Dracomicron's page

My -701 is a little "special." By which I mean he isn't very smart, even by Vesk standards.

But 8 Int is crippling in terms of skill points and Engineering checks, so at level 5 I increased his Intelligence. He is now statistically of average intelligence.

I still play him as dumb and silly, because I enjoy playing him that way. You know what? Nobody has objected, because Zoggy is fun and enables other people to roleplay their characters the way they want to.

Absolutely nothing prevents you from playing a character who is disabled. It just won't be reflected in their stats... and it doesn't need to be. Like the Vlaka have adapted to two thirds of their race having differing capabilities, your character is assumed to have adapted to cope with their limitations.

@Batelf should know more about this.

I also suggest this for the Rules forum, though the same question has been asked many times there, and has never been answered by Paizo.

I'm in the camp that a 315 credit magic item should not make a vesk's natural weapons obsolete. The Ring of Fang's attack is an Unarmed Strike, except where noted: Lethal Piercing damage, and x2 level specialization. It's still archaic, and you don't get to make Attacks of Opportunity without Improved Unarmed Strike.

I do believe that a Vesk with a Ring of Fangs can remove Archaic from the bite attack, as their Natural Weapons reads, "They can deal 1d3 lethal damage with unarmed strikes, and the attack doesn't count as Archaic." Note that it doesn't say only their natural weapons unarmed strikes, though their special specialization only applies to their natural weapons (which doesn't matter for the RoF, but other sources of Unarmed Strikes, such as the upcoming Tactical Shield rules, would not benefit unless they have a clause stating that they can benefit from Natural Weapons specialization (as noted in the Pistol Whip Operative exploit).

Without being a Natural Weapons race, the way to remove Archaic from the RoF is to take the Raw Lethality soldier Gear Boost. That's how my SRO, Dragonbot, gained a reliable bite attack.

If ammo readouts on personal guns are OK in Aliens, it's okay in Starfinder.

The control module would be for the remote sentry guns in the Director's Cut, which shows the ammo readouts on their computer screen safely in the control center. They're wall to wall in there!

Whoever wrote and edited the Pistol Whip Operative exploit thought improved unarmed strikes are both lethal and archaic, because PW functions as that feat “but the attack is not archaic, deals lethal damage, and has the operative weapon special property.” Until they errata that or the feat itself I think we have our answer.

I think you mean "both nonlethal and archaic" as it is listing the ways that it is different from Improved Unarmed Strike.

Currently the only ways I can think of to make your unarmed strikes lethal are: be a race with Natural Weapons, buy a Ring of Fangs, or have Pistol Whip. Tactical Shields will also eventually fill this role once the Character Operations Manual comes out.

I don't think we need to attribute more abilities to IUS than are actually written. It does an awful lot already.

Hello. As the title indicates, I'm wondering if the BB is sanctioned for society play and if so, where I can find the chronicles. If it's not, is there plans and/or might it be approved before GenCon?

Beginner Box has considerably different rules than Society, so I wouldn't hold my breath for sanctioning. They were running BB nonstop at Paizocon, and there was nary a chronicle sheet to be seen.

I honestly like the Steward archetypes a lot... the Steward Infiltrator has some nice fake identity stuff going for it. You could be pretending to be a murderhobo, but when the law zeroes in on you, you just pass a note to the GM identifying yourself to them as a deep cover agent and the 5-Oh just drives on by.

High level play? OH YEAH!

1) H.P. Lovecraft Mythos. Nyarlehoptep is in the setting, dealing with his/her/it/their schemes is definitely in the Starfinder wheelhouse. Finding a lost beacon in a system where there is no sun, just Azathoth. A water planet in the vein of Innsmouth where the people start getting fishy (and I'm not talking Kalo). Hopping in a level 20 starship and fighting Cthluhu amidst the frozen ice chunks of a shattered ocean on the planet you just destroyed to try to kill a sleeping Great Old One (you failed and woke it up).

