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Logan Harper She/Her wrote:


Hi,

So that order was being a little finicky so I went ahead and moved it over to order #36738962. I was then able to apply your store credit for you and your updated payment method was successfully authorized for the remaining amount. You should be receiving an email confirmation here shortly as well so please let me know if anything still looks incorrect.

Looks great, thanks for the quick fix!


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Logan Harper She/Her wrote:


Hi,

When an order is placed, we immediately authorize your card to ensure that it can be charged when we ship or fulfill your order. An authorization is a non-monetary transaction that merely checks with your bank to ensure that the card is valid and has sufficient funds. Each time you retried the card, or we retried to process the order, your bank was pinged. When this happened your bank put a temporary hold on the funds, which can look like a pending transaction on your end.

Your card was declined because it did not pass the address verification system check. This indicates that there is a discrepancy between the information entered for the card on Paizo.com and the information your bank has on file for the card. Because the card was declined we cannot finalize those authorizations. If not finalized authorizations expire and the holds are released. I do see the order trying to use store credit, are you wanting to apply store credit to this order?

I have reversed the authorizations on our end but please allow some time for it to be reflected in your account :)

Hmm, I have no idea why the card would not have worked. I moved 2 months ago, but I've had two subscriptions come out since then, I think. At any rate, I would like to still use my store credit, yes, and I have switched to a different payment account, so hopefully that one will go through.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

This has been flagged as payment declined on the Paizo side of things, but the pending charge is listed on my account and I don't see any reason why my bank would decline the charge (nor did they send me any alerts that a charge was declined). I'm wondering if this is something to do with it trying to apply store credit?


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Something else that's worth noting is that in this form, as written, it seems like construct companions don't have the limitation about only using land speed when being ridden that animal companions do. I may be wrong about this (and of course it could change in the final version), but here's what I've got:

There doesn't actually seem to be a generic rule that says that animals in general can't use fly/climb/swim speeds when used as mounts. The rule is under animal companions, and notes that an animal companion being used as a mount is limited to only land speed and cannot use its support ability and move in the same turn, unless the companion has the "mount" trait. As far as I can tell, this seems to mean that if a character can get a large enough flying (or climbing or swimming or whatever) creature to be willing to act as a mount, that works. It just can't be an animal companion. Please correct me if I'm missing something, but I've looked in a few places and I can't find a more generic version of the limitation that animal companions suffer.

If I'm right about that, then the fact that construct companions don't have the language about being limited only to land speed when ridden means that they might have a niche as being very effective mounts with non-standard movement types.

Of course, this may all be an oversight on my part, or maybe it's an inadvertent bug in the rules that will get patched out in the final version. That said, I do think there's a good argument to be had that the problem Paizo was probably solving with the animal companion movement restriction (early "at will" access to climb/fly speeds for characters with certain types of animal companions) is already solved by the fact that the modifications to get climb/fly speeds are level-gated already.


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Verzen wrote:
How exactly does it make sense to have a literal creature made of ice have zero resistance to ice and be vulnerable to fire? That's like saying an Ice Mephit isn't resistant to ice. It would make zero sense. Without these mechanical benefits, all the Eidolons will feel the same rather than unique manifestations.

Because despite the fact that it LOOKS like it is made of ice, what it actually is made out of is just a magical essence bound with some ectoplasm to replicate facsimile of a particular form? Like, that's actually the description of what an eidolon is, right?

As for them feeling the same, that's just not true. If I have an eidolon that LOOKS like it is made of ice, will people/enemies/players interact with it in the same way that they would if it LOOKS like it is a lion with an ant's head, or if it LOOKS like an animated pile of children's toys, or...?


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BACE wrote:


Does this mean that your eidolon at level 1 can't look like it has armor or a tough hide? No. Of course not. It's flavor text. It's saying "Hey, here are some ways you might want to flavor this in-character." It's not saying "Your eidolon can't have armor or a tough hide without this feat."

It's flavor text.

The problem is that Verzen and others ARE saying that the flavor text "flavor" should be tied to the mechanics, and this has been my experience with how people use flavor text from first ed Pathfinder as well.

Heck, just look up thread when people were objecting to the flavor description of a barbarian rage because they felt that a different flavor description MUST have different mechanics to justify it.

Or even more recently when Verzen implied that there's something wrong with saying that a monk dwarf is wearing something that looks like studded leather armor even though he is not, in fact, wearing studded leather.

And, just so everyone is on the same page, the problem with the flavor text etc. is not that it limits the way in which you can describe your eidolon as looking extra tough. The problem is the idea that once that "extra tough" mechanic option exists, people will say that you cannot describe your eidolon as looking "extra tough" at all without taking that mechanical option to back up that flavor.


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Verzen wrote:


So if I say, "Well, my dwarf monk LOOKS like he has studded leather on, so why do we need to have actual studded leather?"

And no one is saying you can't have a phantom that looks like it has armor on or a beast that looks like it has scales. This is just providing a mechanical advantage for those who want it.

Yes, if you want to say that your dwarf monk is effectively cosplaying as a rogue with non-functional studded leather, that is totally, completely, 100% fine and good and interesting and allowed. You don't get an item bonus to AC for the fake armor, though. It's just a quirky character detail, and that's it. It probably allows for some cool roleplay moments (why does the Dwarf dress that way?

Is it just a style? Is he trying to hide from his past?) so that's awesome, and there's no reason why I wouldn't want to just run with it at the table. Please explain to me why this is in any way bad?

With regards to the limitations on descriptions, again, YOU ARE SAYING EXACTLY THIS. You are on record that an Ice eidolon without cold immunity or a construct eidolon without construct traits should not be allowed. Saying "you can't have the appearance of ice without rules to back it up" is not different from saying "you can't describe your monk dwarf as wearing something that looks like studded leather without it actually having the mechanics of studded leather" or "you can't describe your eidolon as looking tougher and more durable without taking the evolution feat that gives +1 AC"

Verzen wrote:


It also feels bad to say.. have an undead Eidolon skeletal warrior looking guy but have NONE of the undead traits associated with a skeleton and to "just use your imagination"

No, it doesn't. At least, not to me. What feels bad is being told "You can't flavor your Eidolon as looking skeletal because for balance reasons the undead type gives enough mechanical benefit that really you should have to be level 4 before you can take it".


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Verzen wrote:


Yeah. It kinda is. I am and have been since the beginning suggesting something similar to evolution feats that the Eidolon picks up at the same rate as a martial but instead of Ancestry, class, skill, general feats, the Eidolon can pick evolution feats in its place. But not many of you want to actually address this. Instead, you guys come out with arguments such as, "Well, I don't want to have to take a feet for multiple legs!" .. no one says that's in the cards with my idea.. "Well, I don't want to have 8 different attacks!" .. no one says that's in the cards with my idea.. "Well, I don't want to outshine the martials!" .. no one says that's in the cards with my idea.. The only legit argument against it is book space. Sure. It would take a lot of book space. But I'd much rather have that than something that I personally feel is a boring class that I'd just outright ignore its existence, which is a shame since PF1 APG summoner was one of my favorite classes just based on concept alone. I made Eidolons that were specifically underoptimized as well, just so I can have that class fantasy being utilized. When unchained came out, I didn't touch the unchained summoner except for once, when the twinned archetype came out. And that was it. It just didn't interest me.

No, it objectively isn't. Again, the core, root, necessary assumption that underlies your proposal is specifically that "more customization" is the same as "more mechanical distinctions". That is what I am objecting to.

You cannot propose examples of feats that say things like

Armored

The Eidolon has tougher scales, is wearing armor, or some other form of protection. Your Eidolon gains +1 status bonus to AC.

and then dismiss the criticism that this means that if I wanted to describe my eidolon as LOOKING like it has tough scales or armor, that narrative character choice is now suddenly locked behind a mechanical option as "a strawman".

Point blank, you are being called on the assumption that describing an eidolon as being made of living ice MUST mean that the eidolon is immune to cold energy damage, vulnerable to fire damage, etc, and therefore if you cannot get those mechanics, you cannot describe your eidolon that way. All those things about having 8 arms and lots of eyes and so on are not non sequiturs, they are specific examples of things that work under a more generic system but would not work under yours for the same reason as you objected to a hypothetical ice eidolon.


