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I ran Part 1 of A Cosmic Birthday yesterday in a 6 hour session.
Platforms
Character Generation and Sheets: Demiplane
Maps and Tokens: Roll20
Party:
Blasto - Barathu Vidgamer Operative
Player: Extensive PF1e, moderate PF2e, Light Starfinder 1e, Blades in the Dark, D&D 5e
GM: One book of Dead Suns AP in PF1e
Sprax - Skittermander Genetic Expert Witchwarper
Player: Some 1e
Qrush - Vesk Brutaris Player Solarian
Player: Some 1e, Some 2e, Blades in the Dark, D&D 5e
Jor'Val - Pahtra Street Rat Mystic
Player: D&D Extensive 3.x, Pathfinder 1e, some 5e and PF2e
Intro:
Our gig-workers met up outside of a dive bar in the Vesk quarter, and got the details of the job. After some brief questions, they took to the train, seeing a mad prophet outside the station, checked the infosphere for news and met with an enthusiastic Skittermander who booked them a shuttle to the Armada. They used this transit scene to set up their mystic connection.
I noted that the elevators to the Armada are timed like a vertical train service. So the characters hurried to the elevator which is where the real adventure begins.
Blasto won the Initiative against the elevator, Moved to the console, used Computers to figure out whether they could activate the brakes from the Console. Triggering the trap. All characters succeeded on their reflex saves, and the subsequent Crafting Check allowed the characters to activate the emergency brakes and get to the bottom safely. Qrush easily forced open the doors (would have been a real short adventure otherwise).
[Spoiler=Ghost Levels A1. Corridor Intersection]
Qrush easily crushed the first maintenance robot with a single attack. Maintenance robot failed to land a single hit.
Players moved to the central nexus, activating the other three maintenance robots. A couple of the robots managed to get some attacks off on Sprax and Jor'Val. Jor'Val used his mystic connection to activate auras of darkness so concealment could protect the casters. Qrush absolutely smashed every maintenance robot he got near, while Blasto floated up to the catwalk and sniped whatever was left over.
They investigated the robot cores and found unusual Aucturnian Glyphs, and the repeating code by connecting their comm units. Then chose a direction at random.
[Spoiler=Ghost Levels A2. Holo Hallway]
Blasto noted the computers around the edges of the room, and hugged the wall to the nearest termianl. With an awesome roll of 25 Computers, was able to identify the two hazards in the room, and deactivate the Scamp spawning projector. Qrash, raced into the room and pulled the malfunctioning holo-projector from the ceiling like a Brutaris Hoop. (I upped the DC to 19 for an unlisted skill, but he Qrushed it with a 21).
After a little more slicing and hacking the party learned that this room belonged to a defunct ad agency, a control center for holo-boards around Absalom station, but being pulled away from the area of the station this room belonged they were still unable to access the outer infonet.
Following the room to the next door they headed into the hallway leading back to the nexus as well as some other spokes.
The party activated the observer robot when they walked down the hallway. The robot used cover, Jor'Val activated their Shadow Snap focus spell. I ruled since it was the creature's own shadow attacking them that the cover bonus couldn't apply. Sprax used Injury Echo, but was frustrated to realise that the bleed wouldn't apply. After a couple more traded shots, the Observer robot died (since all the nexus maintenance bots were already dead, it had no back-up).
The PCs took some time to refocus, use medical packs to heal up before moving into room A7. They activated the Vesk Statue and Qrush decided they wanted the Bronze Doshko as a souvenir. Qrush swung hard, but missed, and raised a shield just in case. That Shield saved his life as 27 damage was reduced to 20, leaving poor Qrush on 3 hp, and a shattered shield that couldn't be re-manifested without waiting 10 minutes. Another hit from the statue would be very dangerous.
Unfortunately between their pistols, spells and the immunities and hardness of the statue the spellcasters were next to useless.
The fight was intense but a lucky Nat 20 from Blasto deactivated the hardness, which allowed the spellcasters to contribute some real damage and Qrush was able to finish the statue with a mighty blow shattering the statue and claiming his bronze doshko as a prize.
Heavily injured our party once again used medicine, medpatches and the last of the Mystic's healing network to heal. Refocusing and following the final northern spoke.
