Serpents in the Cradle (2 of 6) GM's Reference


Horizons of the Vast

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Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Quote:
GM ruled one must get out of the vehicle to recon or fully explore to add a hex, as things can be missed if just speeding by in your craft just "glancing around, and I agree.

Houserule how you like, but the hexploration rules are silent, meaning it could be played either way.

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
Quote:
GM ruled one must get out of the vehicle to recon or fully explore to add a hex, as things can be missed if just speeding by in your craft just "glancing around, and I agree.

Houserule how you like, but the hexploration rules are silent, meaning it could be played either way.


Yep yep, for the GM, and I, having it a bit more realistic and way less hand wavey is how we are both seeing it.

Zooming through a 12 mile by 12 hex at 22 miles per hour seems a bit much to have the hex marked as fully explored or even fully reconned. Yes if something one might note in plain sight as one is cruising along.

But otherwise your kind of sight seeing in many ways, but won't know specifics until you set down and the whole or part of the party gets out of a big vehicle so one can check out that thing seen at a distance.

Now if there was some type of advanced radar one could upgrade you vehicle with then that seems one could do just that reasonably!! :)

Now if per say everyone had an indivigual Hover bike, that would be reasonable that they could actually do this. But for 1 vehicle for a 12 by 12, not so much.

Our party just found the dwarven cave/mine and what lies within.

Good times!!

Tom


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The top hexploration activities you get for traveling at 20 mph (35 km/h) or more is 6. You won't gain more by going faster.

It is comparable to the speed you would have at horseback, or the speed of a tourist bus making a tour of a city. As a tourist you wont know everything there is to know about the city hex, but i dare say you will have a good idea of the city layout and have a good idea of what you want to see later on inside it...

If you can't explore in an exploration buggy, you should get a refund! :)

Dark Archive

Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber
TRDG wrote:
Yep yep, for the GM, and I, having it a bit more realistic and way less hand wavey is how we are both seeing it.

Realism is in the eye of the beholder, mate. I don't personally see exploring most hex types in a vehicle as an issue. About the only times I rules they couldn't use their exploration buggies was in mountain and swamp hexes, since I couldn't see them even getting them into those.

Quote:
Zooming through a 12 mile by 12 hex at 22 miles per hour seems a bit much to have the hex marked as fully explored or even fully reconned. Yes if something one might note in plain sight as one is cruising along.

Again, to you...I'm fine with it. And the hexploration rules are silent. I might think differently if the vehicle was just flying over the hex, and moving quicker than the speed limit in a school zone :) (40kph here in Queensland)


Yep yep, each group and GM is different in what they want out of the game.

Just cruising through this til now thing we could not do in an official AP I want to take the time to really "feel it", compared to just

"do mechanic X, have all hex's explored by day 14 with our trusty Vehicles, whats next GM/Fellow admins and why do I feel so let down?"

kinda train of thought here is what I am trying to get at, at least for me and my groups, so far anyways.

We are sticking to the 6 activities for speed Dargoth , but some of the players want the flavor of speeding along into this "new and unexplored by anyone......" til now.

Flavor VS mechanics can be quite different things to make everyone happy within reason, or some might feel left out if the GM does not even considers their fun for what they want to get out of this AP.

Tom

PS so nice to play through this as a player, then GM it as you can really see where and what some of the sticking points might be and what might break the game, and what might make it more fun for everyone!!

Just picked up another group to run this for them, but now a debate to maybe wait for Drift Crashers and maybe try that instead, then the 2nd one just noted, another 3 parter alas, but The Drift Hackers 7-13 level added to the debate.

So nice to have all these choices here is'nt it I have to say!!


Just completed session 7 last saturday for mod II and we have not even touched on a lot of stuff yet.

Good times though as players are really starting to feel their characters and see a direction they are going for, great to see that!!

Tom


Session 8 and the spies are coming out of the woodwork indeed right now, hell we almost did'nt trust Ezrin, LOL

Tom


sadly no sessions since as vacations took their toll on our player group but I think we are getting closer to wrapping up mod 2 at least!!