2) Outer Planar Shenanigans. I doubt you can use Planescape stuff due to copyright, but Thinking With Portals seems like a fun high level adventure... dealing with the philosophical battles of the Great Ring of Planes sounds like an appropriate challenge. What is the afterlife like in the Starfinder universe? Do the gods and demons fight over the souls of wizards and scientific geniuses in order to gain power and prestige among the eternals, or do they have altogether more esoteric battles in the modern era?

3) Marooned! The players find themselves crash landed on a planet much like Old Golarion, with technology limited to what they brought with them and the limits of their old UPB replicator. As they explore and make allies with the local monarchs and petty lords, they find that other stranded spacefarers have backed opposing factions and are manipulating events behind the scenes. The back matter for these could really flesh out magic items (including armor upgrades), archaic magical weapons, spells, and fusions. By the time the PCs have repaired their ship, they have uncovered a plot that threatens the safety of countless lives in the galaxy at large, and they are the only ones who can stop it... The final battle could involve fighting the Tarrasque' (or its non-copyright alternative) with a spaceship...

(Although I know a lot of people like horror so perhaps that in fact boosted SoS's success).

It certainly made me buy the AP when I would not have purchased it otherwise.

Was spelljammer science fantasy, or just fantasy that happened to be set in space?

Does fantasy set in space qualify as science fantasy?

Spelljammer space isn't even space. The stars are literally lights on the ceiling of the world in Spelljammer.

Spelljammer is just weird interplanetary fantasy.

Seems like you can apply the same twice. With Improved Demoralize you could do two demoralizes in one round to stack duration.

It seems like it might also apply to Quick Dispiriting Taunt, which would be an interesting way around its limited duration.

Don't get me wrong, it's still better in my book to just do an Improved Demoralize with Frightful Presence.

Also, if any DM thinks I'd listen when they tell me I can't shake my robot baby or robot spouse... well, that's not a DM I want to play with.

Shaking your robot baby/spouse is how you reboot them, isn't it? The factory started making them with vibration sensors.

Shaken is a fear and mind-affecting condition. It may be something they forgot, but no sane DM will accept a robot to be shaken :D

Counterpoint: Sentient Undead having immunity to Mind-Affecting doesn't make sense and allowing them to be Shaken through Demoralize is a step in the right direction.

Some of the armor upgrades are even magical, like the Haste Circuit, the Grim Trophies, and magic items that can double as armor upgrades, like the Dented Kasa.

A real shame that Paizo was too afraid to do a real SciFi game instead of just doing Pathfinder with lasers.

I'm not sure "too afraid" is the correct terminology.

I'm pretty sure the thought process was, "Dude, we could do Pathfinder... with lasers!"

They had a winning formula already, and chose to expand it into a new genre.

I've played "real sci-fi games." For example, there's Serenity, the Firefly-based game using the CORTEX engine. It's a good game. It's 100% a different experience than Starfinder. I've played Gamma World, which is technically post-apocalyptic sci-fi. It's a great game, but it is an anarchic mess of randomized game mechanics* that we absolutely did not need from Starfinder.

We don't need two Serenities or Gamma Worlds, but we kinda did need a Starfinder.

*

It occurred to me this morning that there is yet another reason to use Demoralize over Dispiriting Taunt: It's a Sense-Dependent ability, and that's all. You can demoralize an akata, a patrol robot, or a drift dead as long as it can see or hear you.

Dispiriting Taunt is language dependent and mind-affecting as well, which means you can't affect most animals, constructs, or undead. Kinda a bummer.

Some equivalent to weapon fusions for armour would be cool.

...Armor Upgrades?

Dracomicron wrote:

I inevitably thought that the big choices were either obvious or the choices didn't include what I wanted to do.

Yesteryear's Truth
** spoiler omitted **

It Rests Beneath
** spoiler omitted **

Don't get me wrong, I love Starfinder Society. I just find some of the choices weird and arbitrary.

Living RPGs are tricky. It's basically impossible for us to include options for every potential outcome. A lot of this comes down to GMing at the table. I don't really enjoy "No you can't do this" but instead, "OK, so your suggestion doesn't match the reporting options, but here are the overall bucket choices, which do you think your response would be closer to?"

