Pathfinder... in... space!


Lost Omens Campaign Setting General Discussion

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So, what kind of planet is Golarion on? Is it earth-like? Are there any neighboring planets? Is there just one moon? One sun? How close are they to it? Is life on the Pathfinder world the only life in the universe? What's it like out there?

I started thinking about all this after wondering why nobody just puts the Tarrasque in the sun.


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Distant Worlds is the go to source for Golarion's solar system.

One moon, one sun, lots of other planets, pretty much all of which have some sort of life.


Interesting!


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Distant Worlds


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I've been noodling around with space station construction for an antagonist in a future game, this looks like a place to dump it.

Items needed:
Necklace of Adaptation
Immovable Rod
Bottle of Air
Seven s+#@-tons of diamond dust

Spells needed:
Greater Teleport (eventually Teleport Gate)
Wall of Force
Permanency

Optional:
Wall of Stone, Stone Shape

Step one, teleport a few thousand miles up (22,000ish gets you to the Lagrange point but you likely don't know about that).

Place Rod and activate.
Anchor a Wall of Force to the Rod, you now have the beginning of a floor.
Permanency that wall.
Teleport home or just hang out until you get your spells back.
Keep adding Walls of force until you have all six sides sealed.
Toss in the bottle of air to make an atmosphere.
If size permits, use wall of stone to build the interior structures.
If you do that, grab a bunch more Rods to support the weight (8,000lbs/rod)
Space Station is online.

Now build another room with an open floor and a weak Reverse Gravity.
Use this room to open gates to the plane of Earth and grab huge chunks of rock to rain on your foes/the people who laughed at you.


...aside from having to raise the question of what an immovable rod's actual range is, that's a work of sheer genius. /applause


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Don't see an edit button anymore, I made a mistake there, the 22,000ish miles is for geosynchronous orbit, again you likely would not know this. Unless you get your hands on some kind of divination spell (Contact outer plane comes to mind) and start asking about the best places to go. The five lagrange points would be similarly hard to find but doable.


What happens if you're hit with an antimagic spell? Does magic extend beyond the planet?

Senior Editor/Fiction Editor

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This space station idea is amazing!


Not to burst your bubble but an immobile rod is, you know, immobile. As the planet rotates around the sun wouldn't it move away from the completely stationary space station?


Vamptastic wrote:
What happens if you're hit with an antimagic spell? Does magic extend beyond the planet?

I'd surround the exterior with walls of stone just to be on the safe side. Although you'll have to repair them regularily as they are struck by mini-meteors.

I don't see why magic would be bound to the planet specifically.


Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

Not to burst your bubble but an immobile rod is, you know, immobile. As the planet rotates around the sun wouldn't it move away from the completely stationary space station?

By the same line of reasoning, wouldn't the planet eventually rotate away from an immobile rod on its surface?

I'd suggest that so long as the immobile rod is in a location which can reasonably be called an orbit of the planet, then one can apply the same reasoning that allows spellcasters to teleport onto moving ships.


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Bellona wrote:
Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

Not to burst your bubble but an immobile rod is, you know, immobile. As the planet rotates around the sun wouldn't it move away from the completely stationary space station?

By the same line of reasoning, wouldn't the planet eventually rotate away from an immobile rod on its surface?

I'd suggest that so long as the immobile rod is in a location which can reasonably be called an orbit of the planet, then one can apply the same reasoning that allows spellcasters to teleport onto moving ships.

Good point. Upon consideration it does have a weight limit. I take that to mean that it can't break orbit even when activated.

Magi-physics are hard.


That was the point of my post above: we need to know, now, how far away an immovable rod has to be from a planet before it doesn't know what it's supposed to be immovable in respect to.


Evil Midnight Lurker wrote:
That was the point of my post above: we need to know, now, how far away an immovable rod has to be from a planet before it doesn't know what it's supposed to be immovable in respect to.

So this plan would work just as well in the air as in space.


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Sure. Though in air you'd have wind trying to move the station around, also you'd be pretty vulnerable to dragons and other jerks who can fly.

As for the anti-magic shell, you'd lose one to four wall sections depending where it was dropped. Then you'd lose atmosphere and people who got sucked out would do so through an anti-magic shell.

