Driftbourne's page

OstinatoAvocado wrote:

Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:

That is what I am doing. I plan to list (and if I figure out how to do it, link to) the actual flip-mats so that GMs can buy them, but I am 'reproducing' other flip-mats in my adventure. They'll have the same footprint as the actual map, but with some key differences. I will call out the actual flip-mat that GMs can purchase from Paizo in a sidebar.

I want Paizo to make money, and calling out specific flip-mats is something that I hope will help them.

So basically you'll have a custom map drawn by yourself or someone else that is similar to the official maps? (If so, also curious if you yourself are doing them or someone else)

Seems like a great idea but a bit of artistic work haha.

I draw them myself in Inkarnate. It's a pretty nifty map tool, though a bit pricier for the studio subscription than I would like. I can't argue with the results though.

Hmm

Glad you said something. I didn't realize the price went up and plans changed. Just realize my plan no longer covers commercial use. It is a great tool.

Question about word counts: does that include the handout at the end of the scenario?

zeonsghost wrote:

6. The Hellfire Crisis has stressed the demands of the consumable market and wartime rationing has lead to the society's reserves being depleted due to the Aspis Consortium cornering several key supply chains.

People thought it was grimly hilarious when I said that the removal of provisions was due to tariffs and the war in Cheliax hurting the supply chains that the Pathfinder Society had depended on.

If SF1e had provisions, I imagine this would have happened during the Drift Crisis too.

I am now baffled by the importance of understanding Prussian nobles in SF2.

Somebody has to be king of a junk pile, or the junk lord. Looking up the real meaning of Prussian Junkers found a connection to the name Hindenburg; now there is a scrap pile I'd like to scavenge.

Since power armor wasn't in the Player Core, I would guess it would be in the same book as mechs. To me, a small mech is power armor with a cockpit, and other mechs keep getting much bigger. Grouping power armor with mechs would let it be more powerful than just +1 or +2 better than heavy armor, and could let it scale as mechs do and change the party's APL.

QuidEst wrote:

I think you just don't have your finger on the pulse of the junk-loving masses.

I think that's probably it. My understanding of Junk (or Junkerstanding, if you will) is obviously lacking.

Think of it as kitbashing miniatures, but for spells, equipment, and what your character is wearing. And the supply of miniature spare parts is fields of shipwrecks on Akiton.

If you want the capital ship experience, it's hard to beat Star Wars Armada. The smallest capital ships in Armada are the largest ships in X-Wing, which are still bigger than the PC's ship in Starfinder. A Starfinder PC ship would still be small enough in Armada to use squadron rules, although it would be a single ship instead of a group of fighters. In Armada's squadron rules, a squadron has no facing, moves from point A to point B, and has no special maneuvers. In X-Wing, a Starfinder PC ship would be a large ship, which is smaller than a huge ship, which are the smaller capital ships from Armada. The point being is that scale matters. If you change scale, you need different rules.

Big capital ships are like cities. For squadrons, every Pc needs their own Starfinder fighter. Starfinder is a game built around a party of 4 to 6, and drift travel takes several days to weeks, which means you need a ship big enough that you can move around in to sleep and eat, that is small enough that it only needs a crew of 4 to 6. The new rules fit those requirements perfectly.

Ship AI is mostly there in case no one in the party has the piloting skill, especially in organized play where you often don't know what the party looks like until the game is about to start. It could be used ot help run bigger ships, but at some point you might need different rules for larger ships as well.

For squadron combat, you could use the vehicle rules. But you are limited to being based on a planet, station, or a starfighter carrier ship as your home base.

For a large cargo ship where most of the ship is empty, the crew space could still fit on one flip map, and use normal starship rules. The Nova Rush is built like this; the PCs' space is only the top portion of the ship.

For large capital ships that are city-sized. It's like defending a city, which is basically like using the victory point system to run a siege where the PCs only fight part of the battle going on around them; that would also be ideal for a multi-table special.

For the PCs to attack a city-sized ship with a normal-sized ship, the entire map would be just part of the big ship, and the PCs would have to destroy certain targets on the map. This is how X-wing deals with that, which is pretty much how Pathfinder handles sieges.

Cinematic Starship Scenes could work too, since everything in the encounter can be defined within the CSS. With CSS, you could even fight a city-sized ship using a flying mech, even without full mech rules.

Actually, you can do mech encounters right now with the Cinematic Starship Scene rule. You could have a Colossiborn opponent. You could fake a Colossiborn ancestry, but only for that encounter.

I think you need the mech rules first, or the person writing the AP won't know how mechs work.