Something I constantly work on, however. So thanks for the feedback! :)

Oh, no doubt. I have enough trouble reconciling what players do in my home game ("You want to jump aboard the fleeing mi-go's shipfilled with its brainwashed cultists, as its launching from the airstrip? SIGH.")

That said, I drastically disagree with my fellow Starfinders' Prime Directive-inspired actions. We need to uplift everything! Bears! Otters! Tables! Hemlines! We don't let injustice stand, even if we have to knock over sacred institutions!

I inevitably thought that the big choices were either obvious or the choices didn't include what I wanted to do.

Yesteryear's Truth

It Rests Beneath

Don't get me wrong, I love Starfinder Society. I just find some of the choices weird and arbitrary.

Dispiriting Taunt Failing will always get your target Off-target if your target makes his save. So you will always get something opposed to the target making their save.

Technically there is no save. It's an Intimidate check of DC 15 + 1.5xCR or 10 + Intimidate, whichever is higher.

Considering that an Intimidate-focused level 5 Envoy can pretty comfortably rock about +18 on that check (conservatively), and an equal CR creature's DC will probably be around 22, I'm not EXTREMELY worried about having a fallback Off-Target effect for failure when I roll a 3 or less.

Also given those odds, the chances of getting 5 or more over the DC and getting an extra round or two of Shaken are... also pretty good, wheras rolling extra high on Dispiriting Taunt nets no extra effect and you have to do the whole song and dance next round, too.

Quote:

Operative-property weapon so that you can go properly Dex-Light Armor/Cha-Soulfire

I get that the damage is still low, but can't you do this now with solar armor and an operative melee weapon?

I believe that Soulfire only goes on crystals.

How are you combining the Vampire Voice and voice enhancer? I think it's only possible via vercite race ability (double enhancements in one slot if one is cyber) or Augmented archetype (double enhancements of any type in one slot). The other double enhancements (biotechnician theme and Geneturge mystic) require that both be biotech, which the Vampire Voice, alas, cannot meet.

Good catch. The only one that can do that is Zalibraxis, Dragonbot, who is Augmented. War Hound worships Pharasma and would only get the voice enhancer, as necrografts would be sacrilege, and Bobbobs will get the Vampire Voice because it's upgradable and allows him to bully people who don't know his language.

That is a good point about duration, though I will note that menacing gaze does not interact with improved demoralize at all. I was thinking more about the range limits, which have been the big downside to using improved demoralize in my experience with it.

Also, don't forget the ferocity blazon!

Ah, I missed the bit about Menacing Gaze being a full action. Good catch!

Anyway, I have three characters that focus on Intimidate right now.

War Hound - Deathtouched Half-Orc Hellknight Order of the Pike Solarian, will use Challenge to attack and Demoralize simultaneously.

Zalibraxis, Dragonbot - Dragonblooded SRO Augmented Shock & Awe Soldier, will use Shock & Awe level 5 ability to attack and Demoralize (potentially everyone in an attack radius) simultaneously.

Bobbobs! - Skittermander Blitz Soldier/Envoy, Uses Dispiriting Taunt. I'm using all of my Expertise Talents after getting Expert Advice to simply get more Expertise Skills, so I have little need of going the Improved Demoralize route. Bobbobs is an IT Consultant, and his taunt is going to be, "We're going to have to let you go. Please pack up your desk."

For each of these, I'm definitely going to be packing Grim Trophies (Bobbobs's will be a briefcase full of pink slips), a Ferocity Blazon, Vampire Voice, the voice enhancer, and whatever else will help that Intimidate check. >:D

Improved Demoralize has a lower opportunity cost, but I don't see any way to argue that it isn't strictly worse than quickened dispiriting taunt.

It can last more than one round. Dispiriting Taunt only ever lasts one round, but you can sometimes squeeze multiple rounds out of a regular Demoralize... AND you can use Intimidate Expertise Talents (such as Menacing Gaze or Rattling Presence) with Demoralize that don't work with Dispiriting Taunt.

