Announced today at Gen Con, this one seems to be an interesting experiment - it's dropping all at once as a collected hardcover, and is retelling events told during Society play. Both of those are things I'd love to see do well enough to come over to PF2 - how does the Starfinder crowd feel about it?
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The brutal irony is that I started running Scoured Stars as a continuous adventure path almost four years ago and this book will hit just as I'm wrapping it up. So big "they just... tweeted it out" energy from me.
On the other hand, it's a great AP and I'm glad a wider audience will get to experience it.
The brutal irony is that I started running Scoured Stars as a continuous adventure path almost four years ago and this book will hit just as I'm wrapping it up. So big "they just... tweeted it out" energy from me.
On the other hand, it's a great AP and I'm glad a wider audience will get to experience it.
Would you recommend it for someone unfamiliar with Starfinder? I've heard good things about this plotline in SFS, but have so far kind of bounced off of Starfinder's offerings.
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I would assume so, but I also have to assume that the AP compilation will make some significant changes to certain elements of the storyline.
But as originally published, the starting premise is simply this:
A few months ago, the Starfinder Society committed about 80% of its personnel and resources to exploring a remote system in the Vast. Then something happened, and now the entire tri-solar system is completely shut off from the rest of the galaxy, locked behind a force field of such unimaginable power people are calling it the Godshield.
You are a new recruit, joining the Society at a time when the Starfinders are just barely hanging on by a thread. All of the leadership are brand new to their positions too, replacing predecessors who are all trapped (at best!) in the Scoured Stars.
Will the Society find a way to rescue the previous expedition? Will the Society survive long enough to even get the chance to try? Is the previous expedition even still alive? Find out...
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Oh, additional detail: Scoured Stars will use milestone XP and will include offramps to dip into side adventures. And I think they said it will run levels 1-15, though that may not be correct.
What sort of genre/theme space is the original playing in - is it a war story?
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Well, really it's a two parter, and a full answer would give away the big twists.
Not really a spoiler: The PCs' (Society's) initial goal is to figure out how to bring down the Godshield so they can return to the Scoured Stars to rescue their people.
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Curious about how they'll squeeze the specials into this.
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Answering some Qs here... BECAUSE I CAN NOW!!! :D
-The Scoured Stars is an adventure path where the PCs take on the role of novice Starfinders, who come in to help stabilize the Society after a major disaster. They go on to unraveling the mystery of the disaster, combating a new galactic threat, forming alliances with other species and eventually coming face-to-face with divinely empowered foes.
-The Scoured Stars Adventure Path uses Milestone Leveling and goes from 1st to 15th level. It encompasses 12 adventures of content, two of which as "mega-sized" adventures that convert interactive events into double-stuffed adventures that provide 2 levels worth of content. So that's how we get from 1st to 15th level. Assume PCs could level up every 4-5 hours of play (we have the data to prove it can be done!)
-The book provides guidance on milestone leveling, including references on different ways of handling fast paced leveling (often times leveling up after every session of play).
-There's also guidance on how to handle starship upgrades and indicates what specific adventures need a starship, allowing the GM and players to design for just the tiers they'll need.
-Scoured Stars is full of sidebars that talk about Organized Play tie-ins and where it would be appropriate to run other existing scenarios. This lets GMs expands/enhance their campaigns further, while branching out into some storylines that didn't quite make it into the core Scoured Stars assumption.
-The Adventure Path has a 4-player assumption and strips out all the Organized Play-isms like Level Ranges and multiple DCs for skill checks.
Posted a set of four lingering questions I hope the hardback addresses over in the Organized Play GM's forum.
Thanks JM and Thirsty, quite looking forward to reading this once its out and to run it for some of my groups. Not super sure yet about every AP coming out in the future after this one will be a hardcover but lets see how it goes, an interesting concept at least I have to say.
Tom
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Got some feedback from one of my main Starfinder groups I ran just tonight and was a bit surprised most did not like this direction, at all.
Many have played these various scenarios and with 80% being unchanged and the 20% new is the linking them all together, then a hardcover and the price...
Not my take but when a number of my regular Starfinder players respond in voice that way, I take notice.
So we know level 1 -15, how many actual scenarios will be there?
Tom
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While it might not appeal the most to SFS players who have already played through this, it will definitely appeal to people who don't do SFS but love having more adventures in a curated edition like hardcovers/APs, which I believe is the intended audience for this HC treatment.
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So we know level 1 -15, how many actual scenarios will be there?
