Ranking of the Dead Suns AP's

[N7Guardian21]

Hey everyone,

I just finished my playthrough of Dead Suns with my players, and I was curious how other GM's and players would rank the books of the AP.

My ranking is always in flux, but I would say the general order would be this:

Book 4 - The Ruined Clouds
Book 1 - Incident at Absalom Station
Book 6 - Empire of Bones
Book 3 - Splintered Worlds
Book 5 - The Thirteenth Gate
Book 2 Temple of the Twelve

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts!

[Garretmander]

My order is probably...

4
5
1
3
2
6

But 6's ranking is mostly because I found the justification for the plot to be very flimsy, not any bad encounter design or such things.

[Tazera]

I'll go with:

Book 1 - Incident at Absalom Station
Book 4 - The Ruined Clouds
Book 3 - Splintered Worlds
Book 5 - The Thirteenth Gate
Book 2 Temple of the Twelve
Book 6 - Empire of Bones

I would have liked the 6 to give more options like a map or something of the Stellar Degenerator in case the players would like to try to take it. And the Empire of Bones I found a bit lazy in design. More maps, more options and more encounters would have been nice since its exploration feels quite rail-roady.
Same with 2, and open world exploration would have been much nicer rather than a rail-roady one like the one we get.

[Cellion]

IMO, mine looks like:

Book 3
Books 1,4,5,6
Book 2

Book 2 is by far the worst of the lot, but all the other books have some clunky, rail-roady, or frustrating elements that make them all kind of mediocre. Book 2's linear, decision-free jungle trek full of diseases and poisons actively got grumbles at the table. Book 3 and Book 6's characterization of Eox and the Corpse Fleet and some of the associated adventuring were a highlight.

Overall though, the AP has a lot of plot elements and steps that don't follow logically from one another, and a lot of "Go follow the mac guffin - oh, your mac guffin is in another castle!". The first four books have you chasing a trail of clues that you're drip fed by NPCs without ever actually engaging you to work anything about yourself.

The Devourer Cult are just boring and unthreatening. The AP never manages to show them doing anything bad, instead only telling things second hand. Their "decentralized" structure means that the PCs don't even have a clear central figure to oppose. We joked that the party had probably killed more kish by the end of book 4 than the cult did. The Corpse Fleet are a lot more interesting and creepy, but they're given so little screen time over the course of the adventure that their sudden appearance at the end feels unearned and shoehorned.

It kinda annoyed me to see how flimsy the plot is in Dead Suns. Especially because other APs prove that Paizo is perfectly capable of structuring and telling complete and cohesive adventures in Starfinder.

[CorvusMask]

I'd say...

6,
5,
3,
4,
1,
2.

Like even with flimsy justifications in book 6, its mechanically the most interesting and challenging book of the bunch. In general first two books feel fillery, book 3 is good kind of filler though while book 4 is bit "eeeh lot of interesting details but could have been better" and book 5 and 6 are highlights of the ap along with book 3.

[Zilvar2k11]

I'd have to go with something like 1, 4, 2, 5, 6, 3.

I felt 3 was weak and incredibly overtuned in comparison to anything prior. Additionally, the whole book is nothing more than a red herring with basically nothing to find until the final enemies leave home with the incriminating usb drive hanging on a chain around their necks. There were insufficient encounters which provided sufficient experience early in the book, necessitating multiple overtuned encounters at the end to meet the xp requirements. While some parties had it 'easy' on those fights, I feel that they swing too heavily on random chance. A few bad rolls in the wrong place...a few good rolls in the wrong place, and the party is just dead.

Book 6 bothered me because it presented the AP solution as the only reasonable path forward, but that really wasn't the way my party saw it. Took a lot of encouragement. Additionally, the mechanics of space combat seem to play against the notion that a space battle could progress for days and days (multiple 8 hour rests are possible) with no impact on the empire of bones. No hits, no wild saving throws, no damage to work around on the final run, no events to alter the ship's geography and push the players to moving faster.

