The heroes travel to Absalom Station to warn the Pact Worlds government of a fast–approaching threat from beyond the stars! But before they are fully prepared, the titanic spacecraft arrives and shuts down the fabled Starstone Reactor, plunging the station into chaos. The heroes must find a way to bring the power back online, while rescuing citizens and dealing with Azlanti spies, angry outsiders, and confused spirits. Can they save the heart of the Pact Worlds and take the fight to the strange alien vessel?
"The Starstone Blockade" is a Starfinder Roleplaying Game adventure for four 16th-level characters. This adventure continues The Devastation Ark Adventure Path, a three-part, monthly campaign in which the players stop the threat of an ancient alien civilization in Starfinder's first high-level adventures! This volume also includes an examination of the church of Eloritu—the god of history, magic, and secrets—as well as a selection of ghastly new aliens!
Each monthly full-color softcover Starfinder Adventure Path volume contains a new installment of a series of interconnected science-fantasy quests that together create a fully developed plot of sweeping scale and epic challenges. Each 64-page volume of the Starfinder Adventure Path also contains in-depth articles that detail and expand the Starfinder campaign setting and provide new rules, a host of exciting new monsters and alien races, a new planet to explore and starship to pilot, and more!
ISBN 13: 978-1-64078-265-5
The Starstone Blockade is sanctioned for use in Starfinder Society Organized Play. The rules for running this Adventure Path and Chronicle sheets are available as a free download (5.1 MB PDF).
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I've run quite a lot of Starfinder over the years its been out, including several full APs as a player or GM, and I think The Starstone Blockade is the single best AP book that they've published. It isn't flawless, but it brings an incredible "big action, big stakes" vibe that most AP climaxes can only dream of pulling off. A satisfying story, so many ways for PCs to flex their powerful skills and spells, rubbing elbows with the who's who of the Pact Worlds, big splashy lore stuff, and a space opera finale with actual teeth to it.
The feedback I got from my players was tremendously positive, and although I did make a few changes, I had a blast running it. I don't give out many 5/5s for adventures, but this one definitely earned it.
The Good:
Immaculate vibes. The sense of urgency and the depiction of chaos across the Station is so very good and the final sequence is epic.
Directly interacting and advising the highest echelons of decision making in the Pact Worlds feels very appropriate for the level range and totally satisfying. Especially if your character is a veteran of a previous adventure in the Pact Worlds, you get to feel like you've become a mover and shaker. The Pact ambassadors are given very solid writeups that give the tools for GMs to understand them well and provide some really robust roleplay.
The adventure manages to thread the needle so that it feels like the NPCs aren't your bosses or quest givers, but people in need that only you are qualified to help. It's also such a big crisis that there's room for many other heroes to rise to the challenge, and therefore there's room to bring in other characters from the past to serve cameo roles.
The final space battle is very easy as written, but feels desperate and satisfying due to the narrative buildup. I love that the available fleets are clearly the result of the PCs successes or failures in Part 1.
So many encounters involve intelligent, powerful beings either in crisis or with their own motivations. There's enough key narrative info for GMs to play these enemies as rational actors that the PCs won't necessarily have to fight.
In general the book allows for failures and successes both to influence events later in the book, visibly and logically making things easier or harder for the players. This highly transparent reactivity is golden. There's also some very good fail forward design, where there are negative narrative consequences that make sense but the adventure is able to continue.
The peek into the heart of Absalom Station is excellent. I went a little off script and gave a glimpse of the Starstone chamber itself, which I think the adventure really should have included, especially with some cool art.
The Bad:
As usual for Paizo, the subsystems leave a lot to be desired. The Pact Leader conference does a great job characterizing the leaders, but the actual rules for gathering info and influencing them are clunky and involve a bit more rolling than I like. I significantly adjusted it by making the info gathering "free" other than the action spent, expanded the skills allowable for influence, and made it so that roleplay discussion between the leaders and the party was what set the initial distribution of fleets, and then players could "spend" the influence they built up to shift fleets around rather than making skill checks for it. It worked out great.
