Starfinder Society Developer
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One of my biggest pet peeves with Starfinder as a system is that we don't get complete stat blocks for the encounters, and this scenario was a good example of why GMs need them.
Make full stat blocks.
Can you elaborate on what you feel was missing from the statblocks that exist?
Venture-Agent, Netherlands
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The way I'm reading this, there are 3 potential outcomes; Mutual Accord w/ successful Diplomacy check (Sarcesian Admittance boon), helping the Eoxians by tricking the Sarcesians w/ successful Bluff check (Bone Sages Respect boon, +1 infamy), or any other outcome in-between which results in neither boon.
Is that correct?
To echo Shaudius's query, can a GM choose both or must we choose only one or the other? If choosing the Bone Sages Respect boon, must the GM's PC take the infamy?
Hey Arc, that's the way I read it, so 2 players got Mutual Accord, 1 got Bone Sages (but I read it like you only got the +1 infamy if you succeeded the bluff check, as he didn't try it, I gave him the boon as he still reported them but told them to their face rather than bluffing everything was fine) and then the other 3 got neither boon.
Is that the correct way to do it? Or because he didn't try to tell them everything was fine (aka didn't attempt the bluff check), he doesn't get the boon or the infamy?
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands
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Can you elaborate on what you feel was missing from the statblocks that exist?One of my biggest pet peeves with Starfinder as a system is that we don't get complete stat blocks for the encounters, and this scenario was a good example of why GMs need them.
Make full stat blocks.
Personally I would love to see the actual ability stats, and this was bought up at my table last night too.
E.g. stats for monsters say "Str +1, Con +1, Dex +2 etc"
If the monster takes con damage, I don't have an actual stat to take it away from so I always use the lower one (aka Con 12) in this case.
The other one, and this came from my group for this adventure. The weapon is included (aka Sniper Rifle) and the stat block says 1 battery with 20 rounds. I would love it if the stat block said for example "Sniper Rifle, +8 (1d8+1), Usage 1, Capacity 20" so that it doesn't feel like the enemy's have an unlimited amount of firepower and it's easier for the GM without having to look everything up.
I don't know if others feel the same, but that's my 2 cents.
Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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I played with my Solarion and had a great time in the canyon fight. Taking the lead in running from cover to cover until I was in range to make use of my artillery laser.
For printing out the maps, I knew that I'd be lending them out at local conventions. I printed out one map at normal scale, with extra gridlines to mark the typical 5' squares (so 9 squares per square inch). Then I printed another at the full scale. I don't think any actually USED it, but many pulled it out and started to, just to scare the players before using the normal map.
I think my local store has long enough tables to handle the 8' long map when I run it.
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Contributor
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Has anyone gotten an answer on how Mengian is supposed to use Inspiring Boost since neither he nor his allies have SP?
I'd also like to echo the questions about GMs and boon choices, whether it's either-or, and if taking the Bone Sages Respect boon gains a GM's character Infamy for selecting it.
Thanks in advance!
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Has anyone gotten an answer on how Mengian is supposed to use Inspiring Boost since neither he nor his allies have SP?
According to page 128 of Alien Archive. "Stamina Points: NPCs don’t have Stamina Points. Any abilities that would normally affect an NPC’s Stamina Points affect its Hit Points instead." So that's the answer I would use.
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Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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Has anyone gotten an answer on how Mengian is supposed to use Inspiring Boost since neither he nor his allies have SP?According to page 128 of Alien Archive. "Stamina Points: NPCs don’t have Stamina Points. Any abilities that would normally affect an NPC’s Stamina Points affect its Hit Points instead." So that's the answer I would use.
Ah, then our GM ran Yesteryear's sorrow wrong. Thanks so much for pointing that out.
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Contributor
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Has anyone gotten an answer on how Mengian is supposed to use Inspiring Boost since neither he nor his allies have SP?According to page 128 of Alien Archive. "Stamina Points: NPCs don’t have Stamina Points. Any abilities that would normally affect an NPC’s Stamina Points affect its Hit Points instead." So that's the answer I would use.
Thank you tons for finding that! I concur completely!
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Contributor
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My players, conversely, found it to be a neat challenge.
Things started up slow as players read up on the "run" action, and then the more heavily armored (and higher leveled) among them decided to just full-tilt run at the snipers with the spellcasters following behind. All told it only took ~5 rounds for them to get into closer ranges, and harass the snipers enough for the lower leveled characters to catch up.
Plus, the sharpshooters themselves were kind of push-overs (although I ackowledge that the deadeye wouldn't be).
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I GMd this at a con for four experienced players and a complete newbie to the system. The sniper encounter wasn't the smoothest, but we managed to get through it ok - the experienced people had a good enough idea of how the movement, cover, and drop prone stuff worked to come up with a good solution. The newbie was also playing Quig, who got to use Quig's Barricade feat to good (albeit slow-but-steady) effect.
