GM Wolfspirit's Into The Unknown Blue Table (Inactive)

Game Master Wolfspirit

To discuss!

Exemplar-2, an android wearing red armour steps in. He wears the insignia of Iomedae on his chest and has a pistol at his hip.

I'm still waiting for Sunny's chronicle sheet from his last scenario, I should get it in next day or two. He will still be at level 1 even after adding the new sheet.

Technically though I think he is considered "in play" until I actually recieve the sheet. Do you have any objection to me starting with Sunny anyway Wolfspirit? If so, I can pick a pregen instead.

I'm still waiting for Sunny's chronicle sheet from his last scenario, I should get it in next day or two. He will still be at level 1 even after adding the new sheet.

Technically though I think he is considered "in play" until I actually recieve the sheet. Do you have any objection to me starting with Sunny anyway Wolfspirit? If so, I can pick a pregen instead.

I'm fine with you running him, as long as you update before we get to the first combat.

I'm fine with you running him, as long as you update before we get to the first combat.

Sunny's profile has his new chronicle applied and he is good to go!

@ All - I will be traveling out of town starting Wednesday, 5/23, and won't return home until the following Wednesday, 5/30. I hope to still post one a day, but my post times, post rate, and verbosity of my PC will be minimized during that time. I am happy to let the GM or another player bot me during that time.

We're about to get into combat. Is there anyone that hasn't posted IC that is still in?

I am not picky about my role on the ship.

I am going to switch to Iseph pregen for the starship quest. He has some missing skills we need and can jump between engineering and science.

Iseph can also fill in quite well as pilot. Once the other PCs have their initial roles picked, Iseph can float/switch where needed.

Sunny is probably best off as Gunner. He does have the skills for captain as well, but I think Kharos might have the best social skills.

I don't mind any role and can be Captain if needed. Kharos wouldn't mind encouraging the crippling and then boarding of an undead vessel he is actually allowed to purge.

Based on the above, it looks like assignments are:
Captain: Kharos
Pilot: Exemplar-2
Gunner: Sunny
Engineer/Science: Iseph

Here's the way I tend to run PbP Space Combat:

<pre- step 1>: The party determines the positions everyone will use for the upcoming round.
<pre- step 2>: The party determines where bonuses are going to be allocated for the upcoming round (including Captain Aid and computer bonuses)
Combat!: GM rolls both Pilot Initiative and Enemy Initiative.
(If the Enemy ship loses initiative, I will move it at this point.)
Party acts simultaneously for all Starfinder actions, including but not limited to:
Pilot moves the ship appropriately and uses any stunts
Captain Action rolls
Engineering Action rolls
Gunning Action rolls, etc -- There are only two guns, so you can do "Rolls attack if in firing arc for Forward gun, otherwise, assist gunner"
Finishing combat step: Please suggest changes to bonuses / positions in your post / before the last party member posts.
Round 2 (etc): start from "Combat!"

I suggest that we "assign" the two floating bonuses to the pilot and the gunner each round (I find it helps to remember to use them if they are "assigned").

Should we really need to re-assign the bonuses, then we can do so. I just don't want to forget to use them--particularly as this party is not optimized for starship combat.

Unless ordered otherwise by the Captain, Iseph will begin at the Science Station and scan the ship the first round or two, until we can identify the speed, weapons, shields, HP, etc.

Then, they will remain at engineering-diverting power to speed, weapons, or shields until we start taking substantial damage. Then start patching.

If it looks like we have the ability to do some critical hits, then they can hop back to science to target a particular system.

Agree that the +1's should go to piloting/gunner by default. If we need an important roll from engineering, ect on a certain turn we can move them around as needed.

That is how I have seen the bonuses done in the past as well. And that action sounds fine to me. I still struggle with spaceship combat a little.

Might I suggest that Iseph pilot? Looking at the rest of the group, exemplar-2 is only a +2 and the rest aren't much better. *chuckles*.