The space battle subsystem at the end is better, but quite poorly balanced (and notably, its rules are drawn out over four pages and are somewhat tough to parse on the first read through). The fleet phase checks are much too easy (meaning critical failures will almost never happen) and even average results will outpace the ability of Ark Prime to make strategic gains, even before the players take any other actions to help things along. At my table liberal use of the special Encourage Allies and Scry Ark Prime actions swung things so far in the favor of the PCs that starting with the third round I had Ark Prime gain a cumulative additional d6 to roll each round for its strategic gains. By the end of the event it was rolling 6d6, and only then was it starting to undo some of the Pact Fleet's advances. Basically, the event is just tuned too easy. The ship combat that happens in parallel is similarly a bit of a joke - though I think in this case that is appropriate, as narratively the fleet combat is the most important part.
The book really would have benefited from a map of Absalom Station with scale for distances for Part 2. The events you deal with are very far apart and part of the fun of this section is prioritizing which crisis to visit and resolve. Travel time is a big part of that decision, but the book leaves distances up to the GM to deduce from other sources.
While my party succeeded at talking down Nirin, the combat itself seems insanely overtuned, with Nirin having incredible defenses and two turns each round. I am curious how this went for other groups.
Much like the last one, I don't have much feedback on this one. It runs real smooth.
A few things:
1. The conference has a bit of jank to it. It acts like there's some complicated things you can do to suss out various delegates, but all you get for sussing them out is a +2 to a flat DC 29 check that you have to pass. Which, when you have skill bonuses in the mid-20's basically means it's 50/50 already. Ultimately the political conference comes down to a set of flat DC checks to encourage them to push forces where they need to go, and then a single set of 4 checks again to see if they get mauled again or not. I roleplayed things out a bit, having bickering delegates, and making the characters try and persuade rather than have flat checks like a real war council.
2. If they're called Contractor Devils in the statblock, don't write a "Summon Creature" spell that calls them Tchorugons. Confusing!
3. If the strategic battle layer seems janky, consider doing armada combat instead. (I thought it was pretty good)
4. The airlock at the end should be moved to the beginning of AP 3
One of best high level adventures I've read and run :O
So this one has LOT to talk about x'D Bit hard to organize this clearly so this will be rambling from me I suppose. Anyway, finished running this book yesterday and it was awesome.
Let's start with the biggest advantage of this book: Its high level adventure that feels like it expects players to be high level. Like problem with lot of high level starfinder society adventures is some encounters are written so that they would break down if all players have jetpack and infrared sensors(though to be fair, in society it happens surprisingly a lot that players don't bother buying items that would be easy to get and helpful :'D) without scenario even acknowledging it. Here adventure presents impossible situation for "normal" characters and pretty much expects high level scenarios to be able to solve it anyway due to their abilities.
Second thing is that this adventure really feels "epic" in scope. Like it DOES pretty much feel like what I imagine people thought ME 3's ending would be like :D There is even "all people of pact worlds(and vesks) united despite their past" moment.
Third minor general thing to note is that a) adventure has several relatively complicated skill challenges, they aren't REALLY that complicated, but it has lot of info so bit hard to explain them to players fast. Sometimes I wish that adventures came with handouts you could give to players to explain how challenge works. Though since I run games in roll20, I just posted all skill challenge mechanics visible there :'D I don't think that is most user friendly way to do it though.
and fourth general thing is also minor one: this adventure is bit heavier on Q&A "example questions and example answers" format. I honestly wish that adventures would switch more into "here is information the character will explain to characters over course of conversation and here is information they only share if asked or prompted" format because while it is handy to get examples of how to roleplay a character, I do think Q&A format feels less natural to roleplay out because I'm incentives to think like "does what players say fit one of these prompts" x'D
Okay here is my scene by scene commentary:
So first book starts with scene where players do presentation to Pact Council on how they should prepare their fleet defenses and assess which areas of concern need highest defense :D I fricking love this scene thematically and mechanically though soldier didn't have much to do with their skill choices in this one(doesn't help they didn't have max skill ranks in any of their skills) and I do think it has bit of problem of "well since influence is written to be character specific, you really only want to succeed at assess checks and one character get as many influence bonuses as possible".
