Charabdos, The Tidal King's page

moosher12 wrote:

Finoan wrote:

Now with the release of Starfinder2e and the mechanics compatibility, there is a new rarity of 'Nonexistent'. That is the default rarity for items from the opposite game in both directions.

Nonexistant makes sense in pathfinder, as even among Numerian technology, some stuff simply has not been invented yet even among the spacefaring races, but it's impossible for any Pathfinder concept to be nonexistant in Starfinder beyond a species going extinct. Take a sword, for example. There are so many space swords, that I doubt it's impossible to find instructions to make a normal sword.

My partner picked up blacksmithing as a hobby, not exactly something needed in this day and age.

That's a 'but reality' argument.

Yes, there are a lot of swords already printed for Starfinder.

So why - regarding the game mechanics - should the baseline assumption be that an Archaic sword from Pathfinder is available? And the runes to upgrade it with.

Your sword wielding character can use a modern Starfinder sword. Unless you have a particular game mechanics reason for wanting that specific sword from Pathfinder. Which sounds like you are trying to go hunting for a game mechanics advantage.

To add to what others have said. There's also a vesk heritage that assumes you have access to armor runes.

Charabdos, The Tidal King wrote:

I want the party to be from different worlds and have different skill sets. Some would be familiar with high tech. Some only with runes. Honestly it depends on what the players decide to make.

The campaign is inspired by Ravenloft so they're all going to be people randomly kidnapped by an eldritch force (the Red Death).

Think Rasputin Must Die meets Black Stars Beckon inspired plot, but in a STALKER and Metro inspired setting

Nothing in the Starfinder setting stops people from picking up hammer and anvil, selecting the Magical Crafting Skill Feat, grabbing their Rune Formulas and start making Archaic weapons with Runes.

It is just inefficient compared to making Analaog/Tech items out of UBP.
Making Archaic Weapons with runes is like somebody making swords in the year 2025. Which some people do, but isn't a industry at scale.

As long as you don't cross or combine the two upgrade paths, it shouldd work out fine.

If I was the GM, I would just say that Archaic items and Runes are uncommon in most parts of Starfinder. You would have to go and look for a "Runesmith" that likely only does work on order, but you can probably find someone in a place like Absalom station.

In your setting, both could be common and coexist.

Well, I don't expect them to he able to combine them, it was always a question of "are grades available as an alternative to runes for archaics?".

LandSwordBear wrote:

Only if it ties into locations such as Phobos and Deimos and the first adventure is called “Knee Deep in the Dead”.

Well we know Earth's solar system is totally a thing in Pathfinder so maybe that's possible?

Isn't it also canonically John Carter of Mars Earth? So Sol is a system with lots of native aliens, incouding native Martians.

Charabdos, The Tidal King wrote:

The phrasing is that all Pathfinder items are Archaic, not that all archaic items are Pathfinder items.

I should also clarify that the pocket dimension is a post-apocalypse 1980s era Soviet Union. Think less M16s and SA80s and more World War 1 and 2 surplus maintained with pieces of recycled shovel heads.

There were Flamethrowers, Grenades, light machine guns and machien pistols. Don't underestimate WW1 Weapons technology.

I just have no idea how to do Bolt Action rifles like the Lee Enfield. Capacity doesn't mean anything because it is 2H anyway. Maybe Unwieldy?

WW1 stuff should still be Analog and on the SF2 side.
But it is reaching the point where the question is: Do you want to use Archaic rules including Runes or stick to SF2 Analog/Tech rules?

I want the party to be from different worlds and have different skill sets. Some would be familiar with high tech. Some only with runes. Honestly it depends on what the players decide to make.

The campaign is inspired by Ravenloft so they're all going to be people randomly kidnapped by an eldritch force (the Red Death).

Think Rasputin Must Die meets Black Stars Beckon inspired plot, but in a STALKER and Metro inspired setting

Steel is very much used:

Player Core pg. 261 wrote:

Shooting Starknife: This traditional star-shaped blade design of lost Golarion is often forged ffrom reinforced carbon steel and treated with chemicals that create an iridescent sheen.

