Signal of Screams Adventure Path Announced!

Friday, March 30, 2018

Illustration by Pixoloid Studios

Early this year, we let you know that the Starfinder Adventure Path is going monthly starting in August, starting with the 3-volume campaign Against the Aeon Throne. While that Adventure Path is perfect for heroes who want to strike a solid blow against the sinister Azlanti Star Empire when they unlawfully annex a Pact Worlds colony, it will be over by November! We mentioned that we will be returning to the 6-volume Adventure Path format in February of 2019, but we have yet to say what's going on in between.

Well, witness as the shadows part to reveal terrible, twisted forms and soft clink of chains. I am so excited—rapturously so—to preach unto to you of the beautiful pain to be found within the Signal of Screams Adventure Path. It all begins when the heroes are treated to an all-expenses-paid vacation to New Elysium, a posh resort on a remote asteroid in the Diaspora. Things slowly begin to go awry, as all good things eventually do, and they will have to protect themselves and some of the other guests from a creeping madness infecting both the staff and the facility. Eventually, their adventures will take them to the Darkside of Verces and beyond as they struggle to overcome the architects of this affliction before it spreads to the rest of the Pact Worlds... and possibly into their souls!

Paizo's very own Chris Sims is writing the first adventure, "The Diaspora Strain," which is for 7th-level characters. That's right, your heroes can go straight from Against the Aeon Throne to Signal of Screams once they return to the Pact Worlds. After all, they deserve a bit of R&R after escaping from Azlanti space with their lives! This volume also includes a new system of corruption that will plague your heroes throughout the campaign written by yours truly, as well as advice for running horror campaigns in the Starfinder RPG written by Epidiah Ravachol, author of the incredibly popular indie RPG Dread.

It's going to be such a scream! From your players, of course.

Jason Keeley
Developer

Starfinder Society Chronicle, Updates from the Organized Play Team

Thursday, December 7, 2017

Mega-Regions

Back in mid-October, Starfinder Society Developer Thurston Hillman gave a sneak peak into Starfinder Alien Archive and the organized play team's plans to introduce more alien species as player character options. We put our heads together and developed the Mega-Region plan!

Over the past weeks, we worked on implementing our idea, writing boons, developing regions, and identifying upcoming conventions running Starfinder Society. The only thing left is to announce the regions to our community. Please note, the Mega-Region is only a unit of accounting. It doesn't change anything about how our organized play volunteers are structured or the Regional Support programs. The first iteration of this plan will start with conventions this weekend. Sometime in March or April, we will rotate the boons around, so that each region has new rewards for their GMs. Future rotations will occur on roughly a 3-month timeframe, so that each region will get all the boons over the course of a year.

Mega-Regions Divisions

• Mega-Region 1—Africa-East Eurasia (AEE) and Asia-Pacific
• 
Mega-Region 2—Central Europe, Northwest, and Southeast
• Mega-Region 3—Western Europe Middle East (WEME), Northeast, and Southwest
• Mega-Region4—Midwest and Great Lakes

But a list of regions is bland, without the races to accompany them. So without further ado, here's the news you need to start planning trips around the globe:

Mega-Region Starting Boons

• Mega-Region 1: Kalo & Verthani
• Mega-Region 2: Draelik & Witchwyrd
• Mega-Region 3: Maraquoi & Nuar
• Mega-Region 4: Formian & Ikeshti

Illustrations by David Franco Campos, Connor Sheehan, Matthias Kinnigkeit, and Pixoloid Studios

When deciding how to handle the regions, we were left with our newest region, Online, as a bit of an oddity, as it encompasses all the physical regions. After putting their heads together, Thurston and John came up with a solution. Instead of being part of the rotation, they would get their own racial boons from a source other than the Alien Archive. In Thurston's words, "The online region gets something unique, while the value of physical regional boons won't be seem devalued by online availability. We think this is a good way to include the new online region in our program, and hope to review it in the future to see what other unique boons might be appropriate for distribution through our online region."

So Online will be Mega Region 5 and GMing a game online will open access to the Ferran & Woioko races, both of which are available Starfinder Adventure Path #2: Temple of the Twelve. Like the races in the Alien Archive, a player needs to own the resource and have the boon to play the race.

Starfinder Season Launch

When the team looked at the summer convention schedule and what spinning up new seasons on two organized play programs meant to our timelines (and sanity), we decided a split release would work better. So we went looking for an event that our players could get to, that had the size and scope of a premier event, and that would welcome the profile of a new season launch. Our choice is Origins Game Faire, June 13-17 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center in Columbus, Ohio. In past, the Ohio Pathfinder Society planned games at Origins. The same leadership team of Mike McNerney and associates will work with myself to bring you a quality, Paizo-sponsored event. Watch this space in early 2018 for the blog calling for GM volunteers.