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Verzen wrote:

Give me ONE reason why not.

Don't you agree the only reason the 1e system didn't work was because of the design flaw of 1) having X points to distribute as you wish and 2) having unequal power in evolutions?

Why wouldn't it be balanced and more interesting if they could pick X from a 1st level list, X from a 2nd level list etc like spellcasters do and to make sure that the 1st level list is all relatively balanced? What's so wrong with that idea? No one has refuted it. You guys sound like you have nightmares about the original system and then rather revisiting the base concept and seeing if we can balance it, you guys just want to throw it out, which is not a good reason.

I've refuted it, multiple times, with clear examples and explanations.

The old system was bad not because of the power level imbalance between eidolons, it was bad because people insisted that there had to be mechanical differences between pincers and claws, or a tail slap and a tentacle slap, or what have you, and that becomes a straitjacket on concepts very quickly, because the mentality that says "I cannot feel I'm summoning a construct eidolon unless it has construct traits" is the same mentality that says "I cannot accept that YOU have a construct flavored eidolon unless YOU take the construct trait option".

Here's what is good about the current system: I say "My eidolon's main attack are a pair of bulky lobster looking claws with stony growths along the side. It uses these to bash enemies or crush them in its grip, so it does bludgeoning damage", and that's just... fine. That's totally fine, there's no concerns about that at all. Maybe someone says "it was a rock lobster!"?

Here's what is bad about the old system (and inevitable about a system like you propose): I say "My eidolon's main attack are a pair of bulky lobster looking claws with stony growths along the side. It uses these to bash enemies or crush them in its grip, so it does bludgeoning damage", and the response is "well, actually claws do slashing damage and are agile so have to be secondary weapons, but it sounds like what you are describing is maybe more like pincers than claws anyway, and pincers CAN be primary weapons since they're not agile, but to get them to do bludgeoning damage you have to get the versatile weapon option too, so that means your AC has to come down by one because you don't have enough options left to pay for the tougher armor you described there. Or, I suppose, you could just stick with the rocky look but say the pincers do piercing damage because of the sharp rock shards."

Basically, the fact that the flavor of the mechanics is left up to the player is a feature, not a bug. Having more mechanical options is fine (to a point), but tying those options to narrative/fluff options is not.


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Temperans wrote:

Both the Eidolons you mentioned where just a bunch of background that had no mechanical effects what so ever. It was all fluff.

Eidolon Evolutions should have a mechanical impact on how the eidolon works. And that just does not happen with the current system.

That's just objectively an untrue statement, though. There are for sure mechanical differences, in that they have different damage types and different skills (given the different backgrounds of their respective summoners). All of those have mechanical impact.

Furthermore, as the two characters grow, there are already a bunch of ways to develop them differently, both mechanically and more importantly as characters. More significantly, the two characters have different motivations, different behaviors, different priorities, different outlooks on the world, etc. All of these would have WAY more significant "mechanical" impact than pretty much any of the raw numbers on the character sheet.

Basically, to me it seems pretty obvious that "Draconic avatar of somebody's math thesis paper" is a very different character from "Crudely shaped Kobold idol with delusions of grandeur", despite the fact that they are both +6 to hit for the same base damage (though of different types).

I cannot understand the viewpoint that wants to throw the important part of the character (you know, the stuff like who they are, where they come from, what they look like, how they think, what their goals are, how they interact with others, etc) and cut as much of that out of the game as they can so that we can force people to only have as much characterization as they can find mechanical justification for.

I should not have to spend an "evolution point" on "natural appearance" or whatever just to justify saying my eidolon is an animated Kobold idol. I don't care that taking that hypothetical evolution gives the eidolon a +1 circumstance bonus on deception or stealth checks to appear as some inanimate object, because my vision for the character is that he's too proud to want to hide. Being forced to take an ability that doesn't fit with the actual character is the ultimate 'cool tax'.

It's a double whammy in that not only do I have to take a power that I don't really want or need, just for the "fluff" benefit, but it also likely trades off with a power or ability I DO want for the character, all because someone made the decision that an eidolon that looked like an animated rock pile would probably be good at hiding, so now that's the mechanical benefit tied to that description in order to make that choice "meaningful" (and that mechanical benefit has to be paid for, even if it's irrelevant to the actual character).

I especially don't want to be told I simply can't play the concept that I want because the natural appearance evolution has a minimum level requirement of 4th level, so until the character reaches that level, I cannot describe the eidolon as being made of natural materials, since obviously there is a mechanical benefit for that description which is too powerful for a starting character.

The crazy thing is that nobody seems to be disagreeing that the natural conclusion of "I want to tie character choices to mechanics" is that none of the concepts I've come up with can likely even exist in the world being proposed. Before you come at me with Stormwind fallacy, please note that literally in this thread are people arguing that players should not be allowed to describe rage in a way that seems mechanically consistent but thematically different than what they expected. You cannot say "if you like fluffy characters so much, just build your obtuse math dragon spirit with the more crunchy rules, there's no conflict there" and support "Your idea for a barbarian whose rage is more cold and focused can't be supported by the current rules, sorry".

This isn't even to say that I'm opposed to more options - indeed, I'm sure more will exist in the final book already, and I'm excited to see them. Those options need to stay generic, though. Instead of something like the old style of evolutions where they were a mechanical benefit tied to some narrative, just give the mechanical benefit and let players fluff it how they want.

For example, instead of having something like "your eidolon gets a +1 bonus on stealth checks to appear as a loose pile of stones and rocks", just have "Stealthy Eidolon: This eidolon gains a +1 circumstance bonus on stealth checks to hide". You might decide that for your eidolon this represents it having a chameleon-like ability. I might decide that for my angel eidolon (not normally known for stealth), it represents the fact that when it stands very, very still, it can be mistaken for a statue. Again those have very different "feel", despite the mechanics being the same. It isn't necessary to gatekeep the chameleon one behind having a base form that looks like a lizard, or the angel as statue behind a bunch of earlier evolutions that give damage resistance to represent being made of stone.


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Temperans wrote:


Both of the things you described have nothing to do with the mechanics of the class.

It does matter what convoluted backstory you come up with for the Eidolon if the mechanics for the Eidolon dont work.

The mechanics need to work otherwise that class is a waste of time.

How do they have nothing to do with the mechanics of the class? What other class allows you to have either of the companions I described, in any mechanical capacity? What system can you propose that would allow them to still be viable concepts at first level? The entire reason for the existence of the summoner class as it is presented seems to be to allow exactly the kinds of character ideas I'm suggesting, so I'm really not buying the idea that they are somehow not germane, or that the mechanics don't "work".

In fact, what I'm seeing is that even without considering the differences between phantoms, beasts, dragons and angels (and we can be sure there will be more choices in the final book), you can still create two completely different eidolons that would likely end up playing in totally different ways. It doesn't matter that their to-hit bonus and amount of damage is the same at first level, anymore than two str. 18 fighters going breastplate long sword and shield are "the same character".

Before you go on about the two fighters having different backgrounds that are mechanically supported, bear in mind that when you are mechanically defining the background of your summoner, you are mechanically defining the differences in your eidolons as well. For example, Argotharyx's summoner, Garvelyn Highboots (Halfling explorer at large) has a sporty, athletic background. This means that Argotharyx is trained in athletics as well, and so on the battlefield can sometimes take advantages of athletics checks to grapple (flavored as animating some of the vines holding him together, no less). Pythagoras' summoner, Cerillon, is much more bookish, so while Pythagoras isn't as physically adept, as he (and Cerillon) develop in power Pythagoras is likely to become relatively skilled in various scholarly pursuits as well (flavored as him slowly rediscovering is love of knowledge and discovery after centuries of drifting as an aimless mental echo).


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Verzen wrote:
Quote:
Given that, I have absolutely no problem looking you in the eye and telling you that point blank that the eidolon customization as it currently exists allows for approximately infinitely more meaningful customization for me than what you're suggesting, since it explicitly denies you (or any other players) the ability to dictate the actual character of my eidolon to me (or anyone else) on the basis of your view of what the mechanics dictate.

With this logic, lets just get rid of classes and levels entirely.

