Felldales Dragon

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Sovereign Court

When looking at using material from PF1 that has not been brought into PF2 yet (say for sake of argument, outer dragons), how would a 3PP reference that in the OGL blurb at the end? Is it:

A) Just use the PF1 OGL paragraph
B) Not do anything but the PF2 core blurb
C) something else?

I just want to make sure that if/when I make something based on or referring to such things that they are correctly identified.

Sovereign Court

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I'm making playable ancestries for some of the intelligent monsters that you may like to play as. I'm intending on doing those that Paizo would be unlikely to make (he he, I started making a Pixie/Sprite/Grigg ancestry then Paizo announced they would make their own, grr). So far I've made 6 that are available on DriveThruRPG for your pleasure.

Medusa
This first installment brings the ever lovely medusae to the table, with rules on how to create a character as an ancestry. Incorporating 2 heritages focusing on poisons and the snake-covered head that typifies medusae as well as 11 ancestry feats and one magic item.

Sahuagin
This second installment brings the ferocious sahuagin to the table, with rules on how to create a character as an ancestry. Incorporating 3 heritages focusing on their underwater skill and mutations represented by those iwth extra arms and spines along their back as well as 12 ancestry feats, one precious material armour and one weapon.

Nymph
This third installment brings the hauntingly beautiful nymphs to the table, with rules on how to create a character as an ancestry. Incorporating 3 heritages focusing on three of these fey (dryads, lampads and naiads) as well as 10 ancestry feats and one magic item.

Archon
This fourth installment brings the lawful archons to the table, with rules on how to create a character as an ancestry. Incorporating 4 heritages focusing on their virtues such as justice and courage as well as 12 ancestry feats.

Werecreature
This fith installment brings the cursed werecreatures to the table, with rules on how to create a character as a versatile ancestry as well as an archetype anyone can take. Incorporating 1 versatile heritage as well as 6 feats shared between the ancestry and archetype, 2 focus spells and a ritual.

Serpentfolk
This sixth installment brings the secretive serpentfolk to the table, with rules on how to create a character as an ancestry. Incorporating 3 heritages focusing on mental or physical prowess as well as 15 ancestry feats and 2 magical items.

There will be more to come, with the specifics depending on what I like and what others may want to see.

Sovereign Court

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I ran my players through a mech combat last week. They were level 8 and I wanted a single pilot mech for each of them. Using the build rules (see my other thread for my thoughts on the process) I could not make 5 tier 8 mechs for my players (there are 5 of them) with the points allowance, so I just gave them 160 MP to make a tier 8 mech for each of them. My players were a technomancer, operative, mystic and an envoy. I put them up against the CR 12 AHAV as that is within the increased capabilities of mechs according to the rules.

Mech builds:

Spoiler:
Skirmisher (Tier 8)
Size: Huge
HP: 302; Shield Points (SP): 19; Power Points (PP): 2/8/3 (initial/max/rate); Hardness: 4

EAC: 26; KAC: 29; Fort: +10; Ref: +10

Base Speed: 70’; Strength: +6; Operators: 1

Lower Limbs: Quadruped; Upper Limbs: Assault Arms; Power Core: Dynamo mk3
Weapon Core (Aux): acid, fire
Plow Plating (Aux): ignore difficult terrain

Attack Bonus: +9 + BAB/Piloting ranks

Frost Rifle (lvl 8, upper)
Gatling Gun (lvl 8, upper)
Hammerknee (lvl 8, lower)
Plasma Rifle (lvl 7, frame)

Spoiler:
Skyspy (Tier 8)
Size: Huge (flight, recon)
HP: 262; Shield Points (SP): 19; Power Points (PP): 6/13/1 (initial/max/rate); Hardness: 4

EAC: 26; KAC: 26; Fort: +8; Ref: +10

Base Speed: 40’, fly 130’ (perfect, max 5’ high); Strength: +4; Operators: 1

Lower Limbs: Hoverpad; Upper Limbs: Precision Arms; Power Core: Eternal mk2
Cloaker (Aux): can use stealth
Autotarget (Aux):
Recon Arracy (Aux): +2 perception, +5 computers to scan
Fleet: x2, +20’ speeds

Attack Bonus: +10 + BAB/Piloting ranks

Sonic Shotgun (lvl 8, upper)
Frost Rifle (lvl 8, upper)

Spoiler:
Sharpwing (Tier 8)
Size: Huge (flight)
HP: 303; Shield Points (SP): 19; Power Points (PP): 1/7/3 (initial/max/rate); Hardness: 4

