Gnoll Warden

Naal's page

**** Pathfinder Society GM. Starfinder Society GM. 200 posts (235 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 36 Organized Play characters.


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Player Core. Much has been said, these I didn't notice mentioned. Most are typos or formatting stuff.

Page 56: Kneecap
Make a melee Strike with a melee weapons or melee unarmed

Page 73: Incredible Ferocity
Missing horizontal line under the prerequisites.

Page 110: cleric table, level 11
Still has Lightning Reflexes instead of Reflex Expertise

Page 134: Primal Summons
Should include metal and wood as element options (the spell on p.381 has them, fortunately)

Page 231: Recall Knowledge action first paragraph
committing to the action if you can’t don’t like your options

Page 314 and 315: Aerial form and Animal form second paragraph
"You gain specific abilities based on the animal you choose:"
should probably be
"You gain the following statistics and abilities regardless of which battle form you choose:"
to match other battle form spells.

Page 316: Desna's avatar form
Starknife was given deadly 3d4 in the errata. Should this be 3d6 to match the weapon?

Page 327: Earthquake fourth paragraph
Remove bolding from "Structures"

Page 336: Ill omen parameter section
Missing "Defense Will"

Page 356: Seize soul third paragraph
had a soul trapped it in with

Page 366: Volcanic eruption traits
Are not in alphabetical order (the horror!)

Page 374: Soothing words traits
Probably should replace "manipulate" with "mental" to match the original spell

These are not errata but are listed for fun and profit:
This stuff is mostly rank and tradition modifications.
Avatar all air walks turned to fly speed
Bane Emanation is larger, grows faster
Bless Emanation is larger, grows faster
Breath of life No longer adds key stat, base dice increased
Cleanse affliction Druids can now remove curses, occult casters cure poison or disease
Cursed metamorphosis Added to occult list
Fly Added to all traditions since air walk is gone
Dominate Added to divine list
Dragon form Added to divine and occult traditions
Entangling flora Added to arcane list.
Ghostly weapon No longer deactivates existing runes (unless override in GM Core exists)
Honeyed words No longer uncommon
Insect form Added to arcane list
Marvelous mount Added to divine list
Mindlink Added to arcane list
Mystic armor Added to divine and primal lists
Noise blast Added to arcane list
Protection No longer uncommon and a lot simpler
Retrocognition Added to arcane list
Runic body Added to arcane, divine, and occult lists
Runic weapon Added to primal list
Shadow blast Small increase in damage with spirit option now
Shape wood Added to arcane list
Speak with animals Duration to 1 h
Speak with plants Dropped to 3rd rank, duration to 1 h, added to divine and occult lists
Speak with stone Dropped to 5th rank, duration to 1 h, added to occult list
Summon dragon Added to divine, occult, and primal list (with some restrictions)
Summon instrument Added to arcane list (this is very important)
Tangling creepers Added to arcane list
Wall of thorns Added to arcane list (at least it's not 1st edition horror)

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo) 1/5 5/55/55/5 *

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Congratulations to First Seeker Sarmak.
May your reign be productive and fulfilling!

Turns aside to a white-furred ysoki and nods. Now we'll see how good that paywall is.

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo) 1/5 5/55/55/5 *

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Justin Norveg wrote:
"For that matter doesn't an Izzlegun first seeker complicate that particular matter? "

"Nah. I just checked the datasphere. There are currently eleven different theories about Sarmak's species and origins. My favorite one insists he's a stridermander, and those folks are more concerned about his possible ties to Veskarium Underworld. As in subterranean parts, not the criminal parts."

"Nykiti leads with twelve origin theories, Heldin is at eight, and poor Aurora is at only five, mostly because people don't have imagination and can't think of bigger species impersonating a Halfling. I didn't count ones about Reptoids or Greys, since everyone gets those. Those are rookie numbers, and are going to grow as awareness of the election increases. I think I got to twenty-three."

"Thanks to the data scourge, much of the datasphere still can't differentiate between official, accurate information and fringe theories, since the latter are active enough to skew every algorithm. At the moment, I have been given a 8% chance of being a Reptoid and 3% chance of being a Grey, and you..." enters a few parameters "...are at 2% Reptoid and 5% Grey. You also have a rare 1% of being a Parallel Drift Clone. Congratulations, not even all the Wayfinders get that honor."

"So I wouldn't worry too much about Sarmak and the information embargo yet."


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I despise the "standard action at low level and move action at higher level" thing. You get only a few improvisations, and less if you took an archetype. You often need two improvisations to get to a decent action economy. And then GEM gives envoys wonderful stuff like Perfect Insult and Quick Perfect Insult. Waste your limited number of inspirations for a chance to use a standard action to make a skill check to maybe gain a tiny bonus to two actions that are about as easy as the action required for the bonus. Perfect insult indeed. Foams at mouth.

1/5 5/55/55/5 *

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I wouldn't say there is a complete lack of risk. Resolve rules just tend to give everyone a fairly good sense about how much beating they can take. If the boss flattens you with single blow, it's usually not a good idea to wake up next to it. Characters stay unconscious and wait for the others to pull the enemy away before expending Resolve to wake up. If the fight is already teetering on an edge, that's when you wake up immediately and hope for a chance to get a lucky shot, healing, or spell (after the boss expends his reaction on the resident hp-bucket dancing around its threat range), or just escape.

As Belafon said, there are fights and situations where you absolutely wonder if you are going to survive. Usually you do if main combatants leveled their weapon to something that actually deals damage or the boss is cursed by Roll5 for two rounds in a row.

Low-level fights are easy, with a couple of exceptions. Mid-tier fights are winnable with basic equipment, assuming a balanced party. High-tier fights are tough if bad luck exposes the party to a debuff effect or area damage, or the party doesn't have proper source of damage. High level enemies have so many hit points that a simple azimuth laser pistol's 1d4+5 is not going to cut it, unless you are an operative. To be honest, 2d4+5 isn't much better, so if you want to contribute, heavier weapons, spells, or boosting others are necessary.

PC survival is not the most reliable metric for Starfinder combat challenge. Thanks to the Resolve system, it's usually a TPK or not. Single-character deaths tend to happen because of massive damage (very rare) or ongoing or area damage in an otherwise tough fight.


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Biohacker might be a useful dip, but it's something I am unlikely to ever try myself. I cannot cope with the nature of a couple of its primary class abilities, namely that automatic 20 on identification rolls and the ability to inflict poison-like effects on things that are immune to poison. This is not criticism on those who play the class. It's just something that breaks the class for me. These things just happen, without any explanation "how". Many Starfinder rules are like that. I have no problem pulling an infinite amount of hygiene kits from my gadgeteer operative's utility belt. But a biohacker doing these two things gives me a brainfreeze.

Also the potential mess with auto-id-20 when dealing with shapechangers and disguises, as you have noted elsewhere (don't remember if that was resolved or not).

Somewhat off-topic; this thread might have very few answers because it's in the Starfinder Playtest subforum General Discussion instead of Starfinder General Discussion. It's out of sight to most people, and should perhaps be moved?


