Can we move the discussion about undead in Starfinder to another thread?
Thanks!
Please?
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It just takes a DC 5 Culture check to know.
Any PC who succeeds at a DC 5 Culture check can recall that Eox is a planet inhabited almost entirely by undead creatures. Its dominant species, the humanlike elebrians, were forced to transform themselves into undead to survive an ancient cataclysm that almost destroyed their world. Although many sentient species find them disturbing, the elebrians are not considered “monsters,” at least in polite society. Eox is a full signatory to the Pact, and its undead inhabitants are equal citizens of the Pact Worlds.
In addition, this setting is in the far future. One would expect cultural norms and morality to shift over such a long time span. After all, modern morals differ heavily from those just a mere few hundred years ago.
Yeah, this is NOT the thread for this conversation. Can we take it elsewhere, please?
Please?Can we move the discussion about undead in Starfinder to another thread?
Thanks!
Can we please move the discussion about undead in Starfinder to another thread?
;-)
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I would like to point out how rarely Rysky and I end up on the same side of an argument. :D
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One issue I found: In room C8 of the Acreon, the disruptive fusion seal (5th) is almost useless.
I understand the probable intent (to help fight the void zombies and driftdead on the Drift Rock), but by RAW the fusion seal can only be applied to a level 3 (minimum to apply a level 3 fusion), level 4, or level 5 weapon (cannot apply a fusion seal to a weapon of higher level than the seal) that does bludgeoning damage (per the disruptive fusion description on pg. 193 of the Core Rulebook). This makes the only possible weapon that can benefit from the fusion seal a Tactical Swoop Hammer (level 5, 3,360 cr) or possibly a soldier with the Armor Storm fighting style using the Hammer Fist technique; no Tactical Swoop Hammers appear in the adventure and the PCs can't afford one until sometime during the next adventure.
The disruptive fusion seal (5th) should probably be replaced with a holy fusion seal (5th).
I wonder if disruptive was a level 1 fusion at some point in the non-final rules.
Chief Technical Officer
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I fixed a tiny typo, but Paizo.com crashed before I could delete my previous message and link. Ah well.
IT'S SO PRETTY!
Seriously, that looks really nice, Steel_Wind. I'm a little concerned about its adherence to the CUP, because Paizo hasn't posted what images are allowed. I'll leave that up to the staff to decide, though.
I haven't looked at the document, but as far as Starfinder images go, the CUP allows cover images, images posted on the Paizo blog, and images posted in the Community Use Packages. (If the community team has not yet added Starfinder to the Community Use Packages, it's safe to assume the key iconic illustrations will be in there, along with the Starfinder logo.) Anything else should be removed.
Creative Director, Starfinder
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Hi! I have a question about the end of the adventure. (Spoiler tagged for obvious reasons)
** spoiler omitted **
Thanks!
But more importantly, the beginning of the second adventure wraps up the PCs' interactions with Ambassador Nor and deals with their findings on the Drift Rock, since it's assumed the PCs go straight from one adventure to the next.
So while you certainly could do some side quests at this point, you would need to make some changes to the beginning of the second adventure, since the PCs would have time between the two adventures.
Contributor
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** spoiler omitted **Hi! I have a question about the end of the adventure. (Spoiler tagged for obvious reasons)
** spoiler omitted **
Thanks!
I have uploaded a new version with suggested themes. I also made changes in each background's description to show how each of those themes might apply. You can use the same link as above to get it, but for ease of use, I've reposted it below:
The only thing I'd want in addition to this would be some handouts or quick reference quotes to starship combat.
Luckily, they exist (for level 1 combats anyways) in Into the Unknown starfinder society guild quests, so that's pretty handy.
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Contributor
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I have uploaded a new version with suggested themes. I also made changes in each background's description to show how each of those themes might apply. You can use the same link as above to get it, but for ease of use, I've reposted it below:
The only thing I'd want in addition to this would be some handouts or quick reference quotes to starship combat.
Luckily, they exist (for level 1 combats anyways) in Into the Unknown starfinder society guild quests, so that's pretty handy.
I made up some of those, too. Try this link.
Ooh, very nice.
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Regarding the BBEG at the end of the book - frankly, I'm terrified of this fight. Any GMs out there who have run it that might be willing to share how their tables handled it? Is it the murder machine it looks like?
I agree, it looks beefy. If it starts to wipe my players I will probably tone it down.
I've got a mechanic in my group, so I'll make a hack challenge to decrease the power of the bbeg at some point in the fight. Maybe have him send a surge of electricity through the floor or drop some live wire on it or something.
Or maybe I'll have it hunt some of the other creatures on the ship, and have the PCs see it so they know what they're in for. I'm thinking... Instead if fighting it, what if they lure it out of the rock and find a way to shunt it into space. Then get on their own ship and blast it with their ships weapons. I'm curious to see what my players come up with.