As for the rod, even if it's not holding reletive to the planet/moon, it can be reletive to the sun as long as it's in the solar system. Every 4000ish miles up weight goes down by 75% or so, so at 8,000 miles it's under a pound. However, as long as you're within distance of the moon which is a bit over 200,000 miles things orbit, so you're still within distance for quite a bit.

It'd be a bit easier as a moon base.


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Oh man. Great adventure idea: A bunch of vampires and evil things that decided to just move to the moon where they won't be harassed by those jerk adventurers.


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Vamptastic wrote:
Oh man. Great adventure idea: A bunch of vampires and evil things that decided to just move to the moon where they won't be harassed by those jerk adventurers.

Vampires would have to bring enough if a herd to sustain them or have a way to get back and forth. The latter could be how the adventurers get back and forth. Great adventure idea. The lich neighbors on the moon would be pissed at the vampire clans.

Senior Editor/Fiction Editor

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Vamptastic wrote:
Oh man. Great adventure idea: A bunch of vampires and evil things that decided to just move to the moon where they won't be harassed by those jerk adventurers.

I imagine that Eox is a great vacation spot for undead that don't have to breathe.

Sovereign Court

You forget the part where you need to Boost up yourself, notably about avoiding the breathing part, before you teleport so high.

Unless you are a lich, that is.


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If you're referring to Journ's space station idea, one of the first things listed for the creator is a Necklace of Adaptation.

What's the ruling on Wall of Force and air/air currents? A Bottle of Air was listed for the station itself.

<checks Bottle of Air write-up>

Hmmm ... it looks like the Bottle of Air is more like a scuba-diver's bottle of air, meant to be breathed from. "... [I]t retains air within it at all times, continually renewing its contents", and then goes on to describe users taking lungfuls of breath from it. I'm not entirely sold on the idea that it would "push out" any air at all on its own.


For wall, I'm pretty sure it blocks gas attacks so it ought to be airtight.

For the atmosphere, may have to admixture a decanter of endless water or trap an air elemental somewhere.

Also, on the first day you need a fly or levitate spell so you don't fall before you create the floor.


I was under the impression that a wall of force could be placed in the air without needing anything to support it, so you shouldn't need immovable rods at all. However, if you want to make floors with a wall of force, you'd need to research a variant on the spell since as printed, it can only make vertical walls. Although, in games I play, we allow horizontal walls as well.


Peachbottom wrote:
However, if you want to make floors with a wall of force, you'd need to research a variant on the spell since as printed, it can only make vertical walls. Although, in games I play, we allow horizontal walls as well.

It should probably work in outer space though. I don't think there is any such thing as vertical/horizontal without gravity.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

the reason horizontal walls of force is not allowed is the 100% certainty that someone will try a 'decapitation' manuver with one, and there are no rules for taking damage for running into an invisible wall of force edge-on.

==Aelryinth


Ouch! I can understand why that ruling was made, then. But I think that I would allow it in space for habitat construction purposes only.


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Adventure Path Charter Subscriber; Pathfinder Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber
Journ-O-LST-3 wrote:
It'd be a bit easier as a moon base.

Avoid Golarion's moon...

And the inhabitants of the Moonscar (unless you're up to fighting a literal army of alu-demons).


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Bellona wrote:
Ouch! I can understand why that ruling was made, then. But I think that I would allow it in space for habitat construction purposes only.

That ruling comes from 2nd edition letters to Dragon. But my understanding was that you can't use them to cut things but can make bridges etc.

As for the demons, clearly you need a golem factory first. The campaign will be called "Secret Moon Wars." The sequal will be when the moon-golems break free of their master and invade the planet below.


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Androids or Warforged?


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Absalom 5 .... Our last best hope for peace.


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Azaelas Fayth wrote:
Androids or Warforged?

Yes.


James Sutter wrote:
Vamptastic wrote:
Oh man. Great adventure idea: A bunch of vampires and evil things that decided to just move to the moon where they won't be harassed by those jerk adventurers.
I imagine that Eox is a great vacation spot for undead that don't have to breathe.

As long as one does not mind fasting for some time, for ghouls, vampires and other undeads driven by hunger for mortal products.


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So the Moon-Men manufacture both the Androids AND Warforged.

Oh dear lord.


Journ-O-LST-3 wrote:


Optional:

Keep adding Walls of force until you have all six sides sealed.
Toss in the bottle of air to make an atmosphere.

