Hmm’s 1-99: Scoured Stars Invasion (Tier 5-6) (Inactive)

Game Master Hmm

Quick question on these skill checks:

Is it better to get a high quantity of good rolls, or one fantastic roll?

Sorry for how late this answer was. One fantastic roll was better, but you all acheived that!

Question: is this that important to have the second seeker slot?

because as I calculate, I need 5 adventures before being tier 4 for the Wayfinder.

Slot the Wayfinder!

Hmm

So, our collected benefits from the section we just finished:

Historia-7
Easy: Thankful for the assistance, Historia-7 shares a priority code that allows the PCs to divert CPU power from a carrier to their starship, granting them a +4 bonus to any one Computers check during starship combat. Alternatively, a PC can use this code on a ground mission, allowing that PC to count as being trained in Computers for one check.
Average: In place of the reward above, when a PC fails a Computers check, they may activate the reward to reroll the check with a +4 bonus.
Hard: When the PCs use either of the rewards above, they can roll twice on the Computers check, take the better result, and add a +4 bonus to it.

~~~~~

Naiaj
Easy: Thankful for the help, the chief engineer installs a special boost switch in the PCs' ship. Once during the adventure, the PCs can flip the switch to add +4 to a single Engineering or Piloting check during starship combat.
Average: When using the reward above, all the PCs' Engineering and Piloting checks made during the same round gain the +4 bonus.
Hard: In place of the reward above, the PCs can force the crew of an enemy ship to take a –2 penalty to all Engineering and Piloting checks made during the round. The use of this ability must be declared at the start of the starship combat round.

~~~~~

Radaszam
Easy: Radaszam thanks the PCs for their help. Once during the adventure, each PC can requisition a weapon with an item level up to the PC's level for the duration of one mission. The group must use this ability prior to starting a new encounter, and this ability cannot be used during Part 4. The weapon comes with a fully charged battery or full magazine.
Average: In addition to the reward above, the PCs can also requisition a single consumable item with an item level equal to the PC's level. These consumables cannot have permanent effects, and PCs who do not use them during the course of the scenario must return them at the end of the adventure.
Hard: When using the Easy tier reward, the weapon can have an item level up to the PC's level + 1.

~~~~~

Ziggy
Easy: Pleased with the PCs' efficiency, Zigvigix has some special ordnance loaded in the PCs' starship. Once during the adventure, the party gains a +2 bonus to any one starship combat attack roll, and that attack does not consume ammunition in the case of a weapon with the limited fire property.
Average: When using the reward, all the PCs' attack rolls during that round gain the benefits of the Easy tier reward.
Hard: In place of the reward above, select any one successful starship weapon attack to count as a critical hit if it hits, even if the die result isn't a natural 20.

