paizo.com Recent Reviews of Starfinder Adventure Path #33: Dominion’s End (Devastation Ark 3 of 3)paizo.com Recent Reviews of Starfinder Adventure Path #33: Dominion’s End (Devastation Ark 3 of 3)2024-01-20T00:55:23Z2024-01-20T00:55:23ZStarfinder Adventure Path #33: Dominion’s End (Devastation Ark 3 of 3): Doesn't quite stick the landing (4 stars)Leon Aquillahttps://paizo.com/products/btq0252i?Starfinder-Adventure-Path-33-Dominion-s-End2022-08-10T22:48:05Z<p><b>Starfinder Adventure Path #33: Dominion’s End (Devastation Ark 3 of 3)</b></p><p>The first part of this AP is poorly placed and sucks all of the momentum out of the finale like an oxygen-starved fire.</p>
<p>First, it's a railroad. All it takes is one savvy player saying "Through the airlock? No, that's what they're expecting" and blowing a hole in the hull instead and you're suddenly answering questions if you pull this trick on them.</p>
<p>The unblockable "Sorry you all fall unconscious, are taken prisoner, and put in VR" thing in the intro also will rub players the wrong way.</p>
<p>Finally it's asking a lot of the players to pretend to be brainwashed Sivv who don't know who they are after 2 AP's worth of participation - this is the kind of mystery you create at the beginning of an AP arc (like Threefold Conspiracy), not at the end. I barely felt motivated to even PRETEND like they were all Sivv other than changing their icons.</p>
<p>Finally - the passage of time. The AP says that the party is captured for several days —— <i><b>What was the assembled Pact Worlds fleet doing this whole time, getting coffee?!?!</i></b> </p>
<p>This AP appears to have been written in a complete vacuum, not even acknowledging what had transpired in the past. There's no contact with anyone on the outside! Did the fleet battle just last several days? Good question. This adventure doesn't even bother trying to answer it!</p>
<p>The vexatious part of all of this is that we already have a blueprint for how to board a super-colossal dreadnought class ship — all the way back in Dead Suns 6!</p>
<p>In my opinion the whole thing should either be done as a series of narrative beats, no dice rolls, just roleplaying vignettes — or skipped entirely.</p>
<p>The rest of the AP plays out pretty conventionally and is a suitable ending. But man, that first part is just a gigantic speedbump that breaks the perfect flow that the 2nd AP had.</p><p><b>Starfinder Adventure Path #33: Dominion’s End (Devastation Ark 3 of 3)</b></p><p>The first part of this AP is poorly placed and sucks all of the momentum out of the finale like an oxygen-starved fire.</p>
<p>First, it's a railroad. All it takes is one savvy player saying "Through the airlock? No, that's what they're expecting" and blowing a hole in the hull instead and you're suddenly answering questions if you pull this trick on them.</p>
<p>The unblockable "Sorry you all fall unconscious, are taken prisoner, and put in VR" thing in the intro also will rub players the wrong way.</p>
<p>Finally it's asking a lot of the players to pretend to be brainwashed Sivv who don't know who they are after 2 AP's worth of participation - this is the kind of mystery you create at the beginning of an AP arc (like Threefold Conspiracy), not at the end. I barely felt motivated to even PRETEND like they were all Sivv other than changing their icons.</p>
<p>Finally - the passage of time. The AP says that the party is captured for several days —— <i><b>What was the assembled Pact Worlds fleet doing this whole time, getting coffee?!?!</i></b> </p>
<p>This AP appears to have been written in a complete vacuum, not even acknowledging what had transpired in the past. There's no contact with anyone on the outside! Did the fleet battle just last several days? Good question. This adventure doesn't even bother trying to answer it!</p>
<p>The vexatious part of all of this is that we already have a blueprint for how to board a super-colossal dreadnought class ship — all the way back in Dead Suns 6!</p>
<p>In my opinion the whole thing should either be done as a series of narrative beats, no dice rolls, just roleplaying vignettes — or skipped entirely.</p>
<p>The rest of the AP plays out pretty conventionally and is a suitable ending. But man, that first part is just a gigantic speedbump that breaks the perfect flow that the 2nd AP had.</p>Leon Aquilla2022-08-10T22:48:05ZStarfinder Adventure Path #33: Dominion’s End (Devastation Ark 3 of 3): 4.5 probably, flip flopped between 4 and 5 (4 stars)CorvusMaskhttps://paizo.com/products/btq0252i?Starfinder-Adventure-Path-33-Dominion-s-End2021-12-01T08:25:13Z<p><b>Starfinder Adventure Path #33: Dominion’s End (Devastation Ark 3 of 3)</b></p><p>So if my campaign hadn't turned to bi weekly and I didn't have few breaks even with bi weekly rhytmn, probably would have finished running this faster and giving this 5 stars :'D But because of breaks I did have extra time to think besides the hype and that bit lowers my impression.</p>
