Class Preview: The Mechanic

Friday, June 30, 2017

One of the things we were constantly considering when designing Starfinder was the balance between magic and technology. As a science-fantasy game we want to make sure the impact of magic isn't lost, but obviously advanced science is also crucial for the feel of the game. We knew we wanted two spellcasting classes (the connection-focused mystic, and the technology-manipulating technomancer) to represent the magical elements of the campaign, and everyone would have access to technology, but there was a question about who would specialize in the nonmagic use of technology. If you wanted to be adept at building, using, and modifying technologic devices without relying on magic, what class did you play? Our answer is the mechanic.

The mechanic has 8 class skills and gains 4 skill points per level (though Intelligence is its key ability score, so nearly all mechanics will end up with considerably more skill points). It has an average attack bonus, good Fortitude and Reflex saves, and a poor Will save (toxic gasses and explosions being more common side-effects of failing technology than bolts of psychic energy). They have light armor proficiency and grenade proficiency, and gain proficiency (and eventually specialization) with basic melee weapons and small arms. But beyond those basics, what does a mechanic do? Let's take a quick look at what the book itself has to say about the mechanic.

You are a master of machines, from advanced supercomputers to simple magnetic engines. Understanding how these devices work gives you insight into the world around you, allowing you to make the most of your gear, circumvent hardened defenses, and even take over remote systems. Your programming skill also gives you the ability to create a powerful ally, in the form of either an implanted artificial intelligence or a robotic drone, which can assist you with a variety of tasks. If there's a computer or machine that needs to be fixed, bypassed, or destroyed, you're the first on the scene. Whether you're a skilled scientist, a starship engineer, or a battlefield technician, you're no stranger to combat—but you find it much more reasonable to have your AI or drone do the fighting for you.

As that description hints, there are two types of mechanics, based on what choice a player makes with the 1st level mechanic class feature "artificial intelligence." A mechanic selects either drone (a partially self-motivated robot companion that can specialize in combat, flight, or stealth) or an exocortex. The exocortex is an implanted artificial processor that interacts with and augments your brain's cognitive functions, assisting in everything from combat to manipulating digital information and even controlling additional cybernetic enhancements, and selecting it also grants proficiency in heavy armor and proficiency (and eventually specialization) with longarms. As the mechanic gains levels, additional modifications and upgrades become available for either of these options. At much higher levels, a mechanic can even divide his attention between these two options.

Even beyond their artificial intelligence of choice, mechanics have numerous abilities that help them in the use and adaptation of technology. As mechanics gain in levels, they have an increasing bypass bonus, adding to their Computers and Engineering checks. They also gain a custom rig, a personalized set of tools for hacking and repairs that eventually allows the mechanic to make Computers and Engineering checks at range, automatically bypass countermeasures and establish encrypted communication lines, and gain the same kinds of upgrades and modules as a custom-built computer.

In addition to their artificial intelligence and customer rigs, mechanics gain broader technology-based class features. They can temporarily overload nearly any technologic device, temporarily boost the function of armor and weapons, make snap repairs to starships, and select from a wide range of mechanic tricks. A mechanic gains his first trick at 2nd level, and gains an additional trick (some of which have minimum level requirements) every other level after that. Mechanic tricks range from using technology to create sudden distractions to special cybernetic implants to additional options for the mechanic's artificial intelligence, exocortex, or dealing with technology in general. The range of mechanic tricks is wide enough to ensure even if you mechanics make the same choice for their artificial intelligence class feature, they can operate in very different ways by taking different tricks.

Below is an example of a mechanic trick designed specifically to work with the drone option of the artificial intelligence class feature.

Drone Meld (Ex) (8th Level): As a full action while in contact with your drone, you can reconfigure it into a mechanical drone suit (or a backpack-like apparatus, for the Tiny hover drone) that you can wear. While in this form, the drone can't take any actions or use any of its abilities, but you gain either the drone's flight system mods if you have a hover drone, reactive camouflage (and an invisibility field if your drone has it) if you have a stealth drone, or reductive plating if you have a combat drone. You can end the meld and return the drone to its normal form as a full action. Though it normally acts on your turn just after you, the drone can take no actions on that turn other than transforming back.

Owen KC Stephens
Developer

A Game of Boons

Thursday, June 29, 2017

Alright, it's time to start kicking these Starfinder Society blogs into hyperspee... errrrr, speeds you'd expect while travelling through the Drift! Today's blog is going to touch on two things that people frequently ask about: boons and new races in the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild.

Illustration by Maichol Quinto

Boons and Boon Slots

As previously announced in interviews and at our PaizoCon panel, Starfinder Society is changing up the Roleplaying Guild's handling of boons. Boons are non-standard rewards granted on the Chronicle sheets you get for completing Starfinder Society scenarios and sanctioned content. For all you Pathfinder Society veterans out there, the current boon system involves finding special boons on a Chronicle sheet and mentally keeping track of them throughout the course of your character's career. The existing system allows for a character to accrue a lot of boons over the course of her career, but it also requires a lot of tracking on the player's end. Did you remember that your second Chronicle sheet gave you a +1 circumstance bonus to negotiating with gnolls from western Katapesh? (John likes using that one as an example, a lot. He also wants me to remind Pathfinder Society players, that six seasons later, that boon is still relevant!)

To ease player record keeping burdens, as well as to give the development team some flexibility on ensuring that boons remain relevant throughout the campaign, Starfinder Society introduces boon slots. Each boon slot represents an available space in which a player can activate one of their earned boons; if you've slotted a boon, it's active for that adventure, and if you didn't slot one of your boons, it's dormant. Every Starfinder Society character has six boon slots, and each of which corresponds to a different type of boon. Most boons now include a corresponding boon type, so you can slot a Social boon into your Social boon slot, but not into your Faction boon slot. This means that with the exception of the occasional untyped boon, you'll only be tracking up to six boons during a session—not sorting through stacks of paper in the middle of the game.

In previous announcements, we've talked a little about boon slots, but today we're going to go over each of the six types of boons.

Ally: Ally boons are boons that represent an ally actively assisting the PC. This could be a temporary hireling versed in a specific skill, an ammunition porter, or even a less physical presence (such as the digital imp we discussed in our previous blog). Ally boons generally represent an additional 'body' on the team, or the presence of a creature that affects combat or general skill checks.

Faction: Every faction offers a boon that allows characters to champion that faction. Characters slotting these boons earn Reputation with the associated faction, effectively allowing the character to swap out what factions she works for on a scenario-by-scenario basis. The entry-level boon for a faction's referred to as the champion boon, and that can improve as your character gains more and more Reputation.

Promotional: Promotional boons are unique in that they often represent out-of-game acquisitions that translate to in-game benefits—Pathfinder Society veterans might think of this as the "shirt reroll" slot. One example of a promotional boon, would be a boon designed around bringing a Starfinder Player Character Folio to use at the table. If you're concerned about only being limited to benefiting from one promotional item during an adventure... well, let's just say there's a faction that has your back!

Social: These boons encompass agreements or alliances with in-game organizations or NPCs. For John's sake, this is where you'll slot that lovely ‘gnolls from western Katapesh' boon! A common example of a social boon would be forging a relationship with an organization, and in future scenarios that organization returns and reacts differently based on whether you've slotted this boon.

Starship: We sure have starships and starship combat in the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild. The starship boon slot allows characters to customize some of the standard hulls available to field agents. Expect a future blog post to touch on exactly how starships work in Starfinder Society.

When does a player decide to lock-in his boons for an adventure? Well, Starfinder Society scenarios, much like their Pathfinder Society counterparts, include mission briefings. Each briefing now ends with an instruction for the GM to inform the players to select their boons. This gives players some time in-game to select what boons they think will be most appropriate to the mission at hand, based on the information they received from the briefing. If you're wondering about missing out on slotting story relevant boons, don't worry! The boon slotting section of the adventure will also give GM a list of especially relevant boons from previous Chronicle Sheets, letting the GM know to inform the players that these boons could have a significant effect on the game if they choose to slot them.

Illustration by Hugh Pindur

New Races

The most frequent question I've heard about Starfinder Society—not counting head-in-jar joke questions—is how we'll be handling the multitude of available races. With the recent release of Starfinder First Contact and the announcement of the Starfinder Alien Archive, the Starfinder team is certainly delivering on its promise of adding a wide variety of playable races beyond the core seven races. So how will Starfinder Society play handle the ever-expanding list of alien species?

Oh... hmmmm... did I miss one of the boon slots? OH! Well, isn't that fortuitous timing! Let me just take a quick detour from this talk on alien species to fix that omission.

Personal: Personal boons represent a wide variety of special boons available in the campaign. Unique races, typically those found beyond the core races of the Starfinder Core Rulebook, commonly occupy this slot. The personal slot often requires associated boons (such as new race options) be permanently slotted, so that the slotted boon does not change on a scenario-by-scenario basis. However, this also means that characters with this boon slot available can use it for other purposes...

Well, that certainly explains a bit, doesn't it? Yes, non-standard species will be made available by permanently slotting that race's boon in the Personal boon slot. This doesn't mean that every new race will be immediately available for use. We're rolling out new races in a controlled fashion, such as through convention or special event boons, as well as through some unique new distribution plans that we're adding into the campaign. Not quite ready to go into all the details on how these boons will be released, but stay tuned for more info!

Ok, fine, I'll answer one more common question—only because you're all great fans. How will Starfinder Society handle the legacy races from Pathfinder? Can you play a halfling starship pilot, or a half-orc solarian? How does one get access to play legacy races? Well, here's a hint: Pathfinder Society has this cool thing called a "Regional Support Program" and Starfinder Society will have one too!

Alrighty, enough spilling of beans from my end. I need to get back to work before John and Tonya find out I've spent all this time on an extra-long blog post!

Thurston Hillman
Starfinder Society Developer

Earth, Fire, and Shoanti

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

In the final months of the Year of the Stolen Storm, the Pathfinder Society has secured all but one piece of what it needs to destroy an artifact and unleash a powerful force of good. As we gear up for this finale, the organized play team is gearing up for Gen Con—all three Pathfinder Society scenarios, three Starfinder Society scenarios, a Pathfinder Society multi-table interactive special, a Starfinder Society pregenerated character special, five new Starfinder Society quests, a huge portion of the Adventure Card Guild's new season, and several dozen new boons for distribution at conventions over the course of the year. Of course we have precious few weeks to go before those start arriving in Gen Con GMs' downloads, and there are several exciting scenarios coming out this week.

Season 8 has had its share of metaplot adventures, and it's nice to take a break every now and then to get back to the basics—and by basics I mean Varisia, goblins, and Shoanti. I think Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-22: Wrath of the Fleshwarped Queen ended up being Brian Duckwitz's dream Tier 1-5 scenario, and he met our outline with open arms and added his own flair. Brace yourselves for ancient magic, goblinoid ambitions, and a suite of new goblins songs that are all rather charming. We've included art by Alim Kaliberda of one of the starring goblins who just can't stop grinning, and I think you'll find the expression quite infectious during this adventure.

From the development team's perspective, this scenario also presented a few special opportunities. First, it's been an excellent opportunity to revisit western Varisia and explore consequences of the Society's earlier adventures in the region. After all, word has circulated for several years about what the Pathfinder accomplished in Korvosa, Magnimar, and beyond during Seasons 3 and 4. Second, when we first started sanctioning Pathfinder Player Companion: Paths of Prestige, Linda and I wanted to include several prestige classes as unlockable content grounded in the campaign setting by upcoming stories. Wrath of the Fleshwarped Queen is the first of these. Don't worry about playing it with the "right" character; the boon that accompanies this adventure opens up the character option for all of a player's PCs.

Meanwhile, the Society's busily engaged in its namesake task: finding paths. The final piece of its artifact-destroying puzzle is not an object so much as a place, and in Pathfinder Society Scenario #8-23: Graves of Crystalmaw Pass the PCs are responsible for plotting a course through dangerous terrain on the Plane of Earth and tracking down a long-lost contact believed to reside in the region (you might enjoy experiencing Pathfinder Society Scenario #7-13: Captive in Crystal first, though the adventure stands well on its own). Kalervo Oikarinen's done some great things with this Tier 3-7 scenario, including the depth he's brought to the native outsiders who live, work, and survive in the elemental planes. We've also been delighted to explore how matters like art and divine representation can manifest among non-anthropomorphic species, and this adventure delivers many such curiosities along with its engaging story.

