With the discovery of an uncharted, resource-rich, and uninhabited planet in the Vast, several factions begin a joint settlement effort, and the heroes are given the chance to be the scouts and administrators of one such charter. As they explore the surrounding wilderness and grow their new settlement, they must contend with all manner of problems, from wild animal attacks to dissatisfied settlers. And the planet holds mysteries beyond counting!
"Planetfall" is a Starfinder Roleplaying Game adventure for four 1st-level characters. This adventure begins the Horizons of the Vast Adventure Path, a six-part, bimonthly campaign in which the heroes are at the forefront of exploring and charting a world filled with mystery. This volume also includes a new system for expanding a fledgling settlement on a new planet, a player's guide, and a selection of strange alien creatures.
Each bimonthly 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!
Basics- INTO THE UNKNOWN! Settle a planet and fend off the wildlife AND the friends you brought along the way in this Kingmaker in Space adventure!
Mechanics or Crunch- This adventure focuses on building and exploring a location. The problem with this and most other RPGs of this kind is randomness. Each hex has a random chance to happen there unless something is scripted. This problem can lead to you having way too many encounters to the point the book even says reduce the experience the players get. That feels a bit cheap. Couple that with the fact that there are only eight random encounters means players can get bored quickly with the encounters. There are scripted events and locations that do make things more fun, but be aware! It’s fun, but it can get a bit same-y for the fights. Most of the fun comes from the social and that is done well, but if a party just makes all murder hobos which are excellent in the bush, they will get decimated in town as they will be out maneuvered at every turn by the people they came to lead! 4/5
Theme or Fluff- Just like in the crunch, the story can get same-y if you are not careful. Depending on how players handle the world, they can spend tons of time just running around in circles exploring the same hexes again and again if they are slow. The town encounters and managing all the NPCs is the bulk of the story in this one. There is some toward the end showing the world is more than it might have seemed, but most of the time there is just town and other local claims to deal with as the bulk of the story. It’s fun, but this is an intro game that will help power level the characters more than dig deep into the story. 4/5
Execution- PDF? Yep. Hyperlinked? Yep. Solid Art? Yep. Good layout? Honestly yes. Paizo does books and adventures well. Paizo was a publishing company before an RPG company, and honestly that experience shows in a clean book that is easy to read. 5/5
Summary-There is a reason players wanted Kingmaker in space. You build a location and make it shine! This book sets the foundation for that, but like all foundations it takes time to set up. This one is a bit slow and honestly needs an expanded random encounter table as eight separate things is just not enough. Give me 20 or give me more set encounters in each place, even if they don’t advance the story! That right there would lift this WAY up in the ranks as even my players had almost memorized what the D8 meant for the coming encounter! The story that is here is fun and my players quickly learned to love and HATE some NPCs. That makes me happy as a GM. It goes almost without saying that I love Paizo’s bookmanship, so top marks there. It’s a good adventure that just needs a bit more for the random to keep things a bit more entertaining. 87 %
First thing here is that I have played this module as a player with 5 other Players and completed it.
I am currently GMing 3 other groups through this module right now, 2 just starting and one at the tail end of finishing it, so this is no read (not run or play) then post a review ASAP kind of thing. Those leave a lot to be desired I think, for me anyways, or those terrible one liners, "great fun" or "to hard" or one I just saw posted "stay away from".........
With that, I strongly beleave that as Paizo listened to us and gave us our "Kingmaker in Space" AP, it will get a full 5 stars from me (at least this starting module) from the get go, but it might not be for everyone, depending on the group and the GM specifically.
Positive +
* 1st Starfinder hexploration AP!!
* 25 named and interesting NPC Colonists to get some fun RP and interaction with
* Interesting events/encounters inside your Colony and out in the alien hex wilds the players will have to run into/deal with
* Building your very own space Colony subsystem`
* Multiple Factions that also have charters on this new world besides yours and you can choose from a list of official sponsors for your own Admin group
* Nice and colorfull Hex map
* A large variety of situations one can run into, not always solved by a laser blast :)
Needs work -
- Instead of a session 0 to just talk and make mechanical decisions with no player agency or NPC interactions, a much more organic approach would have worked much better. I had the party start in their nice Colony exploration ship in their bunks sleeping just before hitting orbit (nice to use maps provided in the AP is'nt it).
Then a couple of the named colonists woke 2 of them up with some hard won pointers. Then tipped off a meeting is to be held by their sponsor rep in an hour so get the other Admins up and have it all set up to score some points with this person from the get go. Worked wonders for character intro (as they were to busy with prep before hitting dirtside and just knew the other Admins (players) names only.