~~~~~

Arvin
Easy: The overall morale improves, and the PCs can rely on their allies to help them when the going gets rough. Once during the adventure, the group can gain the benefit of aid another (+2 bonus) to all skill checks for 1 round.
Average: When using the reward, the benefit applies to both skill checks and attack rolls.
Hard: In place of the reward above, once during the adventure, when the table uses an Aid Token, they get two benefits instead of one, but cannot choose the same effect twice.

~~~~~

Fitch
Easy: Going through the information gives the PCs a good idea of what type of monsters they might face: misshapen abominations, carnivorous plants, dead things, megafauna, robots, terrible extraplanar beings, and worse. The PCs can reroll one check to recall knowledge about any creature they encounter within the Scoured Stars.
Average: Once during the adventure, the PCs can instead activate this reward to gain a +2 bonus to each of their initiative checks for that encounter. Unlike most rewards, they can choose to do this after rolling initiative but before the combat begins.
Hard: When the group fights something they've identified with a skill check using the recall knowledge use of that skill and the party activates this reward, each PC gains a +4 bonus to their initiative check instead of the +2 bonus for activating this reward.

Quick questions on Radaszam's reward -

Is the consumable an "each" reward like the weapon is?

Also, do we all have to use these rewards at the same time/mission?

Thanks!

Thanks for collecting these. I am thinking of throwing them on to a google doc that all of you can edit so that we can cross them off as we use them.

Your questions:

Is the consumable an “each” reward like the weapon is?

Yes, or it would be quite useless.

Also do we all have to use these rewards at the same time/mission?

I’m ruling that Historia-7 and Radaszam’s awards are individual and may be activated by each player. Every other reward is by group.

Thanks for collecting these. I am thinking of throwing them on to a google doc that all of you can edit so that we can cross them off as we use them.

If you'd like, when I ran this I created cards to hand out to my players based on which successes they received. Its available here, I gave everyone the rights to comment so we can comment when we check off each individual thing. Up to you if you want to use it.

Rather than wait until we hit it, let’s agree on our positions in Starship combat.

For reference, my skills are:
Science Officer (Computers, HD Datajack) +18
Engineering +17
Gunnery +9
Pilot +12

I have often moved back and forth between Science Officer and Engineering. I picked up Piloting skill with an eye towards being able to fill the Gunnery position when needed.

In space combat, I like to have two Science Officers on the first turn so that we can more quickly scan the enemy. In the Starship battles I’ve seen, there has only been two gunnery positions that could fire in the same round.

This will be my first time playing doing Starship battle at 6th level, so new options are now available.

I have created a Player Folder that all of you can edit.

It has ship role sheets and the benefits sheets. Although I like Shaudius / Sorami's sheet, I think I prefer my own because it has notations for individual missions. Still both forms are in there in case you have strong preferences.

Hmm

So, um... I'm not always going to be able to post more than once a day - so I guess go ahead and bot me if things are moving so quickly that multiple actions a day are needed.

Re: ship combat, here are Al's skills:

Computers (Al) +16
Computers (Ruby) +16 (Can be done as an aid-another simultaneously)
Engineering +16
Piloting +15
Gunnery +11

Like Neon Ten, I built Al's piloting ranks primarily to be better at gunnery - I've never actually played them in a scenario with ship combat, despite having GM'd a ton of them, so Al could fit any role the party wants, other than Captain.

Okay, here’s a Question:

Do you want me to move you forward when you find All the information in a place? Or do you want me to wait for everyone’s posts? I am trying to be cognizant of how very BIG this special is, and allow you to experience as much of the missions as you can, but I also don’t want to rush you.

Also some of these locations don’t have much to find.

Having GM'd this, I'm good with whatever is best for the group.

Move forward!

I am fine with moving forward once we get information,

Agreed, move forward.

I'm good with keeping it moving forward.

Yes, forward!

It is too late, but does a technological object exist to augment bluff?

There is a Serum of Enhancement

Pg. 225
Diplomat
The creature gains a +2 insight bonus to Bluff and Diplomacy checks. Creatures with an Intelligence of 3 or greater also gain the ability to comprehend, speak, and understand one language that it has heard in the last 10 minutes.

Note it is an insight bonus, so it doesn’t help Operatives or other classes that already give a bonus for those skills.

I purchased one for First Mandate and used it.

I am going to encourage aids here!

If you can aid, please always try!

Hmm

With the number of site outages, I would like to start a hangout for this table of the special. Email me at hilarymoonmurphy which is a google account at gmail.

Thanks
Hmm

In the chaos I never posted my own bit about Starship combat roles.

I'm certainly not doing ship based tasks that everyone else can't do better. I could fit in as a secondary engineer, a secondary/tertiary gunner, or the role of captain if I'm just aiding gunners or engineers.

Engineering +9
Gunnery +7

I'm willing to see how starting a combat with two Science Officers might work out. I've experienced a number of starship combats, the more recent ones I've seen up to three guns fighting consistently in a round. In those cases though it requires the pilot to be in control of the position in combat to have an arc with that many weapons available (or a fly-by attempt).

If there is a ship weapon that could be firing, and no one is using it, I would like to be in a gunner position. Otherwise I can take Engineer role if we are taking a defensive role or Captain role (if that is empty) if we are taking an aggressive role in the combat.

We'd be using Tier 6 ships, most likely Pegasus or Drake, unless someone has a "loaned starship" boon they haven't already limited-use(d) yet.

I keep image files of each starship's stats in one of my Dropbox PbP folders - at the moment only tiers 2-6, though.

The Drake would give us 2 guns (coilgun and particle beam) up front, 1 coilgun port, 1 coilgun aft, and 1 heavy linked missile launcher in the turret.

The Pegasus would be 1 front laser, 1 port laser net / point defense, 1 starboard torpedo laucher, and 1 turret particle beam.

Collected starship information from everyone's posts to the discussion thread and whatever I could find from your character sheets. I put everyone's best two positions (by the numbers) in bold -

(Listed in order of posting. I also added gunnery to everyone's entry, just in case. I tried to calculate it for those who listed their BAB or Piloting ranks in their sheet)

Ivok: Gunner +7, Engineer +9, Captain D+7 I+2
Boon: First Skirmish (1)

Antoine: Captain D+13 I+8, Pilot +14, Science +9, Engineer +9, Gunner +11
Boon: First Skirmish (2)

Al: Engineer +16, Science +16, Pilot +15, Gunner +11 (...skill monkeys make for good starship characters, I'm learning)
Boon: First Skirmish (3) and Enhanced Shield Regeneration (can use once per combat)

Sorami: Captain D+17 I+14, Engineer +7, Pilot +15, Gunner +10
Boon: First Skirmish (4)

Sev: Science +15, Engineer +13, Gunner +(can't tell)
Boon: First Skirmish (5)

Neon: Science +18, Engineering +17, Pilot +12, Gunner +9
Boon: First Skirmish (6)

~~~~~

Best at each role:

Engineer: Neon then Al then Sev then Ivok and Antoine
Science Officer: Neon then Al then Sev then Antoine
Pilot: Al or Sorami then Antoine
Captain: Sorami then Antoine
Gunners: Antoine and Al then Sorami then Neon then Ivok
(Unsure about Sev's gunnery)

Everyone, please look at the player folder in my header. That would be a great place to put Drake and Pegasus ship sheets. Also, there is a spreadsheet in there that some people made that collates everyone skills for group reference.

