Castamir's Flaxseed Station

Game Master Chris Marsh

Dragonkin? The fates are really conspiring to make me run a game...

Would I just have to run one during Gameday for the boon or would I have to run multiples?

Yep, I have plans for Dragonkin myself! Just one is needed!

Hmm

really
its just the nature of the Tiefling
the misunderstood, sometimes shifty, outcast.
its more of a RolePlay thing and less of the mechanic thing.

really

its just the nature of the Tiefling
the misunderstood, sometimes shifty, outcast.
its more of a RolePlay thing and less of the mechanic thing.

Android.

It could even be built to look like a tiefling.

Or play a wannabe Tiefling?

Some character with nice Charisma, and a good disguise skill, that tries to pass as Tiefling?

Now that's an idea!

"Hi, I'm Frank, I mean, Diabolix! Diabolix the Tiefling. and as you can clearly see I am a teifling." Absentmindedly rubs nose and a good amount of red makeup off, before hastily reapplying it. "Yup just a tiefling!"

really

its just the nature of the Tiefling
the misunderstood, sometimes shifty, outcast.
its more of a RolePlay thing and less of the mechanic thing.

There's also an outlaw theme that might also fit.

IDK about android
this would only be my SECOND character to be played in Starfinder, let alone in SFS.

I could give an outlaw, tiefling looking, android.
but, I did some plans for the Tiefling itself.

oh well, I can work something out.

thanks for the help all

IDK about android

this would only be my SECOND character to be played in Starfinder, let alone in SFS.

I could give an outlaw, tiefling looking, android.
but, I did some plans for the Tiefling itself.

oh well, I can work something out.

thanks for the help all

ok, just looked at the android

I'm not sure if android would really fit...
unless I play it as shy is a bit of a default.
really, IDK about android with what I want to do.
other parts for android would work though.

Wasteland_Wizard wrote:

IDK about android

this would only be my SECOND character to be played in Starfinder, let alone in SFS.

I could give an outlaw, tiefling looking, android.
but, I did some plans for the Tiefling itself.

oh well, I can work something out.

thanks for the help all

ok, just looked at the android

the thing with what I was thinking of was the character might not be the most emotional, would act shy for the most part.

I'm not sure if android would really fit...
unless I play it as shy is a bit of a default.
really, IDK about android with what I want to do.
other parts for android would work though.

You could play a shifty human who has relatives that are tieflings but was born regrettably... normal. They could adopt the affectations of tieflings, and refer to them as 'my people' or 'our culture' even though they've got a bloodline so muddied their practically just a human. They could use hair dye, coloured contacts, moody clothes, and other things to visually look like a tiefling at low levels, and at higher levels he could invest in biotech or cybernetic augmentations to 'improve themselves', or make themself more like 'they were meant to be' (things like...oh, I don't know. venom spurs, vocal modulator, dermal plating, dark vision capacitors, and that sort of thing).

Just some ideas.

You could play a shifty human who has relatives that are tieflings but was born regrettably... normal. They could adopt the affectations of tieflings, and refer to them as 'my people' or 'our culture' even though they've got a bloodline so muddied their practically just a human. They could use hair dye, coloured contacts, moody clothes, and other things to visually look like a tiefling at low levels, and at higher levels he could invest in biotech or cybernetic augmentations to 'improve themselves', or make themself more like 'they were meant to be' (things like...oh, I don't know. venom spurs, vocal modulator, dermal plating, dark vision capacitors, and that sort of thing).

Oooh! I like this a lot. Great idea.

thanks for the ideas

but I think I ditched it.
but if you really like it, I had a backstory idea that went along with it.

it was supposed to be a girl with no one to turn to.
gets picked up by a blind man and finds a shoulder to cry on I guess.
really, she was just something to pick on for most, and she didn't want to hurt a fly.
ended up joining the Starfinders.

well, got another idea though if you want to hear it and help me out with some details.

also, I lost the sight and file for the SFS Boons and such, think you guys could help me out with that?

also, I lost the sight and file for the SFS Boons and such, think you guys could help me out with that?

NVM, I found it.

This may be a bit spoilery, so please disregard if you don't feel like answering, but is there a boon available out there that would allow me to play as a drow in SFS? I have a character concept building and rolling around in the back of my head, and it's starting to seem really interesting.

I have not seen one... yet.

I only know what three of the mega-region GM boons are yet, though, and there are some boons that show up only under unsual circumstances, like GenCon or Charity cons. I will say this though. If drow show up, the SFS boon for Outpost this year is pretty good tradebait.

