Have you and your group tried out this adventure? What were your thoughts on it?

My group wasn't a fan of the story it tries to tell. Too much feels artificially forced together (too much coincidence) and much of the story feels like it would be better as an Edge group trying to save an outlaw tech's base than as a Rebel mission. My players didn't have any real interest (positive or negative) in Mandalorians or Zygerrians, so those aspects fell flat. The super-short duration of the mission felt totally forced, and it likewise made "the only options for travel within the deadline" feel like it was leading them by the nose.

The last act--the mass combat--felt like an extended exercise in rolling dice just to roll more dice, and the ending is a total pile of crap (the bad guys escape, your efforts have, at best, only bought you a little more time to evacuate--perhaps you should have just done that in the first place).

I am after reading the first two chapters and skimming two others, and I have a similar feeling like Happy Daze. I rather re-use the chapters for my Edge of the Empire adventures (Mandalorians, Zygerrians, independent-shipyards for pirates) then run the adventure although the idea behind the story is good. What I liked is the Force talent that the Imperial captain has.

I really liked the story in Beyond the Rim, Arda I and Jewel of Yavin, but the last three adventure books Pirate Mask, Chronicles and this one are not written as good IMO.

It really is better to look at it as a whole and use some bits as options to use or discard; our group chose to prioritise using the local resources and spent most of the 48 hours preparing the various defences with the options presented for characters to go on their own journeys in star wars style party spilts. In this case we had one Mandolorian who went to the clan alone and was really able to flesh out his identity there. The party for most part were heavily apposed to having any slaver contact at all (The Force paragons tend to want to avoid anything to do with slavery) but my Force Senstive Criminal Rodian and a Gand Findsman defied orders and slipped out of camp to recruit them in under 24 hours to go. Without presenting anything in the way of hooks most of that content wasn't explored,

Tobin and Gandhi returned the sword to the Prince, but the way things have been set up is that those two are going to return to preform a rescue mission in 2 weeks time; something that essentially makes this entire story arc essentially part 1 of an ongoing plotline. And a source of real conflict between the PC's, Tobin Stryder is obsessed with defeating the empire at any cost, constant exposure to imperial projects (gene enhanced super soldiers, Gands being hardwired into starfighters, and the Krytos Virus to name a couple) has made him harderned at denying the empire any opportunity at any cost, even if he has to defy allience standards to do so, while Ghost and Travis both really hate slavery due to their history with them, thus there's this tension brewing in the air between those three; admit one that is put aside until the battle itself is dealt with.

Also, very little was used at the climatic battle as intended; the rescue was preformed at step one and also a savatage attempt that would eventurally destory life support and leave the imperial garrsion standed, at step 4 we clashed with Super Millitant mandolorians and had a standoff in a valley, we almost had a PC die when a double dispair caused the space station to get completely erupted in a brutal crossfire between the raider and SD... The thing is, our group is a unconventional squad with a lot of Rim elements thus this style of campaign makes a good deal of sense to begin with. I

So we used a bit of each of the travelling acts to act as padding but didn't do everything from them for the sake of telling a story at a fairly timely manner. Often the story was spilt between preparing the base and fixing relations/hunting spies and dealing with the off world stuff. Just our particlar party composition made travelling off world appealing for those characters involved.

I have to agree that the story doesn't feel particularly strong; 2 days is just too short a time period to explore these relations and there a lot of name dropped characters that don't really matter unless you toss stones or are really creative/motivated to draw those pieces together later. I really get the impression that since the Jewel of Yavin, a lot of the adventures spring really tight time limits.

22 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Too much feels artificially forced together (too much coincidence)

I haven't had a chance to read the adventure so could you highlight an example or two of this. I'm curious.

The bad guy just happens be be related to the guys you're trying to protect.

The spy that leaked the attack just happens to be accompanying the bad guy on the attack requiring a mid-battle rescue.

The only worlds close enough to recruit help from just happen to be a Mando world and a Zygerrian slaver camp.

How do the PCs just happen to arrive in time to be of any help if there's nothing else nearby?

The Mandalorians that you have to recruit just happen to have lost their leader...and the Zygerrians that you also recruit just happen to have him.

Ah I see. Thanks.

I have finished the last two chapters, for me the worst part is when the party arrives in the prince palace to ask him for a help and of course an advisor blocks access to the king cause he is not interested, but he adds "If you go to XYZ (as we got just information about it) and recover ABC stolen from the prince (this morning), then probably he will talk with you". I said to myself - "REALLY?!". I felt like playing SWTOR where you arrive at destination and there is a person that needs to do something for you but only if you happen to do a side quest which somehow is waiting just for you and no one else could do it on a planet populated with thousands of minions and other players....

And that conversation between the bad guy and his family at the end.....

And the entire plot is based on an Imp cpt. who is afraid that Empire is gonna find out that he is force sensitive so he comes to murder his family. He has heard about the Death Star, but he hasnt heard about the inquisitors and that the Empire doesnt murder loyal dark side servants who happen to operate in ISB. Probably he has never bothered to make a Knowledge (Empire) skill check, but somehow everyone in the galaxy has heard about the Death Star except the guys on Yavin 4.

some really great reviews there everyone, thanks from all of us who are still waiting to play/read the adventure! Lots of LOL moments reading your comments,

5 hours ago, NicoDavout said:

but somehow everyone in the galaxy has heard about the Death Star except the guys on Yavin 4

7 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

The Mandalorians that you have to recruit just happen to have lost their leader...and the Zygerrians that you also recruit just happen to have him.

13 hours ago, LordBritish said:

we almost had a PC die when a double dispair caused the space station to get completely erupted in a brutal crossfire between the raider and SD

9 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

The bad guy just happens be be related to the guys you're trying to protect.

