Ages ago, I grabbed a good chunk of the Starfinder RPG off of Humble Bundle. As a system, it’s always fascinated me: Magic and sci-fi with a healthy dose of humor mingled with world-shattering threats to keep things interesting. When my Abomination Vaults game ended, I asked my pool of players if anyone might be interested in magic and guns in space.

Here’s where I’d normally say “We just finished book two, so I wanted to share my thoughts on it.” However, I’m running super late, so we’re actually half-way through book three. Time flies when you’re firing blasters and taking out the space trash! If you’re interested in my thoughts on book one, you can read them here.

The (very big) party

The party is still huge. Most games, we blasted past quorum. The crew consists of:

• A Trox Nanocyte
• A Vesk Vanguard
• A Kitsune Witchwarper
• A Dirindi Operative
• A Human Mechanic + his artillery drone
• A Lashunta Technomancer
• A Lashunta Envoy
• A Kasatha Mystic

Normally, when I over-recruit, I have a few people who drop for various reasons. This time, nothing major came up, so many games we essentially had a double party running around. Strangely, this had me nudging encounters rather than doubling them due to how Starfinder math works (and knowing that players would feel more comfortable acting less optimally). I think it also made space combat more comfortable, since the party had such full coverage. If they were down to four PCs, they’d have to run around a bit more or make some difficult choices.

Still, I think if I have a huge party next time, I’ll just split it into two games. They can race each other! Winner gets some paper crowns or something.

Thoughts on the AP so far

Holy cow, this AP moves fast. As I said, we’re halfway through book three at this point. While having a smaller party might have slowed things down a bit, I don’t think it would be by that much. After all, I’ve been adjusting numbers, and combats with many PCs will take longer in real time just because it’s a lot of meatbags thinking over their options. Also, part 1 of book 2 is super brief: Basically, a voicemail and meeting up with a travelling salesman.

Thoughts on Book 2

This book has a lot of character. The crew lands on the less-than-legal Outpost Zed and has to charm / threaten / shoot their way into figuring out the way forward. While there’s violence to be had, there’s also a bunch of fun NPCs to interact with, both for gear and for information. This outpost could be a game-ender, though, if your players are murderhobos, since they really do need the help of the locals to move forward with the plot. Heck, if you have a group that only murders, I’d warn you away from this AP, where talking rather than shooting is the only way to connect distant plot points.

The jailbreak can be brutal, which feels fair. I mean, it’s a jailbreak, not a trip to Absalom Mall. Players can sneak in, but chances are good that they’ll be tripped up at some point, which leaves enemies behind them as well as in front of them. My group got tripped up about mid-way through and ended up with combatants on every side, which was a wild ride.

Overall, the first part being sparse isn’t a huge deal, because the rest of the book is absolutely packed with stuff to do. I have a feeling the chapters were split up like they were because it would have been awkward to break up huge set-pieces.

Looking forward (kind of)

As I said a few times now, we’re halfway through book three, so there isn’t much ‘forward’ to consider. I will say that book 3 has way more combat, and really has the players itching to punch some Azlanti. It doesn’t hurt that some of my players are also being run through Ruins of Azlant, where they’re getting increasingly annoyed by these purple-eyed jerkfaces.