Jenny Jarzabski is the creative manager of Starfinder; she has many times stated how much she loves mechs. She's the Narrative lead, the lead developer, and one of the writers for Mechagedon; she started her own Discord channel for Mechagedon. So there's no lack of awareness or interest from the Starfinder team.

The issue with mechs is they don't fit into every adventure, especially in adventures published by Paizo. In SF1e organized play, Mechs required a tag to use, and there was no way for a PC to get or make a mech on their own. In the 1 and only scenario that had the mech tag; mechs were provided to the PCs in the scenario. In the 1 and only solo adventures, the PCs have to find their mechs in the adventure. In the 1 and only mech AP, the PCs finally got a chance to make their own mechs. All of these are written for a party of mech pilots, not 1 PC that showed up with a mech.

My guess is, if the mech adventures sold well in SF1e, we might see Mechs sooner than we did in SF1e, but not before anything more important to the average player or GM is out, when the answer to questions like " Are starships more important than mechs, or is Absalom Station more important than Daimalko?" stops being yes when deciding what in the next book.

What are starship sizes like? Can you get differently-sized ships?

I haven't seen Tech Core yet, but since the whole concept is that you are the crew doing crew things during an encounter on a map, the players' ship size is limited to what fits on a map. This just happens to line up with many hero ships from Star Wars and other movies, and works with a party of 4 to 6. A party of 4 to 6 can't crew an entire Star Destroyer, let alone a Super Star Destroyer, or, for that matter, a single X-wing or TIE fighter.

Using that theory, the largest ship size for the PCs would fit on an enormous Flip Map. For a crew of 4 to 6 you might be able to fit 2 smaller ships per side of a standard 24x30 inch Flip Map. Because of how the Drift works, it's hard to have smaller ships for the PCs, because you need to include living space to deal with a trip that could take a week or more.

Driftbourne wrote:

bugleyman wrote:

So here we are at last: the death of organized play as we know it.

I wish I could say I'm surprised -- or that I'm too big to say I told you so -- but I'm not. This outcome was inevitable when leadership started thinking of PFS as a profit center rather than a promotional tool. Charging $9 for a PFS scenario was the canary in the coal mine.

My canary is doing just fine. I'm excited about the changes.

Good for you -- really -- but as someone around since 1E Season 0, and who helped setup tables with Josh Frost at Gencon for the launch of season 1, I'm...less excited. I watched the end of Living Greyhawk. I know what a death spiral looks like. For reference, this was me predicting this outcome in January 2024, including explaining exactly why it would happen. And now it has.

So with all due respect, something I loved for a very long time is dying a highly preventable death. I don't believe that it is unreasonable for me to express grief and frustration.

Not trying to be disrespectful. Regarding my canary in the coal mine, it's not my being sarcastic, and it's not one canary; it's several VCs and other VOs, many of whom are also freelance writers for Paizo who have been around for a long time. When they panic, then I'll start to worry, but what I see is people excited to be writing scenarios for Infinite Society. I'm excited to see what some of my favorite writers do when they are free to write whatever they like.

I respectfully hope your predictions are wrong so you can keep playing the game you love.

Driftbourne wrote:

JiCi wrote:

I'd love to see the Colossiborn to return...

I think I've already said this, but whatever XD

You'd think that Tech Core would add this ancestry, when it debuted in Mechageddon.

In SF1e, Mechs work best in an adventure or AP designed for Mechs, because the APL for a mech party is 3 levels higher than normal, which makes it really hard to have a player randomly show up with a mech character in an AP not written for mechs. If this stays true in SF2e, I wouldn't expect Colossiborn to return until there are first mech rules and then appear in the next Mech AP. In SF1e, we only got 1 mech adventure, To Defy the Dragon, and 1 AP, Mechageddon.

Because Mechs aren't something you can play in any adventure, I wouldn't expect them early in the game cycle, while Paizo is trying to get out core game elements like starships. We know the lead developer for Starfinder loves mechs, so it's not something Paizo has forgotten.

Oh come on, if the PCs want to explore planets in mechs, let'em :P A mech feels more accessible than a spaceship.

My actual point though about Colossiborns was that their main ability used the Mech rules. They "became" mechs, using mech weapons, armors and upgrades.

HOWEVER, in S2F, the size increases can still be on command, behave like the Enlarge spell, start at the Rank 2 version and then upgrade to the Rank 4 version eventually.

I'm all for Colossiborns and Mechs, but some of the Starfinder developers have said that ancestries will most likely be in related books or AP. You can't have Colossiborns without mech rules, so it's pretty obvious what they would be included in. Other than the Player Core and Galtic Ancestries, all the other SF2E books or AP have followed that.

Driftbourne wrote:

I've run SF2e 1-12 Take the Bait a few times; it's the most Road Warrior things Paizo has put out.