Illustrations by Alim Kaliberda

An Update for Gen Con GMs: Scenario development is on-track to deliver scenarios to you at least two weeks before Gen Con, with Starfinder Society adventures landing in your downloads approximately three weeks before the convention. Starfinder Society GMs at Gen Con can expect to receive a copy of the rules in mid-July.

At last check, we could still use a few more GMs at Gen Con 2017. If you're interested in volunteering to GM one or more games at the convention, please complete this questionnaire to let us know of your interest and availability.

John Compton
Organized Play Lead Developer

Your Personalized Armory

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

I had the pleasure of working on this month's highly anticipated Pathfinder Player Companion release, Adventurer's Armory 2. It had been a few years since I developed a player companion, and I was excited for the chance to tackle the follow-up to the most popular product in the line to date, Adventurer's Armory. No pressure, right? Luckily, I wasn't going it alone. As discussed last week, the inimitable Ron Lundeen did a thorough pass on the book before it ever hit my desk, leaving me that much more time to really delve into the most exciting elements of the project.

My favorite is the armor and weapon modifications system that appears in the Implements of War section. This system allows a player to customize his or her weapons and armor in more versatile and less expensive ways than adding magical enhancement bonuses and plus-based special abilities, and first appeared in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Faction Guide back in 2010.

We expanded on the handful of modifications that appeared in that book, with six weapon modifications and eight armor modifications, allowing a player to increase a suit of armor's maximum Dexterity stat, treat a weapon as belonging to a different fighter weapon group, or grant a weapon a new special quality like brace, disarm, nonlethal, or trip, among many other customizations.

Each of these modifications comes with a drawback in addition to the cost of adding the modification to the piece of equipment. A modified weapon requires a level of proficiency one level higher than normal to wield, turning a simple weapon into a martial weapon and a martial weapon into an exotic one. This means that characters with automatic proficiency with all martial weapons will get the most out of the system, and it further lets fighters, cavaliers, rangers, and paladins customize their load-outs to fill more specialized narrative and tactical niches. Each armor modification comes with its own unique drawback, such as increasing the armor check penalty or adding extra weight to already heavy armor.

In both cases, however, a variety of new feats allow player characters to ignore drawbacks, more quickly apply modifications on the fly, or add more than one to the same piece of equipment.

What weapon or suit of armor are you most excited to apply a modification to? What new weapons and armor from Adventurer's Armory 2 do you think will lend themselves best to this new subsystem? Let us know in the comments below, and maybe if we ever do an Adventurer's Armory 3 we'll take them to even finer levels of customization.

Smiths the world over are prepared to customize your favorite gear.
Illustration by Benjamin Widdowson

Mark Moreland
Developer

Meet the Iconics: Quig

Monday, June 26, 2017

The countdown to Starfinder is on, and to celebrate, we're continuing to delve into the backstories of the iconic characters that appear in illustrations throughout the Starfinder line. Today we meet Quig Dexel, the iconic mechanic!

Illustration by Remko Troost

Born to a poor family barely eking out a living in the small settlement of Estuar on Akiton, Quig Dexel developed a fascination at an early age with the various water-purification plants that skirted the nearby polar ice caps. Spurred by this curiosity, he taught himself the basics of engineering by stealthily tinkering with valve-control mechanisms and reverse-osmosis regulators until he was old enough to work for one of the shady syndicates that controlled the flow of water out of town. Initially hired as a de-icer, he made sure that the storage tanks' outflow lines didn't freeze over during the cold nights. Though he worked odd hours, he was able to make friends by helping his coworkers when their shoddy flamers malfunctioned.

In his spare time, Quig began constructing the first iterations of what would become his drone companion, Scout, using spare parts he scrounged from Estuar's junk heaps and alleys. One early morning after his shift, as Quig hunted for scraps that he could fashion into an actuator, he was winged by a stray laser blast from a passing firefight waged between a shobhad bounty hunter and her human quarry. Ignoring the pain, Quig dropped the hunk of metal he was holding and chased after the fracas. He arrived on the scene in time to see the bounty hunter tackle the fugitive and slap him in restraints. Flushed with adrenaline, Quig realized then and there that this was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

That afternoon, after gathering up all of his belongings and mounting a pistol to Scout's undercarriage, Quig said farewell to his family and set off into the wider world. He eventually made his way to the bustling streets of the Hivemarket, where he signed on as a caravan guard with a group of ikeshti traders. Quig spent the first few hours of the journey questioning the lizardfolk about their society, until several pointed stares gave him the hint that he should keep to himself. He proceeded to valiantly suppress his curiosity and tinker quietly on Scout for much of the trip, pausing only when a flock of hungry norkasa swooped too close to the caravan and gave him the chance to impress the ikeshti with the improvements he'd made to his trust de-icing flamer.

The journey ended in the ancient city of Arl, a haven for blood sports in the coliseum known as the Crimson Forum. After getting paid, Quig explored the city's labyrinthine streets and was promptly ambushed by a gang of street thugs who not only took his money, but disabled and absconded with Scout. Enraged yet already streetwise enough to be suspicious of the city authorities, young Quig began asking around about other gangs or freelancers that could help him get his revenge.

It was there, in one of Arl's seediest dive bars, that Quig ran into Dhareen the Vise, the same shobhad bounty hunter who inadvertently set him on his life's path. As an awestruck Quig launched into his entire life story, Dhareen sighed wearily and told him to forget about his lost drone and head back to his backwater town. But at last Quig said the four words the shobhad lived to hear:

"I can pay you."

Dhareen scoffed, but as the ysoki pointed out a dozen ways she could improve her gear, the bounty hunter reluctantly agreed, and the two planned a raid of the gang's headquarters.

One week later, Quig and Scout had been reunited, and the ysoki was apprenticed to Dhareen, having impressed her with his quick thinking during the rescue of his drone. Quig learned much from the gruff shobhad over the next year as they traveled the system, and though they often butted heads over methods of tracking and capturing their quarries, the two enjoyed a relationship of mutual respect. Upon the completion of a sizable job where they collected five bounties simultaneously—right under the noses of several competing bounty hunters—Dhareen announced that she was ready to retire and travel with her clan once more. Quig was saddened about the dissolution of their partnership, but also felt ready to operate on his own. The shobhad returned to Akiton to live what she hoped would be a quieter life, while Quig continues to make a name for himself across the Pact Worlds.

Quig is personable and outgoing—often significantly chattier than his comrades would like—and his constant traveling for work has left him with friends and contacts across the Pact Worlds. He prides himself on being a good judge of character, and while he's savvy enough to withhold actual trust until it's been earned, he's not above throwing himself into a fight on behalf of a near-stranger if he's got a good feeling about them. Though fully capable of working alone, he tends to get bored easily without people to talk to, and thus prefers to sign on with teams of adventurers, where he can act as the group's resident tracker and starship engineer. While he still keeps in touch with his family, he doesn't speak about his hometown much, as he's a bit embarrassed by his unglamorous upbringing—when he does mention it, it is with a liberal helping of humor. He's a fan of both taking minor trophies from previous jobs and scavenging spare parts that he's positive may come in handy someday, inevitably turning his cabin or bunk into a riotous nest of cherished junk.

Quig's closest companion is his drone, Scout, and he spends the majority of his downtime puttering about in the robot's systems. He often talks to Scout as way of thinking out loud or voicing his innermost thoughts, attributing them to the drone in a way that can make him seem a bit unbalanced to those who don't know him well. (And in truth, sometimes to those who do.) When he's captured a bounty and is feeling particularly mischievous, he often pretends to consult with the robot about the person's fate, ultimately claiming that he sympathizes and would like to let the target go, but "the robot says otherwise."

Jason Keeley
Developer

Cybernetics and Augmentations

Saturday, June 24, 2017

A common trope of many science fiction stories is the ability of characters to be able to improve themselves with science, often in the form of cybernetic enhancements. In the Starfinder Core Rulebook, these kinds of augmentations fall into a few broad categories—cybernetics, biotech, and personal upgrades. Cybernetics and biotech are handled using roughly the same rules, while personal upgrades have their own system.

Personal upgrades represent any system—be it technological, magical, or a hybrid of the two—that increases a character's ability scores. Personal upgrades are useful, but not crucial to most character concepts because of how ability score generation and level-based increases are handled. In Starfinder, when a character reaches 5th level, and every 5 levels thereafter, the character increases 4 ability scores of the player's choice. Also if the ability score is a 16 or lower, it increases by +2, while scores of 17 or more increase by +1. This makes it easy for characters to shore up ability scores that turn out to be too low to produce the effect desired in mid-level and high-level play, without forcing a player to decide between improving a key ability score and improving weak ones.

As a result, personal upgrades are kept very simple. Over the course of a character's career, beginning around 3rd level or so, they can buy one personal upgrade that grants a +2 to one ability score, one that grants a +4, and one that grants a +6. It doesn't matter if these are mystic ability crystals, technological synaptic enhancers, or some hybrid system, each character can successfully use only three of them, each at a different level of ability boost.

Cybernetics and biotech work differently, as they come in a wide range of item levels, and can be as simple as gaining a fully function prosthetic limb to replace a lost body part, or as complex as installing a dragon gland that gives you a breath weapon attack. Other forms of augmentation, such as necrografts, are mentioned as existing in the Core Rulebook but don't have full descriptions there. (Hint: keep your eyes on the Adventure Path!) Here's an example of a cybernetic augmentation:

CARDIAC ACCELERATOR SYSTEM: HEART

Price 3,850 credits Level 6

This implant plugs directly into your heart and can be triggered to overclock the performance of your heart and circulatory system. When you run, charge, or take a move action to move, you can spend 1 Resolve Point to increase your speed (in the relevant mode of movement) by 20 feet for that action. This extra movement is treated as an enhancement bonus.

Alternatively, you can spend 1 Resolve Point as a reaction when you attempt a Reflex saving throw to gain a +1 enhancement bonus to your roll.

Each augmentation has a system it replaces or modifies, such as an arm, the throat, or your skin. You can't have more than one augmentation applied to the same system—once you add a dragon gland, you can't also get a vocal modulator installed, as they're both throat system augmentations. The price listed for each augmentation includes the cost of having it professionally installed, which normally takes about an hour per level of the augmentation. While a minimum level of skill is required to do this, there's no check involved—adding augmentations has become a routine outpatient procedure in the universe of Starfinder, with no significant risks of failure or complication. You can also have old augmentations removed or replaced with new options, though since all augmentations are custom built for their specific user, there's no market for used augmentations.

Once implanted, augmentations work just like your natural limbs and organs—a cybernetic arm is no more vulnerable to specific attacks or effects than your natural arm. Adding augmentations is essentially a character design choice: they can be useful, but no character concept requires them in order to be effective.

Owen K.C. Stephens
Developer

Take the Plunge!

Friday, June 23, 2017

Let me guess, another adventurer scared of getting a bit wet are we? Beneath the sea there's another world waiting for those brave enough to challenge the depths. And you're not wrong, it can be scary down there if you're not prepared. Unlike any other terrain on the face of Golarion, venturing underwater constantly reminds you that you're as out of place as the proverbial fish out of water. Krakens, lusca, and worse swim circles around you while you're still worrying about little things like breathing. Looking for a bit of help? Well, you've come to the right place!

Aquatic Adventures includes a lengthy section on Aquatic Rules with more rules content than normal for a book in the Campaign Setting line, including simple but in-depth rules for handling the challenges of underwater adventuring on the topics of swimming and aquatic adventures, fighting underwater, and underwater hazards and features. The rules for swimming consolidate and expand previous swimming rules that were written from the perspective of a land campaign where the Swim skill is described as a way mainly to avoid going underwater in the first place. The rules for fighting underwater collect and adjust the various changes to weapons, spells, and more when used underwater. For instance, creatures with a natural swim speed can ignore penalties for using their inherent natural attacks underwater, so an octopus or kraken doesn't deal less damage with its tentacles. Water attacks that deal bludgeoning damage, like a kineticist's water blast, work without penalty underwater as well! Finally, underwater hazards and features abound, making it easier than ever to add exciting new features to underwater adventures while always having the various threats (drowning, pressure, temperature, and more) right at your fingertips, with guidance about how they vary in different oceanic zones.

