GM Jhaeman's "Dawn of Flame, Chapter 3: Sun Divers" (Inactive)

Game Master Jhaeman

If we end up having to wait for this broad for a few days, Hani and Xylian can take some time to take the Sun Runner out and deploy the sun probes.

You know.

That thing we were hired to do.

I'm on a business trip this week, so posting may be a bit sporadic.

I'm on a business trip this week, so posting may be a bit sporadic.

This you?

@Xylian: Got it in one!

Whilst we await our dorf, is there some kind of interface via which Xylian can try to hack the weapons locker to retrieve someone else's weapon or is it just... an eyeball scanner or something

@Xylian: I guess in theory you could use an Engineering check to try to bypass a biometric scan and get into a particular locker, but it would take 2d4 rounds and probably wouldn't be worth it. Otherwise, it's a full-round action to get into your own locker.

I just realized I hadn't updated my weapon attacks for my higher BAB and hadn't updated the level bonus from weapon specialization recently either... just so you know why my bonuses are higher next time I use a weapon. Definitely not trying to cheat... just was lame and missed leveling up this part of my sheet.

I mean, 13 max damage rather than 11 max damage isn't going to change the fact that me attacking the projector is pointless... but hey, it would be a slightly larger scratch. :)

I expect a run on ghost killer or penetrating weapon fusions after this encounter :)

Huh. I didn't even know about fusions until you just said that and I looked it up. Cool. Looks cheaper than a new higher level sword at least.

Experience Points (Instalment # 16)

I think Zharis just broke gambling.

It’s not quite that easy—I’ll explain tonight.

Yeah...I just remembered that gambling usually reflects not only investing a sum of chips, but also time. Maybe there was time for one round of gambling...I hope...

Oh, you think? ... so the rules are based on like a lot of gambling rather than a single hand? How does the betting limit work then? You can only bet that many chips... every day or something? That would be odd... I mean, for a casino to limit your losses by a time period. :) Usually they would be all about letting you lose your life savings asap.

I guess it hasn't been made to clear to me that we have access to the Sun Runner currently. If so, Hani would be happy to jaunt off and deploy the probes.

Forgive me if I'm way off, but I sort of get the sense that most folks aren't really into this part of the chapter. One piece of non-spoilerly advice I can give is that this part is far more open-ended and non-railroady then it might appear. In other words, there are multiple ways to go about getting the Sun Diver, so if (for whatever reason) you decide gambling to get the chips for it isn't the right approach, don't assume you'll be automatically shut down if you try something else. From online reviews, this is one of the better-regarded favourite sections of the AP. Of course, every group is different, so if the casino just isn't your cup of tea, that's perfectly okay too--it's only one part of the chapter, and there's a lot of good stuff coming up soon.

I think we may want to see where the gambling takes us tomorrow. I'm not sure if it's quite mathematically possible for us to get to 75,000 credits in 7 days, even with Zharis' skills.

I think maybe we ought to see if we can figure out where this Sun Diver is currently located, and start casing the joint. We may have to steal it.

Remember we already have 20 thousand, if everyone contributes the chips we already have, and although I think we all prefer not to, we could also use credits to buy more if necessary.

If stealing is an option, that does sound more exciting in a battle and violence way, and would save us money for sure, but we might want to be careful about that from a consequences in game way... for instance, we don't know what that would mean for Lurian, and going against the cartel that owns this place could be a bad idea.

Personally, I'd rather try the gambling way first, but okay with being outvoted, especially if you guys think that *I* have been railroading you into doing things in a non bad-guy way. I kind of got the impression that the group was going more in that direction with our newest member, even though I prefer to be a good guy.

As for my personal thoughts...

I do think that the battle with the hologram was ultra frustrating. (Story criticism, not DM criticism). Even though we knew how to destroy it, it was too protected for us to be able to... taking away our weapons seems to be a tactic designed to encourage us to solve things another way, but then to throw us into battle anyway... not sure what the point of that whole thing was... to get us the hotel room perhaps, and money to gamble with, but it would have felt more deserved/effective if we could have actually *done* something.

This hotel room thing I worry will end up being similar. We're handicapped with lack of resources, and they send us into battle anyway.

I also see Xylian's point... the lack of scientific research thing has been sort of weird from the beginning. Recruitment made it seem like it was going to be kind of Star Trek, discovering new worlds type thing, but instead we've been thrown into murdery redshirt situations as the scrappy security team from the beginning, and most of the characters aren't built for that.

Even the gambling seems off a little... the goal is high, the odds are low, and I'm only partially succeeding because of my class specialization, but it isn't balanced so others have a similar opportunity. The limits seem arbitrary... like the whole thing was designed to make sure some ultra min-maxxers couldn't take advantage, but also so that non min-maxxers couldn't win anything... and there could be missed things there as well like maybe hacking the slots or something, but I imagine that would be an astronomically high DC as well, that is out of reach for us.