For Starfinder, perhaps. Lords of Rust in the Iron Gods AP for Pathfinder was possibly even more Road Warrior themed.

I haven't played PF1e, but that makes sense; I'm guessing because there's no source of new high tech in PF1e.

Downloaded the flip-mat pack for Pathfinder. Are those the only Pathfinder flip-mats authors are allowed to use? Relatively speaking there weren't very many in the pack.

By the way I'm actually really positive on this turn of events - I think the Society Infinite Guidelines are really good. I think the biggest thing will trying to find and organize what scenarios are out there once we have some.

I saw the map packs too, for Pathfinder, there are no Wither maps, but there are for Starfinder. The Pathfinder and Starfinder Society Infinite Scenario Guidelines say you can't mix Pathfinder and Starfinder, but I'm hoping that doesn't apply to maps.

Quick question on the Pathfinder Society Infinite cover requirement.

The guidelines say we have to use the Pathfinder Society Infinite Scenario cover template, but I’ve downloaded the current Society Infinite Asset Pack and I can only find the Society Infinite branding/logo and Chronicle assets. I can’t find a separate cover template file anywhere.

Is there an actual Society Infinite cover template available somewhere, or is a custom cover using the official Society Infinite branding plus the required title, author, level range and play time acceptable?

Scroll up to Mark Moreland's last comment. It's the best answer to date.

So I'm wondering what Paizo plans to use to mark the starship on the sensor map. The smaller SF1e starship pawns would work. But I also like the idea of using the sensor map as a radar or sonar, where the opponents would just be small triangles like the demo map in the book has. This might be something else the Paizo printable might work. Star Wars X-wing victory tokens would be great for this; one side has a single triangle like symble and the reverse side has 3 triangles in formation. Although hard to find original ones. I'd love to see Paizo put out a demo video for the new tactical starship combat. Or at least some pictures showing how it works at the table. This might depend on when the new maps come in.

I always kind of thought Junk spells were made to cater to the specific fantasies of one team member. Is there broad demand for Junk? Do your games have that much Junk lying around? What Junk is in your Null Space Chamber?

The junk is there if anyone wants to play in it. I have several characters from Akiton. The Junkomancer archetype and junk spells originate from SF1e's Dunker's Delight, which takes place on Akiton. In SF2e, the wreck of the Return is a focal point for junkers on Akiton; I would consider the Rust Wraiths as a gang of junkers and scrappers. I would imagine that junkrod racing is the thing on Akiton.

I've run SF2e 1-12 Take the Bait a few times; it's the most Road Warrior things Paizo has put out. I'm sure the events of that scenario has left a long trail of junk.

So here we are at last: the death of organized play as we know it.

I wish I could say I'm surprised -- or that I'm too big to say I told you so -- but I'm not. This outcome was inevitable when leadership started thinking of PFS as a profit center rather than a promotional tool. Charging $9 for a PFS scenario was the canary in the coal mine.

My canary is doing just fine. I'm excited about the changes.

I think there's just one sensor map. If the sensor map fits best at the top or bottom of a standard flip mat, you get a map of 12 two inch squares. If the sensor map fits better on the side, you get 15 two inch squares (Standard Paizo flip mats are 30"x24")

I know the sensor maps were going to be around 12 squares long, but I didn't realize it was going to be 2-inch squares. So I'm guessing the example with the squiggly line weaving through the opponents cares or knows if the opponent is right or left of center. That makes things a lot more interesting.

So 12 squares lets you center you ship with 5 squares aft and 6 forward, so I'm guessing Rangers have to fit into 5 squares? Under normal rules, both Armada and X-wing have 5 speed ranges and 3 weapon ranges. That's fine; it's all the examples wiht 1 square to spare.

What's the maximum sensor/weapon ranges and speed?

I don't think the provisions list was ever meant to be part of the character building process. I think it's mostly there in case a party doesn't have a healer, since in organized play you might not know what the party is like until the game is about to start.

I have a 6th-level merchant character built around Accessory Perks and the Retail Incentive Program that buys lots of consumables to survive. I also took an archetype just to get access to more types of consumables. I have no expectation that Paizo would compensate me if the Accessory Perks and The Retail Incentive Program changed.

I will say that having a merchant character saved by the Retail Incentive Program is the most merchant way to be saved.

Lysle wrote:

thistledown wrote:

Disappointing that we can't use maps from previous scenarios unless they're flip maps. What if I want something back in the Arniselle lodge?

I did not see this among the limitations. Could someone point me to where this was mentioned?