EAC: 28; KAC: 30; Fort: +9; Ref: +9

Base Speed: 30’, fly 60’ (average); Strength: +4; Operators: 1

Lower Limbs: Agile Biped; Upper Limbs: Assault Arms; Power Core: Dynamo mk2
Plasma-Shock Circuits (Aux):
Systems Jammer (Aux):
Unbreakable Armour: +1 KAC, Fort
Reinforced Frame: Base HP +5, HP advanced +1

Attack Bonus: +9 + BAB/Piloting ranks

Plasma Sword (lvl 8, upper)
Spiked Shield (lvl 8, upper)
Missile Battery (lvl 8, frame)

Spoiler:
Charger (Tier 8)
Size: Huge (phase)
HP: 336; Shield Points (SP): 35; Power Points (PP): 7/15/2 (initial/max/rate); Hardness: 4

EAC: 28; KAC: 28; Fort: +8; Ref: +10

Base Speed: 80’; Strength: +5; Operators: 1

Lower Limbs: Fast Biped; Upper Limbs: Tough Arms; Power Core: Eternal mk3
Teleporter (Aux):
Thrusters (Aux):
EMP Cannon (Aux): target EAC, Fort DC: 19
Enhanced Shields: x2, +16 SP
Reinforced Frame: Base HP +5, HP advanced +1

Attack Bonus: +9 + BAB/Piloting ranks

Laser Rifle (lvl 8, frame)
Spear (lvl 8, upper)

Due to the story I was running the initial plan was for all 4 mechs to me remotely piloted, but the technomancer wanted to be in the field as he could then use the remote operation spell to control another mech if needed. The spell seemed like it could and should do so, so I allowed them to do that (not that they ended up doing it during the fight).

I started the fight 1000' away from the AHAV as it was breaking out of the ground where it had laid dormant and they were approaching it. This is where we come to the first point.

1. Weapon capacity seems pointless
Since most of the guns have a capacity of 10 with 2 reloads, a lot of my players decided to just take pot shots from that extreme distance. They figured that since they had so much ammo it was worth it to fire with such a poor chance of hitting. Even with the odd full attack, none of the mechs ran out of their first magazine. Saying that, that has been my experience with normal combat, but considering this appears to be for the odd usage like ship combat, it seems odd. Maybe just allow infinite attacks and only the special attacks have a limited fire like missiles/torpedoes in ship combat.

So, everyone continued moving up. The operative was in the sharpwing, so was double moving constantly to get into melee range. The rest were just moving and then shooting at the AHAV. It was firing at them and got some good hits in, taking out shields. However once it got through the shields, it didn't seem capable of doing a lot of damage after the 4 hardness.

2. PCs didn't appear to be close to being destroyed
A couple of PCs used the shield regen action to get more shields back, but as the GM, I felt that I wasn't really doing enough to truly threaten the mechs. Granted I had 5 tier 8 mechs vs a CR 12 creature and maybe this is just needing to fiddle creature I put against them. Near the end I did have my AHAV grapple the sharpwing mech just to change things up from just shooting and the players got worried, but realistically even succeeding the second time and having them swallowed and having some damage didn't really do much.

So, the players moved around, took shots and some used their special abilities. Dual strike was used several times to get lots of attacks off and the EMP cannon on the charger was used a couple of times. Since their enemy was a creature and not a mech, but was a construct I had to quickly make up some rules for its impact considering there was nothing in the playtest rules (gave it a -2 attack for the weapon EMP effect).

3. Rules for mech effects against creatures
There are several mech specific rulings in weapons/abilities that seem like they should have an impact against construct creatures (and maybe others) but technically would not impact them because they are not mechs. I suggest these are either added with each ability, or a rough guide elsewhere as to what effects they may have. Home games it can be ruled by the GM but if this is used in SFS then specific rulings will need to be made anyway.

The technomancer wanted to use one of his teleport abilities to get inside the AHAV and do stuff to it from within. I allowed it since he is a spathinae and he started to mess with it using his spells and engineering/computers checks to give it penalties similar to the critical damage table for mechs. Afterwards we discussed how some spells might interact with mechs.

4. Spells and mechs
Mechs are vehicles and so spells that target vehicles can do so to mechs (this has already been covered elsewhere with the example of the spell that completely disables a mech for a minute). Some things brought up were if you were able to use supercharge weapon to make your gun do more damage, especially useful in a multi-person mech. Since some if not most guns appear to be built into the mech, that seemed reasonable, but something to consider. Transfer charge was also brought up, to switch charges from one energy weapon to another energy weapon, getting extra reloads for a specific gun. If ammo was removed as above, then that wouldn't matter. But could it also be used for power points or shield points? Presumably they are holding a charge, so could you move them around between mechs? And then teleport. We used it to get inside the AHAV, but could you do so to get inside an enemy mech? Is there sufficient room? Something like Pacific Rim has masses of room to teleport in, while gundam style there would be much less. I guess getting into GM decisions there, but again something to consider.

