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

Game Master Jhaeman

@Zharis: Nope, no suggestions from the AI here--Lurian flew the ship into the sun briefly to test it, but then back out relatively quickly.

@Everyone: Once you're ready, just let me know (no hurry from my end). I think you're being smart to plan things out together.

Does the ship have a way to charge batteries? Asking for a friend.

(perhaps even a couple of purple ones)

We have two purple nanite hypopens and two tier 1 stimulants. Xylian has them in his medkit.

Xylian hasn't taken HP damage since like halfway through the first book, so I'll leave determining what healing consumables we need to you folks.

Oh, good to know. :)

I also rather assume that it will be needed more often by the rest of the party and not by me. So let's take those serums that you think are necessary.

On the battery charging it says

"Most settlements of any significant size have public recharging stations for batteries and power cells. To recharge the full capacity of a spent battery or power cell takes 1 round per charge and costs half the price of the battery or cell. You can recharge a partially depleted battery or cell, but the price for doing so is the same as if it were fully spent. At the GM’s discretion, some larger starships might have onboard recharging stations."

So I'm guessing no... this is a small ship, and a by-the-book DM, at least usually, so what you should do is go charge the massive amounts of drained batteries you've used for half price before we go. :)

So, for the 5,000, how about this:

1,600 credits for
5 radiation badges
5 tea

200 credits for
5 environmentally protective clothing (+2 to saves vs heat and +1 to saves vs radiation)

1,125 for
5 Rad-out serums

75 for
1 antibiotic
75 for
1 antitoxin
1300 for
2 black nanite hypopen
600 for
12 MK1 healing serums

25 for
luxury items (and we'll bring the extensive media library we bought for the original trip)

Thoughts? Tweaks?

@Xylian: I'm going to say yes, you can recharge batteries in the Sun Diver.

Edit: Just to clarify, I read the same passage as Zharis quoted above, but my interpretation was that it's in the context of "public" recharging stations (not what you can do on your own ship with full access to the power core). When in doubt, I try to take an interpretation favourable to the players unless it's going to unbalance things, and I don't think this will.

Zharis will personally also buy an Iridescent Spindle Aeon Stone, a Tetred Certified Translator, and a Starfinder Backpack if possible (I don't think any of those are from an adventure).

Oh, and a Pocket Linguist (https://aonsrd.com/OtherItemsDisplay.aspx?ItemName=Pocket%20Linguist&F amily=None) which I didn't see before, but which should also be useful if we run into unknown text rather than unknown people.

Sounds like a good shopping list to me!

Jin is saving up for a level 7 weapon, so no personal shopping for now.

Going with a personal upgrade (STR) and a pulse gauntlet. That will still leave a fair amount of credits, so I may look at armor upgrades.

I bought a Needler Pistol to be able to insert up to 8 of biohaсks, healing serums and so on there. And all weapons now have a Called Fusion. The rest of the money I'm saving up to improve my personal update to MK2.

Tulgram reminded me about weapon fusions. Bought a Ulrikka Duster fusion for the carbine, which ignores half of an items hardness.

Zharis shopping list looks good.

Was there anything anyone else could come up with to spend our remaining 7 BP on? If not, I still say upgrade the personal quarters. Xylian's proog needs space to stretch its flagella.

I'll try to offer a Tech Workshop again. I think it might come in handy.

:

Small light freighter (Tier 6)
Speed 10; Maneuverability good (turn 1); Drift 1
AC 21; TL 21 (assumes 6 ranks in Piloting--adjust if needed)
HP 50; DT —; CT 10
Shields Heavy shields 240 (forward 60, port 60, starboard 60, aft 60)
Attack (Forward) linked chain cannons (12d4)
Attack (Aft) flak thrower (3d4)
Attack (Port) flak thrower (3d4)
Attack (Starboard) flak thrower (3d4)
Power Core Pulse Red (175 PCU); Drift Engine Signal Basic; Systems advanced long-range sensors, crew quarters (common), mk 4 armor, mk 4
defenses, mk 3 mononode computer (tier 3, artificial personality), new weapon mount (aft); Expansion Bays cargo hold, science lab, tech workshop
Modifiers +3 to any one check per round, +4 Computers (sensors only), +1 Piloting; Complement minimum 1, maximum 6

Looks like it already has a Tech workshop and a science lab

Natural 1 on IRL perception. Thanks!

I'm good with upgrading the personal quarters, but that should be approved by Jin, who is the master of ship design.

Looks like everyone is okay with the way we're spending the 5,000 credits, so let's formalize that and move forward.

Great, it sounds to me like there's a consensus on how to spend the 5,000 credits, and everyone's figured out what they want to spend their personal credits on. If it hasn't been, could someone please update the group inventory sheet, and of course make sure to update your personal inventory sheets by deducting whatever you're spending and adding what you've bought (and change taglines if things like Initiatives, saves, etc. changed).