Jor'Vahl was the first to enter the room, using his Urban Survivalist ability he identified dangerous heat vents in the room (got a 16 on his check in between the two DCs). Heading into the room, the door slammed behind the two last people to enter, they narrowly avoided damage as the door slammed and locked behind them. Hearing the giggling of the Gremlin hidden in the room. Jor'Val had entered the room first,
Jumping into initiative, Jor'Vahl's initiative was survival based, and he used his first action to find the Gremlin hidden in a vent. He used an action to Identify the creature, including how difficult it was to befriend it, he activated his shadow snap focus spell again to try and disrupt any future shenanigans. Since I described the gremlin as having a weird little remote control, I also ruled the Mechanical Trickery ability should have the manipulate trait. Gremlin went next, but because the disrupt attack failed, it activated a steam vent damaging the three characters near the vent. He opened the door with his second action and headed down the hallway leading back to the nexus with the vents.
Sprax gave chase, triggering the vent in that same hall, damaging both her and the Space Station Gremlin at the same time. Unfortunately that knocked poor Sprax out. Deciding to cut the enemy off at the pass Qrush triple moved to the central nexus, while Blasto disabled the door trap with an action and followed 40 feet down the corridor.
Jor'Val moved to Sprax used his healing pool to heal her awake. Unsure of whether to try and talk to the gremlin or not, he sustained the shadow snap to try disrupting again.
Since Sprax was awake but still in the open door, the Gremlin gave a little grin and went to activate the door trap. The Shadow Snap succeeded on disrupting 24 on the attack, a crit! I narrated the shadow stealing his little remote control. Frustrated, it used its tech-travel ability to enter the heat vent and pop out in the room behind Blasto (and frustrating Qrush who was now even further away). The round that followed was hilariously frustrating as poor rolls (even with Hero Points) resulted in so many misses, but Jor'Vahls sustained Shadow Snap knocked the Space Gremlin out.
Another medicine, rest and refocus break later, the PCs followed the last door in the Gauntlet Room to the south, the one not leading to the Nexus.
I somehow missed the line where the door was jammed shut. But either way the party was quick with diplomacy checks and agreed to help the tourists.
Ascending to room A5, Blasto was confronted with a pair of Ysoki that dropped a Frost Turret. Winning the initiative Blasto used Computers to "reprogam the turret". I ruled that Blasto could spend an action to activate the Frost Turret like a minion.
He shot at one of the Ysoki Ghost Couriers, but missed.
Ghost Courier 1 shot back at Blasto, hitting with one strike, moving to the other side of the room. Qrush headed up the ladder, and absolutely destroyed Ghost Courier #2 in one strike.
The rest of the fight was pretty quick. The party looted the sweet treasure, and weapons and a little recon later the party decided to head south.
The party entered the observatory and with a high perception they noticed the central control panel was surging and sparking (but the Electrovore hit a nat 20 on its Stealth), concerned the floor might be electric they stuck to the tiles around the edges, and Blasto hanging near the cieling stealthed along and found the entry to the escape elevator. I ruled the Observatory was drawing too much power and preventing the elevator from working. Jor'Val used survival and figured out there was a creature hiding in the room with them. The party set themselves up and got into a fight. It didn't take long to take down the Electrovore.
One Craft check later they rerouted the power to the elevator and escaped.
The party successfully escaped the Ghost Levels, tourists in tow. They skipped rooms A8 and A9 (without some plot reason to continue exploring there was no reason not to just leave). Rather than fiddle with XP, I just leveled the characters up and we'll play part 2 in two weeks.
General Observations
Between mental immunity and bleed immunity robots can really suck the fun out of encounters for spellcasters with an Occult or Divine focus.
Hardness also can suck the fun out of spellcaster fun too at low level.
Space Station Gremlin - mechanical trickery should have the manipulate trait.
The players overall had a great time.
The Witchwarper was a little confused about how their quantum field works and didn't activate it even once.
The sheer damage of a Vesk Solarian is not to be underestimated at level 1.
A brethelden flying sniper is incredibly rad and frightening at 1st level.
Bullets are too expensive.
Ammo/Capacity/Expend tracking is more fiddly than it is fun, and easy to forget in the heat of battle.
I'd rather this be turned into a flat check of some kind to see if a cartridge or battery is expended after a miss/critical miss.
Anyway, looking forward to reporting more next time :)
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Glad to see I'm not the only one who saw Barathu and immediately wanted to play Blasto the barathu Spectre.
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We began part 2 last night. Same characters, though we were a player down so I GMPC'd Jor'Val.
Welcome to Little Akiton
With tourists in tow, our Starfinders went through the various alerts and messages they received now they actually surfaced from the Ghost Levels. The tour guide recognised the area as Little Akiton, and suggested the party escort them to Sunny-6's diner for some food and to figure out what to do next.
The tourists gave the PCs their reward for escorting them out of danger, and the players had a chat with Sunny-6. The diner was packed and Sunny-6 was running back and forth between tables, clearly understaffed, many items on the holo-menu were showing out-of-stock.
