[SFS] GM Bigrin's Table 1 - The Commencement #3 (Inactive)

Game Master bigrin42

1-01 The Commencement
Scenario Tags: Repeatable

Thank you all for joining my game. My goal is for each and every one of you to walk away thinking 2 things: 1) Man, that was a lot of fun, I can't wait to do it again; and 2) That DM Bigrin guy is a great GM, I want to play in more of his games :)

Once you have settled on a character I need the following information.

Player name/Forum Alias
Character name
Character level
SFS Character #
Day Job

I also need you to fill out your alias profile with all the relevant information.

Also, please put your full character sheet in your profile somehow, whether it is formatted text from HeroLab, PCGen, or another character generator, a link to an online sheet, or raw text. (talk to me if you want to know more about PCGEN, a FREE character creation and management tool).

As mentioned in the recruitment post, we will be using Roll20 for our maps. Please log into to the campaign HERE to join the game. Let me know what your account name is so I can link it to your character in the campaign. We will ONLY be using Roll20 for the maps component. All dice, RP, and questions should be done on the OOC and IC threads here onthe paizo forums.

Ready? Break!

Player therealthom

PC name Kadef

SFS # 90661-707

no day job

Very happy to be playing with you all.

I should double check all Kadef's stats.

Nurn is here! Yo!!!

Player name/Forum Alias FireclawDrake
Character name Nurn Zecks
Character level Solarion 1
SFS Character # 54710-703
Day Job none

Sorry, Kadef's a level 1 envoy.

Good thing FCD posted Nurn who tipped me off.

Player name/Forum Alias BuckshotBob
Character name Seven of Eleven
Character level Mecanic / 1
SFS Character # 38898-702
Day Job PROFESSION Computer Programer: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (5) + 8 = 13

Player name/Forum Alias Anxa
Character name Soryn Viaxeiro
Character level Operative (Daredevil) 1
SFS Character # 2352348-701
Day Job Gambler
Prof/Gambler: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (19) + 11 = 30

BG put the game thread up too!

@Soryn and @Seven - I need your handles for Roll20 so I can assign your tokens to you. Right now I have Robert H., Katrina H. and Jason. Are any of those you?

I think it is Robert H. But might have changed it to Buckshot Bob. I will check later tonight

Thanks for running DM Bigrin. I'm really excited to play my first Starfinder game. Here's the requested info

Player name/Forum Alias: Joshua / Incandescant
Character name: Sittnym
Character level: Mystic 1
SFS Character #: 2355801-701
Day Job: None

I've joined roll20, you should have a Joshua in there?

P.S: why can't I seem to find Starfinder avatars in the forum's avatar picker?

Yup, I was Jason. Changed to Soryn to make it easier to keep tabs.

Sittnym, if you sort by date the avatars come up in the first few pages. Or at least they did when I picked mine.

okay, that's 5. I'm going to move us ahead and get started. If #6 shows up, we'll work them in.

@Sittnym - First Starfinder game? Then we'll have to make it a good one. I'll tell you what I tell all my new players...if you don't know, ask. that's what the Discussion thread is for.

@everyone you should all have control of your own tokens now. You might want to verify as we move on, but we won't be using the maps until I say so.

On with the show!

@Soryn found a Lashunta avatar with that tip, much obliged!
@Bigrin first Starfinder game and a PbP newb, I'm sure it will be great. I'll certainly make use of the Discussion thread if I have questions - thanks for that! I can confirm that I can move my token in Roll20, apologies for the avatar change :-/

Avatar updated!

Let's get those intro posts into the game thread and let's get going folks!

Did a test of the Roll20, seems to work ok. Any cheat sheets or tips documents for Roll20? I haven't used it before. I'll be jumping here with questions too.

When I visited roll20 a few days ago all seemed good. Yesterday all I saw in roll 20 was a black screen. Couldn't find the map to test avatar positioning.

It should be good now. I was configuring lighting and sight for everyone and must have left the global illumination off.

@therealthom - what is your Roll20 handle? I think Kadef is not connected.

And it looks like we have everyone ready so off we go with 5!

My roll20 handle is Tim K.

Hello all, I hope we all enjoy and have fun!
Hoping to walk away thinking both things, let me start with: thanks for running this GM Bigrin, and for having me!

Character sheet filled out here & my handle on Roll20 is Pangea (bear claw icon) - and I checked and can see & move things.

Player name/Forum Alias: Eric Collins / Eric Collins - France
Character name: Pangea
Character level: 1
SFS Character #: 101218-713
Day Job: none

Welcome Sittnym / Joshua!
Do you have the beginner's boon (that you can use for your first character, your -701)? It has a nice option among the 3 choices you can select...

See you in Absalom Station!

Thanks for the welcome Pangea! I do have the "Welcome to the Society" boon, I'd missed that. Thanks! A Spellgem Cache seems very potent for a Mystic? Short of stating that I'm applying the boon in the Gameplay thread is there anything else I need to do?

You slot the boon.
And you are supposed to choose one of the three (but it does not say when, so debatable as to whether before slotting... up to GM?).
My feeling is that Tattoo of the Starfinder is the strongest, since it gives something you cannot get in game (it does not replicate any item or such), but, in effect, there is a fair chance you never have to use it at all.
Whereas the Spellgem Cache "only" saves you money, since it has you using things you can purchase. But to have three spells to choose from before casting is probably more useful in the reality of the game (either to toss a Cure, or to use Comprehend or Share Language when useful to solve a problem).
What do others think?

It is a slotless boon, which means it does not take up any of your 6 standard boon slots. I have always seen it as "choose before the game starts" and mark off the others. This is implied in the text, and I would not allow you to choose in mid-game.