Leave all of your abilities up to imagination. Want a flaming sword? You got that. It deals 1d8 damage. Just pretend it's fire damage.

No, what I'm saying is that I should have the authority to describe things like the ways in which my character expresses emotions like rage, instead of having to explain to someone how/why my character's experience of rage is different from what they are used to.

What I'm saying is that if I want to describe my character's produce flame cantrip as making blue fire, I should get to do that without having to point to some random class feature or feat or whatever to justify it. Just let the fire be blue, and move on with your life.

I'm saying that if I want to describe my leather armor as having very fine stitching, despite being of common material, instead of hemming and hawing and grumbling about "did you make a craft check for that?" just file that away as the minor character detail that it is, and don't say "well, because you described a thing in a non generic way, I'm going to have to make you pay a cool tax".

I'm saying that instead of creating a world in which you respond to "My eidolon is a serpentine mix of centipede and deep ocean crustacean, with two crushing crab claws and a pair of rasping mandibles as his bite", instead of you saying "Hmm, that sounds like it should have the evolutions for a carapace, a bite, two pincers (not claws, those are different), multiple legs and probably amphibious too, all on a serpentine base chassis which offers just a bite from its base evolutions - how are you affording that all at first level?" you should shrug and go "Okay, sounds cool, let's start playing".


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Temperans wrote:

You are not thinking of it correctly.

The body shape of the Eidolon is the bare minimum that you have without evolutions. Evolutions should be what determine what the Eidolon actually does.

Your Eidolon has a snake body, but what does it do? In PF2 its does exactly the same as every other Eidolon.

However, Evolutions would allow your snake Eidolon to constrict the enemy. Meanwhile my Snake Eidolon is flying around. And a third person's Eidolon is using a poisonous bite.

Evolutions having a cost of not letting you do other stuff is not a negative, its part of what allows them to give powerful effects by spending greater amounts of Evolution points.

I said twice and I will say it every time. Familiar options are a weak version of Eidolon Evolutions. The fact Eidolons dont have such a subsystem is like spitting in the face of old Summoners.

Here are two 1st level Dragon Eidolons I thought up earlier today:

Pythagoras is the mental echo of a scholarly blue dragon whose mind got lost wandering the plane of Axis in the vain pursuit of a "Perfect truth" that could unify all the laws of the multiverse. He formed a bond with his summoner, a young half-elven scholar, when the youth attempted to cheat on a conjuration exam by stealing Pythagoras' journal and notes from the forbidden section of the library and attempting to copy the rituals within. Now pulled back to the material plane by the soul bond between the two, Pythagoras has taken on many of the characteristics of the axiomites native to Axis, and thus appears mostly solid until he moves, in which case his form starts to fragment into arcane sigils and math expressions. His main attack is to slash at an enemy by manifesting an expression of pure truth from his body, and his secondary attack is to bludgeon nearby enemies with agile clouds of fragmented possibility.

Argotharyx was god. Well, A god, anyway. Unfortunately, the kobold tribe that worshiped him died out before the strength of their belief in the crudely shaped dragon idol could fully manifest, so he sat as a nascent power, locked in stone and wood until an explorer stumbled across his shrine in while exploring the ruins in the caverns once occupied by his people. The tiny respect that the halfling paid to the relic of his people was enough to surge him back into life, and he seized upon the hapless adventurer as his first new disciple. His main attack is a bludgeon with the vine wrapped stones that form his tail, and his secondary attack is a vicious piercing stab with the lashed together wooden spikes that form the frame of his "wings".

Tell me how these are not meaningfully different ideas from each other, that wouldn't lead to widely different play experiences? Then tell me which would have been allowed with the 1e summoner under the paradigm that descriptions need to be tied to mechanics? Finally, tell me what mechanics you would assign to these so that you get the rules crunch that you (and plants) crave, but still would allow them to be viable first level characters?

That's what we're discussing here. You are thinking that because there aren't rules that I can point to that provides mechanical support for my descriptive choices, those choices are either meaningless or should be disallowed. I'm saying that the fact that I explicitly don't have to justify my descriptive choices allows far more real meaningful freedom to explore vastly different characters precisely because the mechanics are so generic.


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Keydan wrote:

It's a bit of disingenuous, really, when we both know that to make a level 1 barbarian with a greataxe to be like JW, and making a barbarian like, say, Randy Savage, then give these sheets to a 3rd person - everything on the character sheets, rage powers, backgrounds, feat and ancestry choices will all be different, except the greataxe, and the 3rd person will immediately see that these are different dudes. In my case we both made 1 choice and that's it, when in 1e that'd be like making 2 different barbarians.

I understand not everything can have perfect 1 to 1 mechanic transition. That's why I said balance of fluff and crunch. But look me in the eye and say that you have even 1/3 as much of say in what your eidolon can do and how he does it at level 1 as you did in vanilla pathfinder 1e. You know this is no barbarian character sheet comparison.

(I may even argue JW is a ranger with hunt pray)

(And sorry that current itteration of the game and it's current mechanical feedback can't facilitate a specific trope at this point in time, pathfinder 1e had a killer instinct cold hearted barbarian for that.)

(Lastly, there are games that are like your little barbarian experiment, they don't have crunch. Like dungeonworld. No crunch, still fun, everything is about the flow and consequences and abilities are more of if x the you can y. You can fight with pretty much whatever, monsters are obstacles and GMs don't roll any dise most of the time)

It's not disingenuous at all, because you and I don't (and can't) "know" that we would build the different character concepts differently, especially at first level, when there are plenty of options, but not infinite ones. There's nothing about my concept that necessarily points to a specific background or particularly disallows any choices, so I'm not sure how you can assume that it MUST be distinct.

Let me put it another way. Let's say we were both handed the exact same character sheet for a generic great axe wielding barbarian. Neither of us built the character, we were just handed the sheet with no description or context other than the basic names of the feats/heritages/features etc. and asked to play them in a way we felt was cool and interesting. You play your version of the barbarian and I play my version. Your explicitly stated view is that:

A) those characters end up being the same, since the difference in characterization is not backed up by mechanics and thus there can be no difference in how it feels to play as or with those two characters.

B) to the extent that there WAS a difference, it would be that I was playing the character "wrong" at best, and actively cheating at worst, because in your mind there are no mechanical justifications I can point to for why my character gets to be different than yours or make different choices in the course of play than you did.

This is not me twisting your words - you've clearly stated that you don't think my hypothetical style of barbarian can be supported in the current edition of the rules, so the necessary conclusion is that you think that I should be disallowed from describing my characters emotional state as anything other than what conforms to your expectations based on your narrow interpretation of what "rage" looks like.

Given that, I have absolutely no problem looking you in the eye and telling you that point blank that the eidolon customization as it currently exists allows for approximately infinitely more meaningful customization for me than what you're suggesting, since it explicitly denies you (or any other players) the ability to dictate the actual character of my eidolon to me (or anyone else) on the basis of your view of what the mechanics dictate.


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Keydan wrote:

It does because that's how the greataxe works and it's a great opportunity to add crunch to fit with your use of this mechanical implement.

What I am saying is, and I repeat myself, you can imagine ANYTHING, but there aren't many games that give your choices meaningful mechanical feedback. And even in your case, pathfinder is the kind of game that will or should give you mechanical satisfaction for that idea. The argument of "well what if I don't wanna" is exactly my argument, you should have the option to make a chocolate cake that taste like chocolate, but also a chocolate cake that tastes whatever you want and vice versa. Btw pathfinder 1e had that kind of cold quite scary barbarian as an option.

Put it this way, if you and me are taked with making an eidolon for a level 1 summoner, print them out... we both pick angel, and then we give them to a 3rd person without describing what we imagined. Say he knows the rules of the game, will there be any difference? He may even mistakenly give you my cheatsheet back. Because that's the whole lot of mechanical feedback he eidolon has for the most part, as far as what they do goes, they are the same. In pathfinder 1e? Even with unchained summoner, the amount of weird and fun stuff, with just base choices, was staggering. It was your eidolon, not only in the theater of the mind, which is all the rage these days, and more power to you, but also mechanically.