I think the primary decision is which ship will we be taking?

The Drake with the two forward guns does make it much more likely we can use three gunners, I don’t like missiles in the turret, but the difference in guns may make up for that.

I have no combat experience with either Tier 6 ship.

As for ship roles, to me the most critical position is Pilot. Al 293 is clearly our best Pilot so they should be there.

I like the ability of the Captain to buff our actions and debuff enemy actions, so I would like a good Captain. Sorami seems a good choice, with Antoine stepping in on any round we need to use Orders to give an additional action.

Ivok is a better Engineer than Gunner. They should be able to make the DC 19 Divert Power Engineering checks most of the time. Keep them there, have others supplement if needed. Hopefully it doesn’t become needed because that means we took a lot of damage.

Antoine is a very good Gunner, so I would make them our primary person in that position. As stated above, if we expect to need additional actions on a round, he could swap positions with Sorami.

Everyone remaining is good at switching between multiple positions.

Positions by person:

Al 203: Pilot
Antoine: Primary Gunner, able to switch to Captain when we want an additional action
Ivok: Engineering
Neon: Science Officer, switch to Gunnery or Engineering when needed
Sev+: Science Officer first round, Secondary Gunner after that
Sorami: Captain, able to switch to any position when needed but most likely Gunnery

Does that look good to people?

The Drake is by far the better ship if we are going in specifically for combat. If our goal there is more focused on scanning and pulling data while, presumably, enemies shoot at us, the Pegusus could be giving +3 more of a bonus than that of the Drake (if all resources were allocated to scanning).

Without knowing where we will be going, I think the Drake is probably going to be better suited for us since I'm confident in the ability of the Science Officers to make reasonable Computers checks when called upon.

I can agree with that positioning, but unless I'm missing something, I will take a round for Antoine to change into the Captain position. Losing their actions on turns where they would change up would seem difficult for just the goal of getting an extra action that turn. Especially when Antoine could also fire a broadside (being able to fire the turret and forward weapons himself) from the gunner position.

And having an extra action is mot useful. The DC is very tough.

Sounds like general agreement that we take the Drake.

There is no time consumed changing roles.

Changing Roles

You can switch between roles (or assume a role if you don't already have one), but this change must occur at the start of a round before the engineering phase. You can switch to the captain or pilot role only if that role would otherwise be vacant (or if the character in that role is unable to take actions).

You need to be sixth level as a Captain to give an extra action in combat.

Orders (Any Phase, Push)

At 6th level, you can grant an additional action to one member of the crew by spending 1 Resolve Point and succeeding at a difficult skill check at the beginning of the phase in which the crew member would normally act. The type of check depends on the role of the crew member targeted: a Computers check for a science officer, an Engineering check for an engineer, a gunnery check (see page 320) for a gunner, and a Piloting check for a pilot. The DC of this check is equal to 10 + 3 × your starship's tier. If the check succeeds, the crew member can take two actions in her role this round (both when she would normally act), but she can't take the same action twice. You can't give yourself orders.

Note that the Starfinder FAQ changed the DC.

For the orders action, the DC of the check equals 15 + 1-1/2 times your starship's tier.

So DC 24, certainly not easy.

Sorry I haven't posted in like, a day - had an offline series of minor emergencies to deal with. I won't be able to post too much over the weekend, but with luck next week I'll be back to "normal" again.

Test

Does this work? Kick, kick!

Hello!

I am here as well.

"Presently functional."

Just to confirm - you still want Al as pilot?

Yes I want Al 203 as our Pilot.

Hey all,

There was a question about whether consumables last for the entire adventure — THEY DO! You can read the Summary of all the Benefits Earned at any time in your handy-dandy player information folder, which also includes:

• Ship Combat Role Handouts
  
• Ship Sheets for the Drake and Pegasus
  
• Your awesome Skills Matrix spreadsheet that sums up who is good at what!

Love you all,
Hmm

I'll heading out to a convention early tomorrow afternoon. I will be returning Monday. I expect to be able to get in a few short posts over the weekend, but please feel free to bot me when necessary.

Hi Guys

I will take over for GM Hmm for a few days (until the 16th)

Welcome, Ilmakis!

@ GM Ilmakis - Thanks for stepping in!

Merci!

Thank you so much Ilmakis.

Bon jour, Florent! :)

Starship mission

Good with Starship

Starship please.

Go for Starship then !

Please, choose between the Drake and the Pegasus

Drake.

Since we know this is a combat mission, Al's vote would be for the Drake.

(and I'm glad people chose this mission since I slotted two starship boons!)

Good with Drake