SFS2 1-25 The Hollowed Shell

[GM Bret]

Just a quick question: How many Abandoned Areas (pg 7) are there?

Trying to figure out how many Discovery Checks should be given.

[xrayregime]

I'm also running this in a couple days. I believe the number of checks is just two for each PC. One perception check and one other check of their choice for each character.

[Driftbourne]

I got to prep this soon, so I took a look. I just read that page, and I see what you mean. I'm surprised that there is no adjustment for party size. 19 points seems like a lot for a 4-person party, although you only need 11 points to get the second-highest level of info.

I see how it looks like just 2 checks the way it's worded, I was leaning that way my self, but it also lists 4 areas.

1. laboratories,
2. operating rooms,
3. specimen containment cells,
4. and staff rooms,

I ran 1-36 Enter The Ashen Asteroid last year, and it was set up similarly but took multiple rounds to do exploring checks.

Google is suggesting that a party of 6 would average 9.6 points with just 2 checks each. Google also suggested that 3 rounds would be a standard challenge to get to 19+ points. So take that with a grain of salt.

The last 2 parties I ran scenarios for had some of the worst combined skill sets I've seen a party have. They would likely struggle with 4 rounds of checks.

I'd like to try to run the short scenarios a bit longer; doing 4 checks would help with that. I'm thinking of using the station map from 1-03 Disaster At Dreamlink Labs for the abandoned areas to make the checks more interesting and take a bit of time to move pawns around the map. The map works for the laboratories, operating rooms, and specimen containment cells to visualize the search; the only thing that map doesn't cover is the staff rooms. I suppose you could still use the map even if the PCs only do 2 checks each.

[GM Bret]

I think that I am going to interprete it as 4 areas, one skill check and one perception check in each.

Most characters should have one of the skills they are trained in. Figure the average bonus at +5 because for many characters it isn’t going to be their best skill. Perception will likely be slightly higher since a few classes have it at Expert, but we will keep the +5 for ease of approximation.

Four players would be 10 * .4 * 4 = 16 successes which is a lot. Six players would be 24 successes which means most groups would overkill it.

That seems like a lot of dice rolls but players will feel they found stuff.