So, to be clear, if you feel that descriptions must be justified via distinct mechanics, how would you deal with my hypothetical (though actually increasingly a character I'm excited about) John Wick with a Great Axe character? Would you simply say that character cannot be a barbarian because my interpretation of rage as a cold merciless fury doesn't line up with your expectation of what rage looks like? Would you require I take some sort of penalty on damage because "Great Axes don't work that way"?

After all, assuming identical stats and equipment, if you gave my barbarian's character sheet and your barbarian's character sheet to a third person, and didn't give them any description of how the characters were different, they wouldn't be able to tell them apart, right? They would be mechanically the same, so even though my character has a different personality, different look, etc., they are fundamentally the same character, right? Sitting at a table with your character would not in any meaningful way be different than sitting down at the table with my character, because they both have the same class features, same equipment, and same stats, right?

Thus, if it is true that it FEELS like the characters are different, I guess the only options are to either admit that maybe it's not really true that mechanics define a character as much as you think they do (or should), or else scrounge up some arbitrary mechanical distinction between the two character concepts so that nobody gets the two characters confused with each other.


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Temperans wrote:


The difference is that Evolutions are not just 1 weapons.

Evolutions were Eidolon features just like classes have Class features. The Evolutions helped determined the fluff, not random cookie cutter features.

That's not even true on face - many evolutions were, in fact, literally just 1 weapon. But even to the extent that you think it has been true that descriptions should/need mechanical justifications, that doesn't mean it was at all good, or that we should return to it (or allow it to continue, as the case may be).

For example - what if I wanted to make a centipede style Eidolon for a first level character under the 1st ed system? How would I do that? Clearly I would choose a serpentine base form, right? But then what? I want to describe my Eidolon as having many legs, but none of the serpentine options for the unchained summoner have any legs at all. So, can I not describe it that way unless I add legs? After all, "legs" are a defined evolution with a defined cost and a defined benefit, so if I want to have legs, I should pay for them, right? Of course the "limbs" evolution is too expensive to add at first level, so I guess the entire concept is banned, because obviously it would be unfair to allow my Eidolon to have legs without paying for them.

Already we can hopefully see a problem - I don't necessarily WANT the mechanical benefit of the legs at all, I just want to be able to describe my fantasy monster in a particular way. I'm being shoe-horned into taking the legs because as soon as there is a mechanical advantage tied to a specific description, it becomes all but impossible for some (many? most?) players to accept the validity of a description that doesn't have those mechanics backing it up. It's not that scuttling along the floor on many short legs is inherently any more or less powerful than slithering across the same floor, it's that people buy in to the idea that there must be some mechanical distinction in order to make my choice of a centipede form over a snake form "meaningful", and that seems silly and pointlessly restrictive.


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Keydan wrote:


When you take a greataxe it has statistics of a greataxe, making it not only a greataxe in image but also unique in how it performs as a greataxe. Making you want to use a greataxe and not a maul or a greatsword. Because mechanically, not only is it a cool 2-handed axe, but also has a big die to roll for damage to represent it being a big heavy chopping weapon you swing around recklessly. And that is why I play and run pathfinder. This kind of mechanical feed back to your choices.

While your description sounds great for a classic "loud" raging barbarian, what if that's not the character I want to make? What if I want mechanically to use a great axe on a barbarian, but instead of being wild, reckless swings fueled by a roaring fire of fury, I want to play up the idea of "Fear the fury of a quiet man" angle with a John Wick style rage - cold, efficient and merciless. Just as violent and as immune to reason as the most over-the-top Conan clones, but focused and precise in application of that violence. Is that allowed?

Perhaps a better way of posing the question is this: Clearly, I have described a vastly different character concept than what it seems you had in mind when thinking about using a great axe. Does that difference in description require a difference in game mechanics to be "meaningful"?

* Venture-Agent

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⚠️Jeff Barnes⚠️ wrote:

It just occurred to me last night that I've never seen a player use vehicles in Society play.

Yeah, they're tough to repair mid-scenario without an Engineer with the right abilities, but running over someone with a L7 Tactical Walker for an average of 38 points (half with save) isn't bad. Especially given you have improved cover as well. Load up, run over, have the other 2 inside snipe from cover.

Am I missing something?

I have one character who has a police cruiser, but other than that there are few characters I see who bring vehicles. A few things I would suggest:

Pay attention to the size of the vehicle - obviously it matters for getting around in tight locations, etc., but it's also true that someone who is a real stickler might ask you how you are going to transport your vehicle out into the vast. TECHNICALLY IIRC the Pegasus and Drake hulls only have a single cargo bay, which by default can only carry objects up to size Large. It takes 4 linked bays to be able to carry an object of size Huge, and 8 to carry a Gargantuan object. The rules do say that GMs can override those limitations if they wish (and I think they should, personally, rather than haggle about stuff like "well, what if we disassemble the grav-copter and then re-assemble it on site?"), but expect you might get some table variation there.

Know the vehicle rules very well, and maybe warn the GM you are bringing a vehicle to the table. The rules aren't super difficult, but they are a subset of rules most GMs and players are less familiar with, and if you ambush a GM with something that feels like it might break a scenario (like a flying transport that will just bypass an entire set of encounters along a jungle trail, for example) that's not really fun for anyone.


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Michael Sayre wrote:

The former (it is a fey after all). It likes to find planets that are technologically advanced enough to detect it coming so they can get really worked up about it, but without advanced enough space travel tech to do anything about it. Like, Earth would be a primo target for a gwahled.

For a light snack it can also swallow a starship whole and feast on the terror of the trapped crew.

Yeah, this was one of the more odd-ball but awesome entries in the book, for sure. I hope you won't be too upset to hear that I immediately decided that if I run one, it will hurtle towards the target planet shouting "Show me what you got!"

* Venture-Agent

GM Suede wrote:
With all of the above, The Jet Dash Feat lets you jump twice as high and far as normal. So they might be doubling their result instead of just how far they can go (Works the same either way for distance/height but would technically be wrong if there's just a set check in the scenario for something).

You can also pair that with an augmentation that lets you make your personal gravity "low" once per day, for two rounds (the better versions are way out of level range, IIRC). Alternately, a Copaxi with the ability to always be a low grav gives a nice boost to jump distances as well.


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Nefreet wrote:

Reading is an interpretive activity.

While we can certainly read the same text and come to two entirely different conclusions, which one sounds more reasonable to you?

I'm glad you asked! The interpretation that sounds reasonable to me is the one that follows the logic of the real world as well as the internal logic of the fictional setting as well - IE the one in which things that are observably true in the real world (IE it's not actually that hard to fly, certainly not compared to something as difficult to do as walking) and we can see in the intent of the game world (IE that Barathu aren't completely unable to make engineering checks or computer checks while in their native environment, since they would just fall through the atmosphere and die).

But see, I've been told repeatedly that that is unreasonable - that's not how we do things, right? We should expect players to abandon those expectations and instead DO WHAT THE RULES SAY - Indeed, it seems to be the express stance by many that the concern that there is a massive disconnect between what someone who only knows the real world and/or the art/fiction of the game might reasonably expect and what the rules actually enforce is completely nonsense, as is the concern that said disconnect might cause a bad play experience.

So, yeah, I actually agree with you - the fly rules, as they are written, are dumb, and unreasonable. Which is why we should not be arguing that it is a good idea to use them as they are.


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Xenocrat wrote:


Thanks, this was sufficiently clueless and ignorant of the relevant issues to tell me what I need to know. I appreciate it.

Oh? Interesting. I was under the impression that fundamentally human walking was a complex system that essentially requires pulling the center of mass forward, out of balance, and then dynamically re-establishing balance through a combination of free swinging pendulum motion as well as muscle power, and that its a complex enough problem that bipedal human-like walking is something that is currently extraordinarily difficult to replicate. Indeed, as of the state of the literature in like 2017 I recall it being argued that nobody had yet been able to build a robot that could truly be called a successful human-style walker (let alone running). If you know otherwise, please, what resources would you suggest? A lot of my understanding is admittedly quite old, since it started from this paper (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1129077/), so I would love to see any updated resources you have.

In the meantime, if the question is "how hard is it to walk like a human" vs "how hard is it to fly with absurd agility and stability", it seems pretty convincing to me that I can buy a flying drone with the agility of a particularly skilled hummingbird for like $100 on Amazon, whereas getting a robot that can walk like a human would take something like 3 TED talks and a DARPA grant.


