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I hope this thread is in the right place.

We know that the first AP for Starfinder will involve akatas (they're on the cover of Incident at Absalom Station). How likely will it be that vendors are there selling the old Pathfinder Battles: Legends of Golarion #009 Akata miniatures? Any idea on prices? I'm not too keen on buying boxes of random miniatures, and I found a pretty good price on akatas online, so I'm wondering if I could save on shipping by waiting and buying them at GenCon.

I know that they're going to have paper pawns, but the list from the Core Rulebook doesn't have akatas, and the Alien Archive doesn't have a list up yet (and doesn't come out until November). So it seems like paper pawns are out of the question for me (also not a big fan of paper minis).

Ninja Division is, as I understand it, going to be making miniatures for Starfinder, but right now all I've seen are minis for the iconics and a few space ships. They look pretty cool, but they're not what I'm looking for. So it seems like buying the old PB:LoG akatas are the way to go, but maybe I missed something.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Edit: Also, any idea how many will be needed for the first AP?

OK, So I've been digging around the guts of the various dragons looking to create my own, and I noticed something when I checked what I made against Table 1–1: Monster Statistics by CR in the first Bestiary. Dragon average damage is over their CR by a lot. For example, an Adult Blue Dragon is CR 13 and averages 87 damage: 1 bite, 2 claws, and 2 wings (the breath weapon averages 54 damage), but CR 13 says it should average 60 damage. So the Adult Blue is putting out damage of a creature 3-4 CRs higher. I confirmed this with the other dragons, and it isn't just this one, they are all putting up really high numbers. I know that the table is just a suggestion, but that's a huge jump (+27 damage).

So are dragons supposed to be like this? If so, why, what's the purpose? Sure dragons are supposed to be powerful creatures, but shouldn't CR represent how powerful they are? If you need stronger creatures use stronger creatures, don't just up-jump the damage and keep the CR the same. That's just taking away rewards from the players. Am I missing something? Help me out here guys, Thanks in advance.

I didn't see this particular question asked like this before, but I didn't get much chance to read back through all the forums, so forgive me if I've already been answered.

OK, so let's first start off by talking about smaller blades. Medium sized daggers and small sized short swords. A halfling using a small short sword does 1D4 damage, crits on 19-20 for X2 damage and can use weapon finesse. If that same halfling uses a medium dagger, it does all the same stuff, but at a -2 to hit (right?). The difference is that the weapon is sized wrong for the halfling. Maybe the handle is too thick, the pommel too heavy, whatever. The point is, that halfling can get a small sized short sword, and be just fine.

Now on to the large sized bastard sword: 2D8 damage, crits on 19-20 for X2 damage, but needs a feat to use, and can only be used with two hands. And oh yeah, -2 to attack rolls because it isn't sized for a medium sized creature. So why not just resize the handle (or whatever) to make it easier to use for a medium sized creature; just like they do for the small short sword/medium dagger. The only change would be losing the -2 to hit (unless you're a large sized creature).

The game logic and world logic both allow for it, so why not?

And I would really appreciate some feedback. Here is a link to the PrC from my google drive.
I used the Dragonslayer from the 3.5 Draconomicon as a base for the class, and the Dragonslayer Kit from the old Council of Wyrms AD&D 2nd Edition books for more inspiration. I also tried to give abilities and options that would definitely be useful against dragons, but maybe also against other big nasty monsters.

Some of the changes I made were making the +1 spellcaster level happen on even numbered levels. Overall that means at level 10, you don't lose any spell caster levels compared to the original version from 3.5, but you won't be taking it for free martial weapons, heavy armor, and no spellcasting loss.

With the Dragonslayer Talents, I tried to give enough options for creating your own flavor of dragonslayer. So if you wanted to use a shield and be super defensive, you have options, but if you want to be a straight up dragon murderer you'll also be able to do that.

Things I struggled with are the damage bonus vs bane (dragons) ability, and armored evasion. I originally had bane (dragons) as a 1st level ability instead of the damage bonus, but decided to keep it the same as it was in 3.5 and have bane (dragons) be an optional Dragonslayer Talent (with Improved Dragonbane later) so as to not infringe upon Inquisitors too much. Armored Evasion seems like something someone would learn eventually when fighting dragons, but it also seems a little bit too powerful. Hopefully if someone thinks that particular talent is too strong they will just disallow it in their games instead of taking the whole PrC off the table.

Anyways, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I've been wanting to do this PrC for a while now, and I'm excited to hear what you think!

Magic kinda solves the problem of needing energy to power things, doesn't it? Think about it, how long does a sword of thunder stay magical? Say a word, and you've immediately got an unlimited, constant supply of electricity. Sure, this might not be enough to charge a rail gun to fire multiple shots each round, but after thousands of years of refining the process, why wouldn't there be a magical solution to the problem of limited resources?

I've heard that no one will go to wizard college for years to learn how to cast light since anyone can go out, and buy a flashlight. However, light is a cantrip, and you could cast it as often as you wanted. What about prestidigitation? That spell is extremely useful if you're creative enough! No more having to do laundry, your food & drink is always hot/cold, and all the thousands of little things you can do with it (using enough creativity) without using any kind of resources.

All of this is thinking that only going to "wizard college" can give you access to it, but that was back in the days of Old Golarion. Look at how much our world has changed just from having decent public education. Kids are being taught in elementary school things that would be considered advanced science and math 1,000 years ago, and Starfinder is set multiple 1,000's of years into its future. Add in wizardly magic to the public school's curriculum, and you've got a society that churns out mid level wizards by the time they're ready to join the workforce.

Think about what would happen in our world if we had a device that had a functionally limitless supply of light (like an everburning torch). Sure it takes years of study to be able to create something like that, but eventually, with the permanency spell, or just the creation of certain magic items, any technological item we have today could have a magical component that eliminates the need for batteries or fuel; just power it with magic. Have an electric car? Stick that thundering longsword in the battery slot, and drive forever!

Even if a magic item eventually runs out of power, how long would that take? A lot of spells have a duration of "permanent" so how long is that really? How long does a +1 sword of thunder stay powered? If I recall, most found magical items are already 1,000's of years old (that's some of the baggage of having a magical world with super ancient magic: permanent tends to be PERMANENT).

What do you think?