I also think it has issue of that... Well setup is awesome to me, but its hard to role play "we are giving presentation on what you should do while at same time rolling checks to assess your biases" with seven characters and all :'D So in my table's case, it mostly turned into dice rolling with barely any roleplaying.
Still anyway, its fun how Pact Council scene works as sequel to both stuff in Dead Suns and Threefold Conspiracy and I like consenquences of both succeeding at it and horribly failing at it :'D Like wow failing to defend Idari has massive consequences.
Second part of adventure is massive amount of incidents happening on Absalom Station as result of the attack :D Its extremely chaotic and horrifying (and good heroism opportunities). Thing I love about this part is that if PCs have no extra thing to make traveling faster, by time they reach one location, situation has already gotten twice worse to worst possible situation. Even if they have something like flying vehicle, halving traveling time still means situation has time to get bit worse before players arrive. Only way to solve problem as fast as possible before things get harder is through stuff like teleport magic. Hypothetical "martial only, only weapons and armor, no fancy travel items" parties would never have time to save everyone in time. Like even if they focus on solving problems before going to part 3 or 4, by time they arrive, lots of people can't be saved anymore.
Invididual incidents are great as well :D Void troll one is simplest, but kami one, devil one and "rich jerk with big guns vs the mob" are the highlights. There is bit of awkward stuff around in term of being bit confusing though.
Like its bit awkward how possibility that instead of having devils do less collateral damage, they can convince summmoner to recall them and summon fleet devils instead feels pretty... Well like, how would players know that was even option? They wouldn't. The gm can be like "well you convinced her to move devils to be in areas where less collateral damage would happen to civilians, but that doesn't mean none would happen. Do you want to try to convince her to stop after all?" and that is what I would recommend if you think players might need extra fleets. Second awkward thing is that while I love everything involving the rich jerk and mob, the stewards and biker angel and all, its bit confusingly written in how much stuff there is: okay so if I understood right, party can solve whole issue without ever talking to rich jerk(who would offer them money they don't have time to use to get rid of mob... Which is amount of money on his ship? So it kinda sounds like as written, if they don't talk to him at all, there is no money at his ship x'D) and thus get angel's both rewards for helping mob and solving problem in way everyone's happy(plus extra money if they talked to rich guy and took offer)? Text kinda makes it sound like some options are mutually exclusive when they aren't. Anyway, yeah, I do like there are multiple options to solve the evacuation ship problem(and that real problem isn't just to prevent two sides fighting, but convincing people not evacuate early.) In my table's case, they loaned sunrise maiden to them :D Also I don't think there is mentioned max size for ward to calm kami? I presumed max size is about the map there since that made sense enough to me :D
I could talk about part 2 forever that how much I like it, but I'm now moving to part 3: So this is bit.. Different chapter in great way. It does feel bit disconnected, but that seems to be on purpose. Point of chapter isn't technically "this is all result of the attack"(while it is), but more of "Attack on station caused weird side effects, and there are multiple parties caught in fray or wanting to take advantage of it". I also like that besides azlanti agents, players can skip every encounter if they are smart :D One with banishment and understanding situation, and rest with diplomacy. Oh and rescue baby skittermanders in danger oh no ;D But yeah, main boss for the area is weird character to roleplay(so my favorite kind to roleplay) since they think in alien way and speak in cryptic sentences, but I had fun roleplaying conversation with party trying to convince him to not detonate explosions :D And if boss fight had happened, holy crap that is one of most amazing mind bending boss fight mechanics I've seen.
...Ahem, anyway, after this is the starship combat(after rousing speech) with fleet phase pseudo armada combat :D And I like it, though players did notice that enemies can't really defeat Starbrand because Starbrand is just that tanky compared to damage enemies deal. Still nice for players to be able to shoot tiny drones in single x laser capital weapon attack :D The extra mechanic isn't too much complicated, but yeah I did think it was fun though I did shorten it down so that we were able to finish book in same session once it was clear players were winning fleet phase as well.