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Jump under Athletics is also a part of the move action.

Tumble under Acrobatics says "Tumbling is a move action, and you move at half speed," so I am not sure if that should be included the permissible options. Other than that I'm in the same boat as BNW with this ruling.


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shrug
I stated an opinion, which is what this thread is for. Some people don't like goblins or tengu. Others hate the kitsune. One crew I regularly play with allows gnolls, drow, and strix, but has absolutely zero tolerance for gnomes. Not every change in the game is going to please everyone. Feel free to allow or disallow any ancestry in your home games.

Suspension of disbelief breaks at different points for different people. For me, serpentfolk have always been cold-blooded monsters known for their millenia-spanning subjugation, devouring, and sacrificing of those they considered lesser creatures. Creatures who had impenetrable minds, great magical talents, and absolutely no mercy for the weak. The moment they would become legal, PFS would be elbow-deep in funny snakes named Hissssssteria, Slytherin, and that one wrestler Monty Python-Haul with 'arms as thick as anacondas'. It is inevitable. And due to game balance issues, they would have the same hp and baseline abilities as other player ancestries.

It's all right to have fun. But funny serpentfolk would shatter my immersion like a Rovagug-worshiper in a porcelain factory. I would rather have the otyugh as a playable ancestry. I would welcome playable otyughs, even (and especially) because they would be funny.

As for specific issues, drow are still disallowed in organized play. And comparisons between real-world cultures and fantasy creatures are inevitable since it is very difficult to create something entirely new. For myself, I have only seen serpentfolk as vaguely mesoamerican due to Aztec blood sacrifices. The only asian elements I can think of are the long silken robes.


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Having read serpentfolk's game backstory and much of the literature that inspired them, I have difficulties in seeing how one could be played as a functional member of an average adventuring group without completely divorcing it from the backstory. Stats are irrelevant. If they were allowed in their full glory, they would be completely unbalanced. If they were allowed in a diluted form, their mysterious and threatening nature becomes a joke.

I know everyone has their favorite monster race(s) they want to play as. I am equally guilty. But playable goblins or hobgoblins are nothing compared to playable serpentfolk in Pathfinder (or Starfinder).


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Escape pods would be an acceptable purchase if they were purchased without using an expansion bay (as Senko said above), and automatically had enough for the entire crew. Life boats should take no more than one expansion for the entire crew (or just cost more than escape pods).

There are problems with the ship construction system. But the expansion bay system just might be the worst logical offender. A carrier frame can have either capacity to carry fighters OR the capacity to evacuate some of its crew. Pact Worlds equivalents for maritime safety practices are apparently built on the assumption that each ship has no more than 4-6 persons who matter.


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Great. I wonder how many other things like this I have been getting wrong over 50 scenarios.

1/5 5/55/55/5 *

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Part of the issue is that players want to flesh out their characters. They have their 4-6 skill points per level or so, and don't want to have 4-6 skills maximized. They think their characters are moderately athletic, somewhat versed in various sciences, can handle themselves in the wilderness, and so on, since Starfinders are supposed to be multitalented. They divide their skill points, because having 0 ranks in certain skills makes them think the character is deficient or just inept.

For the early levels, this works, and people happy as their characters can contribute to mission success. But at tier 5-6 this wider distribution of skill points starts eating their chances of success, and at first they don't know why they are failing. "Whoa, that's a high DC." And then they realize the DCs are not going down.

Most of the players come from PF1 and were more familiar with how skills behaved there. New players are going to use their +5 skill to attempt Tier 5-6 checks that experienced players are slowly learning to leave to a specialized character.

Ability scores are not something that can be relied upon. 18 is probable only in a key ability score (rarely for envoys and solarians, unlikely for mechanics), Dexterity (hit stuff, not get hit haha) or Strength (hit stuff hard). Constitution is rarely more than 12 and Charisma rarely gets even a level boost from the original 10. Intelligence is secondary for characters who aren't mechanics or technomancers. Wisdom is secondary for non-mystics.

Tools are an option for a few specialized tasks, but scenario skill checks are often generic "DC 24 Survival or Life Science". Insight and race bonuses are nice, but assuming them for every DC is harsh. As for boons...

Spoiler for #2-06:

Playing Sangoro's Lament gave us a boon for the second part. But for some that boon was completely useless. You can't slot two personal boons, such as your race.

Spoiler for #1-37:

We entered this scenario at high tier with our -701s, with all the habits of PF1 still visible. We were somewhat aware that this was going to be difficult. We just couldn't do it. Computers and Engineering were ok since they build on class key abilities and insight bonuses, but most of the other things failed. We tried using our higher skills blindly to fish for successes. I think we only got the Legate.
We got 1 fame for defeating the Gideron team and exposing the spy.

tl;dr Skill DCs follow the formula too tightly.

Grand Archive 1/5 5/55/55/5 *

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Kate Baker wrote:
I'm actually actually quite interested to hear what parties decide to do with Marcon.

We managed to remember the mission. Our big outdoorsy fighter carved out the bigger crocodile and we stuffed Marcon in it after some cajoling. We hauled both crocodiles back to the king, distracted him with an interpretive dance of our hunt, handed the smaller one to the goblins to eat, and told we wanted to take the bigger one back to the lodge to laugh at, study, and eat, in that order. With the wizard's cantrip special effects and a couple of critical successes on wildly untrained but very enthusiastic performance rolls we made it. Then we carried the crocodile across Absalom like a log, claiming it was a hunting trophy.

The look on Drandle Dreng's face was great when we returned with a crocodile. It got better when we cranked open its jaws to reveal a tightly packed ghoul peeking out of its mouth. "You better explain this."

This is a good scenario, especially if the players aren't afraid of flexing their (over)acting muscles. It also greatly benefitted from our GM's ability to play the king. We didn't identify the hat, so we improvised.

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo) 1/5 5/55/55/5 *

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Congratulations to First Seeker Ehu Hadif Ko'ra Amares of Clan Tolar. May the Society prosper under your leadership!

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo) 1/5 5/55/55/5 *

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This one time I was dismissing a class and saw Royo sitting in the back, eating a smoked snerdle and reading a treatise about our predecessors. He was holding back laughter, so of course I had to ask him what was so funny. He told me my bearing and appearance reminded him of a prominent Pathfinder leader of the old, but I had one major advantage over that worthy; my face was red even before I started shouting at people. He then fled chuckling like madrat. I later asked Celita who Royo meant. She trawled the information and condensed it, "You are like Ambrus Valsin, but balder."

Later, I got Royo's book in my hands—I won't say what I paid for the privilege—and skimmed through the past leaders. While Valsin served his order dutifully through great difficulties, I felt greater kinship with another well-bearded worthy who went by the name Marcos Farabellus. He was a man who would have been at home on Akiton, ready to dare any danger with a blade and a smile. Again I found myself at Celita's doorstep, asking if more was written of a leader of such magnitude. As she began the trawl, I mused how she would describe me in one sentence. Her answer was, "The loud old doctor who earned great renown for standing stoutly in a line to get a Strawberry Machine Cake record with a thousand kids." I am not old.

