I am GMing a group of murderhobos through the AP. We just started Book 3 last night. I had told them they could upgrade the Maiden to Tier 5, and one of the things they added was a tactical nuclear missile launcher. They avoided combat with the Rusty Rivet through high rolls on Intimidation, and managed to get coordinates to K9204. Upon arriving, the captain said "let's nuke it!" and the rest of the party readily agreed.
I was thrown for a loop... obviously. Remembering what I read, I didn't see a problem with them nuking the asteroid, I just needed to figure out how and where to move them forward in the aftermath. I spent some time musing aloud at what to do next, and I think my players read my hesitation as "the GM doesn't want us to do this," because they changed their minds and decided to land on the asteroid instead.
I felt bad, because I was 100% fine with them nuking the asteroid, I was only hesitating because I wasn't prepared! Then they ended up almost getting killed by the Skreesire, so I felt even worse after that.
Moral of the Story: GMs, be ready for your players to skip over Part 2 of Splintered Worlds by way of aerial bombardment.
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Why would they want to nuke it?
They went there, in theory, to investigate the relation of Nyara's book with the Stellar degenerator. Nuking it defeats the purpose
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Nuking it from orbit is the only way to be sure.
Why would they want to nuke it?
They went there, in theory, to investigate the relation of Nyara's book with the Stellar degenerator. Nuking it defeats the purpose
They thought the Cult of the Devourer was holed up there, and wanted to take them out.
They thought the Cult of the Devourer was holed up there, and wanted to take them out.Why would they want to nuke it?
They went there, in theory, to investigate the relation of Nyara's book with the Stellar degenerator. Nuking it defeats the purpose
But at the cost of losing any further clue.
But at the cost of losing any further clue.
I get the impression that this thread is more a warning to GMs rather than an argument the party found a way to bypass important stuff in an adventure.
Yes. My point is the GM should make clear that the only clue they have is in that asteroid, and using nuclear weapons to open the door might not work well. If even then the PC want to nuke it because they don't care about the clues, fine
Yes. My point is the GM should make clear that the only clue they have is in that asteroid, and using nuclear weapons to open the door might not work well. If even then the PC want to nuke it because they don't care about the clues, fine
The way I see it, the PCs think they are chasing the cult in order to stop them from opening the gate. They get a tip that the cult is holed up on this asteroid. As far as they know, this is the end of it. Kill the cult, and the threat is removed.
Why would they think they need to gather any more "clues"? The cult, as far as they know, is here on this asteroid, and they have the capability to handle it. I don't see anything impetuous or careless in what my PCs were planning. How were they to know that the cult had already moved on?
Blowing the thing up without looking into it seems like a way to miss a lot of leads. Having said that, the asteroid mostly is a dead end investigative-wise. You learn a lot about the cult, but the adventure could proceed almost as written: after blowing up the rock the corpse fleet attacks, PCs capture a pilot, interrogate the pilot and head to Eox to investigate further.
My problem was a little different. My party wanted to investigate the rock but they were scared of landing the ship on the asteroid; they worried that the cult would return while they were exploring and destroy the unguarded ship.
If your players are worried about the ship being taken over, I would just remind them that the Sunrise Maiden is equipped with an artificial personality upgrade. The AI is able to make Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Sense Motive checks. If anyone suspicious comes along, it could at least assess the situation, and contact the crew.
Well... My players managed to remodel the surface of the asteroid as soon Yex fired a one shot on them... They retreated in the Sunrise Maiden and managed to buried the entrance over 60 feet of rocks with their new ship arsenal! I was taken aback! The task to removed the rocks with have taken ages... I let them a ''intelligence'' check... I hintend the Hardscrabble mining collective form the first installement... They might be able to helped them!
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With regard to the corpse fleet attacking afterwards for clues, we just ran that part and our ship blasted both fighters into oblivion with one hit each (15HP or thereabouts vs 35 damage per shot) which meant no survivors or ships even to gather clues from. Dangers of having over optimised PC built ships I suppose.
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When we got to that asteroid and we figured out the existence of the Skreesire we had no desire to get close to it, so when we located its likely lair we flew over it and tried to extract it with our graviton cannon. That's when we learned that you first need to take a shot (6d6 ship damage, so x10 against surface targets) before you can tractor beam things away. We ended up crushing it while flinging its acid lake into space.
And we all felt pretty good about it. Starfinder isn't Pathfinder. It's fine if we occasionally get to solve things technologically instead of marching into a standard encounter like lemmings on rails.
Oof, that's an average 210 points of damage against the asteroid's surface.
CRB page 408
Table 11-11: Material hardness and hit points
Stone or concrete
Hardness 15
Hit points per inch of thickness 15
Iron or steel
Hardness 20
Hit ponts per inch of thickness 30
That's 13 inches (32,5 cm for people using real measurements) off everything in the area and also obliterating the cultist lair hatch door.
I'd honestly include in the blast area the skreelings nest and the pile of corpses/loot, just destroy everything they could have found.
You should really discourage resolving tactical battles with starships. I'm GMing book 4 right now, and if the players still had that mentality of using nukes against mobs, they could end the whole adventure in half an hour, spending the rest of time scavenging the ruins.
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I think what you want is players engaging with the world. If, after a discreet scouting mission, they determine they don't want to engage something in melee but rather nuke it from orbit, that's fine. It's the future, forcing people to solve starfinder problems in a pathfinder way is lame.
But on the other hand, if the players start talking about nuking the site before even taking a look at it (and the clues they'd blow up if they never investigate), then it's time to remind them OOC "what was your mission again?". A lot of players are in the habit of thinking that discovering clues is a sideshow to combat encounters, instead of the right way around. And part of that is how you present it as the GM. The difference between "you've investigated long enough to get to the ghoul fight" vs. "you've been investigating and some ghouls are trying to stop you from getting to the bottom of it".
Nuking a facility in space would surely trigger piracy laws and make you an outlaw. All civilized organizations have a strong interest in killing everyone who does this.