I think Hillman said 12 scenarios, so my somewhat educated guess is:
1. #1-01: The Commencement
2. #1-05: The First Mandate
3. #1-11: In Pursuit of the Scoured Past
4. #1-13: On the Trail of History
5: #1-17: Reclaiming the Time-Lost Tear
6. #1-99: The Scoured Stars Invasion
7. #1-23: Return to Sender
8. #1-26: Truth of the Seeker
9. #1-29: Honorbound Emissaries
10. #1-34: Heart of the Foe
11. #1-39: The Herald's War
12. #2-00: Fate of the Scoured God
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If we do get 1-23 as part of this, Thursty, please please please give us a sharktopus animal companion that's Society legal. My little guy has been following me around for years and no matter what I feed him, he hasn't gotten bigger.
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I think Hillman said 12 scenarios
"I think" in this case meaning "I did not scroll back up a bit to the post where he stated it clearly."
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Thanks John, I missed that as well....LOL
I'll see if I get different feedback from my other groups as well. I have GMed and played about half of them so very keen on the extra stuff included, even if 20% new.
My main worry here is what is happening with the full and totally new and fresh 6 part AP's and 3 parter AP line in the future.
Hoping this is not just a stop gap or this is all we will get in the future, IE as there are not enough developers and staff on the Starfinder side NOW. So we will save time and money by just reconfiguring stuff already done vibe. Giving us more time to get new people and ideas and such. Could just be over worried though....
They said this is a test to see if this will work, at least we have that, but I was more than a bit surprised with no new 6 parter AP announced, besides this per say.
There was a hint from our beloved Jenny on the team about a Mech AP in the future from a GENCON Twitch Panel. :)
Tom
Indeed, the "mech AP" is the AP that will follow Scoured Stars.
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Managing Creative Director (Starfinder)
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Just to be clear, we've not announced the final list of 12 scenarios (though the list you have is pretty close).
Mech AP is absolutely in the future (bad pun), and we're SO excited to share more when the time is appropriate. I just felt it really important we give people the time to know what to spin up towards—get your mech tests in now so you'll be ready for the AP!
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Hoping this is not just a stop gap or this is all we will get in the future, IE as there are not enough developers and staff on the Starfinder side NOW. So we will save time and money by just reconfiguring stuff already done vibe. Giving us more time to get new people and ideas and such. Could just be over worried though....
They said this is a test to see if this will work, at least we have that, but I was more than a bit surprised with no new 6 parter AP announced, besides this per say.
I'm bit worried about no december or january starfinder AP or adventure module :'D After november, next one is in february and march again.
I am bit worried that yeah paizo might be gradually doing less and less starfinder module content, like first of course the original bi monthly ap, then monthly ap, then bi monthly ap bi monthly bounty/oneshot/module cycle and now with this hardcover and testing whether they can do more ap releases in same manner, I'm kinda worried we will eventually essentially get less content than what adventure per month would have been or even original bi monthly one.
(Starfinder society has done much heavier job creating lore for setting compared to pathfinder society which was mostly self contained to society itself while starfinder society stuff gets introduced first and then introduced in books. But I still prefer module and AP content to scenarios overall)
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Drift Hackers 1 is the December book. Paizo releases their December books a bit early to get them out in time for the holidays.
So taking that time shift into account:
August (now): Drift Crashers 2
October: Drift Crashers 3
November: To Defy the Dragon
Late Nov/Early Dec: Drift Hackers 1
February: Drift Hackers 2
March: Drift Crisis Files
April (presumably): Drift Hackers 3
...and then the shift to hardbacks.
I'd be very concerned if this marked an end to monthly/bimonthly Adventure Path content.
Also, have the adventures been padded out significantly? If we're expecting to level once every 4-5 hours, and theres roughly 12 scenarios, but it goes to level 15, that's 1 level per scenario with 2 levels unaccounted for?
Scoured Stars uses milestone XP, so PCs will level up after each scenario. The two big "action climaxes" based on multi-table events will each advance PCs by 2 levels.
As for (bi)monthly AP releases, I don't think they've announced any changes on the Pathfinder side of things, but for Starfinder Drift Hackers is confirmed as the final AP to be released in installments for the foreseen future.
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That's incredibly disappointing.
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From what we know, this is sort of experiment to whether they can replace six part aps with single hardcover? So question is do softcover aps come back after this or do they have another hardcover in works(maybe with original plot?)
Also I'm bit worried about how standalone modules will continue after drift case files, do we get those level 13-20 standalone modules or will they eventually reset back to doing low level stuff again or does hardcover replace standalone modules as well?
Considering I don't think we got any announcements of books after Interstellar Species, it kinda seems like Paizo are winding Starfinder down across the board...
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Considering I don't think we got any announcements of books after Interstellar Species, it kinda seems like Paizo are winding Starfinder down across the board...
They announced Port of Call or something at the latest convention. It was discussed here.
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They've already teased the AP that will follow Scoured Stars. All we know so far is that it'll be a "mech AP."
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Ya I had heard about that, but forgot to explicitly mention it. It was what I was thinking of when I noted that it was unclear of whether next AP after Scoured Stars will be softcover or hardcover. As said makes sense if they experiment that they experiment with two aps, but at same time that isn't confirmed.