When building Exemplar I didn't know what role to target for ship combat so I didn't do anything. Silly now in retrospect, but I am not familiar with ship combat.

We can always switch roles next round. I've played and run this before. So, I didn't want to metagame.

But, yes, having a good pilot is VERY helpful in this quest and the scans should show why soon.

I've made a terrible mistake:

I was saying the "Port" I meant "Forward". I've corrected that. Feel free to reposition so you're outside of the Forward Arc.

Hey guys, I may be posting more sporadically the next few days. My wife and I just had a new baby girl today. I'll try and stick to once a day posts but please bot Sunny if you are waiting on a roll from him.

Congratulations.

I have moved the ship to the starboard (right?) side of the enemy.

Congrats, Sunny! As a father of three, between ages 4 and 11, I know how awesome and tiring being a father can be!

Congrads! Just don't bring your baby to the gaming table for a while :)

(Had a player bring a one week old to the FLGS for a game once. It was the last time I saw him.)

So under encourage it says (Any Phase). Does that mean I can use the action during each phase or once for the "round"? Captain seems pretty sweet if they are throwing around +2 in each phase.

That can be used once per round, during any phase. Usually you would go through the round and interject "I want to help out with Piloting for initiative" or the like. If you wanted to aid the next Initiave check, you can roll now. Or you can roll to assist gunning., etc.

For those new to Starfinder Starship Combat, let me first say, "Welcome!"

Next, let me acknowledge that it can be seem confusing/complicated, at least at first. This is not helped by the fact that the DCs for many actions printed in the Core Rule Book are incorrect. The corrected DCs have been printed in the Starfinder Starship Combat FAQ.

Someone far more insightful and creative than I, came up with some very useful Starship Role Sheets. Since they were first provided to me here during a game on the PbP boards, I have used them in the SFS games I GM both here via PbP and for FtF games--having printed them out.

I'd like to apply the first completed quest towards an Alien Archive boon. Don't know if that means they need to be reported separately by the 6/14 deadline or not.

Should we consider botting Exemplar-2 and position the Loreseeker?

Keskodai, I'll make sure that's covered. Do you have a sign-off sheet?

Sunny D (and everyone else): I didn't make it clear this time, but in the interest of keeping things moving, you can do your action regardless of the pilot's action; if for some reason things change (weapon firing arc) we can re-roll.

So, this is my 4-5th time running Space Battle on PbP, and even with trying to streamline things (Single "phase" for everyone, etc), I'm still finding it's a slog. Partly it's the heavy reliance on the rolls of the Pilot and the Gunner(s)

Things I'm considering doing for subsequent games are:

Having a tighter window of time before botting. Right now it's 1-3 days per round, which due to the pretty high damage thresholds, can still take over a month.

Rolling the "current" turn's attack / damage along with initiative. That way players can say "My current action is X / Since we took damage this round, next round I'll move to Engineer and attempt to repair."

For the Quests specifically: allowing full rebuilds between Quest chapters. My observation is that the Quests are all built to "teach" something about Starfinder. The first one was "There are advantages and disadvantages to both Ranged and Melee attacks." This one is "Moving after the enemy and strategically placing your ship is important. Almost important is hitting stuff" That's fine for a 1.5 hour introductory session, where you can go "Huh, Dexterity is actually super important in this system" and try again afterwards. When a single decision takes months to unfold, it's less fun.

Anyway, does anyone have thoughts?

I think botting after a day during combat is fair, so long as your players are aware going in. Personally, If I was to busy to post, I would rather my character was botted so the game could move on than have the game stall while everyone waits on me.

Unfortunately it's the nature of PbP that it can just drag sometimes, ship combat especially, not sure there's really a good solution.

I'm content to continue at the pace we are on, BUT if we all want to speed this up, at least to resolve the ship combat quickly, we could agree on a specific time when we are all available to be online at once and try and get it done. Maybe use a program like Discord, or Roll 20? Sort of counter-intuitive to the "play-at-your-own-pace" aspect of PbP but it would get it done. Just a thought.