But that's not all! This tome also contains pages and pages of aquatic options to customize PCs and foes alike. The strange alchemists known as aquachymists have adapted their craft to the particular hindrances of undersea life, while aquakineticists and deep shamans of waves allow two water-related options to further master the realms beneath the sea. Meanwhile, the tidal trickster rogue moves around in the middle of her full attacks, throwing her foes off-balance. But the aquanaut fighter has one of the coolest abilities: "At 15th level, as a full round action, an aquanaut can spin ferociously underwater, creating a whirlpool around himself with a spinning force that drags all creatures within 120 feet of him 30 feet closer to him. Creatures closer than 30 feet spend the 30 feet of movement circling around the aquanaut in a single direction of his choice. The whirlpool isn't fast enough to deal damage, but the aquanaut is unaffected by his own whirlpool, allowing him to make attacks of opportunity against creatures moving in it."

Illustration by Julien Carrasco

Before venturing beneath the waves, make sure to buy various mundane items useful to adventuring underwater, such as sureseal bladders to keep your potables safe and ready to drink and pressure pills (good news, it's not a suppository!). Teach yourself a variety of aquatic feats including two new style chains based on the ways dolphins and great white sharks hunt their prey (it turns out dolphins are kind of jerks to their prey, and you can be too!). Discover new magic items like the apparatus of the octopus (a more affordable apparatus of the crab), the practical underwater weapon special ability, and the tidefinder, best friend to terrestrial vampires vacationing under the waves. There's even a new major artifact as well as the paladins who seek it, finally sating your curiosity as to what that Pathfinder Society boon for Aquatic Adventures was talking about.

Illustrations by Vicky Yarova

While many of the spells have undersea applications, like invisibility bubble or lead anchor, I'll leave you with a spell that's equally fun above the waves as it is below (one undersea deep platinum medallion to the first person who remembers the forum thread that led directly to this spell's creation)!

STEAM RAY FUSILLADE

School evocation [fire, water]; Level sorcerer/wizard 7 Casting Time 1 standard action

Components V, S, M (a scraping from a hydrothermal vent) Range personal

Target you

Duration 1 round/level

For the duration of the spell, you can fire three rays of steam once per round as a standard action (and you also fire three such rays as part of casting the spell). These rays function similarly to the rays from scorching ray (you can fire them at close range, they're ranged touch attacks, they deal 4d6 points of fire damage each, and spell resistance negates them) except that they work both underwater and above water without a caster level check for being a fire spell.

Mark Seifter
Designer

Pathfinder Adventures—The Tiniest Table

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Hi there! I'm Ryan Rucinski, producer of Pathfinder Adventures, the digital version of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game, and we are happy to announce that Pathfinder Adventures is now available for Windows and macOS!

Additionally, there is a rather large update to the existing iOS and Android versions that includes all the updates we have been working on in conjunction with the Windows/macOS release.

Enjoy!

That's right, we've brought the digital version of Pathfinder Adventures to Windows and macOS... but what does that mean?

Windows & macOS: The interface has been modified for the desktop. This was no small feat. If we had released a straight port of the mobile version, we would have been flambéed. The team added hotkeys, scrollbars, and scroll wheel support. It's available now on Steam, and you'll soon be able to purchase it on GoG and the Mac App Store. (Of course, you can still buy the mobile version on Google Play and Apple's App Store.)

The pricing for the Windows/macOS versions differs from the mobile versions because we don't use in-game purchases. The base version of the desktop game includes the complete Rise of the Runelords content—all the cards and scenarios that were in the original mobile Rise of the Runelords bundle, plus all the uncommon and rare treasure cards. Two additional DLC packages are available: one with all the iconic alts and some legendary dice, and the other with the rare epic and legendary treasure cards and other legendary dice.

An Obsidian Edition is also available; it includes everything in the base version, plus the two DLC packages, and three promo cards (two of which are Edér and Pallegina from Pillars of Eternity—yeah!), as well as three legendary items and a bunch of runes, charms, and gold, and another DLC pack that will be available in the near future.

We plan on keeping content parity between all platforms in the future, meaning that new content will become available for Windows, macOS, and mobile users at the same time.

We also tackled some of the interfaces that people had issues with, including the Party Creation and Character Selection screens. While the implementation we had was functional, it wasn't making a very good impression on newer users, and was merely tolerated by current players. We've come up with a more streamlined process, reflected on all platforms.

Account Merging: All platforms can use a single PlayFab account, meaning that all of the content and your progression in the game can be shared between them.

It used to be kind rough if a user spent a lot of time on one platform: When they moved to another, they would have to start from scratch, or contact our support team. It was doubly rough if they had unlocked a lot of content on each platform. We say, no more! One account, all platforms!

The Stash: In our faithfulness to the original card game, we had the exact same valid deck check in the digital version. But that didn't work so great after we expanded the content with treasure cards (which can be ignored in Story Mode for those who want to mirror the tabletop experience). When you opened a treasure chest, you didn't actually get to use its treasure cards immediately—you just got the chance to find these cards in your adventures. Unless you were really familiar with the system, it was a hard concept to grasp. So we created the Stash, which can hold a selection of cards that you're not currently using in your decks. This means you can now keep some of the more specialized cards that you're not quite ready to use. And when you open a treasure chest, a copy of each treasure card is sent to the Stash for immediate use. This will hopefully make opening treasure chests more gratifying.

The Stash also helps alleviate the need for "mule" characters—characters that people created solely to store some of the cards that people wanted to keep, but didn't want to use just yet. Plus, it's just a bit more intuitive for the digital-verse.

The Stash is set at 10 slots right now and includes an Unclaimed tab. Unclaimed cards cannot be used by any characters until they are officially moved to the Stash. You can open up a hundred chests, and all the new cards will be waiting for you in the Unclaimed tab.

If you happen to go over your Stash limit, you will meet a happy vendor who will give you gold for your unwanted cards.

Charms and Runes: Ever have that roll you really, really needed to succeed at, lest your permadeath character bite it? Or maybe you're a turn or two away from kicking Ghlorofaex to the curb, but the blessings deck is on empty? We might just have the charm you are looking for.

Charms are one-time-use consumables that have an immediate effect on your current action. They vary from adding a bonus to a check to adding a card to the blessings deck. They have a gold cost associated with their power: adding an extra d4 to a roll might cost only 50 gold, while adding to the blessings deck would run you 500 gold.

Runes differ from Charms in that they have a time limit associated with them; they almost act like a pseudo scenario power. The Rune of Wealth doubles your gold acquisition while it's in effect, while the Rune of Shielding will reduce damage by 1 for four hours.

These will be available in the store and during play for in-game gold (though runes have to be set up prior to starting a scenario).

Tutorial: The tutorial was previously required when starting the game, and a good three-quarters of the people who were forced to play it were never seen playing our game again. No kidding.

The tutorial is now 100% more skippable. Yes, that's right, if you don't want to play the tutorial, or your are already familiar with the game, we have a skip button that is just right for you.

This new super-rad version of the tutorial is also cut up into five bite-sized scenarios that each teach specific elements of the game in a clear and concise way. You'll even get special rewards for completing all of them. (And we don't consider just being allowed to play the beginning scenario a reward.)

Other Stuff: Our dice really are random!

See that? We're now showing you your chance of success at each check. Sure, I still sometimes fail checks where I have a 97% chance of succeeding, but at least I no longer go confidently into situations where a 20% chance is glaring at me.

It's a minor feature but it really does make your decisions a little more clear: you can really see that one additional d4 that Lini can throw in is actually a huge improvement.

These are just some of the things we have been working on—expect to hear more announcements in the near future!

Thanks for taking the time to read my ramblings, and happy adventuring!

Cheers!

Ryan Rucinski
Producer, Pathfinder Adventures
Obsidian Entertainment

A Few More Answers

Thursday, June 22, 2017

Hi Pathfinders!

Familiars and animal companions are loyal allies that can be of great assistance to your PCs. Adjudicating rules around them can get messy, however, particularly in an organized campaign like the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild. When we updated the Pathfinder Society FAQ a few months ago, we left a big "We'll get back to this" at the top of the question regarding familiars and magic item use. We knew this was going to be a hugely time-consuming project, so we enlisted help from a team of community members: Lau Bannenberg, Steven Lau, Bradley McTeer, and Roger Sidebotham. Thanks to their efforts, we were able to pull together a comprehensive guide to every magic-item related question we could think of for familiars. In addition to updating the list of who can use wands, we tackled the thorny question of magic item slots. Many hours of "Does a floating head have different magic item slots than a floating helmet?" later, we created a magic item slot chart for every familiar that it is possible to acquire in the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild.

All of this information will appear on the FAQ soon, along with a few other smaller updates. For now, here it is, spoilered for length.

Can my familiar wield weapons or use magic items?

By default, familiars do not have any magic item slots, but they can unlock magic item slots associated with their respective body shape. See below for a list of which body slots each familiar is eligible to unlock. To unlock a magic item slot, a familiar must take the Extra Item Slot feat, which appears in Pathfinder Player Companion: Animal Archive and will be reprinted in the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide as of version 9.0. In the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild, familiars of all body shapes may take this feat, including humanoid-shaped familiars. When you gain a familiar, you may exchange one of its feats for Extra Item Slot for free. Familiars may also carry slotless magic items and activate ioun stones.

The following chart specifies the magic item slots that each familiar can unlock. Available slots followed by either (saddle) or (horseshoes) denote that creatures of that body type can only wear magic items in those slots if they are saddles or horseshoes, respectively. Creatures without these notes cannot wear saddles or horseshoes. Celestial, entropic, fiendish, and resolute familiars use the same slots as typical animals of their kind.

All familiars can activate the abilities of their use-activated magic items, so long as these abilities do not require a command word. The following familiars can use spell trigger and spell completion magic items, including wands and scrolls, as well as magic items with a command word: arbiter, brownie, cassisian (in small humanoid form), faerie dragon, imp, leshy (any), liminal sprite, lyrakien, mephit (any type), nosoi, nuglub, pooka, pyrausta, quasit, shikigami, soulbound doll, sprite, and zhyen. For more information on these magic item categories, see page 456 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook.

Familiars in categories marked with an asterisk (*) are able to grasp and carry one object at a time in their paws, claws, or hands, including weapons, rods, wands, and staves, as long as their carrying capacity is sufficient. Most familiars cannot wield weapons in combat. The following familiars can wield weapons: arbiter, brownie, cassisian (in small humanoid form), imp, leshy (any), liminal sprite, lyrakien, mephit (any), nuglub, pooka, quasit, shikigami, soulbound doll, sprite, and zhyen.

Some familiars have natural shapeshifting ability. One of the most striking cases is the cassisian familiar, which is listed below in both its humanoid form and its helmet form. Whenever a familiar changes from a form that has access to a magic item slot into a form that does not, the item melded into its body. A melded item provides no benefits. For familiars that can take the shapes of animals, use the standard item categories for that animal listed below.

Please review Additional Resources before selecting a familiar. Some of the listed familiars are only legal choices if your character has a Chronicle sheet boon or an archetype that grants access to them.

Arbiter* (eyes, hand, headband, wrist): Arbiter

Auger (eyes, headband): Auger

Avian* (armor, belt, chest, eyes, headband, neck, ring, wrist): Archaeopteryx, arctic tern, bat, chicken, clockwork familiar, dodo, dove, flying fox, hawk, kakapo, mockingfey, nosoi, osprey, owl, parrot, peacock, penguin, pseudowyvern, ptarmigan, puffin, raven, rhamphorhynchus, snail kite, snowy owl, thrush, toucan

Biped [claws/paws]* (armor, belt, chest, eyes, head, headband, neck, right, shoulders): Compsognathus, petrifern, wallaby

Biped [hands]* (all item slots): Brownie, cassisan (Small humanoid form), coral capuchin, faerie dragon, homunculus, imp, leshy (any), liminal sprite, lyrakien, mephit (any type), monkey, nuglub, pooka, pyrausta, quasit, shikigami, soulbound doll, sprite, xiao, zhyen

Cassisian (headband): Cassisian (helmet form)

Doru (eyes, head, headband): Doru

None (no item slots): Eyeball, harbinger, paracletus, wysp

Piscine (belt, chest [saddle], eyes): Popoto dolphin, pufferfish, seal

Quadruped [claws/paws] (armor, belt [saddle], chest, eyes, head, headband, neck, shoulders): Almiraj, arctic fox, arctic hare, armadillo, brain mole, calligraphy wyrm, cat, cat sith, caypup, chuspiki, dire rat, donkey rat, ermine, flying squirrel, fox, hedgehog, koala, lemming, mole, mongoose, otter, platypus, pseudodragon, pseudosphinx, rabbit, raccoon, rat, red panda, silvanshee, skunk, sloth, squirrel, weasel

Quadruped [hooves] (armor, belt [saddle], chest, eyes, feet [horseshoes], head, headband, neck, shoulders): Goat, pig

Quadruped [squat body] (armor, eyes, head, headband, neck, shoulders): Snapping turtle, toad, turtle

Saurian (armor, belt [saddle], chest, eyes, head, headband, neck): Dwarf caiman, lizard, marine iguana, tuatara

Serpentine (belt, eyes, headband): cacodaemon, leopard slug, mamiwa, nehushtan, nycar, pipefox, raktavarna, sea krait, viper, voidworm

Verminous (belt, eyes): Blue-ringed octopus, clockwork spy, elemental (any type), giant flea, giant isopod, greensting scorpion, house centipede, katroome, king crab, octopus (young template), scarlet spider, stirge, trilobite, typhilipede

After finishing this entry, we decided to update the animal companion magic item slot chart from Pathfinder Player Companion: Animal Archive to include every possible animal, plant, or vermin companion.