After that is final skill challenge which is... Not actually as complicated in practice as it sounded, but took while to explain :'D And final boss fight was fun (note: I love the propaganda lives, again reminds me of ME xD)
...I want to go into further detail but let's face it, I already talked a lot and I'm exhausted writing this x'D And I shouldn't spoil everything anyway, soo yeah. Great adventure :3
I thoroughly enjoyed reading this adventure. High level play is notoriously difficult to write well, but this author managed it. I can’t wait to read the next adventure, and also her next work for Paizo.
1 star off for some of the other choices made though. The in character text is very difficult to read on my iPad, and the file size is unacceptably large.
Ah, so bantrids are actually another aboleth creation/species enslaved in them during gap? ;D
...In retrospect that WOULD make sense actually. Aboleths haven't shown up in Starfinder at all despite them seeding themselves on multiple planets, so they would definitely fit into category of "Aggressive advanced ancient species thought to be extinct that was really prevalent back in the ancient days"
I was slow to discover that this adventure is being written by Eleanor Ferron. The Commencement and Star Sugar Heartlove!!! have been big "tentpole" adventures in my home campaign so far, and I'm pumped that if all goes to plan, we'll come back around to another of her adventures toward the end of the road.
Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
CorvusMask wrote:
Ah, so bantrids are actually another aboleth creation/species enslaved in them during gap? ;D
...In retrospect that WOULD make sense actually. Aboleths haven't shown up in Starfinder at all despite them seeding themselves on multiple planets, so they would definitely fit into category of "Aggressive advanced ancient species thought to be extinct that was really prevalent back in the ancient days"
Ah, so bantrids are actually another aboleth creation/species enslaved in them during gap? ;D
...In retrospect that WOULD make sense actually. Aboleths haven't shown up in Starfinder at all despite them seeding themselves on multiple planets, so they would definitely fit into category of "Aggressive advanced ancient species thought to be extinct that was really prevalent back in the ancient days"
Is pdf really available tomorrow or is that just website bug?
Depends on what time zone you are in. In the eastern hemisphere, it is Tuesday. The PDF is supposed to become available at the stroke of midnight going into Wednesday Pacific Time (about 29.5 hours from when I am posting this), assuming that they are sticking to their past usual practice.
I am in a time zone where it is still Monday, so I am not seeing this PDF as available tomorrow (yet).
Is pdf really available tomorrow or is that just website bug?
Depends on what time zone you are in. In the eastern hemisphere, it is Tuesday. The PDF is supposed to become available at the stroke of midnight going into Wednesday Pacific Time (about 29.5 hours from when I am posting this), assuming that they are sticking to their past usual practice.
I am in a time zone where it is still Monday, so I am not seeing this PDF as available tomorrow (yet).
Don't pdfs usually become available in final wednesday of the month?
Have to say Eleanor knocked it out of the arena with this one!
I'm taking my first pass through this now and... yeah! Waking the Worldseed was the long wind-up; this is where the story goes nuts.
Just a sheer pleasure to read. Even the descriptions were awesome. Dialogue is sometimes hit or miss, but I genuinely laughed out loud at times, and audibly gasped as stuff started to go very wrong.
I would like to know this as well. I flipped through it and it reads amazing. I have no doubt it's going to be a great adventure as usual, however I am getting VERY frustrated by the usual crappy resolution of the maps. This is even more frustrating given the redunculous size of the PDF .... Paizo, what gives?
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.
Pathfinder Maps, Pathfinder Accessories Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Charter Superscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
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!
So already mentioned this in other product thread, but pretty interested to see how sanctioning this will be handled and whether this gets sanctioned before fly free or die :O Since I'm starting to run it and all I do hope its earlier than later but I do think sanctioning this one is potentially bit hard ^^;
But yeah, bit sad Fly free or die didn't get threefold conspiracy treatment of "first three book sanctioned early" since that was fun for me even if I didn't run threefold conspiracy so wasn't topical for me yet :D
I keep checking pages for all three books each day frequently in hopes sanctioning document is on different one than usual x'D Yeah I know thats bit silly
I'm super hyped for running third book and finishing it, I wanna know what mystery book is and this has been great ap x'D
I did forget to mention in review comparison to first book that had silly excuse "you can't fly and land on top of tower because its too narrow" but I guess I include that mention here x'D
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