I've run this starship battle via PBP and face-to-face and it has always been a bit of a slog. And those battles have been with parties of five or six with some characters that were optimized ad pilots, engineers, and gunners--which this party is clearly not.

Even with more optimal parties this battle still took about two weeks each time via PbP and that was with a minimum once a day post rate. Botting does help with the pace. I also had the pilot roll initiative with the piloting check and then had PCs post regardless of the order of the phases. Then, I compiled a round by round summary, resolving the actions in proper phase order as GM. It was more work for the GM but I think it helped things move a little quicker.

When I played these quests for Outpost, the GM just called the battle early due to time constraints.

Without an optimized party with multiple gunners, it is just going to go slow, u think. We might be able to go a little faster by having the PC with highest pilot in skill do the piloting (thus more likely to win initiative and position to avoid attacks) and highest gunnery bonus in the coilgun (so highest damage weapon hits more often), but I can't think of much else this party can do. Fortunately, it should go through the next two quests pretty quickly before getting bogged down in the final starship fight (we may want to consider switching multiple PCs to pregens for that fight).

If everyone is fine with the current pace including the GM, then I say continue in as is, but if not, at least a change up of starship roles should be considered.

I am happy to step out of the pilot chair and man a gun or something. As I have said previously Exemplar was not built with starship combat in mind. I will look at rectifying this when this quest series is done.

Please don't think I am suggesting that anyone change their character.

Not all characters need to be built for starship combat. The Keskodai pregen I was playing certainly wasn't.

I am just saying that we happened to form a party in which none of the PCs are really optimized for starship combat (at least not this particular combat, which focuses on teaching the values of positioning, dealing damage, and making repairs) as the battle seems to be making rather evident. Actually, Kharos is a pretty decent captain (but has been plagued by low rolls). And like I said, I suspect the party is going to be very effective in the non-starship quests.

It isn't your urging that made me think of tweaking Exemplar Iseph. I have been thinking I will tweak him ever since we started the starship combat. Not a massive overhaul, just shifting 1 skillpoint into something to allow me to have a role on board.

@ GM - It may be helpful keeping a tally of starship statuses after each round - the status for the Starfinder ship and at least the damage total done to the enemy ship. Then, the players can see more clearly what parts of the ship need attention and perhaps make guesses as to what may be the most effective strategy.

Yeah, I love to hear advice and different perspectives. My low rolls have been killer as has my posting times and my need to put a point into intimidate for Demand/Taunt.

Adding status! :)

My post wasn't targeted at anyone (I said the same thing to the other table, that is more starship optimized than you.) I'm mostly just looking at ways of trying to keep things moving. Posting the ship status is something I can do to help.

My apologies. Family surprised me with a visit for my birthday so I am nowhere near a computer atm.

Happy B-Day!

Happy Birthday

Eat a piece of cake for me! (because I really shouldn't)

Happy Birthday!

No worries, and welcome back :)

Once you're done investigating this area, the next (and final) portion is another space combat. So let me know when you're ready for that.

Thanks everyone. Was so stuffed from dinner I couldn't even eat cake till this morning.

Moving things ahead since you missed anyway ;)

I'll be visiting family until Wednesday, then traveling to GenCon. If we can I'd like to try and wrap this up before then... though obviously that is dependent on dice rolls :)

I am heading to camp over the weekend, so won't be posting. Anyone may feel free to Bot Iseph. They will remain on guns, crit fishing firing at will with the forward weapons (or whatever is available) until the Odyssey shields or critical systems take damage. At that point, Iseph will hop to engineering and diver power to shields/patch system.

I will resume posting sometime Monday (US East Coast). Have a great weekend!

blech. I couldn't post due to maintenance, now I'm at GenCon. Will make an update tonight.

I'm still taking care of catching up after gencon, so it might be a couple days before I get the Chron sheets. I couldn't find the info from before, so I do need the following:

Character Name:
SFS ID: XXXXX-7XX
Faction
Day Job (if Applicable)

Thanks everyone!