Temennigru's page

A few issues:
1- warp blade stats are missing
2- stats are too damn high (the norm is +2/+2/-2 or just +2)
3- at-will SLAs are way too powerful. They should be 1/day or 2/day based on spell level. Telepathy could be made into a "broadcast telepathy" that works just like talking.
4- the water thing makes no sense. Create water makes water that only disappears if you don't drink it. If it disappeared anyway, people's blood would dry out.
5- there are quite a few typos and language errors. It's, for instance means it is. The possessive for it is its.

I didn't like how the authors dealt with weapons.

The whole point of having mechs is scalability and reliability. In my opinion, mechs should have weapon power drained from the mech itself, regular ammunition should be stored inside the mech and auto-loaded to the weapons, instead of using magazines, and, most importantly, mech weapons should be a cheap way to do s+&!loads of damage, as you require a mech to actually operate the weapon. Mech weapons should have a fixed size and each size should be more cost-effective for damage than smaller weapons, as macro tech is cheaper than micro tech.

I just came by to tell you that you did an amazing job on the conversion to starfinder. Keep up the good work!

I see. I'm sure tanks and mecha will have their own book(s) and rules. The devs said at GenCon the two things they most regretted couldn't fit into CRB were Mech Suits and Fist of the North Star super punching martial arts.

We have releases scheduled for Oct 2017 and Mar 2018.

I'm guessing those books would be coming out mid 2018.

I can't really afford to wait that long.

I wish they would release "make your own mech" guidelines before then.

I don't think Weapon Proficiency represents using weapons a certain relative amount larger than you. It's more of how to hold, how to swing/fire etc. A Longarm is still built to be held, reloaded, fired, carried a certain way, regardless of how big it is relative to you.

Likely they don't need rules around this since any PC race is unlikely to be smaller than Small or larger than Large, and NPCs don't follow normal rules anyway, so they could add a 5d20 assault cannon to a monster stat block with the caveat it's too big to be used by PCs without needing a whole rules subsystem or pages of Guns PCs could never use.

No, PC races are not larger than large. But Powered Armor can make you any size.

I believe your first example will be how we'll see scenarios, a larger creature will have a weapon of a level near its CR. A CR13 giant will not have a lvl 1 laser rifle, but a lvl 12-14 one.

Again, I'm not talking about monsters. I'm talking about PCs using tanks and mechs.

I don't think a weapon used by a colossal robot should deal the same damage as a weapon used by a regular person.

I also don't believe in damage scaling with size, especially with futuristic weapons, and I especially think weapons should be made in a single size only, as the technology required to make such weapons doesn't scale.

I think different size catagories should get their own weapons, and that creatures should be able to adapt weapons of up to one size category larger or smaller than them to be used effectively by them.

Examples:
-While a medium creature gets a plasma rifle, a huge creature should get a plasma cannon.
-A raccoon should be able to have a trigger for a medium assault rifle adapted so he could use it as a heavy weapon.

One more thing: Siege weapons, such as artillery, plox.

That dropship looks a lot more like a vehicle (CH 8, pg 278) than a starship (CH 9).

Things that move through SPESS are supposed to be starships.

That was just an example. I was talking about something like this:
http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Thunderhawk
https://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/warhammer40k/images/c/c1/Thunderhawk_T ransporter.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/640?cb=20110405103434
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Low_Altitude_Assault_Transport

A few issues with how starships work:

1- Starfinder rules say you aren't meant to use a starship in a character battle, and even suggests you make starship fire into hazards, because they are supposed to target starships, but what about starships built SPECIFICALLY to target characters, such as gunships?

Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9iXTBcBlQ4#t=43

2- There is currently no way to drop vehicles and people from a starship without having to land the ship itself. There should be options for both drop pods and dropships (see example above)

3- If a player wants to build a personal starship that he pilots during missions, he would have to take resources out of the group pool. Small crafts should be available for purchase without having to ask the group for alternative money. Perhaps personal crafts could even be included in the vehicles part instead of the starships part.

The powered armor options in the Core Rulebook are pretty bare-bones. They also suffer a bit in how swiftly they become obsolete: The Flight Frame (level 11), other than reach, is mostly outmatched in a couple levels by Exident Skyfire Armor (level 13) and a Forcepack (level 9); plus, a 13th level character can easily have 22 Str on their own.