Starfinder Society Scenarios

Since we rolled the Starfinder Society out at Gen Con 50, players clamored for more content. We've evaluated a number of factors in-house, including available organized play resources and current project commitments (more on this in a future blog). It brings us great pleasure to give our players a treat. To once more quote Starfinder Society Developer Thurston Hillman:

"Two is a pretty cool number. I hear a lot of people talking about two in recent months. Lots of questions and comments about the word two. What is two? What does two mean to you? The dictionary defines two as "equivalent to the sum of one and one." Did you know that two is the smallest and first prime number? Two is also the only even prime number. Did you know that a honeybee must tap TWO million flowers to make one pound of honey!

There's just so many interesting and fun facts about the number two..."

As you may have guessed by Thurston's fixation on the number two, we are pleased to announce an increase to two Starfinder Scenarios a month, starting in March 2018.

Scenario News

We are deep in plans for 2018, so I asked John and Thurston if we could give a few snippets of information about upcoming scenarios. In Thurston's words, "April sees the release of a new Tier 1-4 repeatable scenario. We've received great reviews on Starfinder Society #1-01: the Commencement, and knew we wanted to get another repeatable scenario out. As an added bonus, this scenario is also slated to include starship combat, making it a suitable teaching tool for players just learning Starfinder.

June brings us the release of a new Quest Pack. This should help the summer conventions out by providing further introductory material for bringing in new Starfinder players.

Our first Tier 5-8 scenario debuts in June. This scenario is the capstone for our ongoing Scoured Stars storyline, which began in Starfinder Society #1-05: The First Mandate, and continues until Origins.

June (a popular month) also sees Starfinder Society debut its first interactive special, starting at Origins, with later appearances at Gen Con and conventions across the world. While this event is still being planned out, we are ready to announce that it will be a Tier 1-8 event!

While June is popular, we also want people to know that PaizoCon 2018 is getting closer. This year not only debuts Starfinder Society events at the convention, but also debuts a very special product. Four words: Strawberry Machine Cake Scenario.

*mic drop*

On that note, and given I can't top Strawberry Machine Cake, I'm signing off for this week. With so much Starfinder Society goodness in this blog, we are going to take a break next week, and return on December 20th. Next week's blog will feature some upcoming Pathfinder Society tidbits, since we can't give the Starfinder Society all the shiny new toys!

Until next time—Explore, Report, Cooperate!

Tonya Woldridge
Organized Play Manager

Build Your Own Aliens

Friday, October 6, 2017

There's a chill in the atmosphere, a hint of pumpkin spice in the air recyclers, and fallen leaves are littering the floor of the hydroponics bay. Yes, October is here, and so is the Starfinder Alien Archive! Over the next few weeks, we'll be previewing some of what can be found in this newest offering for the Starfinder RPG, starting with some goodies for Game Masters!

The Alien Archive is chock full of strange alien creatures and fearsome extrasolar monsters to populate your Starfinder games, but when your players discover an uncharted world deep in the Vast, you'll want to create your weird own native life-forms to inhabit it. Fortunately, the Alien Archive has you covered!

First off, in Starfinder, all nonplayer characters (NPCs as well as monsters) are built using different rules from those used to create player characters. Since most monsters are needed for just one encounter, this system allows GMs to quickly and easily create NPCs and monsters without having to go through the entire process of building a player character. So how does it work?

The central components of monster creation in Starfinder are arrays and grafts. Every monster derives the majority of its statistics from one of three arrays, which define the monster's primary role: combatant, expert, or spellcaster. Unsurprisingly, combatants are those who excel in combat, experts are more skill-focused, and spellcasters primarily use spells or other magic. The numbers from a monster's array are not set in stone, but they give you a baseline that can be modified by grafts, special abilities, or your own preferences.

After you've chosen an array for your monster, you add grafts to it, which adjust the monster's various stats and add additional abilities. There are grafts for creature types and subtypes, as well as a graft for each character class. Generally speaking, an NPC or monster will only use a creature type graft or a class graft, not both, depending on the monster's focus. Template grafts are another option that transform a creature in some way. For example, you might create a new alien using the combatant array and the monstrous humanoid creature type graft, then turn it into a shambling, technological undead horror by adding the cybernetic zombie template graft.

Once you have these basics in place, you can start giving your monster special abilities. The monster's array and its CR determine how many special abilities it has. If a monster has a class graft, that class determines most, if not all, of its special abilities, but for non-classed monsters, you can add your own abilities or choose abilities from the list of Universal Creature Rules—those special abilities that appear in the stat blocks of the various creatures in the Alien Archive.

By this point, you're mostly done. Choose your monster's skills and determine a few other statistics like initiative, speed, and languages. If your monster has spells, you'll need to determine which spells it can cast, and you might need to outfit your monster with some armor, weapons, and other gear, but you should have all the statistics you need to use the monster in play.

In addition to dozens of fully detailed creatures, Starfinder Alien Archive provides GMs with tons of options to build and customize NPCs and monsters for Starfinder. Check out the full rules and keep your eyes on the blog for more Alien Archive previews!

Robert G. McCreary
Creative Director, Starfinder

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

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