<p>I don't think its really fault of adventure itself, more of starfinder page amount restricting amount of details we can learn. Like this AP volume does good job at giving chance to learn about the big bad despite lack of backstory article, with the VR simulations being based on his memories. Main issue is that there is lot of what kinda feels like handwaving due to lack of details given.</p>
<p>Like first book of the AP mentions AI big bad is corrupted due to big bad dying from radiation poisoning in middle of upload, but this book kinda glosses over that detail what the corruption exactly causes. I had to read between line corruption is probably why VR simulations have weird glitches and details Sivvs shouldn't include as part of propaganda and why ship is mostly unguarded.</p>
<p>Second thing is that VR simulation is bit handwaved with "PCs have strong wills so the simulation glitches out" in a way that makes it bit hard to tell what is intended by Sivvs and what isn't. Also with simulations being based on big bad's memories, it creates lot of fascinating questions that page amount doesn't give time to get deeper into: Like hospital scene implies that what happened in reality was more grim, but hospital simulation's goal for pcs is to ignore cruciating waiting time and find out truth about how the hospital works, so PCs never find out implication that either mate or spawn or possibly both perished. This also leads to weird thing about education one: So is this completely fictional event with AI taking direct control of narrative or is this also based on memory? And if so, was Vheiransch the parent or child in the memory? Final kinda wonky memory is the Kishalee Torments one, like... Its really unclear of what part of simulation is real and isn't real. Like Kishalee in simulation are like "hah we are going to execute you later" but the thing that gives lucidity points is hearing sivvs be like "kill them all and let one of them go to spread terror". Like its really hard to tell if Kishalee are supposed to be made appeared as worse than they were, if sivvs are overreacting to what kishalee did or if point is just "kishalees were pragmatic, sivvs are overly cruel". Or if this is just war memory or what. (the degenerator memory is easy to explain as being important memory to big bad and thus not supposed to be part of propaganda)</p>
<p>I hope its clear what I mean: I love the adventure, but more I have time to think about it, more I think "ya know, this could be less vague".</p>
<p>There is also bit of pro/con of Sivv Dominion being portrayed as increasingly over the top evil x'D Mostly because at the end there is the moral question of "What to do with them?" but AP makes seemingly accidentally pretty good case for "Sivv Dominion indoctrinates all of its civilians to be blatantly sadistic, even the scientists worked slaves to death to cover up paternal leaves and such, so yes all of them are evil". On one hand it creates good deal of black comedy and such, but we don't really have any proof to contrary of whether there were any sivvs disagreeing with dominion due to info we get from VR simulation being pretty appalling. Though thankfully ap does remember to include victim perspective of the matter since its more effective way to raise stakes than just "look at how evil they were"</p>
<p>Oh about VR simulation stuff: my players were effective with high level spells so they skipped tracking through ice with teleport and wall of forced enemies outside from getting in the bunker :'D Robot in hospital they avoided with control machines. Later on they flew over walls and combined ALL encounters in kishalee simulation into one(so I can confirm that 4 level 18 characters with terrain advantage can take care of 8 cr 13, 1 cr 15 and 1 cr 17 at same time relatively easily)</p>
<p>But yeah about the dungeon part itself: its pretty decent and fun, I really love start of it and how there are couple roleplaying encounters included throughout entire book, though my party did make much more roleplay since the convinced frujai peacefully to let them go and ko'd Xiello and used psychic surgery on him :'D So they removed indoctrination from majority of deck inhabitants. </p>
