Greetings and thanks from me as well!
Oh yeah, welcome Zenvisk! He's a bug, he makes robots, and he'll be joining the party pretty much just as soon as you guys move forward.
Yay! A bug person! Now we have all the sci-fi bases covered!
Hello! Thank you for the invitation to join this campaign! I am looking forward to playing with you all.
AYYY. It’s the other person I made a connection with. Nice. Glad to see that Jin’s best earth friend is coming.
Hi Zenvisk!
Welcome to the party, Zen!
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So is the solitary humanoid or the black car the farthest behind?
The black car is farther behind. It's staying about a block away at all times.
EDIT: Campaign Info Tab updated. "Ship Features" spoiler changed to "group resources", which includes a properly-formatted starship statblock for your as-yet-unnamed craft, as well as a list of your group credits.
Everyone please add 600 credits to your character sheets.
Done.
Cross would have nabbed the loner if he was lagging behind but the car needs more watching and he does not want to utterly give himself away just yet.
I’ve been toying with the SF ship building system a bit. And I thought “hey, since I’m toying around and making these anyways, Leinathan might be interested”
If you want, would ya like me to design some ships for the witchwyrds, SolGov, and so forth?
I had a feeling that 'lone humanoid' might be our new buggy friend. Once you guys have that sorted, let Cross know and we can deal with the feds. He is not interested in letting them go free without at least being roughed up.
I had a suspiscion too.
Mmhm, as for the Feds, maybe we should just attempt to shake them. I dunno.
Kinda curious though what his reasoning is for chasing us down.
Organ Farms: Facilities where cloned organs are grown for private individuals. Usually part of an expensive insurance policy. Also refers to idiots destined to die young and leave numerous high quality and harvestable organs for whichever private morgue collects the bodies. I.E. they might as well be a body at an organ farm.
I’ve been toying with the SF ship building system a bit. And I thought “hey, since I’m toying around and making these anyways, Leinathan might be interested”
If you want, would ya like me to design some ships for the witchwyrds, SolGov, and so forth?
Sure! Any statblocks that you figure are at least somewhat widely usable, feel free to throw them my way.
Unique and interesting single starships that you'll duel with, I'll want to make my own damn self, but if you're doing it already, you know, basic cruisers and frigates and pirates and transport ships and other basic stuff would be really cool to have!
just curious, is Rollo not going to fight back? He never acted during round one.
He moved forward and drew his weapon, but wasn't interested in being the first person to shoot since that would draw attention to him.
Fun fact, the currently most common surnames in the world are Lee, Zhang, and Wang. I was picking a few at random though, figuring that as the world's demographics changed, the list of generic names a stereotypical government goon squad would pick from would change too.
leinathan, I just updated Amaryst's stamina and noticed that I had her HP at 14.5. I had meant to ask if we were rounding down or up, or leaving the 1/2s.
Round up hit points. Stamina isn't halved. I believe it says that in the campaign info tab.
Hey! I want to add a little Lore bit and ask if you're okay with me adding a little sub-rule to casting. I won't unless everyone's okay with it. I've been reading other materials and getting inspired about things to include in this game!
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Typically, channeling psychic energy takes a massive toll on a subject's brain. This wasn't well-understood during the early days of the Institute, and many of the MLE and corollary programs either died or went insane due to the damage done to their brains. Maldor and MLE's complement of "spells per day" is the result of years of rigorous testing and training that they've undergone that allows them to channel psychic energy without directly damaging their brains.
However, if a psychic's focus is expended but they still find themselves in a dangerous or desperate situation, then they can resort to something referred to as "Torching" in order to continue casting. "Torching" is channeling psychic energy without the benefit of the psychic buffer preventing brain damage.
Each round that a character "Torches", they can cast any of their spells or psychic SLAs without expending uses/day. However, each round they also roll a d10.
On a roll of 1-3, they permanently lose one point of Constitution. On a roll of 4-6, they permanently lose one point of Wisdom. On a roll of 7-10 they are lucky enough to avoid permanent damage. If a character drops to 3 Constitution while Torching, they immediately die. If a character drops to 3 Wisdom while Torching, they immediately become incurably insane, restoring all lost Wisdom. An insane psychic has no limit on their ability to channel psychic energy, and frequently go on rampages eliminating everything in their way with brute-force power.