First figure out how much air will be released into the 'room'. The area for the air has to be sufficient to allow for air-pressure approximately like what you find on Golarion. If the cube is too small then the caster might be crushed by the air pressure. If the cube is too large then the air will be too thin for him to breathe.

I suggest having some real-world engineers review your plans. Make sure that you ask more than one of them at a time. It is fun to listen to engineers argue.


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James Sutter wrote:
I imagine that Eox is a great vacation spot for undead that don't have to breathe.

Which is great, since all undead are technically retirees.

The costs to get there are, sadly, astronomical. :(

Acquisitives

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:
Bellona wrote:
Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

Not to burst your bubble but an immobile rod is, you know, immobile. As the planet rotates around the sun wouldn't it move away from the completely stationary space station?

By the same line of reasoning, wouldn't the planet eventually rotate away from an immobile rod on its surface?

I'd suggest that so long as the immobile rod is in a location which can reasonably be called an orbit of the planet, then one can apply the same reasoning that allows spellcasters to teleport onto moving ships.

Good point. Upon consideration it does have a weight limit. I take that to mean that it can't break orbit even when activated.

Magi-physics are hard.

Only if you violate the first law of Magi-Physics: You can make them do what you want.

Liberty's Edge

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Journ-O-LST-3 wrote:

I've been noodling around with space station construction for an antagonist in a future game, this looks like a place to dump it.

Items needed:

<snip>

Howzabout an instant fortress? If you orient it "horizontally" (in reference to yourself), plug up the arrow slots and forcewall the exterior, then you treat it as you would a submarine, with fore and aft, etc. Perhaps it could be crafted in such a way as to expand into airtight cylindrical tower-on-its-side -- which conceivably may come with its own atmosphere. Then you just need a way to keep the air scrubbed.

Permanent rope tricks (if allowed - perhaps possibly only in a vacuum and not back on planet) could create safe rooms in the event of a breach of hull -- similar to sealing a hatch to prevent flooding in your compartment. The rope trick might even be handy during construction.


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So to bring up a reason to have a space station/moon base. Weight is less. One hundred pounds weighs about 17 pounds on the moon.

I haven't looked at the spells yet, but there must be some with a weight limit in the creation/alteration type that can take advantage of a free increase in summoned/altered mass.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

Not to burst your bubble but an immobile rod is, you know, immobile. As the planet rotates around the sun wouldn't it move away from the completely stationary space station?

It's immovable to a fixed point of reference. But the point of reference itself can move. Which is why the immovable rod does not immediately blast through mountains, hills, towns, cities at a thousand miles an hour equal to Golarion's rotation, not to mention being accelerated away at 8+ miles per second due to it's revolution around the sun.

Please stop with the killing of the catgirls.


LazarX wrote:
Tiny Coffee Golem wrote:

Not to burst your bubble but an immobile rod is, you know, immobile. As the planet rotates around the sun wouldn't it move away from the completely stationary space station?

It's immovable to a fixed point of reference. But the point of reference itself can move. Which is why the immovable rod does not immediately blast through mountains, hills, towns, cities at a thousand miles an hour equal to Golarion's rotation, not to mention being accelerated away at 8+ miles per second due to it's revolution around the sun.

Please stop with the killing of the catgirls.

This was corrected a couple posts after the original. You were Nina'd a couple of weeks Ago.

Dark Archive

Aelryinth wrote:

the reason horizontal walls of force is not allowed is the 100% certainty that someone will try a 'decapitation' manuver with one, and there are no rules for taking damage for running into an invisible wall of force edge-on.

==Aelryinth

The speed at which you'd need to be traveling to be decapitated by said wall of force would have to be pretty fast. Otherwise you'd just be knocked prone. It would be like running into a clothesline. There's never been anything in the rules to suggest that a Wall of Force is unnaturally sharp. So it stands to reason that you'd need to be moving very fast for it to decap anyone.


So... dot for relevance.


I always thought a decantur of endless water and a large (LARGE!) rock was the ultimate way to go.
Have your owm private planatoid moving amongst the solar system.
(is that a navigation check or an engineering check?)

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I have a recurring joke with some of my PFS players about abilities and items that become "immovable" wherein said ability is activated and the object or creature flies off at the speed of the universe's expansion, being now "immovable" and therefore left completely behind as the Prime Material continues its outward growth. There's drawings of "immovable" monks being flung into the waiting maws of traveling horrorterrors all over some folks' Chronicle sheets.