Prior to the Society guidelines being released today, I understood Infinite products to be permitted to include redrawn maps as the guidelines stated:

"Duplicated maps, including maps recreated in different art styles, can only be published on Pathfinder Infinite if they directly support another adventure or supplement within the same product. They cannot be the primary product. If you write an adventure that takes places in a location from an existing Pathfinder adventure, you can include redrawn maps of that location."

I hadn't looked into redrawing the maps, which I suppose could be done. I was just speaking to copying a scenario's custom map from the pdf to use in a new scenario - which was not a listed option in the Maps guideline. First edition (both programs) had a LOT of custom maps.

I imagine one reason PF1e and SF1e had more custom maps is that, in the beginning of those editions, there was a very limited number of flip mats to choose from. Probably the same reason that SF2e uses a lot of SF1e maps.

At least for live games, most of the time, if there is a custom map, I'm just going to substitute a flip mat if I can. I'm not against custom maps, but for a live game, it helps if they are simple enough to draw on a blank draw-and-erase map.

Haven't seen the Pathfinder maps yet, but the Starfinder maps only have 2 maps from SF1e. I'm hoping to at least get more of the SF1e maps that have been used in SF2e. It does look like a lot of the SF1e maps are out of stock, so maybe that's why they're not included?

One thing I don't see addressed is the use of canonical NPCs. Are we allowed to have canonical figures, like Venture-Captain Arvin or Eando Kline, give briefings? (Arvin and Eliza Petulengro are mentioned on the guidance page, but just as an example of how to write a mini stat-line.)

Venture-Captain Arvin and First Seeker Sarmak are in the art assets. Over all ther are 9 VCs So I'm assuming they are fair use, but I'm wondering if they are required to be used for mission briefings. With that many VCs included, I'm guessing Paizo wants people to use official VCs?

Side note: Zo! is included, but there are no signs of Starberry Machine Cake.

VC Zizenzi is included, I woundering how many scenarios they can get captured and rescued in... Not sure if it's needed, but some guidelines for using official NPCs, such as be sure to return them in one piece. Or use them as mission givers but not involve them directly in the scenario?
Although Zo! seems like an NPC that might be more directly involved in a scenario, or at least hosting an event the PCs are in.

yeah both of those seem to be drawn to make the system work better rather than being good starship maps, and I kinda hate that.

The more important issue addressed with the new maps, starting with the Nova Rush map, is more space for large PCs. The new open-concept maps are also better for ranged combat. These 2 things alone would be considered a big improvement over SF1e ship maps. That the new maps make it easier to run between stations is icing on the cake. The SF2e starship maps also all do a good job of maximising map space used compared to many SF1e ship maps.

Question about this section and if it applies to maps

"To ensure these programs remain distinct from one another, content from one game can’t be used in the other game. For example, a commercial laser pistol from the Starfinder RPG is not permitted in a Pathfinder Society Infinite Scenario."

It's fairly common in Paizo scenarios to use Pathfinder maps in Starfinder scenarios; on rare occasions I've seen Starfinder maps used in Pathfinder. Am I hoping the above rules about not mixing PF2e and SF2e don't apply to maps? I'm assuming that rule is meant for in-game content, like creatures, items, or spells.

Some good examples of Pathfinder maps that work in Starfinder are:
Pathfinder Alien Ruins
Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Tech Dungeon

When running a scenario as a repeat, I like to switch up the maps. Often, for a terrain map like a forest or desert, using a map from the other game is a good way to mix things up so it looks different for players who have played that scenario before.

Being surrounded by goofy emojis, a vid board, and holographic advertisements all showing a happy world, while walking down a street filled with trash in the pouring rain, is its form of dystopian world, reminiscent of Blade Runner.

Every time I start a new venue, I follow roughly the same progression. For the first two or three sessions, I run 1–2s. Once we have a little momentum, I move to 1–4s until we can reliably support two tables.

After that, most sessions have a 1–4 table alongside something higher level. About half the time, that second table is a 3–6. About one session in four, I keep both tables low-level—either two 1–4s or a 1–2 and a 1–4. The remaining sessions get a 1–4 alongside a 5–8, or eventually a 7–10 once the player base is large enough to support it.

The important part is that there is always an on-ramp for new players and new characters, while established players usually have somewhere to advance their higher-level characters. That’s how you build sustainable growth. If you only schedule low-level games, people eventually get tired of constantly starting new characters just so they can play, and they stop coming.

I've started a bunch of venues over the last 12 years.

I do really like the narrow-level bands, at least for running scenarios. Eaiser/quicker to prep, easier to adjust, easier to flip through the scenario without unused stat blocks in the way, no TPKs that end with the GM saying, "Oops, I ran the high-tier encounter."