- - -
Stolen shamelessly from another game, I think this rule is not really likely to be used, but adds some cool dangerous flavor to casting that I really like. What do you guys think?
If you changed it from permanent to normal ability damage like pathfinder it’d be cool. The only reason I feel the permanent penalty is bad is because it makes it too risky to ever actually use at least from what I see. It reminds me of the Kineticist’s burn from pathfinder but with a nastier bite.
As this would likely not directly affect my character, I feel that my opinion should count for less than those who it directly does. However, I agree with Hazrond, as permanent seems a little bit harsh to me.
The problem I have with that is that as soon as you take lesser restoration, the penalty is totally pointless because you can remove damage for free.
Even if you make it drain instead (which I would prefer) then again, the penalty is voided as soon as you can cast 4th-level spells and it essentially gives you infinite spells.
Also, Jin and Maldor are up.
Maybe have it to where the damage cannot be healed by spells, but instead can only heal over time. Perhaps healing could go at something along the lines of one point of damage (total, not both scores) per week, but if the individual 'Torches' during that week, all time resets.
This makes it not quite as bad as permanent ability score damage, but still have a permanent effect at all levels.
Thematically I love it! I think there would need to be some way to cure the damage though, even if it was very strict or complicated. Like needing therapy/surgery, or not using any psychic powers for a certain length of time. Or even just requiring a resolve point to heal 1 overnight, etc.
Other than that, the only real problem I see is targeting the casting attribute of Mystics. Once Wis drops under 11 it's going to be tough to get down to 3. So, maybe Charisma instead of Wisdom?
I'm coming around to agree that there needs to be some way to cure it. I will put some thought in. I would like it to be somewhat difficult.
I agree with Zaboom! that it is a thematically awesome idea. I also agree with Art, that my PC won't be directly affected, and my opinion should count for less. That said ...
...
Each round that a character "Torches", they can cast any of their spells or psychic SLAs without expending uses/day. However, each round they also roll a d10.
On a roll of 1-3, they permanently lose one point of Constitution. On a roll of 4-6, they permanently lose one point of Wisdom. On a roll of 7-10 they are lucky enough to avoid permanent damage. If a character drops to 3 Constitution while Torching, they immediately die. If a character drops to 3 Wisdom while Torching, they immediately become incurably insane, restoring all lost Wisdom. An insane psychic has no limit on their ability to channel psychic energy, and frequently go on rampages eliminating everything in their way with brute-force power.
There's a 60% chance to suffer ability damage, 30% Con, 30% Wis. Would it be wisdom loss for technomancers too? Intelligence is their casting stat. (I'll just say Wisdom for the rest of the discussion, but I could mean casting stat.)
It's a long way to 3 Con. It's also a longer way to 3 Wis. So risk or death or insanity is pretty low. Just out of curiousity, would casting stat = 3 immediately make the PC an NPC and transfer control to the DM, or will the player retain control?
Oooo. If a character's Wisdom drops to say 9 -- how would they be able to keep casting to get even lower? They're below the minimum score required to cast.
Anyway, the real issue seems to be ability damage mechanics. I'd like to see either damage or risk of damage scale with spell level or the ratio of spell level to maximum spell level the character can cast. Torching your higher level spells should be riskier than torching spells that you can cast easily.
Maybe there could be a 50-50 chance of damage being permanent or temporary. Some damage could be healed by spells then. Permanent damage woud have a chance of being healed over time. Maybe the caster could have a roll once a month to see if they heal "permenent" damage.
Round up hit points. Stamina isn't halved. I believe it says that in the campaign info tab.
I remembered stamina wasn't halved, at least.
OK, I am thinking that I want to move the mental ability damage to CHARISMA (which is the casting stat for neither casting class, removing that whole, "how do you Torch down to 3" thing).
I want to throw out the idea of, "you heal 1 point of Torching for every week that you spend not using your psionic powers at all".This allows you to heal Torched damage in long stretches between adventures, but not really otherwise.
The idea is that a Torched character becomes an NPC, because they kind of become unplayable if they're insane and also have infinite spells.
I'm glad that, on the whole, the idea is cool to you guys!
