This is the discussion thread for our Dead Suns AP. Players should report in here and have any OOC discussions, discuss character concepts, etc.
Character creation will be:
* 10-point buy
* 1000 credits (purchase of level 2 items is approved as long as you stay within your budget)
* Any core or legacy race (maaaaaybe First Contact, but lets discuss first)
* No evil alignments
* Please write up something for background. In terms of the amount of detail or format, go with whatever you like. I find the "10 minute background" concept helps me get a skeletal framework for a background then I write a narrative on that, but do what works for you. (If there's something you don't want other players to read, mark it off in a spoiler but, otherwise, I encourage players to read each others' backgrounds. I feel these help provide RP hooks. However, it's not required as I know some people like to discover things organically.)
** An initial conceit/requirement for all characters is that you are a recruit or initiate for the Starfinder Society. So, your character should have a reason to want to join the Starfinder Society. (More details to follow.)
* No 3PP at the start although I may be open to it later
I don't have any House Rules right now. We're still learning so may as well go with this "as written" until we find something we think doesn't work, but as always I do reserve the right to implement house rules if I think something doesn't work.
Probably looking to start late this month or early October, so there's plenty of time to think about your characters and discuss them with others. You're all "in" so feel free to discuss shared backgrounds if you like.
I'll send out PMs eventually for the Roll20 gamespace that we'll use for combats. All dice-rolls and posts will happen here, but we'll be using Roll20 for mapping purposes. Let me know if there are other resources you'd like to use.
As always, let me know if you have any questions.
just curious, will you be running this for sfs credit? (please say yes! lol)
if not, that's fine too.
I've never done PFS and I'm only now in my first PbP SFS scenario. I don't know what would be involved in GMing it as an SFS-compliant game. So, probably not but I'm open to being persuaded if a number of other folks are interested and there aren't too many hoops to getting approved.
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Hooroar! Reporting in from GM's invitation.
I know that I definitely want to play a Solarian, but I'm debating what KIND of Solarian. My two main ideas are:
A. Forlorn elf Solarian who worships Sarenrae and seeks to forgive the galaxy for whatever great betrayal was committed against the elves during the Gap.
B. Rookie human Solarian with the Starfinder Forerunner archetype who studied at the Cosmonastery of the Empty Orbit but struggled with it and eventually quit to join the Starfinder Society, with the OOC understanding that his powers will eventually emerge later in the campaign as a kind of "late bloomer," as well as becoming a more confident leader and finding the enlightenment he struggled with in the Cosmonastery. Kinda Luke-Skywalker-like if you know what I'm saying?
Oh ho, Dead Suns fun times.
SFS means no legacy races and if I understand correctly it also follows SFS budgeting/XP restrictions? Actually, not sure about that second one.
In any case, character gen is super straightforward with only the Core book out right now. Not sure what I want to play yet. My SFS 701 character is a technomancer, and I'm currently playing a solarion in the special, so those two are out.
So I guess its between Envoy, Operative, Soldier and Mystic. If we're going to have a 6+ person group, I might go Envoy and boss all you about encourage you very politely. For Soldier I'd probably go some kind of heavy weapons / bombard type, since being a walking artillery piece sounds like fun. Operative would maybe be an adaptation of my -703 SFS character, a shirren private eye operative, which is also planned to be a ranged combatant. Aaaand Mystic would definitely have to be a hardcore mind-mage.
Too many options! If other people have preferences, I'm OK to fill gaps.
If we don't have to play sfs legal characters, I will be playing an operative... if we do play sfs legal characters (and I'm not sure that's entirely necessary if playing for sfs credit... just have to apply the credit to a current sfs character.)... anyway, if we do play sfs legal characters, I'll likely be playing a technomancer.
Still waiting to hear back on an invite from one player who I quite like but has been offline for the last week (possibly hurricane related so fingers crossed).
If he says "yes", that will bring us up to five players. If he says "no", there's one other person I'd like to invite.
Whether we're at four or five, would you like another player or two in the mix? If so and if you have any recommendations, please send them to me via PM. If so and you don't have any recommendations (and I don't receive any from others or am not comfortable with the recommendations), I can open up a recruitment thread.