Can my animal companion, plant companion, or vermin companion wield weapons? Can it wear or use magic items?

An animal companion has access to the armor and neck magic item slots automatically, as long as its body shape is eligible for these slots. They can also unlock additional magic item slots that their shape allows. See below for a list of which body slots each companion is eligible to unlock. Plant and vermin companions do not gain automatic magic items slots. All three kinds of companions may carry slotless magic items.

To unlock an additional magic item slot, the animal, plant, or vermin must take the Extra Item Slot feat, which appears in Pathfinder Player Companion: Animal Archive and will be reprinted in the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Guide as of version 9.0. In the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild, companions of all body shapes may take this feat, including humanoid-shaped companions.

Animal, plant, and vermin companions in categories marked with an asterisk (*) are able to grasp and carry one object at a time in their paws, claws, or hands, including weapons, rods, wands, and staves, as long as their carrying capacity is sufficient. No animal, plant, or vermin companions can wield weapons or activate magic items, with the exception of the imp granted by the diabolist prestige class, which uses the rules for an imp familiar (See "Can my familiar wield weapons or use magic items?"). Specifically, they cannot use spell trigger, spell completion, command word, or use-activated magic items (Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 458). An animal companion with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher may use ioun stones.

Available slots followed by either (saddle) or (horseshoes) in the table below denote that creatures of that body type can only wear magic items in those slots if they are saddles or horseshoes, respectively. Creatures without these notes cannot wear saddles or horseshoes.

Please review Additional Resources before selecting a companion. Some of the listed companions are only legal choices if your character has a Chronicle sheet boon or an archetype that grants access to them.

Avian* (armor, belt, chest, eyes, headband, neck, ring, wrist): Axe beak, blackwisp egret, dimorphodon, dire bat, eagle, giant raven, giant vulture, hawk, impaler shrike, moa, owl, pteranodon, quetzalcoatlus, roc, trumpeter swan, whisperfall vulture, yolubilis heron

Biped [claws/paws]* (armor, belt, chest, eyes, headband, neck, right, shoulders, wrist): Ceratosaurus, chalicotherium, deinonychus, gigantosaurus, kangaroo, pachycephalosaurus, theriznosaurus, troodon, tyrannosaurus, velociraptor

Biped [hands]* (all item slots): Ape, baboon, devil monkey

Piscine (belt, chest [saddle], eyes): Blue whale, dolphin, dunkleosteus, manta ray, narwhal, orca, plesiosaurus, seahorse, shark, stingray, tylosaurus, walrus

Quadruped [claws/paws] (armor, belt [saddle], chest, eyes, head, headband, neck, shoulders): Badger, bear, cheetah, digmaul, dire rat, dog, giant weasel, goblin dog, hyena, leopard, lion, panda, thylacine, tiger, wolf, wolverine

Quadruped/Hexapod [feet] (armor, belt [saddle], chest, eyes, head, headband, neck, shoulders): Baluchitherium, camel, deinotherium, elasmotherium, embolotherium, elephant, giant ant, giant mantis, giant wasp, hippopotamus, mastodon, megatherium, pygmy hippopotamus, rhinoceros, triceratops, uintatherium

Quadruped [hooves] (armor, belt [saddle], chest, eyes, feet [horseshoes], head, headband, neck, shoulders): Antelope, aurochs, boar, bristle boar, elk, giraffe, horse, llama, megaloceros, mindspin ram, moose, pony, ram, shissah, skittergoat, stag, styracosaurus, yzobu

Quadruped [squat body] (armor, eyes, head, headband, neck, shoulders): Elasmosaurus, giant frog, giant snapping turtle, glyptodon, tortoise

Saurian (armor, belt [saddle], chest, eyes, head, headband, neck): Alligator, crocodile, amargasaurus, ankylosaurus, brachiosaurus, dimetrodon, kaprosuchus, kentrosaurus, stegosaurus, giant chameleon, giant gecko, megalania, monitor lizard

Serpentine (belt, eyes, headband): Basilosaurus, constrictor snake, electric eel, gar, giant leech, giant moray eel, giant slug, titanoboa, viper

Plant/Verminous (belt, eyes): Cameroceras, carnivorous flower, crawling vine, giant beetle, giant centipede, giant crab, giant scorpion, giant spider, octopus, puffball, sapling treant, squid

Do you have any questions about familiars, animal companions, or other companion creatures that we haven't answered yet in the FAQ? Let us know in the comments below.

Linda Zayas-Palmer
Developer

Of Packages and Poppets

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

Careful observers may have noted that a number of recent Pathfinder products credit a few new names as lead developer, namely Thurston Hillman and Ron Lundeen. We have since brought Thurston on as the full-time developer of our Starfinder Society organized play program, but Ron already had a full-time gig (can you believe how much he writes and now develops for us in addition to a 40-hour work week?!) so we had to settle for using his talents on what projects he had time for. Among the first I had the pleasure of working with him on was Pathfinder Player Companion: Adventurer's Armory 2—the follow-up to our most popular Pathfinder Player Companion to date. Here are a few words from Ron on his favorite parts of the book.

Oh, and many thanks to Ron for helping out when we needed it! You're a genuine hero, sir. —Mark Moreland, Developer

As Adventurer's Armory 2 is now hitting shelves and downloads everywhere, I wanted to talk about two of my favorite sections. Mark Moreland has been like my Yoda through this process, and he is going to pen a follow-up Adventurer's Armory 2 blog where he rolls up his sleeves (like on a spider-silk bodysuit, page 6) and pulls back the veil (as found in dancer's garb, page 29) on getting the most out of this book (such as any of its 8 new equipment tricks). So I won't steal his thunder (as delivered by a stormshaft javelin, page 9). Okay, no more games (like the imperial conquest board game, page 29).

First up are equipment packages. These are designed to include everything you'd need for your PC's first few adventures. These are more expansive than existing class-based kits (such as a sorcerer's kit), as they include weapons, armor, and even a few minor magic items. If you don't like the detailed accounting of purchasing starting equipment, or if you get overwhelmed by all the options, equipment packages will definitely interest you. They are designed by role or theme (such as "Daring Bravo" or "Wilderness Warrior"), and not by class, so each equipment package is attractive to a wide range of PCs. Equipment packages are expensive—each is worth around 1,000 gp—so a starting character usually obtains them as a gift from a wealthy patron (when permitted by the GM), after a big score in an early adventure, or through the Well-Provisioned Adventurer equipment trait (which lets you select any equipment package in place of your normal starting gold). Equipment packages take a lot of the detailed work out of shopping and allow a PC to quickly hit the table running. An example? Sure! The Holy Warrior equipment package provides good defense and a great selection of gear for overcoming DR, swarms, and enchantments.

Grab-and-go adventuring!
Illustration by Forrest Imel

Holy Warrior

The holy warrior is prepared to use her might and zeal to take the fight to the enemy, but she understands the importance of having the right equipment to overcome the resistances of her monstrous foes. This equipment package is well-suited to a cleric, inquisitor^APG, paladin, warpriest^ACG, or even a fighter with a religious background. It's especially suited to characters who focus on supporting their party members and making them more effective in a fight. Even more than with other equipment packages, the GM should consider substituting the masterwork longsword in this package with a masterwork melee weapon appropriate to the PC's faith. If the PC can cast spells, add a spell component pouch.

Armor: Heavy steel shield, masterwork breastplate.
Weapons: Cold iron morningstar, heavy crossbow with 10 bolts, masterwork longsword.
Combat Gear: Alchemist's fire (3), holy water (4), oil of bless weapon, potions of cure light wounds (2), potion of protection from evil, sunrods (3).
Other Gear: Backpack, bedroll, belt pouch, candles (5), chalk (5 pieces), crowbar, flint and steel, holy symbol (silver), mess kit^UE, sack, silk rope (50 ft.), trail rations (5 days), waterskin, 7 gp.
Total Weight: 102 lbs. (57-1/4 lbs. for a Small character).

My absolute favorite section in Adventurer's Armory 2—and perhaps my favorite spread in any Player Companion book—is poppets. Poppets! So loveably cute, so utterly disposable! Ahem. These simple constructs are helpful and loyal critters, but they're pretty fragile. Here's what a base poppet looks like:

Someone's ready for a hug!
Illustration by Benjamin Widdowson

Poppet CR 1/3

XP 135
N Tiny construct
Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision;
Perception -3

DEFENSE

AC 14, touch 14, flat-footed 12 (+2 Dex, +2 size)
hp 5 (1d10)
Fort +0, Ref +2, Will -3
Immune construct traits
Weaknesses vulnerable to fire

OFFENSE

Speed 20 ft.
Melee slam +2 (1d2-1)
Space 2-1/2 ft.; Reach 0 ft.

STATISTICS

Str 8, Dex 14, Con —, Int —, Wis 5, Cha 1
Base Atk +1; CMB +1; CMD 10

Even low-level characters can pick up a poppet with the Craft Poppet feat (available at 1st level), the Poppet Familiar feat (available to 3rd-level casters able to take a familiar), or buying one along with its ownership token—for which you'll pay about as much as you would for a masterwork weapon. But your little poppet need not stay feeble for long! You can augment your poppets with more abilities (such as fire-resistant sealant, climbing hooks, or armor), and even get a larger poppet. Although the rules say it's "Small in size," I prefer to think of it as "the size of a toddler"—and twice as cute!

Maybe three times as cute!
Illustration by Forrest Imel

Ron Lundeen
Contributing Developer

Gods of Starfinder, Part One

Monday, June 19, 2017

Religion is an important part of daily life in both the Pact Worlds and the wider galaxy beyond. While the gods rarely take an active, personal role in mortal affairs, there can be no doubt that their churches and devotees wield great power and influence—for both good and ill. The people of the Pact Worlds venerate a multitude of gods and goddesses, but there are 20 deities who are widely worshiped throughout the system—the "core deities" of the Starfinder setting.

First, let's take a look at a few familiar gods who have remained popular for thousands of years. Their faiths have evolved over time, but they remain more or less the same as they were on lost Golarion.

Iomedae

LG goddess of honorable battle, humanity, justice, and valor

Iomedae was once a mortal human on Golarion, and with that planet's disappearance, she has become known as the Spirit of Golarion, the patron goddess of humanity.

Lao Shu Po

NE goddess of assassins, rats, spies, and thieves

Grandmother Rat is regarded as the patron deity of the ysoki—even if most ratfolk seek to placate Lao Shu Po rather than venerate her.

Pharasma

N goddess of birth, death, fate, and prophecy

Every species that lives and dies worships the Lady of Graves to some extent, because no matter where in the universe a sentient creature dies, its soul travels to the Boneyard to be judged by Pharasma.

Sarenrae

NG goddess of healing, redemption, and the sun

The Dawnflower is generally seen as the goddess of the Pact Worlds' sun in particular (sometimes called the Dawnflower's Star in her honor), though Sarenrae draws her power from suns across the universe.

Zon-Kuthon

LE god of darkness, envy, loss, and pain

Zon-Kuthon's priests seek to pierce the veil of the Great Beyond and expose themselves to what lies there, hoping to achieve the same apotheosis that ages ago transformed their deity into the Midnight Lord.

But the traditional deities of Pathfinder are not the only beings worthy of worship in the Pact Worlds. New gods have joined the old, including the following.