But I do get your point; I've been wondering if 3 level bands would be a good compromise. Have them balanced for the middle level and make simple adjustments like the 2-level band scenarios do, so there aren't 2 sets of stat blocks to deal with, just add or subtract a creature or 2.

That's a fun and flavorful weapon! Unless we're missing something, the link is only for the word Graple. The rest of the sentence seems to reference it or define what ranged grapple is.

"You can attempt to Grapple your primary target instead of Strike (with a –2 circumstance penalty, as normal for the ranged grapple trait)."

Makes me wonder if the -2 is the only difference from normal to ranged grapple. Without more evidence or clarification, that's how I would run it. Considering what the weapon is and what scenario it's from, I'm very drawn to the rule of cool for this scenario; if it sticks, go with it...

Swiftbrook wrote:

Alexander Augunas wrote:

The14th wrote:

I still think the new 3 hour format is too short.

I dunno, I played it at GenCon and I really liked it. I felt my attention starting to waver around 3 hours, so having a 1 hour first-act, a 1 hour second-act, and a 1-hour third act was real nice. YMMV of course.

I also played at GenCon, (7-15: Within Antiquated Halls) Thursday morning. Our game went long, in comparison to the other tables. We wrapped up after three hours. Most of the room was empty after two hours. If the scenarios are truly three hours, that's OK. I prefer four hours, but three is OK. Two hours isn't worth it for me.

Speaking as a freelancer here, for a 5,000 word adventure I'm always shooting for a 2 1/2 to 3 hour run time. I want players to see my pen name on a Meetup listing and think, "she writes adventures that are going to give me my driving time's worth."

People having to drive long distances is my prime motive for running the 2- to 3-hour scenarios longer. As a newer GM, I find it much easier, and more fun, to stretch a shorter scenario than trying to time-manage a longer scenario to end on time and feel rushed.

Scenarios that are 2 1/2 to 3 hours long tend to have plenty to stretch out. Shorter than 2 hours, and I start thinking of running 2 scenarios back to back.

So after two turns, my table was tired of the checks and had 12 Discovery Points with a table of five. These five only included one person (using the Dae pregen) that was lacking in skills.

I think three rounds probably is about the limit of player attention in many cases and should allow most groups to make it to 11 Discovery Points for the plot information. Should still allow some groups to make it to the last bracket, but not every game.

I don’t know what the intent was, but two to three rounds is likely what I will go with going forward. I will also try to watch the table to see if people are losing interest.

Thanks for the update. Another reason I like to add a map when there is a large number of skill checks in a row, I think it helps with player attention or focus. I know when I'm on the player side it helps me a lot.

Xathos of Varisia wrote:

Everything about this deals with money. If Paizo doesn't see a profit from it, then it won't happen. So everything for Org Play moving forward depends on whether or not it generates profit for Paizo. There are some good points and some bad points with all of these changes, but the biggest and worst point is about the money. Paizo no longer sees Org Play as a vehicle to bring players into Pathfinder or Starfinder. Instead, it either makes money for Paizo or it will be gone.

If an annual hardcover makes it easier for Corporate to devote resources to Org Play, I'm FINE with it.

Also, the blog explicitly says that VOs and certain volunteers will be getting free access to these adventurers (the adventure material specifically) the same as always. It's just that the actual adventures are being packaged in a way that's more likely to get non-Org Play people interested in picking up Pathfinder Society-branded materials and hopefully from there into Org Play. In my experience, I don't think I would have spent money on Org Play adventures as web-only PDFs - but I would and have spend money on hardcover adventure anthologies.

The hardcover adventure anthologies of scenarios are also a great way to put the scenarios in a format that people outside of organized play will buy.

Driftbourne wrote:

OstinatoAvocado wrote:

Is the Pathfinder Society Infinite/Starfinder Society Infinite template available yet?

It's the link in the second line of the blog post. That link might have been updated.

I mean the template. The guidelines reference you need to use the template for the cover page. Mostly asking because it says "Society" in the name which indicates it might be different from the standard Infinite templates.

Pathfinder and Starfinder Society Infinite Scenario Guidelines wrote:

You must use either the Pathfinder Society Infinite Scenario or the Starfinder Society Infinite Scenario template for your cover. Do not number your scenario. You must include the scenario’s title, author, level range, and play time (4–5 hour scenario or 2–3 hour scenario).

I see what you're saying now; good question. My computer died. I'm stuck on a Chromebook, so I hope it's compatible with that.

I have a lot of thoughts about Fabricator as printed.

** spoiler omitted **...

In organized play, you get 8 days of downtime between every game session.

I see what you're talking about. I think it's just offering possible ways to display things. showing you could put the sensor map beside your starship map, or below it.

