GM Blazej - SFS Yesteryear's Truth (Inactive)

Game Master Zynete

Welcome to my game! I'm looking forward to maybe running this. If we can get started quickly I will, but if not I'll just put this game on hold, I don't want to rush an enjoyable adventure.

I will be trying to finish this before the upcoming PbP Gameday and will expecting on average two posts per day. Make sure you have botting instructions set up in your profile along with dice rolls. Let me know if there is any time during the game you wont't be able to post, I'll work around that and it will be fine with warning. I might ask others to bot for you or post your action in some situations.

This is a scenario with the Wayfinder and Starship tags. I plan to try to streamline starship combat as much as possible to avoid that taking too much time during the game.

Thanks for having me! I'm on a hiatus from work for a few weeks, so I should be able to post at a pretty fast pace.
I was gonna roll up an Android Technomancer, but I'm flexible, so if another role needs filling or somebody else wants to play a Technomancer, I'll roll up what's needed!

Alejandro Carlos, reporting for duty!

And Thank You for the invite!

Kis Nip and Diggz here as assigned.

Looking forward to getting my Starfinder on!

This looks good, I'll see if anyone else is still interested in joining you three. Here is the information I'm looking for your characters. I will be posting the introduction tonight so hopefully you any questions you have are answered going into Monday and I'll be able to start the adventure then.

I'll need the following information going into the game. Nothing is locked in if you decided you want to slot your boons differently following the briefing.

Player Name:
Character Name (class, level, theme):
PFS ID:
Starting reputation with slotted faction:
Starting reputation with Wayfinders factions: (if not slotted)
Downtime Activity (with roll, if applicable):

What starship position would you be suited to take? (Engineer, Pilot, Science Officer, Gunner, Captain):
Other relevant info the GM should know:

Boons slotted for this scenario
Relevant boons: Wayfinders Champion (Faction)
- Ally:
- Faction:
- Personal:
- Promotional:
- Social:
- Starship:
- Slotless:

Rae’Van Morwynn ready to serve!

Player Name: Alejandro Carlos
Character Name (class, level, theme): Envoy 2 Outlaw
PFS ID: 123584-701
Starting reputation with slotted faction: Wayfinders 8
Downtime Activity (with roll, if applicable): NA

What starship position would you be suited to take? (Engineer, Pilot, Science Officer, Gunner, Captain): Captain (Best), Gunner (Okay), Pilot (Okay), Engineer (Okay)
Other relevant info the GM should know: Get 'Em and Inspiring Boost used often in combat. Bot Instructions at bottom of profile. Skills and attacks are all pre-formatted on profile.

Boons slotted for this scenario
Relevant boons: Wayfinders Champion (Faction)
- Ally: Envar's Attention
- Faction: Wayfinders Champion
- Personal: Scoured Stars Survivor
- Promotional: NA
- Social: NA
- Starship: Defender of the Fleet (Finest Weapons)
- Slotless: Tattoo of the Starfinder

All boon details spoilered at the top of my profile.

Excellent. While more players would always be welcome, I am comfortable running with four.

Player Name: Raevan
Character Name (class, level, theme): Rae’Van (Mechanic 1 Spacefarer)
PFS ID: 2367404-701
Starting reputation with slotted faction: 2
Starting reputation with Wayfinders factions: (if not slotted) 2
Downtime Activity (with roll, if applicable): none

What starship position would you be suited to take? (Engineer, Pilot, Science Officer, Gunner, Captain): Engineer
Other relevant info the GM should know:

Boons slotted for this scenario
Relevant boons: Wayfinders Champion (Faction)
- Ally:
- Faction:
- Personal:
- Promotional:
- Social:
- Starship:
- Slotless: Starfinder Society Care Package – Elixir of Renewal

Player Name: CaptainBacon
Character Name (class, level, theme): Helios-4 (Technomancer 1 Ace Pilot)
PFS ID: 347661-704
Starting reputation with slotted faction: Wayfinders 0
Downtime Activity (with roll, if applicable): None

What starship position would you be suited to take? (Engineer, Pilot, Science Officer, Gunner, Captain): Engineer/Science Officer (+8), Pilot (+7)
Other relevant info the GM should know: Beginner to both PbP and SFS!

