A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for 7th- through 10th-level characters.
By order of First Seeker Ehu Hadif, the Starfinders are dispatched to find and establish contact with a missing colony in the Vast. Originally sponsored a century ago by the Pact Worlds, the colony has been erased from all official records and the First Seeker suspects foul play. While similar missing colonies have been tied to the past plots of Historia-Prime, the fate of this colony is seemingly unconnected and remains a mystery. It’s up to you to find the forgotten!
This is the fifth scenario in the ongoing story of the Year of Redemption's Rise. While it is recommended you begin with Intro: Year of Redemption's Rise, the remaining scenarios in the Year of Redemption's Rise can be played in any order.
I really enjoyed playing this one, even more than other year 5 scenarios so far. There was a lot of roleplay and investigation in this one, and I played on low tier with a pretty highly skilled party, including a mystic, envoy, 2 mechanics, and a solarian. We uncovered many hints revealing what was happening, but there was still tension in the game as we decided not to reveal that we knew what was going on until the very end of the scenario.
Also, we were able to skip a large combat due to careful stealth and skill usage, though there will be more combat play for parties that don't take the skill approach in the endgame confrontation.
I also appreciated that the starship combat section was quite short, which I attribute to being over level 6 and having 2 gunners.
Looking forward to story threads from this scenario coming up later!
Good, but you might want to wait until the next part of the story is out
Not a bad experience, though I have some issues that prevent it from reaching 5 stars for me.
My issues were very likely part of the outline for this project, so I can't really blame the execution, but yeah, plenty to talk about in a longer review.
Context: I ran this in high tier for a strong party of 6. Total runtime was 4 hours, with about 30 mins spent on the starship combat, and a little less than 1 hour spent on the land combat(s). (4 hours is certainly longer than the average SFS scenario but not entirely out of line for a L7-10.)
Combat: All the combat encounters are mechanically of low-ish difficulty.
Non-Combat: The meat of the scenario is the roleplay & investigative section, which is nicely laid out and thought through with enough pointers to portray NPCs that have personalities. This section is written with loads of clues to lead an average party to success. There are a lot of skill checks in total so GMs should really not skimp on roleplay.
It will help the pacing if you give your players a visual aid of all the locations that are available.
My suggestion to GMs if the party is Very Good At Skills:
The number of clues may seem heavy-handed if the party has good skills and the players are paying attention. If the party gets the scent of what is happening early, my suggestion is to lean into it - it's okay that the party has formed an opinion about things and each successive interaction with the duplicitous NPCs simply stokes their simmering outrage :)
The scenario has an expectation that the party should do something at the end of the mission that is alluded to in the Wayfinders faction briefing, but some parties may not have paid close enough attention to the briefing to realize that this is the thing to do.
My suggestion to GMs if the party is unsure about what to do at that scene:
As they continue to dither or argue with the NPCs, describe the palpable increase in the peril of their situation, signs of the rising anger of the mob, etc. Certainly, experienced players will quickly get the hint.
Overall: My favorite adventures have good background and guidelines yet leave plenty of room for GMs to improvise and add value. This falls into that category. I enjoyed running this one; it's a lot of fun with an engaged group.
Yay for finally this plot returning :D Its one of reasons I voted for Ehu so finally nice to see plot hook being addressed!
Anyway, while I don't dislike high tier starship combat, I think I probably have to ask those wary of it if tag in this case means starship skill challenge or combat?
Anyway, while I don't dislike high tier starship combat, I think I probably have to ask those wary of it if tag in this case means starship skill challenge or combat?