(It's dragonkin / aasimar / tiefling).

Hmm

Yeahhhh....but I wanna roar!

ROAR

This may be a bit spoilery, so please disregard if you don't feel like answering, but is there a boon available out there that would allow me to play as a drow in SFS? I have a character concept building and rolling around in the back of my head, and it's starting to seem really interesting.

In the meantime you could build it and play it in an AP using Campaign mode!

Yeahhhh....but I wanna roar!

ROAR

You can still ROAR!

Quick discussion topic. How do other GMs run traps in a play by post? I have not really encountered them as a player yet so I haven't had the opportunity to see another GMs methods but two of my adventures have upcoming traps and wanted to hear how others worked them. Thanks!

I make the players give me a standard marching order procedure. I then write that up as a macro and roll it everytime they enter a room. If the people in front don't perceive the traps, the trap goes off.

Amusingly, I have a group right now that has managed to set off traps on themselves after they perceived them... But that was special circumstances.

In contrast to HMM, I don't let players give a standard marching order 'macro', as I find it almost always neuters traps completely. The Perception DCs for traps are typically low enough that a whole party's worth of automatic perception attempts will almost always find them. (I'm also pretty sure the devs are assuming no automatic checks, given that they printed a trap spotter style operative exploit in Armory)

What I do instead is make sure to set the scene for each area they are exploring in a way that gives them a chance to try to search for valuables or traps, before they trigger anything. If the situation isn't normally one where a trap would be expected (say, if you aren't trying to infiltrate a well defended complex), I'll try to seed something in the text to prime people into thinking about traps.

Then, after the whole party's had a chance to interact with the scene, if no one thought to check for traps with Perception, and if someone fulfilled the trigger requirements, I spring the trap.

Searching for traps in Starfinder is not a passive check, it is a pain in the neck.

Trap spotting exploit is now quite valuable.

Who wants to spend a minute searching 20x20 spaces?

Well, at least there is now a theme that gives it to you...

Well, at least there is now a theme that gives it to you...

Indeed - a valuable addition

‘Make Traps Great Again’

Thanks for the input everyone!

GM Mjolbeard wrote:

Yeahhhh....but I wanna roar!

ROAR

You can still ROAR!

** spoiler omitted **

Welp! Looks like I have something to add to my future Vanguard's shopping list!

ENTROPYYYYY!!!!!

Based on our discussions of traps, I have decided I will give a little speech about traps in all of my games from now. In the spoiler below is the spiel I plan to give at the start of my games in the discussion tab as well under my GM profile just so that there is no feelings that I am being unfair. Feel free to read it, use it, tear it apart. I would love if people had feedback on ways to make it better for the future and more fair for my players.

Based on our discussions of traps, I have decided I will give a little speech about traps in all of my games from now. In the spoiler below is the spiel I plan to give at the start of my games in the discussion tab as well under my GM profile just so that there is no feelings that I am being unfair. Feel free to read it, use it, tear it apart. I would love if people had feedback on ways to make it better for the future and more fair for my players.

** spoiler omitted **

By those rules it takes less time to search each 5ft square in a 20x20 space than to search the 20x20 space...

No it wouldn't. To search each 5ft square, it would take 16 rounds. 10 rounds is a minute. Or am I looking at something wrong there.

If it's a move action, you could probably do it in less than 16 rounds by spending some standard actions as moves to search. 9 or 10 rounds i'd think, depending on where in relation to the 20x20 square you started and how many times you'd have to actually move.

Do you have a suggestion on a better way to work that then?

Ah...I see my mistake. You're saying the 20x20 area is 20 5ft squares on an edge not 20ft on an edge.

Of course the simplest thing to do is just ignore they are there....Ya, Ya, that's the ticket.

I was thinking it would be 16 five foot squares.

5 5 5 5
5 5 5 5
5 5 5 5
5 5 5 5

That area would take take 1 minute by the rules. My proposed interpretation would say that it could take 16 move actions to search that as an alternative... but as Dennis pointed out, that could potentially be less than a minute if you spend two move actions a round. I am just not sure a better way to run the mechanics of this.

I think the answer is that you almost never need to provide strict time frames for searching for traps - doing so rarely happens mid combat, and if it does just adjudicate in the PCs favor on the fly. Otherwise, just follow the CRB guidance to take about a minute to search a 20x20ft area.

You could point out they need to move from square to square to do the searching as well, which also takes time.

Or just that actually the difference between 8 rounds and 10 in the context of searching a large room for traps is really not significant.