I don't have the Tech Core PDF, so no idea what's on page 170.

I thought they said the new starship interior maps will have a sensor map on it; I'm assuming that will be on the edge of the map. Looking at the previews of the starship maps coming in November, there's only room for a single row of sensors on the side of the map on one map, and the other at best might have room for a double row. Both maps have much more open concept, making it easier to run from one station to another. Also better for large PCs. Prerelease preview images are often not the final version, so that might be why the maps are missing the sensors row.

For older maps, it shouldn't be too hard to make a sensor range map or just draw one on the map with dreerace markers.

Is the Pathfinder Society Infinite/Starfinder Society Infinite template available yet?

It's the link in the second line of the blog post. That link might have been updated.

I also never carried the provisions chart - That's up to the players to figure out in my opinion. Many other GMs in my area had the same philosophy. I'm very much of the opinion that the players can help the GM out in a lot of ways. If there's points to be kept track of in a skill challenge I'll often let the players keep track of it. They don't know the thresholds so don't know exactly how well they've done anyway.

I'm all for players helping out GMs; Most of our players locally are also GMs, which helps a lot. But what if none of the players have the provisions chart and a new player shows up? It's never happened to me, but I still prepare as if all the players have never played PF2e or SF2e.

Does it look like the map on Bluesky? You might have to scroll down a bit to see it

bluesky.

I'm still not sure why provisions changed to be honest. It's not like it was any extra work on the Paizo staff to have them - It's already written.

90% of the games I've played in, everyone just took the healing potion. Doing so saved a lot of time getting the game going. Although now that the new scenarios are shorter, there's more time for picking provisions. There does seem to be an effort to simplify all things organized play, not just on the Paizo side but for GMs as well.

All scenarios being repeatable, we saved our game Saturday because the GM had an emergency and canceled late the day before, and the GM filling in had a scenario most of us had played before. It was great not having to deal with all the old repeatable issues.

I think the provisions change is just one less piece of paper GMs need to bring to a game. The new scenarios tend to give out supplies useful to the scenario, although that can vary from one scenario to another.

Also, with all scenarios being repeatable with the old provisions, if you know a scenario, you could have all the right provisions that might make the encounters trivial. 6 free Healing scrolls in a scenario full of undead would be a cakewalk.

Another reason Starfinder will never be up to date with even current technology is that Paizo plans books a year or two in advance, and modern technology is changing at a much faster pace than that.

I got to prep this soon, so I took a look. I just read that page, and I see what you mean. I'm surprised that there is no adjustment for party size. 19 points seems like a lot for a 4-person party, although you only need 11 points to get the second-highest level of info.

I see how it looks like just 2 checks the way it's worded, I was leaning that way my self, but it also lists 4 areas.

1. laboratories,
2. operating rooms,
3. specimen containment cells,
4. and staff rooms,

I ran 1-36 Enter The Ashen Asteroid last year, and it was set up similarly but took multiple rounds to do exploring checks.

Google is suggesting that a party of 6 would average 9.6 points with just 2 checks each. Google also suggested that 3 rounds would be a standard challenge to get to 19+ points. So take that with a grain of salt.

The last 2 parties I ran scenarios for had some of the worst combined skill sets I've seen a party have. They would likely struggle with 4 rounds of checks.

I'd like to try to run the short scenarios a bit longer; doing 4 checks would help with that. I'm thinking of using the station map from 1-03 Disaster At Dreamlink Labs for the abandoned areas to make the checks more interesting and take a bit of time to move pawns around the map. The map works for the laboratories, operating rooms, and specimen containment cells to visualize the search; the only thing that map doesn't cover is the staff rooms. I suppose you could still use the map even if the PCs only do 2 checks each.

BotBrain wrote:

the 3000s is in many regards less technologically advanced than the actual 2020s.

This is true in Starfinder 2e as well. My cell phone is at least as powerful as the level 2 datapad, current sniper weapons can take more than 1 shot without reloading, I can get a flashlight mounted on my head trivially, etc etc etc.

The technology is a mix of advanced and retrograde.

Star Wars is a good example of a mix of advanced and retrograde. Blasters are only semi-auto and seem to only be used at close range. Automatic fire seems to be limited to guns the size of heavy machine guns. Luke's original land speeder, other than floating, doesn't even have AC or a built-in 8-track player, or even a radio. Commlinks, other than sending and receiving voice, video, or holograms, might come with advanced features like a flashlight!!!

Zoken44 wrote:

I would posit that an Emoji from a spell looks different to the various creatures/ancestries who observe them based on their cultural semiotics.