So, the PCs destroy the AHAV and win the fight. Afterwards, the players said their characters had little impact on the fight.

5. Character abilities have no impact on mech combat
A bit hyperbole there since BAB/pilot skill has an impact, but putting it this way: I had a new player join that session and came to build his character while we had the fight. I had him join anyway since he could put 8 ranks in piloting and now had everything on his character sheet he needed to play as a mech. This has been mentioned elsewhere here before but nothing of their character mechanics wise had an impact. You could say that for ship combat, but there are a few abilities that interact directly and a few that do so indirectly. I presume there will be similar class abilities or modifications of existing abilities in the final run, but right now it is basically "Throw away your character sheet, here is a new one to use."

Which leads onto my final point:

6. Mech combat doesn't feel special
Yes we have cool abilities and interesting creation stuff, but when it comes down to the combat it just feels like normal combat, except not playing as your character. There doesn't seem that much difference between this and giving all your players power armour and the proficiency to use it, except players can use their own abilities in power armour. Maybe having facing would make it feel different enough, with features that fitted into that would make it feel a separate type of combat like in ship combat, although maybe on a square grid to make it different from that.

So it seemed to be enjoyed and worth having, and I will probably use it again in my own game, but it definitely seems to be lacking something to make it special.

Sovereign Court

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I made 4 mechs for my starfinder group to play with this weekend. Going through the process of making these mechs I had a few thoughts, some of which I've seen here already.

I made my 4 mechs to be different from each other and to be single pilot mechs (I can give stats later when I have my sheet with them on). I did intend on a 2 seater but I got burned out designing 4 in a row.

1. Mech Points and distribution
My players are level 8. That gives them 120 MP each. For these purposes I wanted each to have their own mech, so that leaves each with a Tier 6 mech. Mechs supposedly give the user a 3 level boost for CR and fights (according to the rules, although that does mention for mechs with a tier equal to the players level), which means their fighting ability is not that much better than without their mechs (supposedly). I understand that I can merge the points for a bigger multi seat mech, but that wasn't my purpose here.

I ended up building each mech as a tier 8 mech. Without massive in depth analysis, my personal feeling here is to just allow players to build a mech with a tier equal to their level and give each MP as per a mech of that level. If they wish to be able to use multiple people in one mech, give them 1/4 - 1/2 of the individual mech points to account for this.

2. HP progression
There has been mention of it elsewhere here, but just adding for completion. There are two parts. First, calculating HP was a bit complicated. Increasing the amount of HP you get for each level geometrically means it is a drawn out process to work out the HP when creating a mech at higher levels. There is no simple Y x tier. Its not hard (I used a spreadsheet to do it quickly) but it is annoying.

Second, HP Advancement/Hit Point Progression. Two terms for the same thing. One from frames the other from limbs. Rename both to one or the other.

3. Flight vs Recon frames
As others have mentioned, recon is pretty much straight up better. Aux slots (to me at least) appear much more useful than frame slots.

4. Limbs
Lower limbs are good. I had no real issues with them. Upper limbs were not too bad. A couple of points linked to points below, mostly costs of some weapons and being able to get extra upper limbs through an aux slot.

5. Power Cores
Until I see play with these, the numbers and differences are a bit esoteric. However I did notice that the special power cores didn't really enthuse me. The aeon core was the most interesting, but the others were meh. But others may like them I suppose.

6. Weapons
First main issue I had. I was making mechs with different limbs and I wanted my flight one to be gundam like with a sword and shield. I was going with powerful arms to get the strength boost for the melee, until I realised that for whatever reason the only shield required 2 slots. That meant I had to go with the only upper limb with 3 slots.

Next up, again something that has been mentioned, there is no generic melee attack for mechs. For some of mine I added a hammerfist just in case. However it would seem more elegant to allow mechs to have a generic slam attack. This also leads to most melee weapons having low damage. I feel this is because they add strength to damage where guns do not. Again without in depth analysis I can't comment specifically, but it seems like this was mostly because of special options each has.

Thirdly, I do like the idea of varying weapon costs based on the level of their weapon which is independent of that of the mech. No weapon used extreme damage, although I imagine this is just because this is the playtest.

In general the weapons seemed reasonably interesting and a mixed selection of abilities, although since I was planning on a single enemy encounter I focused more on those types of weapon.

