Venture-Captain, Washington—Seattle
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Summarizing discussion about the scenario from the Major Cons planning server (for Gen Con).
The following answers were provided by Alex Speidel, Paizo Organized Play and Convention Manager, who is also the author of this scenario.
General tips from Alex:
- This one runs pretty short! Two of my runs came in right at two hours and one was around 1:45. Don't be afraid to let your players roleplay (and indeed, prod them and encourage them to do so).
- In the unlikely event that one PC hasn't completed a task by task 4 (Dot's selling task), have her give them a wink and a nudge to do so. I very cleverly wrote it so that all PCs complete task 5 (the Decision Point), so as long as each PC does one task before then there's no need for the time penalty.
- The final combat is hard! The boars are tough, and a couple of good hits (or one crit) will take down a 1st-level PC. Don't forget about the teams that arrive at the end of each round to assist, because that Aid bonus is gonna be super useful, especially at low-level tables.
- The expectation is not that the PCs win; indeed, they have to do very well in order to win. Most will finish in the top 3 or in 4th place. Make sure Arvin makes it clear during the briefing that the Society does not expect a last-minute team to win, and that he'll be proud of them no matter what. (Also, if anybody critically fails the recall knowledge, this creates a very funny dynamic. Obozaya failed 2/3 times in my runs, which makes sense for her.)
Q: In the Final Gauntlet task, when calculating race points, is it "number of rounds in combat plus number of task rounds in the obstacle course", or is it just "number of task rounds"?
A: Do not include the combat rounds in the total number of rounds. (As the task rounds are abstracted as lasting about 10 minutes, the combat wouldn't be long enough to affect race points.)
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I just made a fake microphone to bring to the game to interview the PCs if the game is running too fast, or to give the players who are not doing the current task something to do.
It's a silly prop, just a cardboard tube with black duct tape, but trying to read text out loud, holding the fake microphone, helped bring out my inner Rich Molburn. I'm hoping it does the same, handing it to the players when doing interviews or introductions.
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Just got home from running The Great Absalom Relay. The total runtime was 2:30 with one 5-minute break.
The fake microphone was a big success with the players, especially when I got up and walked around the table doing interviews. I also went around the table with the mic either before or after a task, asking how things went or how they thought the teams would do in the challenge about to happen.
The other thing I did was track how many credits the team made in donations each round. I made a chart with how much they get for each round based on how many points they got, with big bonuses for saving Nib and defeating the Cy-boars. I then had Rick Molburn announce the total. The PCs came in 2nd in the relay, but I had them be the top fundraiser.
I hyped up the VR race at the Click Clack club by using one of my unfinished characters as the neighborhood champion. A space goblin who thinks they are the best pilot in the galaxy, but is all hype and not really a good pilot at all. I did a big introduction hyping up the neighborhood champion, and then both PCs rolled crit success in the first round. So I had the neighborhood champion sabotage his VR rig so he had an excuse why he lost. So the race ended in a crash, which led to some good interviews.
I used the menu I made for Acts of Association, so it was nice to have that tie-in.
I had a blast running this, I'm courious what others have done with it.
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For the Lorespire Complication, How should it affect Race Points for that round? Is it one stage worse or should attempts at the complications be counted as rounds of the task.
Also what is the time penalty if a player doesn't compete in at least two tasks? It was not stated.
** spoiler omitted **
The Zo! team cheating worked out well in the game I ran. Right before that, one of my players tried to trip someone on the Zo! team, so what Zo!'s did felt more like getting back at them than cheating. It's also the Zo! team I think SF1e players won't be surprised by the Zo! the team pulled a prank.
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I also had a lot of fun with Nib. Because Nib is part of the Deep Cultures Institute, and most of the players at the table had played in Collision's Wake and Invasion's Edge, I had Nib be super excited to meet Starfinders who had been to Akiton investigating the crash or the return, and asked them about what they found. Nib speculated how she thought what was going on at Akiton was related to an ancient culture still inhabiting the sun. Then I had Nib try to convince the PCs to sneak her on board their starship next time they whent to Akiton.
I'm prepping for Mystery of the Frozen Moon, and I'm thinking of having Nib sneak onboard the PCs' starship. I'll post that in the Mystery of the Frozen Moon thread so I don't spoil it here.
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The Realy has an interesting rule I have not seen used before.
"Non-participants may loan the participating PCs equipment but may not otherwise assist in any way."I'm courious how/if players have been taking advantage of this.
Is this a new rule? I always believed a PC could give another PC their equipment, but that it is automatically returned (if not consumed/destroyed) at end of session.
So far I haven't seen this much used. A player shared a Celebrity Serum once and I as a player used spells to buff, but this is only a 1-2 and players likely have what they need / can afford. The basic kit is cheap enough I assume everyone has.
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The Realy has an interesting rule I have not seen used before.
"Non-participants may loan the participating PCs equipment but may not otherwise assist in any way."I'm courious how/if players have been taking advantage of this.
Is this a new rule? I always believed a PC could give another PC their equipment, but that it is automatically returned (if not consumed/destroyed) at end of session.
So far I haven't seen this much used. A player shared a Celebrity Serum once and I as a player used spells to buff, but this is only a 1-2 and players likely have what they need / can afford. The basic kit is cheap enough I assume everyone has.
This is just for the race rules. Only 2 PCs do each challenge. The other PCs can't aid the skill checks or cast spells to help out; the only thing they can do is loan equipment. No equipment is actually transferred between players.
When I ran it, the only thing loaned out was a grappler.
To be super competitive in this race, I think a party would need to plan in advance to take advantage of the loan equipment race rule. Harder to do to at 1st level when you don't have a lot of free credits. It's the kind of thing that needs a session-0 or letting the players know after that game the week before, so they have time and credits to plan for it in advance.
