Venture-Captain, Illinois—Fairview Heights
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Second question: Since Ipsoth’s Balloon attack requires the foe to be adjacent and immediately lifts the opponent 30’ into the air, this would also provoke an AoO, but it’s currently his turn. If a second PC were to approach him, (he has reach) would they provoke since he hasn’t acted since his last turn, or would provoking on his turn count as “after” for those purposes?
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On optional encounter C, it says to reduce the players credits is they defeat the Formians. Should this deduction be if they don’t defeat them or did I miss the point of the penalty in the deduction?
Check out my response here.
That should clear it up.
Second question: Since Ipsoth’s Balloon attack requires the foe to be adjacent and immediately lifts the opponent 30’ into the air, this would also provoke an AoO, but it’s currently his turn. If a second PC were to approach him, (he has reach) would they provoke since he hasn’t acted since his last turn, or would provoking on his turn count as “after” for those purposes?
Ok, my initial reaction is "no, it's forced movement and those don't provoke AoOs." However, I don't see that provision in Starfinder the way it's stated in Pathfinder. So then the question is, does forced movement (like a bullrush or reposition maneuver) provoke AoOs?
When you threaten a space and the opponent moves out of that space in any way other than a guarded step (see page 247) or withdraw action (see above), you can use your reaction to make a melee attack against the opponent.
I couldn't find a rule that said that forced movement doesn't provoke however, the current player consensus is that forced movement doesn't provoke. The phrase "the opponent moves" makes it sound like only voluntary movement, which is how I would run it. Until we get an FAQ about it, it's up to GM fiat to not provoke.
In the case that you (or your GM) rule that forced movement does provoke as it is movement outside of a guarded step or withdraw, then Ipsoth could take an AoO right away (if he has a melee weapon ready). In this case he could not also take an AoO against another opponent before the start of his next turn.
You can take only one reaction each round; you regain your reaction at the start of your turn.
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Venture-Captain, Illinois—Fairview Heights
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Awesome! Thank you so much for the clarification on this. I had a lot of fun running it last night and the players had a blast. You might find it entertaining to know that a Technomancer used a spell grenade to target "something" in encounter D2 that had a confusion effect. I was not prepared for that, but had a great time working through it with the players at the table!
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As "Gygax Chitters" pointed out in the product discussion thread, I had forgotten to include a physical description of the compsikaña.
The mistake is entirely mine; I must have cut it while juggling word count and forgot to squeeze it back in. They are similar to compsognathus, perhaps related, but an entirely different species.
These tiny lizards each stand approximately 4 inches tall on two long clawed feet. Two small forelimbs end in sharp single talons, perfect for climbing and latching on to larger prey. They otherwise have a raptor like appearance. In the winter, they grow small white feathers for camouflage and insulation, but shed them each spring. Otherwise, a compsikaña's scales range from bright yellow to dark green, depending on subspecies.
Their powerful legs gives them great speed and the ability to jump up to 6 feet in the air or leap 30 feet vertically. When chasing prey, they often hop quickly along the ground in little 1 to 2 foot bounces. To avoid predators, they usually climb to the tops of the tallest tree they can find, often leaping between nearby trees as part of their climb.
The hunting and feeding based ecology stuff is in the scenario.
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Nice, I ran into that problem the party kept asking what they looked like and I said they are tiny animals that's all I got.
I enjoyed the scenario. Especially the set up that it was going to be a heavy social scenario and it wasn't.
Throwing a 80 hit point swarm at a party in high tier. Whe,n as far as I know they have never had a swarm encounter in SFS before was interesting. It was very challenging. At one point I thought they had no more ways of damaging it and would have to run away. When they pulled the arc emitter off the body and realized it would work it turned an encounter where the players were frustrated to an encounter where they felt they barely overcame it due to equipment knowledge. In the end I sensed a feeling of satisfaction in the party.
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Nice, I ran into that problem the party kept asking what they looked like and I said they are tiny animals that's all I got.
I enjoyed the scenario. Especially the set up that it was going to be a heavy social scenario and it wasn't.
Throwing a 80 hit point swarm at a party in high tier. Whe,n as far as I know they have never had a swarm encounter in SFS before was interesting. It was very challenging. At one point I thought they had no more ways of damaging it and would have to run away. When they pulled the arc emitter off the body and realized it would work it turned an encounter where the players were frustrated to an encounter where they felt they barely overcame it due to equipment knowledge. In the end I sensed a feeling of satisfaction in the party.
That sounds fantastic! I'm glad that planting that weapon paid off.
BNW, that's basically perfect.
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As "Gygax Chitters" pointed out in the product discussion thread, I had forgotten to include a physical description of the compsikaña.
The mistake is entirely mine; I must have cut it while juggling word count and forgot to squeeze it back in. They are similar to compsognathus, perhaps related, but an entirely different species.
The hunting and feeding based ecology stuff is in the scenario.These tiny lizards each stand approximately 14 inches tall on two long clawed feet. Two small forelimbs end in sharp single talons, perfect for climbing and latching on to larger prey. They otherwise have a raptor like appearance. In the winter, they grow small white feathers for camouflage and insulation, but shed them each spring. Otherwise, a compsikaña's scales range from bright yellow to dark green, depending on subspecies.
