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You'll have a chance to shop after the breifing.

Chapter 1. The First Mandate

Your return trip only takes five days in the Drift. Within two hours of emerging from Triune's plane, you receive a message from Starfinder HQ instructing you to make your best speed back to Absalom Station.

Final approach to the station is easy. You've been given landing priority and other traffic turns out of your way to provide a clear path. A small humanoid figure in tight fitting green armor with a helmet is waiting for you in the landing bay, and begins approaching the ship before it's even secured to the deck. When atmosphere is established in the bay and you open the door, the figure removes its helmet revealing the pale skin, and snow white hair of a bleachling gnome. The badge on her shoulder identifies her as a venture captain.

"I was sent down here to personally impress on you the importance of this task.
Grab just your essential gear and get to the First Seeker's Meeting Room ASAP. I'll have everything else sent to the quartermaster for you to pick up later. " She looks at her watch. " I have to go. I will see you again after the briefing."

She spins on her heel and strides purposefully toward the nearest hatch into the station proper.

Looking forward to playing with all of you again. As stated in the other thread, I won't be able to post until Wednesday, but you can all chat in the briefing room for this mission.

You've been summoned to the Lorespire Complex for a mission briefing with Venture Captain Arvin. The summons is exceptional in that it actually tells you something about the mission -- to pack for a long trip off-station.

When you arrive at the conference room, the door is open. The room itself is dominated by a large conference table and chairs. The table itself glows with images
depicting an unfamiliar planet and its tiny moon, all surrounded by data readouts.

Characteristically, the VC is late.

You have an opportunity to chat together until the VC arrives.

A safe place for discussion.

Hi, guys! I guess we can continue here in the discussion thread. Regarding builds and gear -- I might ask you for references if I don't have the sourcebooks for a particular class feature or feat or piece of equipment. Sometimes I am just too lazy to go look things up myself. No slights intended.

As stated earlier we're starting at second level. 2000 credits of wealth. Bog-standard SFS starting stats. All Paizo SFS sourcebooks accepted.

Dot in here.

Dot in here.

Splinter group from SFS Season 1 recruitment that wants to play just for fun.

Hello, and welcome to the Scoured Stars Story Arc recruitment thread.

I hope that we'll all be friends. As Therenger pointed out at Flaxseed Station, this is a long term project, 2-3 years. I hope it addresses two of what I consider weaknesses in my largely PbP SFS experience. First is extremely random shuffling of the Starfinder teams. You run into situations like a planetary exploration expedition with no life science experts. The second problem for me is a lack of social bonding among the players. I do love a comradely discussion thread, and it often reduces to "Hi!" "Pick your boons, and roll your day job." "Thanks for playing." Quite disappointing.

We have up to six slots. For now I am reserving one for a friend who has expressed interest.

There is plenty to discuss. The way levels are distributed throughout the story arc means we'll have to change characters sometimes. I believe the chronological order of story arc modules is:

The First Mandate (Levels 1-4),

On the Trail of History (Levels 3-6)

The Time Lost Tear (Levels 5-8) {Pregens or preexisting characters}

Honorbound Emissaries (Levels 7-10) {Pregens or preexisting characters}

The Scoured Stars Invasion (Levels 1-8) This one was a special -- we might run it for no credit, or maybe we'll work something out with an on-line con.

Treading History's Folly (Levels 3-6)
Heart of the Foe (Levels 3-6)

The Herald's War (Levels 7-10) {Pregens or preexisting characters}

If we're starting at level 1 we need 5 'extra' modules to hit level 3 on schedule for Trail of Tears. After that we're level-appropriate for Scoured Stars, History's Folly and Heart of the Foe. That would allow the same team of low level characters to run through 5 of the story arcs.

That's why Time Lost Tear, Honorbound Emissaries, and the Herald's War get run with pregens or other level-appropriate characters that you already have.

I am open to suggestions for other ways to approach the campaign.

Welcome again !

Hello, everyone. Come on into the discussion thread and introduce yourselves and your character.

