ignoring it.
And that includes the Pact System having billions of inhabitants which also means a lot of level 15+ persons, near instant communication, fast travel, a huge industrial base and a big, powerful army.

What Pathfinder plot is this copy pasted from???? Or any Starfinder AP for that matter?

Having the campaign focus on the PCs doing the cool stuff and saving the day isn’t a Pathfinder “thing”, it’s the entire point of the tabletop system where you have a GM telling a story with players.

What you’re asking for is to have the NPCs save the day instead of PCs, which absolutely no one wants but you. The PCs being the stars are the main point. People don’t come to the game to sit around doing nothing while the GM talks with themselves and does what they think is cool on their own. If you don’t like that then you need to find a different game, cause that ain’t going away, ever.

What Pathfinder plot is this copy pasted from???? Or any Starfinder AP for that matter?

Having the campaign focus on the PCs doing the cool stuff and saving the day isn’t a Pathfinder “thing”, it’s the entire point of the tabletop system where you have a GM telling a story with players.

What you’re asking for is to have the NPCs save the day instead of PCs, which absolutely no one wants but you. The PCs being the stars are the main point. People don’t come to the game to sit around doing nothing while the GM talks with themselves and does what they think is cool on their own. If you don’t like that then you need to find a different game, cause that ain’t going away, ever.

Way to twist my words.

The Sivv at the height of their power created a machine that *eats Stars*

The Starstone can turn you into a God and is an unlimited power source.

What do you think they could do if they got their freaky digits on that?

Also...if you have a problem with a small group saving the universe you'd hate a good portion of science fiction.

Also I think you are confusing both normal scifi and scifi fantasy with hard scifi <_<

Like, rag tag group of heroes beating big odds(such as entire alien invasion or big doom ship) is really common scifi plot line :p

Also I think you are confusing both normal scifi and scifi fantasy with hard scifi <_<

Like, rag tag group of heroes beating big odds(such as entire alien invasion or big doom ship) is really common scifi plot line :p

The "science fantasy" excuse has been overused already. Just because there are fantasy elements like magic, thus making it science fantasy, doesn't mean the internal setting logic should be ignored when writing adventures.

The starships are there, the planets are there, the armies and heavily armed organizations like the stewards and church of Iomedae are there. And the technology is there. So they also have to be there in the APs.

That doesn’t make it not be a science fantasy setting, nor not make the adventures focus on heroes.

Nothing that makes it Starfinder is being ignored like you claim, nor are they copying the plots.

CorvusMask wrote:

Also I think you are confusing both normal scifi and scifi fantasy with hard scifi <_<

Like, rag tag group of heroes beating big odds(such as entire alien invasion or big doom ship) is really common scifi plot line :p

The "science fantasy" excuse has been overused already. Just because there are fantasy elements like magic, thus making it science fantasy, doesn't mean the internal setting logic should be ignored when writing adventures.

The starships are there, the planets are there, the armies and heavily armed organizations like the stewards and church of Iomedae are there. And the technology is there. So they also have to be there in the APs.

Soooo you aren't recognizing familiar features from Star Wars?

I'm a bit concerned that Birnam's Bubble, the planet in Codex of Worlds that is completely incased in an impenetrable energy shield that is completely devoid of animal life, looks so much like earth. I mean, I can clearly see Turkey and the Caspian Sea. Is this what our future holds?

FormerFiend wrote:

But the impression I got from John's (admittedly brief) answer is that sivv being "fairly powerful on an individual level" implies to me that they just have some natural, innate abilities that would put even a sivv civilian above, say, a level one soldier of an existing playable race. If that's the case then I have opinions about it but that's premature without having read their entry yet.

Hmm, I dunno, how's ** spoiler omitted ** sound?

So yeah, if they made Sivv into a playable species the abilities would be completely different than what the Sivv presented have.

Yeah my opinion on that is that I wouldn't make something like that playable but I also wouldn't make something like that... period, really?

Basically I have strong but probably not widely held beliefs that a lot of creatures/monsters are just loaded with too many innate abilities and that they should be base something on par with playable races with class levels. Maybe give them unique racial spells/archetypes/feats/equipment/template/graft to represent them getting the power from some sort of experiment or engineering or magical ritual or technology.

But, and this is strictly a personal opinion, I just don't like the idea that they're all just this innately powerful. Especially given that one of the options is to apparently give them the option of integrating into pact worlds society.

Maybe I'll get lucky and we'll one day get a race that is to the sivv as kish are to the kishalee.

