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Since I had to learn how to use the jukebox on roll20 anyway
Before this event, please rise for the Eoxian national anthem
Venture-Agent, Online—VTT
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I believe there is an error in the description of area A6. The description text states that the shorter northern walkway moves faster than the longer southern walkway. However, the mechanics of the area state that the southern walkway is faster.
Area A1 also seems to have fallen into the trap of forgetting about environmental protections. While I think I'm more prone than most to arguing that characters should not be assumed to have protections active at all times, if they haven't said anything about activating them and don't have an obvious need for them, this life threatening Eoxian obstacle course isn't the sort of situation I would expect characters to enter with their helmets off. That makes the fortitude saves against sweltering temperature seem a bit less relevant.
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Just finished running this tonight. It was a ton of fun, but ran WAAAY too long. Ours took 5 1/2 hours and I just called the last event before it was done because the PCs were ahead 250pts to 110pts. And this was at high tier with only 4 PCs. (Channels with Keskodai in event C really racks up points! On the other hand, Keskodai literally swam through the lava in event A multiple times.) Either event B or C really should be Optional.
Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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I ran this online recently.. it took about 6 hours. I think the 2nd and third challenges should be optional, particularly since the first one can take forever to resolve.
There is a lot of liked here, and some things that make me hesitant to offer it again, that feedback will come later, but I just had to say, I am not scheduling this one at my next convention because of the timeslot concerns.
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I don't see guidance on what should be trimmed in the scenario.
Obviously the goal is to be done in 4 hours @GenCon. Of the two extended sections, which one will be easier to run to reflect this?
I was more than a little annoyed how all of the moving parts of the cooking contest were thrown out to boil down to a bluff check. That's something you could pair down for time.
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I was more than a little annoyed how all of the moving parts of the cooking contest were thrown out to boil down to a bluff check. That's something you could pair down for time.I don't see guidance on what should be trimmed in the scenario.
Obviously the goal is to be done in 4 hours @GenCon. Of the two extended sections, which one will be easier to run to reflect this?
...wouldn't that be more pare down for a cooking contest? :)
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I believe there is an error in the description of area A6. The description text states that the shorter northern walkway moves faster than the longer southern walkway. However, the mechanics of the area state that the southern walkway is faster.
The northern walkway is actually going faster - 10' of movement on the southern one will move you 15', while 10' of movement on the northern one will move you 20' (10' for each 5').
Area A1 also seems to have fallen into the trap of forgetting about environmental protections. While I think I'm more prone than most to arguing that characters should not be assumed to have protections active at all times, if they haven't said anything about activating them and don't have an obvious need for them, this life threatening Eoxian obstacle course isn't the sort of situation I would expect characters to enter with their helmets off. That makes the fortitude saves against sweltering temperature seem a bit less relevant.
I'll probably run this by assuming their protections are off, and if they want to spend an action to turn them on that's one less action to get to the finish line.
Speed is a huge issue for sure. When we did the preview game at paizocon we had to skip the 3rd challenge and still went long.
I like shortening the cooking to one creature though I would keep the multiple rounds of cooking checks for flavor (pun semi intended)
I was thinking of changing moving target by just having the party make a few attack rolls and then having the monsters make a few back so that some resources might be spent before going into the last scenario but the party should be winning big by now so they just need credit for the win and a chance to try for the prizes (the most likely way members of the party face any threat)
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Any recommendations on images for the two animals in Combat Cooking that don't have official art?
I like this one.
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What makes this combat go long is that it takes x party members Y turns to complete no matter how well they do. In a normal adventure more people put the monsters down faster with say, a party of four taking 4 turns each as opposed to a party of 6 taking 3 turns each.
Good point. The action economy kinda works against the players in this one 'cuz it just makes the whole scenario take a lot longer.
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Given that the main thing that keeps contestants from skipping obstacles is the lava pit, what's too keep PC's with a fly speed from skipping to the end? I can't seem to find anything, but am considering inserting some force barriers between each obstacle.
The map seems to show force barriers, otherwise it would be pretty jumpable
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Given that the main thing that keeps contestants from skipping obstacles is the lava pit, what's too keep PC's with a fly speed from skipping to the end? I can't seem to find anything, but am considering inserting some force barriers between each obstacle.
When I ran it, I had a player with a PC in it who was built for jumping. He could easily get a 96 on his jump checks, so when he wasn't waiting for other PCs that were getting stuck, he would leap to clear multiple obstacles at a time.