- The random encounters needed a lot of work to make them interesting, even using GEM was not much help. Elementals were just to bland so to spice it up a LOT more find interesting. Picking interesting creatures, weather effects and colony related encounters (IE a mis drop of supplies to gain resource points and items.
-To many empty hex's for my taste, and the placement seemed pretty strange til I picked up that there was to be an underground river system that was scrapped before final release (Thanks again Hilary for our forum chats!!).
- Admin (Party) motivation can be lacking at times so it takes a strong GM to guide them (ala Ezrand the sponsor rep) to keep them on pace for whats going on, building your colony and so forth.
- Wish there was more contact with other charters as that sets up other modules in the future quite well and not so out of the blue.
- No colony map.
- Credits can be hard to come by so every creature remains could be bought by dear old Ezrend for the parties Sponsor, and he could very well hand out bonus pay for discoveries made. That was a pretty glaring oversight not to have these things spelled out for credits and UPB rewards.
Overall I had a great time as a player in this and I am also having a blast GMing it for other groups. Just know that your GM skills might be put to the test to get the fullest out of this adventure for you and your group.
Great first module in the Horizons of the vast AP, do yourself a favor and pick this up if this theme type interests you and your players. Leaps and bounds above where we started with Dead Suns AP!!
You have to do a lot of improv to make this entire AP line work. There were some pretty serious "how do people live day to day" questions that went unanswered until later AP's or even completely unanswered.
Some of the encounters can be a bit rough, but that's nothing new for a starter AP. I felt the loot was a little sparse, especially if parties choose to flee from random encounters or skip optional events.
Speaking of which --- if you do EVERYTHING in these AP's, your group will be overlevelled, without fail. You either embrace this, or you'll need to cut some of the content.
In addition - vehicles are easily procured and give you 6 actions per day. This can result in serious incongruous expectations between how many hexes developers expected you to get through per in-game month versus how many you'll actually get through. I am consistently finding that my group has spent less-time on planet than the AP expects, so sorta like the Kingmaker CRPG (ironically!) you may have to spend time "catching up" and having several months go by of nothing but charter turns with no activity on the part of the players.
Finally - specific to AP 1: radiation in Starfinder is pretty nasty at low levels. Poison damage is mandatory even if you pass your save, and acute radiation exposure is a poison. Unless your players get clever with a couple of the encounters and "kite" enemies, they may have an unpleasant time at level 2 or even level 3.
Pathfinder Adventure, LO Special Edition, Maps, Pathfinder Accessories, PF Special Edition Subscriber; Starfinder Superscriber
Well this should be interesting. I'm wondering how much this is going to be a single-planet focus like DoF and how much it'll be able to maintain the Sci-fi vibe from that same perspective.
Hm, lets see how they reconcile exploration and having a starship to quickly traverse the planet. Especially as orbital weapons and VIs are now a thing.
NICE, LFoD and then this, a double header into unexplored new themes for the system.
Good to know our twitch voices get heard as I've popped in Kingmaker "Starfinder edition" [possible the last couple years from their twitch streams and cons,
LOVEN IT Starfinder team and THANKS for this!!
Please Please lets have better digital maps for this one, one can hope!!
Hm, lets see how they reconcile exploration and having a starship to quickly traverse the planet. Especially as orbital weapons and VIs are now a thing.
Can't really fly your orbital starship through forests, caverns, and ruins, so not much different than how it's handled in real life. Drive to place and explore, take photos, don't takes photos while driving your Ferrari through the forest.
Also they're exploring the planet, not blowing it up.
Hm, lets see how they reconcile exploration and having a starship to quickly traverse the planet. Especially as orbital weapons and VIs are now a thing.
Can't really fly your orbital starship through forests, caverns, and ruins, so not much different than how it's handled in real life. Drive to place and explore, take photos, don't takes photos while driving your Ferrari through the forest.
Also they're exploring the planet, not blowing it up.
They can hover it over wherever they want to go. And if they want to land, thats where orbital weapons come in (or just regular ones). A few less trees does not hurt the planet at all.
I do find the idea of archaeologists calling in a B-52 to clear the forest around their digsite very entertaining, but yeah that's not how you access a potential area of interest, think of all the relics that might get blown up!
I do find the idea of archaeologists calling in a B-52 to clear the forest around their digsite very entertaining, but yeah that's not how you access a potential area of interest, think of all the relics that might get blown up!
The PCs are not archaeologists, they are colonists. And if a forest is in the way of a new colony, the forest will be gone soon.