<p>I do have one issue with dungeon design though: I do think as written, its bit too generous with resting. I did decide to add bonus CR 22 encounter for level 19 party to level them up and give them one rest to start level 20 at full resources, but level 20 area of book is easy enough that yeah they didn't need to spend much resources before final boss :'D</p>
<p>Final dungeon area has also little bit of problem with it: Since its loop shaped and players can start out at either end of loop, they might go from opposite end and miss the friendly npc completely. Which depending on party and gm means they might kill calecor first(I just warned them with sense motive check that calecor will attack them if they don't immediately close the door, as its clearly more interested in sivvs), meaning they will miss on pathos scene and have extra ally to make final boss fight much much easier :'D On the otherhand, if they go in the other order, they will recruit ally they will keep around for 0 combats (unless they for some reason turn around and go long way) which feels bit too fast time for heartfelt goodbye scene.</p>
<p>Final boss fight this time around is CR 20 foe with lot of CR 17 mooks. I think Paizo was bit being careful with their first level 20 combat and end result is... Decently tough. There isn't any real TPK risk, but CR 20 enemy is strong enough to feel threatening and mooks deal consistent damage. That said, none of the enemies have any real counter to casters, so whole party having greater invisibility meant that with blind sense all of attacks had 50% chance to fail. Though granted, if the didn't have it, I do think someone would have went unconscious, but it also meant big bad had to alone fly through floor with intangible step to attack invisible techomancer who separated computer with wall of force from rest of the room :p</p>
<p>(I also find nature of big bad itself confusing: so it appears to be corporeal hologram and not some sort of fleshy robot body? It's bit unclear of what AI avatar exactly is)</p>
<p>Anyway, that leads me to comment on my own CR 22 encounter vs level 19 party. Why I did that was that party killed only the sivvs (they used control undead on one of genesis wraiths) so they party had ENTIRE deck on their side(they still managed with clever wall of forces and healing prevent any npc casualties) My NPC sivv mech was straight up from melee array table, though looking at it afterwards I notice I accidentally had saves from CR 19 part and attack bonuses from CR 23(though damage, ac, hp, dcs and such were correct for CR 22) and had given it abilities to explode upon death, SR, rerolling will saves and forgot final one.</p>
<p>Anyway yeah CR 22 mech was hardest enemy in entire book :'D I do think that while enemies in final book are capable of dealing damage, they didn't make party really spend resolve, my party was almost at full resolve at final encounter. That said, I do think paizo will likely for their next level 20 adventure(if that happens, whenever it happens) try out CR 21-23(maybe 24/25 there are mechs ;P) foes, though hopefully still some small fries included :D We have seen what equivalent level final boss is like so next time tougher one! That said higher CR foes do have bit of "well they are so tough that party might feel like they are doing nothing to it for couple rounds" thing.</p>
<p>Another thing about the book is that I'm not sure this book was as good as second book about feeling like it was designed around high level character abilities. Like even with greater invisibility, yeah enemies were able to deal decent damage to party in final boss, but they didn't have any counters to spells besides sr (btw, I assume planar barrier is supposed to work on teleportation effects and not just teleportation spells right? Didn't realize to question that in middle of session ;P) which is at same time good thing, technomancer felt useful, but at same time it does feel like final boss could have had bit more stronger abilities(though granted, move to teleport enemies to whenever you want IS really strong and they do have high damage. Immediately turning incorporeal with resolve to halve damage is decent too, though again bit confused of why AI avatar isn't incorporeal but holograms are)</p>
<p>(bonus: I did like the "almost every class has some special ability to learn in final dungeon thing even if it wasn't as useful for every character and envoy/operative ones were tied between failing trap save :P</p>