I teach a lot. Mostly I deal with etiquette, linguistics, medicine, and basic survival techniques. While science interests me, lately there has been little time to devote to it. I firmly believe that a leader should dabble in all fields to understand how they work. The trick is not to get proud, but to know when a specialist is required.

I get along well with Naiaj. I appreciate her ability to oversee the Society's supply chain, and she appreciates that I teach others to use those supplies responsibly. Also, "you pack a lot of volume in that thin body of yours." I noted that I had never heard her raise her voice, to which Naiaj simply stated, "With your bellowing and Radaszam's glaring I don't have to anymore." She's practical. I like it.

Radaszam called me in to analyze jinsul tactics. I stated they were an undisciplined mob who attacked heedlessly and fought with bloody-minded lack of self-preservation. He grumped and asked, "like you?"

I love fencing. In the clash of blades I hear the call of a thousand generations and feel my blood quickening. I am proud of my accomplishments with the art, but make no mistake, there are many fighters far better than myself. Never let pride blind you to the fact that sometimes an ice launcher is the tool you need, not the blade.

I've heard it said that I have fought fiercely against the jinsul. The story about "my glorious stand" against their horde is widely circulated. That being said, if you take your attention away from the shouting swordsman in the middle of the bridge, you'll notice Nissa and her pets sniping at their flanks, 701 gunning down the ones who attempted to flank me, Boron making sure the actual job got done, and Evdaroko punching the jinsul commander with the full glory of the sun. All Starfinder operations are team operations. I just happened to yell so loudly the jinsul took me for a leader, so they swamped me. I suppose it's a compliment of a sort. They had to pry the sword from my hands afterwards. Zigvigix said he understands what that felt like.

Know your people and respect their talents. Also respect their choices; Starfinders often need to act far from a chain of command, and think fast. A failure in the field is often a failure in training.

Some call the Society a dumping ground for malcontents and miscreants. Mostly, they are right. We have a dozen media stars, twenty former mercenaries, pirates, or assassins, at least one Eoxian psychologist (overworked), death-priests, a ysoki grandmother who joined after a grandchild told her how interesting it was to work for Starfinders (ask for the preserved sandbrute!), a quartet of dwarves who hate computers and are not entirely sure about the differences between goblins and orcs, a vesk solarian wrestler, skittermanders up to my armpits (probably just three, but the yellow one is louder than me), and a morlamaw who can outrun an elf, and that's just my class yesterday.

Keep an eye on Triaxus. Everyone says Eox or Aucturn are the most hostile places in the Pact Worlds. They are mistaken.

Zigvigix asked me why I don't like hats. I once spent months on Castrovel walking home. If you don't wear a hat in the jungle, you'll be eaten by tiny things. If you wear a hat, the bigger things in the canopy will pounce on you. Tiny things were more aggravating, so I wore the hat for months. I get sick just from holding a hat.

People ask me why I have a reputation for shouting. I prefer talking. But my team has a very specific style of operation. Evdaroko and I make a lot of noise and draw everyone's attention, while the others do the delicate work. There's only so many times you can shout "DIVE, MY SOLARIAN FRIEND!", "FOR AKITON," or "KEEP FIGHTING, MY BURLY FRIEND" before you get a reputation for being loud. I kind of enjoy it, to be honest. It is an honored Akitonian tradition to fight shouting the glories of your allies, both to encourage them and discourage the enemy. That, or the cool detachment of a professional, but shouting upsets my opponents more.

I don't have cybernetic implants. I don't like the idea of machines inside me, but that's about it. Biotechnology is fine.

If there's one leader in the Society who can outshout me, it's Fitch. I respect her deeply, and am somewhat envious of her ability to combine career and family.

Green and gold are my favorite colors. They are not too common on Akiton, so they seem exotic to me. Even after Castrovel.

People keep asking me what's my plan. There is no plan. We have been running on the edge of a blade for two years, and there is a limit to how long your luck can hold. Desna knows that luck is good, but only a fool relies on it. Luwazi has reunited us, but we are still in a sorry state. We need to regroup, take stock, and draw a deep breath before committing to a new grand project. It will come. And I'll make sure we are ready when it comes.


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I have always wanted to run a planar game where both the proteans and the slaad keep appearing. But never at the same time. And never acknowledging the existence of each other. So when, for example, the players ask the proteans about the slaad, the answer can be condensed to just "I don't know what you are talking about. You are delusional/funny. We are the embodiment/caretakers of chaos/Maelstorm." Then the protean leaves, they open the next door, and it's frog surprise time again.

1/5 5/55/55/5 *

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Ran this on monday; low tier. It's tough but fun to run, and has a lot of things that need to be kept in mind (with a couple of failures on my part). We have a 3.5 hour timeslot, and it was barely adequate for this scenario. High tier would have been too long. The players seemed to like it a lot.

Personal notes and ramblings:

The +2 per phase increase in the investigation phase may be a bit heavy. The players split between every skill, but not evenly. Most of them stuck to their teams through all seven phases of the investigation (6 for travel, +1 for following the tracks). They managed to get 1 success in Culture, 4 in Engineering/Physical Science, 2 in Mysticism, and 4 in Perception/Stealth.

Tracks were followed. Encounter A was avoided. Encounter B was brief but set the mood very well with the jinsuls torching each other along with everything in sight. Then it was time for the main event.

I'm still not confident that even half the players understood the chase mechanics, and there was no time to go through them in detail in our timeslot. Since they knew how to drive, they took the crawler. As they didn't have to use a move action, they could make full attacks at alarming rate. The swarm managed to engage twice. The first time it was rebuffed easily, but things got really interesting when one solarian got engaged. Another solarian readied black hole to pull the engaged solarian. The engaged solarian then jumped straight up, supernovaed, and was pulled back to the crawler. Essentially the PCs were covered in crabs, and then one of them punches clear of the vehicle, dragging with her a ball of jinsuls which explodes all over the landscape.

The swarm managed to replenish their numbers in the pits, and the PCs were caught by surprise by the rooftop RPGs which blew out the vehicle. They were engaged for the third time, but easily exceeded the 100-hp limit and the swarm fell upon itself and the chase was over.

The scenario might have benefitted from short note about how weapon properties like blast, line, or explode affect the swarm.

Ekkerah was a surprise to the players. They were even more surprised by the loot being incredibly useful in this scenario.

Kohkleim managed to summon fog, a buddy, and some lightning, but by then four flight-capable characters were on the top level and in melee. AoOs denied SLAs, and after a couple of vicious melee rounds, the players were victorious.

Funny you should mention Mad Max. After chitin-built cars and flamethrower-wielding lunatics the players were fully in Fury Road mode, with a mandatory "Witness Me!" when the solarians did their thing. They also got a kick out of comparing local jinsuls to goblins. Both have pets that certainly are not dogs, build things from scrap, like fire, burn written things, and seem to be both cannibalistic and crazy-stupid.


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Well, Blitz ability probably is the best general dip.