From all the feedback I received about this scenario from live convention games, the PCs who did have snipers felt rewarded in a way they'd never been rewarded in the campaign thus far.
To Thursty's point: two of the five PCs happened to be Operatives. Which means when they finally beat down those snipers, they both had fancy new sniper rifles to use, as Operatives have proficiency with them. Poor Mengian never even had a chance in the final encounter. Combat opened up when, shortly after he started grandstanding in the final encounter per his stat block, two red dots appeared on his forehead...he didn't last much longer. The PCs had a blast turning the tables on the Sarcesians.
I guess, in retrospect, having a PC with Barricade, and two with sniper weapon proficiency is pretty close to ideal circumstances for this scenario. Other compositions could have found it more punishing.
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When I ran this the sarcesians didn't have the void flyer ability available since Eox has an atmosphere - albeit thin and toxic.
However, it appears other GMs have ruled that the thin atmosphere of Eox counts as a vacuum due to the pictured sarcesians all having their wings manifested.
Mengian’s supporters aren't listed as having a fly speed, Mengian has one but only due to jump jets.
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I have both played and GMed this scenario, and while I really appreciate you guys trying something different, the canyon fight was kind of a slog both times. I think having some melee enemies or more interactive features in the canyon (like the dead bodies and trap) would have helped give the players more agency. I had some players that didn’t really get to do anything at all during the fight and I could tell they were getting bored.
I know this encounter was intended to showcase sniper options, but I had a player who had a sniper weapon and I could tell it was frustrating even for him. The final fight also felt very easy after the canyon battle, it only lasted a few rounds.
I hope I’m not coming off as harsh or overly negative, I really liked the story of this scenario, including the meaningful choice at the end. My players also seemed to enjoy the investigation parts of the scenario and the weather events were a nice touch. It made Eox feel like a dangerous place not meant for the living.
I hope you try more sniper encounters in the future, but maybe on a smaller scale or in combination with some melee combat or puzzles/ hazards for the party to navigate so they have some more options on their turns.
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I’ve just run this one at a con, and I’m going to be the dissenting voice.
This was a brilliant scenario and I’ve never had a group of players enjoy themselves as much.
Finally a combat where there is copious cover, rather than being a single flat plain of attack.
The most dangerous encounter in the whole thing was the glass cyclone and overall, is leaps and bounds better than other combats in earlier scenarios
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Drop prone will not help you when you need to run
Run
You can run as a full action.
Drop Prone
Dropping to a prone position in your space is a swift action.
Full Action
A full action requires your entire turn to complete. If you take a full action, you can’t take your usual standard, move, and swift actions. The following actions are full actions.
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8
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That being said, it might be a good idea for PCs who felt useless in this encounter to look at ways they could change their characters to be prepared for encounters like this in the future—after all, that's what being a Starfinder is all about! I mean, look at how Pathfinder taught us to be ready for swarms... ;)
I think that comparing Starfinder to Pathfinder in this regard is a false equivalency. In Pathfinder (at least PFS) you have enough gold to maintain your offence and defense and have some left over for contingency consumables or interesting items.
Conversely there never seem to be enough credits in Starfinder (at least in SFS) to keep your weapon and armor current, let alone stuff that you might need. A backup sniper weapon or area weapon to deal with swarms will be woefully underpowered against on- or above-level threats (see Save the Renkrodas).
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When this was written the options were sniper rifle, sniper rifle, or sniper rifle.
You can now slap a scope (from the armory) on almost anything and get into reasonable shooting distance in a couple of rounds. A scope will Quadruple the weapons range increment and as a bonus will knock 2 off the penalties for the range increment, so 600 feet for your azmith laser rifle to fire without penalty.
Best of all unlike a lot of other ways to upgrade your weapons you can take it from one gun to another.
Probably not an option for levels 1-2 but 3-4 could have it.
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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That being said, it might be a good idea for PCs who felt useless in this encounter to look at ways they could change their characters to be prepared for encounters like this in the future—after all, that's what being a Starfinder is all about! I mean, look at how Pathfinder taught us to be ready for swarms... ;)I think that comparing Starfinder to Pathfinder in this regard is a false equivalency. In Pathfinder (at least PFS) you have enough gold to maintain your offence and defense and have some left over for contingency consumables or interesting items.
Conversely there never seem to be enough credits in Starfinder (at least in SFS) to keep your weapon and armor current, let alone stuff that you might need. A backup sniper weapon or area weapon to deal with swarms will be woefully underpowered against on- or above-level threats (see Save the Renkrodas).