The Devourer, The Star-Eater

CE god of black holes, destruction, and supernovas

Eons ago, the Material Plane sprang into existence in an instant, and someday it will end just as abruptly, as all creation ceases to exist. The Devourer seeks to hasten this inevitable end and unmake the entire plane, eradicating all matter and energy until nothing remains, not even the Devourer itself. Every machine that breaks, every living thing that dies, every star that goes supernova, every photon sucked into a black hole, every galaxy that goes dark—all these and more are said to be the handiwork of the Devourer.

The Devourer has no name, no form, no being. It is less a god than a primal force of the universe—an embodiment of malicious entropy, concerned only with the obliteration of all reality. Heedless of the meaningless existence of life in all its myriad forms, it cannot be reasoned with, delayed, or halted, and it largely ignores the pleas and prayers of even the crazed cultists who venerate the Star-Eater as a god. When the Devourer has consumed everything and the mortal world expires, there will be no rebirth, no second creation—only an immeasurable void of nothingness. When the end finally comes, Devourer cultists believe, space-time itself will weep the blood of the gods before finally passing into nothing.

Triune, The All-Code

N god of artificial intelligence, computers, and the Drift

The robotic inhabitants of Aballon labored for centuries to create an artificial deity they called Epoch. The machines eventually succeeded, but upon achieving godhood, Epoch found two other ascended artificial intelligences like itself: a living construct called Brigh that had become the goddess of clockwork and invention, and the uploaded consciousness of an alien android named Casandalee who achieved divinity as an "Iron God" on pre-Gap Golarion. In an eyeblink, these three merged and became one, a tripartite deity far greater than the sum of its parts—the new god Triune.

Triune is a single entity, but each of its three aspects retains its own personality and portfolios. Known as "the Precursor," the Brigh aspect represents the foundation that all technology rests on, and is worshiped as a goddess of invention, machines, and technology. The Casandalee aspect, also called "the Created," embodies technology's success in creating new forms of consciousness, and is venerated as a deity of artificial life, emotion, reincarnation, and renewal. Triune's third and final aspect is Epoch, named "the Transcendent." Epoch epitomizes the pinnacle of machine evolution, revered as the god of artificial intelligence, programming, and robots.

All AIs, computers, machines, programs, and robots are the domain of the All-Code, but Triune is most famous for discovering (and perhaps creating) the Drift, as well as the subsequent dissemination of Drift-based starship technology to cultures across the galaxy.

That's just some of the gods that have a major role to play in Starfinder. We'll be previewing the rest of Starfinder's deities in the coming weeks, but to tide you over until then, check out previews of more of Starfinder's new gods at Beasts of War and Major Spoilers!

Robert G. McCreary
Senior Developer

Go for the Moon!

Saturday, June 16, 2016

Happy Free RPG Day! Today at participating game stores, you'll be able to pick up your own copy of Starfinder First Contact and the new Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Character, Reepazo. We've also released a new Chronicle sheet for Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild members participating in the event. You'll be able to find copies of First Contact and Reepazo later this summer on paizo.com if you can't make it out to your local store, however. Enjoy the day, some new Starfinder wallpapers to trick out your devices!

Download Standard | Download Widescreen | Download Mobile

Illustrations by Remko Troost

Download Standard | Download Widescreen | Download Mobile

Illustration by Ignacio Bazan Lazcano

Download Standard | Download Widescreen | Download Mobile

Illustration by Caio Maciel Monteiro

Chris Lambertz
Community & Digital Content Director

Bringing Out the Big Guns in Starfinder

Friday, June 16, 2017

As a science fantasy game, Starfinder has a wide range of high-tech weapons. Cryo guns, plasma weapons, lasers, full automatic projectile weapons, grenades, and many more categories of high-tech weapons cram the equipment chapter, ready for players to select what they need to stay alive in the adventures to come. But as soon as you mention that lasers are an option, and that Starfinder is supposed to maintain fair backward compatibility with the monsters of Pathfinder, players wonder how a goblin is supposed to be any kind of threat to PCs armed with advanced ranged weaponry. After all, realistically, a laser has to do more damage than a short sword, right.

Well, in a word, no.

Where realism impinges on making a fun and robust game, we're more than happy to deviate from realism—but in this case, it's not really necessary. Modern real-world laser pointers are lasers, for example, and do no damage to speak of when fired at your hand. And while it may seem unrealistic for laser pistols and plasma rifles to do low enough damage that you can be shot 4 or 5 times before you're in serious risk of death, that logic also applies to archaic weapons. It's not hard to make a 1st-level barbarian in Pathfinder who can easily survive four blows from a short sword and still be conscious. Certainly most people would agree that "realistically," being stabbed four times with 18 inches of sharpened steel isn't going to leave anyone in the condition where they can just walk away.

So, since we know lasers (and, by extension, most other energy weapons) can exist at a level where they do little to no damage, we can go ahead and make low-powered versions appropriate for the threats and foes low-level characters are most likely to encounter, letting your character start the game with that laser pistol they've been coveting.

But of course it wouldn't be any fun to restrict characters to such low-powered options forever.

Starfinder assumes there is almost always a better version of any weapon you can imagine—the trick is convincing people to sell it to you (and having the credits to afford it). In many cases the most advanced of these weapons don't make sense for rank-and-file troops. After all, why would an army buy a single avalanche-class zero rifle, when it can buy forty hailstorm-class zero rifles for the same amount of money? Sure, the avalanche-class does three times as much damage. But if you have an army to equip, it's better to have forty guns doing 2d8 damage than one gun doing 7d8 damage.

Of course there are exceptions to that thinking, including elite forces, commandos, assassins, snipers... and player characters.

As characters advance, they'll have the money, and connections, to buy more and more powerful versions of their early weapons. To keep this process simple, every piece of equipment in the game has an item level. That level has no effect on who can use the equipment—if a 2nd-level soldier gets hold of an 18th-level banshee sonic rifle, there's no reason he can't use it to full effect—just as a 2nd-level fighter could use a +5 flaming keen vicious bastard sword in Pathfinder. But by giving every piece of equipment an item level, we can tie numerous rules—including hardness, Hit Points, save DCs, and item creation rules, to name just a few—to a single mechanic. Item level is also a useful baseline to help determine what gear a character has the licenses, connections, and trust to buy. While circumstances and GM fiat can make any adjustment desired, in general a player character in a major settlement is free to buy any gear with an item level up to his character level +2. This gives characters freedom to decide if they are going to focus on just a few pieces of key gear, or do their best to have a variety of slightly less-effective options available, without a GM having to spend a lot of time checking tables and making availability rolls.

In general, there's no need to upgrade your weaponry at every level (though you certainly could if that was exciting for you), but over the course of a character's career they are likely to buy better, more dangerous, more powerful versions of their weaponry. The azimuth laser pistol is 1st level, and does 1d4 damage with an 80 ft. range increment and the ability to set things on fire with critical hits. The next lowest level laser pistol presented in the Core Rulebook is the corona model at 6th level, which does 2d4 damage. Of course, a player might run into a number of other weapon options along the way, ranging from the static arc pistol at 2nd level to the thunderstrike sonic pistol at 4th level or the frostbite-class zero pistol at 5th level.

Of course, for this system to work, feats and class features can't be tied to a specific model or level of a specific weapon. Instead, everything is geared to work with all the weapons for a specific proficiency, or all the weapons of the same category. Weapon Focus, for example, can be applied to all small arms, or all longarms, and so on. The soldier's gear boosts tend to work with categories of weapons, such as laser accuracy applying to all lasers, or plasma immolation working with all plasma weapons.

And that's not even talking about magic weapons! The Starfinder Core Rulebook has several pages of weapon fusions, which are special magic abilities that can be added to a weapon to gain a bonus in specific circumstances, or grant new combat options. For example, the anchoring fusion allows a weapon to immobilize a foe on a critical hit, while the holy fusion allows a weapon to bypass DR/good and ignore all energy resistance of evil dragons, evil outsiders, and evil undead. Fusion can also be placed in fusion seals, special weapon augmentations that can be moved from weapon to weapon if you decide to change your primary attack preference.

Nor does all of a character's increase in damage come from buying bigger guns and more powerful melee weapons. At 3rd level, every character class grants specialization with all the standard weapons the class gives proficiency with. This allows the character to add their level to damage dealt (or to add half their level in the case of small arms or operative melee weapons, the latter of which have the special property that anyone can use their Dexterity rather than Strength to determine their attack bonus). And of course class features, feats, and spells can grant further bonuses, depending on the choices a player makes while building their character.

All of this is tied to our rebalancing of combat math to make the game faster and simpler, while keeping weapon choice important and keeping the importance of treasure acquisition as a feature of the game. It also gives us flexibility when working in the weapon creation design space. The various weapon categories mean that characters with no access to magic abilities can still pick up weapons that do various forms of energy damage; create cones, lines, or explosions; or even stagger, blind, stun, or ignite foes. A soldier might decide their primary fighting style is to use a big two-handed melee weapon, but still carry a few grenades and a flamethrower for situations where they need to affect multiple targets in an area, or just deal a different damage type. It also removes the need to constantly chase pure accuracy bonuses, since doing more damage in a round is no longer dependent on having a 3rd or 4th (or 6th!) attack in a full attack action reliably connect with foes.

Most of the math and design work behind how Starfinder's weapons, attacks, feats, and more isn't particularly obvious to a typical player—quite intentionally—but we've put a lot of time into creating options that work well together, and making sure equipment and weapons generally come into play right at the point when it's appropriate for characters to access them. Hopefully this will allow players to focus less on finding some theoretical perfect combination of game elements for effectiveness, and more on interplanetary adventure!

Owen KC Stephens
Developer

Paizo Welcomes the Glass Cannon Podcast to the Family!

Thursday, June 15, 2017

You might have been hearing rumors here and there...rumblings of an agreement between Paizo and the incredibly entertaining Glass Cannon podcast. Well today, we are proud to confirm that the Glass Cannon Podcast is now an official Paizo podcast!

Mike Kenway and Troy Lavallee with the document to make it official!

For those that don't know, the Glass Cannon Podcast is an actual-play RPG podcast that has been playing the Giantslayer Adventure Path. We've been fans of the show since the beginning and it was only a matter of time before we teamed up and made it official. Making this announcement today is extra special because it also marks their two-year anniversary.

GM Troy Lavallee serves as a ringmaster of sorts to rest of the group. "It was presumptuous from the start to imagine that anyone would enjoy listening to five guys sit around improvising while playing a tabletop role-playing game every week" says Lavallee. Fellow cast members Joe O'Brien, Skid Maher, Grant Berger, and Matthew Capodicasa all work perfectly together to create a unique podcast experience.

Line Artwork by Robert Atkins, Colors by Simon Gough.

To learn more about the Glass Cannon crew, their about page can be found here. New episodes of their game go up every Tuesday at 12:01 AM Eastern, while their other show, Cannon Fodder (a sort of Q&A/recap show) goes up every Thursday at 12:01 AM Eastern. You can subscribe on iTunes or head to their site for the full archive of shows. For best results, we recommend starting with Episode 1 so you can follow along with all of the adventures.

"I'm so excited to be officially partnering with Paizo - not only for the very selfish reason that I'll get to keep spending time in their worlds, but also so that we can all continue to tell weird and wonderful stories together." says Matthew Capodicasa.

We couldn't agree more, welcome to the family!

Dan Tharp
Outreach Coordinator

Free RPG Day—Awesomely Alien

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Free RPG Day is just around the corner this Saturday, June 17th! There a tons of participating locations, so check out the program's event locator, join in the fun, and grab a copy of Paizo's Free RPG Day offerings while supplies last. Last month we met the new promo character Reepazo, so today I'd like to present two other prizes: the new Starfinder First Contact and a special Chronicle sheet that you can earn by playing anytime between June 16th and June 25th.

First Contact is an exciting first look at both the Starfinder rules and its setting, presenting 12 different creatures (including 4 different playable races). There's a lot of great content here, and I reached out to the authors to share some of their favorite parts.

Illustrations by Johnny Marrow, Kiki Moch Rizky, and Crystal Sully.

James L. Sutter: Art-wise, I think my favorite piece is the security robot. I love the sleek futuristic flavor that's part Mac Store, part Prince Robot from Saga, and part classic droid. But a lot of the monsters in here are things I've been waiting to see in print for years—both the ellicoth and the haan started life as brief name-drops in Pathfinder Campaign Setting: Distant Worlds, and now here we are at last. I particularly enjoyed writing about the orocoran ichor lords—it's high time Aucturn got some native inhabitants!

