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If I'm reading this right, the party can either get the survivors (who die if you get the datapad) OR the datapad (which is blown up if you "spend time" with the survivors, which would seem to include "hey hi oh you look like hell here's a serum have fun bye" ) - Unless they commit an adventuring sin and split up.
Crawling through the rubble of the hospital - This doesn't seem to actually accomplish anything. I suppose the party's going to do it anyway but feels a little baity to go through all those rolls for nothing at the end. No loot, no secondary success condition , and the party is more than likely to rest on the ship so.. whats this supposed to do?
Okay, whats going on with the half squares? *grumble grumble grumble*
Venture-Agent, Online—VTT
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I don't understand what is going on with the tactics for the tier 7-8 Jinsul Radiant Commander.
It uses supernova when it can, but also activates plasma sheathe when fully attuned. Using supernova ends attunement, and causes plasma sheathe to turn off. It should be activating plasma sheathe when it starts the attunement buildup, instead, if the revelation is supposed to actually be used.
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I don't understand what is going on with the tactics for the tier 7-8 Jinsul Radiant Commander.
It uses supernova when it can, but also activates plasma sheathe when fully attuned. Using supernova ends attunement, and causes plasma sheathe to turn off. It should be activating plasma sheathe when it starts the attunement buildup, instead, if the revelation is supposed to actually be used.
Not true. Plasma sheathe merely doesn't do extra damage if not attuned, it doesn't turn off.
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Is plasma sheathe already included in the stat block? I can't tell.
is it me or are you twice as well off slotting the boon from star sugar heart love than the one from honorbound allies in your ally boon slot? It technically changes the starting attitudes differently , but starting attitudes are irrelevant to a static diplomacy DC.
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First of all:
GET OUT OF HERE CUPI, YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED THIS YET!
Now, for some real questions:
First off, I love the second half of this scenario, feels suitably epic and awesome. Super on board with holding off a wave of Jinsul to save some people as you desperately wait for your transport ship hoping against hope that they shake off their tail and come back to rescue you.
I do have to say I'm not a fan of "Save people costs you money," that the scenario is doing here. If they save the people the datapad blows up, and if they save the tech/datapad, the people die and accomplishing your mission becomes a lot harder. If it was an obvious setup where the PCs have to choose, I understand (a la "Save the data or the people, you only have enough time for one!"), but just blindsiding the PCs with it is just . . . it feels cheep, y'know? Oh, you decided to take a quick detour, save the doctor's datapad on your way to save the people? No, they died in that 20 seconds even though her datapad is literally RIGHT NEXT DOOR. Oh you save the people first? Boom, random explosion you couldn't have predicted LOOSE MONEY.
Also, how are you supposed to approach the 'learn about freehold's culture' aspect of the mission? Like, I know the players I will be running this for, and their first reaction is going to probably be: "These guys have been through a lot. We should heal them as best we can and then give them some time alone."
Not:
"These guys just survived their comrades dying and have just been rescued by aliens they have never seen before. We should grill them on their culture amid our ship flying through an ORBITAL BOMBARDMENT!"
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Theoretically you also have 5d6 days back to absolom station to let them recover and then ask questions. Not the order the scenario does it but if your players overthought the whole common sense thing then why are they starfinders you could push them to have the talk then when it would make more sense.
How to handle that mechanically was a bit unclear , but our medic was passing out cures which said it let them open up to talk, so i figured that resolved it rather than the high diplomacy check.
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Theoretically you also have 5d6 days back to absolom station to let them recover and then ask questions. Not the order the scenario does it but if your players overthought the whole common sense thing
then why are they starfindersyou could push them to have the talk then when it would make more sense.How to handle that mechanically was a bit unclear , but our medic was passing out cures which said it let them open up to talk, so i figured that resolved it rather than the high diplomacy check.
Except I don’t think you have the 5d6 days. Don’t you just drop off the dudes and their council leader off before you head back? After all, they are in their home system, right? After all, isn’t that what the invitation is? An invitation to come back and talk later?
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Except I don’t think you have the 5d6 days. Don’t you just drop off the dudes and their council leader off before you head back? After all, they are in their home system, right? After all, isn’t that what the invitation is? An invitation to come back and talk later?