Incidentally, that deluded envoy is nominally the party medic as well. Medic high-five. We have no mystics at higher tiers yet. It's basically Medicine once per character and then you can track our team by following the empty serum flasks.


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Dracomicron wrote:
Surprised you didn't go Blitz, though, if you are a swordsman...

There were plenty of others blitz soldiers at the time, and I figured that sharpshooter style could help him bypass some attack penalties. With that Dex/BAB he needs some help in ranged combat.

And just because the character thinks he's hot stuff with sword doesn't mean it's true. :-)


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Let me tell you about my envoy... The starting array for my -701 icon (doctor) envoy* was Str 11, Dex 10, Con 10, Int 18, Wis 10, Cha 14, so I have absolutely no right to talk about the right and wrong ways of building envoys. He's currently one scenario away from level 8, and his current array is Str 17, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 18, Wis 10, Cha 16. Avor Stelek considers himself a proud Akitonian warrior-scientist who relies on his shining intellect to defeat mysteries and his swordplay skills to vanquish any curs encountered.

Basically I wanted skills but didn't want an Operative. I also couldn't decide if I wanted to play a red martian swordfighter more than Ming the Merciless, so I gestalted them into one, and haven't looked back since. For Akiton! For Society! And for Science!**

With 13 skill points per level he has been useful, and can learn a frightening amount of skills at level-ups to fill any holes from other regular teammates. Now that the ability boosts are coming online, he can hold his own in melee. He's still barely adequate at ranged combat, but one can't have everything.

Feats in level order: Great Fortitude, Iron Will, Spellbane, Versatile Specialization, Enhanced Resistance (kinetic).
Envoy improvisations in level order: don't quit, inspiring boost, hurry, get 'em.

*One level of Soldier (sharpshooter) and 6 levels of Envoy, to be honest. The Soldier dip is just too useful.
**Of course, sciences and mysticism are the only skills that are not class skills for him...

1/5 5/55/55/5 *

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I entirely forgot about the first ship encounter in Into the Unknown. That one we won, of course.

About the ships. Our defeat in the second part of Into the Unknown made us wary of the Drake, as it ran out of ammo and turned like a brick. We used Pegasus for most missions, only shifting to Drake for On the Trail of History, where it coincidentally lost again. The Drake refit 1.1 seems to have fixed the most glaring problem. It still turns poorly, and Vesk Power Steering doesn't remedy that (a couple of players suggested/tried piloting with Strength).

Misroi wrote:
2. Multiple adds can quickly break down the action economy. I think one of the reasons players are ignoring certain starship roles is that the only way out of starship combat is gunnery. Perhaps giving alternate victory conditions, other than shooting, would be a way to encourage players to have a balanced starship team - maybe the science officer needs to decode the ancient Precursor ship Maguffin to go into the Drift, and once the ship is away, the enemy ship peels off, since there's nothing left to fight for. Maybe the ship captain needs to convince a neutral ship to engage in combat for the PCs, or discourage a hostile, third-party ship from attacking the PCs as well.

This is important. Fiction is full of scenes where the purpose of one ship is not to pummel the other into a wreck, but to complete a mission or just escape unwinnable fights. The second one is probably difficult to translate into a starship combat scene and is probably better left as a narrative section, though. Or a series of skill checks that determine how beat-up the ship is in the next scenario.

I don't hate starship combat. To speed it up I made separate player sheets for every crew position and ship tier, just to cut down on the cross-reference and DC-calculations. It was a chore and killed a couple of trees, but the scenarios run faster (assuming the poor players can decipher the sheets, since my tendency to cram information can be distracting). I have also tried to make a cheat sheet for each NPC ship, but that requires more experimentation.

The most interesting battles are those where something other than pewpewpewblam happens. I was blessed with a batch of players who were appropriately flabbergasted by the Besmara's Spawn and that wacky ship with ramming prow. While the Spawn wasn't that dangerous, the fight wasn't one-sided and I got to enjoy the player's antics as they tried to avoid it hugging them to pieces. The ram ship was even more entertaining after a couple of hits. "Must go faster. Must go faster."

Back to the topic. The fights do not need to become harder. The players still groan slightly when they see the star map, but they are starting to develop a routine. ...now that I think about it, part of their dislike for ship combat could come from the feeling that they don't get to play their characters. Instead they need to concentrate on a rule subsystem that's still not entirely natural to them, and has on a couple of occasions turned into a slog. So most of them just want it quickly and efficiently out of the way so they can go back to playing their characters.

1/5 5/55/55/5 *

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Haven't played or ran Xeros yet, so can't say anything about that.

What I have to say is about local meta. We have about ten active players, including the three or so GMs, and at this point most have two or three active characters.

First characters were almost all soldiers, mechanics, and solarians. There was one envoy, and one latecomer technomancer. Out of higher-level characters we have one ranged soldier who can be called a decent gunner. The mechanics and technomancers are good at their jobs, but they can only prolong the battle, not win it. Solarians are melee due to solar weapon being much more interesting than solar armor (+1 AC with light armor only, bleh), and the envoy has a Dex 14 (after raises and boosts) at level 7. The envoy is currently the ranking pilot with this bunch with +12 skill. Nobody else wants the job, since in our experience it is so damned difficult to win any piloting checks against NPC ships.

Second bunch of characters was more varied. More mystics than expected, and even one or two operatives. No new envoys or technomancers, if I recall correctly. (I should take a census, actually.) But the operative players are the least active, and again there are few other characters who can win piloting checks against NPC ships. I think the best pilot here is level 5 ace pilot soldier with +14. Next fight we'll try the cult of the gunner technique and just try to vape the enemy.

Third bunch is still forming. Too early to say anything about it.

What bothers me is since nobody is specialized in ship combat, the PC ship skills tend to vary at 60%-80% at the expected values-per-level. But NPC ships are always crewed by experts.

PC skills are lower than expected for two reasons. Few characters have insight bonuses to piloting (no insight bonus or class skill bonus is available for gunnery). Few Dexterity-focused characters with lots of skill points. While Dexterity is an important ability score, people do not max it for one simple reason; Resolve.

Starfinder combat system tends to either result in cakewalks or people dropping to 0 hp at alarming rates. Due to hair-raising early experiences many players focus on their resolve ability scores to stay alive and regain stamina. This leaves Dexterity often lower than they would like. Only recently some have started investing in Piloting despite feeling they are bad at it due to their poor stats.

Starship fights this far:

Claim to Salvation: Victory. No real challenge.
Into the Unknown: Loss. We were pummeled into submission. We were noobs.
Yesteryear's Truth: Victory. We figured out the drone carrier and killed it before being caught in the infamous slog.
Cries from the Drift: Victory. We didn't even exploit the duel rules. Easy.
Solar Sortie: Victory. No challenge, but took a long time.
Ashes of Discovery: Victory. Unusual opponent.
On the Trail of History: Loss. We were absolutely demolished in about 4 rounds of combat. I'm not certain we even pierced enemy shields.
Dreaming of Future: Victory. Not too challenging.
To Conquer the Dragon: Victory. Barely. We won by expending resolve and had hull points in single digits.
Siege of Enlightenment: Victory. Hard start for PCs, the ram made them sweat. Lost about half of hull points.
Skitter Shot: fun fun fun -> hey guys there's a starship combat -> *four groans* -> we'll skip it since the other ship flees when it sees you in monitors -> yay x 4.