@Temennigru: I'm not sure power armor needs to be "upgraded" that much, however. As much as powered armor should be, well powerful, from a game system perspective they should not be so powerful that they become better than all the other options (a problem with some systems like RIFTS). Adding some additional versions and customization options, especially if a character could "mod" the armor as they increased in level* (almost like a mechanic's drone), would definitely be nice.

*- maybe a feat or feat chain with Powered Armor Proficiency as a prerequisite? Sort of like Connection Inkling, Minor Psychic Power/Psychic Power/Major Psychic Power, or Technomantic Dabbler; depending on if you want it to scale like Connection Inkling/Technomantic Dabbler 1st level spell uses per day or be separate like the Psychic Power feats.

Like I said, it's not about power level. It's about scalability.

They need to be changed before they are expanded.

It's not really a matter of how powerful it is, as it is a matter of how little detail went into it. From what I got from it, was that powered armor was also supposed to encompass mechas (the flight frame is an example), but it does not provide enough details to do so.
I'm having to homebrew my own rules for it.

Here is an example of the 40k campaign I'm GMing:

XV104 Riptide Battlesuit

Level: 13
Price: 70,000
EAC Bonus: +25
KAC Bonus: +25
Max Dex Bonus: +0
Armor Check Penalty: -10
Speed: 45 feet, fly 90 feet (poor)
Strength: 22
Damage: 3d8 B
Size: Huge
Capacity: 4000
Usage: 2/min (10/min while flying)
Weapon Slots: 1
Siege Weapon Slots: 1
Upgrade Slots: 2
Bulk: 60
Included Systems: Planetary comm unit, blacksun filter
Special:
-Nova Reactor (Ex): The XV104 Riptide is equipped with an experimental power generator that can be activated should the Shas’vre pilot require extra power to sustain his heavy rate of fire. It provides virtually infinite energy when overcharged, but it comes at a risk to the pilot. As a swift action, the riptide's pilot may overcharge the nova reactor. If he does, the riptide does not use energy for one round, but it produces a high radiation field inside the battlesuit.
-Riptide Shield Generator (Ex): The riptide's shield generator is designed to work together with its nova reactor. It provides +2 AC while the nova reactor is overcharged.

I'm considering that weapons attached drain power from the armor itself, and the siege weapons consume quite a lot of power (like 10-50 charges per shot).

I feel like powered armor weapon slots should have expanded rules.

1- Powered armor should be allowed to have melee weapons attached.

2- Since powered armor is scalable, it should be able to allow for larger weapons to be placed on it based on size (your huge battlesuit shouldn't have to use a regular machine gun. It should have access to a tank cannon).
In my campaign, I've separated weapon slots into melee weapon slots, ranged weapon slots, siege weapon slots and heavy siege weapon slots. I think starfinder should do something similar.

3- Weapon power should be drained from the armor itself. It makes no sense for an attached weapon to use its own power source and have to be reloaded. It's also more fun if you have to resource manage your powered armor's power. In order to prevent abuse, it should also have a per-turn power yield.

If you are building multiple ships with your BPs, by RAW all your ships would be the same tier level and the crew action DCs would be ridiculously high for a half-ship.

Tier level system needs a fix. Maybe, instead of having a ship tier be determined by level, you could have BP be determined by level, and have the ship tier be determined by BP.

Temennigru wrote:

SlimGauge wrote:

Masterwork Crafing Rules wrote:

as if it were a separate item

.

I stand by my statements. This masterwork component is NOT actually a separate physical item. It is created AS IF it was. That is an accounting fiction to make the math work.

If that were true, it would be crafted as a single item, with an increased DC.

I'm not looking for a discussion. I've already discussed this elsewhere. I'm looking for an official answer.

Sorry, the boards aren't generally a place to get official rulings on things. Player interpretation is as good as it gets, with a few exceptions (mainly FAQs). Even if a developer commented, it would be in an unofficial capacity.

That said, Slim is right. You can't buy the masterwork component separately, although hiring a caster for the Masterwork Transformation spell is almost as good.