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HammerJack wrote:

Could you please cite the rule you're referring to that would indicate that you can't make more than one 45 degree turn? I do not see any such rule in the Acrobatics skill, or the Flying rules on page 259.

I only see the following, which does not indicate any limit on number of turns, only a movement cost:
"If you want to change direction while flying, it costs you an additional 5 feet of movement to turn 45 degrees. If you want to ascend, it costs you an additional 5 feet of movement for each square that you move upward. For example, suppose you have a fly speed of 60 feet. As a single move action, you can fly forward 20 feet, turn 45 degrees to the left, and fly one square diagonally (all of which costs 30 feet of your movement). You can then ascend 15 feet, which costs another 30 feet of movement. At this point, you have used your full 60 feet of flying movement, so your move action is over. "

Can you please site the section in there where it says you can make more than one turn? As many of the people in this very thread have argued in the past, Starfinder is a permissive rules set, not a restrictive one. If the rules don't say you can do something, you can't. Currently the rules do not actually say you can make more than one turn. You may assume that you should be able to turn more often, but grammatically that is not actually what the rules say.

I mean, why is it reasonable to assume you should be able to actually turn? I've never seen a rocket or an airplane turn that sharply before! Why should you get all the advantages of flying AND be able to turn as sharply as someone who is walking?!


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Xenocrat wrote:
MrTsFloatinghead wrote:
I also think a big problem here is that people have some major misconceptions about how flight and flying works in the real world. For example, it's not "harder" in a mental sense to fly than it is to walk. Indeed, it's actually quite the opposite - it's much trickier to balance while walking on two legs than it is to stabilize as a flier.
How easy is it to hover in place while throwing as many punches as possible at someone. I value your personal experience on this.

Depends - for a human, with human physiology and evolved for walking? Pretty hard, which is why Force Soles should basically not work at all, let alone not let you easily full attack from the air. For something that is designed/evolved for flight, pretty easy, especially if they are something like an auto-stabilizing quad rotor system, or are neutrally buoyant.

Again, if FEELS like walking is easy to most of us because we are used to it. Ask someone who builds bipedal robots how easy it actually is to make a robot that can walk down the stairs, though. Then ask someone who builds quad drones how easy it is to make a drone that can quickly right itself automatically, and can slide sideways without changing facing, etc.


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Ascalaphus wrote:

I was curious to see how true the claim is that flying doesn't offer such a big advantage in Starfinder as it does in Pathfinder. First I went through Alien Archive just counting monsters that have a ranged attack or flight capability, vs. the ones that can't hurt you if you're flying and they're stuck on the ground. Overwhelmingly, monsters have options against airborne opponents.

But then the question is: are these plausible ranged options? So I went counting whether (A) the monster's strongest attack is ranged or it can fly, or (B) it either can't attack airborne opponents, or its attack against them is notably worse than in ground melee.

Just going up through the monsters A-I, the balance is that against 14 out of 34 monsters, flying gives you a benefit. So while flight doesn't win fights against most monsters, it does give a benefit in about 40% of the fights.

That's questionable, actually - first, it's only a benefit AT ALL in a situation where the flyer would have been the target of the melee attack, but couldn't be. Second, even in those situations, I don't think that on balance the disadvantages of being in the air (unable to full attack or do an attack/standard action or make engineering/computer skill checks, unable to be in cover) are overcome by the advantage of "can only be attacked by a maybe less optimal attack"


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Nefreet wrote:
MrTsFloatinghead wrote:

Imagine a situation where you wanted to send a hover drone through a narrow vent. It's not super-cramped - it's small enough that a small creature would have to squeeze and a medium creature probably just wouldn't fit, but it's not so small that the hover drone would really be restricted in its movement.

It's also not a very long vent (say 10 feet, so a squeezing small creature would plausibly pass through in a single round), but it has two 90 degree turns in it. How long does it take for the hover drone to actually make that trip? The answer is a minimum of three rounds, because it would have to enter the vent, get to the 90 degree turn, stop, wait a round, on the next round travel to the next 90 degree turn, stop, wait a round, and then finally it could leave. If you haven't been playing drone movement like that, then you are on my side, because you recognize that the rules as written simply don't work and don't make sense.

Pathfinder had the rule about 90° turns. In Starfinder, it's in increments of 45°.

So for a 10 ft vent with two 90° turns, it takes 30 ft of movement to travass (a single move action for Scout).

Incorrect, and exactly makes my point about how the rules are unworkable. The rules say you have to choose a primary direction for the round, and you can at most turn 45 degrees between squares. Unfortunately, this means that you would have to make that 45 degree (IE diagonal move) around a hard corner, which you cannot do. Thus, you have to go to the end of the first straight stretch, and you are stuck there. You can't even use a second move to change direction, because again, the limitation is a primary direction for the entire round. There is absolutely no way you can get through the vent in less than three turns.

Here, let me give you another example of what I'm talking about: Imagine a hovering/floating character taking cover in a doorway to shoot down a standard 5 foot wide hallway. Next turn, that character/drone/whatever wants to enter the hallway and then proceed down it. This cannot be done. If the flier declares the primary direction of travel to be "down the hallway", then it can't enter the hallway to begin with, as it could only turn 45 degrees and make a diagonal move - but you cannot make a diagonal move across a hard corner like a wall or a door frame. So, the primary direction of travel has to be out into the hallway, which gets the flyer out there, but then they can't turn far enough to actually head down the hallway.

I think you are thinking you can stack 45 degree turns in one square, but nothing in the rules indicates that is so. In fact, it's not even clear that you can turn more than 45 degrees once in a single round. This is on top of all the other obvious absurdities trying to actually use the fly rules as written brings up. I submit again that I don't think it is possible that anyone has ever actually followed the exact RAW on flying on any real Starfinder table, and I don't think anyone ever will. The fly rules are that bad.

I also think a big problem here is that people have some major misconceptions about how flight and flying works in the real world. For example, it's not "harder" in a mental sense to fly than it is to walk. Indeed, it's actually quite the opposite - it's much trickier to balance while walking on two legs than it is to stabilize as a flier. We just tend to think walking is easier because most of us are familiar with doing it, so it feels easy to us. Further, flying is not even one thing - The physics of a dragon, a helicopter, and a blimp are all totally different. Having one set of rules for all of them just doesn't work.


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Claxon wrote:
DM_Blake wrote:


Maybe we glossed past that stuff because we had Pathfinder experience and didn't catch the difference there.

That was my groups problem.

We got so used to PF rules from years of playing, that taking a swift action to hover didn't raise any alarms in our heads. So you can't swift action while flying, most of the classes don't have swift action abilities. Doesn't come up too much, just watch for certain other abilities.

Until you learn that full actions require the use of your swift.

That was really the big change that we needed to learn and pay attention to.

This is an exact example of what I'm talking about - the reason your group didn't catch on probably had a lot more to do with the fact that it just didn't feel "wrong" or "overpowered" or "unreasonable" to play it the way you were playing. Because (and this is really really important for everyone to understand) we generally will go from our real life experiences to what we imagine in the game world, and then expect the rules to support that. Where we will stop and really examine the rules is when the game rules seem to spit out an unreasonable outcome, or when they fail to conform to our expectations of what should reasonably be possible.

In other words, when you incorrectly let any flying player make a 90 degree turn in one single round, or let the mechanic's repair-bot flavored hover drone actually do an engineering check while hovering, or when you didn't require the Barathu envoy to stop floating so it could concentrate on talking (IE use Get 'em and Demoralize actions in the same round, or something), you weren't playing WRONG, because those are all entirely reasonable things to do. It makes no sense that a Barathu should be unable to literally float and talk.

Here's a simple test of this hypothesis about how people would form expectations about the game world. Take any number of random people. Show them a picture of the Iconic hover drone. Then just ask "Would this be more effective at shooting if it was flying, or if it were landed?". I think we know where that is going to end up. In fact, I would be willing to bet that in many cases people's response would be "Can that even actually land at all?".