I am a grognard. Been playing since the late 70's on and off. Living and working in the eastern US time zone, near Boston.

We've got three, but I'm hoping for more. We'll give them a chance to trickle in while I prep for the game.

I'm looking to start some time next week.

Oh. And dot into the game thread if you like.

Game thread here. Please dot in.

The conference room in the Lorespire Complex to which you've been summoned is on a higher floor than usual. Behind the door is a room richly appointed. A collection of chairs and sofas, some designed for humanoids, some not, surround a large circular crystal table. Real leather patterned in narrow swirling black and white bands covers the furniture. The species is unfamiliar, but it is definitely real leather, and not the synthetic substitute used in the lower floor conference rooms. Primitive sculptures from many cultures line shelves on the dark, wood-paneled walls. Again the wood has a texture and aura that synthetics seldom manage to imitate.

On a long table along a side wall is the remains of a conference feast, baked goods, simple proteins, dips, and coffee and various infusions. Judging from the size of the platters and the relative virginity of the remains, the feasters politely restrained themselves from eating half the food.

The view from the window looks out on the great crystal dome in the center of Absalom station. Above, the stars shine; below, parkland rolls to the next set of high rise towers.

Welcome, players.

I have purchased and started reviewing 1-32. There's a lot of prep here. Fortunately, Farol stressed the importance of role playing in his original post. Since you all jumped in on that basis, I'm sure that you won't mind if I leave you an empty conference room to chat in in-game, and this OOC space to help us get organized.

There are a large number of possible combinations of story elements, and I'd like to make the game as fresh as possible for you all. To that end please spoiler me what you remember about your previous runs through this scenario. Who was your dignitary, where did you go, what challenges did you face? If you haven't played this one yet, let me know that too.

For this game, with the emphasis on role play, I will not be pushing the pace. I encourage you to interact among yourselves liberally. Also, I urge you not to select a character that you wish to play in the next few months.

I just got slammed with work and will be very busy IRL for the next few weeks. I will try to maintain a two post per day rate for myself, but may not be successful. Hopefully all players can post 5-6 times per week on a roughly daily basis. If you foresee being unable to post for more than two days, please let us know. I will likewise notify you if I foresee an interruption in posting.

Welcome to Skittershot.

I'll be pulling together materials over the next week. Still planning to start soon after Christmas. I will try to get the skittermander's descriptions posted here tonight. Meanwhile you can discuss the upcoming game and which roles you'd like to play. You can also dot in to the game play thread.

The Dire GM, who ran the game for me, created links to some good resoources.

Pregen Character sheets

Dire GM's Dropbox with Jen McTeague's expanded character sheets, starship combat roles, and skitter facts.

I'll need the following information if you want SFS credit:

Player Name/Alias:
Organized Play # / Character # (that you want to apply this chronicle [b]sheet to - any level 1-2 SFS character is allowed)
What faction are you slotting for this adventure:
Do you have a promotional boon to slot for this adventure / what is it:

It's been a long sweep through a stellar quadrant relatively bare of salvage. That's meant a lot of down time and light duty, but Nako's noticed some bad signs. The boss, Captain Nakonechkin, owner of the salvage tug Clutch has been missing crew dinners. The vesk has been holed up in his cabin going over ledgers and anyone accidentally lingering by his door can hear the captain complaining about the price of fuel and the interest on the loan for the last overhaul.

Tonight, though, Nakonechkin has joined you for dinner in Clutch's tidy, compact kitchen and mess hall. The big vesk is quiet, picks at his food, and eschews his usual beer.

It seems that all links Starfinder (Beginner Box, Rulebooks, ... FAQ) on the Paizo home page require login. Although I doubt it matters, I'm running latest Firefox on Windows 7.

Welcome.

Let me test the recruitment thread link.

Edit: Success! We'll go old school.

Welcome to the recruitment thread.

I tentatively have four players already, Bigrin, phillipjcormier, Farol, and Nick Wasko. Happy to have a couple more. If you're interested, please post here.