7. Aux slots
Interesting and I can see their utility in the future. I'm seeing them as part expansion bay, part extra systems from starships. For those who would want 4 arms etc, I can see this being a good spot to add that option in. However, it seems that not all the frames have unique options, either due to this being the playtest or because nothing came to mind. This does mean that certain frames become more enticing with these slots.

So in general, I enjoy the mech building rules but there are a few spots that seem unnecessarily complicated. I will return with feedback after my players have had their fight.

Sovereign Court

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With the deck of many worlds coming soon, I thought making a spreadsheet doing roughly the same thing would be interesting.

Spreadsheet of Many Worlds

It randomly generates a bunch of stats for a planet/system including things like tech level, species, number of moons, distance from their star, and planet type. At the moment the biomes aren't plugged in as I am still thinking on how to deal with that. Pressing F9 will allow the spreadsheet to refresh and change everything.

Sovereign Court

I thought about emailing the relevant Paizo section with these questions, but I figured they may be helpful for other first time 3PP creators. Anyway, I'm thinking of creating various ancestries based on bestiary monsters and there were a few things I wanted to check to make sure it is all ok.

1. Can I use monster names that are common in mythology, such as the medusa?
I figure this is an easy yes, but best to check these things.

2. When creating ancestry feats, can I use the same style as existing Paizo ones?
For this, things like the lore ancestry feats that say you get 2 skills and a lore about that ancestry. I figure yes, but can I use exactly the same wording, or do I have to change this around?

3. Can I base ancestry feats off of existing monster abilities?
ie using the medusa example, could I take the petrifying gaze ability, with modifications? Again, can I use the same wording changed as needed to modify the ability, or does it need to be completely reworded?

4. Can I make ancestry feats that are exact copies of monster abilities?
ie, could I take the medusa's biting snakes ability and use it as is to an ancestry feat? Or would I have to modify the wording? Or would it have to be a reference such as 'see Medusa, PF2 bestiary' or similar?

5. Can I make ancestries out of monsters that are Paizo unique?
ie could I make an Axiomite ancestry since as far as I can tell only Paizo has it? Would I have to change the name (ie something like Law-born, or Law-folk) or is it completely off the table?

6. If using an alternate name, could I reference the original name in the description?
ie saying something like, 'is also know as an Axiomite,...' or is any reference to such things disallowed?

7. If allowed to use such Paizo uniques, are we allowed to base them from non-core line books (ie World Guides and APs)?
Looking at the compatibility page, it would appear no as only the core rulebook and bestiary are currently listed there, but I'm not sure of the specifics in how this is handled.

8. Given that a certain amount of the above is ok, how is it referenced in the copyright notices at the end of the file?
From what I can tell, only the core rulebook as a specific copyright plate bit to add in, nothing for the bestiary. Was this a mistake, or on purpose, or irrelevant?

THank you in advance for assistance with these questions. Figured since I was working on some of this, others might appreciate it as well and I might get a little something for my effort, but sometimes trying to understand some of the subtleties of what is allowed is complicated.

Sovereign Court

So when you use the Dragon Form spell, you gain the Dragon trait:

Dragon Trait wrote:
Dragons are reptilian creatures, often winged or with the power of flight. Most are able to use a breath weapon and are immune to sleep and paralysis.

I bolded the relevant bit here. Does this make you immune to sleep and paralysis while using this spell? Seems like it does here.

Sovereign Court

So, communits have an option that they can be turned into a computer or have sensors added at additional cost. However, does this mean that sensors (such as motion detector, x-ray visor, shotgun microphone etc) can be added to computers normally? Technically the rules don't seem to allow this, but since communits can be turned into a computer and still have them added, seems like they should be allowed. Thoughts?

Sovereign Court

So when you move into an enemies square you provoke an AoO, that's fairly obvious. However, does the rider, who is not using their actions to move also provoke? Or does it count as forced movement and therefore not provoke?

Just something that I came across when having stirges ridden by sprites attack the party.

Sovereign Court

In my various play groups some people have played characters that were half one race and half another, but because the rules don't allow for any such combination other than human-orc/elf they had to sit with one of their parent races as their main one. I decided to see if I could come up with something that allowed people to mix any two races together to get such a half-breed from these unions.

Now this file I worked on is split into several different sections. The first is the first way of choosing a half-breed. Basically what I did was take each race, halve the bonuses/penalties to their ability scores and gave that to the half-breed. Type, speed, size, languages remained the same. Then I looked at the various special abilities and whatnot that each race got and tried to pick the more thematic, iconic powers of that race. Now I tried to get each race to a 5 RP value (which, yes I know is a not terribly great way to test power of races, but was a useful gauge to match races up) so that when combined together the half-breed of your choice would be a 10 RP combination and therefore of comparable strength to the majority of the other races. Now, some of these powers from the newer races didn't have set RP values so I had to compare and guess at some.