Ironically the best Intimidate build for Envoys doesn't use Dispiriting Taunt, or uses it in addition to Improved Demoralize. Stack some Dragonblooded with Rattling Presence and everybody you look at funny will be Shaken until their untimely demise.

I'm looking to build a Pahtra Envoy for SFS who is a rock star type...based on what I am seeing here, it is looking like I should focus in the Get 'em inspirations first, then maybe move on to the feint inspirations?

What should I be looking at for feats? I'll be starting at level 2 thanks to a boon. I've got loads of experience in Pathfinder and fantasy RPGs...feeling a little lost in the Starfinder sci-fi setting.

The "support efficiency" build for Envoys goes a little something like this:

Lvl - Improvisation
1 - Clever Feint
2 - Get 'Em!
4 - Clever Attack
6 - Improved Get 'Em!

...and then whatever you want after that. This gives your party the biggest bonuses to hit the fastest, and allows you to start attacking yourself by level 4. By level 6 you are swinging your side's attack rolls by 4, which is huge.

That said, this is by no means the only good Envoy build. Your party may need healing, in which case throwing Inspiring Boost in there may be your best bet (though it throws off completing the rest of the build until level 8). In this version you take Get 'Em! first so you can still use your standard action to Boost.

Lvl - Improvisation
1 - Get 'Em!
2 - Inspiring Boost
4 - Clever Feint
6 - Improved Get 'Em!
8 - Clever Attack

There are some schools of thought that suggest that you dispense with the Clever/Get 'Em! route and just focus on one of the two (probably Get 'Em! because it is a move action) so you can shoot more. In this path you may want to grab a level of Soldier so you can pick up the biggest, baddest unwieldy heavy weapon possible to make the most use from your standard action attack each round. Get Hurry to play chessmaster with your team on the rounds you're not shooting.

Lvl - Improvisation
1 - (Blitz or Sharp Shooter Soldier)
2 - Get 'Em!
3 - I dunno, Look Alive or Watch Your Step or something
5 - Hurry
7 - Improved Get 'Em!
9 - Improved Hurry

As for feats, there are some schools of thought. With my Witchwyrd Envoy, Dr. Zorkfeld, I designed him to be a flanking buddy to our Solarian, so I took:

Lvl - Feat
1 - Heavy Armor
3 - Coordinated Shot
5 - Unfriendly Fire
7 - Antagonize
9 - Great Fortitude (Envoy Fortitude is terrible)
11 - Medical Expert (he's a doctor, after all)

For Bobbobs, my Skittermander Blitz Soldier/Envoy who is the shooty type, I will just be going with a standard suite of fighting feats.

Lvl - Feat
1 - Improved Initiative (great for putting Get 'Em! out there fast)
3 - Weapon Focus (Heavy Weapons)
5 - Versatile Specialization
7 - Extra Resolve (those Improvs can be heavy on Resolve use)
9 - Mobility
11 - Shot on the Run

For a "typical" squishy Envoy, I'd maybe go:

Lvl - Feat
1 - Improved Initiative
3 - Mobility
5 - Fleet
7 - Extra Resolve
9 - Great Fortitude
11 - Nimble Moves

This is probably terrible, but I don't make "typical" builds much.

Other feats to look at:

Improved Demoralize (arguably better than Dispiriting Taunt)
Veiled Threat
Fast Talk
Improved Feint
Greater Feint (again, arguably better than Clever Feint)
Amplified Glitch

Anyway, this was way too long. I gotta go to work...

Lucky you! I have not already played or run it. I am looking forward to us being able to run some of the new stuff once it officially becomes available.

Hmm

If it's released on June 26, I'll probably be able to run it July 3rd, just before Convergence, or July 10th. Whichever works!

Hilary, having already played 2-01 in a promo slot, I would be happy to run it at Dreamer's for you when it becomes available, if you haven't already convention'd it.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

It's also got a hidden nerf built into it.

As an insight bonus it won't stack with any insight bonuses of the other party member doing the skill. In starfinder, someone in your party doing a skill probably has an insight bonus to it (it's hard to be reasonably good at a skill without one). Makes it mildly annoying to figure out the skill total

It's still good.