I was under the impression that the planet was still crawling with Jinsul and they wouldn't be heading back there, but would be staying on the ship back to the veskarium. But I'm not seeing an actual resolution to the whole alien invasion.
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I had 2 issues pop up while running this.
First off, I love how when the scenario is designed that the players won't split up, they decide to split up and pretty much get to both objectives in Part A at the same time. (Course if the scenario is designed for them to split up they will fight it toe and nail.)
My second problem concerns the final fight. The scaling down for 4 players only removes one guy. But it uses guys from the previous two encounters which had their own scaling down mechanic. I did as the sidebar instructed and removed the one guy but as the fight progressed I wonder if I was also suppose to include the scaling down from the other encounters as well. On one hand I figured it would have said so if it was suppose but on the other hand my players got their boots kicked during that fight.
I have a third problem in that I ran out of time during the final fight and have to decide how to proceed with the chronicles. The rescue people were about 10 feet from the Honorbound, but my players pretty much ran for the ship as soon as it got there without a thought for the npcs because they were losing the fight. They weren't escorting them, they were running away.
I feel if I had spent more time prepping we wouldn't have ran out of time. Instead I would have likely killed most of their pcs as I would have been more familiar with what solarians do.
So I am leaning towards giving them the rep and fame as their rescue people were so close to being saved. But they failed to defeat the final fight and lose the gold for it.
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Is there any explanation for why the local species speak perfect Vesk?
They had a vesk soldier on their planet for a while, so the seahorse doctor speaks it and its on their language database. Since he learned it from a wounded soldier, I had the Dr. randomly interject vesk curses at the party, having reached the conclussion that they were included so often they had to be there for proper grammar.
"Greetings you claw scuffing eggsuckers. We're so happy you could come to our (##*$*#$ rescue in our time of need. "
Venture-Captain, Illinois—Fairview Heights
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I had 2 issues pop up while running this.
First off, I love how when the scenario is designed that the players won't split up, they decide to split up and pretty much get to both objectives in Part A at the same time. (Course if the scenario is designed for them to split up they will fight it toe and nail.)
I had a question about this as well. If the party splits up, wouldn't the party going after the datapad be caught in the explosion once the other party reaches the injured?
An issue I had was once the party reached the wounded, they were ready to evacuate and had no desire to search the rest of the hospital. I had the doctor mention that she wasn't sure if others were still in the hospital when the party asked her, so they ended up sweeping the rest of the rooms before leaving.
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Just ran this impromptu after our GM called out sick, but my players decided to face the Jinsuls before going to either A3 or A6. I didn't want to penalize them, so I left the decision of where to go "first" after the combat.
And then they split the party. The immediate threat had been dealt with, so they didn't see a reason to not do both. The two healers went to A3, and the two mechanics went to A6.
So I checked both A and B on the reporting sheet.
When it came time to evac the Starship, they grabbed Speaks Forgotten Words and tossed them in the Null Space Chamber to keep them safe.
The Operative dropped to zero HP in the final fight, which drug on to round 12, but they never once did a Trick Attack during the entire scenario. They took the warning in the briefing of "anti-Operative tactics" to heart.
Finished 5 minutes short of 4 hours. Everyone left entertained. Overall it was an easy objective to conceptualize and the players felt fulfilled.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands
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Is plasma sheathe already included in the stat block? I can't tell.
Yes it is.
According to the Alien Archive 1, page 156 "Stellar Alignment"
The creature is aligned to the cycles of solar systems. Creatures
with stellar alignment usually have stellar revelations and
zenith revelations, either ones from the solarian class or ones
unique to the creature. When using stellar revelations, the
creature is always considered attuned. However, it’s not always
considered fully attuned, so it normally can’t always use zenith
powers. When you roll initiative for the creature, roll 1d3. Once
that many rounds have elapsed, the creature is considered fully
attuned and gains access to its zenith powers. After it uses a
zenith power, it’s no longer fully attuned and you roll 1d3 again
to see how many rounds it will take to recharge.
If a creature has stellar alignment (graviton) or stellar
alignment (photon), it’s considered to be attuned only in the
indicated mode and can become fully attuned only in the
indicated mode, as described above.
Format: Other Abilities stellar alignment (graviton).
So the reason that you can't tell is because it is always included, and never turned off. So using the Supernova doesn't end attunement, just stops it being full, then roll 1d3 to see how it takes to recharge!