Paizo's quick description for Cries from the Drift is:

A Starfinder Society Scenario designed for levels 1-4.

A missing Starfinder ship's distress signal would have gone unnoticed were it not for a passerby detecting it and selling the information to the Society. The PCs are to travel to the crippled starship, and once aboard, reach the bridge in order to piece together the tragic story of the vessel's lost crew. Only by unraveling the mysteries of the drifting starship can the PCs hope to uncover information critical to the Exo-Guardians future operations.

Scenario is tagged for spaceship combat and the Exo-Guardian faction.

I look forward to gaming with whoever I'll be gaming with.

Tom

Each of you has been summoned to a mission briefing by Zigvigix, the leader of the Exo-Guardian faction.

Please phantom dot this thread. This post is just a placeholder to help create the campaign on the boards. I'll provide a better kick-off post once we're all squared away.

I don't think this is quite the right place, but ...

The DM left this thread orphan.

A coterie of players, including me I guess, would like it to be inactivated.

Thanks.

Recently I've been required to log in every time I visit the Paizo page for PbP. Previously I was able to stay logged in for PbP purposes and only had to log if making a purchase or altering the account somehow.

Has there been a policy change? Or maybe a Windows update that changed my settings?

So, while trying to fit out my first SFS character I ran into the equipment chart. I am having a hard time rationalizing the item prices, especially armor and weapons.

Let's look at the first thing you see -- Basic melee weapons.

Club is arguably the best of the level 1 weapons, and it's free. The next basic melee weapon to do as much damage is the level 2 tactical dueling sword, and that would cost nearly half your starting wealth. Beyond that is the level 7 tactical knife. For 5905 more than you spent on a survival knife, you can do 1d4 more damage.

The level 1 advanced melee weapons are no better if you want to get to 1d6 damage or better. How mechanically is the longsword different from the tactical dueling sword? Aside from the extra cash required?

Small arms? Is there really no one in the star system making a laser pistol that would fall between level 1 and 6? I suppose we should be grateful that they charged less than 4000 units to add 1d4 to damage.

Many of the weapon names are just lame. Really they would have been better off with shotgun, level X in most cases. And tactical, yeah, that will make it all sound cool.

Sniper weapons! Oh, sorry your operative can't have one at first level. And why are they all Shirren-eye ? Are the Shirren's the only race to have snipers, or the first to conceive them, or do all the other races use Shirren eyes for target practice?

And what is with the chainsaws? It's like the game designers saw an old Doctor Who where Matt Smith said, "Chainsaws are cool."

Armor presents a bewildering array of inferior concepts at inflated prices. It's like the designers said, "We need to teach players about careful comparison shopping."

Comparing Estex (410) to Second skin (250), we see that it's worth 160 units to lower your EAC and KAC by 1 and increase your bulk for one additional upgrade slot. But ceremonial plate is only 110?! Admittedly the designers needed to throw the melee guys a bone, but they could have done that with extra starting cash and kept prices more rational.

And damage. PCs start with around 15 combined stamina and hit points. Yet most first level weapons do 1d4. Somebody better have high strength mods or low level combat is going to take hours.

A colleague of mine posted a query about rounding numbers and I am not at all sure about my reply which I've spoilered below. Am I even correct? And can anyone provide a concise easily understandable explanation? I am dissatisfied with my argument being based on an example rather than a principle.

Thanks in advance for your help.

I’m no mathematician, but I don’t understand why there needs to be this augmentation to the basic rounding rules that we all learned in first or second grade. If I’m given the instruction to round a given number to two significant figures, how does rounding a “5” up or down 50 % of the time making the rounding process more even?

Example:
Using the “original” method, I would round the value 0.220 to 0.22, 0.221 to 0.22, 0.222 to 0.22, 0.223 to 0.22, 0.224 to 0.22, 0.225 to 0.23, 0.226 to 0.23, 0.227 to 0.23, 0.228 to 0.23, and 0.229 to 0.23. That gives my five values that are round to 0.22 and five values rounded to 0.23. If I look at all of the possible values of 0.22 out to the forth decimal place, I would have 50 values that would be rounded to 0.22 and 50 values that would be rounded to 0.22, and this goes on and on in powers of ten for infinity. Are we forgetting that “0” is a number too? In the field of measurement science, the value 0.220 is not the same as 0.22.

