CrimsonKnight's page

I look forward to full casters in SF2.

Devices on ships that amplify spells to make them relevant in space combat.
Teleporting squads on enemy ships.

Ultimately how much magic is present in your game is up to you and your GM.

unleash the nanite swarms.

More cool stuff, Yes please give us more... all the cool stuff.

Are you working in the Engine Bay, or on the weapons?

Would be great if they allowed that in starfinder society.

I have RPG books that are fairly massive (lots of pages). I get that Paizo wants to keep the page size down including making it less intimidating for new players, easier to transport, etc.

PF2 is nicely divided between core books and lost omens books.
core books 80% mechanics and 20% lore
lost omens 20% mechanics and 80% lore

SF2 could offload some (or all) its lore into its own line of books

One option I think should exist is for transformation of mecha (to starfighter tank etc.) and power armor (to hovercraft, motorcycle, car, etc.). It may already exist in SF1 but the option would be great in SF2.

Mech/fighter pilot class or dedication.

Some missile or weapon to shoot above its scale.

On a topic other than skills and high-tech combat: I'm assuming the game will have some form of rules for building ships and/or a home base. It would be really neat if those rules had some form of mechanical benefit for comfort. Starfinder 1e had the ability to build entertainment centers as well as allowing for different levels of crew quarters. It would be nice if these actually did something.

As a sci-fi example, compare the amenities on the Enterprise-D, which is essentially a heavily armed luxury liner with bars, holodecks, civilian families, a park, and so on, to those of the Defiant which are so spare that crew have to hot bunk and subsist on ration bars instead of replicated meals.

The only game I can recall having something like this accounted for in its rules was Burn Bryte, which was released as a Roll20 exclusive a few years back.

That would be nice. Sort of like a morale bonus.

Which are all great points for a realistic depiction of the modern day. Starfinder is not that.

good thing I'm not asking for that.

It's a game set in a science fantasy setting. Its goals are not to accurately model modern warfare, or even a hypothetical state of futuristic warfare. Its goals are to give the players tools to tell cool stories together, and to both look and feel cool while doing so.

Giant mecha, dragons, magic/psychic powers, FTL, Gods, etc. I think everyone knows it is Science Fantasy.

Telling those players who want to play as legally distinct Jedi, or members of Dune's noble houses, or whatever other melee-focused sci fi trope you can think of that they're wrong and they're going to have a bad time because that's how things work in our modern-day reality is pretty well guaranteed to make them feel bad, and also shuts off all the cool stories...

So instead you want to tell the players who like the Artillery, sniping, BFGs, or whatever other ranged-focused sci fi trope you can think of. That they're wrong and they're going to have a bad time because that's how things work in the game is pretty well guaranteed to make them feel bad, and also shuts off all the cool stories.

Most of the premade stories so far (and all the ones I've played in) have had the two sides basically on top of each other. abilities and encounters are thus limited to such short ranges.

Look at even modern day yes you have every solder has a knife and many civilians have them too. does it have its place? Yes, But what is the primary weapon around the world a gun. Do people practice sword fighting, i enjoy fencing and HEMA like the rest. Just as deadly? I don't know if you worked in an ER or have seen much gun violence or the aftermath but I've stitched plenty of knife wounds and sent them back on their day. Tissue trauma from a gun is usually far greater. I've seen the kind of power my rifle sends down range.

Knives are near silent so are crossbows and bows.

dunes's personal shields if you can stop something going fast you can stop something going slow

the jedi are an example, the whole universe was made for the lightsabers to work unless the plot needed them not to like "order 66".
Worf has his Bat'leth and plot armor plenty of klingons where killed by phasers, disruptors, etc. before they had a chance to swing.

Melee weapons as a side arm/weapon of last resort/or if you have the prefect opportunity makes sense.

I'll put it this way there is a grisly bear who is charging to kill and eat you (only one will live). you have a choice modern melee weapon or a modern high power gun. you are trained with both, What would you choose?

YES!!! Want.

More customization, more player options. have some prebuilts for those who want to play quickly (iconics?)