I took a course in material science back when I majored in mechanical engineering. I can tell you while that might sound impressive, that's just ordinary steel with a fancy coating. Basically just one of various grades of steel. All carbon steel is is baking steel for a specific amount of time at a specific temperature and pressure, etc. It's not as futuristic as it sounds.

Our ancients were accidentally making carbon steel as far back as when they believed that smelting a blade over the corpses of the fallen would make the blade better.

Then shouldn't archaic not even exist? I'm more confused than ever as to how the game draws the line. Medieval weapons were also made using high carbon steel. Why would they be archaic? This is turning into a headache.

Charabdos, The Tidal King wrote:

Christopher#2411504 wrote:

Wait, I didn't even see it was 1980's. Yeah, that stuff is Analog to Tech!

The time is way heavier on the Analog then the Tech side. But Archaic? Why would you even think that?

Because the Archaic trait is described as being made using what Starfinder considers "traditonal" materials. Whatever spacey sci-fi stuff goes into Analog weapons is distinct from "traditional" materials like steel.

For example, a dagger is made of steel, but a knife is made of some unspecified "better" material that makes it not be Archaic.

Pathfinder is Archaic Weapons. That is actually the second sentence in each of the Traits paragraphs.

They have nothing even remotely close to a automatic weapons, anti-tank weapons, aluminimum/composite materials, computers, radars and literal nuclear weapons on ICBMs that the 1980's had.

Given that the whole "traditional material" stuff is more flavor text and we didn't do rune engraving in 1980's, you ran off in a really odd direction here. And I was wondering how they can avoid that.

The phrasing is that all Pathfinder items are Archaic, not that all archaic items are Pathfinder items.

I should also clarify that the pocket dimension is a post-apocalypse 1980s era Soviet Union. Think less M16s and SA80s and more World War 1 and 2 surplus maintained with pieces of recycled shovel heads.

Wait, I didn't even see it was 1980's. Yeah, that stuff is Analog to Tech!

The time is way heavier on the Analog then the Tech side. But Archaic? Why would you even think that?

Because the Archaic trait is described as being made using what Starfinder considers "traditonal" materials. Whatever spacey sci-fi stuff goes into Analog weapons is distinct from "traditional" materials like steel.

For example, a dagger is made of steel, but a knife is made of some unspecified "better" material that makes it not be Archaic.

I would say no. The item grade rules are for Starfinder items. Archaic items imported from Pathfinder would use the equivalent Runes.

Improving Equipment wrote:

Most types of armor, shields, and weapons in Starfinder come in a variety of grades.

The balance consideration is that the two paths for upgrades shouldn't stack. You should either have a Club with a Major Striking Rune that does 4d6 damage, or have a Paragon Baton that does 4d6 damage. You shouldn't try to have a Paragon Club with a Major Striking Rune and argue that it now does 8d6 damage.

But not all Archaic items would be imported from Pathinder. All Pathfinder items are Archaic, but nothing stops the GM or Paizo from adding new Archaic items that are original.

I ask this question because I intend to add Archaic guns to a setting I wish to run. The party will be sent to a 1980s tech era demiplane and will only get Archaic items in loot. They can still craft their own items but enemy loot will be made of just steel and wood.

She’s not one of the biggest 20 gods relevant to the Pact Worlds in general and adventures in particular. Maybe sun worship is passe when you know the sun is a big ball of gas and there are billions more just in this galaxy, maybe moral concerns are less import to a jaded tech audience with mass social media, maybe she was uniquely focused on human concerns and there aren’t enough humans around anymore to make her reach too 20 status

But the sun isn't just a big ball of gas. It's a portal to Creation's Forge and thus the way mortal souls enter the system. Most stars are.

Reddit seems to think it's the latter. But the rules contain no such limit. The only limit I've seen in the book is that Archaic weapons don't have upgrade slots.

Full disclosure, I feel that video-game style tanks aren't a good fit for TTRPG in the vast majority of cases. It's kind of immersion breaking for me when characters go around expecting to take lots of damage over and over.

I mean, for fun, imagine the job interview for the party.

Party: "So, what would you say that you bring to the team?"

Vanguard: "Well, I can take a beating, and if I get hurt enough, I can do lots of things to reduce the damage myself and you all might take later on."