I've got a mechanic in my group, so I'll make a hack challenge to decrease the power of the bbeg at some point in the fight. Maybe have him send a surge of electricity through the floor or drop some live wire on it or something.
Or maybe I'll have it hunt some of the other creatures on the ship, and have the PCs see it so they know what they're in for. I'm thinking... Instead if fighting it, what if they lure it out of the rock and find a way to shunt it into space. Then get on their own ship and blast it with their ships weapons. I'm curious to see what my players come up with.
Ooooo, you could make it a horror episode, nice.
Regarding the BBEG at the end of the book - frankly, I'm terrified of this fight. Any GMs out there who have run it that might be willing to share how their tables handled it? Is it the murder machine it looks like?
I had the same question and started a thread a while ago about the end fight.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2ulav?End-Boss-of-Incident-at-Absalom-Station-i s
sorry I don't know how to do links right but copy paste works
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Contributor
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Regarding the BBEG at the end of the book - frankly, I'm terrified of this fight. Any GMs out there who have run it that might be willing to share how their tables handled it? Is it the murder machine it looks like?I had the same question and started a thread a while ago about the end fight.
sorry I don't know how to do links right but copy paste works
There you go. :)
use {url=]text you want to display{/url] and replace the curly brackets with a straight one. If you press reply you can see exactly what I did to show the link above.
The button "How to format your text" has more formatting options.
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Creative Director, Starfinder
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** spoiler omitted **Hi! I have a question about the end of the adventure. (Spoiler tagged for obvious reasons)
** spoiler omitted **
Thanks!
Thanks for the response!
** spoiler omitted **
That's one of the possibilities covered in the beginning of the second adventure. :)
Argh - Mid-October can't get here quick enough! :)
One question which was left hovering in my head after finishing the book: How is it that even through VISUAL examination of the Drift Rock the characters can't see the huge hangar doors going to area D9? The book dismisses this as the meteors sensor-disruptive qualities but if it is blocked by an active hologram it should mention it. And I can't see why/how the hangar would be disguised anyway.
I know there must be a way to give them the ship AND stop them from going to the final boss as first thing, but still there could have been more elegant ways to handle this so it would not raise questions from players or GM.
Otherwise I really liked the adventure and can't wait for part 2 :)
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One question which was left hovering in my head after finishing the book: How is it that even through VISUAL examination of the Drift Rock the characters can't see the huge hangar doors going to area D9? The book dismisses this as the meteors sensor-disruptive qualities but if it is blocked by an active hologram it should mention it. And I can't see why/how the hangar would be disguised anyway.
I know there must be a way to give them the ship AND stop them from going to the final boss as first thing, but still there could have been more elegant ways to handle this so it would not raise questions from players or GM.
Otherwise I really liked the adventure and can't wait for part 2 :)
It mentions that one side appears cleanly sheared off from a bigger piece. This is where I'm picturing the hangar door. Given the length of time it's been in Drift space, I'm working in the idea that the entire outer surface is scarred and stained a ubiquitous colour from exposure. This means the doors too.
It mentions that one side appears cleanly sheared off from a bigger piece. This is where I'm picturing the hangar door. Given the length of time it's been in Drift space, I'm working in the idea that the entire outer surface is scarred and stained a ubiquitous colour from exposure. This means the doors too.One question which was left hovering in my head after finishing the book: How is it that even through VISUAL examination of the Drift Rock the characters can't see the huge hangar doors going to area D9? The book dismisses this as the meteors sensor-disruptive qualities but if it is blocked by an active hologram it should mention it. And I can't see why/how the hangar would be disguised anyway.
Except that the Perception check even states that it is notable how there is NO signs of collisions or wear on the surface, probably since Drift has no such things? IDK, we dismissed it in the end as a funny detail and ignored it after that, since we could not come up with a sane explanation. Maybe if the hangar doors were deep inside the rock it might work but even then there should be a cavern that leads there.
Actually, I just remembered another thing. It clearly states that there is no atmosphere in the Drift rock, and to my liking the zero-g combat/movement is not that well handled (melee attacks and projectile weapons, mainly). But the worst thing is there is no mention I could find about the spacesuits and their repairs. The enemies all use claws or other physical attacks which literally tear the suits apart but it has not been taken into issue at all. We made a quick house rule on this and I allowed the suits to handle the problem for a minute until it must be fixed or the character starts to suffocate, maybe the scifi suits have some self-healing properties. We also decided it was standard issue to have duct tape with them and they were pretty much duct tape mummies in the end, after repeated fixing of the suits :P
EDIT: I somehow missed the part where the rules said all armor work as environmental suits and they work even when broken. Well, that handles it, although I really think that rule is stupid and takes away the hazard of space that SHOULD be there when travelling in there. I'm probably going to write some house rule that makes the suit require some kind of repairs or at least some kind of attention if it really gets ripped/blasted apart.
