Starfinder Superscriber. Pathfinder Society GM. Starfinder Society GM. 587 posts (588 including aliases). 1 review. No lists. No wishlists. 27 Organized Play characters.
Very disappointing compared to 1-09: Live Exploration Extreme
Spoiler:
When I hear "adventure", I'm thinking a trek into the jungles of Castrovel or the dodging space pirates while mapping blackened waters of the Diaspora. The last thing I expected was gladiatorial combat in arenas.
Live Exploration Extreme was great because your party was going into the unknown. The reality show filming, live audience, and private interviews with the ghast assistant producer were a perfect compliment to what would otherwise be a normal Starfinder adventure.
I just sent an email with the same subject but received an alarming auto-reply indicating that email might not get read anytime soon.
TLDR; can you please sidecart these two pending subscription orders so they'll be processed automatically with the August subscription shipments and shipped together?
I'm not asking why the pawns were not sent in the envelope that contained the AP book, I'm asking why the AP book was sent by itself instead of in the box the pawns were shipped in. The AP book (and it's envelope) easily fits with the pawns in the box the pawns were shipped with.
The pawns were shipped priority mail box weighing 2lb 3.4oz. The AP book in it's envelope weighs 10.4oz. Both together in the box the pawns were shipped in weigh 2lb 14.8oz.
I have the same service Paizo used to ship the pawn box (stamps.com), when I entered the box size and weight the stamps.com mailing software reported the shipping cost for the box would not change until it exceeded 3lb, and then only by $0.10, not by ~$5.61. For that cost the weight of several pawn boxes and hardcover books could have been shipped.
I have received several subscription shipments with an AP book inside a blank cardboard mailer (almost certainly to protect it) inside a larger box with a hardcover book or pawn set.
Therefore it seems someone in warehouse messed up to the expense of your subscribers. Humans make mistakes, especially under stressful conditions. But it seems you asked them about it and they lied to cover up their mistake, and I'm more upset about that lie than the mistake itself. You should be too.
Why has my monthly subscription order has been split into two separate shipments, charging me shipping on both when they could easily be combined?
I also did not receive a notification that the subscription order being created. The savings from subscriptions are lost when each item is shipped separately.
I understand there's likely new warehouse staff being trained but this is not ok.
Even though I previously updated my payment method and selected to use it for future orders, my old debit card remains default for subscriptions.
I believe I just changed payment method for 18583579 to the new card after the old card was tried and declined, but I still can't change the default for future orders or remove the old card.
Can you remove the old card and change the default to the new one? And process order 18583579 with the new card?
This spell would be a lot more useful if it either gave you 60' of darkvision if you don't already have it, or extended your darkvision by 30' if you already do. Most of my star shamans have darkvision as a racial ability.
It would also be more useful as, like Life Bubble, it targeted the caster + party members. Even at higher levels, it's just not worth a daily spell slot compared to a Mind Thrust 2 or Mystic Cure 2.
The writers of Farscape did a great job of reconning the lazy makeup work with Sebaceans and other human-like races, that there was a lost truth - especially with the viable Sebaceans-Human hybrid child. While rushed, the discovery of the Eidolon Federation and their history traveling to Earth was good storytelling IMHO.
The real question here is what do apes evolving into sapient humans independently on Suskillon add to the story? Would it not be more interesting to make Suskillons a human-like species or Suskillon being settled by humans during the gap?
Continuing the previous example of Sebaceans, right from Farscape's pilot it was a huge mystery box why this very human-like and genetically compatible species was found elsewhere in the universe with both advantages over Earth humans (eye sight, stamina, faster injury recovery) and weaknesses (vulnerability to heat). It was tied into a clear sexual attraction and repeated reminders that Sebaceans are not Human over multiple seasons.
But this isn't presented as a mystery box. Its not a reason for Suskillon being of interest to Pact World's xenoarchaeologists or groups trying to discovery the truth of the Gap.
With a single word "evolved" the author and editorial team lost credibility with absolutely nothing to gain.
there are definitely forces at work that seem to have an interest in seeding planets with certain organism templates
Xenocrat wrote:
plausible candidates for seeding planets with life from other planets without even involving gods.
Absolutely. 100%. We even know that elves, orcs, and humans have a common root because they can successfully reproduce to create viable children. Even if Oras were to intentionally create a species using humans as a template, humans would still be the genetic base.