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Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria
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Alright, gotta see the math on that one for a level 4...
When I ran it, I had a player with a PC in it who was built for jumping. He could easily get a 96 on his jump checks, so when he wasn't waiting for other PCs that were getting stuck, he would leap to clear multiple obstacles at a time.
Same request..
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Venture-Agent, Online—VTT
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Let's see, assuming a Phentomite operative with 20 strength and a speed suspension augment, we can get 5 (STR)+3 (racial for leaping)+3(class skill)+3 (insight from Skill Focus)+4 (ranks in athletics)+8 (leapers armor upgrade)+8 (bonus for having a land speed of 50), so a nat 20 would get a 54 to jump. Pretty impressive, but I'm not seeing how you get the other 42.
EDIT: I think you can get one more from a trait, and maybe 1 from a polymorph spell, so you'll only be 40 short?
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With all of the above, The Jet Dash Feat lets you jump twice as high and far as normal. So they might be doubling their result instead of just how far they can go (Works the same either way for distance/height but would technically be wrong if there's just a set check in the scenario for something).
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He was playing an SRO Operative. He's probably played with some of you folks at PaizoCon. I want to say that he had a 70' normal land movement. For sure, he's got the bonus from Operative, Fleet, and Cybernetics. I'm not sure if he also had a level of Soldier for more movement. He most likely had Jet Dash and was doubling the result of his jump check and telling me that, rather than doubling the distance.
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I'm prepping this scenario and if the role playing session get proper attention this scenario can run 6 hours long.
Please developers keep scenarios to under 4 hours. Some of us have hard stops at 4 hours. When I played this the role playing sessions were shortened one test was cut entirely (the exploding skeletons) and the capture the flag was rushed because we had 20 minutes left. The final story part conclusion with the shuttle was dropped because we ran out of time.
SFS outside of a few scenarios has been doing a great job keeping scenarios short. Please keep them short.
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Is it just me or does Shonvyzam's drone's defenses seem off? By my math the KAC/EAC for tier 1-2 (assuming she's a 1st level mechanic) should be 13/15 respectively not 10/12, saves should be Fort +0/ Ref+5/Will +0 not Fort -1/Ref-1/Will-3, and HP should be 10 not 6. The higher tier drone does not look right either but its almost time for bed and I don't have time to list them. Am I missing something?
Contributor
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Here's a question that I came up with while playing this in a PbP (and now I'm prepping to run this in a couple of days) - during Capture the Flag, should 10 points be awarded each time someone KOs an enemy, or only once if they are unconscious when time is called?
I suspect in most games it's not going to matter, but I am curious what other GMs think.
As for the soundtrack... I may have mixed a 33-track cheesy monstrosity that has my non-SF-playing roommate in giggle-fits and also debating trying out Starfinder, now. In doing this, I was also pleasantly surprised to learn that the Hockey Night in Canada theme hasn't changed much from when I watched it as a kid!
However, my FLGS also does have some pretty short time windows for scenarios, so this one's gonna be a challenge to pull off, for sure.
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Mike,
When I ran this at GenCon and when I played it at the author's table at SKALCon, the general consensus of GMs who've played/run it is that it is incredibly lengthy even for a five-hour slot.
If you're trying to fit this into four (which was my goal at GenCon, to allow for some roleplay) I'd recommend getting the full experience from the course at the beginning, then moving to the cooking quickly/have the map ready to go then go to the mindless hordes. The hordes seem like they'd be slower, but they're actually faster than Capture the Flag.
The Capture the Flag is better run as theatre of the mind, imo, due to a lot of rules interactions that come up, and it's a better narrative encounter than a slugfest.
Just my experience, mileage may vary, whatnot.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Interestingly, in the Capture the Flag scenario, the Zero G helps a bit. The corridors are 5ft wide, but 10ft high. Without Zero G, it'd be really easy to bottle up some corridors and grind the thing to a halt. This setup takes that particular map and unblocks it a bit.
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Mike,When I ran this at GenCon and when I played it at the author's table at SKALCon, the general consensus of GMs who've played/run it is that it is incredibly lengthy even for a five-hour slot.
If you're trying to fit this into four (which was my goal at GenCon, to allow for some roleplay) I'd recommend getting the full experience from the course at the beginning, then moving to the cooking quickly/have the map ready to go then go to the mindless hordes. The hordes seem like they'd be slower, but they're actually faster than Capture the Flag.