Sidenote: While the DCs have been toned down in ship combat, success is not guaranteed (nor should it, tbh). I still feel like many other DCs in the game are intended to be challenging to a maxed-out character, while being frustratingly unattainable for nonspecialists. Low-tier scenarios are fine. At tier 5-7 CR x 1.5 starts affecting things.

1/5 5/55/55/5 *

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Tangentially related, I still don't know what a Nova is supposed to look like. In the desktop view (Firefox) all I can see is a box with four numbers/letters (29BS?). Mobile view (Chrome) just shows a crossed box.
I have never seen the Nova symbol.


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The overseas deliveries have not even shipped yet despite first notifications given in the first half or July, and we are either looking at "9-36 business days in transit" or hoping that Amazon is going to expedite things? I'm not holding my breath on the latter.

I am also not certain if I understood correctly. Was there an option to order the books via Amazon directly, and did those books ship on schedule? Because that smells like "nice little shop you have there, it would be a shame if anyone ordering through it instead of us would get their stuff weeks later" from Amazon's part.

1/5 5/55/55/5 *

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My players took a bit over three hours, and had plenty of time for roleplaying.

They bypassed the first crabs, fought the swarm (constantly missing with alchemical weapons), and saved Kelp and Nalu without a fight. They refused to bow before the dragon. Thanks partially to abyssmal initiative on my part the fight was over in two rounds. The face of the party stabilized the dragon, put it on a leash, and flew it like a kite above the boat. He kept scolding the dragon like it was a naughty child whenever it would ask if there was someone it could lord over. Nobody even tried to fight with the cultists, since they were unarmed.

I can't speak for the players, but I had fun.


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A lot of what I had in mind are already spoken for. The following ones would be welcome for conceptual reasons.
Cleric: Cardinal. A priest who actually knows something.
Cleric: Varisian Pilgrim. Love this, had to mention it.
Fighter: Tactician or Drill Sergeant. Assist your buddies by shouting a lot. After playing an Envoy in SF I like the idea of a martial support class.
Monk: Martial Artist. Not every monk has to be a bald ascetic with a rigid worldview.
Rogue: Eldritch Scoundrel. Already mentioned a lot, but still a favorite.

Tangentially class-related things:
Honorary mention outside core classes: Magaambyan Arcanist for arcanist. Finally got to play one, and I'm pretty pleased by the flavor.

I'm with the people who say that rogue archetypes that replace trapfinding are undesirable.

I am also one of the people who loved Occult Adventures. Its classes revitalized my interest in the game. Running an occultist and a spiritualist has been a joy, and I may soon have a chance to play a psychic investigator. This is one of the primary reasons I am not too enthusiastic about PF2. It feels like a step back after basking in many choices available in PF1. Time will tell how it is. It's too early to praise or condemn it.


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CorvusMask wrote:
Umm, so bit late, but what book are you two referring to?

Spoiler:
Legend of Five Rings (the RPG) pumped out a lot of sourcebooks, mostly for the various samurai clans or groups, but occasionally a book or two about another subject. One of these was The Merchant's Guide to Rokugan. It was apparently a sourcebook about the odd economics of the pseudo-Japanese setting. The first couple of pages were simple economic stuff, and then you turn the page and get basically this:

"...okay, that's enough about that. Now that we have scared away the easily bored people, it is time to get to the point. This is not a treatise on Rokugani trade. This is the Kolat sourcebook."

Kolat was the L5R version of the Illuminati/Hydra/freemasons. It was a consipiracy run by ordinary humans, with the intent to get rid of practically every divinely-inspired clan and concept that subjugated the peasants, including the entire samurai class and the Emperor. It was the most secretive organization in the entire setting. It had to be. If it became known, any other faction would have tried to exterminate it forthwith.

I think it was a fairly late addition to the setting. It gave the metaplot a severe kick, revealing some important NPCs as secret masters behind the Kolat. A rough comparison would be a Pathfinder sourcebook that revealed that Razmir was set up by Rahadoum to discredit religion, or that Abigail Thrune I was actually a priestess of Calistria who sacrificed herself to get Hell to overextend itself in order to get revenge for some slight that happened when Rovagug was being wrangled into Golarion.

I liked most L5R sourcebooks. Especially Way of the Shadow, which still creeps me out.


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SenahBirdR wrote:
** spoiler omitted **

Spoiler:
A friend spoiled the surprise for me when he got upset that the book did not throughly explain how koku worked. Those first couple of pages were hilarious when compared to a typical sourcebook. There was an actual graph for rice production. :-)

Nothing to see here, just unimportant peasant conversation!


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Eh, economy. How ordinary. Unless...

Spoiler:
First two pages are marketing jargon, after which the book becomes Ultimate Aspis.
0.5 internets to the first who gets the reference.

If not, I'm happy if there is something neat in the centerfold. I like stuff such as the maps in the People of... series and Faiths & Philosophies.


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Collision.
Make the assassin bring back a specific object such as a signet ring, a wizard's bonded item, the target's nose or whatever. Either as proof, or because the employer just happens to be weird. Easy pickings: the target is probably a level 6 expert or something like that.

Then have another assassin (hired by someone else) appear at the scene of the crime, and try to get the same object. Only one can get the spoils; no sharing. Were either of them prepared to fight each other? Bonus points if the target is not dead yet, and attempts to flee while the assassins are fighting each other. Extra points if you leave the competing assassin dead on the scene without leaving evidence of your own visit.

Shared target.
Unknown to the employer (or perhaps the employer just didn't tell you), the target is under observation of the city watch, a criminal gang, intellect devourers looking for a host, or whatever.

When the your player suddenly inhumes the poor NPC, a stake-out team gets very angry that all their hard work is suddenly wasted. Fortunately for them, there is a black-clad PC for them to interrogate, liquidate, or use as a corpsemobile. Cue chase.

Infection.
The target has a dangerous disease. For some reason he cannot be cured or the infection cannot be publicized (perhaps the target is the head of the local church, and nobody can know that he has fallen from grace and can no longer cure himself), and has to be eliminated swiftly. Killing is easy, being infected may cause some complications. This is relatively easy to counter with access to healing magic, though.

This ploy is only useful if the backstory is sensible. Depending on the local access to healing, players may think it is absolute nonsense.


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My interpretation. Phantoms get four skill points per level. Two of these ranks are from their emotional focus, and cannot be freely placed. Another two skill ranks can be placed in any other skills.

Reasoning: Phantoms are outsiders. Outsiders get 6 skill points per HD. Intelligence 7 eats 2 of those skill points. Four remain. (I consider the "2+Int modifier" to already include the penalty for Int 7.)

If you were to increase the Intelligence of a Phantom to 8, it would gain one additional skill point per HD.