The players were able to determine the diner was low on produce, and Sunny-6 was unable to procure more from the Community Center due to some awkwardness with the woman who runs the center. Blasto, Sprax and Jor'Val offered to assist Sunny-6 with the lunch rush while Qrush headed to the community center to procure some produce.
At the Community centre Qrush avoided the old Vesk shooting at the holo-sun, and found the director of the center Joia Mollen. She was friendly in greeting him, and let him know there were beds to spare for anyone willing to put a bit of work in at the center. When Qrush asked for the produce for Sunny-6, she became a little more sour but begrudgingly offered some produce in exchange for some work. Trained in Medicine Qrush performed First Aid for people injured by the recent incident, and one person who took a wound from a bullet that seemed to fall from the sky.
Qrush returned to Sunny-6's Diner just in time for the party to finish off the lunch rush, and Blaso succeeded so well at creating a new dish (a variation of a blooming onion) Sunny-6 named the dish "Blasto's Blooming Bomb", the special was a real hit at the diner.
The party asked Sunny-6 if he knew anywhere the party might be able to pick up some of the skill kits they needed (medkit, repair kit, crafting kit), and Sunny-6 recommended Manee Moonpuncher's Bodega or Nik-Nak's scrapyard. They asked Sunny-6 if he knew Manee's favourite food, and they bought a to-go box of her favourite omelette.
Stepping out of the diner Qrush received a call from his cousin, let him know that the original job is on hold since the whole station is on lock-down, but Nik-Nak is an old friend looking for professionals with a good payday.
The decided to hit Manee's bodega first, offering her the food and asking after a few items they needed. Manee was glad to provide and offered the items gratis if they'd help her with a problem clearing her basement. With no particular hurry the party rolled up their sleeves and got to work.
Note: The party immediately fell in love with Rasputin.
The PCs started with the stack of crates. Failing the athletics check, the party all succeeded on the reflex save for the toppling crates and triggered the weevil fight.
The fight itself was pretty quick, over in two-rounds, no damage to the players.
The party also recognised the danger of the Sarcophagus, utilising detect magic and skill checks to move it without further incident
For their help Manee provided the promised kits (except for the craft kit, she was all out, but suggested Nik-Nak's Scrapyard), she also provided the listed rewards in the adventure as hazard pay for destroing the dust-weevil infestation.
At this stage it was getting late, so the party headed over to the Community Center to get some rest.
They overheard a parent warning their child to stay inside at night because of "vampires", and someone missing. Qrush had a conversation with the Ghost Courier staying at the community center to see if he knew where he could get some value from the bronze doshko he wrestled off the statue in the ghost levels.
The courier told him, more valuable than the doshko is a complete map of the ghost level they visited, the couriers used the levels as shortcuts through the station, ghost couriers have a loose network but are extremely proprietary about their own maps. If they complete the map of the ghost-level they were on, they could probably find a good buyer.
That night the party slept, and dreamed of a strange tentacular being with a single eye.
The next morning the group resolved to head out to Nik-Nak's to find out what the job was they needed to perform, and pick up a crafting kit. The buzzer on the gate was broken, and they pushed through:
The party spotted movement from a nearby junk pile and carefully avoided it to reach the shed where Nik-Nak was listening to Akiton-Country Rock and working on some gizmo.
They spoke to Nik-Nak who recognised them from the description they had from Julzakama, and asked them if they were looking for work. Before getting into it, the party pointed out the movement from the junk pile. Nik-Nak seemed surprised, and offered the PCs 20 creds each to check it out.
Qrush smashed the Cursed Junk Swarm in one hit, and Sprax identified the pieces are cursed and likely to reanimate soon. Jor'Val used thievery to pull apart the cursed pieces and pin them down to prevent their reanimation. During this commotion it drew the attention of the Ferrofluid Ooze. Oddly this party had very little in the way of technological gear or armour, and Blasto flew to the roof of the shed to immediately gain sniper vantage. While Nikk-Nakk circled the shed to fire his lazer gun from cover (used the Ghost-Courier stats from earlier in the adventure).
The party took some hits, but the fight mostly took time because oozes are immune to crits, precision, have physical damage resistance (adamantine) and Nikk-Nakk was able to shut off the Magnetic Field each round. So it was just attack roll/saving throw exchanges.
Impressed by the party's competence Nik-Nak pitched a heist to the PCs. The party wasn't particularly interested in that at this stage, but promised their discretion.
Leaving the junkyard the party went online, throughout the adventure Blasto had been researching and tracking the strange phenomenon eventually finding the details of Arta and her group of free-minded and curious philosophers of The Newborn.