From what I gather, there's still a discussion about remaining build points? Once that's settled and I get a thumbs up, we'll move quickly into the next part of the chapter.

I just updated the loot sheet with what we bought, assigning the medical stuff to Tulgram, but most of the stuff is one each for everyone, so be sure to mark it on your individual inventory lists.

Just to keep the momentum going, I'll give folks another 12 hours for any last purchases or discussion of build points, and then (unless I hear otherwise) assume you went with the personal quarters upgrade and we'll continue on with the story.

Was there anything anyone else could come up with to spend our remaining 7 BP on? If not, I still say upgrade the personal quarters. Xylian's proog needs space to stretch its flagella.

I believe that will require another DC 24 engineering check for the Sensitive System Balance - it's a reasonable risk for no real reward, especially if we'll stay there for only 2 weeks.

If it's something important for Xylian, roll the dice while I upgrade it.

Just one check, or three?

Engineering Check: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (17) + 14 = 31

I think one will do it - crew quarters updated!

Luxurious crew quarters are the pinnacle of comfort. They consist of private rooms for each crew member, with personal bathrooms (including showers with high water pressure) and furnishings that match the resident’s tastes. Some luxurious crew quarters also feature a kitchenette, gaming areas, or intimate meeting spaces.

2 BPs in stock

@Jin&Zharis: Good stuff, we are fully good to go.

Before we head out do we wanna sell out most recent loot minus the vehilces and buy UPB's with the credits?

Looking at the crafting rules, you can't save money with crafting anymore, but you no longer need to roll and any item medium size or smaller only takes four hours to craft.

Sure, if you want to look up all the prices. ... We might want to keep the toolkits too unless everyone already has them... I think we have two engineering toolkits and one hacker one. I already have both, but they are super important if anyone doesn't.

Another thing for people to consider as a personal item purchase are library chips. You can get one each for Culture, Engineering, Life Science, Mysticism, and Physical Science, and each gives +4 to skill checks for their particular area. They cost 250 each, so they aren't too expensive, and the boost would likely be worth it for anyone who makes those kinds of checks a lot. Especially since the game apparently expects us all to have astronomically high rolls in order to find out anything secret/cool.

Alright cleaned up the loots and bought 848 UBP's.

Hani heads to the galley and assesses the food situation, doing the calculations for how many days of food are stored aboard the ship. A last minute call to deliver more before take off will be made if necessary.

On this note, we have two mark II culinary synthesizers from I think the first book that we can use to make common quality meals.

3 UBP's per meal 3 times per day per 5 people is 45 UBP's a day. If it's a minimum of five days out and five back, that's a minimum of 450 UBP's to feed us. I don't think 848 UBP's is a wide enough margin, especially if we end up needing to craft medical supplies, so I'm going to spend 1000 of Xylian's credits on additional UBP's.

This is from gameplay:

"Beran gives you a hard cap of 5,000 credits worth of items of up to Level 7 or below. In addition, she provides 4 bulk of siccatite for the Sun Diver, a mk 3 culinary synthesizer for the ship’s galley (implying you should eat well since it’ll be your last meals), 300 UPBs for synthesizing food and drink, a survey drone (built to run on solar power; this specialized spy drone comes with an enhanced camera and shotgun microphone scanners), and a datapad (a hardened tier 2 computer with a control module for the drone and secure data storage). Beran makes it clear that the drone and datapad are DCI property and are expected to be returned . . . if you return."

So we have a MK3 synthesizer already, plus some other supplies.

Huh. I know I looked for synthesizers before I said anything. Something tricksy is afoot...

Just realized Tulgrim has 18 strength.

Beefy physician.

I just don't think that paragraph made it into the loot log, that's all... I just remembered something about an MK3, so went looking.

> Just realized Tulgrim has 18 strength. Beefy physician.

He planned to be a wrestler in college. That's where his grappling skills come from. But life ordered otherwise.

Perhaps, on occasion, he will tell his story to other crew members. But so far there were simply no prerequisites for sincere conversations ))

PS This shouldn't say anything to any of your characters (since you'll probably just consider it a feature of the race) but his ears are slightly broken, like cauliflower.

The website keeps logging me out for no reason, and it takes a me a bit to notice... if I stay more than one day without posting, it's because I assumed there were no updates (and forgot to check my login status) or just can't get back in, even after erasing cookies and the cache.

Havin da same problem

Me too. Weirdly, my phone seems fine but I can’t get in from my computer.

I’ve got a big post to do in Gameplay, but it’ll have to wait until the log-in problem is sorted because I can’t do it on my phone. Sorry for the delay!

Sorry... couldn't get in, but deleting all Paizo cookies seems to have worked. If you guys haven't tried that, you might want to.