Party: "Okay, what else?"

Vanguard: "... like I said, when I get hurt I can make weird things happen that can protect you all."

Party: "Let's say no one is hurt. What are your specialties?"

Vanguard, sweating: "...I could maybe stab myself in the leg and-"

Party: "I think we're done here."

I see you stopped reading the class description at "Reactive".

Solarians are Monks.

Vanguards are Brawlers.

Who are the Razatlani? I don't remember them mentioned before.

Charabdos, The Tidal King wrote:

Are there any rules for Building and Modifying Constructs/Robots?

The drones in the book work like gear (with item levels and prices and what-not), so I assume they can be crafted using the normal craft rules from the CRB page 235. There isn't anything about crafting constructs/robots from like out of the AA books, though.

Damn, alright.

Do any of the new armor types have anything that makes them worth it compared to CRB armors?

Mark Seifter wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

All I want to know is: Did the healer Barbarian have the Cleric multiclass archetype?

Yep. Some of you guessed it right away because I described her as unhealthily obsessed with Gorum.

This... is really disappointing. Even having read the justifications and clarifications through the thread, it still feels like it's cheating to know that the "Healer Barbarian" was still at least part Cleric. Oh well, just that much more reason to try my own hand at a non-Cleric Healer build. Probably Sorc or Alchemist.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Shinigami02 wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

All I want to know is: Did the healer Barbarian have the Cleric multiclass archetype?

Yep. Some of you guessed it right away because I described her as unhealthily obsessed with Gorum.

This... is really disappointing. Even having read the justifications and clarifications through the thread, it still feels like it's cheating to know that the "Healer Barbarian" was still at least part Cleric. Oh well, just that much more reason to try my own hand at a non-Cleric Healer build. Probably Sorc or Alchemist.

It's also important to note that the barbarian came in a post with a list of all the classes I had seen do some healing, in addition to the specification that she was very weird compared to the others; she became popular on that thread due to people being interested in the barbarian that healed. It's not like I posted in the thread about healers and made it just about barbarians.

What's unfortunate is we didn't have the complete picture, so people got the idea that there were viable non-magical options for healing.

Not "a barbarian/cleric" can heal.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Shinigami02 wrote:

Mark Seifter wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

All I want to know is: Did the healer Barbarian have the Cleric multiclass archetype?

Yep. Some of you guessed it right away because I described her as unhealthily obsessed with Gorum.

This... is really disappointing. Even having read the justifications and clarifications through the thread, it still feels like it's cheating to know that the "Healer Barbarian" was still at least part Cleric. Oh well, just that much more reason to try my own hand at a non-Cleric Healer build. Probably Sorc or Alchemist.

It's also important to note that the barbarian came in a post with a list of all the classes I had seen do some healing, in addition to the specification that she was very weird compared to the others; she became popular on that thread due to people being interested in the barbarian that healed. It's not like I posted in the thread about healers and made it just about barbarians.

What's unfortunate is we didn't have the complete picture, so people got the idea that there were viable non-magical options for healing.

Not "a barbarian/cleric" can heal.

Mark Seifter wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

All I want to know is: Did the healer Barbarian have the Cleric multiclass archetype?

Yep. Some of you guessed it right away because I described her as unhealthily obsessed with Gorum.

I am quite disappointed to hear that. When you said a barbarian was functioning as the primary healer, I expected it to be an actual barbarian and not a Barbarian/Cleric multiclassed character. Casters are still required to be the healer, it's just you get the "cleric feat" version of mutliclassing instead of 3.5e style multiclassing.

Stop it, you're embarrassing yourselves. It's been clarified over and over that she was mostly using the Medicine skill and items and used her cleric multiclass to prep combat buffs, not healing magic.

Are there any rules for Building and Modifying Constructs/Robots?

** spoiler omitted **

Soldiers get a new fighting style, called shock and awe, that focuses on overwhelming enemies with auditory and visual stimuli.

Relevant.

F5 F5 F5 F5 F5........

Hah, tell me about it!

Handcannons question

Operative Melee Weapons

Charabdos, The Tidal King wrote:

pithica42 wrote:

Dark Midian wrote:

Out of curiosity, how many hand cannons are there, and do they have any neat effects?