Hiring someone to cast the spell costs 360gp. It completely defeats the purpose of crafting.

Masterwork Crafing Rules wrote:

as if it were a separate item

.

I stand by my statements. This masterwork component is NOT actually a separate physical item. It is created AS IF it was. That is an accounting fiction to make the math work.

If that were true, it would be crafted as a single item, with an increased DC.

I'm not looking for a discussion. I've already discussed this elsewhere. I'm looking for an official answer.

Temennigru wrote:

What I mean is can I purchase a masterwork component and craft a weapon normally around it? I don't want to upgrade an existing weapon.

From the Craft skill

1. Find the item's price in silver pieces (1 gp = 10 sp).
2. Find the item's DC from Table: Craft Skills.
3. Pay 1/3 of the item's price for the raw material cost.
4. Make an appropriate Craft check representing one week's worth of work.

Either you include the masterwork cost in step 1 and get a masterwork item at the end, or you do not and the result will not be masterwork. This so-called "masterwork component" that you're talking about is not a physical component, but high quality materials and supplies consumed in the crafting process.

You failed to include masterwork crafting rules

You can make a masterwork item: a weapon, suit of armor, shield, or tool that conveys a bonus on its use through its exceptional craftsmanship. To create a masterwork item, you create the masterwork component as if it were a separate item in addition to the standard item. The masterwork component has its own price (300 gp for a weapon or 150 gp for a suit of armor or a shield, see Equipment for the price of other masterwork tools) and a Craft DC of 20. Once both the standard component and the masterwork component are completed, the masterwork item is finished. The cost you pay for the masterwork component is one-third of the given amount, just as it is for the cost in raw materials.

What I mean is can I purchase a masterwork component and craft a weapon normally around it?
I don't want to upgrade an existing weapon.

Hi,

If I make a weapon or armor, can I purchase the masterwork component separately so I don't have to craft it?

Hi,
I have another question:

Where are the medical drones mentioned in the gnome technomancer archetype?

It took like 5 years to build a space shuttle and you want to create a bagillion more complicated version with an adventuring party?

We are all computer scientists. We can handle it.

Temennigru wrote:

5- If the players ever decide to make a ship of their own, how would the point buy work? The book mentions hull costs, but it doesn't mention point buy.

So, you purchase the hull. The hull comes with X points. You spend those X points on component systems, like your engine, your weapons, your tactical systems, etc... You can only spend up to that maximum.

It's pretty straightforward.

I mean if you make the hull from scratch, like chosing the material, ship size, etc.

So the intention was for...

Thanks for the clarification

No, I haven't.

They have a more physics based system, but their accessories could very well fit starships, such as adding threads to a ship or an arm to a drone.

There is one more question I forgot to ask:

5- If the players ever decide to make a ship of their own, how would the point buy work? The book mentions hull costs, but it doesn't mention point buy.

Yeah, it felt very RPG-videogame to me. It creates unnecessary granularity to a crafting system that doesn't operate that way in Pathfinder.

I'm planning on implementing it anyway in my campaign, as it incentives scavenging. I'll tell you how it goes.

My players also have a few questions for you:

1- How does crew work? It seems to be explained in the book, but from what we got from it, it doesn't work as it should.
Example 1: A fighter spacecraft has a single space for the pilot and a single crewman (the pilot). If you add an engine, the crew requirements increase by one, and you no longer have enough space in your craft to fit your crew.
Example 2: If you purchase a drone and add a weapon to it, the crew requirements go up and it is no longer autonomous.

2- How does scaling work? Does the same engine that power a skiff power a full-sized battleship and give it the same speed?

3- Do ships have a pre-defined map or are their spaces fully modular and customizable?

4- If an air generator occupies space and a fighter does not have space for it, how would the pilot breathe?

PS: Have you seen the vehicle system from ships of skyborne? It's very similar to yours and it would be nice if both systems were interchangeable.