So my question is, why is this method created in the first place and why should anyone feel it is necessary to use it?

The sun is barely a quarter of the way to its apex and the day is already hot. The air is heavy with moisture and the sweat that any motion raises struggles to evaporate from your skin, leaving wet stains anywhere clothing touches skin. Clouds over the great lake to the north hint at relief if the wind will veer and bring them south, but for now the town of Haltwhistle swelters.

Despite the heat the town is unusually busy. Lord Bradford Winehorn is on his procession through the countryside and is expected in Haltwhistle tomorrow or the day after. Winehorn's visits always produce an atmosphere of holiday. When he arrives, the day will be spent hearing petitions, but the evening will bring a potluck feast, games, and music. Local cooks, athletes and musicians will vie for popular and his lordship's acclaim.

As many locals as can escape their farms are in town to see the lord and enjoy the festivities. Because the first fruits of the fall harvest are already being gathered and stored, the town is not as crowded as it will be in two months with the harvest fair.

At the southeastern end of the main street a knot of citizens is struggling to erect a large open-walled tent. Along the main street merchants sweep the cobbles in front of their stores. Others string garlands of wildflowers or ivory and burgundy streamers, the colors of Winehorn's house, over the street and along their eaves.

Galifar's Rest, the local watering hole is already open; the darkness behind its windows promises a cooler welcome than the street. Sally Turner stops her cart, this late the cisterns must be empty and she needn't worry about any milk spoiling, and slips through the gaping maw of it's open double doors.

Toward the northwestern end of the street, Jerrick Butterfield welcomes a farm family who's brought part of their early harvest in.

Welcome. I am running a bit behind and the place is a mess, but come in anyway. We can chat here. Everyone can say 'hi.'

Work had me going late the past two days so I don't have the house rules quite organized.

A few notes:

Characters start at level 2, two traits.

Core Rulebook, other Paizo material by agreement. Portions of Dreamscarred Press' first Psionics book, by agreement.

20 point buy.

Max level 1 starting wealth plus a free light horse and basic tack. You may upgrade horse and tack by paying the delta.

A place to discuss sidebar discussions.

I've heard some tough stories about Houston traffic.

Thursday afternoon I will be visiting a prospective customer at the Woodlands north of Houston. My flight home leaves Houston Hobby Airport at 5:30.

Assuming the usual (get at the airport between 4:00 and 4:30 for the 5:30 flight), how late can I stay at the customers before I must leave to make my flight?

Please apply through this link.

Sunset over Riddleport, home to pirates and theives, intersection of sea and mountains, crossroads of Shoanti, elf, and Varisian cultures, long shadows stretch from the Calphiak Mountians over the city to expire on the ridge east of town. Above the sky is still a rich blue and the clouds gleam white. To the south the harbor is a metallic grey, lightening as it sweeps through the arch of the Cyphergate to the horizon until it rivals the azure sky. Even the Blot, the dark cloud that has hung over the city for months is gone today.

At zenith a star blossoms, barely visible, small, only as bright as the moon, but growing rapidly in brightness and intensity. In a heartbeat it's as big as the sun and as bright and it seems inevitable that it must impact Riddleport. Another heartbeat and it's angling south of Riddleport. It disappears for an instant behind the Cyphergate then strikes the ocean on the horizon between the legs of the great arching artifact. A plume of dust rockets skyward.

The wind slowly tugs at the top and middle of the plume, spinning it out into a gauzy brown lace across the face of the clouds.

A crowd soon gathers on the waterfront. People are staring out at the sea and starting to talk about the great falling star and what it might portend when they are treated to new wonders. With a sudden rising motion the ground shakes. A massive thunder-like boom cuts through the dull rumble of the earthquake. The water level in the harbor drops rapidly. Many ship's keel ground. Below the oldest docks a massive hoary bunyip is left exposed on the mud and rock bottom as are many fish. Water stands in the main channel but the shallows are left bare.