Yeah, I just did that too and now things seem okay. (I know there's a way, but I couldn't figure out how to delete just a single site's cookies so had to wipe them all)

In case anyone is still looking for how to delete a specific site's cookies,

in Chrome:
Settings --> Security and Privacy --> Cookies and other site data --> See all cookies and site data --> search for "Paizo" then the trash can.

in Opera:
Go to full browser settings --> Security and Privacy --> Cookies and other site data --> See all cookies and site data --> search for "Paizo" then the trash can.

in Firefox:
Settings --> Privacy and Security --> Cookies and Site Data --> Manage Data --> search for "Paizo" --> highlight row --> Remove Selected.

I didn't go through Edge, but I am guessing it is identical to Chrome.

We apparently are not meant to survive this.

Don't give up yet. Those siccatite matrices are just tricky, that's all. I mean, sucks that we didn't pass something this round, but surely we're doing okay because we got through things fast in the first two. I'm guessing the game will give us at least 5 rounds before we fry to death, right? :D

Solid opener!

So the abilities restrictions GM was hinting about look like this I think (from the ship stats page, under about). I bolded the parts that seemed important:

LIMITED FIRE: When the Sun Diver is within a star, the physical ammunition that its weapons fire burns up in stellar plasma after the second range increment (10 hexes), preventing these weapons from hitting anything beyond that range. Overpowered The Sun Diver is designed to draw power from the energies channeled through its solar shields and power core, so it becomes much easier to distribute that power to various systems while the vessel is fully immersed in an active star. While inside such a stellar body, the DC for the engineer’s divert and overpower crew actions is 5 lower than normal.

SENSITIVE SYSTEM BALANCE: The Sun Diver’s systems work in delicate concert, making any adjustment of the ship’s systems risky. Each time the Sun Diver is refitted or upgraded with new systems, the vessel takes 5d10–20 virtual damage that can also cause critical damage. Detecting this “damage” requires a successful Engineering check (DC = 15 + 1-1/2 times the Sun Diver’s tier). When detected, this virtual damage can be repaired as if it were real, signifying rebalancing the Sun Diver’s sensitive systems. If undetected, the damage and critical damage becomes real the next time the vessel enters a stressful situation, such as starship combat. In addition, when the Sun Diver takes critical damage in starship combat, it has a 10% chance to take critical damage a second time in a random system.

SICCATITE DEGRADATION: Prolonged exposure to internal solar forces can eventually fatigue the ship’s siccatite matrix to the point of failure. The Sun Diver takes 1d4 damage each day it remains in contact with solar forces. This damage can be repaired only in a safe harbor and with 1 Bulk of siccatite per 5 damage or fraction thereof repaired.

SOLAR SHIELD CHANNEL: Because the shield system channels destructive solar forces around and through the vessel, the Sun Diver is considered to have only half its normal shields while within a star (120 for the unmodified Sun Diver). The starship’s shields take half damage from starship gravity, laser, and plasma weapons. These shields also block the irradiate weapon special property. Conversely, the Sun Diver can’t fire gravity, laser, or plasma weapons through its own shields. The Sun Diver’s shields also block the EMP and irradiate weapon special properties of any non-tracking weapon the vessel fires.

Staying close is clutch, definitely.

And peeking at the GM dice, it shot at us with a 10d6 weapon - this is going to be a very tough one.

Don't forget the spore crits, GM! It's our best hope...

Zharis wrote "Hmm... so if the Sun Diver only counts as having 1/2 shields in a sun, we are at 111/120 shields now (lost 19, gained 10), or does that count by the quadrants you guys have mentioned? I'm trying to figure out when to panic, so should I be counting overall shield strength, or like how strong they are in a certain area of the ship? And previous damage from the sabotage/siccatite degradation... is that directly to the ship, and the shields are separate, or is it one big pool of points and when the shields go down, we're disabled? (Sorry, just trying to get my head around this and seeing if my "Star Trek" expectations are close to the truth or wildly off base.)"

@Zharis, these are smart questions to ask. If a ship loses its shield points in a quadrant, it is very vulnerable to attack in that quadrant unless shield points are restored (like Hani partially did) or redistributed. I should check if anyone (Jin?) is keeping a running tally of shield points in each quadrant.

Regarding the siccatite degradation, that goes directly to Hull Points, which is a separate (and much harder to restore) pool of points than shield points. Damage to a ship reduces shield points in a quadrant until they get to zero, and any excess damage then goes against Hull Points. A ship is disabled when its Hull Points reaches zero, and even before that it'll start having major system damage which reduces its effectiveness in combat.

Thank you for the explanation. :)

Just in case the last couple of posts in Gameplay seem confusing, the anomaly moved in the Helm phase and then I posted the Initiative order for the Gunnery phase (these boards sometimes have a bug where posts appear in the wrong order if you don't wait long enough between them).

Whoops, sorry. Posted but then realized it wasn't my turn yet, just in case you saw an update. Apologies.

I can't move the pog cuz I'm on mobile. Som3one move da ship after the blorp for me please.