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So, I have 2 questions regarding this scenario:
1. Where is the trapdoor that descends to the ruins? It says it's marked with a dotted line on the map, but I don't see any dotted lines. I'm assuming this was lost/forgotten in editing.
2. Where is the golem? The description says it stands in the "Eastern End" of area A2, but it's unclear where, exactly that is. I could place it down near the tunnel where it might never attack, or I could place it closer to the northern tunnel where the party might still trigger it with incautious movement.
Starfinder Society Developer
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So, I have 2 questions regarding this scenario:
1. Where is the trapdoor that descends to the ruins? It says it's marked with a dotted line on the map, but I don't see any dotted lines. I'm assuming this was lost/forgotten in editing.
You can use the same area as the Trap Fall area. That was the intent.
2. Where is the golem? The description says it stands in the "Eastern End" of area A2, but it's unclear where, exactly that is. I could place it down near the tunnel where it might never attack, or I could place it closer to the northern tunnel where the party might still trigger it with incautious movement.
Wherever you feel appropriate. It's also going to be invisible to most PCs, so I suspect you want to use that to maximum effect.
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I have another question: How large are the storage crates? The text says they are 8 ft. by 8 ft., but on the map they look to be much bigger--nearly 20 ft. by 20 ft. Unless the smaller light-colored squares are meant to be some sort of tiling and not squares (in which case I ran the map as entirely too big).
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Starfinder Society Developer
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I have another question: How large are the storage crates? The text says they are 8 ft. by 8 ft., but on the map they look to be much bigger--nearly 20 ft. by 20 ft. Unless the smaller light-colored squares are meant to be some sort of tiling and not squares (in which case I ran the map as entirely too big).
It's a bit strange, but I'd say that there are smaller crates inside the larget storage units on the map.
As for damage, it's more for area of attack effects and the like. You can extrapolate based on the environmental rules in the CRB, but the line is there so PCs don't start by lobbing endless grenades/fireballs into the area. They're SUPPOSED to be archaeologists in a sense (and NOT the Tomb Raider sense) :P
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Page 7 says 6 social rounds; page 11 says 4 social rounds.
I think 6 social rounds is too many. Let's assume the first round is all Sense Motive checks. A 5-PC party then gets 25 attempts (5 PCs * 5 rounds) and can influence all four dignitaries with 16 successes. [Note: The secondary success criteria is 3 or more dignitaries.]
My plan is to go with 4 social rounds.
P.S.: I love that the Sense Motive check is really low. Now it's worth it for untrained people to try it and have a decent chance of getting some useful information.
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I ran this scenario yesterday. The technomancer cast See Invisibility and then successfully identified the golem. For his knowledge, I told the players about the Light Immunity (being the really important piece of information). The next PC knocked out the nearest emergency light.
Even after knocking out one of the emergency lights, the PCs still had light sources on. The mechanic's drone was using a beacon; the PC turned it off on his next turn.
The one I really missed was the Solarian. He's lighting up a 20-foot radius once her entered Photon mode. What he should have done (since we didn't think about it at the time) was become unattuned at the beginning of his turn (free action) and shut off the light from his solar manifestation (standard action).
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Page 7 says 6 social rounds; page 11 says 4 social rounds.
I think 6 social rounds is too many. Let's assume the first round is all Sense Motive checks. A 5-PC party then gets 25 attempts (5 PCs * 5 rounds) and can influence all four dignitaries with 16 successes. [Note: The secondary success criteria is 3 or more dignitaries.]
My plan is to go with 4 social rounds.
Does anyone have feedback on this after running it? Did 4 rounds feel like enough?
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I've run this twice, and six social rounds was hard enough.
The DCs aren't as extreme as in Siege of Civility, but the range of available skills per NPC is also a bit smaller and there are no bonus influence points to be earned.
In both cases, after the first three rounds I told the players "you get the feeling the party is about at the halfway point" and they were pretty worried. Both cases they really had to push hard to get enough people onside by round 6.
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Does anyone have feedback on this after running it? Did 4 rounds feel like enough?Page 7 says 6 social rounds; page 11 says 4 social rounds.