So, I do have a little problem with adding point buy to Wealth by Level. Consider the fact that when you average out vessel components, it falls somewhere in the neighborhood of 600,000 gp. (It's a little over, but I rounded.) If you give a point every level, you've given out 12,000,000 gp. That's kind of ridiculous for wealth by level, even if you can only use it for vessels, and you can still only get pretty small vessels (with lots of goodies inside). If you gave out 5 points, you can maybe get to a superheavy vessel in the home stretch toward 20th level, but you're talking a 60,000,000 gp add-on to wealth by level... that can still be sold off, and therefore, it kind of negates the economic fix we just worked out.

Makes sense. I guess my main concern right now is not having enough cheap options right now to upgrade the vessel, so their ship won't evolve with the characters as they progress and the players won't have that much love for it. But with your fix this shouldn't be that much of a problem, since I can reward them with components without having to worry about WBL now.

The component crafting system with off-game support is something that I do want to hear more about, just to be sure I understand what you're suggesting.

My initial idea is to add 3 kinds of parts that can be used to either do small upgrades to the ship or craft new vessel components.

1- Parts that are easily purchased in the market.
2- Parts that must be crafted with special materials, feats, etc.
3- Parts that must be found or salvaged (these would be artifacts)

As an example, let's use a simple warp drive:

Warp Drive
Artifact
Components:
1x Warp Coil (Artifact)
3x Plasma Injectors (Purchasable)
3x Anti-Matter generator (Craftable. Has its own required materials list, such as mithril, platinum, etc.)
Requires Craft Technological Item to craft + 5 days and X gp.

Parts will be able to be replaced with better ones, by using enchantment rules, since they are simple enough to understand, and that will give my players cheap options for upgrades:

Plasma Injectors:
For each +1 enchantment, reduces fuel consumption of the part by 2%

I will also make a salvage rule:
Salvaging a part requires a Knowledge Engineering test to succeed.
Salvaging an artifact has a 10% chance of success and destroys the other parts in the process.

This is what I've come up with so far. I based it on the crafting system that you find in most RPG videogames.
Most of my campaign uses new rules as it is based on Warhammer 40k and I am having to rewrite lots of rules already to fit into that universe (such as weapons, factions, vehicles, etc.). Starjammer has the core rules that I am using.

In-game problem #2:

I'm afraid I didn't catch this one.

Problem #2 was requiring an amount of wealth to upgrade the vehicle way beyond what WBL allowed till epic levels.

In discussing with the team, we've reconfigured the prices for hulls to make more sense to you. They're quite a bit more expensive now, but now you shouldn't be able to part out your vessel for more than you bought it for. If you're wondering why we got the numbers that we got, we averaged out basically all vessel components and figured out how much the hull should cost based upon the materials that went into constructing it (which I had on a spreadsheet anyway) plus the component average for its point buy.

We also returned engines back to artifact status, though they remain artifacts that you can repair. We don't want to leave you stranded and left to die if your engine is somehow disabled.

I hope that you find this solution much more elegant and suited to your table. The best way to upgrade a vessel is still probably going to be to either haul ridiculous amounts of highly valuable cargo, or to scavenge defeated or derelict vessels and sell off their parts. But, that hasn't changed from before.

Thank you very much for your input. Best wishes!

Thank you for the consideration. I think artifact status (specifically not having a price) solves most of the problems I mentioned, but in my opinion there should be some sort of system that allows players to upgrade their vessel off-game for quicker campaigns.

The 2 solutions that I have thought of so far would be adding point buy to WBL (instead of the group gold) or having a component crafting system with off-game support.

Again, thank you very much for the consideration.

Temennigru wrote:

cartmanbeck wrote:

Temennigru wrote:

I'm a bit concerned about the point buy system. Let's say you buy a skiff for 96k. You get 2 pointbuy to buy upgrades and decide to buy an alchemical roarengine, which costs 2 point buy (exactly what you have).

You then proceed to scrap your vessel and sell your engine for the standard price of 1/2 market price, which gives you 800k. You've basically just earned 700k by doing absolutely nothing.

I think that is something that GMs are going to have to reign in, and speak to their players beforehand about. If your players are going to take the gold values literally like that and try to game the system, then you should make them earn their first ship instead of just giving it to them, by making them adventure for a while on a single planet and have no means of transportation. Or you could have them stow away on other peoples' ships for a while, doing what they need to do either earn a crap-ton of money, or steal a ship. Or put them on a traveling space station for their first several levels. Lots of options!