Here's another test: Imagine a situation where you wanted to send a hover drone through a narrow vent. It's not super-cramped - it's small enough that a small creature would have to squeeze and a medium creature probably just wouldn't fit, but it's not so small that the hover drone would really be restricted in its movement.
It's also not a very long vent (say 10 feet, so a squeezing small creature would plausibly pass through in a single round), but it has two 90 degree turns in it. How long does it take for the hover drone to actually make that trip? The answer is a minimum of three rounds, because it would have to enter the vent, get to the 90 degree turn, stop, wait a round, on the next round travel to the next 90 degree turn, stop, wait a round, and then finally it could leave. If you haven't been playing drone movement like that, then you are on my side, because you recognize that the rules as written simply don't work and don't make sense.

Those who are saying that it is unreasonable to expect otherwise are quite literally inverting how humans understand and process information. Especially for new players, they are not going to say "okay, let me read all the rules and understand what the internal physics of this game are, then imagine the world out from there and ignore my intuitions about what should/shouldn't be possible". Nobody actually thinks that way. Instead, we look at a hover drone, and think "I bet that flies like a helicopter, or a quad-copter drone. Thus, I bet it doesn't have any trouble hovering and being a stable gun platform. Indeed, that's what attack helicopters are FOR, and I can see in the art that it has a gun on the bottom so it seems clear it's going to primarily be an aerial combat platform"

Finally, with regards to the idea that it's unfair to be able to shoot without being vulnerable to melee (AKA the "flying is OP" argument), aside from the point made above about how melee isn't actually the assumption in Starfinder, it's also important to note that denying full attacks doesn't actually fix that problem. The outcome of the fight doesn't change, at all. You still have a shooter who is out of reach and able to shoot with impunity, so the outcome is a foregone conclusion. All you've done is at best make it take longer, which honestly sounds like the antithesis of fun.

Even in a case where it's really important to finish the fight ASAP, the odds that the hover drone (which, remember only has a strength of 6, so is limited to longarms at best) would have been the thing the hypothetical melee only encounter would have focused on are very, very low. Essentially, the balance complaint is that it's not fair to have a flier avoid melee attacks that likely weren't going to be directed at it anyway. I'm not buying it.

The nail in the coffin though is the assertion that you should just spring for the Mk 2 Force soles. That just makes the absurdity clear - far from being a more "limited" form of flight (which is what I think some people mistakenly think), they are objectively better on every axis than the Barathu's native fly speed of 30, for example. So, it cannot be that the issue is that being able to full attack or make engineering checks or use both a standard action attack and a move action class ability or make a 90 degree turn in one round while also being in the air is OP.

Now, you can say "Well, but it's a level thing. That's an 8th level item, so you can't really plausibly get it until around 6th level at the earliest...". Sure - when does a drone get the ability to really plausibly use the full attack action in an efficient way? 7TH, when they get the Expert AI ability so can make a full attack without direct control.

And, of course, the poor Barathu is left out in the cold. Imagine the player who, after struggling through 6 or 7 levels of putting up with cumbersome fly limitations and awkward, absurdly restrictive action economy nonsense, suddenly finds that everyone else in the party can suddenly just jog around in the air much more easily than he can, despite the fact that the GM insisted that it would break the game balance if aerial movement was that easy. Oh, and the Barathu can't take advantage of it, because the Barathu has a speed of 0, so unless/until the player pays off the DISADVANTAGE of being a natural born flyer by buying a high level speed suspension augmentation, Force Soles don't really do anything. Cool cool cool.

I mean, I cannot believe I feel like I have to explain this, but everyone understands why this is absurd, right? Like, try to imagine what using Force Soles would be like - imagine walking down through the air at that 45 degree angle. That would be like trying to walk down a steep set of invisible stairs with no handrails - yet somehow that's a more effective, more natural, easier and safer way to move through the air than a creature that is neutrally buoyant and evolved in an environment where land didn't even exist could ever do.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

A) It doesn't work fine. If you are going to try to go full RAW it's actually a nonstop wall to wall rules nightmare. You have to have a brand new player keep track of declaring a primary direction of travel for the drone at the start of every turn (because that's what the rules require), and then you have to do the math to calculate how much movement you lose to make a 45 degree turn to change direction or to ascend/descend. Then you have to keep very rigorous track of actions to make sure they aren't "cheating" by accidentally hovering when they should have ended up falling.

Here's how easy it is to make that mistake - Turn 1 player moves the drone into the position they want to shoot from, and then take a shot. Mechanic moves up, but can't get into position to shoot yet, so has to move next turn. Turn 2, Mechanic moves into position, shoots, and then declares the drone will use it's standard action to shoot as well. Boom. Drone has to fall because the mechanic didn't say "I land the drone" on turn 1 - and likely wouldn't have had the movement to do so anyway. So, now your brand new player using Quig is feeling "gotcha-ed" by the rules.

Even if you, as the GM, take the time to explain exactly how the rules work so that the player isn't caught out by them, do you really think the net result of that conversation would be "Oh, this seems like a cool and fun system"? I would simply not allow new players to play hover drone mechanics, full stop, if I felt it was at all important to adhere to the very strict RAW here.

B) Hover drones just can't full attack while hovering is not an acceptable answer. Nor is "Casters just have to land to cast full round spells". It doesn't match the fictional logic of the world, it is not necessary for balance, it makes gameplay slower, and simply makes characters uncool. Like, this is probably the biggest problem. Above and beyond the simple barriers to play your creating, you are full on making characters behave in a way that is nonsensical within the fiction of the world AND also makes them look frankly foolish. There is literally no redeeming feature to it except "it's what the rules say" - which merely means the rules are wrong, and need to change.

C) I've played at well north of 50 different SFS tables (probably pushing 100, in fact), both online, locally, and at local and national conventions. I have NEVER seen the flying rules enforced this strictly, which is why I'm completely unconvinced that it is a good or necessary thing to have happen. I would be willing to bet that literally no single person on the entire planet has EVER played the flying rules strictly correctly.

Heck, even the example in the book gets the rules for determining direction of travel wrong. It treats the last 30 feet of movement (the movement straight up) as if it was in the primary direction of travel (which was "forward", initially), so actually instead of being able to go 15 squares straight up, the flyer should have only been able to ascend at a 45 degree angle, which would have used up 4 squares of movement for the first square, and then 2 more for the second, ending the movement 2 squares "forward" and one square lower than the position in described in the example.

I would go so far as to say that within the actual real world of a group of players in a game (especially a game with time constraints, like SFS), it is fundamentally IMPOSSIBLE to play the rules strictly RAW. Even if you only strictly enforce the action economy limitations and discount the excessively tedious movement restrictions, because of the way it limits how a player can actually participate in the game (and no, this is not actually only about full attacks/full round spells, see D below), it's going to necessitate that players with flying characters/drones need to be extra thoughtful (IE slower).

D) What "flying utility" do hover drones actually have, though? Have you actually played out the implications of what you are advocating for there? Here's a thing you might want to try with a hover drone (using manipulator arms and the Master Control ability): Make an engineering check to disable a camera on the ceiling. Sounds good? WRONG. Disable device is least one full round action for even a "simple device", so your drone can't actually do an engineering check without falling, even if you are directly controlling it. Note that a hypothetical Barathu Mechanic ALSO couldn't do it - in fact, the only way a Barathu can use the engineering or computers skill to do anything of note is to land first, which is a patent absurdity.

Of course, you could give your drone climbing claws so it could just land an perch near the camera before - oh, no you can't. Hover drones can't take climbing claws. Hmm. The Computers skill runs into the same problem. A hover drone can't even assist a mechanic on Computer/Engineering checks generally, unless it can assist from the floor. Which... it's size tiny. Hmmm. Will your GM even allow it to reach, say, a typical control panel? Expect table variance!

Okay, well, what about being a scout? It can kinda do that, if you use the one mod slot at first level for a camera... but a stealth drone is objectively better in that role (stealthier and faster and better perception checks) AND has better firepower (since it can get into an elevated position with climbing claws, and STAY THERE without costing a move action, and it can full attack from there if needed).

So, what is the utility? Mobility? On a one to one basis the stealth drone is faster both horizontally and vertically. Hilariously, both a stealth drone or a combat drone could take the flight mods (if you are a high enough level), as well as the climb speed and swim speed mods. The Hover drone can take neither of those two options, so that's another corner-case disadvantage to the hover drone. Even the simple utility of "get in the way of that thing" isn't there for the Hover drone, since it is tiny, and thus its square can be moved through freely.