Mech ad power armor options from level one/two with a dedication for Power armor have options for light power armor like the power suits from Bubblegum Crisis

For laser and some energy weapons an interesting suggestion is to make them having a different distance penalty of ballistic weapons. These weapons usually doesn't loose precision due the distance, specially if they get auxiliary target systems but its perfectly acceptable that light and some energy beams looses power over the distance so their distance penalty could come in form of diminish the damage dice size.

So a laser pistol instead of lose precision after 40 ft it can diminish its damage to d4 if the target is between 40-80ft and to d2 if the target is between 80-120ft and them no damage after this.

is this to simulate beam divergence and scattering? I really like this idea for things like charged particle beams like ion weaponseven if the numbers need to be tweaked

CrimsonKnight wrote:

Some of my wishes:

Scifi is not a coat of paint to add to objects. A sword is a sword, adding a "chain saw" or making it out of energy doesn't change things.
1. The problem with melee. Sure your character has an energy great axe, don't expect to live long enough to use it.

The game probably will have armor e defensive tecnologies that is more effective vs range than melee. For example, imagine an energy shield that's more effective vs small projectiles and laser weapons but is useless vcs heavy masses like from melee weapons.(basically this is a high-tech version of Wall of Wind).

Basicly game designers bending over backwards to make melee relevant.

CrimsonKnight wrote:

2. The technology level should exceed what we have today (combat drones and optics for shooting from cover, ballistic computers that adjust target rectical by distance), should be how we think of a bow and arrow today.

Yes but at same time that defensive technologies will also better. Drones could be disable by EMP, optics could be scrambled and the good old cover will still a good option for many cases.

CrimsonKnight wrote:

3. Make medicine int instead of wisdom. Medicine even for the ancient Egyptians and Greeks was recorded and transferred as book knowledge, they where not always right but that is true with all science-based persuts.

Make sense but this probably won't happen because of PF2 compatibility. Yet this could be done by some skill feat that allows to use int instead of wiz for medicine checks...

Exactly what I'm hoping for.

Mega-stuctures like Dyson sphere/swarm, ring worlds, starkiller base...

As far as what I mean by fabricators, think player controlled industrial replicators.

Starfinder seemed to push the tone of the game towards "Flash Gordon" and "Buck Rogers" when I was trying to do things like firefly, legend of the galactic heroes, the expanse without too many house rules to keep track of.

Some of my wishes:
Scifi is not a coat of paint to add to objects. A sword is a sword, adding a "chain saw" or making it out of energy doesn't change things.
1. The problem with melee. Sure your character has an energy great axe, don't expect to live long enough to use it.
2. The technology level should exceed what we have today (combat drones and optics for shooting from cover, ballistic computers that adjust target rectical by distance), should be how we think of a bow and arrow today.
3. Make medicine int instead of wisdom. Medicine even for the ancient Egyptians and Greeks was recorded and transferred as book knowledge, they where not always right but that is true with all science-based persuts.
4. The primacy of the synthetic. What is stronger, muscles or hydraulics? Cyborgs, robots, and exoskeleton should be doing things meat sacks can't. Not "fair", just borg up.
5. If it will be galactic adventure rules for rolling up planets (and other celestial bodies) including with hostile environments. (Players vs planet)
6. Mega-structures
7. Starship combat with fleet rules.
8. Fabricators

I want to see a book on cybernetics and gene modifications.

- uplift that beaver and give him a chainsaw arm - no ash tree will be safe.
- where not born a Nephilim but want their wings - sure will that be credits?
- put a camera in your eye and have the evidence for "self defense"
- become a space elf or just look like one
...
Remember, "Your body Your way"

Played all three
GMed all three
society-ed all three

I think moving to a unified rule set is a great move.
For SF1: I found the campy Flash Gordon like nature that Piazo was aiming for not my style. I discarded the setting as fast as I could. the game transformed into either going the route of "Dyson sphere program"/"satasfacrory", "Stellaris"/"legend of the galactic heroes", or "Star Trek" with magic.

as far as ancestry goes it doesn't matter if it is a pixie or a uplifted pug piloting the 100 ton war mech, it is still a 100 ton war mech.

going the other way it wouldn't make much sense for a pathfinder character to have the computer skill. then again there is the inventor class with what can be called power armor.

