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So, here's an idea for a module/short adventure path in Starfinder:
The PC's are hired by a major corporation to travel with/in their starship to a region of the Vast, to assist with scanning for notable planets and placing a network of Drift beacons to make it easier for other ships to follow. However, just as the ship exits the Drift and enters orbit around an oceanic planet, a massive energy blast rocks the ship! The PC's manage to make it to the escape pods and launch to the planet's surface, minutes before the entire ship breaks apart and crash-lands. Getting their bearings in the escape pod, now floating on the ocean surface, the included PDA informs them (paraphrase as needed):
You have suffered minor head trauma. This is considered an optimal outcome. This PDA has now rebooted in emergency mode with one directive: to keep you alive on an alien world. Please refer to the databank for detailed survival advice. Good luck.
In summary, the players play Subnautica as a Starfinder adventure! So, what all would need to be changed between video game and tabletop? Here are some of my thoughts:
1) Base building and item crafting aren't usually a major part of Starfinder. GM's would either need to gloss over/handwave much of the base-building, or remove most of it (maybe major parts of the ship are still useable as rooms).
2) What happened to the PC's ship, both during transit and post-crash? My thought is to have their ship docked inside the corporate ship during transit, and then damage it during the blast/crash, but not obliterate it. (If it was docked during the crash, maybe the larger ship protected it from the worst of the damage.) However, its engines are definitely nonfunctional and in need of major repairs.
3) How does the GM make sure the PC's get the message that they can't just relaunch a ship immediately, so they don't try to just quickly fix their ship and take off? (Informing the players is easy, if they're willing to go along with it; informing the PC's ingame is harder.) Maybe make it clear that the energy blast was not an accident, and came from somewhere planetside?
4) Subnautica famously doesn't have lethal weapons beyond a survival knife, but Starfinder PC's are much more heavily armed. For me, the easiest way to adapt this is to just let the PC's fight creatures if they want, and make a Wandering Encounter table or two.
I know I already warned about spoilers in the title, but I'll still hide the rest of this list, in case anyone stumbles on it.
5) Having there be no other survivors may work in Subnautica, but would mean a pretty lonely adventure path here. The PC's could spend some time tracking down other escape pods, contacting/rescuing other crewmembers, and gathering them to some landmark. Maybe the other crewmembers help build a makeshift village, and gather supplies?
6) When/how do the PC's find out that they're not the first ship that crashed here, and that the corporation had a secondary objective to check this planet specifically for survivors? The fact that the corporation brought a lot of equipment for an oceanic planet may be the first hint, but the PC's could find out the rest from ship logs (and the captain or high-ranking crew, if they survived). Also, maybe in this version, Bart Torgal is still alive down in the Deep Grand Reef, becoming a good source of information if the PC's can get down there and rescue him!
7) Should the Kharaa just be a plot point, or should there be actual stats for it as a disease? Also, how do you handle the fact that Starfinder has more ways to cure diseases than Subnautica does? It'd be a short adventure path if the players just cured themselves right before accessing the Quarantine Enforcement Platform, but it feels too much like a railroad to declare the Kharaa as being unaffected by Remove Affliction. (However, Remove Affliction is instantaneous, and since the entire planet is infected, the PC's will get reinfected almost immediately.)
8) While the disease can't kill your character in Subnautica, it would be odd for the PC's if the disease suddenly paused mid-infection. On the other hand, it seems mean to put a ticking clock on each of the PC's that requires plot points to get rid of. Then again, Remove Affliction can at least reset the disease's progression, so if the PC's have regular access to that spell, it could ease up on the time pressure.
9) As usual for an adaptation, statting up each creature/vehicle.
Creatures: Stalker, Bone Shark, Gasopod, Crashfish, Crabsquid, the Reaper/Sea Dragon/Sea Emperor Leviathans, maybe some of the others.
Vehicles: Seamoth and Cyclops. Maybe Seaglide and PRAWN Suit? But how to stat those?
Overall, I think this could be a lot of fun as an adventure! Anyone else think so?
I don't think exactly adapting all the parts of Subnautica would be good, but I definitely like the concept of a Subnautica-like adventure, with oceanic survival and such. I like the ideas of other people being alive from the ship, it never seemed to realistic to me that with a ship as big as the Aurora, that all except one person would've died. Using the Kharaa as a plot point sounds good, maybe say that the disease has some form of nanite component, making it so that disease magic doesn't do too much. Like there are several steps of it in the game, maybe remove affliction takes it back a step. Not sure what to do for the vehicles exactly, but using power armor rules for the PRAWN Suit seems quite logical.
That sounds awesome!
I imagine pacing and mood setting might be difficult to pull off properly though. I wonder what the Starfinder stats for the various fauna of Planet 4546B might look like.