They'd almost have to given the variety of sapient species in SF2. We see animals here on Earth treat the presentation of a smile, the bearing of teeth, very differently; how much more complex is a smile emoji going to have to be when you're dealing with species who treat smiles as threat displays, or who haven't even got smile-capable mouthparts ... or mouths at all, for that matter?

A good example of an emoji having different meanings: try sending someone from Iraq a thumbs up (don't translate it; it will break forum rules.)

I'm guessing that characters at least won't be saddled with 30 years remaining on an enormous mortgage plus maintenance and operating costs. ;)

The one issue I have with a range-band approach is that it can make it much less intuitive to handle situations where there are significant actors in three disparate locations -- e.g. player ship attempting to intercept a pirate vessel that itself is trying to close in on a merchant ship, with the merchant not being already co-located with the player ship. As soon as there are three or more vessels with oblique trajectories and locations, something like the traditional 2D hex/square grid becomes interesting.

The samples we have seen of the range indicators; not sure if that's the full indicator or just a key example of how they work. But even if that's it, just a single row of squares- I don't see why you couldn't mark ship position to the left and right of the center line to help with visual position more even if it's not in the rules. Cinematic Starship Scenes don't even use maps, but I use a map anyway to help visualize the situation. My wild guess is the sample is just a key, and the actual range band is at least twice as long, so your ship can be in the middle to show both full range forward and aft. I'm also making a wild guess it's long enough to do chases with.

The spells section in player core does establish that in this edition Technomancers, and presumably their emoji spells, are fringe weirdos outside the magical mainstream.

I like that distinction for the Technomancers to make them feel different than wizards. I also like it because it leaves room for wizards in SF2e; A SF2e character with the wizard class is just like someone today majoring in classics or Egyptology. I don't see why the Arcanamirium doesn't have an ancient magic department.

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Random thought:

I saw another funny fireball meme today; it said. "I didn't ask how big the room is; I said I cast fireball!" What makes that a living meme in Starfinder is if someone in the party is live-streaming when that fireball goes off.

If that kind of shenanigans is disruptive to the feel of a game or part of a game, you can always send some glitch gremlins to target whatever device the PCs are using to live stream. A localized Drift Crash could always mess with that too. Or even just some kind of signal jammer.

There is a need for pop culture in a scifi world, because a scifi world would have pop culture. I've been thinking on it for a bit now and I think the shock comes from it being our pop culture.

I think using our pop culture makes for an easy, quick reference that everyone gets. Starfinder does have its own pop culture, but not everyone knows it. I think the big 3 are Zo!, Strawberry Machine Cake, and, to a much lesser extent, the sport Brutaris.

But unless you know a lot of SDF1e lore, people who started with SF2e don't get the references. There's a SF2e adventure where you can find a Rare edition Starberry Machine Cake thermos; to me that's top-level treasure, and I want to know when we'll find the matching lunch box in another adventure?

There was a whole Reddit discussion about Chk Chk and Dea calling Zo! in Era of the Eclips, that a call was wrong because a call to Eox from Absalom Station should have taken longer; the OP was convinced because Zo! would have been on Eox, so I listed every appearance of Zo! and where that adventure was located, and between SF1e and SF2e Zo! only appears on Eox twice, and I showed that Zo! being on Absalom Station is not out of place at all.

So it's hard for even a company like Paizo, who is known for deep lore, to establish pop culture within their setting, especially at the start of a new edition. Part of the change is in SF1e I think? most of the pop culture took place in organized play, and now we're seeing more of it in the core rules and APs. I think we're seeing that change because it was popular with players in organized play.

With the tighter math in SFe2, I'm also wondering how a split party where some are with and some without mechs works out.

If you're in a mech that is big enough to hold the whole party and it flies, you're basically in a starship. I'm wondering if the new starship rules could deal with that; then we could fight mechs vs. starships. On the smaller end, mechs are kind of like vehicles, so are small starfighters. I'm not expecting all of it in Tech Core, but how the starship rules scale and fit in with other rules could be a sign of other things to come and whether they can work together.

Several things on my wish list just got checked off.

1. Deploying your turret as a starship weapon!

2. Each battle station has upgrade slots!

I feel that PCs will feel more at home on a ship when they can upgrade their station. This all looks good to me.

My big curiosity is how the extra crew station slots will be used on the ship character sheet?

I like the pop culture in Starfinder; it makes it feel like the world is alive and that things exist outside of my character going on missions that usually end in shooting something. When you meet a new character, you can always talk about some pop culture element in Starfinder and have something to talk about that everyone knows about.

I don't mind the emoji spells; to me, it's no different than if Pathfinder had a group of Glyph spells. They are both types of symbols; just one is more high-tech.