I mean, I'm still having fun just trying to play my character who likes the rich lifestyle and having a break from hunting down gangs, which isn't why she came out here... but the intro to the game and the actual game have been in stark contrast from the start.

Guess we'll see what comes next... maybe it will get more sciency once we get the ship and dive into the sun. Although I predict we'll just be diving into another fight with the slave collar guys myself. :)

Leaving social challenges to social characters, mostly.

But this section is so random and filled of nonsense that is hard to engage. It would be one thing if our objective was to take down the casino, sabotage it or something - but we are going through this rigmarole just to find someone staying in it? And she wasn't even captured or anything, just chilling out... duh.

The whole 'leaving your weapons at the front desk' is beyond stupid in Starfinder, but it keeps being used by Paizo everywhere. In a setting with solarians, vanguards and magic users, it makes no sense whatsoever. If they must use this gimmick, at least make something fun out of it - nerfing the damage dealers and then tossing in an incorporeal creature was one of the dumbest combats I've ever seen in SF.

From online reviews, this is one of the better-regarded favourite sections of the AP.

That does not bode well... xD

I think Zharis articulated well what I was whining about earlier. There are an awful lot of criminal gangs in this AP, and not much of the 'science' part of 'science fiction'. I love me a good casino heist, but Xylian isn't the character I would bring to do one. He intentionally lacks any sort of charm. He's not one of the Rat Pack. It's great the Zharis has lots of social situations to engage in, but there's nothing else for the rest of us to do with with the out-of-combat aspects of our builds because the skills and class abilities the rest of us have just never come up out of combat. The odds for all the casino games are extremely low to the point it just wouldn't be fun to even try. The only exception, again, being Zharis, and only for that one game.

It's not your fault, Gm Jhaeman <3. It's just so strangely designed that only an envoy or an operative that went HARD into social skills can have even a 50% chance of succeeding. Again, I love a casino scene. I think Paizo really dropped the ball.

And I'm just flabbergasted by that projector thing. I have absolutely no idea what Paizo was trying to accomplish there. I'm glad we were able to get a liiiitle bit of Ocean's 11 and add some narrative justification there with stealing the guest itinerrary, but that scene was pretty awful. We couldn't stop the thing? but there were also no stakes? But it also wasn't our resposibility? could just walk away? not like it could follow us?

I am enjoying myself, though. I really like Xylian, trying something different than normal with his personality and stuff. Excited to be haggling with gangsters over a spaceship!

Also, if you want to go in and smash Jin, I won't complain. Just know there's very little Xylian can do to help you lol.

What do peoples think about idea to trade them the Sun Runner?

Well, it doesn't exactly belong to us... it belongs to the organization that hired us.

We do own a ship that we claimed as salvage from the first chapter, but it isn't here. And even if they thought it was a good trade, I'm not sure Lurian would go for that, because that doesn't seem like a partnership if we take it home and she can never access the ship again.

Of course, it is sort of the DCI that she will be partnering with, and if you think that the DCI has the money, they might be willing to put up some of the money we need to procure the ship... or our original hiring organization might be willing to put up some money if it comes down to that, although we know they were pretty stretched already, because at least as I remember it they were a nonprofit foundation reliant on donations themselves.

I meant more like a title loan thing. We get the Sun Diver, the gangsters hold the Sun Runner as collateral, and we pay Ju's debt with sun artifacts and get both ships when we get back.

As far as Xylian is concerned, he believes the Sun Runner is theirs to do with as needed, so he doesn't care if they get it back or not.

I GMed the Second Darkness twice (I love this AP, the 4th book is the best thing that the Paizo released in principle, in my opinion) and the whole first book is very tied to the casino theme. It is implied that in the first session (and maybe even further), players enthusiastically gamble. In a special section of the first book, 5-6 games are offered in which the GM can play with the players, and for each of them at the end there is a chance of winning, as a percentage. Simple math. So, in the end, you really see that the casino always wins even in the fantasy world. I found this detail charming.

It's just a funny story. But I mean that trying to win back chips in my eyes is a strange thing purely logically. Possible, but strange.

So Tulgram's suggestion in the gaming thread is not only for reasons of roleplay (to be honest, he would just wait until you figure it out yourself, but this is not the essence of the game and is not interesting, so I won't do it), but also my preferences.

Yeah, Hani suggested stealing it as well, which might be possible, but also seems really risky. I think planning that (scouting to find out where the ship is, etc. is a good idea, but we still have many days, so let's save executing that plan for when (and if) the chip collection idea fails. If dicebot comes through with a couple of lucky breaks, we could still get enough money to at least negotiate with.