Bunyip - like a leopard seal on steroids.

Know(nature) DC 20:

A meteorite lands on an island south of Riddleport and the race for the valuable sky-metal is on.

We're looking for one, two, or three players for Children of the Void , the second chapter of the Second Darkness AP. I'll be running the game as a oneshot.

The adventure is basically a treasure hunt. The current party consists of druid, wizard, and barbarian. Meet them here.

Please post submissions in this thread. Rough concept, motivation, and background are all that are required. Player's Guide or PRD content only, although special requests may be entertained if you leap through enough hoops.

OOC thread for Children of the VOid.

Character generation - 3rd level, 1 trait, Wealth appropriate to level. (Could someone look up the number?) 20 point buy or roll 4d6 six times keeping best three and arrange them in order desired. (Floor for rolling is an equivalent 16 point buy.) Max HP at first level. Roll thereafter, there is a floor for hit points of about 25% of max for levels above first.

Given this is a one shot starting at level three let's give item creation feats a miss, but we'll work out something for any wizards. Also I have it in for Rapid shot and Multishot. They have higher prereqs than RAW. There won't be much opportunity to exercise Leadership.

Feel free to ask for clarification of any of my rather foggy, ill-worded house rules.

If you want to bring in other rules material, you may present it, we'll discuss it and I will consider it. I may allow it without reservation or provisionally with intent to playtest and possibly nerf it later. I may just say "NO!"

Keliwyn strides the broad avenue of Marshal's Way. He is late for the dinner with Darthen and his other new companions in arms, detained by Silas Masani, a low-grade contact who always has "the best tip" to sell, but whose information is seldom accurate, but spectacularly good occasionally. Perhaps he makes it up when he needs money and doesn't have real news to sell. This evening's offering was the presence of a new gang of assassins in town, as if the Cerulean Society, Korvosa's sole crime syndicate would allow competition. Keliwyn made the customary assurance that he would check it out and get back to him if the information was worth anything.

The elf turns down Griffon's Lane and his shadow stretches down the hill in front of him. Six or seven more blocks and he'll be able to relax among friends.

The sending is characteristically terse. Keliwyn, come to Bower House immediately. The ambassador calls.

Still out there, man?

Akorian:

Raevanis:

Marrius and Waifrin:

Mother Vangelis:

Zarabeta:

Hogarth, Wellard, welcome aboard. Waiting to hear from Xaaon.

Wellard, if you vouch for Dabbler, he's in.

Ran an encounter at low levels against undead. The cleric channelled, and rolled well. So far everything is great.

But when looking up effects I ran into a few questions. First, in the channeling description, does "30' burst" mean diameter or radius? Second, undead failing their save flee for x rounds. Great but details? Did they get the frightened condition? What if the rooms walls or a hazard block their flight? Would they flee into a fiery chasm? Do they cower as in 3.5? If they can't flee and the cleric closes to melee range do they snap out of it as in 3.5?

I'm a bit suspicious about those results from the dice roller -- there are 4 natural 20s in there!

I don't think its statistically any worse than what I get out of Invis Castle, but my rolls are on the low side.

The party is moving along a narrow ravine in rough terrain.

Please give me a marching order and 3 perception checks each.

Morning comes to the Grey district of Korvosa, and with it time to rest. The clergy of Pharasma gathers in the Dawn Hall after a sleepless vigilant night. Such nights are not uncommon for those entrusted with insuring the dead are not disturbed from their eternal peaceful sleep, but three such nights in a row is uncommon.

Stannus assumes the chair at the head of the table in Bishop d'Bear's stead. There are mutters of annoyance, resentment, even loathing, among the clergy. For him to do so three mornings in a row is also uncommon. What can be keeping d'Bears so long at the King Eodred's sickbed?