** spoiler omitted **

How many new kinetic side arms are there overall? What are their niches/gimmicks?

** spoiler omitted **

Huh, interesting.

Dark Midian wrote:

Out of curiosity, how many hand cannons are there, and do they have any neat effects?

** spoiler omitted **

How many new kinetic side arms are there overall? What are their niches/gimmicks?

Why no more answers?

Remind: Line weapons still target AC, meaning it's possible to fire it and miss all targets in a line, or only hit one of them. The beam is not large enough to guarantee damage (or target Reflex saves).

The attack roll on a Line isn't separate for each target. You only roll it once and compare it to the AC of every creature in a line. So a line of Sprites (I forgot Pixies are Small, not Tiny, so pretend I said Sprites before) all share the same AC and so it's all or nothing when it comes to hitting them.

Well, perhaps you're right. Multiple targets are not *explicitly" called out in the general plasma flavor text, so there's no reason why a single target plasma gun can't or shouldn't exist.

Oh, single target plasma guns already exist in Starfinder, but there's only 1 type, and it's a high level gun with only 2 tiers to it. It's called a Plasma Caster and it comes in a 13th level version and a 17th level version.

All I was saying is that I hope the Armory adds more single-target plasma variants besides the Plasma Caster, whose gimmick is that it deals loads of damage at the cost of loads of charges.

One of your complaints, correct me if I'm wrong, is that plasma guns in SF function like irl flamethrowers, yes? If that's true, then I bring you back to the fact that there'as no description for how wide the beam of plasma is. It can very well be a tiny, narrow beam that penetrates all targets in a line, or an incredibly wide, flamethrower-like shot that engulfs all targets in a line. It's all theater of the mind. You can imagine it whichever ways suits you best

If you were actually getting at something else, then my mistake.

Multiple creatures can share a space, so it's probably big enough to hit many creatures. If a line was made entirely of squares filled with 4 pixies each, all spread out instead of lined up in any way, a plasma pistol or rifle would still hit all of them.

"Superheated or electromagnetically charged gas becomes ionized plasma, which plasma weapons emit in a controlled blast"

Just saying: Nothing in there about how thick it is, just that it is powerful enough to penetrate multiple objects.

Sorry, I didn't mean the fluff on Plasma Weapons in general, I meant the fluff on Plasma Pistols and Plasma Rifles specifically, which fire lines of plasma, as opposed to something like the Plasma Caster, which fires bolts like the Plasma Guns in Fallout or the Blasters in Star Wars.

And it doesn't actually say anything about plasma being able to penetrate multiple objects under the fluff for Plasma Weapons in general.

Charabdos, The Tidal King wrote:

Zaister wrote:

Not sure what you bey fallout weapons.

It's a video game series. Basically I meant if there's any pew pew plasma pistols and rifles as opposed to flamethrower style plasma guns.

Ah ok, I know the games, but I have never played one of them. There is a list of plasma small arms. As in Pathfinder, in Starfinder plasma is electricity and fire.

So are they single shot as opposed to AoE? And are there any plasma longarms like that that are single shot ad opposed to AoE?

Tldr; plasma guns are "line" weapons, flamethrowers are "blast" weapons. Flame rifles and flame pistol are "line" weapons with a very flamethrower feel (you could say they are focused flamethrowers), but I still get a strong "fallout" vibe fro "line" plasma guns, each shot so hot that it pierces the target. It's the same mechanic for both these last weapons, but with a different flavor to then imo

1. I was referencing real flamethrowers, which shoot jets in a line.

2. The flavour text clearly says the plasma weapons shoot a literal line of plasma. It's not just a hot projectile that goes all the way through the target due to its heat, it's a thick lance of plasma that goes through the whole line as a continuous beam.

Not sure what you bey fallout weapons.

It's a video game series. Basically I meant if there's any pew pew plasma pistols and rifles as opposed to flamethrower style plasma guns.

Sorry, I can't post any more details tonight. I'll try agaim tomorrow.

I await eagerly!

Any new ballistic side arms?

What are the non magical weapon mods?

Are there single shot plasma weapons ala fallout?

Are there laser shotguns?