How do the slots work?

Was there anything anyone wanted to do with the angry plant babies? Xylian could sell them while he's traveling to and from the ship, since he's not staying at the casino.

On the topic of gambling: unless there's a chance each day of some event happening in the casino, do we maybe want to do two or three days of gambling at a time so we're not here till Christmas?

I already asked something similar to that. I am assuming something else is going to happen which is why the DM said we need to do it day by day.

And on the seeds, yeah, go ahead and sell them. I just didn't want to before we knew what the plot was in case we gambled all the money away, but it seems there is zero fear of that.

Also, just curious, if you aren't staying here, how are you getting back and forth from the ship? Public transportation, or using the car you picked up? If the car, you might look around the casino parking area... not likely, but they could have the ship there... maybe an open air area where things like that could be parked, like the roof of a parking garage? Seems like a ship would be too bulky to keep inside the casino.

The car hath been sold. I didn't get much feedback on the loot during the selling phase so I just sold it all to get everyone as much credits as possible. Xylian will probably look for a project car to work on whence we return from the core, but that will be at a later time.

But now I'm wondering if the Sun Runner can be parked at the casino...

Oh, okay... sorry. I thought keeping the car was a good idea, but didn't know that it was in question, or I would have said so. But that's all in the past.

I am guessing that the Sun Runner wouldn't fit here, but it is an interesting idea that would get us information... you could ask if it were possible to move it here, and if so where (which might give us a hint about where Lu's ship is), and if they said no, you could always suggest that you might want to use it as collateral for one of those majorly unwise loans that mean cartels are always making to the innocent in movies, which might get the same type of information.

you could always suggest that you might want to use it as collateral for one of those majorly unwise loans that mean cartels are always making to the innocent in movies, which might get the same type of information.

lol I love it.

Xylian should be at 15.5 K chips, I believe.

Edit: I'm gonna cash out 500 chips for 450 (minus an additional 40 credits for four days of public transportation) credits just because Xylian is broke, so he's at 15k chips.

Edit 2: Taking out an additional 500 chips to tip the attendant, because that seems like something Zharis would suggest Xylian do.

It was 16,000 because not only did you win 4,000, you didn't lose the 500 that the DM had said you lost on round 4.

I would make a terrible croupier--you folks have only played like three different games and I've mis-interpreted the results twice :)

Do the skimmers have cars for vehicles, or would his rental be stuck in this bubble?

I imagine the linecrawlers could take an enercycle or something. The sunskimmers are too small to carry other vehicles though.

That would be just fine.

Sorry about the flurry of posting the last few days. I've been in an awful mood for several weeks. Feeling better now and now that I'm not intent on being miserable, I'm enjoying the casino scene much more.

Glad you are feeling better. :)

OK. Minus 10 credits for another day of Linecrawler use, minus 30 credits for enercycle rental, minus 121 credits for Reconfigurable Clothing with Athletic Clothing, Environmental Clothing (Hot), Everyday Clothing, and Professional Clothing (Scientist).

Sounds good, thanks Xylian (and also glad you're enjoying this section a bit more!).

Stuck being “sociable”—will reply in Gamethread in about 8 hours.

Experience Points (Instalment # 17)

If it suits, this would be a good time to take a little break for the holidays--I imagine some folks will be travelling, busy with social engagements, etc. I suggest we reconvene on January 2. We could then begin Day Six to see if anything happens during this job you've been hired on (assuming Taza's second offer is more appealing) or pick up with any other plan you hatch.

Sounds good to me. Thanks for being such a great DM. :)

Merry Christmas / Happy whatever holiday you celebrate. :)

Happy holidays to everyone!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.

Due to Hani's success deploying the satellites, he has leveled up.

A new, buff, ripped Hani is on the way! As previously discussed, he'll be taking a level of soldier.

So, it seemed before like most people were in, and if everyone is, then I am too.

Here's my issue... if everyone wants to do their own thing while we're gambling, it's not my ideal situation, but it seems fair. The chips were divided, and they are everyone's individual stake, to risk or not. It hurts the group only a little... just the theoretical loss of potential leftover income, unknown XP gain, throws us into a situation where we have to solve the story problem a different way, etc.

However, if everyone bails on a situation like this, where there is likely going to be *battle* (non-pointless battle, unlike the hologram situation), then it could mean loss of money, XP, AND potential character death for me, which seems too much for my character to risk if she has to go without the whole team, as well as risking failing at the monetary goal as well if we end up failing and not earning the money after all.

So, if everyone is in, so am I... let's play out the story... but if some people are going their own way, then I'd rather not risk it. In that case, I would opt to get more gambling in and see if we can actually make the goal that way than by risking a job like this with less than our full strength.