So I just ran the little shuttle fight earlier today.
Is it too much to hope for that future APs will have pre-calculated engineering, gunnery, and piloting values, similar to how enemies have calculated attacks?
They do. It's on the next page. Easy to miss.
Computers +8 (2 ranks), Engineering +8 (2 ranks), gunnery +6, Piloting +14 (2 ranks)
It mentions that one side appears cleanly sheared off from a bigger piece. This is where I'm picturing the hangar door. Given the length of time it's been in Drift space, I'm working in the idea that the entire outer surface is scarred and stained a ubiquitous colour from exposure. This means the doors too.One question which was left hovering in my head after finishing the book: How is it that even through VISUAL examination of the Drift Rock the characters can't see the huge hangar doors going to area D9? The book dismisses this as the meteors sensor-disruptive qualities but if it is blocked by an active hologram it should mention it. And I can't see why/how the hangar would be disguised anyway.
I know there must be a way to give them the ship AND stop them from going to the final boss as first thing, but still there could have been more elegant ways to handle this so it would not raise questions from players or GM.
Otherwise I really liked the adventure and can't wait for part 2 :)
I thought the description of the hangar says that the doors are concealed by a technomagical hologram.
I didn't even notice the disease tracks.
I had thought it worked by taking on the eggs/larva, and they just sort of stay dormant until the person dies from some other means (unless they make two consecutive saves).
From my reading it skips the Latent stage (I couldn't find "Carrier" stage anywhere but I'm guessing it's the first stage as well) but progresses like normal for a disease.
So after failing the first save they would be Weakened and then have 5 days unless they make their saves.
Edit: okay, after reading how Diseases work some more Carrier is a part of Latent, basically it's saying Void Death isn't contagious.
From my reading it skips the Latent stage (I couldn't find "Carrier" stage anywhere but I'm guessing it's the first stage as well) but progresses like normal for a disease.
So after failing the first save they would be Weakened and then have 5 days unless they make their saves.
Edit: okay, after reading how Diseases work some more Carrier is a part of Latent, basically it's saying Void Death isn't contagious.
The problem with that (for me) is that when weakened they are exhausted (-3 to basically everything) and have to make a FORT save to make a full or standard action.
So that means that the melee tank has an ac of 11 and +1 to hit. I'm thinking of just having them be fatigued, and then die if they spend too much time on the ship, because the writers didn't put any cures in the AP and 2nd level characters can't cast cure disease (or whatever the starfinder equivalent is).
Actually it's when they are Impaired (the next failed save) they are Exhausted and have to make a save when doing a Standard or Full action, Weakened they just take a -2/-3 to certain rolls.
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So. Fun story.
As I've mentioned before, I've been trying to run the Acreon like a horror story. The ship is perfect for it.
The ship is dead in space. When the approach the aft docking hatch, they can see the hatch is open and there are emergency light flashing, creating a dark-red-dark-red-dark-red sequence of lighting.
Once they arrive and attach the connection tube between the two ships, they float over and enter through the aft external hatch. Here, they can see the blue running lights along the 2 inch diagonal slant connecting the floor and the walls
There's no atmosphere. The ship is exposed to the vacuum of space. There's no gravity (I changed this from the module). Everything is floating, and can be seen every half second to one second, because of the emergency lighting.
The place is deadly silent. There's no atmosphere for sound to travel. All they can hear is their own breathing inside their environmental protection, and the crackle of the comms whenever one of them talks to another.
They enter into the engineering room and start to look around. Here's the power core. They reactivate the core, which slowly turns on the gravity. Everything gently falls to the ground. Unknown to the PCs, this alerts every creature on the ship that someone is here.
Looking around, they see two round objects, each with a hope blasting from the inside out. Examining it closer, it's about a foot in radius, a millimeter or so thick, and hard as a rock.
The players go through a series of knowledge checks. In my game, I don't say, "make a life science check." Instead I say, "Make a check on [subject]. If you have any skill that you believe would be related to this area, go ahead and roll that skill using Int as the modifier."
Any player who has written into their story that they've done or studied one of the above is allowed to roll and appropriate skill (any skill, just use Int as the modifier). If a player hasn't written that in to their PCs background, now's the time to do it! Just tell a story to the group about how your PC got that knowledge. This gives everyone more insight into your PC and helps create a more immersive world.
Our engineer wrote into his background that he was from the mining clans in the astroid belt, so he used physical science to roll for mining and geology.