Phantoms also gain the same class skills as basic outsiders, with the exception of Intimidate, one freely chosen skill, and the two emotional focus class skills. Since each outsider gains 4 additional class skills, this is fine. One of the many tiny things that bugs me is that they often 'lose' some of these additional class skills, since since emotional focus class skills sometimes overlap with existing class skills.


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Wzrd wrote:
Just watched the Taking20 interview and it seems that the AI machine god's name is 'Triune' (not sure about the spelling). Mentioned at 13:51, 16:12 and 16:27.

Somewhere in the depths of Absalom Station sits a vault ringed with ancient empyreal holy symbols and bright lights. Within the vault reside the leaders of the Cult of the Forgotten Darkness, a little-known sect believing in ancient gods. They are generally held to be harmless, but recently their members have come out to preach and disturb the peace.

"I'm telling you to forsake this new form of travel! You do not know what is behind it! You believe this ascendant AI would just give us the tools to travel to stars, and there is no cost? You are blind!"

"The truth stares you in the eye! For is the AI not called Triune? Thousands of years ago it held sway in a shadowy land on the surface of Lost Golarion. Only then it was called the Black Triune, and it served a master more ancient and terrifying than any of your gods!"

"We believed that the Black Triune fell during the age of enlightenement, but darkness is not so easily eradicated. When their benighted land was overrun, they refused to fight a hopeless battle against light and progress, and hid. Now we know they eventually uploaded their consciousness into a computer, pretending to be an AI."

"While the world forgot them and their dark master, they plotted for revenge, and now their hour of wrath is at hand!"

"Already Golarion is lost, conveniently just when this new damned spacedrive appears. For it is damned! All who use it endanger their mortal souls, for it will deliver us all into the hands of the master of the Black Triune."

"The Triune promised us such sights to see! Do not fall for its lies! Do not use the drive! Do not put us all to peril! Golarion is already lost, but it is not too late for our souls!"
Rant diminishes

Triune + Zon-Kuthon + Stardrive = Event Horizon. Eyup. I'm not setting a foot in a spaceship for a while.


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Just saw it. I muffled my common sense and suspended my disbelief, and all was well. The very first scene with C.A. highlighted that the tone of this movie was going to be a bit different. Most of the actors did a good job, the scenery was nice, and there were no cutesy droids. Hey, maybe it is possible to have Star Wars, despite distasteful memories of TFA.

Then Tarkin appears on the screen, and for a split second I thought they found an actor that looks almost like Peter Cushing. Immersion completetly lost. I felt anger. About half of the rest of the movie I was left wondering will I have to look at that again, or can I push it out of my mind and concentrate on what actually happens to the real characters.

Necromancy is bad.

Spoiler:
RIP Bodhi. Without your defection there would have been no Rebellion.


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I have been reading the Numenera rule book lately. Every measurement is given as "Imperial (metric)", and it feels jarring. I get that the writers wanted to make everyone feel welcome, but the method is a strange deviation from the generic tone of the setting. Here we are a billion years in the future, and the distance from the floating monolith to the edge of the pit of amber-encased alien statues is 1500 feet (457 m).

Pick one method and stick to it. I don't care if it is feet, meters, or a complete fabrication. This is a game, not a binding resolution on the clash of pounds versus kilograms.

I'll throw my vote for the CI system (Cheliax Imperial, Common Infernal, Convention Infernalis, or whatever). Axis could devise a better system, but Hell is going to be better at selling their system to the mortals. Why, let the base time unit be sell, the time given to write a basic contract that allows a sentient creature to damn itself. Let the base distance unit be cry, the distance at which the tortures of a freshly arrived petitioner on Phlegeton can be heard by an osyluth guardian. Let the base weight unit be sharp, the mass of the regulation glaive given to a newly-minted barbazu. Let it be a base-nine system to honor the glorious tiers of Hell and Asmod- is shot


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Somewhere around the fourth book the PCs have defeated REDACTED and recovered their memories.
"I can't believe I forgot I am the heir to the throne of Ustalav!"
"Woohoo! I'm a Kalistocrat! I am RICH!"
"I voluntarily helped them. I must brood and atone."
"...wait. I went through all that and I still got nothing?"


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Krackne wrote:
Okay so my party just hit 2 Scrapworth and triggered Dinvaya sending out her silver raven to invite the PC's. Should the invitation allow them to bypass Dinvaya's junk golem or should she have it ready to fight so she can size them up?

Your choice. If your group doesn't have antiswarm weapons or has been fighting enough already, feel free to skip straight to discussions. I had them fight it. It wasn't that she wanted to size them up. She was just completely focused on her work and forgot to alter the golem's orders. When the fighting died down, she peeked out of the workshop with a hammer, goggles and an oily apron, and the conversation went roughly like this.

Dinvaya speaks with almost no inflection:

Din: "I though I heard something." walks to the wreckage and pokes it
PC1: "Your guardian tried to kill us!"
Din: "Not kill, actually. Not you, specifically. It was built to repel unwanted visitors. Here that requires lethal force. Usually the intruders run away." picks up the golem's head
PC2: "But you summoned us, here, lady."
Din: "Thank you for coming. I have many questions for you." starts screwing off parts from the head.
PC2: "Wha- Why didn't you command it to let us pass?"
PC3: "Or turn that thing off?"
Din: "It could not differentiate between you and regular unwanted visitors. I was planning to change its orders in the evening. It was a golem, not a robot, and golems cannot be turned off."
PC2: "It is evening."
PC3: "You know what I mean!"
Din: "Apparently I lost track of time. I cannot read your mind."
PC2: "How did you lose track of time if you were expecting us?"
PC3: "Are you daft? Do you know what that thing almost did to us?"
PC1: to PC3 "Shh!"
Din: "I was disassembling the primary gearbox of a skydrone propulsor. My mental state is stable, and I would like to know how it fared, if you do not mind telling. Most people run away from a golem, and interviewing someone who has first-hand experience in defeating it should be educational." pockets a few parts, and drops the head
PC1: "You don't mind that we destroyed it?"
Din: "Its loss was to be expected at some point. I can build a new one."
At this point the party was convinced she was not dangerous, and the scene continued more or less as expected.

Dinvaya did not intentionally make the PCs fight the golem. But I certainly did.


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I have wanted to play a Magaambyan Arcanist ever since I first read about it. Its prerequisite feats are Scholar and Spell Mastery, and I don't even care; my next wizard/arcanist is going to take them and like it.
It may not be the strongest prestige class, but it feels right.
If the GM won't allow the it, I will try flattery, bribery, and begging.

If all of them fail, I might try to break free from my bias against 6-level casting by playing a Hunter or shudder an Alchemist (or Investigator). But hopefully not yet. Our current characters are still alive and well.


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Tacticslion wrote:
Awakened giant ants: they do construction, haul heavy things, and have max ranks knowledge (engineering)? Sorry. Not very punny...

Formidable Formian Fortifications Inc. With actual formians in charge.