Even worse, because of the action economy issues, as a unit a mechanic and a hover drone are actually significantly LESS mobile, especially if they want to do anything productive. Having to land to cast your big spell, or take a full attack, or do your skill monkey job, or whatever, means you will be generally a round behind in your impact, relative to a walker/climber/swimmer, and that assumes the optimal case where the place you landed initially is where you need to be for the entire encounter. Every time you have to spend actions to take off to fly and then land again, you are losing another 1-2 rounds of impact on the encounter. Lord help you if you thought it would be interesting to have a Barathu Mechanic with a Hover drone. Far from being mobile, if you choose to fly, then in almost any practical situation you will be slower, less free to maneuver, and less able to contribute nearly as effectively to really whatever it is the party is trying to do, at least if you are following the actual strict RAW.

Yeah, the more I think about this, the worse and more ridiculous it gets. I just don't see how anyone wins by trying to be picky with the fly rules. It doesn't seem to make anyone's gameplay easier, more balanced, or more fun. It just throws up tons of of situations where common sense and what the rules say just don't line up at all. Here's a fun riddle for you, for example: Say you are GMing a SFS scenario where the big boss is some incorporeal energy being that ONLY has a fly speed with perfect maneuverability, and has no way to become corporeal. In its tactics box, you are told that on the first round of combat it will always activate its special ability to read the minds of all visible foes (to gauge their fears for follow on mental attacks). You note that ability is listed as a full round action. Combat starts. On its first turn, why doesn't your big bad boss take it's full action to read minds, and then fall 500 feet straight down (the max possible fall distance) towards the center of the planet? Please show your work.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Is anybody actually playing flying this way, though, in practice? It seems like it adds a huge hassle and frankly "looks" dumb in terms of the in game world (you're going to tell a new player they have to land Quig's drone even though it's obvious from the art that it can't actually do that?).

And make no mistake, it is a major hassle. The people saying "just land" are glossing over that this (at a minimum) means you have to spend some sort of movement to land, and then some sort of movement to take off again if you want to go back to flying. In practice, the action economy ends up being something like requiring a humanoid to move into position and then go prone before ever full attacking (note that I'm not saying that a landed Barathu is literally prone in terms of things like bonuses/penalties to attacking, though I could absolutely see some GM's arguing that it should be that way).

It's an even bigger problem for spellcasters who want to cast a spell that takes a full action (or a full round) to cast, like the good version of Magic Missile, or any Summon Monster spell. See, a melee character could, in theory, just say "meh, I'll do my full attack and risk the acrobatics check as a reaction to avoid falling damage", but a caster can't do that, since taking a reaction while casting is explicitly one of the things that will cause a spell to fail. If you have the wrong kind of GM, they may even try to catch-22 you by arguing that the falling damage should also interrupt the spell (which is untrue - it's only damage from an attack that targeted your AC or was caused by a failed saving throw that interrupts a spell). In any case, it's a fairly onerous limitation to impose, and it sets up a sort of slapstick looking situation where your hapless flying caster is basically faceplanting after casting the spell.

I can't see how any of that makes the game better. It just slows down play at the table and/or makes a character look foolish, all so that... what, exactly? What is the upside? That it makes flight worse than it was in Pathfinder? Why is that a good thing? Why do we want to punish new players who naively assume that their hover drone should have no problems hovering and shooting?


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Sam Phelan wrote:

Hello MrTsFloatinghead,

It does look like the package is quite a bit outside of its estimated delivery time. I have set up a replacement for the products in your sidecart. Please let us know if the original order arrives in the meantime.

The shipping method guaranteed to provide a tracking number will be UPS. Setting this as your default may cost a bit more but will guarantee tracking information.

If you have any questions or concerns, please let us know. Thank you!

Will do, thanks!


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

This order was shipped March 12th, but never arrived. Is there a way to change my shipping options so that I always get a tracking number? I've noticed that since I moved last year packages without tracking numbers seem to have a very low success rate in reaching me.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Hello-

I realize this is an older order, but I've been occupied and didn't realize that this package seems not to have arrived. Unfortunately there is no tracking on it, so I don't know where it might have gone wrong.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
BigNorseWolf wrote:
So can you make a bullrush with entropic strike? An unarmed strike? A dagger?

Yep, as per Owen in this very thread (from Dec 6th):

"In Starfinder, combat maneuvers are just melee attacks with an effect other than damage to a target creature (though sunder still does damage). So everything that applies to melee attacks, including reach and properties of your weapons, applies to combat maneuver attack rolls."

See also this post from the Rules forum:
https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2upl0?Combat-Maneuvers#4

I was building a dex-focused vanguard for society play over the past weekend, so I dug into this a bit already to make sure it would work:)


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BigNorseWolf wrote:

General question but seems more important to a vanguard

Combat manuevers are an attack. Can they be made with dex instead of strength normally? What about with entropic strike?

This was answered, actually - since combat maneuvers are a melee attack, anything that would affect that melee attack role (including the operative property on your entropic strike) would affect the combat maneuver.


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Ravingdork wrote:

I have a 5th-level character with a profession modifier of +15. By taking 10, she can guarantee getting a 25 and earn 50 credits for a weeks worth of work.

What? That seems WAY too low, considering the costs of items and services in the Core Rulebook. Some items costs hundreds of thousands of credits. Even the day to day things . And that's a pretty decent modifier at that level!

A long distance call costs 5 credits per minute. So she can work for a week, then talk to somebody in another system for all of 10 minutes!

Or she can buy 10 half-way decent outfits. Or stay in EFFICIENCY lodgings for half a month (which means half her income goes into living in the slums right from the start). By the time you factor in other things, it's no wonder she opted to become an adventurer instead.

At such a high skill modifier (for low levels anyways), it seems like it would be more believable to have her earning 50 credits per day, or even per hour. I think that would line up a little bit better with the expected conveniences of a high tech society like the Pact Worlds.

I don't actually think that's a super high modifier, actually - a 1st level character who was focusing on a specific profession could pretty easily match that - they wouldn't be as well equipped for adventuring, but if they were focusing on just getting by making a living, that makes sense.

Beyond that, though, don't think of it as "50 credits is all my character has", think of it as "After paying my bills for this week, I have 50 credits left for anything "extra" I want". Like, if your character lives on Absalom Station, then probably most of their income goes towards "rent", plus infosphere carrier charges, plus energy usage, plus air/water recycling fee, plus basic "groceries", ship docking and fueling fees, etc, and then has ~50 credits a week left after that (or 200 credits a month left, if you like). The assumptions of the game seem to be that players likely have some kind of "home" (even if it's a ship they live on), and basic access to utilities and such, and it's not unreasonable to suggest that the costs for those things are being handled in the background.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

So, I've been looking at some of the options in armory, like the shield projectors, which are clearly designed for firing at an ally, rather than an enemy, and it makes me wonder - is there a way for an ally to allow an auto-hit? I don't think there is, meaning if you want to shoot an ally with an injection weapon for some healing, or wanted to toss a shield on an ally, you would have to actually hit against their EAC or KAC, right?


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Ravingdork wrote:

Zeizerer Munitions' longframe ammo increases a weapon's ammo capacity by 20%. That increases the number of targets one can affect in a single cone.

Bipods can decrease the full attack penalty by 1 or 2.

A gunner harness can decrease the full attack penalty by another 1 or 2.

What else we got? Any class abilities that reduce full attack penalties?

Anything at all to increase that first range increment? Or keep the gun from completely emptying it's clip every time?

Gunner Harness and bipod explicitly don't stack, so it's one or the other.

Bombard Soldier can use the +Str mod to damage with an automatic weapon.

A tactical scaffold armor attachment lets you use a two handed weapon with one hand (and it does seem to stack with a gunner harness), so you could one-hand a full auto heavy weapon with a reduced to-hit penalty, which seems pretty good. If you really wanted, you could carry like two machine guns at once that way (for a character without extra arms), but still only shoot one at a time.


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Thanks!