Our operative is an ace pilot who's flown the drift many times, and used his pilot skill to roll for knowledge if the drift.
Our technomancer has written his PC to have tons of obscure random knowledge, but he's painfully unaware of the most common things. He rolls life science for Xenobiology and mysticism for magic.
No one chose finance as an option, but that's ok. Since all checks provide overlapping info, they still got everything with the rolls they made.
The Envoy agreed with everyone, trying to pretend he knew what they were all talking about. It worked. Of course the captain already knew all this.
They recognized the Noqual as valuable space ore, but also recognized it for what it was - a cocoon. The engineer yelled, "Weapons out!" And just as they turned around, there was a four foot tall dog-like beast with smooth blue skin and long flowing tentacles from it's head, like human hair. And then it was gone as the red light flashed out. That moment of black was when the pilot was nearly plowed down by the beast. The red light flashed back on, and the pilot was dancing sideways trying to avoid the Akata; everyone is focused on shooting it as the second one walks around the corner.
The pilot gets bit right as the technomancer calls out, "Don't get bit! Their bite can turn you into a void zombie!"
The only sounds anyone hears is their own breathing in the space suit, and the crackly of the comms when someone yells. Their guns, their Lazers, the beasts all are perfectly 100% silent.
Afterwards, as they clean up from the battle, they start to explore the ship. The lights still flash. The blue runners still outline the hallways. The walls themselves are sprinkled with bullet holes, scorch marks from blasters, claw marks, splatterings of blood both red and blue. And up ahead, in the cross section, lies a child like body.
Everyone freezes. It's a void zombie. They know it. They've all seen Dead Walkers in Space, the horror flick that was released into Absolom Station last year, and it was a major hit. This was a scene right out of that. You turn the body over, and a 9 year old kid is a demon zombie looking to rip your face off.
They slowly make their way up the hallway, guns out. They follow the blue runners as the red light turns on and off, illuminating the scorch marks, blood splatter, and bullet holes. Looking down the side hallways at the intersection, it looks clear.
Focusing on the body, they can see it's been ripped to shreds by tooth and claw. Obviously a victim of the Akata.
They turn the dead body over; it's not a child.
It's not even a zombie. Or a ghost. Or anything they expected.
It has green skin, and pointed ears, with lots of sharp teeth.
And that's when it dons on them - it's even worse than a void zombie.
It's a space goblin.
And that's when all my players started groaning aloud with lots of oh f~&&'s. :)
Nice!
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Wouldn't the line of no latent / carrier state mean that it ignores the Physical disease track for this disease?
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On a separate note 3 out of 5 of my players now have the disease. they are finishing clearing the Acreon but have mentioned numerous times about returning to Absalom Station to get cured and take the Goblins back before returning to the Drift Rock.
With them being monitored I have a hard time thinking the Security Forces would just allow them back but then again the Hippocampus takes off on its own to return with the cargo so not quite sure how I am going to handle it yet. Possible have security forces cut them off before returning. But then again I don't want them to think they won't be able to return after the Drift Rock is cleared as well.
Also doesn't explain why the Hippocampus would be allowed to return all on it's own unhindered with the Ambassador's package.
Going to be hard to come up with something decent without knowledge from the second book.
Thoughts or optional ideas? Push them back to sleep it off on Hippocampus or let them return to heal and cure diseases?
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Also doesn't explain why the Hippocampus would be allowed to return all on it's own unhindered with the Ambassador's package.
They would be allowed to return because they have the Ambassador's package.
Thoughts or optional ideas? Push them back to sleep it off on Hippocampus or let them return to heal and cure diseases?
Let them return. It will cause you less problems later.
Np :3
RESPECT THE MOONDOGGIES!
Thanks! I totally missed that. I think what I'm going to do now though is give them a chance to cure it before they get to the drift rock. Also, I'm definitely going to lower the amount of Akatas on that spaceship.
Couple things you can do.
1. Have them find a couple spell ampoules with Lesser Remove Condition if they want to keep going. Or if someone has that spell.2. If they can actually stop to take a break or rest for two days, with a successful Medicne Treat Disease check they can get a bonus to their daily checks. Two successful checks and they are cured.
Going with the horror motif, I've eschewed normal initiative.
Instead, every battle, I set a perception DC. It's been 18 for the Akatas.
If one PC beats it, then the players go first. Otherwise, the enemy goes first.
I feel it creates an atmosphere where they're paranoid of attack, and either notice it and everyone starts blasting, or are caught completely unaware and get sidelined by an enemy.
So far, the lowest perception check *any* of my players have made is a 19. :/
Of course, they can't hit the broad side of a barn.
For the last part of the AP you have to work for a specific Undead, you also get to kill a f~$& ton of undead.
Are the PCs able to decline this job?