The spy that leaked the attack just happens to be accompanying the bad guy on the attack requiring a mid-battle rescue.

The only worlds close enough to recruit help from just happen to be a Mando world and a Zygerrian slaver camp.

How do the PCs just happen to arrive in time to be of any help if there's nothing else nearby?

The Mandalorians that you have to recruit just happen to have lost their leader...and the Zygerrians that you also recruit just happen to have him.

To be fair with the whole spy thing; it would make sense for the spy to travel with the ship that she was entasked with in case anything unexpected occurred, the ship joined up with additional ships along the way; it can serve as an additional plot hook if your wanting to escalate the conflict (The PC's use their contacts with the Hutts to draw a small armada above the planet! But the Imperial officer is intercepted by Inquistor Face, the long standing nemesis of the PC who promises to train/conceal the captain if he will allow him to get revenge on the party one last time...)

I find point 1 (though I was spoiled that by browsing through here; we were about to start act 7-9 of the battle. XD), point 3 is a matter of convince and kinda assumes that the players don't have any influence in this galaxy. My DM followed the contacts fairly literally (E..g. in this case we were much to far from the Hutts, and the party was largely apposed to seeking ANY aid from the underworld; though it's exactly what my PC specialises in, so I had to narratively undercut them and within 24 hours this contact was the only one in reach.) (Btw, I don't usually do things against the parties wishes, just I feel sometimes a little bit of creative tension is good for drama, in this case Tobin's outlaw nature and being a representative of Dai the Hutt clashes with the ex-imperial assassin who only sees millitry targets and the honourable mandolorian.)

I find point 4 and 5 pretty suspect; if this place was of such importance to the alliance, how come they had nothing else in range within this galaxy? It doesn't really work as written and kinda needs the arda 1 treatment; the PC's spend some time going back and fourth from this place only to find it one day under real danger. After doing the Arda 1 and Hoth defence exactly this way; for us to do it would have cheapened the experience. "Why do they bother stationing us in bases if the empires just going to track us every time we move?! XD" I woudl have found it a bit more interesting with the assumption that the PC's arrived as part of an alliance deployment that was meant to be a simple job; but the spy reveals that just two days prior to the raid, the amount of imperial forces double and suddenly the rebel contingent is wholly outnumbered.

I find if you run it as is, it's a rather boring adventure but if it's worked in as part of a ongoing plot arc; e.g. force users locked in a war with the darkside, part of a ongoing plot in recruiting for war or even being an oppertunist who wants to improve their criminal standing by working for the alliance, it works better if it's not used as strictly written.

I bought this to be the farewell game to end my AoR campaign before I reset to do an EotE one. Having now read it and this thread I'm not so sure I'm going to run it without some significant alterations, or perhaps just taking parts of it and inserting them into self written adventures. It just doesn't seem as polished as some of their previous adventures. Onslaught at Arda was great and outshines FLT by some distance.

I have skimmed the adventure in prep for introducing it to my edge group, they were going to be captured by imps and then freed by the spy and asked to take details of the attack to the station, but the adventure has raised a question for me - why are the PCs the ones to solve the issues, get the station defences ready and to get help, why isn't anyone else capable of doing this? Does the adventure clearly and adequately spell this out?

4 hours ago, lupex said:

I have skimmed the adventure in prep for introducing it to my edge group, they were going to be captured by imps and then freed by the spy and asked to take details of the attack to the station, but the adventure has raised a question for me - why are the PCs the ones to solve the issues, get the station defences ready and to get help, why isn't anyone else capable of doing this? Does the adventure clearly and adequately spell this out?

Because they're the PCs. Seriously. Asking why the problems of the scenario have to be handled by the PCs seems odd for a GM to ask. Now that's not saying that I like the set-up for this particular adventure, and while I agree it seems very contrived in how it expects the PCs to act, I never question why an adventure is written to put the PCs into the center of it all.

7 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Because they're the PCs. Seriously. Asking why the problems of the scenario have to be handled by the PCs seems odd for a GM to ask. Now that's not saying that I like the set-up for this particular adventure, and while I agree it seems very contrived in how it expects the PCs to act, I never question why an adventure is written to put the PCs into the center of it all.

I don't usually have a problem with this as most adventures are set so that either the PCs are sent on a mission or hired to do a job or stumble on to a situation. This feels very old school in that the PCs arrive and are the only ones with the skills to help solve all the problems, my players will ask "why isn't anyone else going for help"? And I need a clear answer to make it believable.

9 hours ago, lupex said:

I don't usually have a problem with this as most adventures are set so that either the PCs are sent on a mission or hired to do a job or stumble on to a situation. This feels very old school in that the PCs arrive and are the only ones with the skills to help solve all the problems, my players will ask "why isn't anyone else going for help"? And I need a clear answer to make it believable.

If I recall, part of the problem is infighting between the groups. The PC's have to make peace, and by doing so, effectively set themselves up in charge.

Part of the adventure shows that the leadership of Xorrn is unstable. Various council members have personal issues with each other, which the PCs have to resolve. Depending on who's side you take, different waves of the final battle will either be bolstered or weakened. One difficult option lets them make peace between all the leaders and receive all the bonuses, but it's a series of really hard checks to pull off.

I think the adventure also assumes the PCs are more combat capable than the small security force on this backwater planet. The locals turn to the Seven Samurai Three Amigos Circus Bugs PCs for guidance.

Our GM tweaked the ending so that no Imps escaped with one Raider and the Gladiator surrendering. (They were already down a corvette killed in the space battle, and they were facing a fleet led by an MC80 with the frigate that serves as our ground team's base ship and the remaining allied ships we had gathered in position to reengage if they took anything close to the best escape route.