This is a Heavy Spoiler GM reference thread for The Perfect Storm Module. Post your Q & A, general/specific thoughts, problems, solutions and any modifications you might have made or almost anything else, within reason naturally please!!
Thanks
Tom
Welp, I thought I was going to be a player but it looks like I just might be GMing this.
Might be a good thing for the new group I just formed as they just might be in for a hell of a ride with the plans I got :) or so I hope!!!
Will be running the SFS Before the Storm Scenario to ease into all the new players to Starfinder and get em a bit used to the crazy train thee Drift Event has in store.
Looking at maps now as I was not the most thrilled on what we got, and the create your own mishmash of the party ship and the Pirates when they Drift merge on your own..... Kinda feels like they did not go to the extra effort for this opening AP, but as we know maps can be quite hit and miss for Starfinder, sadly.
But otherwise I can really create some magic with this and give the group that Drift Event I have from the soucres so far and my own spin on things.
Can't wait to see , if I GM this and getting it all hand crafted into Roll20 (again like most every other AP, (SIGH)
Tom
While in Veskworld, the signal chaos engine is still functional, yes? Is there any particular reason the PCs can't just... leave?
While in Veskworld, the signal chaos engine is still functional, yes? Is there any particular reason the PCs can't just... leave?
I’m doing prep work for this book and noticed the same thing… Why not just keep activating the engine over and over? But there’s a small course correction that should set them on the right (adventure) path:
At this point:
Page 18
“The captain of the Marata— who begins speaking in Vesk—is as surprised as the player characters are, and assumes the heroes are using holographic disguises to impersonate or mock the evil twins.”
Instead, upon seeing their likeness, the evil captain should immediately ask them if they came through the “Arazni Station portal”, and disclose this bit of information:
Page 22
“Arazni Station is the site of an experimental portal that provides access to parallel worlds; the Knights of Golarion use this portal to search for a reality where Golarion hasn’t vanished. If the player characters can program this portal to follow their own quantum signatures, they could fly the Primorata through it and return home.”
Offering to work together with the PCs should sound more plausible now, and also give the player characters an actual reason for sticking around instead of fleeing to other dimensions at the first sight of trouble.
While in Veskworld, the signal chaos engine is still functional, yes? Is there any particular reason the PCs can't just... leave?
I’m doing prep work for this book and noticed the same thing… Why not just keep activating the engine over and over?
These are just variations on "What's to stop the (players) in (written adventure) from going in the opposite direction of the story? Checkmate, writers" and not worth responding to. The AP's called Drift Crashers, not Quantum Leap/Sliders.
The sequence of events is supposed to go meet your mirrors -> Aeons show up -> you talk with your mirrors -> they try to kill you -> you find out about the facility. And you don't really have much opportunity to jump away before then. I played it straight through and never once did my players have a half-brained scheme to go randomly jumping around the multiverse, an idea analogous to scrapping the AP and playing Rick and Morty D&D instead.
The ship has a crew, unless you got everyone killed, and having NPC's voice concern at using a jump drive that you have no clue how to operate seems like a good opportunity to insert the GM voice.
Have all the NPC's picked and set now, will be quite the interesting companions.
And for a little bit extra I secretly placed some in the Before the Storm one off :) ship, as well as 1 piece of level 1 (from the players guide) for each of the 6 party members to find, or not......... :)
Tom
And the group finished off Before the Storm and now just entering module 1 here :)
They finally got onto their ship from their rental shuttle after exploring the Third Gate or actually just a piece of it so I could work out the cool map I bought :)
Then they promptly told Cap Pike of the Marana to destroy all 3 ships, the Third gate, their renta shuttle and the piece of the Third Gate!!!
And Pike did just that11 Ha Ha Ha
Met their NPC friends or reunited with them and leveled up to 2, slept then woke up to an alarm and come to find out there be drift Space pirates about and have boarded their ship, "please report to engineering to repel Pirates"
Will continue next session, can't wait!!
Tom
Hey gang, did anyone come up with a picture or token of this by chance yet?
"Primordial as a
destroyer-class vessel flying the flag of Besmara.
The ship is equipped with numerous tether
cables and grappling hooks that keep the Marata
attached. The Primordial’s most
notable feature, however, is
the many glowing, high-tech
sails that surround the
ship and seem to catch
an invisible solar wind."
The solar sails wound be key for a good visual.
And anyone find a good Hell map? Found a few but not thee best, sadly.
These will be in play this upcoming monday so any help would do if possible.