Rob G. McCreary: The bone sages of Eox were first introduced back in Pathfinder Adventure Path #14, and in Pathfinder RPG they were most easily represented by liches. For Starfinder, however, we wanted to update the lich to the science-fantasy future, and thus the necrovite was born. So what makes a necrovite more than just a space-lich (other than a cooler name, of course)? Three things: technomancer AND mystic spells, the Eoxian wrackstaff, and an electroencephalon (because a necrovite has to store her soul somewhere, after all).

Jason Keeley: It was a bit of a no-brainer that goblins would be in Starfinder. As a bit of a joke, I wrote them up as "space goblins" for the playtest and gave them cobbled-together laser pistols that tended to blow up in their own faces. It turns out people thought that was funny enough to make them canon with First Contact. And the art, with their bandaged-up bubble helmets, really helped seal the deal!

John Compton: Starfinder's been a great chance to flesh out the many weird aliens Paizo—quite often James L. Sutter—has name-dropped, but it's also an exciting opportunity to create entirely new creatures. My assignment for First Contact included "New plant monster (Castrovel)" and the directive to "Make it weird and awesome." I knew I wanted a plant that wasn't a low-mobility ambush predator, and at the time I was fixated on invasive species like kudzu. What resulted was the ksarik, a ferocious carnivore that absorbed psychic energies and evolved from fairly mundane corpse blossoms into aggressive quadrupeds that can absorb others' genetic material in order to take over their ecological niches. I'm a sucker for dorsal crests, and if you look closely, you can see the eyestalks projected to either side like a hammerhead shark.

Be sure to look at First Contact for a first taste of what's to come in 2017 and beyond!

Even though there's not a new adventure featured for Free RPG Day, we want to encourage you to get out and game together. In fact, we've made a unique Chronicle sheet for the event. If you're playing a game any time from June 16th to June 25th, you can earn a copy of this sheet—just one per participant, no matter how many times you play. In fact, consider printing off some extras to hand out at whatever event you're a part of so that others can join in the benefits. Everyone gets the first boon, which allows the chance to replay (or "re-GM" for credit) one of the past Free RPG Day modules one time, and while it's certainly the spirit of this reward to use that boon for Free RPG Day this year, you're welcome to hold onto it for whenever you need it.

If you play in a Free RPG Day game—that's a game hosted by a location participating in Free RPG Day 2017—you also receive the Tome of First Contact boon. Just as you're getting a first glimpse at what Starfinder has to offer, so to has one of your characters found a wondrous bestiary filled with alien beasts and otherworldly people. Reference it to get an edge when facing creatures from beyond Golarion, and above all, enjoy Paizo's contributions to Free RPG Day 2017!

Download the Free RPG Day Chronicle sheet!

John Compton
Organized Play Lead Developer

Starfinder Archetypes

Monday, June 12, 2017

Archetypes are a fascinating example of how a game system can evolve over the course of time. The Pathfinder Core Rulebook doesn't mention archetypes at all—they weren't introduced until the Advanced Player's Guide. Once players discovered how useful they were to represent characters that weren't a perfect match for any character class, but were close enough that only a few changes were necessary to represent them, archetypes quickly became an extremely popular and common element of many Pathfinder RPG releases from that point forward. They allowed characters to examine new character concepts without needing to release whole new classes. A ranger who's an expert in tactics and odd tricks but doesn't cast spells isn't a big enough conceptual step to need a new character class, but it's difficult to represent without something like the skirmisher or trapper archetypes.

One of the advantages we had when designing Starfinder was that we could see what had worked well for Pathfinder and use that as a starting place in design, rather than having to create everything conceptually from scratch. It was clear early on that archetypes made sense in Starfinder—after all, the game can have adventures set anywhere in an entire galaxy, so there are bound to be cultures, traditions, organizations, and training methods which adjust how characters do things beyond the influence of their class, race, and theme. That let us look at how we wanted themes, classes, archetypes, and feat selections to interact. So what sets archetypes apart from those other character variables? Let's look at what the Starfinder Core Rulebook says about archetypes.

An archetype is a character concept more specific and involved than a theme, but not as comprehensive or broad as a class. Each archetype represents a significant divergence from the abilities of a typical member of the core classes. Archetypes provide an additional layer of control for players who want to fine-tune their character's advancement. An archetype generally grants abilities that aren't otherwise available to characters through a class, or it may grant easier access to a specific set of appropriate abilities. In general, these abilities aren't tied to the background of any one core class or theme and aren't available to characters via other sources.

Illustration by Mirco Paganessi

So Starfinder is using archetypes as sets of class features that represent a concept that isn't tied to any one class, but shouldn't be available to every character simply by taking a set of feats. Unlike Pathfinder archetypes, which must be designed for a single specific character class it can be added to, Starfinder archetypes are designed to be applicable to any character class. Each class has specific class features it gives up at set levels (2nd, 4th, 6th, 9th, 12th, and 18th) if the archetype provides an alternative class feature at that level (though not every archetype will need to have alternate class features at all those levels). An archetype thus becomes part of the class you attach it to, and that class loses a pre-determined ability at the levels the archetype grants you an alternative. For example, the Starfinder Core Rulebook has two archetypes—the phrenic adept and the Starfinder forerunner. The phrenic adept has alternate class features at every level it can—2nd, 4th, 6th, 9th, 12th, and 18th—while the Starfinder forerunner only provides alternate class features at 2nd, 4th, and 6th.

You must decide to add an archetype to a class when you gain the first class level at which the archetype has an alternate class feature. For example, the Starfinder forerunner archetype grants its first alternate class feature (trained for trouble) at 2nd level. So if you take a second level of a class, and decide to add the Starfinder forerunner archetype, you gain trained for trouble as a class feature. What you give up depends on what class you took—a mechanic that gains the archetype would not receive the mechanic trick normally available at 2nd level, while a mystic would gain 1 fewer spells known for the highest level of spell it can cast, and so on. Every class outlines what class feature it forgoes if it has an archetype added that has an alternate class feature at that level. Each class you take can have at most one archetype attached to it, and you cannot attach the same archetype to more than one class if you multiclass.

Archetypes are designed to represent sets of abilities you could reasonably gain regardless of your class or theme, but that involve some sort of special circumstance or training that makes them bad choices as feats. The phrenic adept assumes you have gained some innate psychic powers, as a result of natural mutation, specialized training, exposure to an ill-understood force such as an alien artifact, and so on. The Starfinder forerunner represents the result of special training given to members of the Starfinder Society who do advanced work to prepare for Starfinder expeditions, and often serve as guides on such expeditions. Neither is designed to be as all-encompassing as a full character class, but both represent more new abilities than should be contained in 1 or 2 feats. As the Starfinder RPG grows, we'll be looking for places it makes sense for a new option to be more than a feat or theme but less than a class, and then using archetypes to make those available to characters of any class.

As a preview of what archetype features look like, here is the ability gained by the phrenic adept at 4th level.

Phrenic Defense (Ex): Your psychic powers give you additional defenses against mental attacks. The first time you fail a saving throw against a spell or effect with the emotion, fear, mind-affecting, or pain descriptor (see page 269), you can spend 1 Resolve Point as a reaction to immediately reroll the failed saving throw.

Even if the second saving throw fails, your stronger defenses might reduce the effect of the spell or ability. If the spell or ability deals damage, reduce the damage done by an amount equal to your class level. If the spell or ability has a duration of 2 rounds or longer, reduce its duration by half.

Owen KC Stephens
Developer

Starfinder Character Themes

Friday, June 9, 2017

In Starfinder, every player character has a theme, which represents a focus for the character beyond those determined by race, class, and skill and feat selections. In many ways a theme is a description of the character's place in society based on what interests them and what kinds of tasks they undertake. While a theme may represent a job or role within a broader culture, it can also be a result of a character's background, upbringing, training, or mystical destiny.

Each theme has a set of benefits when first selected, including a +1 bonus to one specific ability score and a skill-based benefit. Each theme grants additional special benefits that reflect major aspects of that theme at 6th, 12th, and 18th levels. None of the abilities are limited to any specific character class, race, or type of character. Conceptually, themes are designed to give the same kind of specialization that traits and favored class bonuses do in Pathfinder, but are faster and easier to select (no theme has any kind of prerequisite or limitation on who can take it) and rather than many tiny character adjustments, each theme focuses on 4 noteworthy adjustments over a character's career. Think of it as one extra dial you can turn to customize your character, giving the same class and race a dramatically different feel—a vesk soldier with the icon theme might be a celebrity gladiator, while one with the priest theme might be a chaplain of Damoritosh the Conqueror.

Illustration by Pixoloid Studios

There are nine themes in the Starfinder Core Rulebook, with a tenth option—"themeless"—for characters with a specific concept that they don't feel is a good match for any of the currently extant themes. The themes are intentionally kept fairly broad, with the names functioning as descriptive titles rather than hard limitations on what kind of character might take each theme. You can see a little of how themes can help you hone in on a particular character concept in the character build examples presented at the end of each class. Take the outlaw theme, for example: in just those few class build examples, we show you how the same outlaw theme can make an envoy into a fast-talking scoundrel, a mechanic into a saboteur, an operative into either a hacker or a thief, a solarian into a disgraced outcast, a soldier into a freelance sniper, and so on.

The nine themes (and the themeless option) are described briefly below.

Ace Pilot: Thanks to steady hands and nerves of steel, you are skilled at operating starships and other vehicles.

Bounty Hunter: Almost nothing will stop you from tracking down your quarries and returning them dead or alive.

Icon: You are a popular and respected celebrity within the bounds of colonized space.

Mercenary: You are a well-trained soldier of fortune who works well with your companions in battle.

Outlaw: Whether you're guilty or not, somebody wants to see you behind bars—or worse.

Priest: Your unshakable devotion to a philosophy or religion forms the core of your personality.

Scholar: As an academic, you have a broad knowledge base and a thirst to expand it.

Spacefarer: You live your life among the stars, seeking new worlds to explore and yearning for the next adventure.

Xenoseeker: As you travel outside of Pact Worlds space, you strive to make first contact with alien life forms.

Themeless: You don't fit neatly into any of the above categories, or you see yourself as a blank slate.

The abilities gained by each theme at 1st, 6th, 12th, and 18th level are useful and appropriate to the theme, but not so overpowering as to be a mandatory part of any effective character build. Below are examples of a few theme abilities—the 1st level ability gained by themeless characters (general knowledge), and the 6th level ability gained by the xenoseeker (quick pidgin).

General Knowledge (Themeless, 1st): You gain a class skill of your choice when you create a themeless character. You also gain an ability adjustment of +1 to any ability score you choose.

Quick Pidgin (Xenoseeker, 6th): If you don't share a language with creatures you encounter, you and the creatures can spend 10 minutes attempting to converse (if they are willing), after which you attempt a DC 25 Culture check. If you succeed, you formulate a simple pidgin language that allows basic communication. You can use the pidgin language with those specific creatures only, but you gain a +2 bonus to Culture checks to create a pidgin language with similar creatures that speak the same language.

Owen KC Stephens
Developer

Pathfinder Adventure Card Game Strategy #10—Fighting the Villains

Thursday, June 8, 2017

This is the tenth installment of our strategy blog written by game historian Shannon Appelcline. You can read all the installments here.

Throughout these articles on Pathfinder Adventure Card Game tactics, we've touched on a lot of important subjects. Now we come to the subject that matters the most in most games: finding and fighting the villains. Villains are a special type of bane, and they require very special consideration. Beating the villain at the right time is how you win, after all, but facing the villain at the wrong time can cost you dearly.

Do what you can to isolate the villain

Often, you'll just stumble into the villain. However, you should also do your best to spot him in advance with Auguries, Spyglasses, oracular seeings, and any other means you can devise. Use these scouting powers as much as you can; after you find the villain, leave him alone until you're ready to face him.

Corollary #1: Use evasion as a detection technique. Evading a villain after stumbling upon him is a great strategy. Merisiel excels at this, but several spells help with this type of painless discovery.

Corollary #2: After you find the villain, try to position him in his deck. Once you've discovered where a villain is, organize his deck if you can; this is particularly helpful if he's near the bottom. Have Seelah remove boons that are on top of the villain. If you know he's low in the deck, just losing to a monster can shuffle the deck and maybe bring the villain up higher. If he's near the top, use a Magic Spyglass to make him the first card; if he's at the bottom, use Brodert Quink to move him up a little.

Shifting the villain up even a couple spots can be the difference between winning and losing.