In addition, the draconic/construct races I ignored completely for the simple reason of their base race type value was 10 RP and so couldn't reduce it by much to make them fit. The plant races, I didn't count as their full RP value, as they have had a reduction in Ultimate Wilderness as to what immunities etc they now get.

The idea here is to combine two of these races, add abilities and you have your new race. Now this does miss out on the skill bonuses that the various main races get, so the second chapter deals with instead having the half-race stats using their skills and other misc bonuses rather than the big flashy iconic powers. This means that you can combine the two to get a more rounded half-breed. Choices people.

THen, since obviously some of these races combined have weird connotations if their parents had a baby, so I included a section on a few different ways races could be combined to make the new one, to get the new half-breed.

There is also a few tables in there allowing you to roll randomly to select your races, both a large, everything in it and a few smaller ones split by more sensible combinations (like avian for flying races, reptilian for the more reptile like races etc).

Finally, there are 4 half-breed races I made using this system, 2 using two of the primary stat blocks and 2 using one primary and one secondary stat blocks. Plus some background info giving an idea of how they came about and how their society works etc.

Anyway, have a look and let me know what you think. Now I know that some race combinations might be very powerful, but my hope is that the system I used has kept that to a minimum.

Half-Breed document

Sovereign Court

Since goblins are being added to the core races/ancestries, how about we look at changing some of the others to more Golarion/pathfinder specific races to help differentiate it from DnD and other RPGs with Ye olde fantasy races.

Now humans are central to Golarion so they must stay and I think Elves and Dwarves are core to the fantasy that they should stay. Halflings and gnomes possibly, although they could be swapped for different ones.

Half-elves/orcs I think should go away. They smack too much of being someone earlier wanting their character to be the child of elf/human and wanting a race specifically for it and the half-orc of being lets put a monster in that isn't really a monster. Put them in later, but for core, why not switch them?

Could put aasimar and tieflings in instead. They are interesting and flavourful. I know some have asked for tengu/kitsune/etc but I feel that they are too Tienese for the Inner Sea background we seem to have for the core book. Changelings, rat folk/ysoki, vanara, vishkanya could also be interesting core races instead.

Sovereign Court

So, how does Spring Heeled Reaping interact with the new improved/greater spring attack feats. Spring heeled reaping gives you a second attack when spring attacking at your full BAB. Improved gives you a second attack at -5 BAB and greater gives a third for ones at -5 and -10 BAB.

Now would you get two attacks at full BAB and then the extras on top of that, or would they just replace each other such that you get one at full, another at full or -5 BAB depending on which feat you use and then a final one at -10?

Sovereign Court

Just curious, if you capture a creature in it and then take off the kimono and put it in an extradimensional space like a bag of holding, what happens? Does the creature stay in the kimono forever as they are on a different plane to where they came from. Do they immediately reappear when you put it in? Does it not matter and they reappear after the right conditions are met?

Following that, what if you planeshifted first, then put it in the bag of holding?

Sovereign Court

In one of ye olde faction player/campaign companions there are a bunch of traits for the various Core classes (such as extra rage for barbarians, extra sneak attack damage for rogues etc). However as far as I can tell there haven't been updates for the later Base classes. With the upcoming ACG classes and the new Guide for Season 6, I was wondering if there would be the possibility of either adding such traits to the Guide or in a later publication of some sort.

Sovereign Court

So I have an Aasimar that has 1 chronicle sheet held until she reaches a higher level (lvl 2 I believe). Now I should be able to play a game as her to get the 1XP needed, but I am curious if held chronicle sheets that have been assigned to that character would count towards the 1XP requirement for grandfathering.

Sovereign Court

In the ISGs book, the magic item section specifically calls out that the named magic armour and weapons can be upgraded for the relevant costs and magic armours can be of different types to that listed (ie leather instead of studded leather etc).

However there is the FAQ that says that no named armour/weapons can be upgraded. Would the ISGs overrule this for the items within this book as it is the newer source (other sources of specific magic armour etc like Ultimate Equipment don't have this statement about upgrading) or will the FAQ still stand?

If it is allowed to upgrade these items, would the costs to upgrade be just that of upgrading the +X difference and treat the additional costs for the specific item as a +X gold equivalent?

Sovereign Court

Do these new classes count as their alternate classes for getting access to feats/traits/etc so long as they meet any other pre-reqs? I'm guessing yes because it states they are alternate classes and would presumably work like the ninja/samuri/anti-paladin in that way.