<p>Also bit sad they didn't think of "how about we use sivv's mindwipe technology to give them as clean state as bantrids had" :D)</p><p><b>Starfinder Adventure Path #33: Dominion’s End (Devastation Ark 3 of 3)</b></p><p>So if my campaign hadn't turned to bi weekly and I didn't have few breaks even with bi weekly rhytmn, probably would have finished running this faster and giving this 5 stars :'D But because of breaks I did have extra time to think besides the hype and that bit lowers my impression.</p>
<p>I don't think its really fault of adventure itself, more of starfinder page amount restricting amount of details we can learn. Like this AP volume does good job at giving chance to learn about the big bad despite lack of backstory article, with the VR simulations being based on his memories. Main issue is that there is lot of what kinda feels like handwaving due to lack of details given.</p>
<p>Like first book of the AP mentions AI big bad is corrupted due to big bad dying from radiation poisoning in middle of upload, but this book kinda glosses over that detail what the corruption exactly causes. I had to read between line corruption is probably why VR simulations have weird glitches and details Sivvs shouldn't include as part of propaganda and why ship is mostly unguarded.</p>
<p>Second thing is that VR simulation is bit handwaved with "PCs have strong wills so the simulation glitches out" in a way that makes it bit hard to tell what is intended by Sivvs and what isn't. Also with simulations being based on big bad's memories, it creates lot of fascinating questions that page amount doesn't give time to get deeper into: Like hospital scene implies that what happened in reality was more grim, but hospital simulation's goal for pcs is to ignore cruciating waiting time and find out truth about how the hospital works, so PCs never find out implication that either mate or spawn or possibly both perished. This also leads to weird thing about education one: So is this completely fictional event with AI taking direct control of narrative or is this also based on memory? And if so, was Vheiransch the parent or child in the memory? Final kinda wonky memory is the Kishalee Torments one, like... Its really unclear of what part of simulation is real and isn't real. Like Kishalee in simulation are like "hah we are going to execute you later" but the thing that gives lucidity points is hearing sivvs be like "kill them all and let one of them go to spread terror". Like its really hard to tell if Kishalee are supposed to be made appeared as worse than they were, if sivvs are overreacting to what kishalee did or if point is just "kishalees were pragmatic, sivvs are overly cruel". Or if this is just war memory or what. (the degenerator memory is easy to explain as being important memory to big bad and thus not supposed to be part of propaganda)</p>
<p>I hope its clear what I mean: I love the adventure, but more I have time to think about it, more I think "ya know, this could be less vague".</p>
<p>There is also bit of pro/con of Sivv Dominion being portrayed as increasingly over the top evil x'D Mostly because at the end there is the moral question of "What to do with them?" but AP makes seemingly accidentally pretty good case for "Sivv Dominion indoctrinates all of its civilians to be blatantly sadistic, even the scientists worked slaves to death to cover up paternal leaves and such, so yes all of them are evil". On one hand it creates good deal of black comedy and such, but we don't really have any proof to contrary of whether there were any sivvs disagreeing with dominion due to info we get from VR simulation being pretty appalling. Though thankfully ap does remember to include victim perspective of the matter since its more effective way to raise stakes than just "look at how evil they were"</p>
<p>Oh about VR simulation stuff: my players were effective with high level spells so they skipped tracking through ice with teleport and wall of forced enemies outside from getting in the bunker :'D Robot in hospital they avoided with control machines. Later on they flew over walls and combined ALL encounters in kishalee simulation into one(so I can confirm that 4 level 18 characters with terrain advantage can take care of 8 cr 13, 1 cr 15 and 1 cr 17 at same time relatively easily)</p>
<p>But yeah about the dungeon part itself: its pretty decent and fun, I really love start of it and how there are couple roleplaying encounters included throughout entire book, though my party did make much more roleplay since the convinced frujai peacefully to let them go and ko'd Xiello and used psychic surgery on him :'D So they removed indoctrination from majority of deck inhabitants. </p>
