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why not just do EMPIRE OF BONES, with some minor tweaks, on the Stellar Degenerator?
If the PCs can get to the Degenerator, than the Corpse Fleet can as well. While the PCs are exploring it, the Corpse Fleet gets there, and starts swarming over the station...
You can do the chase stuff, you can do the survival stuff, etc. Everything can pretty much be the same except for the security controls.
Skip the Mi-go. Make it easier on yourself.
Lots of robots, traps and hard computer checks, due to the mish-mash of technology the Stellar Degenerator is. Maybe an undead or ghost version of the original owners?
Definitely some data on previous uses of the weapon, and its horrors. Toss in some surviving cultistis, and after a while, the corpse fleet. They'll have to self-destruct the degenerator instead of moving it.
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why not just do EMPIRE OF BONES, with some minor tweaks, on the Stellar Degenerator?
If the PCs can get to the Degenerator, than the Corpse Fleet can as well. While the PCs are exploring it, the Corpse Fleet gets there, and starts swarming over the station...
You can do the chase stuff, you can do the survival stuff, etc. Everything can pretty much be the same except for the security controls.
Skip the Mi-go. Make it easier on yourself.
This is exactly what I have set up.
Corpse fleet boarding parties either beat the PCs to the degenerator, or the big bad's crew arrives via a spell gem of interplanetary teleport.
I have changed a few encounters for kishalee or sivv undead still stuck in the degenerator after millenia instead of corpse fleet undead, and others with kish and sivv robots responding to intruders.
At this point you don't need to worry about the viruses and security systems, but urgency is maintained because if the PCs wait too long the degenerator will be swarming with corpse fleet armies.
The provided maps, encounters and tactics still basically all work. The train chase probably needs to be vs. internal defenses and robots instead of corpse fleet marines, but in general it all should work well regardless of location.
I also have a starship combat stat block for the stellar degenerator that has up to twelve shots with a super weapon for the finale.
yeah, I definitely did not like how railroady the plan to go onto the flagship was. This would have worked way better in terms of
1) what the characters would do and
2) what would work. I mean going onto that flagship would be suicide if not for some plot convenience.
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yeah, I definitely did not like how railroady the plan to go onto the flagship was. This would have worked way better in terms of
1) what the characters would do and
2) what would work. I mean going onto that flagship would be suicide if not for some plot convenience.
plus, the whole ap is built around the Stellar Degenerator - and the players don't end up there.
i think the 6th volume would have been better served if, as the op's players have done, the pcs retreat to the SD and have to try to take control of it to destroy the corpse fleet.
they can then battle both the SD's defenses (weird immortal robots like the defense droid in book 1) and corpse fleet boarding parties. it would then thematically and mechanically tie book 6 into the driftrock exploration in book 1.
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The Stellar Degenerator ending up in players' hands was a risk Paizo did not want to take.
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Going to the SD is an even riskier choice than the empire of bones. They know little about the creatures that built it beyond their name and fate. It’s being attacked by the empire of bones and the corpse fleet. Their approach will be noticed by both sides, and both will destroy their weak little ship.
So I guess pretend their plan makes sense and roll with it. When they get through it and blindly use it...have it be broken (because it’s be ripped apart by the drift and the corpse fleet attacks) and explode.
Going to the SD is an even riskier choice than the empire of bones. They know little about the creatures that built it beyond their name and fate. It’s being attacked by the empire of bones and the corpse fleet. Their approach will be noticed by both sides, and both will destroy their weak little ship.
So I guess pretend their plan makes sense and roll with it. When they get through it and blindly use it...have it be broken (because it’s be ripped apart by the drift and the corpse fleet attacks) and explode.
The PCs should know from an earlier part of the adventure, roughly that:
The sivvs created their own superweapon frst—the Stellar
Degenerator—but kishalee agents ended the war by capturing
the weapon before it could be fired.
They know an unknown number of Kish stole the degenerator from it's creators before it could be used. It could have been a fleet action, could have been a kish adventuring party that stole it and escaped.
vs.
Boarding a file mile long super capital ship, with a minumum required crew in the hundreds, and most probably containing thousands of crew. Each crew member of which they can assume is loyal to the corpse fleet until their second death. And then... Doing what? Nothing the PCs know suggests they can fly it, the rest of the corpse fleet is right there, their target is a twenty mile long asteroid that they don't even know if the Empire of bones can even hurt.
Don't get me wrong, it's fairly simple to disguise the rails and get the PCs onboard the Empire of bones instead. Either with knowledge checks at this point, or by dropping hints throughout the campaign of the EoB's sister ship lost in the Silent war to a boarding party of elite vesk commandos. They managed to take and hold the bridge, using command overrides on the mindless undead crew to turn it's guns on the rest of the fleet. The AP doesn't tell you that though, it just tells you this is bigger than a capital ship, and is part of a massive fleet.
As far as keeping the degenerator out of PCs hands? Fairly simple, it doesn't have a drift drive after all. The artificially created demi-plane hyperspace they used to move the degenerator FTL is falling apart. There isn't a nice convenient space dock to build a drift drive, and the PCs don't have the parts. The PCs know that's not all there is to the corpse fleet, they'll be back. The Pact Worlds likely knows about them via ambassador Nor. If they only have twelve shots, they aren't going to last long.
On top of that, bits are missing from the SD (drift rock was 'auxiliary fire control'), shoot it too much and it's likely to catastrophically fail.