In my experience upgrading weapons is nice to have but not really must have. Armor is more frustrating, since it seems only above-level armor really gives you good odds of not getting hit.
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In my run through this, I had both a sniper rifle and a 120ft rng longarm. It wasn't a slog.
I think that including such mechanics every so often is great. It rewards some players for being prepared or getting creative. As opposed to having simple straight forward fights. Two thumbs up.
I think the biggest point to draw from this was the level range. Definitely levels 1-2, and slightly 3-4 have limited access/availability to solutions to this problem. I'm thinking of jetpacks, climbing suckers, etc.. Basically, ways to get creative. If such mechanics were in 5-6+ tier scenarios and players had the same problems I would bluntly point out, as Thirsty kind of did, it's their own fault. They are Starfinders, who often go on missions where they have no idea what is going to happen next. It is literally their job.
Lastly, to address the point of not enough credits, I don't know if you've noticed, but it is difficult to die in Starfinder (I don't believe I've seen a story yet that included a TPK for this scenario). Even more so if you have a mystic in the party. Yeah, you can't have the best gear in every area. I'm pretty sure that is intentional. Weapon specialization helps scale the damage of side arms to make them relevant. Is it the best damage option? No, but it is faaaar better than not having an option.
If people build hyper specialized characters, those characters will find their weakness and it will be unpleasant in some way to them. Is it the writer's fault the aforementioned player felt useless or whatever? Absolutely not.
Again, as my blunt comments seem to rub people the wrong way, I think that the sniper set up in the scenario is great! But definitely not for 1-4 tier scenarios.
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I played this once and GMed 3 times.
When I played, my character had jump jets so getting up was not a problem. And when I ran it the first time, I presented the players with tiers of 30' tall. Had one player who could not make the climb checks.
When I ran again, I read the canyon part again and didn't see where steps or tiers were meantioned. So I instead had a steep slope that counted as double movement. This worked wee.
I think this adventure worked well in both tiers. Have to understand ranges and sniper rules.
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Venture-Agent, France—Paris
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It's a frustrating encounter. But frustration is not a bad thing in itself, it forces you to think, and it makes fight more tense. I clearly like it, and I found this encounter excellent. Some players dislike frustration, they just want to be the hero and shoot everything down. They will dislike it.
I don't think there are any ways to balance that, you will always have risk averse players on one side and daredevils on the other.
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Roommate just pulled a TPK on us in the sniper battle. Everyone at the table had fairly fresh characters (everyone was level one, one of us had 2 XP, the others had 1 or 0) and none of us had thought to purchase a sniper rifle or would even have been able to afford one. All of us except for one character were shot down before we even got within the maximum range increment of our weapons. One made it to max range and got one shot off at -9 before going down as well. We were imprisoned, had a brief bit of RP, and then were executed as there was no way for my roommate, who is a massive softie and would have let us get away if the scenario had let her, to let us live.
Sooooooo we're all considering this complete b%*$%$+$.
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When I played it, the fight was hard but doable. The problem lots of players have with that is probably being forced to fight under unfavourable conditions. Not every fight should be made fair anyway. That forces players to be creative, and it's not a bad thing. At worst, it's not that impossible to mitigate the problem by using the terrain.
You put it at higher levels, wouldn't be that problematic. Part of it is also putting that kind of encounter in a 1-4.
Yeah, the consensus at our table was "this would be fine in a 3-6 but not when the table can theoretically be three brand new characters and a pregen".
Also, giving the party a longarm with the shortest range of all longarms barring the flamethrower and the glorified taser instead of an actual sniper rifle just felt like a cruel joke.
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When I played it, the fight was hard but doable. The problem lots of players have with that is probably being forced to fight under unfavourable conditions. Not every fight should be made fair anyway. That forces players to be creative, and it's not a bad thing.
Stop that.
Being insultingly passive aggressive is still being insulting. You are calling people uncreative for having a problem with conditions. Alright.
Back. It. Up.
Sitting at your computer, having read/played the scenario, give me a creative solution that actually works . Every. Single. proposed "creative" solution here is either not accessible to new characters, probably wouldn't work (smoke bombs), definitely wouldn't work (run and dive prone breaks action economy rules)
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Moving half-speed and using stealth
Will not work. You are in an open field and in a literal shooters gallery for most of the fight. There is no cover, there is no concealment, you need to be a level 5? ghost operative to stand in the middle of nowhere and stealth. The parts with cover are too far apart to get to that way
jet-packing
Item level 5, available at level 4 at the earliest. Is probably slower than running.
running
Is likely what the party did, it is 6 rounds of running just to get within longarms range. If the DMs dice are hot that can take down a party
nothing offers guarantee anyway.
Nothing is remotely workable in that fight at low levels except sniping back and that's the problem people have with it.