I will echo the sentiment that an upgrade system for normal weapons and armor would be grand.

Charabdos, The Tidal King wrote:

Radiation guns? Single target Plasma guns? New Power armor?

Urge to run Fallout in Starfinder rising!

I ran a Fallout world in Starfinder. I overlayed the local map of my area and apocalypsed it, made it so vehicles would serve as starships without the drift and space capabilities (although that was an option given they could get to the right people considering what happened in New Vegas) and I set it to just as Triune was sending out the drift beam, so that info was kicking around certain people's heads. There were raiders and ghouls. I used this https://www.sfrpgtools.com/monster-builder to help me remake some classic Fallout monsters. It was really fun.

I'm currently running a 5e urban arcana game so it'll be a while before I run fallout Starfinder, but my main hurdle in conversion was the lack of non plasmathrower style plasma weapons.

My idea is to use spaceships for naval vehicles, with travel up and down the great lakes being a feature of the campaign.

Radiation guns? Single target Plasma guns? New Power armor?

Urge to run Fallout in Starfinder rising!

Monks aren't trained in any weapons, but they are trained in all unarmed attacks.

Then I must've imagined all those monks I had that used Monk Weapons.

Depends. I can entirely buy the concept of a person or species with some kind of "preternatural weapon usage", whose features include "ignore the archaic property". I know nothing about the Izalguun, though, so I can't judge appropriateness.

I think the idea is that while their tech looks primitive, it's actually not, so outsiders don't know how to use it correctly, and so in their hands it's no better than the primitive version.

So, I really liked this race when I saw it and want to homebrew a PC version, but I don't quite understand what the "Modernized Arms" means.

Modernized Arms (Ex) Any izalguun equipment that would normally have the archaic weapon property loses this property when wielded by an izalguun.

Does it mean that:

a) Archaic weapons built by Izalguun lack that property?

b) All archaic weapons suddenly lose that property when an Izalguun picks them up?

c) Archaic weapons built by Izalguun lack that property when wielded by them but gain it when used by others?

I'm leaning towards a) or c) because it's an Ex ability, so I can't imagine it miraculously remove the Archaic property of a PCs club when an Izalguun picks it up.

Looks good.

"You must respect the lawful authority of the legitimate ruler or leadership in whichever land you may be, even if those laws are ludicrous, unjust, unfair."

Urgathoa.

NEXT TOPIC!

I still say raising your shield to gain a passive bonus to defense makes no sense, and seeing as you can never improve a shield's bonus to AC through magical enchantment, the suggestion for the bonus to be permanent is perfectly reasonable mechanically.

And before anyone says you have to actively use a shield to block, the Raise Shield action is not blocking, the Shield Block reaction is. As a passive defense AC represents how hard it is for your enemy's weapon to hit your body, hence why a big wooden board in front of you is a passive bonus to AC, by adding an extra barrier between your enemy's weapon and your body, forcing the enemy to go around it, and hence the AC bonus.

Deflecting the blows attempting to circumvent your shield is an active defense, which makes sense for it to require a reaction, but having a shield between you and the enemy, forcing them to have to go around it, is a passive defense, there's no more action needed to it than making sure you're always facing that enemy.

I see fusion seals also came out of the PF2 Playtest. I hope the maths is less confusing for these than for SF.

Wait, Lamashtu will let you heal? Really?

She's a mother goddess with lots of children to look after. They might be all evil monsters, but they need boo-boos patched up too.

Many other classes that follow similar restrictions have their own anathema. Care to guess which ones those might be?

Monk, druid, and paladin?

Charabdos, The Tidal King wrote:

For people complaining about weapon damage: proportional strength is a thing.

Claudio Stroe, a child bodybuilder, can lift 4 times his body weight with ease, a feat adult bodybuilders struggle with greatly.

Now imagine a small race character with the same muscle definition. That character would be proportionally as strong as a body builder, and be able to wield a blade proportionally as heavy. An average 1-handed sword is 2.5 to 3 lbs., Arnold Schwarzenneger as Conan swung around a 8.5 lb. sword 1-handed. That's 1.7 times as heavy as a greatsword (a real life one).