Sorry for coming late to the discussion - once a day posting time =\
Love the theme of torching. I also think there needs to be a way to recover - think of running. You can run too fast or too long and suffer consequences, but you will likely recover from it over time. Likewise, using psychic energy builds up an endurance over time. In all of the literature and movies I've read/watched, "torching" could have physical or mental consequences. Perhaps change to "Take 1d6 HP of damage (bypassing Stamina)" or "Take 1d4 points of damage to your spell-casting ability (Int, Wis, Cha)" that can not be magically/mystically healed, but will recover over time. Unless you reach a certain point, which could kill you o render you a blubbering idiot.
My 2 coppers =)
Wait a tick, how did that thug get an AoO on me? I was making a melee attack with an already drawn weapon.
Oh, whoops! I mistook "successful ranged trick attacks don't provoke" for "unsuccessful trick attacks do provoke". Ignore that damage!
If someone makes sure Red Thug is out of the picture this round, I can sprint to my cycle and chase down the fleeing thug.
One thug, two thug, red thug, blue thug!
Well, everyone, today I leave for a two-week trip to Morocco! Because of the out-of-the-way places our trip will be going, I will most likely be completely off-grid until May 12th. Please bot Maldor as your combat medic - he's motivated by protecting Em and K-Van primarily, and the rest of his new crew afterwards. His go-to spells in combat are Wisp Ally or Telekinetic Projectile. Of course, all of his healing abilities and spells are in play. Thanks, and look forward to catching up with you all!
No kidding about that response time. Police sirens less than 12 seconds after the explosion. :P
Have a good trip, Maldor! You'll have to let me know if it's worth visiting :)
jin is waiting for the barrage of questions, as he has said everything he can think of for the moment
Bon voyage, Maldor!
Jin is gonna grab 2 mk 1 healing serums just to be safe. Also, the Police saw Cross so it’d be safer to stay at Zen’s home. That said, wouldn’t our best course of option be to just take a night shuttle to the spaceport? No real reason to wait when we are on a time crunch like this.
Okay. So just to go over the plan again. We find one of the orbital shuttles, someone creates a distraction, we steal a digital copy of their credentials and use them to get in and out of the atmosphere unmolested then bolt into the drift.
Sound correct?
Amaryst has a healing serum already,purchased before the race. So we've got 1 already.
Zen's place is a good idea.
And you're right about taking a night shuttle. A's tired; she'd like a rest, but schedule is important. We should at least make sure that she can board before committing the entire team. (Not that I expect leinathan to make that a sticking point, but it would be sub-optimal if you all went to the station, then had to come back down to rescue her. )
That is EXACTLY why I think we should travel in groups. They can’t go and seperate us as easily.
The most nonviolent party in history lol. I’m loving how we are working our way around combat wherever possible.
Actually not my most pacifist character. That honor goes to a Cavalier I was playing in Curse of the Crimson Throne. He was a small business owner with a terrifying dog who tried diplomacy on just about every single encounter and ended up recruiting like 75% of the NPCs into a sort of militia.
I'm very happy with the creative solutions!
Awesome, Han!
leinathan, I think the rules say armor has some built in environamental control. I think it's hours of vacuum proof existance. Is that how we're playing this?
Unless otherwise specified, all armors protect you from a range of hazards to ensure that you can survive for at least a few days if you must make emergency repairs to the hull of a Starship, explore an alien world, or endure exposure to an environmental breach in a space station.
A suit of armor’s environmental protections last for a number of days equal to its item level. Activating or deactivating these environmental protections takes a standard action if you are wearing the suit (assuming the armor was properly donned). If you have access to a suit that is unattended or worn by a helpless creature, you can turn on its environmental protection as a full action, but turning it off requires a Computers check to hack the system, treating the suit as a computer with a tier equal to half the suit’s item level (the base DC to hack a computer is equal to 13 + 4 per tier).
The duration of a suit’s environmental protections does not need to be expended all at once, but it must be expended in 1-hour increments. Recharging this duration requires access to a functioning starship or an environment recharging station (publicly available in most technologically advanced or average settlements) and takes 1 minute per day recharged. Most of the recharging stations that replenish devices, such as batteries and power cells, also recharge suits is typically free of price. All other functions on a suit of armor with no duration remaining still work normally.
about how hard would hacking the airlock just enough to not sound the alarm be?