That's like adding a spell that gives you 2 spell slots and telling me that GMs should reign in to not let players abuse it. The system is broken from fluff to mechanics.

The components should cost LESS than the ships. Not more. Firstly because it makes no sense for you to buy a $10,000 car and get a free $1,000,000 plane. Secondly because it is virtually impossible for a PC to ever buy an upgrade for his ship. Thirdly because the individual components of something should make up 1/3 to 1/2 of the total cost, as per the craft rules.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/craft/
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/item-creation-feats/craft-wondrous-item-item- creation-final/

These rules are consolidated and balanced, and should have been used as a base for the ship component rules.

Good evening!

I'm going to try to clear this up for you. When you buy a skiff, it costs you 96,000 gp, has free customization 7...

I understand what you're saying, but the price difference is still way too much for it to make sense. Going back to the car analogy, a $10,000 car won't have an engine that costs $500,000 dollars by itself.

Like I said, you probably should have based the system in the component-to-completed-product ratio, and not necessarily used it as it is. You could have very well added a non-bulk cost to the component cost, and that would be understandable, but the individual components of starships should in no way cost more than the starship itself, or the in-game economy would collapse with people going crazy and buying all the starships in the market to sell the precious things inside.

As for modifying your spacecraft, I would understand that the super ultra mega power pimp-o-matic engine could cost more than your original craft, but replacing your original engine with the same one should not.

In real world terms, "Repowering a typical car or truck with a rebuilt – remanufactured engine costs between $2,250 to $4,000 or about 10% to 20% of the cost of a new vehicle. Additional savings in annual insurance costs can also be significant compared to purchasing a new vehicle."

I've given you 2 in-game problems (one of them is solvable by banning players from selling ship components, the other not so much, as millions of gp is not something achievable at less than epic levels), but here is a third:
It is more cost-effective to buy a ship, strip it of its engine and put it in your ship than actually buying the engine.

I've actually been having to consider completely ignoring the prices you set and making a "ship crafting system" where you can find and purchase individual parts (such as a plasma stabilizer, gravity field generator, etc.) to build ship components instead of buying them.

And all my players all agree with me when I say that the starjammer economy is broken.
I'm hoping that you will consider my opinion on this matter.

Thank you for your time.

Temennigru wrote:

I'm a bit concerned about the point buy system. Let's say you buy a skiff for 96k. You get 2 pointbuy to buy upgrades and decide to buy an alchemical roarengine, which costs 2 point buy (exactly what you have).

You then proceed to scrap your vessel and sell your engine for the standard price of 1/2 market price, which gives you 800k. You've basically just earned 700k by doing absolutely nothing.

I think that is something that GMs are going to have to reign in, and speak to their players beforehand about. If your players are going to take the gold values literally like that and try to game the system, then you should make them earn their first ship instead of just giving it to them, by making them adventure for a while on a single planet and have no means of transportation. Or you could have them stow away on other peoples' ships for a while, doing what they need to do either earn a crap-ton of money, or steal a ship. Or put them on a traveling space station for their first several levels. Lots of options!

That's like adding a spell that gives you 2 spell slots and telling me that GMs should reign in to not let players abuse it. The system is broken from fluff to mechanics.

The components should cost LESS than the ships. Not more. Firstly because it makes no sense for you to buy a $10,000 car and get a free $1,000,000 plane. Secondly because it is virtually impossible for a PC to ever buy an upgrade for his ship. Thirdly because the individual components of something should make up 1/3 to 1/2 of the total cost, as per the craft rules.
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/craft/
http://www.d20pfsrd.com/feats/item-creation-feats/craft-wondrous-item-item- creation-final/

These rules are consolidated and balanced, and should have been used as a base for the ship component rules.

I'm a bit concerned about the point buy system. Let's say you buy a skiff for 96k. You get 2 pointbuy to buy upgrades and decide to buy an alchemical roarengine, which costs 2 point buy (exactly what you have).
You then proceed to scrap your vessel and sell your engine for the standard price of 1/2 market price, which gives you 800k. You've basically just earned 700k by doing absolutely nothing.