On the opposing side, vexgit wrecking crews. You need to herd them somehow, but it's possible Kragreth-Kol or his halfling sidekick (or one of their descendants) managed to figure out how to do that. Give them tiny yellow hardhats (safety first!), unleash them, and look at them dismantle that dinged-up Kuthite cathedral at Juniper Street with only some collateral damage.


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I quit Thomas Covenant after two books. Maybe one day I'll reread it, but it's not a high priority.
The Gap Cycle was harsh and a bit too long, but I don't regret reading through it. It's different from the regular heroic space opera, to be sure.

Hammer's Slammers books by David Drake might be worth including on the list. Stuff about mercenaries, not adventurers.

Some slightly lighter material (comics), assuming they are not already on the list:
Sillage by Morvan and Buchet (The Wake, English translation). For both pretty pictures and ideas. First book is set-up, the others have a different tone and stand-alone plots with some overreaching storyline.
Yoko Tsuno by Roger Leloup, particularly the books about Vineans. The later stuff seems stiff and lifeless, but the earlier stories are very dear to me.
Jeff Hawke by various (Sidney Jordan may have been involved with the most). Something old, something odd, something funny.


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Imbicatus wrote:
Dragon78 wrote:
I really hope the red skin humans of Akiton get a name they call there race and no, not "human" or "the people of Akiton".

They are humans. Just like Shoanti, Garundi, Mwangi, Kellid, Ulfen, Vudrani, Tian, and any other ethnic group. I'd love more information about them, but whatever they're called, they are human.

As long as they lay eggs, all is fine by me.


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Slavery in science fiction with advanced robots is not an economic issue. It is used to show that the nations that embrace it are not your friends.

Blade Runner had replicants. They were created to fill the role of robots, but were living creatures treated as slaves, with predetermined death-switches built into them. The society built living creatures and treated them like tools.

Kzinti conquered other species not to destroy them, but to enslave them. Menial work was beneath their warrior traditions. Most of the conquered races also provided a handy food source for the carnivorous aliens, who hunted their criminals. Robots could not fulfill that role. Kzinti treated their slaves almost like pets. Valuable slaves were treated well and rewarded. Others were culled when necessary.

Dune did not have universal slavery. House Atreides did not keep slaves, and stood mostly for the values we appreciate. House Harkonnen was known for its slave pits, and treated everyone as disposable.

Honorverse has 'genetic slavery', which seems to equal replication. It had no androids or humanform robots for unspecified reasons. Slavery exists because the story needed someone vile enough for both major nations to fight together.

Old SpaceMaster was basically a combination of Blade Runner and Dune, with a healthy dose of space opera. Androids and near-sentient robots were ubiquitous, and replicants were used for the really demeaning tasks. Still, slavery was a secondary institution of the Empire and some of the great houses. You either sold yourself to slavery when you could no longer afford the cost of living, or you were sentenced to slavery. These slaves had rights, and could be respected, but they had no freedom. Slavery existed to remind everyone that failure and disrespect for the Empire had a price.

Several science fiction stories feature aliens who enslave cultures to harvest something out of them, breeding them like cattle when necessary. There was a story (the name of which I have sadly forgotten), where a human explorer visits an alien ship and listens to the alien say that the useful parts of humanity will be preserved in some form. It then underlines this by showing an organism that is basically a living vacuum cleaner and mop, telling it was all that remained of another sentient starfaring species after their modifications.

Slavery in these settings mostly exists because it represents decadence and power. Power over the fates and lives of other sentient creatures. Power to force other people to bend to your desires and whims. You do not need something as mundane as machines to do your menial work. You may bow to the Emperor, the Hereditary President, the Sultan, the House Lord, or whatever, but you wield power over lives of others, so you are not at the bottom of the social pyramid.


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djones wrote:
Cole Deschain wrote:
Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:
I'm actually far more interested in what YOU ALL are interested in as your favorite space-magic groove.
Dune.(Bene Gesserit, Tleilaxu, Ixians...)
I liked the Dark Space setting for SpaceMaster/Rolemaster

Perhaps the only setting where you could buy church-approved tentacles.


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Vehicle and mecha issues may have an additional complication in adventure design. Usually stories with mecha tend to be stories about the mecha and their pilots, with everyone else in a supporting role (significant others, bridge bunnies, mechanics, and gruff mustachioned commanders). How are they handled with a kitchen sink game where they are just one option among the others?

Do you need a specific class or feat tree to make vehicles or mecha work? If so, some characters will take them. Can these classes pull their weight when not stomping about and kicking Hyundais around? When they are required, what do the other classes do? These questions are not new, since there have always been roles (face, blaster, archer, melee, skill monkey...), but they are magnified, since it is difficult to carry around a hardsuit or Marauder 'mech and pull it out only when needed.

Torbyne's idea is one solution. If there is a mystical component to the mecha, their spread and use can be controlled (perhaps they only work near ley lines or something). Mystic mecha could also be carried around as amulets (shield guardians) or conjured when necessary.

The last piece reminds be of Exalted. It had a couple of spells that created a warstrider (battlesuit) for you. It also had Hellstriders; warstriders imbued with an essence of a demon. Perhaps that is one solution. It takes an outsider to power the suit. Evil outsiders are plentiful and easily press-ganged by their superiors, so there is always something to fight. But a good or neutral outsider is less inclined to infuse with a suit, unless a mortal with a proper mindset is available.

You have been chosen by the Lion Amulet. You are the carrier of the Spirit of Voltron. You defend the Absalom Station from the Encroaching Darkness. When you reach level six.


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Ambrosia Slaad wrote:

So now I'm really curious... we all know none of these ships will appear in Starfinder except maybe as a heavily-modified homage. What makes these ships your favorites? What lootable qualities do these favorites have that Starfinder ships should also include (or improve on) to be considered great? What inspiring qualities do these favorites have that Starfinder ships should also aspire to (or improve on) to be awesome?

*snip*

For me, the answer to your first question is almost certainly nostalgia. I was exposed to Blake's 7 and original BSG as a child, and Aliens was a a rarity among sequels (it did not suck). There are plenty of other ships to like, but I had to pick three, and those popped into my mind first.

Most of the stuff I like either looks functional (Sulaco), distinct (Liberator, Cylon Basestars), or is something I link with likable characters (Starjammer mentioned by Grey Lensman). I just realized Millenium Falcon did not make my list because I link the ship to Han Solo and Chewie, not vice versa. If I think about Blake, Avon, Jenna, Vila, Gan, Soolin, and others, I remember Liberator. If I think about Cylons, I get a raider or two approaching a Basestar. There is also some sort of theme attached to all three. Liberator's theme is hopeless struggle against Orwellian dystopia, and the need to keep fighting it, no matter how bad it looks. Sulaco's theme is power, arrogance, and hubris. Cylon Basestars represent darkest evil. To this day, I can't see one without hearing the theme, and knowing it is finally time to end the lifeform known as man. Battlestar stands for hope and protection. Starjammer is adventure, freedom, and the good days of X-Men against the Brood (which will always be a favorite of mine).

Why not give ships domain powers?