Yeah, I don't regard that as a nerf but as a potential boost to your skill expert with the insight bonus. He provides his normal floor (with a better attribute for Int tasks), the envoy provides a higher ceiling if he rolls well.

Well, you are correct that it isn't any sort of appreciable nerf (it can't result in a WORSE Insight bonus), but BNW is also correct that it isn't quite as good as it looks at first blush.

Still, I can see this as being of great help to, say, a Biohacker tech specialist if they end up not getting Insight bonuses in their final incarnation.

I think what I am going to do is simply ask the tech specialist what their insight bonus is and lower my "effective" bonus by that amount (to a minimum of +2 for regular assisting) when I declare it. In my local groups everyone who assists generally just holds up two fingers to show that they assisted. I may need two hands to show how much Bobbobs is helping...

Expert Advice is a sneaky candidate for best player option in Armory.

It is so powerful, but so hard to build for. In order for it to work right, your Envoy can't be the best in the party at their own Expertise talents, and the fact that you can't get it until Envoy level 3 means that you're walking around with some damn mediocre skills until then.

Dracomicron wrote:

I just debuted Bobbobs, my skittermander Soldier 1/Envoy 1 (using a particular SFS boon to start at level 2) with a very peculiar support build... With Intelligence 11, he's not great on his Expertise Talent of Computers, but by character level 4 he'll have Expert Advice and start regularly adding 1d6+2 (or more) to Aid Another hacking attempts. Over time he'll add Engineering, Intimidation, Culture, and Diplomacy to his Expertise talent list and essentially be the ultimate IT Consultant.

This sounds like a pretty fun build actually. I might imitate that.

My thought is that it is incredibly common for a group to have someone with high Computers and/or Engineering, so why not lean into assisting them? It's very skittermander to help.

I just debuted Bobbobs, my skittermander Soldier 1/Envoy 1 (using a particular SFS boon to start at level 2) with a very peculiar support build... With Intelligence 11, he's not great on his Expertise Talent of Computers, but by character level 4 he'll have Expert Advice and start regularly adding 1d6+2 (or more) to Aid Another hacking attempts. Over time he'll add Engineering, Intimidation, Culture, and Diplomacy to his Expertise talent list and essentially be the ultimate IT Consultant.

Oh, and he also has 18 Dex and packs a Static Arc Caster, because groups have a better chance of accepting an Envoy that isn't particularly good at his Expertise talents if he can also dish out a pile of damage.

For Improvisations I'm mostly going the Improved Get 'Em/Quick Dispiriting Taunt route, mostly because I find an Intimidation-based skittermander to be a hilarious idea.

Dracomicron wrote:

The Operatives at my table are doing it the appropriate way outlined in the rules.

Horribly circular and only cementing my opinion that people are not thinking this through.

Quote:

It isn't circular

Your argument is circular. You cannot get to your conclusion without assuming your premise.

The only circular thing is the temporal loop you're causing by not abiding by the basic tenet of turn-based roleplaying games and allowing your players to have Schrödinger's turns that could be move actions or trick attacks based on what would be most advantageous to them at any given moment.

Again, incredibly circular in assuming everyone else has to announce actions and then do them. Also gets very complicated with regards to targeting.

It isn't circular, it's how the game continues without becoming utter chaos. Might as well play cops & robbers in the back yard.

So if a soldier has a haste going, when do they have to announce their attacks and movement?

As Damanta said, no, but they do have to announce that they are taking a full attack action, and each portion of their full action as it comes up. Move, attack, attack or attack, move, attack, or attack, attack, move.

No one has been able to name a single instance of silliness without presuming the rule you're trying to show with the silliness.

Operatives A and B on my table

Operative A moves to the corner and trick attacks

Operative B moves to the corner and then moves down the hall

Operatives A and B on your table

Operative A announces trick attack moves to the corner and trick attacks

Operative B announces a move B moves to the corner and then Announces a move and moves down the hall

No one at my table is DOING anything that they can't otherwise do at yours. If there is in fact "a slew" some should be easy to name. WITHOUT... and seriously, think this part through, without circularly assuming that you are right.