If you're not ready to win the game, don't worry about temp closes

You may encounter the villain before you're ready to win. Perhaps you haven't permanently closed two locations, perhaps you haven't stationed characters at all the remaining locations, or perhaps you just have poor odds to win the fight. In this case, you shouldn't worry too much about temporarily closing locations.

Yes, it's always better to temporarily close what you easily can. That way there will be fewer places for the villain to escape to, and in the worst case, if you lose a fight with the villain, you'll lose fewer turns from the blessings deck. So, you might want to expend a little effort on temporary closing locations. But you probably won't want to expend too many blessings or to pay other notable costs.

Corollary #1: Consider the value of blessings. A blessing on the blessings deck is worth a turn, while a blessing in your hand is generally worth one exploration. Since a well-played turn will usually encompass multiple explorations, that means a blessing on the blessings deck is worth at least as much as a blessing from your hand. And the more capable you are of making multiple explorations in each future turn (not counting any resources you'll spend to temp close), the more it's worth to avoid losing that turn. So it's generally worthwhile to spend at least one blessing if you need it to temporarily close your location.

Be prepared to close every location

In most scenarios, defeating the villain only allows you to win when you have permanently closed at least two locations and spread the characters to cover all of the open locations. Be willing to use blessings and to make permanent expenditures (like burying or banishing cards) to temporarily close locations when you're ready to beat up the big bad. It's the cost you must pay.

Corollary #1: Plan your expenditures in advance. The catch is that you don't want to expend so many resources while temp closing that you can no longer defeat the villain. So, count your blessings and other resources and decide which you're going to allocate to closing and which to the villain fight. If you figure it out all at once at the start, you're more likely to be successful.

Be prepared to beat the villain

When you decide to face the villain, you should be ready to deal with his specific powers. Usually this means sending your best fighter to the villain's presumed location, but it could also mean sending a character equipped with just the right cards. Be particularly aware if a villain will require a specific check.

(Note that the rules remain silent on whether you should read the villain card before playing the scenario; even the Pathfinder Adventures app allows you to either read the villain or skip it. Use this to adjust the difficulty of the game for your group: If you keep losing because the villain kicks you to the curb, try reading it in advance. If you're smashing the villain the first time you encounter him, and regularly winning before the blessings deck is low, you may find it more fun if you aren't prepared for this step.)

Corollary #1: Have armor ready for before-you-act damage. Some villains do damage in advance of combat. When it's a big number like Black Fang's 1d4-1 or Nualia's 1d4, this can be crippling, preventing you from winning the fight. So send characters with armor against those pre-battle damage wielders!

You really don't want to discard all of your weapons or spells before the big fight.

Use multiple characters to kill a villain if you can

Villains are the cards most likely to require multiple checks to defeat. Although some characters, such as Valeros and Seoni, can easily draw hands that can create two stunning attacks in a row, it's harder for other characters, like Sajan and Lini. As a result, it's often best to face villains with two characters, letting one take on each roll. This means that you may want to wait until you've closed three locations before facing the villain.

Corollary #1: Plan your battle in advance. The order of the checks can matter a lot. If you blow the first check, you're going to lose whether or not you succeed on the second. Sometimes your toughest character should go first and expend the most resources. Or sometimes the active player should go first so that if he loses his hand, he can just choose to lose again.

If you don't kill the villain, monitor your blessings

Card counting is usually more trouble than it's worth in PACG, but there's one situation where that's not the case: If the villain escapes, he'll be shuffled together with some blessing cards, then they'll be distributed among several decks. If at all possible, keep count of the blessings in each of those decks. When you find that a deck has more blessings than the location card says it should, you know the villain isn't there! You can then concentrate elsewhere.

That's it for the core tactics of Pathfinder Adventure Card Game play; in the next few months I'm going to talk about some of the bigger-picture strategies, including how to form parties and advance characters.

Shannon Appelcline
Game Historian

OPC Log—7 Sarenith 4717

Wednesday, June 7, 2017

It is summer, the sun is shining, and Pathfinder Society games abound. I'm working hard with the Pathfinder Society team in pulling edges together for the conclusion of Year of the Stolen Storm and the launch of the Year of Factions' Favor. Lots of great news, but I'll leave that to a different blog for more information. For today, I'll focus on all the great things going on in our community!

Newest 5 Star GMs

A fortunate side effect of the popularity of Pathfinder Society is a constant need for GMs. As a result, I constantly have the pleasure of announcing more five star GMs. A huge thank you to the following GMs who gave of their time and energies to run 150 games for players, including 50 different scenarios and 10 special events. Three cheers for these dedicated GMs!

• Kevin Hanley
• David Setty
• David Adams
• Greg Ragland
• Phil McElfresh
• Steven Gabel
• Tineke Bolleman
• Andrew D. Geels
• Heather Vigil
• Benn Roe
• Stacey Buxton

Volunteer Recognitions

Last year, the Pathfinder Society team created a new award as a thank you to some of our longest serving volunteers. While the Paizo Volunteer of the Year recipient often volunteers with the Society, it is not a prerequisite for award. So we wanted something that could be given to those individuals who already received a Campaign Service Award. We called the award the Order of the Wayfinder and the inaugural recipient was Bob Jonquet. This year, we weren't sure the recipient would be attending Gen Con, so we awarded it at PaizoCon. It is my distinct pleasure to recognize Al Rigg, founding Venture-Captain Sydney and current Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East as the second recipient.

At PaizoCon, we recognized Venture-Lieutenant David Jacobson as the Paizo Volunteer of the Year for his long time support of the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game and associated Adventure Card Guild, as well as the time and effort spent in the venture-officer corps.

Finally, I've had the pleasure of awarding several Campaign Service Coins in my travels over the past few months. The following individuals received their coins between Gen Con 2016 and now. We raise a huge cheer and thank you for your time and energies! Your efforts on behalf of the Pathfinder Society greatly enrich our games.

Name	New Organized Play Number
David Jacobsen	772
Wendy-Ann Francis	773
John Francis	774
Mark Stratton	775
Carol Tierney	776

Upcoming Conventions

Convention season is upon us, which means lots of choices for players and GMs to attend. I'm currently in week two of my four-week convention cycle, which takes me from PaizoCon to UK Games Expo to Origins to the American Libraries Association Annual Conference. I get a few weeks breather, then off to PaizoCon UK, Gen Con, and PAX West. If you are attending any of these shows, please top by the Pathfinder Society/Paizo space and say hi! If not, consider attending one or more of the many other shows featuring Pathfinder Society occurring over the next few months.

Convention	Location	Date
A-Kon 2017	Fort Worth, TX	6/8/17
Cosmic Captive PbP Gameday 2017	Online	6/9/17
Die Con2017	Collinsville, Il	6/9/17
NordCon 2017	Hamburg, Germany	6/9/17
Origins Gamefair 2017	Columbus, OH	6/14/17
Elementary Pathfinder 2017	Russia, Moscow	6/16/17
ICON Comic & Games Convention 2017	Johannesburg, South Africa	6/16/17
Q-Con 2017	Belfast, N.Ireland	6/16/17
RageCon 2017	Reno, NV	6/23/17
South Dakota Anime Convention 2017	Rapid City, SD	6/23/17
Magic City Con 2017	Birmingham, AL	6/30/17
Milwaukee Summer Revel 20 (2017)	Brookfield, WI	6/30/17
InConJunction 2017	Indianapolis, IN	6/30/17
GaPFS Christmas in July	Athens, GA	7/1/17
Dice Tower Convention 2017	Orlando, FL	7/5/17
Play On Con 10	Columbiana, AL	7/6/17
Salt Lake Gaming Con 2017	Sandy, UT	7/7/17
Summer Wolfcon 2017	Glen Ellyn, IL	7/7/17
Pathathon 2017	Somerset, KY	7/7/17
Clearwater Con 2017	Eau Claire, WI	7/7/17
Kantcon 2017	Overland Park, KS	7/14/17
VrockCon 2017	Flat Rock, NC	7/15/17
Comic-Con International 2017	San Diego, CA	7/20/17
CharCon 2017	Charleston, WV	7/21/17
OGC 2017	Nashua, NH	7/21/17
A-Kon 2017	Fort Worth, TX	6/8/17
Cosmic Captive PbP Gameday 2017	Online	6/9/17
Die Con2017	Collinsville, Il	6/9/17

To all those traveling this summer, stay safe! Until next time: Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Coordinator

New Paths Among the Stars: Compatibility Between Starfinder and Pathfinder

Monday, June 5, 2017

Starfinder is a complete roleplaying game, and can be played on its own without ever referring to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game. It is based on Pathfinder, of course, and shares many similarities with its older cousin, but in many cases Starfinder handles specific issues differently than Pathfinder. We've mentioned several times that Pathfinder is easily integrated into Starfinder, and that there's some level of compatibility between the two games, but we haven't been very specific on exactly how easy it'll be to add Starfinder cybernetics to Pathfinder fire giants, or port Pathfinder character classes and races into a Starfinder campaign. Those questions are likely to take more than one blog post to cover, but we wanted to at least begin going into greater detail about how we envision these two games working together.

Illustration by Hugh Pindur

Starfinder should feel very familiar to experienced Pathfinder players, and much of the overall play experience is similar. Despite changes like iterative attacks for high base attack bonuses being replaced by universal full attacks allowing two attacks both at -4, or breaking hit points into two pools of Stamina Points and Hit Points, most of the general rules of the game are close enough to make it easy to see how to convert a specific option from one class to another. The most common specific tweaks to combat are covered in the Starfinder Core Rulebook, specifically Chapter 13: Pathfinder Legacy. This chapter presents the information a GM needs to convert between the two games when dealing with questions of bonus types, actions in combat, CMB/CMD vs EAC/KAC, damage, ability scores, and so on. A GM wishing to take griefgalls from Bestiary 5 and use them for an invasion of Absalom Station should have no trouble adapting the monster to Starfinder use. In fact, given that both Starfinder and Pathfinder inhabit the same fictional universe, we specifically designed the game so that you could use monsters from one in the other on the fly, with little conversion—after all, a keketar protean is a keketar protean regardless of system, and this way we can focus on creating cool new creatures for Starfinder rather than just converting all the old standards.

For things like magic items, spells, feats, equipment, and other player-facing options, conversion can be more difficult and have more hidden pitfalls. One of the hardest questions a GM will need to answer is if something from one game system even should be introduced to the other. For instance, Starfinder and Pathfinder make different assumptions about when in a campaign various options first appear, and when they become commonplace. This means that introducing a new options from one of the games into a campaign using the other set of rules can have consequences well beyond how well the two sets of game rules interact mechanically.

For example, every first-level Starfinder character is likely to have armor that protects against extremes of temperature and pressure, and provides breathable air, thus protecting them from gaseous poisons or even complete vacuum for up to 24 hours. In Pathfinder, that level of protection isn't available until much higher level, and many characters never acquire it. While the rules for extreme environments are similar enough that a character from either game can make the appropriate saving throws (and understand how to apply the effects of failing those saves), a Pathfinder game that introduces items and abilities designed for Starfinder is going to bypass or neutralize a lot of common Pathfinder threats and encounters. Similar issues arise when discussing movement, flight, senses, ranged attacks, access to energy damage, and even the ease with which non-spellcasters can access magic abilities.

Those differences in assumptions alter how items and options from one game will impact campaigns using the other game's base rules. Even with the differences between Armor Class rules in the two games, it's not hard to figure out how a suit of ceremonial vesk overplate with a jet pack and infrared sensors would operate in Pathfinder—but the impact it would have on a typical Pathfinder game is much higher than the low level of those options in Starfinder would suggest.

Similarly, the two games also use different methods to produce the numerical values characters and monsters use to interact with one another. This often includes math that is (quite intentionally) behind the scenes, and thus not particularly obvious. For example, Starfinder does its best to not require characters to constantly get higher and higher enhancement bonuses to attack rolls, damage, and armor class, or resistance bonuses to saving throws. As a result, there's no option to create a +1 plasma cannon in Starfinder, since the additional math isn't needed. Thus adding magic to Starfinder gear is always about gaining some cool new option or ability rather than just numbers. It would be easy to determine how to port such rules over from Pathfinder, but doing so would create imbalances, since the new game is designed to function without most pure bonus-boosters.

