Does part 2 depend on part 1?

[Casper5632]

I was interested in having my group take part in an adventure guide but wanted to test out the game first. They are currently level 2 going on 3 soon, and I saw they are the level appropriate for the 2nd adventure. Would my group be missing out on alot of backstory and make the game unplayable if I started them on adventure path 2 of 6 and skipped 1 of 6?

It is a group of 3 people, so would it be easier to just make them do 1 instead? I do want to make it fairly difficulty so I dont want to put them against crazy easy encounters.

[ENHenry]

Sounds like they are level appropriate for acts 2 and 3 of the first book - they might have an easier time of act 2 of the first book, but given the plot development, i think it would be important to run through those acts before going to the first book.

From a plot perspective they would fit right in, having gained reputation as competent merc-types possibly and sought out for an investigation that leads directly into the first act of book 2. In truth, the first two scenes of book 2 SHOULD have been in book 1.

[ENHenry]

ENHenry wrote:

...i think it would be important to run through those acts before going to the first book.

Sorry, I meant, "...i think it would be important to run through those acts before going to the second book."

[GeneticDrift]

I've only briefly looks at AP2 (part 1) you could skip book one and have the characters learn of the events on the news and what ever faction hires them can inform them on the non public info.

minor spoiler:

After book 1 the PC's have 5 min of Fame. You could represent that as interest in their faction instead.

Overall you lose a little agency in the plot that likely will have more impact later. Perhaps you could pull the decision out of the PCs during a conversation with their starfinder contact. "Watch closely,
what would you do here? Hmmm that's what our other team did too"

[Parimer]

I think it would be fine to do so. Some spoilers for book 1 and potentially book 2, for why, so:

Book 1 and 2 spoilers:

Pretty much the entirety of book 1 is broadcast to at least Absalom Station, and other groups may have heard of some of the discoveries. That is in fact why the main antagonist of book 2 is there, so could give your players a recap of what happened and then have the Starfinder Society or another organization or something send them to follow up on the information and still run book 2 as written

[Brother Willi]

You could also remove most of Part II from the adventure path and use it as a stand-alone adventure.

Plot Spoiler:

The lead-in from the first adventure is important only if you want to do a throw-away space battle and then follow-up on the first adventure. The main hook is a kidnapping. That could easily be recast so that the PC's are brought in to help solve the kidnapping, rather than be led to it based on what they found on the Drift Rock. If you want to launch the rest of the AP from there, though, you may need to introduce a number of NPCs from the first book.

But if you're keen on running the AP, there's no reason your PCs can't do the first book at higher levels. It may be easier for them, but it will still lay important backstory.