Thanks
Tom
This is what I ended up with
https://i.imgur.com/v5Du6NA.png
Can't seem to link an imgur pic sadly so copy paste to see
(Top center"sailing ship" is what I went with for the Pirate ship, Middle center is the Marata, bottom center is the Sister battle cruiser, then center Right is their melded Primorata. Made the ship tokens bigger as this was no space combat so they can easily see)
Session 1 complete and caught the Party by surprise as they were in their bunks recovering from their Before the Storm action sleeping.
Alarm went off, WTF now was the general thought, some even donned their armor space suits over their (sometimes strange and one Commando style one said as each described in some detail much to my surprise!!)) sleepwear Pajama's LOL as they rushed to the Engineering room.
6 players so even beefed had up (added 2 more Pirates and an extra +1 to armor and 5 HP extra each) they made short work and saved an NPC of theirs, even killed the might have been helpfull Pirate Tech on the first round!!
Then the Bridge under attack comms announcement and alarm as the Capt of the Marata breathed his last on the bridge before taking a final Axe to the head he got the message out. Ha Ha
The First Mate of the Pirates captured another party NPC, Blaster to her head and got the party to drop their weapons. About to be captured along with the whole ship when the Drifty Event happened. Sucked/melded everyone out in the drift then the party ended up on the Pirate bridge, about 5 minutes to figure out as Pirate capt and remaining crew was yelling, screaming and panicking, then the final Drift surge and now onto the newly melded Bridge of their new/old ship.
Crashed onto hell, reflex check to not take blunt force damage (for all) then the ever so fragile negotiations that almost went Combat but talked and skill checked the Pirate Capt down to help get out of this mess.
Then they look out the window onto the hellscape and big dead winged body. They trot out for loot of all things then sister comes screaming in on her battle wagon, vows vengeance and thats where we left session 1 as she unloaded her forces on the ground.
Everyone had a blast
Tom :)
OOPS, pic of the Battlegroud the party finds themselves in
https://i.imgur.com/11x4h2V.png
Tom :)
Session 2 complete. was a bit worried on the 10 rounds counter in Hell but the party pulled it off in 8, and 1 player called in sick.
Then a shocking silence as they met their evil counterparts, trash talking back and forth then the red alert of an enemy ship approaching settled all their differences, for the moment......... LOL
Another fun session and did'nt change anything
Tom
I am running this now. The group just murdered their duplicates. According to the book, the Primorata now advances to Tier 2. However, the Primorata we are given at the front of the book is already Tier 3.
For now, I've just ruled that they get an extra 20 BP to use (the difference between Tier 1 and 2), though this could lead to balance problems depending on when they are supposed to reach Tier 4 as that's a big jump.
Nice, GD, how did it go and did anything unexpected happen, specific RP between the "twins" or did they just take em down like regular old enemies?
I'll see how my starship combat goes, then adjust as needed for the enemy craft and see how it goes.
Everyone having fun playing this, as well as you? Hope so :)
Tom
I think everyone has been enjoying this one, the evil twins stood out. I think part of the difficulty is my group is savvier than the adventure path suspects.
Instead of waiting for their evil twins to betray them, they betrayed them first, attempting to sneak into the Marata. They got caught in the process but managed to come out ahead.
I ended up doing a sort of split Spaceship/boarding battle as the Marata tried to fight of the Primorata in space combat, while most of the players tried to board the Marata.
It ended up with two members of the AU Marata getting bisected with a Daisho, one of the members of the Marata getting crit upon by a ship-based weapon, and the remaining members getting captured alive.
One of the things I did, which probably provoked the hostile betrayal by the players. The players made some really good sense motive and culture checks trying to figure out the motives of the AU crew. I ended up talking about how the Veskarium kidnapped a set of explorers, took apart and re-engineered their drift drive and then used it to invade the Pact Worlds.
They then became worried that their AU versions were going to try and take their drive and use it to invade the main universe, which discouraged any attempted cooperation.
Oh, the other thing that stood out, during the dinner was that wisdom-based poison almost killed the PC captain, so watch out. (They got some unlucky rolls)
Cool, thanks for the write up, I'll let ya know when my group gets through this part and we can compare notes!!
Honestly not quite sure what the party will do, or even make of the situation after the ship battle, should be fun though!!
Tom
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The Evil Twins was the thing that I spent the most GM prep on, honestly. The hardest thing about the Evil Twins episode is how early it happens -- being in the second session, it starts out early enough that most of the PCs have barely fledged backstories and personalities. So I made sure to ask people about their backstories. What happened to them? How did they get where they are?