The Operatives at my table are doing it the appropriate way outlined in the rules.

A full action requires your entire turn to complete. If you take a full action, you can't take your usual standard, move, and swift actions.

That's really all there is to it. If you took your full action to Trick Attack, you can't decide halfway through to take a standard action. If you take a move action to walk up to the corner, you can't go back in time and retroactively have made it a Trick Attack.

What you're basically arguing is "what's the harm of allowing this?"
That's fine. If you want to let people get away with this sort of temporal manipulation, that's fine and great. It is your house rule, though. I think the harm is that the already incredibly powerful and flexible Operatives have even fewer limitations on their powerful and flexible ability than normal, which is not really fair to other player characters. It does have a lesser impact on other PCs, such as the aforementioned hasted or hit & run soldier, but Operatives are the biggie... and Operatives don't really need that kind of lax adherence to the rules.

This really isn't a power boost. At all

How often are you in initiative but for some reason you're not aware of anyone on the map to trick attack at the start of your round? Why are you even in initiative at that point? At worst it's like a bonus against three armed skittermanders.

If you're trying to back door it into an the operative must see someone at the start of the round limitation, that's the sort of thing they have to spell out.

We're in initiative because someone, somewhere has pulled iron and we need to know what each person does until everybody is either friendly, fled, or dead.

I don't think that the operative needs to be able to see their Trick Attack target at the start of their round, but they do need to announce their bloody actions just like everyone else. If an operative with no visible targets announces a trick attack, and doesn't have a target by the end of the move associated with their trick attack, they basically forfeit the attack portion of their full action. Congratulations, Operative, you outsmarted yourself. That's why you don't try to get cheeky and Trick Attack your way down a hallway; if circumstances suggest you do something other than shoot/stab, you've lost your second action.

There is a whole slew of reasons that it is good that we announce specific actions taken as we take them; it isn't just Quantum Trick Attacks. The metagame could get very, very silly if everybody felt entitled to change whether they were doing a move or full action partway through their turn. Part of doing a full action is acknowledging that you can'd do anything else.

I am a little baffled that we can apply quantum superpositions to operative actions. I knew that operatives were strong, but this seems a little ridiculous.

I admit that I skimmed the last page of argument, but are we really saying that we can have Schrödinger's Trick Attack and declare it at any time after the start of the character's round as long as they haven't done anything that couldn't be done during a Trick Attack?

I'd say that's a hard "no." A move action to move is not the same as a move as part of a Trick Attack. For example, you can draw a weapon during a move action as long as you have +1 or more BAB. You can't do that as part of a Trick Attack full action. Allowing for newbies to free-flow their turns is one thing, but experienced players need to be declaring what actions they're doing, and what part of their turns they're applying. "As a move action I move up to the Ksarik, and as my standard action I downgrade to another move action to just walk away, provoking an attack of opportunity."

Operatives are crazy good as it is, they don't need an un-written power of "waveform collapse."

SuperBidi wrote:

Xenocrat wrote:

A target of Clever Feint is not actually subject to the entire flat-footed the condition, it is flat-footed only against attacks. Meaning you get the AC/to hit effects, but they can still make AOOs.

Yes, but they are still flat-footed against their attacks, so they can shoot with range weapons without incuring AoOs.

That's a...novel...interpretation.

The ability is limited enough so that I don't see how applying the RAW in this way is unbalanced or inappropriate. They are flat-footed to attacks, a ranged attack from a threatened square is still an attack, to which they are flat-footed.

The opponent would still get an AoO against a move or a spell from within the threatened area.

Giant Space Tardigrade.

I see they've been reading my home campaign notes again.

I'm fairly positive that the intent of the gear boost is to reduce Energy Resistance if you haven't already reduced it to 0. The way it is written is to stack with Penetrating Attack.

It's the only way it would be worthwhile, and the likelihood of the other interpretation even triggering is incredibly remote (when do you ever do so little damage with a weapon attack that it doesn't exceed Resistance on an appropriate-level enemy?