Talking with Arta online they got the address of the next meeting, outside of the lockdown zone. The party was going to need some way out if they planned to check it out.
Deciding to head back to the Ghost-Levels to finish mapping it out, perhaps there's another exit they missed.
The party approached from the catwalks, from the high vantage point, spotting the Assembly Ooze was a simple matter. Blasto deployed the turret he hacked from the ghost couriers. Sprax used force barrage, Qrush did a running leap to smash the ooze off the ceiling (taking a little falling damage for the trouble).
Qrush did take some damage, but the ooze was more interested in trying to get to the magitech turret to pull it apart. After a couple of rounds it was over.
Party scrounged some UPBs, a comm-unit and radiation detector and continued their survey.
The party approached via the double doors. The cultists won initiative and took cover behind the nearby crates. The Zealot waiting until the party entered the room.
Blasto bypassed the danger of the fungus by floating into the room, and denied the enemies cover with height advantage. Jor'Val climbed the nearby ladder to do similar, but his rolls weren't as successful.
Qrush leaped onto a crate with a jump attack to take out the Zealot. A Force Barrage from Sprax was all it took to finish the job.
The party identified the Memory Mould and Sprax volunteered to breathe some in, to allow Jor'Val to read and broadcast the hallucination. Blasto carefully collected some spores for a makeshift bomb or sample.
They headed to the Community Center to put in some hours for cots for the evening.
They headed over to the Tenement Block Party for dinner, reunited with all the people they had met so far in the community.
Qrush finally went to speak with Old Ozabaki, "Grandson! I had heard a large Vesk has been stirring up trouble, and I knew it must be you. Why has it taken you so long to say hello to your Grandfather! You are a terrible grandson!"
Qrush sheepishly apologised and offered gift of the Bronze Doshko.
"I take it back! You are a wonderful grandson worthy of song and praise!"
Manee had a chat with the party about a shipment she had been waiting for that should have arrived prior to the lockdown, but didn't have time to go to the local shipyard to check it out.
The party continued, and a group of small children kept kicking the ball over to Sprax. She was happy to speak to the kids and they asked if the party would save the tenement Squox named Spike.
That's where we decided to leave it for the session.
- Too many creatures in this adventure immune to precision/crits.
- Barathu being able to get out of reach and snipe means the operative has not really been effectively targeted or hit by the majority of opposition.
- Witchwarper has still never used their witchwarp.
- Solarion Melee damage often renders the entire rest of the party obsolete when it comes to low-level damage.
- Players are overall having a great time!
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We finished off part 2 last night.
The PCs tracked down Spike the Squox and with a combination of Nature checks and treats peacefully coaxed Spike back to the Tenement with their squox kits. Sprax has decided she will adopt one as soon once its ready to be socialised.
The party decided to track down the missing shipment next. Manee introduced the party to Skizra Larima a sassy Skittermander Space Pirate Envoy, and old friend to help retrieve the shipment.
The party came across the unconscious body of Tego, and with a medicine check were able to bring him up to 11 hp. He explained that when he went to collect the cargo he found the ship was hijacked by space-goblin pirates.
The party headed to the location. The goblins called out: "You want Cargo! You pay!" The party refused to negotiate and charged in. The goblin mine threw back Tego. Blasto floated up to a sniper position. Qrush rocket jumped his way into melee with Spicy Sweet. The combat was fun and frantic, between Spicy Sweet's area effects, goblin grenades and the players utilising spells effectively. With the goblins insisting "You want Cargo! You pay!" Unfortunately the players didn't take the hint and try to talk more to the goblins.
The party collected the cargo, and headed back, only realising the goblins were legitimately crewing the ship when they got back to deliver to Manee.
Awkward.
The party decided to help Nik-Nak with the bank heist next. They took some time to watch the building. I improvised an Air Conditioning vent that someone small-sized could squeeze through to the employee break room or the board room. Luck was not on the players' side as Katara the Vesk was in the security room. Sprax entered the employee break room and set her comm to make some noise on a timer to distract Katara. She used the opportunity to power down the cameras, and the security robots in the bank. She then headed out of the building to let the others know.
The party was getting cold feet, but Sprax wanted her phone back, and realised it was in the hands of Katara. So the party headed in, after a couple of tries Qrush managed to bash open the internal doors. The noise of which caused Katara to set off the alarm. Luckily Qrush was able to sucker punch her before she got a good look at them. With 20 minutes on the clock the party hacked, tumbled, picked their way through the vault and safes, unlocking 3 of the 6 safes before escaping with their loot.
They got a decent cut of the loot while Nik-Nak distributed cash to the various families and citizens of Little Akiton. (The businesses donated their funds to have the goblins raised from the dead, apologising for the misunderstanding). Nik-Nak also showed them a secret way out of Little Akiton to get past the lockdown.