So a small character with that kind of proportional strength would have no trouble wielding a sword that was heavy and long enough to deal comparable damage to a human's 3 lb. sword (it would probably weigh around 2 to 2.5 lbs though), as long as it had a properly sized grip.

It would probably be longer than arm's length (in humans, the optimum size for a 1-handed sword is about the length of the user's arm, and we know goblin dogslicers are arm's length if not longer, and those are equivalent to shortswords for them) and wider than an equivalent medium weapon, but that character would be able to swing it around just as easily as a human can a medium 1-handed sword.

Now imagine that small character has 18 STR and looks like this...

So an intelligent, sword-wielding ant should easily cut a human in half because ants are very strong for their size.

Also, if the same ant can roar, that should be as terrifying as a lion's roar, because size doesn't matter for intimidation.

Things may be different in 2e, but in PF you usually had higher strength for larger creatures, and lower strength for smaller ones. There were also rules that modified strength and...

Don't be silly, even the largest size sword an ant could wield is too small to be as deadly, but a small sized creature can wield swords that are heavier than medium shortswords. A 36 lb goblin should have no issue lifting a 3 lb sword 1 handed with the same ease a 137 lb human can.

What I'm saying is that a small logsword isn't just a medium logsword scaled to 1/2 size, a small creature can use a sword much heavier than that with ease.

For people complaining about weapon damage: proportional strength is a thing.

Claudio Stroe, a child bodybuilder, can lift 4 times his body weight with ease, a feat adult bodybuilders struggle with greatly.

Now imagine a small race character with the same muscle definition. That character would be proportionally as strong as a body builder, and be able to wield a blade proportionally as heavy. An average 1-handed sword is 2.5 to 3 lbs., Arnold Schwarzenneger as Conan swung around a 8.5 lb. sword 1-handed. That's 1.7 times as heavy as a greatsword (a real life one).

So a small character with that kind of proportional strength would have no trouble wielding a sword that was heavy and long enough to deal comparable damage to a human's 3 lb. sword (it would probably weigh around 2 to 2.5 lbs though), as long as it had a properly sized grip.

It would probably be longer than arm's length (in humans, the optimum size for a 1-handed sword is about the length of the user's arm, and we know goblin dogslicers are arm's length if not longer, and those are equivalent to shortswords for them) and wider than an equivalent medium weapon, but that character would be able to swing it around just as easily as a human can a medium 1-handed sword.

Now imagine that small character has 18 STR and looks like this...

J-Bone wrote:

From the Beastiary description of the Orcs:

An adult male orc is roughly 6 feet tall and 210 pounds.
Orcs and humans interbreed frequently, though this is
almost always the result of raids and slave-taking rather
than consensual unions. Many orc tribes purposefully
breed for half-orcs and raise them as their own, as the
smarter progeny make excellent strategists and leaders
for their tribes.

So it seems pretty clear that rapey orcs is built into the Orc sauce.

I always saw that as propaganda by the bigoty humans that want to oppress the orc kind and want to keep human blood "pure."

You should read Orcs of Golarion, they are really that bad.

Orcs are a race of psychopaths and rapists. Why should that be a core race? This isn't Warcraft or Might and Magic, orcs aren't reasonable or honorable, their gods are the most vile things imaginable and they reflect that in every aspect, from being unable to form traumatic memories in order to not develop regret over their actions to having a culture based around abusing those under your "control" (your subordinates, your slaves, your wives, and even your children).

I'm not impressed tbh. Combined with the elf and dwarf preview PF2 is sounding like someone really wanted to spread level 1 over 20 levels.

So nothings change about the race? Goblins are liable to be attacked on sight for being members of a baby eating race PC or not? Why is that core worthy again?

Or maybe Riding Rats can just be available.

I don't think that's anywhere near as cool.

Charabdos, The Tidal King wrote:

Joe M. wrote:

Per the FAQ:

Quote:

The upcoming CRPG uses the existing Pathfinder rules.

Oooh, I thought they were making their own system like for Pathfinder Online (Is that ever going to happen?).

My understanding is that it's not *exactly* the PF1 system but it's pretty close? I don't have a lot of info on that though, this is some half-remembered thing

If it's anything like the Neverwinter Nights games I'll be happy.

Yeeeeeees.