There's elementals, and aliens, and Aeons, and the dark tapestry. There's the eldest from the first world, and gods, and ancient mythic 10 wizards with epic levels creating an destroying entire solar systems and permanent planes. There are countless ways Suskillon could have been seeded.
... and "we don't know how" is a perfectly valid reason. At PaizoCon panels its been pretty bluntly laid out for one reason why the Gap was written into the setting.
The problem is the following three words: "Sapient life evolved". If pre-sapient apes were transported to Suskillon millenia ago, they would not evolve into humans. They would evolved into Suskillons, which could be incredibly human-like but as they evolved from a pre-sapience root species would not be genetically compatible with humans.
That sort of "divine transpermia" could explain why there are so many human-like races. Damai for example could have evolved from transpermia-sourced apes or humans millenia ago. Despite some genetic adaptations for vision and variant hair/skin tone they are essentially human, but we don't call them human, we call them Damai.
I'm shocked that in the months since this was published nobody raised an alarm.
Fate of the Fifth, page 62 wrote:
Sapient life evolved on Suskillon millennia ago and has long since adapted to the planet’s unusual weather patterns. Humans make up the vast percentage of the population and have spread across the entirety of the planet.
Patrick Brennan and the editorial team that worked on this - I'm calling you on this incredibly sloppy phrasing.
Established in Reign of Winter, humans exist in other galaxies. Since this was published many of us tie this together with humans evolving on Earth and transported to Golarion somewhere toward the end of the prehistoric Age of Serpents. Once the gods and a reality warping chicken hut is in play, we can only respond with a nod and a shrug.
Since Starfinder is based on a fantasy setting we accept this, just as we accept that elves and orcs are both genetically compatible with humans and that elves arrived in the Pact Worlds through magical trans-galactic "elf gates". We can accept that dwarves were created through divine means using humans as a rough template, gnomes from a pre-reality dimension where imagination replaces the laws of physics, etc.
However, all humans in the Starfinder setting come from Golarion. Pact Worlds humans came directly from Golarion during the gap and Azlanti come from ancient Golarion during the Age of Legend. The humans of ancient Golarion arrived on that planet at some point after evolving sapience.
I could accept that the human natives of Suskillon have a trans-galactic origin separate from either pact worlds humans or azlanti humans. I can accept that pact world humans used an unknown means to settle Suskillon during the gap much like the humans of the Marixah Republic. But there is absolutely no way humans "evolved sapience" on Suskillon without rewriting the history of humans in Starfinder.
Any other species evolving sapience on Suskillon would have to be an entirely separate species and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, just give them funny forehead ridges and call them Suskillons.
The chronicle sheet for this scenario refers to its sequel as #2–07: The Stumbling Society, Part 2: Sangoro’s Gifts, however Paizo's website refers to the sequel as #2–08.
Yea, there's some iffy areas around these parts and a lot up to GM interpretation.
Generally, I say that society characters CANNOT participate in campaign mode. This keeps the rules a lot simpler and avoids society characters from getting tied up in a non-society game.
However, when Will Riker is a Starfinder Society member, and his clone "Tom Riker" is in Azlanti space fighting space nazis, there is no conflict. It keeps the rules systems cleanly separated and, most of all, avoids mixing society and non-society PCs in an adventure.
We often see the opposite too; a new player joins society play after a home game fizzles out. They may have some AP chronicle sheets from that home game, and they ask about "bringing in" their beloved home game PC to society play. My advice is always the same - create their clone.
At some point before their first adventure there was an accident and there were suddenly two of them. One went off on a grand adventure, the other joined the Starfinder Society.
Of course the best is when players take advantage of "play any race you want" in campaign mode and create wildly different characters than any of their society PCs.
I’m low on amount of Starfinder played/run still. Working on it, but haven’t even really read the basic AP plots.
Good news - there's only 4 AP series out (the 5th just started) so you don't have much to read. All the AP synopsis are available from https://paizo.com/store/starfinder/adventurePath
I wasn’t aware there were Stellifera boons floating around (pun intended). They look pretty interesting.
They're on a chronicle sheet. Three guesses as to which one.
"Three guesses" - cute, since you need to play 3 specific adventures to unlock them. Stellifera come from the Azlanti star empire and the chronicle sheets are in a separate free download on the product page.