Then I spent time figuring out what the Veskarium-conquered Akiton would have done to these characters.
I told everyone before they built their characters that they were part of the crew of the Marata, a starship based out of Akiton (for tax reasons) that does tours of the Pact Worlds for rowdy rich passengers from the Veskarium. These tours hit the gladiator pits of Akiton, the Halls of the Living on Eox, and Safaris in Castrovel. This gave my players a starting place for their characters, and encouraged characters with ties to both the Veskarium and Akiton.
Zarina - A damaya lashunta Captain whose Daddy runs a Bluerise Shipping Corporation. He's given her a cruise ship to play with so that she too can experience running a business. She's glamorous, and into designer apparel and fancy things.
Jobazend (Jo) - A vesk vanguard who serves as ship's security. Big, friendly, doesn't like to think to hard. Spends most of his time serving as bouncer for the rowdy vesks. Tells everyone to just call him, Jo, and has little interest in politics. He'd once shown up at a recruitment office for the military, but they decided he was not disciplined enough to serve in Peacetime.
Zeb (and Admiral Lizard) - An icon pahtra nanocyte with a ventriloquist dummy in full Vesk Despot uniform that he named, "Admiral Lizard". He does edgy humor that makes fun of Vesk conquest and colonialism. Zeb was a former experimental subject for the veskarium, and was rescued by a Skittermander named Doctor Oh, who helped him recover and allowed him to find a new lease. In combat, he attacks people with the puppet.
Legarou - A blind vlaka precog with terrible nightmares of dying on Labau Mesa in an accident that never happened. He had close family ties with a deaf twin sister, Nalfine, who had died in another accident.
Lieutenant Zarina - When the party meets up with the alternate timeline Marata, they meet Lieutenant Zarina, who is a woman with haunted eyes, a crewcut, and a ton of bitterness. This Zarina saw her Daddy accused of treason, the family wealth seized by the Veskarium, and then was sent to serve in the military as penance. To makes things further complicated, she eventually gets assigned to one of her family's old vessels, where she has to do all the work for the Veskarium's appointed Captain.
Captain Jobazend - Captain Jobazend had totally been recruited by a wartime Veskarium, and discovered how to kiss up to the right people. He was rewarded with Captaincy of the Marata and discovered that he could let Lt. Zarina do all the work for him while he sat back and took credit. He insists on wearing the full fruit salad military dress uniform, and only wants to be addressed by his formal name, Jobazend.
Zeb (and Sergeant Suckup) - This pahtra ventriloquist has a skittermander puppet that looks exactly like Dr. Oh, the skittermander who died saving him from vesk experimentation. Instead of doing edgy humor that makes fun of the veskarium, his puppet, Sergeant Suckup, makes fun of the oppressed people of the Veskarium, relying heavily on species stereotypes. As a result, his comedy has been far less successful, and he mainly has gigs in dive bars while on shore leave.
Nalfine - After having found Legarou's dead and crumpled body on Labau Mesa after a formian uprising against the Veskarium there, Nalfine was pressed into the military in her brother's place.
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My party became absolutely fascinated with their Veskarium counterparts, especially Legarou with Nalfine. Nalfine at first screamed and ran away from Legarou, signing, "You're not my brother! My brother's dead!"
I could not resist having one of the twins be an actual twin, since the player had written up a dead twin in his backstory. This became one of the major subplots of the night, along with the constant sniping between Evil Lieutenant Zarina and Captain Zarina. Evil Lieutenant Zarina called the Captain weak, and sneered at her for having had everything handed to her on a plate.
When it came time for the assassination attempt, the two Zarina's totally went at it, with evil Zarina pulling Captain Zarina's long hair and screaming, "You stole my life!"
In the end, the party of PCs:
1) Recruited Nalfine and engineered a sibling reunion;
2) Let both Captain Jobazend and Zeb + Sgt. Suckup go back to the Marata, but in a heavily drugged state and after disabling the ship's engines;
3) Sold Captain Zarina to the Knights of Golarian.
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According to the book, the Primorata now advances to Tier 2. However, the Primorata we are given at the front of the book is already Tier 3.
I came to this thread looking for information about this exact question. Had anyone calculated the points of the Primorata? Is it really tier 3 already? If so I'll just keep it at tier 3 instead of advancing it further.
One of my groups just completed this, now onto Mod 2. Its an every other week game nad have had more than a few players drop and new ones added. But now I think I have a pretty solid crew from here on in!!
Tom