You massively overestimate what damage a small explosion does to a planet, namely none.
Find a site you want to explore? Let your starship hover over it, clear a small space near it and touch down with a shuttle. And if you run into any trouble you order the VI on board of the ship to support you.
I do find the idea of archaeologists calling in a B-52 to clear the forest around their digsite very entertaining, but yeah that's not how you access a potential area of interest, think of all the relics that might get blown up!
The PCs are not archaeologists, they are colonists. And if a forest is in the way of a new colony, the forest will be gone soon.
You massively overestimate what damage a small explosion does to a planet, namely none.
Find a site you want to explore? Let your starship hover over it, clear a small space near it and touch down with a shuttle. And if you run into any trouble you order the VI on board of the ship to support you.
There are plenty of historical examples of colonists destroying large amounts of culture history, and wildlife through poor practice. I'm British, I would know. Why would you bomb a site when you don't know what's there? You could wipe out an endangered species, destroy valuable and rare resources, or ruin a site of importance to the colonists. That being said I would expect travel to be less of an issue in this game than Kingmaker, you can always parachute/rappel out of a ship to the area you want to explore and make sure it's secure before exploding a landing zone.
I do find the idea of archaeologists calling in a B-52 to clear the forest around their digsite very entertaining, but yeah that's not how you access a potential area of interest, think of all the relics that might get blown up!
The PCs are not archaeologists, they are colonists. And if a forest is in the way of a new colony, the forest will be gone soon.
You massively overestimate what damage a small explosion does to a planet, namely none.
Find a site you want to explore? Let your starship hover over it, clear a small space near it and touch down with a shuttle. And if you run into any trouble you order the VI on board of the ship to support you.
There are plenty of historical examples of colonists destroying large amounts of culture history, and wildlife through poor practice. I'm British, I would know. Why would you bomb a site when you don't know what's there? You could wipe out an endangered species, destroy valuable and rare resources, or ruin a site of importance to the colonists. That being said I would expect travel to be less of an issue in this game than Kingmaker, you can always parachute/rappel out of a ship to the area you want to explore and make sure it's secure before exploding a landing zone.
Because its convenient and a lot safer to blow up a 100 ft. radius landing spot than to have the walk/drive all the way from the colony through wilderness.
Until level 5 when you can just jetpack out of the ship.
Because its convenient and a lot safer to blow up a 100 ft. radius landing spot than to have the walk/drive all the way from the colony through wilderness.
Until level 5 when you can just jetpack out of the ship.
I still think the potential risks outweigh the benefits. If there's a bunch of mushrooms that emit deadly spores you could risk poisoning your party, or if there are flammable elements you may end up blowing yourselves out of the sky. I don't think convenience is a good excuse to ignore legitimate risks on a planet which is basically unexplored.
I also think it's a flawed assumption that you have to go from the colony and back every time you want to explore a new hex (assuming they use rules similar to Kingmaker). Even if the whole area is forested (Which I think is unlikely because it seems like it would get repetitive if there was no variety in terrain) there are going to be clearings where you can land your ship without destroying any potential areas of interest.
There's also the consideration that the party might not have a ship. The setup might have you dropped on location with the rest of the colonists with the ship leaving to resupply and bring more resources/colonists. You're lackeys here so even there is a ship you might not be given limitless access to it straight away.
Also just gonna say this, fly around and blow stuff up, sounds boring as hell when it comes to building a nation.
Kingmaker, the OG, and the game is much more fun to me when it comes to being relatively peaceful to those you can.
I like the idea of the Stolen Lands/Narland becoming a wide and eclectic nation filled with not-so-common ancestries as well as friendly with Fae.
I was upset that you couldn't talk down the Hill Giant that Nok-Nok leads you too, I remembered him from the AP, I wanted to help him set up a moonshine still in the capitol.
Yes, randomly carpet bombing places will in fact destabilize the area.
And that's without even getting into the fact that you don't even know what you're blowing up.
Pulling out the strawmans I see. Who said something about carpet bombing?
Areas like what you need to land a spaceship on or where small scale combat usually happens get destroyed pretty much every hour by natural and unnatural means, but that alone does not destabilize anything.
Unnecessarily blowing up an area for a landing spot cause due to being lazy and careless I'd say would fall pretty close under carpet bombing, especially the bigger the ship.
It does.
If people want to build something somewhere they don't go and randomly blow up the landscape, they go and survey the landscape and foundation.
I hope the setting for this is a bit more exotic than 'generic terrestrial world' like exploring forests and jungles is fun but I hope they take the opportunity to give an environment that differs from the Stolen Lands in Kingmaker.
