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NO SPOILERS
I ran King Xeros of Star Azlant at high
subtier using the four-player adjustment.
The scenario has a great overall feel, reminiscent of classic Star Wars in its sci-fi military tone. There are a few places where the pacing is
interrupted by some poor choices, so it’s not an unqualified success, but it’s
still definitely a scenario worth experiencing.
SPOILERS
I really like the beginning of King Xeros of Star Azlant. Instead of the usual sedate conference room,
the PCs are summoned to the Lorespire Complex’s hangar bay where technicians
are bustling about trying to get ships ready for hasty departures. Venture-Captain Naiaj gives the briefing not
only to the PCs but to two other groups of Starfinders, explaining that a lunar
base in the Vast has sighted a vessel that can only be the King Xeros, a legendary ether ship supposedly built by the Azlanti
of lost Golarion. However, the Azlanti
Star Empire have gotten to the lunar base first and taken it over, and are
trying to figure out the secrets of the ship.
Naiaj divides the Starfinders at her disposal in three groups—a Scout
Team to handle recon and analysis, a Shield Team to intercept space-based
hostiles, and a Strike Team to handle ground operations. The PCs form this last group, and it’s all
very exciting and military in feel, reminiscent of classic Star Wars briefing scenes with the Rebel Alliance. It probably helps that the Azlanti Star
Empire is a pretty close analogue to the Imperials!
I’ll just mention in passing that this adventure is a
homage/sequel to a well-regarded Pathfinder Society scenario, but I’ve never
played or read that one so can’t really comment further. It also ties into the Against the Aeon Throne adventure path—which I think is really cool
(but I haven’t played that one either).
Once the three teams, each in their own vessels, arrive at
the lunar base (oddly named “Peak of Evening”), they come under heavy fire from
ground-based anti-ship batteries. Strike
Team (the PCs) are ordered to do a strafing run and then land for ground
infiltration. The strafing run is
handled well, as the Pilot has to make a check or the ship takes direct hull
damage (something that can be significant later in the adventure) and the
gunners have to hit and do a certain amount of damage or additional enemies are
present in the next encounter. One of my
major regrets about Starfinder is how poorly it integrated air-to-ground combat
into the game, so I’d like to see more of this sort of thing.
The strafing run completed, the PCs next must choose to
infiltrate one of two ground bases (they won’t have time to do both). They have their first real choice: a
construction bay or a greenhouse. The
Starfinders’ overall mission is to find and secure the King Xeros, which makes the construction bay the obvious choice
(and it’s what my players chose). I’m
not sure why tables would choose the greenhouse.
In the construction bay, the PCs get their first taste of
battle against Aeon Guards (a.k.a., Stormtroopers). It’s a solid encounter. When the fighting is over, a group of brakim
(gregarious, long-limbed mechanics) emerge and explain that the Azlanti have
forced them to work on retrofitting the King
Xeros with modern technology. The
PCs are supposed to spend time interacting with various named brakim and make
skill checks to persuade them to upgrade the PCs’ ship so it will have a better
chance in battle against the King Xeros. The idea isn’t terrible, and I’m the last to
complain about role-playing opportunities, but I thought the entire scene brought
to a halt all of the excitement and momentum of the PCs being in the middle of
a dynamic battlefield on an urgent mission.
The other option, the greenhouse, also starts with a battle
against Aeon Guards. Accompanying the
defenders is an Iztheptar, a crustacean-like humanoid. The PCs will get access to various computer
and paper records, and have the opportunity to make several skill checks to
earn special boons during the upcoming battle against the King Xeros. Like I said, my
players didn’t choose this option, but it looks decent.
As the PCs are concluding their investigation of either the
construction bay or the greenhouse, they see four Azlanti ships launch from the
lunar base in an escort formation around the King Xeros. The PCs have to
rush to their vessel as Naiaj orders all teams to converge and stop the Alanti
from escaping. This leads to a starship
combat, with the other Starfinder ships drawing away the escorts (off-screen)
and the PCs in a one on one space battle against the partially retrofitted King Xeros. My views on Starfinder space combat are often
mentioned in my reviews (I think they’re long, repetitive slogs due to the ease
of recharging shields and critical hits not doing double damage), and,
unfortunately, this space combat was the worst of the lot. Despite earning all of the upgrades available
in the construction bay, my players couldn’t significantly damage the King Xeros, nor could it significantly
damage their ship. Starfinder space
combat is like Tic Tac Toe, resulting in endless draws. After over an hour of inconclusive fighting,
I gave the players the option of continuing or taking the “losing” result and
proceeding with the rest of the scenario.
They went with that, which cost the secondary success condition but
allowed us all to move on with life. The
losing result is a well-done, cinematic one, as one of the other Starfinder
ships unleashes a full missile barrage to disable the King Xeros, but the heavy return fire obliterates Shield Team
entirely!
The final third of the scenario has the PCs boarding the King Xeros, hoping to take control of
the vessel before malfunctioning Azlanti retrofitting causes a devastating
explosion. I found the map of the ship
very confusing, and (according to the forums), I wasn’t the only one. I had to get some help and make some educated
guesses about how various parts of the ship were connected. Anyway, the ship itself is guarded by some
Azlanti robots and a very-difficult-to-bypass trap. The big bad of the scenario is Aldroxis (from
the tie-in AP, I understand), a reasonably tough technomancer. I thought the battle against him was fair and
satisfying.
Although the PCs will likely defeat the Azlanti and take
control of the King Xeros, they’ll
soon realize that they can’t stop it from a cataclysmic engine overload—all they
can do is delay things for a few minutes so they can quickly scour the rest of
the ship for ancient treasures. I found
this part of the adventure anti-climactic and cheesy in how it handled the
search and necessary skill checks. The
scenario ends with the King Xeros
slipping off into the Ethereal Plane, and the PCs reporting back to Naiaj with
the bittersweet results that the SFS didn’t get the ship, but neither did the
Azlanti Star Empire.
Overall, I think King Xeros of Star Azlant was a very
good but not quite great scenario. I
love the urgency and military feel, as well as the cinematic aspects of the
story. I could envision this scenario in
other media as a comic book or television episode. The Azlanti Star Empire make good enemies,
and I hope we see more of them in SFS scenarios. On the other hand, there were multiple places
where the excitement grinds to a halt (especially the interminable starship
combat)—part of that is the game designer’s and not the scenario writer’s
fault, but I’m reviewing the overall experience, not attributing blame. Anyway, it’s definitely worth playing, and,
if you’re playing the AP, it’s a 100% no-brainer tie-in.
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