Many Starfinder players who play the series in home games still don't know chronicle sheets are available for APs even when not played with society characters. We regularly get new SFS players who played through APs and are unaware that they qualify for chronicle sheets.
Tonight we had 8 people signed up for my AP7 table - 3 playing their first Starfinder game, 4 veteran players who've all played AP7 at least once. Normally we'd find someone to GM and run a second table of the same adventure, but as an experiment I did something new: run it as a multi-table game. It worked out really well.
We switched to running AP7 in "campaign mode" to legally incorporate some modifications and house rules: two tables would run as two starship crews delivering supplies to Nakondis. The teams were balanced out using skittermander pregens from Skitter Shot along with level 1 Raia and Kesk.
Part 1 both teams would make their own way to Madeline's Landing with the encounters in different order so my one copy of AP7 maps could be shared.
Part 2 players could switch tables to divvy up into 2 teams tackling the missions faster, ending in an epic scene where
in case you haven't played AP7 yet:
one table worked on releasing the hobgar outside as a distraction while the other team infiltrated through the secondary staging back door, then both teams combining to fight an amped-up CR5 Olaraja together.
Then for part 3, after delivering supplies the newbie table took on the final starship combat in tandem with the experienced table at the crash site - players had their choice based on whether they liked starship combat.
It was a solid 5 hour game for both tables that included players on comms with the other team including cross-table RP, strategizing, and aid. Some more thought will be needed to continue the experiment into AP8/9 but given the player feedback I think we'll give it a shot.
Clarifications over XP/Fame rewards are among the most important, especially at a convention with out-of-town players (whereas tracking them down for corrections is especially difficult)
Ok so there's an "instead" word in the boon itself. Is it instead of the 4 Fame, and/or is it instead of the 2 Reputation:slotted and 2 Fame awarded by the scenario?
Eg
Not a scoured stars veteran: 1 XP, 2 Reputation:slotted, 6 Fame (2 plus boon adds 4)
This seems completely wrong, but the scenario seems to imply that unless a PC is a Scoured Stars Veteran they receive 0 XP for playing through this special?
Also... um, Fame awards seems insanely convoluted. As a baseline the success conditions section on page 48 says everyone gets 2 fame and 2 reputation with their slotted faction (and specifically doesn't say anything about XP).
So is it 6 (2+4) fame if applying the first benefit from Overcome the Past, or 7 (2+5) if the second? If the boon would otherwise override the fame benefits then it doesn't make sense for the 2 fame to be listed at all.
Not entirely true. When I submit someone for a VO appointment/promotion, it is effective immediately.
That's a nice sentiment but functionally untrue.
Case in point: I put the pending VL title on the PaizoCon 2019 volunteer sign-up with a note that it was still in processing, and received an email that the VL status wasn't considered because it wasn't processed yet - nor was I invited to the VL/VC dinner or any other VO functions.
I'm not addressing here who's fault this is or how to fix it, I'm only giving realistic expectations to someone interested in VL status so when their application sits untouched for a year or more they don't take it personally - like I was until learning how broad the problem actually is.
To manage expectations - even when your VC sends multiple requests for your promotion it'll remain pending for a year or more (and the application may get lost more than once).
Paizo Organized Play is notoriously dysfunctional - especially when it comes to officer promotions. I was first put in for VL last spring and I'm still waiting - and I have been told by people in multiple regions that this is typical.
The last email I received on it was from December 2018 saying it'll hopefully be processed by holiday break. That was 8 months ago. When I talked to another GM about this at PaizoCon she told me she's been waiting for 3 years for her VL status to be processed - and the familiar drama of it being repeatedly lost and resubmitted multiple times.
So if you do go for it, expect it to be a lengthy process and don't take it personally.
Ok, so back to the first post of this thread -- where should we download the new starships PDF?
SFS Guild Guide v2.0 page 9 wrote:
More information on these boons and customizing ships is presented in the Starfinder Society Starships document.
SFS Guild Guide v2.0 page 23 wrote:
STARSHIP
The Society provides Starfinders with starships as needed. See the Starfinder Society Starships document (included as part of the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide download) for more information on how starships work in the campaign.
This seems to imply that the zipfile was intended to have a second file in it, however it contains only one file:
* Does the character buying the boon need to have 4 fragments on that character?
It does seem to read that way, and it makes sense - why would a character who hasn't participated in those adventures be able to receive that boon?