It's possible several more escape pods made it too, but landed outside the crater where they would certainly be killed, or outside of radio range.
Not sure what to do for the vehicles exactly, but using power armor rules for the PRAWN Suit seems quite logical.
Oh, duh! The powered armor rules would be perfect for the PRAWN Suit! To be honest, I keep forgetting powered armor exists in Starfinder. Not because it isn't awesome (it is!), but because there's so little of it so far. Thinking more on it, the Seamoth and Cyclops are best handled using the vehicle rules, while the Seaglide (if you wanted to include it at all) is probably a technological item that provides a swim speed.
Thinking more on it, Remove Affliction would work fine as-is; strictly RAW, it resets the disease track, but doesn't prevent immediate reinfection, meaning the players have a way to keep the disease at bay without instantly curing themselves for good. If the adventure is for lower levels, where Remove Affliction isn't so easy to access, maybe allow the PC's to notice the glowing Peepers with a Survival check, and use Life Science to get enough enzymes to duplicate the effects of Remove Affliction on Kharaa only. (Plus, that would give the PC's an incentive to figure out where the glowing Peepers are coming from...)
For the cyclops shield blueprints, just check the databoxes in wrecks. I won't say which one, as to avoid giving out more information than wanted (and partially because I forget). As always, if you really want to know, check the Subnautica Wiki; it has a good database of wreck coordinates.
And concerning landing outside of the crater: I hadn't thought of that! Maybe that's what happened to the rest of the lifepods. As for the PC's, that's another thing the GM would either need to make sure the players know ahead of time, or figure out how to inform the PC's that almost everything outside of the crater is the "Fun Zone". That, or just add your own areas and content to fill in the rest of the planet; the only catch would be figuring out how the Kharaa changed those areas, or how those areas avoided infection in the first place.
That reminds me, I love Subnautica's description of Blindsight(sound), in the Reaper Leviathan's databank entry. To paraphrase: If you can hear it, it can see you.
Wow, it's been a while! So, I figured I'd make a few Subnautica creatures in Starfinder; partially to see how viable adapting the game to Starfinder rules is, and partially as practice making creatures in Starfinder.
I'll start with a simpler one, the Stalker, and go through the Alien Archive's steps, one by one.
Step 1: Array. Combatant; Stalkers are mostly about fighting. I'll also decide their CR here; I'm putting it as CR 2. They're not an insignificant threat, but they are usually the first aggressive creature players run into in the game, so I'll keep it in the lower ranges.
Step 2: Type. Animal seems like the closest fit. Magical Beast is debatable, but they don't have any supernatural abilities, so I don't think it fits.
Step 3: Subtype. Aquatic, if that wasn't obvious.
Step 4: Class. Skipping it. Not the best fit for Stalkers, or most creatures in Subnautica.
Step 5: Template. Skipping it. Also not a good fit. (Notes for the future: Should the Kharaa disease apply a template to the creature, not just a disease track? Or is a disease track the better way to handle it?)
Step 6: Special Abilities. This is the most open-ended step, as far as I can tell, so there aren't any easy choices here. Fortunately, Stalkers don't have any major special abilities; the only one I can think of is to give them a Metal-Hoarding trait, as follows.
(Metal-Hoarding (Ex) If a character uses the Handle an Animal task on a Stalker, they can gain a +4 on the Survival check by offering the Stalker at least 1 bulk of metal (even scrap metal) as part of the task.)
Step 7: Skills. Also gets more complicated. Their Combatant array grants 1 Master and 2 Good skills, while the Aquatic subtype grants Athletics as a Master or Good skill. Also, Alien Archive specifically repeats that these aren't set in stone here; varying the number of skills by 1 or 2 isn't a big deal. Personally, I'll put down Athletics and Perception as Master skills, and Stealth and Survival as Good skills for Stalkers.
Step 8: Spells. Skipping it; Stalkers don't have spells.
Step 9: Final Check. Crunch the numbers! The stat block I came up with is below.
Stalker CR 2 XP 600
N Medium animal (aquatic)
Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision; Perception +12
Defense HP 25
EAC 13; KAC 15
Fort +6; Ref +6; Will +1
Offense
Speed 5 ft., swim 50 ft.
Melee bite +10 (1d6+6 P)
Statistics
Str +4; Dex +2; Con +1; Int -4; Wis +0; Cha +0
Skills Athletics +12, Stealth +7, Survival +7
Ecology
Environment any aquatic
Organization solitary, pair, or school (3-6)
Special Abilities
Metal-Hoarding (Ex) If a character uses the Handle an Animal task on a Stalker, they can gain a +4 on the Survival check by offering the Stalker at least 1 bulk of metal (even scrap metal) as part of the task.
Did I get any of the numbers wrong (or way off)? Can something be changed to make it better, either by Subnautica or Starfinder standards? What do you think?