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No real major questions on this one. Honestly, this scenario is kind of a breath of fresh air. Easy to read (standard levels of typos in opf adventures nonwithstanding), easy to prep, easy to run in a 4 hour block (so far I've only experienced it running in less than 4 hours, which is also a positive for me). Just noticed a couple of things I found worthy of mention so I figured starting a GM thread might be helpful.
- Players from the last adventure Therseis showed up in (The Protectorate Petition) might be curious as to where the copaxi's drone is, since they were apparently a Mechanic the last time we saw them. This also threw me a little at first until I remembered that copaxi basically have access to a mnemonic editor every time they level up. I was a little sad that aspect of Therseis's story (and its tie to copaxi history) is apparently being left behind, but that's just me.
- My players were also very concerned about parts of the briefing - wondering how much leeway the military was giving them since on the one hand they had ID badges, but on the other Ziggy was implying that they should take clandestine samples (all the while knowing the PCs were being tracked, etc.). Make sure to not let your players get bogged down wondering about smuggling samples since it simply doesn't come up at all during the adventure.
- Another question that came up at one of my games where they learned about the Fallen Hand prior to getting in the submarine - the PCs wanted to search the local infosphere for more information. This was one where I felt I could have done more digging into Near Space prior to GMing...but at the same time GMs shouldn't have to do research before running scenarios to have answers, I think.
Mechanics stuff:
- The vehicle rule sidebar is missing an important part that is 100% necessary for this scenario.
Vehicles provoke attacks of opportunity while driving, and when you are in a vehicle that’s driving, you similarly provoke attacks of opportunity if you take any actions that would normally do so (including making ranged attacks) unless the vehicle provides total cover. You can’t use the drive action to move a vehicle through spaces occupied by creatures, even if they’re allies.
Emphasis mine. Both submarine variants provide total cover, so PCs who stay inside of them cannot provoke attacks of opportunity. This led to players wondering if the submarines had viewports or hatches they could use to fire out of. This is a failing of the CRB in that submarines don't get any useful descriptive text or even art (that I'm aware of), so I told them yes (since the vehicle rules allow for passengers to fire from inside vehicles, even ones that provide total cover).
- In the high tier, the gharial seems to be listed with the wrong size ("large") even though its stat block still has space/reach 15 feet.
- Lastly, this scenario falls into the same trap SFS #2-11 did with the use of vracineas as enemies. One of their most powerful abilities is scent-based, but both groups I've seen had their environmental seals up from either the moment they got into the submarine, or from when they got to the mangrove swamp (since the players knew how bad those stink), the fight turned into a somewhat boring stand-still slug-fest once everyone made their saves versus the lures.
In the grand scheme of things, while all of the above are minor issues, I still felt that other GMs might benefit from seeing them. Especially since it only uses published flip-mats, this one is definitely joining "Duskmire Accord 9" as one of my "quick pick" scenarios for whenever I need to run a game on short notice or when I want something for a shorter time slot!