This stance confuses me.

You don’t like creatures of varying strengths existing in setting, or am I misunderstanding?

A single ship conquering the Pact System is like an aircraft carrier conquering China.

It's more like a rogue, invulnerable SSBN not answerable to any deterabe country conquering China. Which is pretty doable for certain definitions of "conquer."

How to subject the surface inhabitants of a planet to the Sivv's will isn't the problem of the Sivv, it's the problem of the surviving inhabitants of that planet after each round of orbital bombardments wipes another few percent of the population away.

Ixal wrote:

A single ship conquering the Pact System is like an aircraft carrier conquering China.

It's more like a rogue, invulnerable SSBN not answerable to any deterabe country conquering China. Which is pretty doable for certain definitions of "conquer."

How to subject the surface inhabitants of a planet to the Sivv's will isn't the problem of the Sivv, it's the problem of the surviving inhabitants of that planet after each round of orbital bombardments wipes another few percent of the population away.

Not really. Do you realize how large planets are? How many weapons you can stash on them and how much of them you would need to bombard?

And even if you do that and somehow survive the thousands of nuclear missiles coming your way, what then? How do you intend to get anything out of the planet as long as your authority only exists while your single ship is in orbit while all the other planets in the Pact and the Veskarium are gearing up again?
You would need boots on the ground, but you don't have them. No matter how powerful a single Siv is supposed to be, its still a matter of numbers.

Xenocrat wrote:

Ixal wrote:

A single ship conquering the Pact System is like an aircraft carrier conquering China.

It's more like a rogue, invulnerable SSBN not answerable to any deterabe country conquering China. Which is pretty doable for certain definitions of "conquer."

How to subject the surface inhabitants of a planet to the Sivv's will isn't the problem of the Sivv, it's the problem of the surviving inhabitants of that planet after each round of orbital bombardments wipes another few percent of the population away.

Not really. Do you realize how large planets are? How many weapons you can stash on them and how much of them you would need to bombard?

And even if you do that and somehow survive the thousands of nuclear missiles coming your way, what then? numbers.

SOM has Pact Worlds-level technology beam weapons that can blow up cities from orbit. Devastation Ark 2 makes it clear that Pact Worlds technology and fleets are insufficient to destroy this one Sivv ship and can only hope to temporarily make a gap in the shields for the PCs to board and hopefully destroy it from within. It's invulnerable and it surely has the capacity to destroy planetary population and industrial centers without limit or required resources until some quisling forces surrender and start obeying.

Bro, it's like you've never seen Independence Day. It's that, but without genocide as the goal, just the result of refusing to obey orders and send up your planetary leaders to kiss the ring.

Or it's Persepolis Rising, but with aliens using their own technology rather than humans using alien technology.

SOM has Pact Worlds-level technology beam weapons that can blow up cities from orbit. Devastation Ark 2 makes it clear that Pact Worlds technology and fleets are insufficient to destroy this one Sivv ship and can only hope to temporarily make a gap in the shields for the PCs to board and hopefully destroy it from within. It's invulnerable and it surely has the capacity to destroy planetary population and industrial centers without limit or required resources until some quisling forces surrender and start obeying.

Bro, it's like you've never seen Independence Day. It's that, but without genocide as the goal, just the result of refusing to obey orders and send up your planetary leaders to kiss the ring.

Or it's Persepolis Rising, but with aliens using their own technology rather than humans using alien technology.

And yet the PCs can defeat them showing that they are far from invulnerable as you pretend them to be. Not to mention when the Pact can shoot the shield open to let the PCs pass they can also do the same for other troops or WMDs.

Uh, it takes the entire Armada focus firing on one spot to let the PCs slip in quickly, and they suffer heavy losses in the battle.

And the PCs heroes. Doing the impossible is their thing.

It's kind of subtle, but the "bad ending" also reveals that the armada battle that begins in DevArk 2 is actually still underway throughout DevArk 3.

Xenocrat wrote:

SOM has Pact Worlds-level technology beam weapons that can blow up cities from orbit. Devastation Ark 2 makes it clear that Pact Worlds technology and fleets are insufficient to destroy this one Sivv ship and can only hope to temporarily make a gap in the shields for the PCs to board and hopefully destroy it from within. It's invulnerable and it surely has the capacity to destroy planetary population and industrial centers without limit or required resources until some quisling forces surrender and start obeying.