The players took a long rest for the evening, and next day too some time doing odd-jobs for the community center, before heading to the Cult of the Newborn meeting. After the conversation got heated, the Envoy was able to identify that Vekki was under mind control with a high Perception to Sense Motive, and a clever use (and high roll of Arcana) identified the culprit. It was on for young and old, (the lack of stats for the mind-controlled cultists was a bit annoying, so I just used the one-line stats for Katara). The space was tight, and Qrush was able to throw cultists into one-another to knock them out pretty quickly. While the others used energy damage to take down the vampire. As he was dying he threatened: "I may be destroyed, but my protegee will feast!"
The party found an address on the vampire's body for a construction site, along with a note to pay 600 credits to the Crimson Queens. The party approached the construction site. The Queens called out telling the party to "bugger off, this is queens territory now". The party called out and told the queens their employer was not in a position to pay them anymore as they'd killed him. Unfortunately the party failed their Intimidate checks to convince them to back down, and the Queens decided to take their pay from the PCs bodies. Combat started, and again it was a fun and frenetic back and forth (though poor Sprax got taken out by a critical hit from the Queens sniper). Luckily Jor'Vahl was there to quickly heal her up. Skizra meanwhile was happy to let loose with the rocket launcher she collected from the goblins earlier.
After defeating the Queens the party unlocked the construction container and found the missing Meldo, luckily he hadn't yet been turned to Vampirism.
Thus completing part 2!
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This has been a really enjoyable read. I'm glad that part 2 is turning out to be as fun in practice as it is on paper. Filing away your notes on too many enemy immunities for when I finally run this myself.
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End of Session 2 Thoughts:
So far the fights that have been most engaging are vs. humanoids with ranged weapons where cover, terrain, traps/hazards and height all matter.
Starfinder bestiary would do well to provide ranged options for most monsters, whether it's quills, breath, energy beam or ranged ooze balls, fights where movement, range, and cover matters can make a big difference.
The game will also need clear rules about whether height reduces bonuses from cover, since flight is assumed to be easier in Starfinder.
Witchwarper finally used their Quantum Field during the break-in to retry a Stealth check vs Katara as they became quantum unstable in the warp field.
Mystic is such a healing MVP especially in no-rush situations where they can just restore focus and keep their hp pool topped up between encounters.
Envoy Get 'em works really well against the major target in any fight.
Some kind of tool to remind players of reaction triggers would probably be useful.
Oh also, make sure to take the temperature of kind-hearted players regarding the goblin encounter, I mishandled that encounter and made it a little to easy for the PCs to read the goblins as villains especially with the unconscious character they find before they reach the ship. It's not too hard to perform a medicine check to wake him up. It's why I had some of the community proceeds of the robbery go to their raise deads to undo the bad job GMing on my part.
Make it a little more obvious the Goblins would rather talk than fight, and that there's a misunderstanding regarding payment. If the PCs go back to Manee she could redirect the PCs to do Nik-Nak's job so she can pay off the goblins, as she didn't realise the couriers were to be paid on delivery.
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Session 4 - Happy Birthday Part 1
We opened the session with the emergency alerts, a briefing from Lotus and a bit of light shopping and ensuring we all levelled up to 3 correctly. A quick trip through the ghost levels, and our heroes found themselves in Entry Point Alynthia.
The party had a lot of options upon reaching the location, and noticed the that the fountain was likely a hazard which could be easily skirted. But they were curious and activated it anyways.
The battle that followed was both fun and interesting as the combination of Hazard and tentacle creatures gave the party plenty to contend with and dishing out quite a bit of damage. The party envoy Skizra ran to get some distance from the tentacular menace and accidentally activated the runesaw.
A couple of lucky rolls from Jor'Vahl managed to end the fight via the Occultism and Religion rolls sending the Eldritch Maw back from whence it came.
Next our heroes entered the stables and picked a fight with the skeletal horses (a pretty standard fight but an unlucky crit dropped our Witchwarper), drawing the attention of the cultists in then next room.
The party then encountered the cultists, and utilised positioning and cover. Thane managed to get off a ricochet spell off a wall to hit a party member in cover and a noise blast on three party members which was pretty rad.
With the cultists down the party has found an entrance to Charity Substation.
Level 3 really is where the game gets fun for the players.
The Eldritch Maw battle was a huge hit with the players, it felt like proper sci-fi eldritch horror, and the big finish was cool.
Even though disabling a hazard has a standard description in the Core Rules, it would still be helpful to list the action cost for disabling in the description.