<p>I do have one issue with dungeon design though: I do think as written, its bit too generous with resting. I did decide to add bonus CR 22 encounter for level 19 party to level them up and give them one rest to start level 20 at full resources, but level 20 area of book is easy enough that yeah they didn't need to spend much resources before final boss :'D</p>
<p>Final dungeon area has also little bit of problem with it: Since its loop shaped and players can start out at either end of loop, they might go from opposite end and miss the friendly npc completely. Which depending on party and gm means they might kill calecor first(I just warned them with sense motive check that calecor will attack them if they don't immediately close the door, as its clearly more interested in sivvs), meaning they will miss on pathos scene and have extra ally to make final boss fight much much easier :'D On the otherhand, if they go in the other order, they will recruit ally they will keep around for 0 combats (unless they for some reason turn around and go long way) which feels bit too fast time for heartfelt goodbye scene.</p>
<p>Final boss fight this time around is CR 20 foe with lot of CR 17 mooks. I think Paizo was bit being careful with their first level 20 combat and end result is... Decently tough. There isn't any real TPK risk, but CR 20 enemy is strong enough to feel threatening and mooks deal consistent damage. That said, none of the enemies have any real counter to casters, so whole party having greater invisibility meant that with blind sense all of attacks had 50% chance to fail. Though granted, if the didn't have it, I do think someone would have went unconscious, but it also meant big bad had to alone fly through floor with intangible step to attack invisible techomancer who separated computer with wall of force from rest of the room :p</p>
<p>(I also find nature of big bad itself confusing: so it appears to be corporeal hologram and not some sort of fleshy robot body? It's bit unclear of what AI avatar exactly is)</p>
<p>Anyway, that leads me to comment on my own CR 22 encounter vs level 19 party. Why I did that was that party killed only the sivvs (they used control undead on one of genesis wraiths) so they party had ENTIRE deck on their side(they still managed with clever wall of forces and healing prevent any npc casualties) My NPC sivv mech was straight up from melee array table, though looking at it afterwards I notice I accidentally had saves from CR 19 part and attack bonuses from CR 23(though damage, ac, hp, dcs and such were correct for CR 22) and had given it abilities to explode upon death, SR, rerolling will saves and forgot final one.</p>
<p>Anyway yeah CR 22 mech was hardest enemy in entire book :'D I do think that while enemies in final book are capable of dealing damage, they didn't make party really spend resolve, my party was almost at full resolve at final encounter. That said, I do think paizo will likely for their next level 20 adventure(if that happens, whenever it happens) try out CR 21-23(maybe 24/25 there are mechs ;P) foes, though hopefully still some small fries included :D We have seen what equivalent level final boss is like so next time tougher one! That said higher CR foes do have bit of "well they are so tough that party might feel like they are doing nothing to it for couple rounds" thing.</p>
<p>Another thing about the book is that I'm not sure this book was as good as second book about feeling like it was designed around high level character abilities. Like even with greater invisibility, yeah enemies were able to deal decent damage to party in final boss, but they didn't have any counters to spells besides sr (btw, I assume planar barrier is supposed to work on teleportation effects and not just teleportation spells right? Didn't realize to question that in middle of session ;P) which is at same time good thing, technomancer felt useful, but at same time it does feel like final boss could have had bit more stronger abilities(though granted, move to teleport enemies to whenever you want IS really strong and they do have high damage. Immediately turning incorporeal with resolve to halve damage is decent too, though again bit confused of why AI avatar isn't incorporeal but holograms are)</p>
<p>(bonus: I did like the "almost every class has some special ability to learn in final dungeon thing even if it wasn't as useful for every character and envoy/operative ones were tied between failing trap save :P</p>
<p>Also bit sad they didn't think of "how about we use sivv's mindwipe technology to give them as clean state as bantrids had" :D)</p>CorvusMask2021-12-01T08:25:13Z