A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 11-14.
At last, the Starfinder Society nears its goal of recovering the final data fragment containing one of the organization’s greatest secrets. Guidance, the Society’s guiding intelligence, dispatches a group of veteran agents to the mysterious planet Aucturn at the edge of Pact Worlds space. The PCs must survive the eldritch denizens and hazards of the Citadel of the Black while racing against a group of Hellknights who also seek the fragment.
Fleeting Truth is an ongoing series of adventures set in the Year of Exploration's Edge. These high-level adventures are intended to be milestone adventures for experienced characters, and will reveal important secrets relating to the Starfinder Society and the Pact Worlds. The adventures in the Fleeting Truth series can be played in any order.
Written by: Cole Kronewitter
Scenario tags: Nova
[Scenario Maps spoiler - click to reveal]
The following maps used in this scenario are also available for purchase here on paizo.com:
Though I would say that the challenge is pretty interesting, the environmental effects combined with the second encounter starting the PCs in a spot where they cannot avoid the attack from the monster makes movement nearly impossible.
Spoiler:
Starting with the high gravity, adding on entangle, and slow for anyone who cannot make the save or have a bad roll pretty much kill s anyone doing anything. And without good weapons, the regen is a problem. I at least slap holy on primary weapons for many characters, because of the ability to affect lots of creatures.
Finally, I would say that there seems to be little connection between the three scenarios, and without certain items, the party will not make it.
EDIT: I will say if at all possible, come in with a healer/mystic AND an envoy. Unless you have 3 heavy hitters for a front line, or high EAC/KAC (35+).
Everchanging Revelation is the first level 11-14 adventure in Starfinder Society intended to conclude the Fleeting Truth metaplot with a triumphant flourish. Set on the alien and hitherto unexplored (at least within Society play) Aucturn, the scenario challenges the PCs to a race against the clock to rescue the third and final data shard from a fanatical group of Hellknights hellbent on its destruction. While the scenario has a lot going for it on paper to provide a climactic and satisfying third act to the Fleeting Truth metaplot, in practice it lands with little more than a dull thud, and left a bad taste in the mouths of my players.
On a technical level, Everchanging Revelations is interesting in that it introduces a harsh and challenging environment with which high-level Starfinders must contend: the toxic and high-gravity world of Aucturn. Although their environmental protections and liberal applications of life bubble will shelter explorers from some of the planet’s hazards, the world’s high gravity environment still provides a difficult challenge to well-equipped high-level characters, effectively draining their available resources unless they possess niche abilities that make those choices feel worthwhile. Furthermore, the high gravity environment does not provide too much additional bookkeeping for the GM, although they may have to remind players from time to time about the movement restrictions imposed upon them.
Unfortunately, whatever merit the scenario earns for its choice of environment is ultimately marred by its poor encounter and map design, and lack of important details. The maps are, for the most part, rather cramped and small, and do not accommodate large-sized player characters. Furthermore, certain encounters are all described taking place within a single map, which does not seem to track with the descriptive text within the scenario. Compounding matters, there is little information about the vertical dimensions of the maps or their light levels, requiring GMs to ad hoc environmental details and leading to inconsistent experiences for play groups.
details:
The location where the PCs encounter the orocoran horde is marked as area B3 on the map. This is the entrance to the room where the PCs also find various other treasure bundles and skill challenges. The phrasing of the orocoran horde encounter makes it seem as though the encounter takes place outside the tower in a space not defined on the map, and suggests some disagreement between the scenario’s initial encounter design and its final iteration.
Further, ceiling height and light level are not provided during the scenario. My assumption was that the dimensions would be rather cyclopean and ruled the ceilings rather high. This is also important because the Gelugons utilize their flight speeds in the B1 encounter so it is important to know the 3D space in which they can maneuver.
Further, one of the earlier encounters makes several assumptions about group composition and resource availability that may not universally hold true. While it is understandable that high-level Starfinders should, on some level, be expected to anticipate certain threats, it does not make for a pleasurable play experience when the party struggles against an impassable obstacle.
details:
The gelugon’s regeneration, overcome only by good damage, proved challenging for a group lacking the holy fusion. While I understand that the scenario’s writer might have anticipated players to expect to fight devils, it should have also clued the party into this fact in some way, shape, or form, or at least provided the party with a limited set of resources in order to bypass what would otherwise be an unbeatable combat. Further, the fatigued condition the devils suffer in the 4 player scaling did not really feel like it lowered the challenge adequately, and many of my players’ characters were left badly bloodied and well into hit points at the end of the encounter.
The scenario recovers from its initial fumble somewhat with its final encounter, as its various mechanics and hazards provide ample space for players to utilize solid tactics and counterplay. Further, the considerations built into the scenario’s second half provide an interesting decision point for the PCs and reward appropriate conservation of character resources. It also make for an interesting call back to the first scenario in the metaplot where the PCs had to manage their time and resources appropriately as well.
Where Everchanging Revelation really seems to struggle is its narrative. Intended as the third act in which the dramatic question of the Fleeting Truth is answered, it turns out that the answer to the question posed is rather dull. The scenario seems to lack an appropriate sense of scale for a high level game, and could as easily be told at the 3-6 tier as the 11-14 tier, save for the particular enemies the PCs face.
