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I'm going to go ahead and write the rest of this under spoilers, buuuuuut
To my knowledge, dragonkin isn't currently available, or is this teasing that the boon is coming soon?
I want to make sure that there isn't something missing for this scenario so if my players have questions I can answer them.
Regional Venture-Coordinator, Central Europe
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I have a few question regarding encounter B.
On the map there are 4 marks for enemy craft. but there is only 1 enemy craft in the encounter (the diamond glow). Which of these marks is the correct starting position for that ship?
Also where are the players supposed to start?
There are multiple automated freighters in this battle and some of them are armed with remote controlled missile launchers. Are there any repercussions - like infamy - if the players destroy one or more of them, since they contain civilians. Or would only disabling but not destroying them - even the unarmed ones - be acceptable because the players are fighting a dangerous terrorist.
And another one regarding encounter C8.
Snow and wind coming through the hole in the hull
whip around the room, reducing visibility and making ranged
attacks difficult (see Core Rulebook 398–400).
how strong is the wind and the snow supposed to be, because this determines the value of the penalty.
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I'm not sure whether I should put this here or in the product discussion thread. It's feedback but not a review. I think here because it's so spoilery.
That last fight is way too hard. And the 4-player adjustment isn't really sufficient.
The problem is that she has so many options and abilities and there's really no way for the PCs to have enough gear to mitigate them. They just don't have enough money at that level. She can fly, can you? What can you do about that cloaking field? Do you have the right kind of weapon?
And her offense is just way too good. Her trick attack (even corrected to the proper ghost bonus) is nearly automatic. She hits a character wearing Level 5/7 Heavy Armor over 25% of the time. The breath weapon (especially in such a confined space) is ridiculous. With that DC she probably blows away almost all the Stamina points of half the group in one shot. If she does decide to melee, 15' reach on a huge creature puts pretty much the whole bridge in her threatened area.
Don't get me wrong, I like a good challenge. But that encounter is likely to wipe the party unless the GM pulls a lot of punches (like with the breath weapon, even though her tactics say she uses it whenever she can). She just does so much damage, especially in relation to the amount PCs can put out at that level. If you happen to have given the thermal capacitor to a Blitz soldier with a blaze flame doshko, the melee striker gear boost, and a jetpack, you'll be OK. Otherwise prepare for a couple of PCs to be down in 3-4 rounds or less.
The fix is easy - take away the breath weapon. The tactics keeping it as a hit-and-run fight until she gets to low HP means she won't multiattack maul someone down in one round before the party has a chance to realize what's going on.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4
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Thank you very much for the feedback!
I'd emphasize that in the briefing handout Naiaj specifically calls out cold flying creatures as something to be prepared for and the pcs receive other hints they may be facing a white dragon. Preparation can help a lot.
I would say that this is supposed to be an epic dragon encounter and a dragon fight without a breath weapon doesn't feel like the full experience.
Thank you again for sharing your impressions! I'm always looking for more information about how things could be done better.
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Thanks for the responses, Matt.
The issue isn’t that the PCs dont know what they might need to deal with. I may not have stressed this properly in the first post, but the issue is that the PCs simply can’t afford to buy the items they would need to deal with it. That’s a function of the way the Starfinder items are structured. A jetpack is the cheapest way to get actual flight and a mk1 thermal capacitor gets you cold and fire resist 5. But each of those is over 3000 credits!
The way upgrading works (buy new stuff), most players don’t have that kind of money available. The few that do have been saving up for a specific item. Assuming you have 6800 credits (and are willing to part with them) you still need two upgrade slots in your armor (which many light armors do not have).
In Pathfinder the PCs would read the briefing and ask “everyone got a potion of fly and a potion of resist energy?” But that’s not an option in Starfinder. There’s just no way to prepare unless you have a (relative) lot of money.
The typical 5th level mechanic, technomancer, or envoy is going to have about 30-40 SP and 32-35 HP. More for solarions and soldiers, less for mystics. The breath weapon does 9d6, which averages 31-32 points of damage. A class with a good reflex save (+4) and good dex (+4) only makes the save half the time. So what you’re looking at on average is half the characters losing almost all their stamina points on the first breath. 20 or so points of hitting per round while the breath recharges. Then people start dropping on the second breath.
It’s the fact that it’s a lot of damage in an area combined with the fact that even the builds with good reflex saves fail half the time.
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4
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Interesting. I really appreciate that explanation. Possibly might be addressed by an equipment loan program that tests how well the PCs listened to the briefing. "We've set aside 10,000 credits worth of equipment at the quartermaster for this mission. Anything unused and intact needs to be returned after the mission is complete. What would you like to requisition?" Have to think about that.
The breath weapon damage and DC is standard for the CR, but that's good to know. As a discussion counterpoint, I would argue that with the action economy advantage the PCs have, if the antagonist isn't threatening to drop PCs quickly, she's unlikely to present a sufficient challenge as a lone opponent.