Their powerful legs gives them great speed and the ability to jump up to 6 feet in the air or leap 30 feet vertically. When chasing prey, they often hop quickly along the ground in little 1 to 2 foot bounces. To avoid predators, they usually climb to the tops of the tallest tree they can find, often leaping between nearby trees as part of their climb.
Someone asked me why they're so tiny. I realized I typo'd the height. Should have been 14 (fourteen) inches high.
I've adjusted the quote above in case anyone wants to copy/paste or something.
Venture-Agent, Netherlands
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Nice, I ran into that problem the party kept asking what they looked like and I said they are tiny animals that's all I got.
I enjoyed the scenario. Especially the set up that it was going to be a heavy social scenario and it wasn't.
Throwing a 80 hit point swarm at a party in high tier. Whe,n as far as I know they have never had a swarm encounter in SFS before was interesting. It was very challenging. At one point I thought they had no more ways of damaging it and would have to run away. When they pulled the arc emitter off the body and realized it would work it turned an encounter where the players were frustrated to an encounter where they felt they barely overcame it due to equipment knowledge. In the end I sensed a feeling of satisfaction in the party.
That sounds fantastic! I'm glad that planting that weapon paid off.
BNW, that's basically perfect.
Yeah, thank god for you planting that weapon! We played it last night, 5 player high-tier. One player was catatonic until I jabbed him with the anti-venom! Even then it was really close. I tried to do Ghost Sound as a Mystic to pretend to have a roar coming from the bushes and advancing towards them, they made the Will save but after that...our party had virtually nothing...
Super cruel to take the Soldier's 2 heavy weapons before we went in :P He was left feeling a bit useless until the Arc Emitter came along!
Great scenario, we had it look like Jurassic Park, us laying on the back of the trucks and shooting the snipers off after we realised the Dinosaur was far to hard to hit!
Absolutely loved it :)
Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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Yeah, I ran this for James yesterday, I'm pretty happy with how it went. Them being at APL 4.6 with five players makes it just about the hardest possible setup.
The swarm was brutal for them; just like in PFS, people have to learn that you have to be prepared for swarms. But to run into a CR 6, 80hp swarm first time in your career is rough. And with a scary poison (sure, poison is just scary in Starfinder). Maybe it would be good to put an easier swarm into a lower-level adventure so people can learn the ropes a bit?
They used the chase to great effect to soften up Vossi before the showdown (and got lucky that the terrorists failed the Pilot check twice in the zone where failures do 5d6 to your "vehicle"). After the chase Vossi had taken 95/125 damage. Which they needed very much, with him being CR 8 against their level 4-5.
I totally agree that the chase was dramatically called for in this scenario, but ye gods, the presentation of stats was atrocious. So much page-flipping between that encounter and the next (to reference the terrorists' statblocks). I really think we need an overhaul to how chases are presented to GMs. It's already a tricky minigame that they need to teach to players; let's at least make it a bit easy on the beleaguered GM!
RPG Superstar 2013 Top 8
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The swarm was brutal for them; just like in PFS, people have to learn that you have to be prepared for swarms.
I disagree. In PFS you can reasonably afford backup weapons or consumables. I do not find that to be the case in SFS, or if you do pick them up they are woefully underpowered unless you invest an unreasonable number of credits. For example, the tactical arc emitter in this encounter does, IIRC, 1d4 damage. If you hit.
My experience with this scenario was, "Here is an enemy you can't reasonably damage and that will poison you to death/uselessness/unconsciousness".
Followed by, "Here is a vehicle chase where your character abilities really don't matter."
I wanted to like the scenario, it just left a bad taste in my mouth.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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@Michael: my players main solution to the swarm was a smoke grenade. The swarm doesn't get environmental armor so I figured that naturally behaving animals wouldn't want to say in it; PCs could just close their helmets and hide in it.
And the sonic grenades in there actually do a lot of damage to the swarm: 2d10 damage, area effect vs. swarm, and the swarm has sonic vulnerability. The arc emitter is not brilliant but with weapon specialization will get at least a +3 to damage.
Also, jetpacks. And solarians going kablooey.
It's an extremely dangerous swarm, but it's not an impossible fight.
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Let's analyze that assertion "you cannot afford backup weapons or consumables" statement. An average L3-6 mod will give a player around 1500cr at the low end, and about 4k on the high end, so let's split the difference and say that PCs earn about 2750cr per adventure. Sure, a lot of that will be spent on better weapons, armor, maybe a personal upgrade, but not all of it. Let's estimate that 2000 of that 2750 is put towards better permanent gear - that leaves 750cr towards consumables per adventure. A 3rd level PC can purchased L4 gear from the CRB, which grants access to Mk2 frag grenades (2d6 P, 700cr) and Mk1 screamer grenades (1d10 So, 725cr). The screamers do a little less damage than the frags, but they also hit an energy type that isn't very common, so the cost difference is probably justified. A PC probably wouldn't have many, sure, but swarms don't seem to be as prevalent in SFS as they have been in PFS thus far, so PCs have time to build up solutions. Assuming PCs have 1 or 2 L4 grenades, that's a healthy amount of damage that they can put out. Add to that solarion explosions, technomancer spells, heavy weapons, etc. - there are solutions out there. You just need to equip yourself for them.