Boons slotted for this scenario:
- Ally:
- Faction: Wayfinders Champion
- Personal:
- Promotional:
- Social:
- Starship:
- Slotless:

Seeing that Kis is not the only mechanic on this adventure, if needed, I can build a new character. Just let me know if that would be a better idea.

Player Name: eijel
Character Name: Kis Nip - roboticist mechanic 1
PFS ID: 279868-703
Starting reputation with slotted faction: Wayfinders 0
Downtime Activity: Profession (prospecting): 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (18) + 8 = 26

What starship position would you be suited to take? Engineer (+11), Science Officer (+9)
Other relevant info the GM should know: None at this time

Boons slotted for this scenario:
-Ally:
-Faction: Wayfinders Champion
-Personal:
-Promotional:
-Social:
-Starship:
-Slotless:

That all looks good, I'm happy to help anyone new to PbP. If anything I'm doing doesn't max sense or you have questions about anything feel free to shoot them at me.

As a GM I think it is fine to have two mechanics on an adventure. I would understand if you switched to another character, but I would only suggest that if you were really wanted that yourself.

At a glance you all look good and you are all free to post into the gameplay thread for introductions and any immediate questions.

I'm curious how familiar everyone is with the Starship combat rules. If people have already comfortable with them or if it would be helpful to give a concise overview of how starship combat works?

Normally starship combat has players take their actions in a particular order. For PbP I'll be having you all take your starship actions at the same time and put your dice rolls in spoilers for the sake of not affecting how the pilot moves or other people might act. If any of you have played or seen a PbP starship combat that you feel flowed very well, let me know as I would love to see how it was run for some tips.

For this adventure you will either be using the Pegasus or the Drake. The Pegasus is more oriented towards maneuverability and scientific studies. The Drake is more focused on combat. Both are similar to one another at this tier in a few ways.

Here are the stats for both to look through and refer to during the adventure, and it will be up to the party to decide which ship to take.

I'm a total virgin of ship missions, so any help will be golden...

Considering that we will be facing tough resistance from the planetary defence system I would go with the Drake, also given the fact that the exploration that awaits us appears more gritty and dirty than lab-oriented...

I'm pretty experience on ship combat and have played it the way GM Blazej runs it, which seemed to be a good way to do it.

I use a Starship Combat Cheat Sheet to help me when figuring out my actions and DC's.

We don't have the best breakdown of ship crew, but we aren't in bad shape. We must have a pilot, engineer and gunner and a science officer is quite valuable. Alejandro has a +4 on gunnery (+2 dex, +2 piloting ranks) and I think everyone else is at +2 or +3. We have two +7's and a +6 for piloting, which should probably go to Helios with his +7. Rae'van (+7) and Kis (+11) could both do engineering, but if we wanted to do a science officer, Kis (+9) would have to do that and leave engineering to Rae'van. I'd probably honestly vote for just going pilot (Helios), engineer (Kis) & two gunners (Alejandro and Rae'van). Having two gunners is pretty common cause it's really all about stopping the enemy before they kill you. I believe we can also swap stations between rounds in combat if things don't work out one way. Any thoughts?

I would also vote for the Drake, I agree with the 'slug it out' mentality, especially with a small crew. If we go Drake, I'd suggest using the three +1 mods on our pilot and gunnery check and then the last on either our second gunnery check or our engineering check. Those bonuses mods are best pre-planned imo.

I'm pretty new to starship combat myself. I have no problem being Pilot, and I agree with the Drake option.

It seems like Rae'Van would be best for Engineer since Kis could switch hit pretty well. She could start science officer or gunner and switch to a second engineer, if needed. I agree with three Drake option, too.

@Rae'Van: I think one of your numbers looks a tad low, I'll PM you about it.

The sheet that Alejandro Carlos gave is a nice broad summary of all the actions each role can take. Most of them are only accessible to higher levels but you will have two to three options at every starship role.

Combat Phases

Normally combat is run in three phases.

0. Change Roles: At the start of any given round, anyone and everyone can change which role they are acting as on the ship.
1. Engineering: Engineers perform that actions.
2. Helm: The pilot of every ship rolls a piloting check. Ships then move in order of lowest result to best result (so beating another ship means you can see where they are moving before you position yourselves). The pilot can perform an various maneuvers. Before or after their ship is moved, the ship's science officer can perform their action.
3. Gunnery: The gunners of each of the ships fire their weapons. Damage is resolved at the end of this phase so all starships can fire even if they were disabled here. Each weapon on your ship can be only fired once per round.