"Who said anything about carpet bombing," asks the man who proposed carpet bombing.
Show me a quote...
Ixal wrote:
Because its convenient and a lot safer to blow up a 100 ft. radius landing spot than to have the walk/drive all the way from the colony through wilderness.
Until level 5 when you can just jetpack out of the ship.
Ixal wrote:
They can hover it over wherever they want to go. And if they want to land, thats where orbital weapons come in (or just regular ones). A few less trees does not hurt the planet at all.
I really hope no one uses their ship's weaponry to clear 0.0000001% of the vegetation destroyed every year by natural wildfires in that biome.
Luke Spencer wrote:
I still think the potential risks outweigh the benefits. If there's a bunch of mushrooms that emit deadly spores you could risk poisoning your party, or if there are flammable elements you may end up blowing yourselves out of the sky. I don't think convenience is a good excuse to ignore legitimate risks on a planet [which is basically unexplored.
And what kind of idiots are colonizing a planet without a full survey, anyway? Is catching cool diseases and hosting gross new parasites the pastime of the future?
Counterpoint, in a world with magic in it blasting even a small portion could awaken some slumbering horror or enrage the fey. Also, there is a difference between a naturally occurring disaster and just incinerating a portion of forest on a whim. Geez, might as well just repeat the colonizing of the Americas and ruin ecosystems across the board for convenience. Learn to live with nature, dingus.
I really hope no one uses their ship's weaponry to clear 0.0000001% of the vegetation destroyed every year by natural wildfires in that biome.
Luke Spencer wrote:
I still think the potential risks outweigh the benefits. If there's a bunch of mushrooms that emit deadly spores you could risk poisoning your party, or if there are flammable elements you may end up blowing yourselves out of the sky. I don't think convenience is a good excuse to ignore legitimate risks on a planet [which is basically unexplored.
And what kind of idiots are colonizing a planet without a full survey, anyway? Is catching cool diseases and hosting gross new parasites the pastime of the future?
I personally think there are better arguments to not use your ship weapons to clear a landing site than potential deforestation, but I don't think it's that surprising that the colony don't know every detail of the surrounding environment, and not just for the meta reason of this being an adventure path and needing some aspect of exploration and conflict.
We know that the colony effort is being headed by multiple factions so it's fairly believable that they would want to get things going quickly, wouldn't want to lose out your valuable resources or good locations to a competitor after all. Plus I would imagine there is environmental data available, you can learn a lot about a planet without actually exploring it physically, but if you know there's an anomaly that needs to be checked out in person it's probably safer not to shoot in that general vicinity.
Counterpoint, in a world with magic in it blasting even a small portion could awaken some slumbering horror or enrage the fey. Also, there is a difference between a naturally occurring disaster and just incinerating a portion of forest on a whim. Geez, might as well just repeat the colonizing of the Americas and ruin ecosystems across the board for convenience. Learn to live with nature, dingus.
How do you think a colony is build exactly? That also includes large scale deforestation and other destruction.
Counterpoint, in a world with magic in it blasting even a small portion could awaken some slumbering horror or enrage the fey. Also, there is a difference between a naturally occurring disaster and just incinerating a portion of forest on a whim. Geez, might as well just repeat the colonizing of the Americas and ruin ecosystems across the board for convenience. Learn to live with nature, dingus.
How do you think a colony is build exactly? That also includes large scale deforestation and other destruction.
Thankfully this could easily be bypassed with magic, shaping the colony into the environment rather than destroying it.
Also while I assume there will be deforestation (if the colonists are in a forested area) the assumption is that you have charted the area you're building in first. You have to explore the site to determine the risks before you start work, and blowing it up incurs the chance that you may destroy a valuable resource. Properly surveying an area is both straightforward and wouldn't take that long, both in universe and from meta perspective so there's really no downside to it.
A lot of people who don’t seem capable of managing a mortgage have string opinions on how easy interstellar colonization is if you take no risks and assume infinite resources.
I wonder if we will have more extensive use for vehicles to explore, rather than using a ship. The idea above about the ship leaving makes some amount of sense, or using it as the basis of the colony, then getting to use the ship later in book 2 or 3.
Not to say I'm necessarily endorsing the approach of paving a new parking lot with orbital bombardment, but in that if there's nothing actively preventing it aside from morality & caution, then there's nothing actively preventing it so the possibility is going to need to be addressed.
We can argue about what we should or shouldn't do, but it's naïve to think that no one's going to get the idea in their heads and try it whether you think it's an ethical thing to do or even a good idea or not, and the AP should be prepared for this.