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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I think it's really easy to be unprepared for the swarm, because to my knowledge it's the first one most people will run into in Starfinder. Until you run into swarms, a lot of blast/explore/line weapons look like they're not so cost-effective compared to the best single target weapons. And grenades in particular are often not very good value for money.
However, knowing that you might run into swarms forces you to reevaluate how good all these weapons are. I'm giving line and blast weapons more credit now and will be packing a cheap one with any character who can use them. This encounter changes the "meta".
I don't generally buy the biggest most expensive gun I can find, I tend to go for 2-3 different ones that solve different problems. Different energy types, ranges, and now also areas.
Yeah, that costs a bit of damage, but having the right weapon for the job "earns" you a lot of damage in avoided resistance/swarm immunities/range penalties. And weapon specialization that applies to whole classes of weapons at a time makes up for a lot of damage too.
This argument about "swarms are unfair" sounds a lot like the "snipers at a distance are unfair" discussion in another thread. But it's the future, the tools for any class to face multiple threats are for sale. You don't have to be a specific class to handle swarms anymore.
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This argument about "swarms are unfair" sounds a lot like the "snipers at a distance are unfair" discussion in another thread. But it's the future, the tools for any class to face multiple threats are for sale. You don't have to be a specific class to handle swarms anymore.
There's a large number of differences.
To deal with sniper weapons at sniper distance your options were sniper rifle sniper rifle and sniper rifle. Maybe now long arm with a scope.
To deal with a swarm you have a large number of straightforward options
-grenades in 32 varieties of damage
-line weapons
-blast weapons
-automatic weapons (i think)
-smoke grenades
-concussion grenades
-summoned critter whirlwinds
-every aoe spell in the game, which is a lot of them
There's even some grenades on the body if you didn't pack them.
You can also get pretty creative
-Take a doshko and drop a tree on them
-split the party, loot what you need, run away
-Wildwise and a diplomacy check. "HEAR ME MY MINIONS!"
-make torches
-set the woods on fire
-bag of holding full of food
Your party SHOULD have something on that list, somewhere. Dealing with swarms isn't the ridiculously narrow range of options that sniper distance is.
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Venture-Agent, Netherlands
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This argument about "swarms are unfair" sounds a lot like the "snipers at a distance are unfair" discussion in another thread. But it's the future, the tools for any class to face multiple threats are for sale. You don't have to be a specific class to handle swarms anymore.There's a large number of differences.
To deal with sniper weapons at sniper distance your options were sniper rifle sniper rifle and sniper rifle. Maybe now long arm with a scope.
To deal with a swarm you have a large number of straightforward options
-grenades in 32 varieties of damage
-line weapons
-blast weapons
-automatic weapons (i think)
-smoke grenades
-concussion grenades
-summoned critter whirlwinds
-every aoe spell in the game, which is a lot of themThere's even some grenades on the body if you didn't pack them.
You can also get pretty creative
-Take a doshko and drop a tree on them
-split the party, loot what you need, run away
-Wildwise and a diplomacy check. "HEAR ME MY MINIONS!"
-make torches
-set the woods on fire
-bag of holding full of foodYour party SHOULD have something on that list, somewhere. Dealing with swarms isn't the ridiculously narrow range of options that sniper distance is.
My idea was to use Ghost Sound to try and frighten them into running.
There are plenty of ideas to use!
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Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden
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To deal with sniper weapons at sniper distance your options were sniper rifle sniper rifle and sniper rifle. Maybe now long arm with a scope.
Hopping from smoke bomb to smoke bomb until you get close.
Holographic image illusions to hide your movements.
Barricades
Invisibility
I mean, once you give up on the idea of directly fighting back at range, there are more options.
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To deal with sniper weapons at sniper distance your options were sniper rifle sniper rifle and sniper rifle. Maybe now long arm with a scope.Hopping from smoke bomb to smoke bomb until you get close. [/q]
Holographic image illusions to hide your movements.
Barricades
Invisibility
I mean, once you give up on the idea of directly fighting back at range, there are more options.
None of those are feasible solutions.(edit) to help you contribute to the fight in a reasonable amount of game time. That encounter isn't that deadly just a slog.
You get shot as soon as you leave the smoke bomb (you also need like 8 of them)
You get shot as soon as you leave the holographic image (and again, you need 8 of them)
Compare that with "just need some aoe" , AND some AOE is included in the scenario, AND its a higher level so you have more time to snag those options and there's really no comparison
You can't advance on them as a barricade and you can't shoot back unless you have a sniper weapon.
It's a fourth level at most scenario, if you have a technomancer AND he's level Four AND invisibility is his one spell he can cast it three times (while ya'll are being shot at)