Also, once I have something properly written up, I'll start a gameplay thread. When that is up, feel free to "dot" into there but then please DELETE your dot post. Hopefully that should still be enough to add it to your Campaigns list but it won't clutter up the first page.
Hey there...super excited about this! Snowheart, you've been a fantastic GM in the other CotCT game, so I'm really looking forward to this foray.
I'm leaning toward an Android Mechanic, but haven't reviewed everything as much as I'd like to yet.
Snowheart, I asked about APs and Society play here... see the response from GM Redelia - She says you CAN run with house rules and apply the credit to society characters! It's called 'campaign mode'. Not sure of the particulars regarding chronicles and such, but I'm sure the information is out there.
Wow, I stand corrected. Looks like everything about getting SFS credit for your home game run of an AP is available on the store page for Dead Suns Part 1.
Also hi JAF0 and PatheticWretch (is just PW ok?), I didn't recognize you because you shed your CotCT character names :>
And hi Zousha, nice to meet you! I don't think we've played together yet.
Snow, I'm OK with going ahead with only 5 players. I think it's designed for 4 players and I wouldn't want to roll all over it (assuming Starfinder is just as vulnerable to larger groups as Pathfinder is).
Yeah, PW is great.
5 players sounds good to me.
Oh, hi Ilsa... didn't know that was you... hi Bash... and 5 is fine with me, though I wouldn't mind a 6th as losing a player or two over time is pretty typical... of course we can always start with 5 and recruit more if we lose someone.
Hello AZ! Nice to meet you.
Oh, hi Ilsa... didn't know that was you... hi Bash... and 5 is fine with me, though I wouldn't mind a 6th as losing a player or two over time is pretty typical... of course we can always start with 5 and recruit more if we lose someone.
Actually, this is a very good point. I'm always surprised at people who put a ton of effort into a character and then quit after 2-3 weeks. Though that is hopefully not something that will happen where players have been hand-picked, it might be good to have a "spare" player.
K. If y'all have any thoughts in mind, send them to me via PM... say, by Thursday night? That'll give me time to start sending PMs before the weekend hits and people disappear.
Lol. I loved K-2.
Character is pretty much done... just need to finalize equipment and calculate cost and credstick balance. Let me know if you want any changes made.
read this ... of course I am no authority on what, if anything else from that book, Snowheart will consider... I did ask in advance before making my character.
Basically, I'm saying just core or legacy races (as specified in the Core Rule Book) and maaaaaybe the player-appropriates races from First Contact. Since "space goblins" are in First Contact, JAF0 asked if he could do that and I said as long as it wasn't evil and wasn't a para-suicidal or disruptive character, I was fine with it.
Looks like two ranged shooty characters so far (Though I guess operatives can switch from ranged to stabby without any problems), and one melee (Solarion).
Any word on that fifth player Snow? It looks like we could use some spellcasting, and I'm not sure if they might want the role.
None. They are prolific (14000+) posts and have been offline for more than a week. I doubt it's just a "bleh, I'm tired of this" but there also wasn't any notice or heads up. Very confused.
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Hmmm...if we've got a space goblin on the crew, I think I might go human to balance the party out in terms of "attention-grabbing." Elves in Starfinder tend to draw attention outside Sovyrian because of their isolationism, and I don't want to hamper Eekz's time in the spotlight as the "unexpected" one. ; )
Don't worry about it. I'm killing him first. ;-)
lol "NO kill I!"
No worries. I'm glad people are being honest about their availability/interest.
===Important. Please Read===
So that we can keep things consistent and easily referenced for myself, lets do the stat summaries in the following format:
Race Class # | SP #/# HP #/# RP #/# | EAC ## KAC ## | F+# R+# W+# | Init+# | Perc+#
I think we've got one or two people who haven't been in a game I've GM'd before, so just to cover some high-level stuff and expectations:
* Once we start the campaign, please aim to post once a day. If it's been a day and you're waiting on something from me, give me a nudge (I probably missed it). I expect posts to slow down on weekends but otherwise please let me know if you're going to be offline for more than a day. If you disappear for more than a week without notice, I may have to replace you (and I really don't want to do that).