I see this shift in SF to SF2E as a overdue win for both Player's and GM's (excluding pocket book).

I'm of the opinion that just as it can be assumed that all SF characters have a ranged option, all PF characters have a ranged option thus neutralizing the tactical advantage of flight.

vlaka please. Dogos need something

Due SF2 being more ranged weapons focused and expects to get fly speed sooner this could be a default rule for SF2 while for PF2 games would be the opposite just allowing SF2 imported ancestries to fly later.

Every pf2 character can and should pick up a bow, crossbow, sling, or have some other ranged offense or they are asking to become a arrow pincushion.

upgrades and augments just need to be expanded

AoE Blasts can help your "friends" the lesson not to go into melee willingly. You are excluded form your blasts doesn't mean your allies are.

I hope vlaka are one of them we need good dogos, shoony are incomplete and thus seem like a joke. heck Mark had more for a joke ancestry (the dungeon even before it was expanded).

What they showed us is just taster document. The document couldn't have new mechanics or they would have to be included also. That sort of thing comes when the actual play test comes out.

Wait, somebody plays without Free Archetype? Weird people.

The tables that so society play don't use Free Archetype

quick question on "QUICK-SWAP [reaction] FEAT 1
SOLDIER
Trigger You are wielding a two-handed weapon and a creature
moves adjacent to you.
You stow your current weapon and draw another two-handed
weapon. If you have multiple sets of arms, you can instead choose
a set to become active."

Why is it limited to handed weapon and not open it up for 1h or even "sword and board"?

over/under guns like Ripley's Flamethrower from Aliens or an m203

Please have a cover/portable cover(shields/big heavy shields) system

"you can't dodge a bullet[or laser] but you can stop it in its tracks"

Alow for rwmote optics putting cameras on drones, guns, etc so the players can shoot with only their hands not behind cover. indirect weapons to go around cover (such as artillery).

area fire and automatic fire both have save DCs

Love the focus on ranged soldier.

What happens if the battery and gun do not match
a tactical gun and a commercial battery or visa versa?

Some suggestions
move the tactual modifier to something like a targeting, smart, or guided "rune"
move the advanced modifier to something like a potency "rune"
This will shrink the list so more types can be added when it goes to print
and you could make projectile weapons get the same treatment
you can also have a multi feed system allowing the same gun do fire damage from fire ammo and cold damage from cold ammo and have something like an interact action to switch the feed the gun pulls from.

Classes/archetypes I would like to see:
drone commander - beast master but with robots
power armor/mech pilot
reality hacker (focus spells/abilities to swap or modify dice values)
Cyborg/borg - because metal is superiors to meat.

My watch has ended. I hope you all get your sent soon. now to await the physical book.

still waiting, likely I'm on the last day, Again.

They say it is random but on the bright side we will see the pdf before the street date this time because they are not wasting time at Gencon.

So I was recently thinking about worldbuilding the "Golarion setting" based off of inspiration from Guns and Gears and "universal" rpgs like MnM/GURPS, for a personal project.

Thus, I wanted to write down some ideas for an "Industrial Age period" for Golarion.

In terms of weapons, I really don't see the problem in having at least "World War" (roughly corresponding to irl 1 and 2 as well as late 20th century stuff) level firearms in the setting, in order to bypass the wonkiness of the "early firearms" thing (minor digression, but due to some bad experiences with certain rpgs, overemphasizing equipment and the minutia of the system is a pretty bad design decision), alongside swords and bows and other things-- it's perfectly appropriate for high fantasy "genre-mash" settings.

a few for every "class" of gun should be good we don't need to go into details of every caliber and the number of grains and there wasn't many types during that time period (like no machine pistols). even during the age of sail the sword was more of a backup weapon. what I thought was a missed opertunity was "outlaw star" style caster guns.

Vehicles could finally play a greater role with the rise of cars, planes, and trains (the last also doubles as a source of great action scenes). Communications would also obviously improve.

a word of warning even mounted archers have angered many of my players or a GM when my character converted a wagon to a hussite warwagon (mobile greater cover) more advanced mechanized infantry tactics would be available at steam or above tech (characters rolling up with an ironclad for land)

A t-shirt with an orc ripping up a contract (ogl) or slaying a dragon

Goilveig wrote:

It would be funny if WotC's attempt to better monetize D&D ends up being a huge revenue boost to Paizo :D

It'll be hard since to comply, Paizo will have to revise and reissue all their books, including stuff that's in the pipeline. No income. No cashflow. Can they sustain that long enough to come back?