You can always use the SS:J "Seeker of Knowledge" replay boon if your segments are too spread out. Or GM them!
I really like this part. It gives extra credit for GMs (ie, many of us have two copies of all 8 chronicle sheets already) and encourages the use of the "Seeker of Knowledge" boon for its thematic purpose; revisiting the sequence of events leading to and resolving the scoured stars incident.
Lau Bannenberg wrote:
* Do you need to have all 8 fragments on the same character to get the max benefit?
I don't believe so, consider this text:
Guild Guide 2.0 page 40 wrote:
A player’s possession of Journey to the Scoured Stars segment boons can be across multiple PCs, but a specific numbered segment counts only once toward the player’s total number of segment boons.
But I agree with you the text is somewhat confusing, especially in the dual meaning of "you" and "if" instead of "when", eg "You gain 1 extra Resolve Point. Ifyou’ve collected all eight segments, then this increases to 2 Resolve Points."
In which case is "you" here the character or the player, and "if" indicates a condition evaluated when you purchase the boon for a character, where "when" would answer your next bullet cleanly;
Lau Bannenberg wrote:
* If you gain more fragments after buying the boon, can you change your choice? (Probably not.)
This would make sense but great to have official clarification.
Since it only adds to the benefit, not changes or really a "choice" - I'd guess that if you have the boon purchased for a character and you later receive more segments then the PC(s) you've already applied it to get the greater benefit.
The Society provides Starfinders with starships as needed. See the Starfinder Society Starships document (included as part of the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide download) for more information on how starships work in the campaign.
It looks like the starships were intended to be included as a separate PDF in the zipfile, but whoever packaged it failed to include both PDFs.
Might I suggest Community Use packages might be more appropriate since that's where pregen sheets are found? Or at least upload it there, too?
Yea but that one is specifically applied at character creation.
Its possible that the guild guide v2 will unlock the minor faction "Manifold Host" (distributed as a GM boon at certain 2017 conventions) for everyone, and the capstone boon for that faction is allowing you to slot a second non-race personal boon for an existing PC.
I was able to apply several organized play store vouchers and extra products to this month's subscription to get the order total over $100 for the $10 off shipping deal, but the shipping total wasn't reduced. With $8.03 shipping it should be reduced to $0.
Can you adjust accordingly?
Also the voucher total was $80 but only $77.01 was deducted (I'm not going to lose sleep over $2.99, but its odd).
Has to be Archivist. It fits with joining the Aspis Consortium, being interested in religious relics, having a connection to Athaeum, and seeking out Mentrasi relics.
A preservation herald, I think would be focused on trying to resurrect the Mentrasi and save as many of the people from the scoured stars civilizations as possible. They'd be diametrically opposed to the Jinzul's acts of genocide (and almost certainly are, we'll see in 2-00!)
And nomenclature.. well I'm not sure what that herald would be doing right now but I'm fairly certain it wouldn't be collecting religious artifacts or helping the Starfinders.
You can only have 1 bonus copy of a chronicle from replays. In other words, if your -701 plays Live Exploration Extreme normally, you can only ever accumulate one additional bonus chronicle from a replay. So now your -702 happens to be SCS (Jadnura) and has tier one. They can then play Live Exploration Extreme, resulting in your first bonus chronicle for the same scenario. Now, you REALLY love Live Exploration Extreme, so you make a -703 and get them to tier 1 of SCS (Jadnura) so that you can play it again. You can't.
This would be true if the Seeker of Knowledge boon was a replay similar to a Nova replay. Read the boon's text more carefully:
SFS Guild Guide v1.1 p35 wrote:
Benefit: You can use this boon once for every Reputation Tier you possess with the Second Seekers (Jadnura) faction. Each time you use this boon, you can replay one scenario you’ve previously played as though that scenario had the repeatable scenario tag. This allows you to earn a Chronicle sheet and all associated rewards with the scenario, though you cannot select a scenario you’ve already played with this character.
The repeatable scenario tag allows you to replay a scenario once for each PC:
SFS Guild Guide v1.1 p10 wrote:
Repeatable Scenarios: Some scenarios are designated as repeatable, having the Repeatable tag in the product tag listing. Characters playing in these scenarios collect a Chronicle sheet and associated rewards, regardless of whether the player previously played the scenario.