(either way, I do believe paizo uses starfinder as more or less testing grounds for book formats before using them in 2e, like the 3 part ap volumes)
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Drift Hackers 1 is the December book. Paizo releases their December books a bit early to get them out in time for the holidays.
So taking that time shift into account:
August (now): Drift Crashers 2
October: Drift Crashers 3
November: To Defy the Dragon
Late Nov/Early Dec: Drift Hackers 1
February: Drift Hackers 2
March: Drift Crisis Files
April (presumably): Drift Hackers 3...and then the shift to hardbacks.
Realized there isn't september book either(not even oneshot or bounty, unless october's bounty was supposed to be for september originally) so I am starting to feel like we are having less starfinder adventure content this year after all x'D
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Ya I had heard about that, but forgot to explicitly mention it. It was what I was thinking of when I noted that it was unclear of whether next AP after Scoured Stars will be softcover or hardcover. As said makes sense if they experiment that they experiment with two aps, but at same time that isn't confirmed.
(either way, I do believe paizo uses starfinder as more or less testing grounds for book formats before using them in 2e, like the 3 part ap volumes)
i believe they mentioned that the mecha AP (the one following Scoured Stars) will also be in the hardcover format.
I'm personally a big fan of the change and will subscribe to receive the hardcovers.
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I mean, I won't mind it unless it comes along with less adventure content as well :'D I think I might prefer hardcover format to softcover if they are page wise more adventure content than in six softcovers and come with features like npc articles
yeah, I suspect that the hardcovers will have fewer articles than the softcovers. it's unfortunate, but really, we have TONS of material already released... more than I'll ever use.
The pivot to hardcover is likely a cost-cutting measure. Probably easier to do one big printing of a compiled six-parter than it is to do six separate releases. Probably also less surplus (1st-parters tend to sell out much faster than 6th part)
Realized there isn't september book either(not even oneshot or bounty, unless october's bounty was supposed to be for september originally) so I am starting to feel like we are having less starfinder adventure content this year after all x'D
It's only September. I'm confident after this year they'll return to a 3-hardback-a-year format for core materials.
If not...well, I am thoroughly burnt out on AP's after burning through almost 1 a week since I bought FoundryVTT earlier this year so my brain could use a rest.
You play an AP per week? Holy smokes.
Through FoundryVTT? If you're playing every night it can move very fast. That toolset is a godsend.
Even still, that's an incredible pace. My Pathfinder sessions last between five and six hours, and it has taken thirty seven sessions to get through the first half of an AP (eight for book 1, twelve for book 2, seventeen for book 3). My games aren't particularly roleplay-intensive, either (I can count on one hand the number of sessions that had zero combat). And that doesn't even include session 0. I suppose Starfinder APs are much shorter?
I would definitely burn out before completing an AP at your pace. Earlier this year my group had an RPG marathon where we played RPGs for twelve hours per day for five days straight, and I could only run the Alien RPG the first three days, after that I was just a player in a 5e game to recover.
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Even still, that's an incredible pace. My Pathfinder sessions last between five and six hours, and it has taken thirty seven sessions to get through the first half of an AP (eight for book 1, twelve for book 2, seventeen for book 3). My games aren't particularly roleplay-intensive, either (I can count on one hand the number of sessions that had zero combat). And that doesn't even include session 0. I suppose Starfinder APs are much shorter?
I would definitely burn out before completing an AP at your pace. Earlier this year my group had an RPG marathon where we played RPGs for twelve hours per day for five days straight, and I could only run the Alien RPG the first three days, after that I was just a player in a 5e game to recover.
Starfinder APs are much shorter, but doing one in a week (7 nights x 4 hours = 28 hours...) that's crazy short.
Maybe he just means doing a single volume?
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LOVED the latest Know Direction Beyond Starfinder Twitch show.
Quite interesting, the new Starfinder and the new just promoted Managing Creative Director Thirsty Hillman.
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1591281872
Inside info on the direction of Starfinder in the future, more broad concepts than specific products, but quite happy and hopefull for the future of Starfinder!!
I most def don't burn through AP's as a GM or as a player, just not my style and likes, but there are all kinds in our beloved hobby :)
Tom
I'd bet a nickel Scoured Stars will be a July/Gen Con release. After that though we really have no idea.
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Scoured Stars was an amazing plot line. I think it could make a terrific AP, especially if they allow a home group to play through all the events in the specials (which had far more missions than any team could play through in a normal 4 hours.)
I am stoked that they put this together as an AP!
Hmm
I will say, as someone who ran Scoured Stars a full year before they announced it, fully Starfinder Society legal with filler adventures to make up the XP, it was a great campaign. Being able to get down from 27 sessions to 12 and still have a coherent campaign with gming rewards might convince me to run it again for a new group.