As for which is best, they are all good. If you can use it, the spellgem one is the most consistent, as the other two are dependent on dice rolls. But either of the other 2 also has the possibility of saving your life. So, really, it's just up to you.

If you're OK with it DM Bigrin I'll go ahead and choose Spellgem Cache (and mark off the others on my records, once I print them) as the spells all nicely complement my Empath and consistency is important for those of us curse with poor rolls.

Sounds good

Yow! Busy morning, miss my normal posting, and suddenly I'm a dozen posts back. Nice work guys!

Catching up ...

Bigrin, I checked out PCGen. Very nice. Do you work with them, or are you a major fan?

I am a data monkey. Just finished coding up most of the Starfinder Armory files.

I am a data monkey. Just finished coding up most of the Starfinder Armory files.

Oh, wow. Great work Bigrin! I'm currently a Hero Lab user for Pathfinder but I want to check out PCGen before I pay to unlock any more books, especially as I can also use that for my Starfinder characters.

pcgen's great, once you get used to the interface. It's one of those "all things to all people" programs, so sometimes it isn't intuitive what goes where. But once you get used to it, you can fly. And I have a paizo bbcode output format I use to get the output very similar to paizo's stat block (and similar to HeroLab's bbcode output for pathfinder)

The UI definitely put me off on first use (some years back), but I've installed it today and I'm going to start porting my active characters over and see how I get on. Thanks for the recommendation.

My job is in a slow spot due to the season, so I can post easy. If the team wants to step back let me know. I don't want to hog the posting.

Soryn briefly, and somewhat randomly, glances around the room apologetically...

I'm fine with your posting. I so rarely get a chance to post intensively like that, that I can't begrudge someone who has an opportunity.

Bigrin, your work with PCgen is great. Kudos to you for your tech savvy and community-mindedness.

Apologies for my slow pace guys. Holidays are busy for me at my work ans my family flew in earlier than I was expecting (yay for bad planning!) so my posting time has been limited. Been following along but not posti g as much as I would like. Hopefully after the 27th thixngs should calm down for me.

FYI, from tomorrow though the New Year, I will be on a really crazy schedule. Between work, the holidays, family visits, and trying to get my wife's new vet clinic open for business, I won't be able to check and post on the boards as regularly s I'd like. Please bear with me.

We will bear with you... and take the bear to your wife's clinic! (many thoughts and wishes for her success)

No worries and thanks for the heads up. Have a good time with your family, FCD. Best of luck Bigrin.

Regarding found loot:

Bigrin can correct me, but I believe Soryn had it right in the game thread. We get that item for use this mission. At the end of the mission it 'evaporates'.

That sounds sad, but it's not a complete loss. The item will show up on your Chronicle sheet for the mission, and will be available for purchase at any point in your character's future.

Pretty sure that's how it works.

***

For this mission, I suggest giving the ring to 1. the PC with the weakest save, or 2. the character with the highest combat potential.

Agreed about how items work.

But credits feel wonky... I don't think we get to "keep" the 400 (it's part of credits on the mission sheet), so I guess that means anything we buy with them also gets returned at the end of the mission.

So, the way treasure works in SFS is that any items found during the scenario are yours to use as you wish for the duration of the scenario. All the credits found in the scenario work up as part of your treasure outlay at the end. If you use any of your "found" credits to buy something during the scenario, you subtract that from your total at the end.

For example, normal credits found for this scenario is 753. If you find an item that you want to buy during the game for 50 credits, but you don't have 50 credits on you, you can just put it on your StarCard (don't leave the station without it). You buy the item, and then at the end of the scenario, you subtract the cost of the item from your reward as "Credits Spent".

So, the way treasure works in SFS is that any items found during the scenario are yours to use as you wish for the duration of the scenario. All the credits found in the scenario work up as part of your treasure outlay at the end. If you use any of your "found" credits to buy something during the scenario, you subtract that from your total at the end.

For example, normal credits found for this scenario is 753. If you find an item that you want to buy during the game for 50 credits, but you don't have 50 credits on you, you can just put it on your StarCard (don't leave the station without it). You buy the item, and then at the end of the scenario, you subtract the cost of the item from your reward as "Credits Spent" on your Chronicle Sheet.

Also on your chronicle sheet will be a list of items you interacted with during the game that are now available for you to purchase (at the listed price).

Thanks for explaining the way treasure works. I'm OK with either of therealthom's proposals for how to allocate the ring. Sittnym's saves are Fort. -1: Ref. +2 : Will +5

The idea behind this method for the treasure is that since you most often will not play again with the same people it would be hard to divvy things up, without some feeling less fortunate.
So, to be fair, everyone receives, at the end of the game, a sum equivalent to what we'd get for having sold and shared amongst ourselves all things found (credits + loot).
Equal share for all.
And you have access to purchase the things found if you want to "keep" loot from the game.

Merry XMas to all those who are to be celebrating!

Happy Boxing Day!

Season's greetings all, hope you had (and are still having) a great one.

Okay, so apparently my week went from "occasional posting" to "no posting at all". But I've got my feet under me for now, so hold on and get ready for the ride!

For the race, Kadef's piloting modifier is 5. Not sure how gunnery will work, but his BAB is 0 and he has a +1 dex modifier.

In terms of pre-gaming, Nurn's +4 to Engineering and Perception. How do we feel about botting him?

If he's not coming back, I'd rather not use him at all, since he hasn't been part of this mission.

Alas, poor Nurn. We barely knew ye, and now we shoo thee. Good adventures tiny friend.

I looked through FireclawDrake's posts yesterday. He hadn't posted since the 28th. It's only been a week. I wouldn't give up on him just yet.

After a quick perusal of the characters, Soryn, stands out as our pilot. He's also our best gunner. Everyone else is tied as a gunner except Nurn and Kadef.