As usual when Stannus presides, the ritual reading is brief The day's inspirational sermon, even more so. Assignments and business for the day quickly become the primary topic. The Pharasmen break up to sleep or attend their duties as directed. As usual when Stannus presides, the Temple feels more like a barracks.

Stannus is a conundrum to most of the community. He does not approach the faith with the equinamity usual in Pharasma's devotees, but instead has an overriding mission to seek out and destroy the undead. He is nearly fanatical in this. During d'Bears infrequent absences, the temple does indeed become something of a military camp organized against the dead that walk to the diminuation of the other aspects of Pharasma, comfort in grief, healing, and new life.

Having been given no instructions, Istas assumes she is free to seek out her pallet and rest. She rises from her meal and is turning to leave when Stannus speaks, "Shote girl." (Shoanti girl, Stannus is an uncommonly arrogant Chelaxian.) "Round up two noobs and make a sweep of the Potters Ward. There was movement down there last night, but Lily couldn't pin it down."

Until they open an offcial spells forum....

Tables for Aura strength definition should be located near the Detect spells.

In creating charcters with the pathfinder rules, I do like the streamlined skill system. Class skills get a +3 modifier; cross class skills don't. It's simple and gets you about where the old system probably did anyway.

But I feel constrained by the limited number of skills available at first level. I like a wide range of skills reflecting the character's history to date at first level. Therefore I propose the following change:

You get twice as many skills at first level as on the others.
Class skills get a +2 modifier.
You can put a number of ranks equal to your level+1 into a skill.

I think it widens the choices at first level, is still simple, and keeps the same limits as Jason's system. One downside is abuse by players seeking to get as many +2 modifiers as possible.

Not sure if this is the right place, but.....

I've never been a big fan of AoOs. As other people have written, I feel they tend to slow combat.

While I don't go as far as many of the fighter advocates, I do think they need a little extra.

Therefore, why not require a feat for players to make AoOs and give fighters (and the other martial classes, if you like) the ability as a class feature?

I await the fire storm.

Hi, my group is just finishing up a long intro and preparing to start CoCT proper. We've had a couple players drop out and the group could use a little more spell power. Its my first PbP and I'm learning a lot about running a game this way, I hope. The players are a great group of guys. Posting frequency is running a little less than 1/day with slow weekends.

3.5 Core books, added material by special arrangement. Check out the game thread and the discussion thread.

New players welcome.

Korvosa wakes under a leaden sky. A muggy heat drives night's coolness away by noon. To the north a light rain is falling, cooling the wretches of Thief Camp. By noon some Korvosan's are even a bit jealous, but they can not command the weather.

Welcome. And thanks for hanging with me. Posting will be difficult for me until after Christmas, that's why the January start date in the initial post. Losing the long post last Thursday or Friday was very depressing, too. I've been thinking about my idea with your characters in mind. I'll need to make some changes to fit your characters better. That's cool.

I couldn't get working email from my friend the arcane caster, but that seems to be resolved now. Got to get him signed onto the boards here.

Let me grab the first character I see and start reviewing. Please talk about your ideas of Korvosa based on the little teasers Paizo has put out.

Oh. And even if your character is statted up, you're not done yet. Please take 6 skill points and put them into a useless knowledge, profession, or craft skill or two. Just for additional flavor. Hopefully I'll be able to work it into the game.

Who's interested in a PbP set in Korvosa? Start with a home-brew side-trek then roll into Curse of the Crimson Throne. I'll tend to emphasize role-playing and character interaction because it will help make up for rusty DM skills.

4 to 6 players. Two spots already reserved. One for a friend of mine in his first PbP. He's thinking arcane caster. Another for TheOcho, who might be thinking urban ranger or some such.

Details, details. Core books/SRD only to start. Other options possible by special arrangement, but unlikely. I'll be trying to post daily during the work week, infrequently on weekends, and would like the same commitment from the players. I travel fairly freqently on business though so there will be short announced gaps in my posting schedule. Play to start in January, but I'll want player concepts (not full stats, history and equipment)before Christmas so I can customize my sidetrek to the characters.

Here goes.