* Please try to provide hooks and push the plot as appropriate. Put another way, try to write posts that help advance the story rather than leaving things static.
* I will roll for initiative and group perception checks to try to keep things moving. Otherwise, I will usually leave the rolls up to you. However, if it seems like things are getting bogged down, I may, in the interest of keeping things moving, make other rolls such as saving throws.
* I do initiative in blocks based on the groups' averages. So, all the players' initiative rolls get lumped together in an average, and then I do the same for the bad guys. I find this helps things move along quicker. That said, as soon as it is the party's turn, there is no predetermined posting order. It's a first come, first serve kind of thing. But, if you want to make your action happen after someone else (e.g., a "delay"), just say so.
* Don't assume the outcome of a roll and write that into your posts. Obviously, there are cases where it's obvious (a natural 1 or 20 on an attack roll, meeting an already known DC, etc), in which case please go ahead.
* To avoid upsetting other players, if you suspect a planned character action has the potential to upset people, ask in the Discussion thread first. Get everyone on the same page OOC.
* When we get into ship to ship combat, I'm going to have a template to track rounds/phases/actions that I'd like folks to copy-paste-update into their posts.
Let me know if you have any questions!
good rules and suggestions... and I changed my tag line... though I added a few things -I- need at the end.
So. I'm now down to picking between two different characters:
A) A heavy weapons focused soldier, who happens to be a small halfling girl with a passion for blowing things up and a foul mouth. She may or may not wield vesk artillery lasers in the ultimate act of overcompensation.
B) A mental magic focused mystic, a grizzled shirren ex-space-pirate who hopes to use the resources of the Society to launch an expedition against a space leviathan that destroyed his crew.
For kicks and giggles...
Here's the soldier.
And here's the mystic.
-I- like them both! too bad you can't run two characters!
Eekz, otoh, likes the short one with the big guns!
Yay for randy half-elves
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Only question is...do I want to go FULL Luke Skywalker and take the Ace Pilot theme, or throw in a bit of Hamilton and take the Scholar theme? The primary Solarian guide out there recommends Ace Pilot both for the DEX boost to qualify for feats and the ability to fill any role on a starship as supremely useful, even better than the Strength or Charisma boosting themes like Icon or Mercenary, but Scholar gives me a reason to wanna join the Starfinders, as well as making my character more of their own person as opposed to just a carbon copy of Luke. The guide I'm looking at says that going THEMELESS is even better than Scholar, though! On the other hand, I'm already breaking its rules by not playing a korasha lashunta.
Zousha, I'd probably ignore the guide and go with whatever you think will have better RP. Themeless is a bit bland on its own, but its also a blank slate for making weird and interesting backgrounds.
After taking a look at everyone else's characters, I'm leaning towards the mystic. It covers a lot (!) of flexibility and skill gaps, and we have plenty of damage dealers. Fione will just have to wait for another time.
Unless someone wants me to look at them, I'm just going to trust y'all on the character stats. I don't feel a need to double-check those.
And, personally, I try to avoid opining on what people "should" play (do what's fun for you), but you should definitely feel free to coordinate amongst yourselves (just explaining why I'm not commenting, though I will if you want me to).
That said, once you have a background written, let me know so I can get a sense of your character and do some planning.
Finally, what are folks thoughts on a start date for the campaign? Is October 2nd okay? Too late? Too soon? (Remember I'd like to bring at least one more player in, so I'm going to go over some PMs now and follow-up on that.)
October 2nd is fine with me... part one of GDIV should be winding down by then and my bandwidth will be much wider.
Hi, Neko. Sorry, I'm not openly recruiting for this campaign. If I do, I'll post something in the Recruitment board.
Thanks for the interest, though.
ok... I wrote a background for Eekz (it's on the profile) but I'd like to fine tune it with some connection to the campaign, but without a player's guide that's kinda hard... so any input as to get him into the opening story somehow would be great. thanks.
thanks, I'd appreciate that... simi4games@roadrunner.com
OK, I've finished off Grix and he's ready to go (Backstory and descriptions included in his profile). As far as start date, I'm ready to go whenever.