The BFG is a Heavy Weapon in the Plasma category with the Explosion property. Just reflavor whatever gun you want that meets those requirements to be your BFG.

Dracomicron, Maeve is a rogue with the Sap Adept and Sap Master feats!

Okay, I am sold on Maeve. I don't know Pathfinder that well, so I'll have to look up those feats before we play.

Being the ships engineer works.

Engineering is a class skill, envoys can snag a D6 in it, and int is a good stat for envoys. And Since you only recharge shields (trying to overpower everything at once is a terrible option) you don't need an uber engineering score.

And you can stylize your weapon as a giant honking wrench.

Hmm have you made a Brakim yet?

They have a Cha penalty, but a Dex and Engineering bonus; might be interesting to make one as an Envoy who "charms" machines into working.

Like the Fonz kicking the jukebox to start it up... only they can kick it from 10 feet away...

Just a funny thought.

I mean, gills cost 95 credits...

Pogiforce wrote:

I also thought Inspiring Boost would be first, since anyone can shoot things but battlefield healing is at a premium.

at 1st it's nice, by 3rd staying in SP until a 10 min rest is more reliable.

I've saved my team hundreds of credits in healing serums with well-timed Inspiring Boosts, but if I had it to do over again I might drop it in favor of getting the Improved Get 'Em!/Clever Attack combo sooner (allowing me to attack and swing my team's attack rolls by 4 points).

You know, I could see getting custom power armor with built-in horns or claws or tails, designed to work with a race's natural arsenal.

Where it gets super hilarious is if power armor damage dice stack with a Ring of Fangs specialization bonus... doubly so if it is large armor with Reach. You just bend over realllllly far and... power... chomp... them?

The Envoy problem is that not every party has an Envoy. Where is my Envoy? I want some Get 'Em! on that guy RIGHT NOW!

The flavor options that you pick up can be gotten another way. Archtetypes don't add flavor. Players do. The only thing an archetype does is mechanically let you meet the flavor. They don't do that very well. If you want to be a steward, poof you're a steward.

...the counterpoint to that is if you want your flavor to have an in-game effect, it helps to have the archetype when you're petitioning the GM. In one scenario that Hmm ran for me, I was able to get circumstantial bonuses to dealing with the Stewards because my character had the Steward Officer archetype AND a law-enforcement Profession. If I just said, "oh yeah I'm a Steward," without backing it up with a sacrifice, I wouldn't have gotten those considerations.

I'll grant you that this is all nebulous and not hard-and-fast rules, but I think that having the mechanics to back up your flavor is important, when possible.

Another example; he isn't even 2nd level yet, but my Solarian Hellknight Order of the Pike will lose all of his Revelations until level 8, but will get heavy armor, free Demoralize debuffs on attacks, and Reach on his Stellar Weapon... more importantly, he'll be able to legitimately claim status as a Hellknight beyond reproach if it ever comes up in a Society Scenario (already planning a Jadnura replay for a certain library-themed scenario...).

I would actually like to see more stuff like the Plasma Immolation gear boost that gives plasma weapons a Burn 1d4 result on a natural 19. Natural 19s are called "Super Hits" on Cosmic Crit and it would be fun if they could be slightly toned down critical effects.

Or perhaps a fusion or talent that gives your crit effect if you exceed the Armor Class by 5 or more (or the save is failed by 5 or more), without doubling your damage.

I have a Hellknight Order of the Pike Solarian with a stellar spear.

When he gets to 6th level he can take a standard action to upgrade it to a stellar lance with Reach... the fun thing is that it will still be a one-handed weapon, so it'll kinda be like an old Jet Li movie with some one-handed polearm action.

Dracomicron wrote:

What are the classes of the Pregens (other than paladin) that are used in this?

Most of the pregens have a description of their character on the imgur page. You can guess at most of the classes from there.

Oof. All these characters are so cool. Looking forward to seeing your Nadezhda, Chad.

Oh, I didn't see the Imgur before. Thanks!

Hmm, Maeve looks really cool. I'm a sucker for red hair, freckles, and badass nonlethal combat ability. Is she a monk or a fighter?

"Workforce Reduction Specialist."