Definitely something I've thought about a lot. Finding that balance point of adequate challenge gets increasingly difficulty with so much variation between parties at higher levels. I'm very grateful for the feedback.
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About the dragon fight. I have run this twice and played it once. The fight is very dramatic and intense. I have seen characters go down in every run but I have yet to see someone outright killed. If the Dragon gets it's breath off 3 times in the fight the players are in trouble.
All 3 times the party took down the dragon but with nerves frayed. It's one of those fights when the GM says "The Dragon goes down" The players spontaneously cheer.
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I agree with Kevin Willis. We had six players: Drone mechanic 5, Technomancer 5, Solarian/Soldier 5, Soldier 5, Soldier 5, Envoy/Soldier 6. We have had no previous deaths at all, since it is fairly difficult to die in Starfinder as long as at least one character is ambulatory.
This one was a TPK. We didn't stand a chance. The Mechanic and the Technomancer had barely any time to act before dropping. The melee-optimized characters were unable to consistently hit. The ranged characters were exposed to the breath weapon and dropped. Most of us had purchased fire- or plasma-based longarms or heavy weapons prior to the scenario, and at least two with holy fusions.
We had no flight capability. While a jetpack is available, most of the people had previously used their money to upgrade their armor since otherwise Starfinder critters hit us with frightening regularity. The rest of the money was used to upgrade weapons and stock up with healing serums (which are useless in combat, but otherwise necessary). Starfinder economy is also built in a way that you are always saving money for the next item. I am unsure of the design specifications, but it felt like the assumption here was that the party should have had tier-equivalent armor, weapons, and mobility. We simply don't have the money to fine-tune our equipment for a single scenario.
I have not seen the stats for the dragon, but it had little trouble hitting our soldiers who were wearing the high-level armors discovered at the top of the wreck.
Some of us were stocked with mk 1 adaptive serums. Thermal capacitor upgrade is too expensive for a measly resist 5 considering most low-tier armors have only one upgrade slot; while it would be nice, there are other upgrades that are consistently more useful.
Unless there was significant mess-up in the battlefield description, I don't know how we were supposed to avoid the breath weapon. The top of the hanging bridge is flat, with a hole in the center leading down to the bottom. Both areas are coverable by a single breath weapon blast, and splitting the party between them means defeat in detail as the thing fades in to slaughter someone and then fades out again.
The dice also matter. The dragon managed to use its breath weapon almost every other round. This also created a death spiral for those dropped by the breath weapon. The lure of full attacks made people use them when the dragon wasn't faded out, and that -4 was hard on us.
The deaths happened for the usual reasons: we could not hit the creature often enough, we could not get into melee reach without one of us as a sacrificial goat, we could not take the damage (since Constitution is a tricky stat to invest in, and there was no meaningful way to mitigate the breath weapon damage), there was no place to avoid the breath weapon without sacrificing team members, the dice hated us, and there was nowhere to run.
The dragon was like a many-faceted diamond revealing new beautiful and horrible aspects on every round. It is effectively invisible between its attacks. It has evasion. It has trick attack. It had 50+ hit points remaining when it coup de graced the last of us.
Deaths happen. But TPK Fame costs are horrendous due to body recovery and negative level issues. And paying for negative levels with money is difficult at this tier.
Starfinder Society Developer
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Watching this thread for ongoing discussion.
As always, we're looking to find "the right mark" in terms of difficulty. Early in the season I received overwhelming feedback in terms of Starfinder Society being too easy, so this was one of the first scenarios to come out where we slightly ramped up that difficulty. If it's gone too far in one direction, then I'll be looking at potentially pulling it back a little. But again, my eyes are on the discussion about this encounter.
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The cloaking field doesn't work the way I've heard some Dms using it with the haste circuit. Haste doesn't give you an extra move action. It gives you an exta move action that can only be used to move when you full attack. So she can fly in with the cloaking field up and full attack, but then she's stuck there for the round. She cant full attack and then cloaking field to leave, or even attack once cloaking field leave.
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Watching this thread for ongoing discussion.
As always, we're looking to find "the right mark" in terms of difficulty. Early in the season I received overwhelming feedback in terms of Starfinder Society being too easy, so this was one of the first scenarios to come out where we slightly ramped up that difficulty. If it's gone too far in one direction, then I'll be looking at potentially pulling it back a little. But again, my eyes are on the discussion about this encounter.
I personally like some heavy challenges here and there. I agree that early season one stuff was way to easy.
In this scenario and 1-99 the tier 8 Drake is paired against a tier 6 NPC ship. The tier 8 Drake armament is way more powerful then the tier 6 Drake. It almost doubles damage output jumping from 6 to 8. This makes these Starship combats ridiculously easy. So easy, I don't even really know why they are even placed in the scenario. It ends up lasting 2 rounds and the NPC ship is practically out of it. 3 rounds and total destruction.