Cellion, to speed it up, do you have them draw an arrow around the room to show their search path, and then ask them to do that many perception checks in a row? Help me figure out a way to make this work in PBP.

Yeah, I wish they had more info in the CRB about what searching looks like. When you search the 20x20, are you moving around that square (so if you miss the perception check for a trap setting the trap off or if a non trap related thing happens when someone walks around the room) or are you searching from one point? I am fine making a GM call for it in current stuff, I just want to make sure I am staying standard with other players and keeping the game as fair to my players as possible.

HMM, I don't ask for search path or multiple perception checks. If there's only one trap in the room a single perception check is functionally equivalent to multiple perception checks where you disregard all but the one that corresponds to the 20x20 area that actually contains the trap.

The only time this isn't a valid simplification is if the party has temporary bonuses to perception and a large room to search. Thankfully, time limited or one-off perception bonuses are relatively rare in Starfinder, so this doesn't come up often.

If there are multiple traps (and I don't think this has shown up in a scenario yet, but I've only read/prepped about half of them), I think a reasonable way of keeping things running fast is to have the GM roll the remaining perception checks for anyone that declared they were searching the room. I'd do this 'behind the screen' (ie. in a spoiler) to avoid tipping the PCs off too badly.

Defining a path through the room is (I think) too fiddly a layer of detail for PbP (Heck, half the players might not even bother moving their token on the map if its not combat). I just place them where I think it would have been reasonable for them to be when a trap goes off based on their RP, leaning towards whatever is friendlier towards the party.

When does season 1 of Starfinder end?

The new season starts at Origins in June.

I was looking into one of the starfinder races, Vlaka.
I made a race for this for CP (casual play) Pathfinder, I called it the Wolf-Folk.

anyhow, I was wondering if it would be playable without a boon.
the race really interests me, I feel it would be a good one for more of a support role, like a medic or councilor.

Just something I was looking at and wanted to see if I could play it in OP (organized play) SFS.

Unfortunately you won't be able to play as a Vlaka without a boon. Occasionally the Paizo OP team will update the rules to allow free access to more races, but that usually only happens once every few years. For example, players in Starfinder Society could originally only play using the Core races, but the team opened that up last year so you could also play any of the Legacy races from the CRB.

I'd suspect we won't see another broad loosening of the races freely available like that for quite a while. And with the number of scenarios and other boons (GM boons, convention boons, etc) that give access to additional races, I would think it will be a very long time before they do that, if ever.

ok, thanks for the info
at least I will be able to play it in casual XD.
good thing I'm starting a Starfinder Casual near were I live XD.

oh well.

Yup, there's always home games! If you felt particularly ambitious, you could even adapt your Wolf-folk race for Starfinder.

Another potential option is campaign mode for an AP. You still receive SFS credit to apply to a character but it is up to the GM what they allow in the game.

Can this PC be marked as inactive please? Thank you.

Can this PC be marked as inactive please? Thank you.

Done

Gogglez wrote:

Can this PC be marked as inactive please? Thank you.

Done

Hey... what are you doing on Castamir station? You're supposed to be on Sansorgis right now! You're not the real Conrad Castamir!

Conrad Castamir Kerbouchard wrote:

Gogglez wrote:

Can this PC be marked as inactive please? Thank you.

Done

Hey... what are you doing on Castamir station? You're supposed to be on Sansorgis right now! You're not the real Conrad Castamir!

"Good point, I'm not on a mission so it should have been me. Seriously, he can't stay focused. Without me this place would dry up."

With the recent blog post noting that the "cool fun factor" bit of the Rising Star boon is about to come to fruition... I've been thinking of running a couple of the higher level Second Seekers missions.

In particular Heat of the Foe (3-6) and Reclaiming the timelost tear(5-8).

Are there enough in tier (and not currently in game) characters who would want to play one or both of these?

Me please for Time-Lost Tear! I have a couple characters in tier, one I’m hoping to get up to lvl 7 via GM credit shortly after the OutPost game he’s in.

My brother wrote Heart of the Foe and it’s awesome. I’m also definitely down to play it, but I’ll need to use my Jadnura replay boon since I’m slotted to play it IRL next month.

Heart of the Foe is AWESOME, and Time Lost Tear was one of the most fun games that I've GMed. I have not played it, mind, but this character just received GM credit and so is not eligible for that one. My other characters are still in Outpost games, though Mu may be free soon.

My goal is to write cool adventures like the Wasko brothers. Someday it'll happen for me!