Bro, it's like you've never seen Independence Day. It's that, but without genocide as the goal, just the result of refusing to obey orders and send up your planetary leaders to kiss the ring.

Or it's Persepolis Rising, but with aliens using their own technology rather than humans using alien technology.

And yet the PCs can defeat them showing that they are far from invulnerable as you pretend them to be. Not to mention when the Pact can shoot the shield open to let the PCs pass they can also do the same for other troops or WMDs.

I do think you should probably wait to read this book first since apparently this is already taken in account based on above posts?

Though I'm kinda getting feeling you have so strong opinions on this that you won't be convinced in anyway ^^;

Ixal wrote:

Xenocrat wrote:

SOM has Pact Worlds-level technology beam weapons that can blow up cities from orbit. Devastation Ark 2 makes it clear that Pact Worlds technology and fleets are insufficient to destroy this one Sivv ship and can only hope to temporarily make a gap in the shields for the PCs to board and hopefully destroy it from within. It's invulnerable and it surely has the capacity to destroy planetary population and industrial centers without limit or required resources until some quisling forces surrender and start obeying.

Bro, it's like you've never seen Independence Day. It's that, but without genocide as the goal, just the result of refusing to obey orders and send up your planetary leaders to kiss the ring.

Or it's Persepolis Rising, but with aliens using their own technology rather than humans using alien technology.

And yet the PCs can defeat them showing that they are far from invulnerable as you pretend them to be. Not to mention when the Pact can shoot the shield open to let the PCs pass they can also do the same for other troops or WMDs.

I do think you should probably wait to read this book first since apparently this is already taken in account based on above posts?

Though I'm kinda getting feeling you have so strong opinions on this that you won't be convinced in anyway ^^;

Must not a be fan of the strain of hard Sci-Fi where "if you can hold the orbitals, the planet is yours." This is often hand in hand with "weapons that can penetrate the kind of particle and radiation shielding space craft need to just fly through space at high velocity will do...things to unshielded planetary surfaces and population centers. Terrible things."

Must not a be fan of the strain of hard Sci-Fi where "if you can hold the orbitals, the planet is yours." This is often hand in hand with "weapons that can penetrate the kind of particle and radiation shielding space craft need to just fly through space at high velocity will do...things to unshielded planetary surfaces and population centers. Terrible things."

Most of those hard sci-fis massively overstate the advantage the gravity gauge gives you while ignoring the defensive capability of planets. Feel free to read through Atomic Rockets, especially the planetary attack (for the gravity gauge) and planetary defense part.

And with Starfinder technology like easy spaceflight and anti gravity technology being in orbit offers even less of an advantage. In the end it comes down to numbers, something Paizo has constantly gotten wrong and shows no signs of improvement. And that results in a setting and adventures that is downright silly. The Ark is just a single ship. No matter how massive, its smaller than some cities on whatever planet it wants to attack. It does not have the manpower to control even a continent, let alone a planet and once there are boots on the ground they are vulnerable.

You can of course, like you do, close your eyes and follow the railroad, but an adventure that requires that from you and removes all player agency as it is impossible to determine the effect their unconventional, or rather unplanned, actions have on a completely unrealistic system is at best average.

They are also operating off different numbers than you are. You don't see it as possible that a single ship, no matter how capable, can pose a threat to the entire Pact Worlds. They do. A discrepancy that large effectively puts you into a different setting than the writers, as the core assumptions you are operating off of are simply not the same ones they are.

So really, it does come down to how you need to modify it for your own table. As written, the Ark Prime is the smaller of the two ships. Perhaps reverse that, make the Ark Prime larger than the Worldseed, while leaving the colony ship at its current size.

Most of those hard sci-fis massively overstate the advantage the gravity gauge gives you while ignoring the defensive capability of planets. Feel free to read through Atomic Rockets, especially the planetary attack (for the gravity gauge) and planetary defense part.
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/

Neither atomic rockets nor even their obvious time travel capabilities back to 1998 web design seem sufficient to me to defeat the described Sivv technological advances, but YMMV.

So really, it does come down to how you need to modify it for your own table. As written, the Ark Prime is the smaller of the two ships. Perhaps reverse that, make the Ark Prime larger than the Worldseed, while leaving the colony ship at its current size.

On rereading, I think I come off as meaner and "badwrongfun" than I intend to be, and if it reads that way, I apologize. I'm just trying to make the point that the writers really can't set it up in a way that will satisfy you, because of the core assumptions you prefer. Your table is in no way wrong, it is just different.