How I will run it will be to have you all declare your actions at the same time and put your dice rolls in spoilers.

=== EXAMPLE ===

Seeing the enemies missiles around nearing his ship, Elminar does his best to evade and disrupt their lines of fire while putting the capital ship center view of the gunner's stations.

===============

I'll be rolling all of the Helm phase (initiative checks). Let me know if you are applying one of the three +1 mods to this check.

**************************

Starship Damage
Weapons fire or hit one of four arcs (forward, starboard, aft, port). Any damage dealt first goes the shields to the arc and excess is dealt to this ships hull (HP). When dealt enough damage to hit a critical threshold (CT) the ship experiences critical damage to one of their systems (E.G, Weapons, engines, sensors, etc.). The critical damage conditions are, from most minor to the major, glitching (-2 penalty to checks with that system), malfunctioning (-4 to those checks, push actions can't be taken with that system), wrecked (system non-functional, actions can't be taken with system).

Your Starship Weapons
You have two turret weapons, you will be able to fire them, generally, at any vessel no matter your position. Weapons have ranges and work like normal ranged weapons. They can be fired outside their normal range a cumulative -2 penalty for each range increment between you and the target.

Turret Weapons:
Coilgun: This has a range of 20 hexes.
High Explosive Missile Launcher: This is a tracking weapon. The range works differently than other weapons. The missile has a speed of 12 hexes. The accuracy drops significantly outside this 12 hex range and will not hit the turn you fire it. The full rules for tracking weapons are below. This weapon has limited fire 5, which means you can only make five shots with this weapon per combat.

Forward Weapons
Gyrolaser: This weapon has a range of 5 hexes and is on your forward arc. To see how arcs are shaped you can look at page 7 of the link Alejandro posted shows how weapon arcs look. This weapon has the broad arc property. Because of that you can fire it in either the starboard and port arcs (at a -2 penalty).

Appearantly the only certainty we have is that Alejandro will act as commander of the Drake.

His idea of a fixed pilot (Helios-4) and an engineer (Kis) with Rae'Van and himself to handle the big guns could work.

In times of need the Sensors consolle can be handled by Kis whil I'd eventually take her place at Engineering.

Here are updated ship stats including the total AC including Helios' ranks in piloting.

STARFINDER SOCIETY DRAKE TIER 2
Medium transport
Speed 8; Maneuverability average (turn 2); Drift 1
AC 13; TL 13
HP 70; DT —; CT 14
Shields light 40 (forward 10, port 10, starboard 10, aft 10)
Attack (Forward) gyrolaser (1d8)
Attack (Turret) coilgun (4d4), high explosive missile launcher (4d8)
Power Core Arcus Heavy (130 PCU); Drift Engine Signal Basic; Systems budget medium-range sensors, crew quarters (good), mk 1 trinode computer, mk 2 armor, mk 2 defenses; Expansion Bays cargo hold, escape pods
Modifiers +1 to any three checks per round; reroll any damage dice with result of 1, keep second roll; Complement 4–7

I didn't have the chance to do it this round, but for reference down the road would Inspiring Boost work on one of our team's drones? I haven't found anything specific about whether a drone has a 'mind' for the 'mind affecting' aspect of the ability.

Inspiring Boost (Ex) Language-Dependent, Mind-Affecting, Sense-Dependent - As a standard action, you can signal an ally within 30 feet who has taken damage from any attack made by a significant enemy at any point after your last turn ended. That ally regains a number of Stamina Points (up to his maximum) equal to twice your envoy level + your Charisma modifier; at 15th level, this increases to three times your envoy level + your Charisma modifier. Once an ally has benefited from your inspiring boost, that ally can’t gain the benefits of your inspiring boost again until he takes a 10-minute rest to recover Stamina Points. At 6th level, you can spend 1 Resolve Point to add your envoy level to the number of Stamina Points regained.

It would not work on the drones as the are immune to mind-affecting effects per the construct immunities. That is, unless you have the Expanded Attunement improvisation.

Not yet!