There are dozens of memes for the Fireball spell; I love the one that says, "When the bard finally learns fireball," and the picture is someone with a flame-throwing trombone. The big difference between Pathfinder and Starfinder is that in Starfinder, characters are both aware of the memes and can cast the spell.

That's the thing I love about Starfinder: one day you're in the Great Absalom Relay (an actual pop culture event), and the next week you're your exploring a blood-soaked lab on the Gilded Edge Gelid Edge in the Disaster at Dreamlink Labs; things get even messier in Foul Humors. Then back to a celebration in Rites of Rekindling.

I'd love to see the Colossiborn to return...

I think I've already said this, but whatever XD

You'd think that Tech Core would add this ancestry, when it debuted in Mechageddon.

In SF1e, Mechs work best in an adventure or AP designed for Mechs, because the APL for a mech party is 3 levels higher than normal, which makes it really hard to have a player randomly show up with a mech character in an AP not written for mechs. If this stays true in SF2e, I wouldn't expect Colossiborn to return until there are first mech rules and then appear in the next Mech AP. In SF1e, we only got 1 mech adventure, To Defy the Dragon, and 1 AP, Mechageddon.

Because Mechs aren't something you can play in any adventure, I wouldn't expect them early in the game cycle, while Paizo is trying to get out core game elements like starships. We know the lead developer for Starfinder loves mechs, so it's not something Paizo has forgotten.

One of the most fun games I've ever played. Runtime 4 and a half hours; it could run shorter if you want to. I did add a lot to make it run longer.

Things I added:
I had the players do some skill checks after they read the invitation to get the guest list. Once they succeeded that I gave out handouts with the names of all the NPCs, with a short description of them. Then I placed NPC pawns next to their starships, which I used X-wing minis for, so the PCs would get used to faces and ships before the final Cinematic Starship Scene (CSS) Also, on the handout included all the starship roles and CSS rules, so everyone was ready well in advance.

Next, I added a map for the system exploration. I had the PCs' ship on the map next to a drift beacon (X-wing sensory buoy token) and placed 3 gas cloud tokens on the map. When the PCs made their skill checks, I replaced the gas clouds with a station token, another drift beacon, and a gravity well token for the forming star.

When the PCs visited Lorio's ship and the DCI station, I used the flip side of the PC's ship map for Olrio's ship and the SF2e space station map for the DCI station. I used the NPC pawns again to let the PCs interact and get to know the NPCs. I made Olrio's personality into a version of Lando Calrissian, and had Olrio like gambling, "the luck of the stars, and the luck of the cards." I did the influence rolls but favored the PCs getting the crit pistol, as having to gamble for it using the Infinity deck, so we played 3 hands of modified blackjack.

Next, the PCs went to the DCI station. The PCs have sworn me to secrecy so they can surprise their next GM. But I will say that somehow the NPC with the sunglasses ended up in a fashion show on the station.

I used the star map again for the final CSS. Each NPC had a ship, and I placed the NPC's character pawns next to their ship to help the PCs know who they were talking to in the battle and rescue. I rolled poorly for the damage from the Shipbreaker, so the PCs didn't have much to repair, which left the gunners with not much to do once the Phosimplex swarm was destroyed, so I responded by having the Phosimplex to give the whole crew things to do. I made heavy use of the INCREASING TENSION text box on page 9. All the interaction with the NPC before this encounter helped a lot. I had the NPC wiht the sunglasses freak out that their ship's alarms were going off, but they couldn't see any warning light; the PCs had to first figure out why they could see the alarms, which was becuse there sun glasses were too dark. Talking to the aggressive dragonkin about ramming the Shipbreaker was fun; I later had them ram the Phosimplex swarm.

I think talking to the NPC is key to making this fun; it's something that any PC could do for their 3rd action; it took the whole party to talk sense into most of the NPCs that caused problems for the rescue. I think this is the best example yet of how to make a fun CSS.

Season one was fun, both meta plot and non-meta plot scenarios. I concentrated on running the non-meta plot scenarios to give other GMs something to run, but the couple of meta plot scenarios I ran were a lot of fun, so looking forward to the AP to get a chance to run the whole plot.

I do have one suggestion for the AP

In the scenario I ran on Saturday, I managed to slip in a few hands of cards using the Infinity deck. It was just friendly betting, so the PCs didn't use their actual credits, but I did give out poker chips to players as they won rounds of the card game to keep score. We played three rounds. I wasn't planning on it, but at the end of the card game, I was due to give out more hero points, so I let both players who won hands keep one of their poker chips as hero points. When one of the players spent the poker chip hero point, it wasn't a huge change, but it did flavor their reaction to the die roll, which made it a bit more fun.