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I wanted to see if my experiences were far off the expectations so...probability calculations time! Found out that this encounter is a lot like the radiation in an earlier Tier 1-4 scenario: most groups will be OK but a few unlucky early rolls will set off a catastrophic cascade. If the GM sticks to the tactics as written, around 15% of 4-player, APL 5, groups are going to wipe.
When the PCs win this fight it's a really challenging, exciting, and memorable encounter. But when the PCs lose it almost always is a case of "there's nothing we could have done differently" syndrome. Total frustration.
The problem is the breath weapon. 25% of the time the dragon is going to get to breathe in both of the first two rounds. For a lot of damage. In an enclosed space. It gets better for APL 7 groups (who have greater maneuverability, resistances, and a higher SP/HP to damage taken ratio) and much better for 6-player groups (who are statistically much more likely to have multiple players avoid the cone).
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There's something else going on. Several items in Norys' tactics block simply don't work together or can be interpreted in different ways so GMs may be making choices that make the encounter more deadly than intended. (Some may also be making rules errors.)
-Breath Weapon - used whenever possible. Deadly, but easy to adjudicate.
-Hit and Run Trick Attacks - A trick attack is made as a full action. You can move before the attack, but not after. Unless you have Spring Attack, which Norys does not. So to truly "hit-and-run" you have to move in and attack one round, then run away the next. (Though the "whenever possible" clause on the breath weapon may overrule this.)
-Haste circuit - gives you an extra move action to move when taking a full attack. Note that is a full attack, not a full action so it does not apply to Trick attack.
-Cloaking field - breaks on attack. It requires a move action to attempt a stealth check, so this doesn't help when making a trick attack. Haste circuit doesn't help either with this since the extra move action from haste when full attacking can only be used to move.
So here's the most "softball" approach to Norys's actions that still meets the tactics:
-Is the breath weapon available? If yes, move then breathe, or breathe then move.
-Did I make a melee attack last round? If yes, move away and attempt to hide using cloaking field. ("Hit-and-run")
-Otherwise, move up and make a trick attack (no benefit from haste other than speed).
Here's the hardcore version:
-Is the breath weapon available? If yes, move then breathe, or breathe then move.
-Using haste circuit, make full-attack then move (or move then full-attack, depending on positioning). Not using trick attack but is using haste circuit to "hit-and-run."
Here's the misunderstood rules versions, which can be really nasty:
-Is the breath weapon available? If yes, move then breathe, or breathe then move.
-Did I make a melee attack last round? If yes, using haste circuit, make full-attack of trick attacks then move away with move action from haste. Attempt stealth check to hide using cloaking field. (Doesn't realize can't full-attack trick attacks, and doesn't realize that stealth requires spending a move action once it's broken.)
-Otherwise, move up using haste circuit and make a full-attack of trick attacks. Make stealth check using cloaking field.
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Final post for tonight:
Two things that jumped out at me about Norys' stat block and tactics.
1. Bonus to stealth for Trick Attack is wrong, it uses the old (+4) bonus from Ghost, not the errata (+1) value.
2. How is Norys using a spell gem? She has no caster class levels. (I'm OK with "because NPC," I was just wondering if I missed something.)
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4
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It's because npc and more specifically because old dragon in my mind. There was a draft where she had a spell gem use special ability and a toolbox of spell gems. I just kept the one thing from before the fight and since it was in the setup I didn't think she needed the rule in the stat block.
My bad on the errata. I built the stat block out of the book and didn't check.
Contributor
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I have a few question regarding encounter B.
On the map there are 4 marks for enemy craft. but there is only 1 enemy craft in the encounter (the diamond glow). Which of these marks is the correct starting position for that ship?
Also where are the players supposed to start?There are multiple automated freighters in this battle and some of them are armed with remote controlled missile launchers. Are there any repercussions - like infamy - if the players destroy one or more of them, since they contain civilians. Or would only disabling but not destroying them - even the unarmed ones - be acceptable because the players are fighting a dangerous terrorist.
I'd like to echo these questions, since I'm gearing up to run this one on relatively short notice.
Also, is there any chance that a version of the map for Area C exists that doesn't have the "S" marks on them, for those of us who like to print the maps so our players can see the great artwork in the scenarios?
Thanks in advance!
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RPG Superstar 2013 Top 4
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Any particular ones you need addressed? I can do my best to answer them.
As far as the infamy question, this is just my opinion, but I think disabling them is fine given the circumstances. Deliberately blowing up a freighter with civilians to make combat easier seems like something that would provoke an Infamy warning, and I'm fairly confident blowing up a freighter they knew was unarmed and had civilians would.
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Contributor
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Hi Matthew! First - great looking scenario (we'll see if my players survive the final encounter lol).
I was mainly hoping to learn if firing on a civilian ship (whether identified as such, or no), would garner infamy. Also the whole thing about the four red ships (we can assume that one of them is the Diamond Glow, but which?), as well as the map thing for C. I saw your answers in the other thread, so if Thursty doesn't see this before I GM, I'll probably do it like you suggested there.