A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1-4.
The crew of a Starfinder Society asteroid research outpost is due for some vacation time and it’s the heroes' job to relieve them. When the relieving Starfinders arrive at the outpost, they find it eerily empty and they must start piecing together exactly what happened to Outpost 634.
Written by: Emily Parks
Scenario tags: None
[Scenario Maps spoiler - click to reveal]
The following maps used in this scenario are also available for purchase here on paizo.com:
We played this with a mostly level 1 party and the encounters are badly balanced.
Spoiler:
The use of terrain in encounter B inflates enemy defense to a point that is very problematic for level 1 characters.
The tactic of running away when half the enemies are beaten is a false victory for the players, because it just makes the next encounter much harder. Especially since they had such good defenses that the ones running away are probably still unscathed.
And the last encounter has a boss that's listed as CR 3 but has stats that are pretty good even for CR 4. Plus the reinforcements from the previous encounter.
The bad guy tries to initiate combat with a readied action, which isn't possible in the rules. If readying actions before opening a door was an option, then expect players to start doing it too. This is a dark path you don't want to go down on.
Add to this that while the buildup is pretty nice, the final reveal is just... ugh, these things again?!
...Yeah, I have one thing I really want to note on this scenario. But yeah great things first:
Atmosphere building, foreshadowing and mystery of this scenario is fricking awesome. Players were really eating it up :D I also like callbacks to old scenarios and what appears to be foreshadowing to future scenarios(maybe even next season's subplot or plotline? Hopefully at least).
Okay and now to the "BUT" thing: The atmosphere in scenario might be too great for mystery's answer.
so my players reaction was:
mild disappointment that it was "just jinsuls". One of them thought Millie was going through some sort of evolution and was going to be big boss monster at end of scenarios(players failed life science check to recognize jinsul carapace pieces) and another thought it was "The Thing" sort of deal where the Millie had hidden her intelligence and used communication array to contact rest of her species who then came to kill/attack/capture the research team.
So they were understandably bit disappointed to discover name "JINSULS" under matress and quicly resolved Millie in storage peacefully. The scenario setting up Alien/The Thing plot as red herring is GREAT twist to it being hostile jinsul takeover and hostage situation, but understandably, those two other ideas they had were super cool as well xD
Party still liked the scenario, but they think they would have liked the jinsul twist better if there was hint to it earlier. I thought myself that if there was something like jinsul symbol written in blood to celebrate their victory in room where they defeated the kasatha that reflects new Jinsul Hierocracy(like what are they up post defeat of Dhurus? Are immortal warlords back in charge? Do they worship Kadrical? Some other deity or demons? Or still Dhurus despite him being dead?) which would make players wonder if cultists attacked the place without immediately realizing they are jinsuls and then when they learn about Millie they could wonder if two are connected or if it was "Alien" scenario after all.
So uh, overall hard to fault scenario for that, but its still something that could have been improved on and good to know for future. I do have personal nitpick as well: Please starfinder organized play team, stop trying to trick players into killing cute animals or tracking whether they did so x'D There was bear in another scenario and I'm pretty sure one scenario in 2e or SFS was literally just tracking whether players' kill someone's pet
(based on 3 ratings)
