D
W
A
R
F
As I noted in the title, I am likely to only have three players for Starfinder (Dead Suns AP).
Because it is a new system, I am reluctant to force my players to run more then one character.
We have not yet done "Session 0"; but planning ahead, what adjustments should I be making for:
- Character Creation?
- Session 0 guidance?
- Encounter Balance?
- Ship to Ship encounters?
I am not adverse to giving the players extra stuff to help compensate, but what would be most helpful given that they will be a character short? (... but would not cause me massive grief down the line.)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Better gear/more money is an easy and relativly safe route. If it becomes a problem you just slow down the flow. They can't get a ton for selling what they have and they will have to be upgrading as they go.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Letting them be one level higher than they would otherwise be is easier than rewriting every encounter and reasonably well balanced.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
For the ship to ship encounters, I would highly recommend you allow two NPCs that stay on the ship. Having each of the ship positions filled makes a huge difference, as does having extra gunners. Allow them to have their choice of two NPC gunners, engineers, or science officers.
I think the balance on regular combat encounters is better, less adjustment required. I think you should be able to get by with just three players with slightly better equipment. One level higher will be a huge boost at early levels, I'm not sure how much it would matter at later levels.
I think that the quest series Into the Unknown makes a great session 0 since it gives a mixture of social encounters, combat encounters, and starship combat. As a GM, you will need to pay attention to the special rules for the last encounter or you will most likely wipe the group. Expect them to have some problems with skills on that encounter -- it is built into the rules that higher tier ships are harder to control.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Could always run a PC yourself.
|
I second the notion of a GM character as a fourth. The balance in this game is very different to Pathfinder and I've found many of the lessons I could bring to bear from the fantasy setting do not transpose well into this one.
As such, trying to modify encounters is really quite difficult. You're probably better off just running the fourth charcater as a party character (players decide how to use them) or as a DM PC. I did that in one of my sessions so far and basically just ran the charcater as an extra combatant on the players side. Worked well.
A lot of the balance changes are going to vary based on your group -- the combat encounters on Absalom station were pretty easy for my group, and so long as the Vesk soldier was there, they could probably have handled those with only three people with minimal adjustments. Assuming the PCs don't go into every fight guns blazing and ruthless, you might also start the gang members off with their clubs -- remember that clubs are archaic weapons, so do less damage if the PCs are wearing any sort of modern armor.
Once they're on the Acreon, make sure the encounter with the goblins happens early on -- move it if need be. Assuming they recruit the goblins (which you should encourage), you've just buffed their combat ability a bit for the Acreon exploration. There's also a recruitable enemy on the drift rock -- make sure she survives the encounter with the PCs, because she'll add yet more capability to the team.
Even with all that, though, it would still be a good idea to include a GM-run NPC partymember to round things out, as others have suggested.