This is my biggest gripe about this part of the AP. There should have been a hint that the PCs could do anything at all to control the EoB, and there should have been a paragraph describing how to port a few encounters to the SD instead of one saying 'railroad at all costs'.
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The Stellar Degenerator ending up in players' hands was a risk Paizo did not want to take.
sure, i get that.
but then again, who knows how much work would be required to get it up and running?
the corpse fleet and the cult are kinda running on a hope and a prayer, believing that it will work right out of the box. also, they have a lot more resources than the PCs. might be that it will take a generation of repair and maintenance, as well as acquiring various exotic components, to get the SD up and going.
It might still have its defense guns, but it might not be able to perform its primary function, at least not right away.
again, no reason not to just do Empire of Bones inside the SD if a DM wants. all Empire of Bones requires is a big ship and a tramway system, and a few minutes of homebrew changes.
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Going to the SD is an even riskier choice than the empire of bones. They know little about the creatures that built it beyond their name and fate. It’s being attacked by the empire of bones and the corpse fleet. Their approach will be noticed by both sides, and both will destroy their weak little ship.
So I guess pretend their plan makes sense and roll with it. When they get through it and blindly use it...have it be broken (because it’s be ripped apart by the drift and the corpse fleet attacks) and explode.
The PCs should know from an earlier part of the adventure, roughly that:
The sivvs created their own superweapon frst—the Stellar
Degenerator—but kishalee agents ended the war by capturing
the weapon before it could be fired.They know an unknown number of Kish stole the degenerator from it's creators before it could be used. It could have been a fleet action, could have been a kish adventuring party that stole it and escaped.
vs.
Boarding a file mile long super capital ship, with a minumum required crew in the hundreds, and most probably containing thousands of crew. Each crew member of which they can assume is loyal to the corpse fleet until their second death. And then... Doing what? Nothing the PCs know suggests they can fly it, the rest of the corpse fleet is right there, their target is a twenty mile long asteroid that they don't even know if the Empire of bones can even hurt.
Don't get me wrong, it's fairly simple to disguise the rails and get the PCs onboard the Empire of bones instead. Either with knowledge checks at this point, or by dropping hints throughout the campaign of the EoB's sister ship lost in the Silent war to a boarding party of elite vesk commandos. They managed to take and hold the bridge, using command overrides on the mindless undead crew to turn it's guns on the rest of the fleet. The AP doesn't tell you that though, it just tells you this is bigger than a capital...
completely agree.
imho, EoB should have instead been set on the crumbling SD, but if it weren't then something should have been directing the PCs towards their assumed decision.
It would have been much more interesting to fight immortal kishalee robot defenders, corpse fleet boarding parties, AND weird planar creatures in the wreck of the SD than what we got (which was good, but just fights against one type of enemy). I really like the chase and survival mechanics in EoB, but both of those could have worked in the SD.
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How I see it: Sneaking on board a ship that is too large to search, with disloyal(book1) and magically controllable crew, who are focused on something else (space combat). The pcs obviously know how to fly it since they have been flying ships since book 1 and hacked the marine ship to sneak on board.
The SD will kill them if they approach, the EoB will kill them if a rogue Corpse fleet ship approaches the SD.
Both are crazy choices but I think the greater chance to win is on the EoB. I guess if the pcs think security will be little ~cr3 robots from book 1 and low dcs, I can understand their choice more. I just don’t see a plan to board the SD that sounds like it could work.
If you bet the corpse fleet loses it doesn’t matter much what you do, but if they win you will then have to stop them from either ship you board. They don’t care if you kill the pact world’s sun. The SD will be crippled (EoB won) and maybe the pcs can destroy the EoB with the SD at the last moment, but I expect they have back up (or the cultists do) who will check the area out after losing communication.
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How I see it: Sneaking on board a ship that is too large to search, with disloyal(book1) and magically controllable crew, who are focused on something else (space combat). The pcs obviously know how to fly it since they have been flying ships since book 1 and hacked the marine ship to sneak on board.
The PCs have probably rebuilt their ship at least once. The only thing they know about the EoB is that they can't pilot it, they don't meet the minimum crew requirements. They also likely suspect that Eox still clandestinely supports the corpse fleet, not that some corpse fleet members are disloyal.
The SD will kill them if they approach, the EoB will kill them if a rogue Corpse fleet ship approaches the SD.
You mean the SD is currently non-functional and will do nothing on approach, the EoB is a fully armed and operational battleship that will blow them out of the sky if they get anything wrong.
Both are crazy choices but I think the greater chance to win is on the EoB. I guess if the pcs think security will be little ~cr3 robots from book 1 and low dcs, I can understand their choice more. I just don’t see a plan to board the SD that sounds like it could work.
The PCs knowledge should be telling them that the EoB is completely nonsensical, and that the SD is a snowball's chance in hell. You can make both work or not work, but the EoB is in no way the obvious choice.
If you bet the corpse fleet loses it doesn’t matter much what you do, but if they win you will then have to stop them from either ship you board. They don’t care if you kill the pact world’s sun. The SD will be crippled (EoB won) and maybe the pcs can destroy the EoB with the SD at the last moment, but I expect they have back up (or the cultists do) who will check the area out after losing communication.
Capturing the SD's technology won't give the corpse fleet any real advantage. The whole thing about the SD (that the PCs should know) is that building it bankrupted an entire stellar empire. The corpse fleet capturing the SD intact is the loss situation here. Them capturing the destroyed remains is not as big a problem.
There's always the option of draining a sun and setting the SD into overload mode. Which again, is more likely than 4-6 PCs meeting a minimum crew requirement of 250.