The trouble stems from the narrative structure of Fleeting Truth as a whole. The metaplot cannot decide whether it wants to be a grand race-to-the-finish style quest, or a tense shadow war of cloaks and daggers. Indeed, it often tries to be both at the same time, often with mixed results. The overall consequence is that the players’ clandestine-yet-significant mission lacks a sense of narrative gravitas. The players are told what they are doing is all-important, but at no point during the plotline is that ever visibly enforced. The cost of failure is lost data, but it is never assigned a real, tangible cost that the players can know and understand.
details:
There are several ways that Fleeting Truth might have been structured differently to make the conclusion more rewarding. Involving Paralictor Kelria as a visible antagonist earlier in the storyline would have made her reappearance and subsequent defeat in Everchanging Revelations more rewarding. Similarly, introducing anacite NPCs or other friendly artificial intelligences would have made the final revelation more tangible and give weight to the decision about whether or not to reveal the truth about the Mechanizers. As one of my players observed, “this should have been set on Aballon.”
Overall, Everchanging Revelation feels like a rushed conclusion to a story that stumbles on both its narrative and technical execution. That said, the scenario still manages to provide high level characters with interesting and unique challenges that will certainly provide satisfaction to tactically-minded groups. If you are looking for tough combats and Gigeresque worlds, or if you are just looking to stretch your 13th-level character’s legs, then this scenario might be for you.
I'm not gonna get too much into spoilery details, but basically this scenario is challenging without feeling too unfair for balanced party(though granted, some encounters can be REALLY much harder without specific things in party and its bit unsure of how to deal with them otherwise), features lot of really insane encounters and mechanics(final encounter particularly :D), really fun npc to roleplay and pretty thoughtful decision on what to do with information(though granted, I and party wished there was third option "tell authorities/stewards/governments instead of making it public" ;P)
I originally rated this 5 stars, but after sleeping on it decided to lower it to 4 stars due to mostly due to scenario having lot of confusing or unclear elements such as:
Things I thought were unclear or would need adjustment:
1) whats up with gelugons? If outsiders die Pathfinder/Starfinder their bodies keep around, but these ones return to Hell, so uh, are they summoned instead of being binded/called? Why did hearts stick around if they were summoned, would the weapon stay around as well? If they ARE summoned and not called, then they would disappear at 0 hp even without regeneration being turned off but scenario doesn't call that out either.
2) Dragon power up. Clearly its intended to only last until of end scenario but uh... Why does it reward something you likely already have at these levels? Is intention that it still applies even if you already have personal upgrade so you could have two of them at same time or is it just really poorly thought of reward?
3) Skill DCs in skill challenges are pretty inflated even for higher tier. In "traveling through aucturn" encounter its fine really as there are no other consequences than how hard the first encounter is and it shows how dangerous aucturn is... Except that everytime insanely high survival check with insanely high dc for aiding is failed, you get save vs lot of long lasting debuffs :'D This party had mystic so they could easily remove them, but uh... Yeah that would have been horrifying if there was no mystic. I don't hold this against the scenario though because mystics SHOULD be useful and parties at these levels should be prepared to deal with afflictions somehow. And even then party DID have incredibly bad luck of rolling lower than 10 on survival check each time besides the last and as said, while it could have been much worse, it wasn't that bad since even succeeding once on it leads to good results that matter so its not "all or nothing" dealio just "how good you do" one.
Second skill challenge that bothers me bothers me because it IS all or nothing challenge :p six level 13 characters doubling their needed amount of successes to 12 was bit annoying to me since they got up to 10 successes(with odd luck of the one with worst odds making it each time and the ones with best odds failing all three rounds). It would have been fine if there was mechanic for "if you pass dc by 5 or 10 you get 2 successes since some of the successes were from super cool crits, but yeah no such mechanic here :'D Without mechanic for "over success" I think "double the party amount" success encounters need either semi low dc as otherwise they need about 12 checks out of 18 checks to succeed.
That actually leads to my 4th unclear point: 4) what is intention with second skill challenge? Reward chart said they get credits for "overcoming" the challenge, so I gave them reward anyway as they all didn't fall unconscious and it didn't really feel like they "failed" it despite not getting the best possible result.
5) does highstalker encounter happen on same day as when party reaches Repository? I assumed no since from what I understood it happens during the travel, so party starts Repository with max resources(assuming they didn't spend them to remove fatigue at start of day)
Finished this as a player today. I loathe spoilers, but the second combat encounter includes monsters that cannot be killed without having a party with at least one of two possible weapon fusions it seems. Our party did not have any weapons with said fusion (it isn't a common one in society play) so we would have TPK'd if not for some creative thinking from our wonderful GM.
The scenario should have something written in for dealing with this combat if you don't have the needed fusion/party composition. It doesn't seem to at all. Unintentionally deadly it seems.
I'll also add that there are no listed ceiling heights and the like and at this tier nigh every PC can fly so details like that matter.
Adjusted my review bit, had lot of fun running this scenario but yeah lot of small things I was confused by or mildly annoyed :'D I would still give scenario 5 stars if most of these were fixed, but figured out after sleeping that they did confuse me enough to lower rating by one star