[gripe on]
That is a really poorly organized set of rules interacting there. The standard rule is that you always count as your own ally. Then you have a rule in the envoy class that says the standard rule never applies to improvisations, except when it does. Why didn't they just stick with the standard rule across the board and add a short note on each improvisation that needed it like 'not usable on self'.
[/gripe off]

Anyway, thanks for pointing it out, It makes sense now. I'll definitely remember it for this game and if I don't take so long between sessions maybe I'll remember it for the next one too. :P

Maybe I could put a note on my character sheet about it... that would be smart.

I do understand, I only found out this rule during another recent game. Before that I would have assumed the rule of "you are your own ally."

As for inspiring drones, in addition to the immunity to mind-affecting effects, I don't believe drones can benefit from the effect since they don't have SP to regain. I certainly could be missing an exception though.

I wanted to do a quick check with everyone on the pacing of the game. I know I set it up to be fast paced at the start so that I could be more certain it wouldn't overlap with the upcoming Gameday (Partially so you all could participate in both, but primarily so I wasn't running too many games at the same time).

I was more than prepared at the start of this to be prepared in case the starship combat went 14 rounds or longer. Instead the combat was, in my estimation, pretty short with it only taking half that time and a bit less than a week.

Add to that you were able to deal with the aggressive monster very well due to a number of excellent hits. With both of those combined we are a bit ahead of schedule and I wanted to see how people were doing with the game as it stands. As we go through this portion I want to ask if people are good with the pace of the game or if any of you would prefer it were adjusted.

I have been happy with the pace of the game up to this point.

The pacing is perfect for me so far!

Excellent pacing! Loving the game too.

Excellent pacing! Loving the game too.

I second this, really having a good time!

Leaving for a LARP today, so posting will be tough for me until Sunday. Feel free to bot me as needed.

Sounds good, it shouldn't be a problem. Thank you letting us know. Have a wonderful weekend.

Same as last week; I'm going to a LARP starting tomorrow, but this time I'm going on a small vacation afterwards, coming back on the 16th. I do not know how often I will be able to post (and if I even will have access to an internet connection), and although I will try to do so as often as possible I am sorry for the inconvenience. Please bot me as needed!

Thank you for letting me know. Hopefully you do have some access to post during that time. While it does depend on party actions, I do believe that the scenario quite possibly will be concluded by the 16th.

Depending on your access I might try to give you a bit more time if I see a more complicated action or turn a few days in advance.

Have a wonderful vacation.

Happy to say I will have a limited access to WiFi, so I'll try to post every so often!

I'll be reporting this soon and since I'll be doing this for OSP, I would like to get email addresses so I can get you all reported so that you have a chance to earn boons. If you send those email addresses by PM I'll make sure to get those in.

Quick reminder for Alejandro and Raevan to PM your email addresses to me so I can get that in for the reporting for this event.

I'm happy to have been able to run this adventure for each of you. I hope you had a great time throughout. Let me know if there any parts that weren't as fun for you or any suggestions for me going forward. You have been a great table to run for and I look forward to having the opportunity again someday.

As I finish the last few posts I would love to see any epilogue bits or finish any conversations you want before heading off.

Another reminder for Alejandro and Raevan to PM your email addresses. I'll report it without them if needed if you rather not and don't care for the boons.

Here are the chronicle sheets, give them a look and see if there is any corrections you need me to make.

Chronicle Sheets

Thanks a lot for running this Blazej! The game was amazing, I really had a blast. Here's hoping I'll have the chance to play with you again!

Good job team for completing this, I really had a lot of fun with all of you, and likewise, if you ever need a Wayfinder, hit me up!

I pm’d my email already, but you are fine to not report it as well if it didn’t come through. If no email is given they are supposed to PM the player if they win a boon.

I’ll post final IC thoughts tomorrow and look over the chronicle. This was a wonderfully run and played session by all, thank you!

Ah, thank you for letting me know, this is my first time submitting through this. Also, yes I now see I got your PM. Apologies for missing it beforehand.

Got the chronicle, looks good.

I've only used OSP a few times, so I'm not that familiar with it either. It's a nice idea and gives a little extra bonus for games run outside of a convention, but I don't think they have been able to put many resources into the implementation of it.

Chronicle looks good to me. I had a great time playing and really enjoyed what you put into this scenario. I look forward to playing with you again!

I want to thank both Blazej for another great adventure, and also each of you, my companions, for the fun time together!
I hope to have time to share some space adventures with you in the future!