Overall, I think that the story could have been streamlined by removing book 3 and compressing 4 and 5. Book 5 could have been an attempt to prevent the capture of the SD. Book 6 could then have been a running battle against time as the SD was traveling through the Drift (either trying to find a place to destroy it while being chased or trying to recover and sabotage it). Your timeline then becomes 'waste too much time and the absolam system gets @nuked.

[Leon Aquilla]

4-6-5-1-3-2

I think book 6 has aged better now that we know we could have put a bunch of level 17-19 Sivv constructs on the Degenerator ready to wipe the floor with the party if anyone wanted to go the "No we want to board the Stellar Degenerator" route.

The main criticism that seems to come up from certain people incessantly is that it's a "railroad". Which, quite frankly, I don't even understand what that means in this context. You are playing an adventure path. That's what the GM has prepared. If you don't want to play an AP, then let your GM know that you're not interested in that and give him time to improvise something not AP related. You want a real railroad? Try the beginning of Devastation Ark part #3.

"There was only one solution proffered in Book 6!"

So? Frodo had to throw the ring into Mt. Doom. It could not be destroyed (Gimli, son of Gloin) by any craft that they there possessed. The Fellowship had to pass through Moria. They tried the mountains, and found they weren't equipped to pass through them! As written, you are a single ship that can not hope to prevent the enemy from taking possession of the macguffin. The AP even generously lends me the stats for Barrow Reapers, Cenotaphs, and Eulogies I can punish any overly ambitious party that thinks they're all-powerful Gods with. If this ruins your power fantasy, then sorry.

To quote Matt Colville -- "The existence of a plot does not mean you are being railroaded."

I'm sorry but the main critiques of Book 6 being "We wanted to go to the Stellar Degenerator" just rings hollow for me. You wanted Disneyland but got Six Flags. Next time, read the marketing material before you buy.

[Cellion]

Leon Aquilla wrote:

The main criticism that seems to come up from certain people incessantly is that it's a "railroad". Which, quite frankly, I don't even understand what that means in this context. You are playing an adventure path. That's what the GM has prepared. If you don't want to play an AP, then let your GM know that you're not interested in that and give him time to improvise something not AP related. You want a real railroad? Try the beginning of Devastation Ark part #3.

"There was only one solution proffered in Book 6!"

So? Frodo had to throw the ring into Mt. Doom. It could not be destroyed (Gimli, son of Gloin) by any craft that they there possessed. The Fellowship had to pass through Moria. They tried the mountains, and found they weren't equipped to pass through them! As written, you are a single ship that can not hope to prevent the enemy from taking possession of the macguffin. The AP even generously lends me the stats for Barrow Reapers, Cenotaphs, and Eulogies I can punish any overly ambitious party that thinks they're all-powerful Gods with. If this ruins your power fantasy, then sorry.

To quote Matt Colville -- "The existence of a plot does not mean you are being railroaded."

I'm sorry but the main critiques of Book 6 being "We wanted to go to the Stellar Degenerator" just rings hollow for me. You wanted Disneyland but got Six Flags. Next time, read the marketing material before you buy.

You can have a perfectly good plot in an AP without it feeling like a railroad, but it requires that the actions the AP assumes the party will take match decently close to a course of action that feels logical for the party. Dead Suns book 6 suffers because the party has very little information with which to evaluate different courses of action. And the book itself does very little to inform and equip the GM to address alternate approaches. Worse, 3/3 groups I've played with or GMd for first want to head for the Degenerator, suggesting that the material prior to that point make a direct push for the superweapon the most logical course of action. Taking over the Corpse Fleet flagship, then ramming the Degenerator, is so far down the list of sensible approaches - nothing in the AP thus far has suggested that it is either feasible or might work.

When I GM'd it, I provided a mix of guidance from friendly NPCs and some reframing of the situation in order to provide more justification and info for the players. It basically works, but you have to know to make that change. The AP as written isn't set up that way.

So yes, when the AP is written to force a course of action that doesn't feel logical or natural, and which the players don't feel like they would have considered themselves, that feels 100% like a railroad.