Tom


I've got a spy, a scout, a Solarian and a geneticist. I split the book and put the second two on the gyre path and the first two on FishFair. That way the relevant specialties could shine.

Team Olive Branch as they named themselves have returned from the first meeting. Team Rock Buddies have just made it to the gyre, defeated the polygulp and the vesk and spathinae have squeezed into the box and the session closed on them lowering themselves down as the stone panel slid back over the chamber.

Next session I'm planning for Thistle to be spotted moving in their direction with an encounter with the flit hounds for her to relay the logging efforts leading into that event. That should be enough to push them into murder (deirdrik was exiled at the first debate). So all of the other events will be activated practically on top of one another.


Sounds like a cool game in progress, our GM skipped some of the stuff sadly as the party side tracked more than a bit and wants to get to module 3 sooner rather than later. 11 Sessions in so far for us

Tom


Our group made it to The Gyre and puzzled out some things but clueless in others, not sure whats going to happen next but will be fun to find out!!

Ha Ha

Tom

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

(TRDG describes TTRPGs in general ;) )


LOL @ Yogo

Sadly we are at a dead stop as the GM had to leave for a job opportunity.

Tom


And now one of my groups is debating to take the stat points for the Colony or go back in time and save those poor poor dwarven miners, it seems split 50/50 at the moment at the end of the session last nite.

What did your groups choose to do in your games?

Tom

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

No contest, they saved the miners.

Wayfinders Contributor

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Yay for saving miners! That was my favorite thing that I wrote in the adventure.


They finally decided to save the miners but it was a close thing!!

Just about to finish up module 2 and move onto mod 3, they just have to have fun with the "fish colony" and that should be interesting!!

Tom


And one of my Starfinder groups finished this module, of note they really drifted off the build your settlement subsystem, But otherwise they are still having fun with this, as well as I.

Now onto module 3

Tom


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Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Having a good time running this AP, and Book 2 has been much better for my players than book 1 did. Directed exploration makes for a more entertaining set of game sessions. With a properly placed suggestion to one of my players, they headed for the northern observation post and were able to get themselves a truck finally, which they promptly named Swamp Thing and painted it green.

Completely randomly, my 5th player that I pulled in during the Election Season event came in with a backstory about how his squad he was recon for back on Castrovel was completely decimated by a Mountain Eel. So I am looking forward to properly traumatizing him again with the logging event. Lots of backstory connections happening in this book, which is fun. One of my players is playing an ex-prisoner who learned law enough to prove her charges were bogus, so she's been able to play lawyer through the book. Also, previous associates will show up in Fishfair, as well as the problems that come from being in dark enclosed spaces while spelunking.

Recently, they just finished the Dwarven Mines event, and decided NOT to save the Dwarves on a 4 to 1 vote. Solarian cited messing with the cosmic balance, Soldier didnt like the idea of messing with time, Mechanic thought the resources from the mine would be better for the charter, but the Mystic wanted to know more information about what the heck is going on on this planet.

The Envoy had the most insightful thoughts on it though. He said, "I think there's a number of ethical and philosophical quandaries here - for example, these dwarves have been dead for 200 years. Are we comfortable a) pulling their souls back from whatever afterlife they've been in for the last 200 years in order to put them back into a potentially life-threatening situation that they didn't consent to, and/or b) pull a tiny group of people 200 years into the future where all their friends, family, and potentially culture are long gone, leaving them trapped in an alien world at the mercy of unfamiliar technology and factions? plus, if we 'save' them, are we creating an obligation for them to serve us, effectively forcing them into a life debt situation? but most importantly, what if these dwarves kind of suck? And we give up perfectly good resources to rescue a bunch of bumholes who'll take the first ship off this rock and leave us without help AND horicalcum?"

So in my HotV environment, the dwarves have been left to the eddies of time. After which they went to the northern cave entrance and are in the middle of fighting through the raging river :)

Wayfinders Contributor

Well, I am glad that your characters had a great debate on saving the dwarves!

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