Obviously, this does not happen. It's just a fun mental what-if I'd love to play with. Maybe its some high-level villain's escape plan.

"You adventu-trons cannot defeat me, Argle-Bargle the High Arch-Lich of the DeathDoomKillMurder Mine! I shall activate this rod of true immovability and remain behind while your world hurtles into inevitable oblivion some three billion years hence!" And with that, Argle-Bargle exiled himself into the depths of space, narrowly avoiding sixty-three passing suns before being consumed by a supermassive black hole.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn't go out and link to the Akiton thread (long since moving beyond a RotR side-trek into the Edaio Rift), as well as the recently-completed 12-page Cities of Akiton: Arl PDF.

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Ooh, on the instant fortress front: a variable, windowless instant fortress would make a decent mini-station, and a collection of linked ones might make for a passable space station/dungeon. Extra bonus points for adamantine walls being hard to breach, whether by adventurers, meteorites, or passing shantaks.

I'd still prefer to build an orbital laser platform around Apostae, "open" a door with a few million d6's of laser damage, and make myself Emperor God-King of the denizens before raiding it for robots and plasma guns to take potshots at Aucturn with. I'd be lobbed into space-battles with the Dominion of the Black in no time.

When does the Pathfinder real-time tactical strategy space game come out?

Liberty's Edge

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N'wah wrote:

I'd still prefer to build an orbital laser platform around Apostae, "open" a door with a few million d6's of laser damage, and make myself Emperor God-King of the denizens before raiding it for robots and plasma guns to take potshots at Aucturn with. I'd be lobbed into space-battles with the Dominion of the Black in no time.

When does the Pathfinder real-time tactical strategy space game come out?

I don't know, but you just gave me the seed for a high-level game. Where can I find rules for lasers and cyberarmor? Have they been published?

EDIT:

I love Distant Planets, but I need more! More details on Eox! More information on Aucturn! Stats for the ships of the Dominion of the Black! Rules for space combat!

Paizo Employee

Zahariel wrote:
I don't know, but you just gave me the seed for a high-level game. Where can I find rules for lasers and cyberarmor? Have they been published?

I can't speak for cyberarmor, but lasers, shields, and plasma weapons have a bit of information in the Inner Sea Bestiary (page 42).

Cheers!
Landon


Zahariel wrote:
N'wah wrote:

I'd still prefer to build an orbital laser platform around Apostae, "open" a door with a few million d6's of laser damage, and make myself Emperor God-King of the denizens before raiding it for robots and plasma guns to take potshots at Aucturn with. I'd be lobbed into space-battles with the Dominion of the Black in no time.

When does the Pathfinder real-time tactical strategy space game come out?

I don't know, but you just gave me the seed for a high-level game. Where can I find rules for lasers and cyberarmor? Have they been published?

EDIT:

I love Distant Planets, but I need more! More details on Eox! More information on Aucturn! Stats for the ships of the Dominion of the Black! Rules for space combat!

I have been meaning to post a question about the Eox.

Thanks for proding me.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around an Eoxian. PF rules dont seem to make a race/character that support such an awesome concept.

I would think that the knoledges would be more appropriate to a modern D20 concept.

Are they wizard engineers or engineer wizards?

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Wizards, mostly. Their stats got posted up in...

Spoiler:
Shattered Star's The Asylum Stone

Basically, +4 Int, -4 Con, but they're all liches, so no problem there. Otherwise, I think they function like humans (+1 feat, +1 skill point/level).

I could see maybe a few sorcerer/vampires, but I'd wager those are very few and far between. They're not called bone sages for nothin'.

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Like pretty much all the super-science, Eoxians mix science and magic all spicy-like. Eox especially seems a Magi-Tek(TM) planet. They were all supposedly science and magic whizzes, or at least the ones that lived long enough to undead themselves.

Pretty much all of it can be covered, at any rate, by the aforementioned Inner Sea Bestiary content, and standard rules for magic item creation. 'Cuz any sufficiently advanced technology blah blah.

Some magi-science will get a treatment by my unofficial, unproven ass due to not only all that Akiton stuff, but because I'm going to GMPC an android witch who is going to self-mechanize and make robots and crap, so anything I don't have rules for I'll be making up as I go.

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