PF2e is almost OGL free. Just some names remain...those can be errata out. V2 pdfs show up on the site with the changes. Paizo would then create its own version of the ogl that would 3pp. For a little bit new releases would be delayed to assure compliance...

PF2 is the game me and my group can agree on. That is why I'm subscribed to them. Ttrpgs is one of the only social activities I do outside of work. The inclusiveness of its characters and forum make me feel seen and not some butt of the joke. PFS has let me meet some amazing people.

Keep being awesome.

If I was paizo I would errata out all the OGL stuff and kick "starfinder 2e" into high gear regardless of how talks with hasbro go down. They have shown their teeth they plan on going for the bite. D&D is undermonitized is corporate speech for we plan bleed out this cash cow for all its worth. They are going to try to get every dollar out of d&d with every dirty trick.

I certainly hope paizo is playing a long strategy. I would enjoy if starfinder 2e would be a OGL free game. This is likely to be just the beginning of the legal wrangling that will come out of Hasbro.

woot got my notice today

As a subscriber how do you skip a release that you are not interested in? Or do you have to un subscribe and resubscribe after the release?

I hope ghost archetype along with skeletons will be sanctioned. The ghost hunger is not necessarily evil or even off putting.

my order was just completed but is missing the book of the dead pdf

Shifter- a marital wild shape character(natural weapons)
vessel of magic - similar to a summoner becoming an eidolon but retaining your spellcasting
blood mage - con caster
strategist- sacrifice your actions for party actions and buffs
dedicated fighter - a fighter that focuses on a single weapon or weapon type forgoing all others (like a polearm master binding and grappling or tripping with a billhook or halberd)

the book was delayed and that is fine but can we get some content in the meantime?

--thanks

the book is delayed - ok but can we get some more info drops in the meantime?

--Thanks

good luck with this book I'll be skipping it though. Mechanics lite is one thing but I don't see anything here, I could be wrong. I like to have some mechanics in my books. if some mechanics are mentioned I'll go back to being a buy. I should have skipped that map folio earlier

1. a Kitsune Thaumaturge with a war flail (lantern staff)
2. PFS a poppet psychic
3. PFS a human time Oracle refugee from Rahadoum with the medic dedication. He gave up his name and is just called "The Doctor"

Perpdepog wrote:

I'm also hoping for an archetype that lets any caster learn how to use the psychic's method of casting, since I think that'd be pretty neat for other builds, like an illusion focused wizard.

If they leave this as it was in the playtest, this won't help you. Psychic's casting is as noisy and detectable as anyone else's.

like Tetsuo from Akira yelling as he sends pure kinetic force turning people into paste... wait that is too cool and too strong for pathfinder.

Hot take: we are spending too much time on this subject. Paizo will for the time being no longer publish material on slavery. You want to spend time in your game fighting slavery go ahead no one is stopping you. this is the writer's are agreeing with this so they are not being censored.

If you want to fight slavery, instead of doing it in forums how about making a stand and be the hero of your story and expose and stand up for the victims in slavery that is still going on. operation blooming onion is just a single occurrence many of which never get reported.

depending on what is considered objectionable content I'm fine depending on what is considered objectionable. Some people consider a positive representation of LGBTQIA+ objectionable I for one consider it good. things like PG-13 is a poor metric for acceptable after all MPAA has more issues than I care to discuss.

No writer should be forced to write something they find as objectional.

so much good player stuff. You are spoiling us, I like it! We have space (Cosmos mysteries) now time. Maybe they use a re-roll mechanic or haste/slow or something else? either way that would be great.

CrimsonKnight wrote:

My thoughts:

If paizo never wrote about slavery that would have been prefect but that boat has long since passed... Slavery is an atrocity and paizo's new stance is to be silent about it (no longer mention it in books).