Now that many people have unlocked the Wayfinders capstone boon, I'm putting together an all-Ghibrani party for a unique replay of SFS #1-03: Yesteryear's Truth.
Group backstory being one or more husk PCs discovered of an unfinished Drift ship in the ruins of Omathu, recruited some more adventurous membrane PCs with the necessary skills to repair and fly it. They launched, navigating to the strongest drift beacon they could find (the Starstone), but during the trip their navigational computer suffered data loss preventing them from returning home.
It looks like we have 3 players right now, looking for others to join us.
I unlocked the Wayfinder capstone boon Alien Allies last night and reading the text more closely now that I can apply it. It appears to be two boons in one;
The first part appears to allow you to create a new PC using a race boon without it having to slot in your personal boon slot, so long as the other personal boon isn't a race boon.
The second part allows you to play a Ghibrani, specifically "You can play a husk or membrane ghibrani", and this doesn't seem be required when using the first part of the boon.
In other words, am I reading this correctly that we could (though I personally love Ghibrani and very excited to play one) combine this with any race boon to create a new PC? Eg combining the RSP 2019 GM boon with Alien Allies to create an Uplifted Bear PC while having that PC's personal boon slot available for any non-race personal boon?
If so it'd certainly encourage players who aren't as thrilled about playing a Ghibrani to reach the Wayfinders capstone.
Allowing GM credit three times, once per Tier, but not tied to the Tier they GMed would be ideal from my perspective, but please don't make the scheduling of a special even harder by only allowing GMs credit in the Tier they GM.
Normally when you GM a scenario and choose which PC to apply credit to, you fill out the chronicle sheet as if you had played it at the subtier the GM's PC falls into.
Ie the last time I ran #1-99: The Scoured Stars Invasion it was in subtier 7-8 but I applied credit to a level 2 PC which had a Seeker of Knowledge boon, and I only received subtier 1-2 credit - not subtier 7-8 credit. It was as if instead of GMing I was playing that level 2 PC at a subtier 1-2 table.
Therefore it shouldn't matter which of #2-00: Fate of the Scoured God's 6 subtiers the GM ends up running; its the level of the PC they're applying credit to that matters. I would assume you'll be able to play the scenario once at each of the 3 subtier groups, and apply credit for GMing to PCs in each of the 3 subtier groups.
As someone who typically ends up GMing I certainly hope GMs can apply credit once for each tier, just as players can. Otherwise it'll be harder to get people to GM more than once; many would rather play it at a different tier.
02-00A Fate of the Scoured God [Tier 1-4]
02-00B Fate of the Scoured God [Tier 5-8]
02-00C Fate of the Scoured God [Tier 9-12]
Or something like that. And you know people will use other versions of replays on it, too.
A/B/C might be confusing in light of PFS #8-99, but yea it'd be nice to differentiate the three tiers as separate scenarios. It'd be nice to have it spelled it out that for purposes of assigning credit that the scenario should be treated as three separate adventures.
Nova replays, Seeker of Knowledge, and others have minor mechanical differences - eg there's playing vs GMing for credit a second time.
If treated as separate scenarios then, without extra verbage, GMs who run the #2-00 special more than once can get credit once per subtier as per the PC they apply credit to.
Its pretty simple. Seeker of Knowledge treats a non-repeatable scenario as if it had the Repeatable tag for one chronicle sheet. GM should write "Seeker of Knowledge #1" (etc) at the top of the chronicle sheet.
A player pointed out something missing on the chronicle sheet today:
1-36: Enter the Ashen Asteroid:
Treasure: Connected to the ceremonial anvil by a metal chain
is a unique hammer whose form is reminiscent of an archaic
blacksmith’s tool. This frozen smith’s hammer functions as a
4th-level advanced one-handed melee weapon that deals 1d8
bludgeoning and cold damage, has the knockdown critical hit
effect, and has the powered special property (capacity 40,
usage 2). When used to strike the anvil, the hammer absorbs a
small amount of energy from the Solarian Stone, effectively using
no charges. The PCs can take the hammer by detaching it from
the chain (hardness 10, 5 Hit Points) with a successful DC 22
Strength check or DC 12 Engineering check.
He thought it would be perfect for his dwarf PC, and we were all a bit disappointed this didn't end up on the chronicle sheet. Was this an oversight, because it certainly feels like something that should have been included..