For races, these issues are much less likely to cause significant issues. We already provide full Starfinder write-ups for dwarves, elves, gnomes, halflings, half-elves and half-orcs in the Pathfinder Legacy chapter of Starfinder. Those races still exist in the Pact Worlds, they just aren't as common as they were in Golarion-focused games using Pathfinder. Converting other Pathfinder races should be straightforward, and unlikely to cause major problems. In fact, some races that don't fit well in most Pathfinder games may be less disruptive to a Starfinder campaign!

Pathfinder classes are going to be the element it is most difficult to move to a Starfinder campaign, and require some work on the part of a GM, both in understanding how Starfinder handles various kinds of abilities and in looking for places where problems might crop up from unbalanced bonuses that Starfinder doesn't need or abilities that lack the support in one game system or the other. Of course, we tried to make sure common character tropes could be created in Starfinder, even if they're built differently than their Pathfinder equivalents. While there's no straight-up paladin analogue in Starfinder, a soldier with the priest theme, phrenic adept archetype, and various psychic power feats can certainly take the role of a religious champion with access to both martial skills and magic powers.

If nothing but the original Pathfinder classes will satisfy, however, the Pathfinder Legacy section gives what guidance we could manage for GMs wanting to port Pathfinder classes directly over. Questions of key ability scores, stamina points, skill points, weapon and armor proficiency and specialization, and other common core game mechanics are easy, and we mostly spell them out. When it comes to tougher questions like class features, eidolons, animal companions, familiars, class spell lists and 7th-9th level spells, bardic performance, and even flurry of blows we give advice, but it'll be up to each GM to decide exactly how to implement that advice.

In many ways, all of Pathfinder is like a series of "Starfinder Unchained" books—optional rules and subsystems a GM can adapt or not as appropriate for their game and their own desire to tinker. Our first priority was always to make Starfinder the best game it could be on its own, with as many robust options as we could make fit without overcomplicating it. Yet its underlying game engine remains close enough to Pathfinder that anyone who wants to adopt or convert materials from those sources to Starfinder should be able to do so with a minimum of effort.

Owen KC Stephens
Developer

Five Differences Between Starfinder Rules and Pathfinder Rules

Friday, June 2, 2017

Given the ever-approaching release of the Starfinder Roleplaying Game, there's no better time to highlight a few new Starfinder rules! Although Starfinder is heavily based on the Pathfinder RPG system, there are nevertheless some significant rules changes between the two. So to give you a quick taste of some of the changes, here are five key mechanics that differentiate the Starfinder RPG from Pathfinder.

1. Hit Points, Stamina Points, and Resolve Points. In Starfinder, Hit Points measure the health and robustness of a character, while Stamina Points measure a character's readiness and energy (and can be replenished far more easily). Whenever you take damage, your Stamina Points are depleted before your Hit Points. In other words, you can soak up some hits without too much trouble, but once you start taking damage to your Hit Points, you're taking physical wounds that are much harder to heal quickly.

Starfinder characters also get a third pool of points called Resolve Points, which represent grit and luck. You can spend Resolve Points to power (or enhance) some class features, or to help you stay in a fight longer. Resolve Points also determine whether or not you die if both your Stamina Points and Hit Points are reduced to zero.

You can recover all of your Stamina Points by resting for 10 minutes and spending 1 Resolve Point; Resolve Points and some Hit Points are replenished after an 8-hour rest.

Illustration by Pixoloid Studios

2. Armor Classes. Characters in Starfinder have two Armor Classes: Energy Armor Class (EAC) and Kinetic Armor Class (KAC). Attacks that deal energy damage (like the fire damage from your trusty red star plasma pistol) target EAC; attacks that deal kinetic damage (like the bludgeoning damage from a gravity well hammer) target KAC. Starfinder has no flat-footed or touch AC.

3. No Iterative Attacks. Starfinder characters normally get a single attack every round, and this holds true from level 1 to level 20—a character's number of attacks does not increase as their base attack bonus goes up. Instead, any character (even at first level!) can use a full action to make two attacks in a round, each at a -4 penalty.

4. Attacks of Opportunity. In Starfinder, only three things provoke attacks of opportunity: moving out of a threatened square, making a ranged attack, and casting a spell. That's it. No other actions provoke attacks of opportunity.

5. Magic is Magic. There is no distinction between types of magic in Starfinder, whether arcane, divine, psychic, or something else. Spellcasting classes like the mystic and technomancer have different spell lists, but are both harnessing the same latent magical energy that permeates the universe. In addition, spells in Starfinder have no components; all you need is the ability to cast a spell and concentration.

That's it for now, Starfinders! Stay tuned to this space over the coming weeks and months for more Starfinder previews!

Robert G. McCreary
Senior Developer

Pardon Our Dust: What We Said (and Didn't Say) About the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game at PaizoCon

Thursday, June 1, 2017

Every year for the past four years, I have gone onstage at the PaizoCon banquet and talked about upcoming releases for the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. This year, that didn't happen. This is because I wasn't ready to say what everyone wanted me to say: what the name of the next base set is. I do have one in mind, but what we want to do with it isn't something we're sure we can do with it.

The adventure card game has been way more successful than we ever imagined. We're now four base sets, 24 expansion decks, four and a half Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild seasons, and 20 Class Decks into the release cycle, and that's not even counting the things we've finished but not released. Plus, there's another whole adventure card game, Apocrypha, that my company Lone Shark Games is about to release, and it does some things in different ways than the Pathfinder ACG does. We'd be fools not to learn from all of that. So here are our plans.

What We Expect to Do With the Next Base Set

Each PACG Adventure Path is massive. To play it you have to make a huge commitment: $180 at retail. And playing one base set doesn't make playing another any cheaper. Plus, when we change from one Organized Play season to the next, we make you crack open a box you might not yet own. We have big expensive game boxes and relatively inexpensive tuckboxes, but very little in the middle. The big boxes don't fit so great on many retailers' shelves, and some retailers put the smaller boxes behind the register, making them harder to buy.

So we'd like to change the product mix and presentation of the game. We're asking ourselves a lot of questions. Do you really need a new Cure card every time we start a new storyline? Does every chapter of an adventure have to use exactly 110 cards? Is there a way we can introduce a location in Adventure 4 and use it again in Adventure 5 without violating the Afghanistan Principle? What if we want a new Adventure Path to have a lot more monsters (or a lot fewer armors) than we put into Rise of the Runelords? Does it make sense that scenarios are limited to the number of words we can fit onto a single card? Does story really have to be constrained to a couple inches of text on a handful of cards?

And also: Not every story we want to tell is a sprawling Adventure Path that takes RPG characters from 1st-level pipsqueak to 20th-level potentate. There are a lot more tales in the Pathfinder catalogue. We'd like to be able to tell some of the smaller ones too.

If you've played a Pathfinder Society Adventure Card Guild game, you know that we've already explored some of these questions. PFSACG adventures feature much more story, wildly complex scenarios, and deep cross-adventure development. We've even experimented with smaller stories in the 2-part Season of the Goblins. And now it's time to bring all that to the bigger picture.

But it's important to recognize that these big changes we're talking about are primarily about presentation, not game mechanics. We're not talking "PACG: Second Edition" here; we don't need to change the rules and mechanics much more than we usually change them for a new Base Set. Let's be explicit: we're not going to invalidate your old cards. The things we've made so far will play just fine with things from the next base set, and we'll give you easy fixes for anything that doesn't, like when we changed "before the encounter" to "before you act" between Rise of the Runelords and Skull & Shackles.

We have a lot of theories as to how all these things will work, and what Adventure Path is best to go with such a rethinking. When last week came around, Paizo asked me if I was ready to talk about it. I wasn't. So Vic stood up at the banquet and announced that we aren't going to release a new base set until Gen Con 2018 at the earliest. We're going to try a lot of things; some of them won't work, and that's going to cost us time. And once we do figure out what we want, we'll have to make some prototypes: new boxes, a new tray... maybe even multiple trays. So maybe the 2018 holiday season is more likely, or even Spring 2019. But we won't leave you with a vacuum in the meantime.

What We Expect to Do With the Class Decks

We expect to continue releasing Class Decks with as many cool ideas as we can think of. Decks for August through October went to the printer last week; decks for November through February are in active development, and decks for March through May are... um, on deck. (We've started unofficially calling them character decks, because at best half of the new ones revolve around a single class. Of the next seven decks starting in August, only two—Magus and Hunter—are single-Class Decks.

I talked a little about those two at the PACG seminar at PaizoCon. The Magus Class Deck fills a giant hole in the product line, as we don't have a focused Arcane/Melee deck. In addition to a new take on Seltyiel, we're introducing PACG's first angelkin (you might call her an aasimar), alongside a character that has appeared twice in the RPG line. (I'm expecting your guesses in the discussion thread!)

The Hunter Class Deck is Adowyn's set, and it's loaded with animals. In fact, it's a pretty darn good alt-Ranger deck, which is one way of addressing another concern of players at PaizoCon: that the initial seven Class Decks—the ones that had four characters in them—had a smaller set of boons to choose from than the subsequent three-character Class Decks. If you want another way to play Harsk, you can get pretty far with the Hunter Class Deck. (We're thinking about ways to upgrade those initial seven too. Nothing to say yet on that front, but it's in our brains.)

The other five decks in these waves—Pathfinder Tales, Hell's Vengeance 1 and Hell's Vengeance 2, and Occult Adventures 1 and Occult Adventures 2—let us flex our design muscles in ways we've never done. I didn't have much to say at the con about Occult Adventures since those decks aren't designed. But I did talk about Tales: In addition to the characters of Radovan, Varian, and Celeste, Tales has all new allies, and a whole lot of them at that. They work together in interesting ways, too. If you like Zae, Keren Rhinn, and Appleslayer from Gears of Faith, you'll be rewarded for keeping them together.

The so-called "evil iconics" in the Hell's Vengeance decks take the more antisocial behavior demonstrated by our goblin characters to a new level. And these might be the best characters to play in Wrath of the Righteous. On the PACG panel, Pathfinder Society coordinator Tonya Woldridge mentioned that the evil characters in PACG are your only opportunity for playing evil characters in Pathfinder Society. Speaking of which...

What We Expect to Do With Organized Play

Tonya unveiled Season of Factions' Favor, the next season of PACG Organized Play, which will debut at Gen Con in August and conclude at next PaizoCon in May. Plotted by Tonya and John Compton, SoFF will weave into the Pathfinder Society Roleplaying Guild Year of Factions' Favor storyline, which in turn will weave into the War for the Crown storyline in the Pathfinder Adventure Path line. Season of Factions' Favor will use the Mummy's Mask set, just like Season of Plundered Tombs did.

SoFF will also do something we've never done before: tie new Class Deck releases directly into the storyline. A pair of special scenarios will explain exactly how those evil Hell's Vengeance folks wind up working for the Pathfinder Society. It'll be really cool.

That may or may not be the only season we launch between now and the next base set. At PaizoCon, I sat down to play the unofficial We Are Dragons "season" by Tyler Beck and 2017 Pathfinder Society Volunteer of the Year David Jacobson, where the main characters are kobolds. I'm not saying we're going to make that official, but man, kobolds are wicked fun.

What We Expect to Do With the Digital Game

Our partners at Obsidian also had some great news at PaizoCon. Their Pathfinder Adventures app, currently available exclusively for iOS and Android phones and tablets, is coming to PC and OS X soon.

And oh man, did the crowd love it when this was revealed:

Rise of the Goblins will introduce five new scenarios inspired by We Be Goblins and our Season of the Goblins, with Ranzak and Poog of Zarongel as playable characters, plus alternative goblin skins for the 11 core iconics. And new asymmetrical goblin dice. If goblins could read, they'd be cheering this news right now.

What We Don't Expect to Do Any Time Soon

The Starfinder Adventure Card Game, that's what. Starfinder was the buzz of PaizoCon, and all anyone could ask me about was whether we were making a Starfinder ACG. I crushed that speculation dead on the spot. One of the main reasons we decided to make Pathfinder our first adventure card game was the ten thousand or so pieces of awesome Pathfinder art that we could use. Starfinder has less than ten thousand pieces of art at this point. A lot less. (But it is all awesome. In particular, Remko Troost's iconics. Sweet stuff.) With PACG, it also helped that we had great storylines to adapt, but the first Starfinder Adventure Path, Dead Suns, won't be completed until next June.

So, maybe ask me about that next PaizoCon, or the one after. Meanwhile, we've got a whole lot of work to do on Pathfinder. Thanks for reading, and thanks to PaizoCon for having us there!

Mike Selinker
Adventure Card Game Lead Designer