I think 6 social rounds is too many. Let's assume the first round is all Sense Motive checks. A 5-PC party then gets 25 attempts (5 PCs * 5 rounds) and can influence all four dignitaries with 16 successes. [Note: The secondary success criteria is 3 or more dignitaries.]
My plan is to go with 4 social rounds.
I ran the scenario with 4 social rounds in a 4-player game (sub-tier 5-6). In the first round, they made a good guess to use Computers on Camily and were successful (though I suspect I tipped my hand too much). The other 3 PCs went with Sense Motive on the other 3 delegates. Only 1 made the DC 10 check. Two of the PCs had no ranks in Sense Motive and the PC with +7 rolled a 2.
At this point, they needed 2 more successes on Camily and 3 on the rest in 3 rounds, with 12 rolls remaining. They had good Skill Bonuses: +17 Athletics, +15/+14 Culture, +17/+14/+12 Computers, +10 Diplomacy, +17/+14/+12 Engineering, +12 Life Science, +11 Mysticism, +12 Physical Science, +15/+13/+13 Piloting, +14/+12/+10 Profession (all against a 22 DC).
They rolled poorly. They barely got a total of 3 successes on 2 of the delegates (losing about 10% of the adventures credits). They also missed the secondary success conditions.
Did I feel badly about them failing to impress 3 delegates? Not really. They were unskilled at Sense Motive (generally, one PC with a +7) in a scenario identified as "[PCs] thrust into politics". They skills were certainly good enough to succeed, but poor dice rolling mattered. I also discovered that none of the Hireling skill sets in the SFS Organized Guide include Sense Motive.
What would I do different? I still think 6 rounds would be too much. If my group had two more rounds, I'm thinking they would have attempted Sense Motive again on the two remaining delegates (2 PCs each). Hopefully, they would manage some successes against the DC 10 Sense Motive. Then all four would attempt to influence one candidate and they would have had a good chance of success (in spite of all of the previous die rolls). I think a better answer would be a mandatory Sense Motive round (billed as an introduction to the delegates) followed by four influence rounds (essentially 5 rounds). I also didn't like the cumulative -1 penalty for using the same skill (even if the previous attempts failed); that ended up hurting them several times.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I think the -1 penalty for using the same skill is offset by having more time to Sense Motive and find the other options, when doing the six rounds.
I also think the default outcome should be that a reasonably competent party can convince three people and a strong party can do all four - but in four rounds, that's almost impossible.
Consider, a six player party needs 16 successes to persuade all four NPCs. Four rounds is 24 checks, but some of those need to be spent on Sense Motive (let's say at least 4, if you get a 20 on Sense Motive you know all three skills that can be used). So then there's only 20 checks left to get 16 successes, at a DC where success is certainly not guaranteed.
Since the adventure says six in one place and four in another, can we deduce something from where it says so? I think so - it says Six in the paragraphs describing all of the mechanics and DCs. That's what you'd consider the main rules for this encounter, and probably what the editor was looking at when fine-tuning the challenge. The other text might be a not-updated reference.
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I ran it twice -first group did sense motive on all 4 and rolled well enough to get all but 1 part of information from 1 person. They knocked it out no problem.2nd time with a part of 5, they skipped sense motive and had a very hard time for several rounds and only convinced 2 by the end. There really will be a lot of party variance in the results, but failing doesn’t hamstring them so not a huge deal.
Contributor
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I don't suppose any official answers have been found as to whether it's 6 social rounds or 4?
Other than RP descriptions of its actions and a possible change in tactics, is there any mechanical difference for the neutronium golem going berserk?
Also, "light sensitivity" (frenatas) doesn't appear to be part of any universal creature ability (despite showing up sans description in a Core rulebook stat block). It only shows up in one book that I was able to find (thanks to an Abode full-reader search) - the Orc entry for Alien Archive 2.
Light Sensitivity (Ex) An orc is dazzled as long as she remains in an area of bright light.
Just wanted to put that one there for anyone else who missed it or didn't find it on their own.