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Order 5296062

Package 1113229 from this order was shipped July 23rd, and has yet to arrive as far as I can tell. Unfortunately there is no tracking info for that package so I'm hoping you can help me track it down.

Package 1119174 from the same order was shipped August 1st and arrived already. There was also a payment issue with the second shipment, but that happened after the shipment of the first package, and was resolved the same day, so shouldn't have affected anything as far as I can tell.


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Metaphysician wrote:
*cough* Though as a matter of sanity, I'd recommend as an unofficial requirement that the player come up with a list of four possible summons for each level, and stick to that. Infinite summon variety may not actually break the game balance, but it can break the game *enjoyment* by being obnoxious.

I mean, the text of the grenades says that the type of creature summoned is set when the grenade is created, so in the case of the bombard fusion you don't actually get to choose after the initial purchase - you certainly don't get to choose with each daily use.

Bombardier Soldiers are a little different, though, since they would be creating the new grenade for each use. In that case, I would say it's not unreasonable to say they need to have a pre-made summon ready for anything they might summon (just like they would with the summon spell anyway). Even then, they would have to select the exact type when they make the grenade - it's not a choice they get to make when the grenade is thrown.


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Torbyne wrote:

Bombardier soldiers get in on some fun but remember the bombarding fusion as well, stock up on multiple level 5 knives with this fusion and have a 1/day grenade for every situation :)

My go to, I think, will be a level 10 weapon with two bombard fusions and two grenades of wonder in it. Maybe use the class feature for a third one just to see what happens. Grenade of grenades or flood of squirrels or... yeah, fun.

Just remember, the level of the grenade can't exceed the level of the item you put the fusion on, so buying a bunch of lvl 5 weapons would let you spam a bunch of level 5 or lower grenades - but even the Mk II Summoning grenade (the second level spell version) is a level 6 item...


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BigNorseWolf wrote:
I don't see where we're actually differing

This line:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Mechanic: Move Standard Drone: Swift move standard (combine to full round) (BNW note, if i've got this right this seems to be the sweet spot)

Is not correct, for two reasons. First, you cannot transfer ONLY the swift action from the Mechanic to the Drone - the assumption in the rule is you have to use a move action to trigger Master Control first, then if you spend your swift action AS WELL, your drone can take a swift action (or combine all the actions into a full action). Second, you have too many actions here in any case. You cannot have two standard actions and two moves split across the drone and mechanic - it is either two standard actions and one move and one swift split up between them, or else it is one standard action, two moves, and one swift. Alternately, you can have one full action and one standard action, but in that case note that nobody actually gets a swift action at all (significant for hover drones)


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Diego Valdez wrote:

Hello MrTsFloatinghead,

The package was shipped through USPS priority mail and had an estimated transit time of 2-5 business days. We can't track priority mail packages, but it has likely already arrived. I am setting up a replacement to ship out along with your next subscription order. If you are able to retrieve it please let us know.

Thanks for taking care of this for me!


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Diego Valdez wrote:

Hello MrTsFloatinghead,

The package was shipped through USPS priority mail and had an estimated transit time of 2-5 business days. We can't track priority mail packages, but it has likely already arrived. I am setting up a replacement to ship out along with your next subscription order. If you are able to retrieve it please let us know.

It definitely didn't get delivered, the old building is vacant, and the rental office didn't get it either.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber
Diego Valdez wrote:

Hello MrTsFloatinghead,

I have updated the shipping address attached to your subscriptions to the new address. Going forward that is where the packages will ship to. Will you be able to retrieve this package from the old address?

I have redacted your personal information from your original post.

Since the old address is no longer valid, my expectation is that the package will be returned as unable to be delivered, since it is currently a vacant apartment. Is there any way to track the delivery status?


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

It looks like this order was shipped to my old address, I thought I had updated my default shipping address, but it doesn't appear to have stuck. It should have gone to [redacted], not [redacted].

What do I need to do to make that adjustment stick, and how can I track down my errant package?

* Venture-Agent

Sliska Zafir wrote:

The scenario has the 2nd Seeker tag, but inside is no information on how to earn an additional reputation with the Second Seekers.

Was this information accidentally struck from the text on final edit?

Confirmed that this is an error on the Starfinder Society Organized Play forums - it should reward the extra Second Seeker reputation for

Spoiler:
accomplishing the primary objective.

2 people marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Maps, Rulebook Subscriber; Starfinder Charter Superscriber

Interesting spoiler for the Dead Suns Adventure Path in the Eox chapter:

Spoiler:

Pg 93, the note about "See Starfinder Adventure Path #6" confirms Corpsefolk for that book, so yet more options for undead player races, probably.


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Weirdo wrote:
MrTsFloatinghead wrote:
I'm sorry - I was not replying to you because I did not see that there was any disagreement in what you were saying and what I was saying. Your position seemed (and seems) to me to be consistent with my view that there are multiple "right" ways to do it.

That's fair. But just because we don't disagree doesn't mean we can't swap ideas and discuss their advantages and disadvantages. Like so:

Also fair!

Weirdo wrote:

It absoultely can have mechanical advantages. For example, if the ranger decides that his village was destroyed by a dragon, and that he's trained as a dragonslayer, I'll probably include more draconic enemies in the game (possibly even a showdown with the dragon that destroyed his village), giving him more opportunites to use their favoured enemy bonus.

I'm also fond of giving out boons from powerful NPCs or supernatural sources, which generally result from character choices rather than just succeeding at dice rolls. Sometimes the boons involve improvements to some character stat.

But I think the only way in which roleplaying affects success in specific tasks is "conversational tactics," which greystone and others have discussed. For example, at a recent dinner party the summoner guessed that the lady of the house was obsessed with her work, so he decided to ask her questions about it, resulting in an easy improvement to her attitude toward him (essentially an auto-success, given the summoner's Diplomacy bonus). Meanwhile, another player did a highly entertaining impression of someone completely out of their depth at a social event and ended up making a correspondingly bad impression (which nevertheless could be advantageous in the long run, since the hosts will underestimate
...

Interestingly, one of my initial impulses when thinking about mechanical advantages for backgrounds was stuff like having basically "auto-success" on some skill checks with like family NPCs as well, because, for example, I think it could easily seem sort of ridiculous to be like "I greet my parents warmly and settle in for the kind of family dinner we haven't had in far too long" and have the GM be like "Okay, so... roll diplomacy!"

On the other hand, I also realized that if I wanted to generate some paranoia on the part of a players, I could do things like this:

Player: "I greet my parents warmly and settle in for the kind of family dinner we haven't had in far too long"

GM: "Okay, roll a sense motive check for me, no particular reason why..."


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thejeff wrote:
MrTsFloatinghead wrote:
thejeff wrote:

Not in D&D or Pathfinder.

It really just doesn't work, unless you completely ditch wealth as "treasure found". The wealth disparity is just too great. "Rich" that would be completely game breaking at low levels is "poor" by the standards of a few levels later.

I have done it in other systems that don't run purchased gear as a separate power track.
Rich characters are a staple of superhero fiction and work fine in sueprhero games, since mostly you can't just buy superpowers (A little finagling in there, but no more than in the source material.) I've had rich characters in Call of Cthulhu and other semi modern games.

Yeah, that makes sense... I do kind of wonder if it would work in something like a "Hell's Rebels" style urban intrigue campaign where the whole party played nobles who were seeking to use their wealth and prowess to instigate a coup against the rightful and legitimate ruler of the city (that was the point of Hell's Rebels, right?:P).

No idea. :)

I still don't see how you keep them from spending an insignificant fraction of the wealth they're using to instigate the coup to completely demolish the expected guidelines for gear at the start. And/or, by the end being able to use their looted wealth to bribe nearly everybody.

You could just fiat it: You're starting with X gold in gear and 10,000 for bribe money, PR, etc. Maintain separate accounts, no crossing the lines. Give them extra loot, but mandate no more than WBL on personal gear. At that point though, I'd be tempted to drop the pretence that the gear budget has anything to do with actual money.

Yeah, ideally you'd be able to find some way to balance things so that there were genuine choices (including save for later) for what to do with the money - like point out that if they spend all the treasury in the first week, who is going to pay troops, buy food, etc NEXT week, but then you start getting into a potential resource management game more in line with like a Kingmaker theme.

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