The problem with at least the first two of these approaches is that the issue isn't really "Slavery is a bad thing to have in RPGs and should never be mentioned or should be removed at once", but "Paizo has repeated handled slavery badly, even when trying to clean up its previous bad handling of slavery."

the reason why I said "boat has long since passed" is that opportunity is passed. I wasn't missing the idea of my chaotic good champion fighting to free slaves in published adventures but it is one thing to just not bring up slavery and another to make a policy to never.

If we could trust Paizo to be able to handle it well enough to clean it up with satisfying in world narrative, then we could trust them to handle it well enough to keep using it. The approach they're taking is unsatisfying. I agree. But it's basically them saying "We're going to drop this because we keep screwing it up and we've come to realize we can't handle it well." Which might not be great, but it's far better than a clumsy AP that keeps the focus on how badly they're handling it for years.

They basically tried that on a smaller scale in Absalom - with a PFS event that led to ending slavery there. It got mixed reviews, from what I can tell. And after that, the Absalom lore book still had a lot of not great references to the aftermath.

Maybe...

Then don't publish anything about it until they can get it right. hold on to some of these sensitive topics till they can be explored PROPERLY in the future. where as the responce to the letter makes it clear they are implementing a policy of silence including to the future.

My thoughts:
If paizo never wrote about slavery that would have been prefect but that boat has long since passed. Golarion is their world and with a stroke of a pen remove it for the game. there are some ways to do this in my opinion some are better than others. Slavery is an atrocity and paizo's new stance is to be silent about it (no longer mention it in books).

“Silence in the face of atrocity is not neutrality; silence in the face of atrocity is acquiescence.”
— Samantha Power

the best is to end it in Golarion my ideas best to worst are:
1) An AP where the players work along side with one or more agencies (bellflower network, firebrands, etc.) to put an end to slavery. paizo makes money with this. (this AP should have a content disclaimer)
2) paizo give a lore reason for this such as those agencies actually succeed and move to fighting tyranny, disband, etc.
3) an errata (in my opinion not very satisfying)

for the Undead Master archetype what sort of prerequisites other than the usual?
for the undead companions: are there ranged options (like skeleton archer) mount options (skeletal horse/Pegasus flight at high level obviously) or like the inventor/summoner how they "build" design their companion or undead version of animal companions?

CrimsonKnight wrote:

Scaling DC assumes maximum resources applied to all skills/checks even though that isn't given in the game.

I don't agree. Let's say you want to hit on a 10. In order to do that at level 1, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, what do we need?

Level 1: DC 15, or +5. Since we can only have trained, that's a 14 in the stat required.
Level 4: DC 19, or +9. For trained, that's a 16 required, or a 14 with a +1 item. For expert, that's a 12 required, or a 10 with +1 item.
Level 8, DC 24, or +14. From here on out, we can assume a +1 item since those are level 4-5. Trained needs 16 in stat, expert needs 12 in stat, master needs 8.
Level 12, DC 30, or +20. As +2 items start at level 9, we'll assume them here. Trained needs 18, Expert needs 14, Master needs 10.
Level 16, DC 35, or +25. Trained needs 20, Expert 16, Master 12, Legendary 8.
Level 20, DC 40, +30. Trained needs 22, Expert needs 18, Master 14, Legendary 10. Note that we can also have a +3 item at this point, decreasing stat required by 2.

So really, you can hit the DC over half the time with a 14-16 and Expert, as long as the item from a few levels back is there. If you're fully invested, by higher levels you'll easily have a +5 on the required DC, even if it's equal level to you.

relevant stat at 14 and only remained trained in that skill Since we are only using trained which is the cap for most character skills (not a hard cap just a practical cap).

Scaling DC assumes maximum resources applied to all skills/checks even though that isn't given in the game.
Paizo chose points at which to step back the table so that if you did put every possible advancement into a skill your % chance of success against your level of a DC would increase as your level rose. to succeed at a DC for your level at level 1 would be 50% reduces to only 25% at level 20 if you didn't focus into it most characters can only focus on 3 skills max and 1 only if all the party has to do the get from point a to point b skills (acrobatics and athletics)

resistance items with out a counter
+ to ac is countered by + to hit
you have items that have increase to saves without a opposite like spell penetration

no plus to hit for spells
expendable resource & less accurate