They are also operating off different numbers than you are. You don't see it as possible that a single ship, no matter how capable, can pose a threat to the entire Pact Worlds. They do. A discrepancy that large effectively puts you into a different setting than the writers, as the core assumptions you are operating off of are simply not the same ones they are.

So really, it does come down to how you need to modify it for your own table. As written, the Ark Prime is the smaller of the two ships. Perhaps reverse that, make the Ark Prime larger than the Worldseed, while leaving the colony ship at its current size.

I really doubt that the writers have spend any thought about that and just said "Hey, we need some Pact World threatening thing. How about some ancient powerful thing awakening, that worked for Pathfinder".

And thats the problem. They do not think about the stuff they add so there will always be a huge disconnect between their APs and the fluff they put into other books.

That feels like both a jump and an assumption.

And I believe we all know about that saying about assumptions.

I'm a bit concerned that Birnam's Bubble, the planet in Codex of Worlds that is completely incased in an impenetrable energy shield that is completely devoid of animal life, looks so much like earth. I mean, I can clearly see Turkey and the Caspian Sea. Is this what our future holds?

I was wondering if that was still coming across! Let's just say that in sketch form the correlation was far more obvious.

But that's neither a confirmation nor a denial of your theory!

I just noticed that Ron Lundeen wrote this and the Pathfinder adventure for this month.

So, does he invite you all over to swim in his new Scrooge McDuck money vault.

I just noticed that Ron Lundeen wrote this and the Pathfinder adventure for this month.

So, does he invite you all over to swim in his new Scrooge McDuck money vault.

Yep, everyone's invited! :-)

Is anyone else having trouble with the file size of the PDF? Wow, a Gigabyte just for these three APs? My hard drive is going to fill up fast. That's about 10 to 15 times larger than previous APs except 3FC which seemed to jump to about 100 Mb per adventure, which is still large compared to all the previous ones. I haven't noticed any special difference in content or quality of the art or resolution of the document. The whole Third Printing of the CRB is less than 150 Mb
Flyteach

Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

FormerFiend wrote:

But the impression I got from John's (admittedly brief) answer is that sivv being "fairly powerful on an individual level" implies to me that they just have some natural, innate abilities that would put even a sivv civilian above, say, a level one soldier of an existing playable race. If that's the case then I have opinions about it but that's premature without having read their entry yet.

Hmm, I dunno, how's ** spoiler omitted ** sound?

So yeah, if they made Sivv into a playable species the abilities would be completely different than what the Sivv presented have.

Yeah my opinion on that is that I wouldn't make something like that playable but I also wouldn't make something like that... period, really?

Basically I have strong but probably not widely held beliefs that a lot of creatures/monsters are just loaded with too many innate abilities and that they should be base something on par with playable races with class levels. Maybe give them unique racial spells/archetypes/feats/equipment/template/graft to represent them getting the power from some sort of experiment or engineering or magical ritual or technology.

But, and this is strictly a personal opinion, I just don't like the idea that they're all just this innately powerful. Especially given that one of the options is to apparently give them the option of integrating into pact worlds society.

Maybe I'll get lucky and we'll one day get a race that is to the sivv as kish are to the kishalee.

Umm. I'm not sure if adventure's beginning is something you'd like or not, but it could at least give advice on how to handle something like that. But yeah, the spoilery thing is very absurd

Resolved: 4.1 is the best NPC in the history of Paizo APs.

Resolved: 4.1 is the best NPC in the history of Paizo APs.

Just because the fate of the Pact Worlds (and beyond) is at stake doesn't mean you everything needs to be all doom and gloom!

As a result of some unexpected file size issues on Starfinder APs beginning with volume #31 (The Devastation Ark part 1), we have released interactive map PDFs so that GMs can extract the maps from that PDF instead. We will continue releasing interactive maps for the entire run of Fly Free or Die and beyond.

This PDF is unfortunately affected by the same problem as the "We're No Heroes" PDF. All images and maps contained in the PDF are cut up into small tiles, which makes it nearly impossible to use in a VTT.

I assume this is an error that occurred when creating the PDF since the current Pathfinder Adventure Path PDFs are not affected by this issue (and neither was the previous version of this PDF before it was pared down in size).

Paizo, could you please recreate this PDF with images intact? That would be super helpful for anyone wanting to use this adventure with a VTT. Thank you!

Finally run and reviewed :'D Run this for soldier, envoy, mystic and technomancer