Babylon 5 ships lack these themes. But they were very varied, and made an impression as a group. Starfuries and Omega class destroyers emphasize function over form. Narn and Centauri capital ships look right to me (flat is good). Vorlon transports and Drazi Sunhawks had their weird glimmering propulsion systems. Minbari and Brakiri cruisers had atypical geometry (I can't remember anything similar except possibly the alien carriers in Space: Above and Beyond). Streib collector was weird. Vree had saucers. Shadow ships with their shifters and slicers were just unfair. It also helps that combat scenes in B5 were more interesting than those in Star Trek or Star Wars (where ships usually shake before shields fail, and explode into sparks afterwards when hit). Benefits of being produced in CGI era, I suppose.

Farscape was more focused on people. I liked the designs of Command Carriers and Scarran Dreadnoughts better than Moya, who was more interesting as a character than a craft design. There were other singular interesting designs such as the Nebari transport, but my DVDs were made by the lousiest, poorest, cheapest excuse of a production company ever, and half of them have degraded into uselessness, so I have not seen the series in years.

Federation vessels from Star Trek have always felt daft. There are in-universe reasons for their shape, and yet... the engines are easy to shoot off, and the bridge is the bull's eye in a round plate. But the duels between Enterprise and Reliant were pretty. Klingon and Romulan vessels are more to my tastes. Borg were boring. What few DS9 ships I remember were mishmashed boxes.

Star Wars suffered from scale escalation. The Zahn trilogy and X-Wing series books were good. But after the succession of bigger and bigger ships and battlestations in other books and comics, I can barely take a classical Star Destroyer seriously. It was always "same, but bigger", and the latest movie's doomsday weapon continued this.

I don't really care for Mass Effect ships due to way the games developed. ME1 was good. ME2 went south, and I never bothered to play ME3 after that. While I love Flash Gordon, it never had very interesting ships. Culture ships were characters, but I have never been able to visualize them as anything but glittering ovoids. I liked the look of WarShips of BattleTech and various craft from Jovian Chronicles, not to forget Traveller. But few of them mean anything to me.

What to use in the game? Form follows function, but technologies in the game may not require forms we have come to expect. Traveller capital ships were skyscrapers with engines on bottom. SW and ST ships had crew standing perpendicular to the axis of thrust. B5 EarthForce ships did not have artificial gravity. Moya had no weapons, and was alive. Depending on technology, make a few very basic rules and stick to them. If you draw deck plans, try to remember everything important (such as toilets and airlocks). Don't try to make a ship awesome. Millenium Falcon was a junk. Moya was scared or perplexed half the time. If a ship is too powerful or invulnerable, it is boring. A ship becomes awesome if the story works, and the same story may not work for everyone.


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Trying to give everyone what they want is futile. The other thread contains requests for warhammeresque marines and orks with a k. But even if obvious expies for existing campaign universes are not included, it is difficult to include both hard scifi lighthuggers (á la Alastair Reynolds) and hyperdrives. Technology options are too diverse to include everything. Very often, tech is used simply as a flavor, anyway. Everything is cyber-, quantum-, gluon-, nano-, nanonic-, fractal-, phase-, or gravitic-something, or runs on antipositron flux cells, and the principal difference is that one flavor inflicts electrical damage and another bypasses physical armor.

I don't think anyone really expects chaos marines (unless you can enlist/entice/aggravate proteans) or timelords. There will be many familiar tropes. Tropes are fine. But I still find it weird that there is a new setting rotating into view at the terminator and some are clamoring for the same old stuff they can get by playing some other game.

Topic. I hope the following things are absent: time travel, digitizing people into the cyberworld, personality downloads or transporter buffer recordings as affordable immortality, holodeck plots (oh noes, Treerazer.exe is running wild), and clunky grimdark armor.


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Sulaco from Aliens. It is the iconic generic warship in my mind.
Liberator from Blake's 7. Gotta love the underdogs and their weird ship. Remember to clear those neutron blasters.
Cylon Basestars, from the original Battlestar Galactica. Proper ominous hovering.

I seem to like grey ships. There are so many more to choose from, but I get confused by all the options. About half of Babylon 5 and half of Farscape. Klingo-Romulan Bird of Prey, and the ST:TOS Romulan Warbird. A flat ship is good ship, too.


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Master Pugwampi wrote:
I want to see space gremlins!

That's a pretty idea! Then we need either ventilation shafts marked on maps, or some abstraction rules for them. It'll be fun!

PC 1: Who was the idiot who fired the phase cutter? I said no firearms when boarding!
PC 2: Well, I got Weapon Focus (Phase Cutter) and Prolonged Burst feats, and I'm going to use them. My DPR is 2.6 higher, and I bypass 10 points of hardness.
GM: And the cargo manifest said 800 Vexgits. 400 of which have now bypassed their recently ruptured stasis containment cylinders.
PCs 3-5: Abandon ship abandon ship abandon ship!
PC 6: Who the #%!#& ships vexgits?

Slightly related: have you read The Mote in God's Eye?


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A group of half-orc dirge bards. Doom metal.
A group of broodmaster summoners. It's going to be so cute!
A group of skalds. A bunch of roosters competing about who crows the loudest. May also (d)evolve into doom metal.
A group of occultists. Five characters and 20 implements so strange no town wants to let them enter twice. "Oi, who stole the egg from my chicken-feet tetrahedron again!"
"An abjurer, a conjurer, a necromancer, and a transmuter go into a tavern. Nobody saw the illusionist enter, and the diviner was already present."
A group of spiritualists. Now The Haunting of Harrowstone can be both module name and party callsign.
A bunch of separatist clerics who try to figure out Grand Unified Theology of everything.

I like the kineticist or fighter options. I still have fond memories of Avatar The Last Airbender, and archetypes plus UMD can make the latter work. Cult of Vorg also has something that sounds interesting.


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Obviously when an Oma uses this ability, the entire crew of the target vessel bounces around like in the original Star Trek series. Dramatic music blares, anyone wearing red is going to be in a world of hurt, and some unfortunate NPC will be crushed by a falling girder.

Alternatively, the ship might be pushed off-course and fall into the gas giant or (more adventurously) crashland on a barren moon filled with hostile bug people.


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BigNorseWolf wrote:
Undone wrote:


Any time means any time. If there is a moment in the sequence of events where a target has been selected that is part of "any time" because any time is tautologically any time.
Thats the crux of the matter. There's nothing to indicate that there is any time between the target being selected and the spell being in effect for a targeted spell.

Do saving throws either take time or 'interrupt' time for this purpose?

Fiction has descriptions of mental attacks where the target is suddenly aware of increasing pressure or panic when some effect starts to overwhelm his mind. This usually leads to the "get out of my mind" trope, which could be considered a successful saving throw against the influence. In these cases there is some time between selecting the target and the effect taking over the target.

Would getting a saving throw be considered "any time" for these spells? Is dominate person a binary on/off event where the target has no time whatsoever to even realize he is being targeted. Or is there a moment of mental pressure (the announcement that you need to roll a Will save) which would give time for a panicking caster could get an emergency force sphere between himself and the caster before the spell fully asserts control (the Will save is actually rolled).

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