The Capture the Flag is better run as theatre of the mind, imo, due to a lot of rules interactions that come up, and it's a better narrative encounter than a slugfest.
Just my experience, mileage may vary, whatnot.
To each his own. But I absolutely hate theater of the mind when things are complex. The complexity for me does the opposite. It must be mapped out. Players can't tell what they are doing and GM's always forget something they said about the playing field. Distances change between things because GM's forget what they said. Players have to ask who do I have a clear shot or can I shoot this guy without cover. Or who can I reach and attack. etc. etc.
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Contributor
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I agree with to each their own - everyone has their own preferences and styles of RP they like.
The solution I came up with to fit the game into a 4.5 hour slot was to hand-wave two of the combat scenes when it was obvious that the PCs had overwhelmingly defeated the encounters ("ordering up" their 2nd and 3rd protein, and after they slaughtered the first wave in "kill count" after only the 1st action in the 2nd round) - even with their score being reduced by not completing all 5 rounds, the final score was PCs 325 and NPCs 120.
The soundtrack was a huge hit and the players thanked me for cutting down on the dice-rolling so they could experience more of the RP. They were blown away (not like the rival team, but hey) when they got "the news" at the very end, and the table went from jovial "soo fun" to "oh...oh darn...what did we get ourselves into?" in a heartbeat.
Thank you everyone on this GM thread for your comments - it really helped me out a ton to prep this on relatively short notice!
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I ran this scenario last Wednesday, and managed to keep it to ~4,5 hours. I had only four players, so that always goes a bit quicker. But I also had made several handouts for the lootboxes: a simple table of what is in each one and what every item does. This made sure that they didn't need to open the rulebooks to find out what each item does. They quickly made decisions what to take and what not to bother with, so that was a succesful timesaver for me. I'll see if I can upload them to pfsprep (never did something like that before, so it might take some fiddling).
A change I made was cutting out the "ordering" of the ingredients; I made it a scenic skill challenge (survival/perception/science to find your prey, then charisma skill, profession, survival to lure them into traps on the scene). Is this changing the scenario? Well yes, but I hardly have time for three seperate
battles against would-be food when the other combats also take quite long.
There was also something I had not forseen, but could also not deny my party: they uncovered the sabotage, but instead of informing Zo! or anyone, they wanted to rig it. They wanted to place the thing on a incendiary grenade (with the pin stuck to their vest), so when they would try to cheat, they would catch a grenade instead. I was fine with it (they rolled a 30 engineering or something) and it makes entertaining TV I assumed.
As for the question Mike Bramnik had regarding the points of revived participants during Capture the Flag (little late, I know); I had a moment where the opposing team had someone down and got healed back up by their Mystic. The reaction of the announcers was as followed: "Oh my, look at that! It seems he is still capable of competing!" "But, is that DOUBLE POINTS I hear? Yes, you are correct, DOUBLE POINTS!". It really got my party excited, because they really disliked the opponent Envoy.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Yeah Mr. Bonkers ran this for me. I was rather flabbergasted when I later heard that actually we were supposed to have had three more fights for the combat cooking.
While I think it might have made the scene work better - kill it then serve it - it was the easiest thing to cut, without really compromising the scenario.
I thought normally there was some sort of standard for a normal number of combats in a scenario?
- The initial race which is a relatively big one on its own, what with all the obstacles and pretty nasty traps.
- 3 fights with dinner.
- A waves encounter that's guaranteed to take five turns, and powerful parties probably go slower, while struggling parties also go slow.
- A final combat with Zero G to slow things down, reducing peoples' effective speed and confusing players.
That's six combats, three of which are straightforward and three which really aren't. That's really really much.
(We had a bit problematic party - two "spoony" L3/L4 envoys, a L3 mystic that was ill equipped to deal with things that are immune to mind-affecting effects, but as a Membrane Ghibrani contributed a lot with flight, and my highly tuned L4 operative. During most combats, I was the only one feeling in his element. But the overall difficulty of the scenario worked out fine because enemy AC was quite mild, it was just a lot of OOC time pressure.)
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I believe the combat cooking is one fight with 3 encounters on the map. Like fighting 3 different creatures in one fight. Having three different fights does seen to be a common GM error.
When I played it and when I ran it the Combat cooking encounters came across as kiling cows who could barely fight back.
