Faenrel's page

So I'm a huge fan of the author Louis McMaster Bujold, both the Chalion stories and the Sharing Knife series.

Recently I've been putting together a campaign all about abberations. Do any of you have suggestions for some fun nightmare fuel? I'm already working out a False Hydra, and I'm creating from scratch a Malice, or Blight Boggle, from the Sharing Knife books. It's obviously 1st edition Pathfinder since I am DM and haven't gotten 2nd Edition yet.

So how often do other DMs roll ability scores for their villainous NPCs, most specifically non-humanoid ones. For example, say I want to create a unique black dragon encounter. He isn't THE BBEG, but is a legitimate boss fight. But he's not just some black dragon Mook. He has a name, quirks, all that. Do you roll ability scores, give him maybe a couple different spells or spell-like abilities? Or is he just another 'adult black dragon'?

Or does it have to do with player composition? I have a fairly in-depth story, where the NPCs all tie together at this stage. My players enjoy the depth of the world, but I know some wouldn't. Would you do the encounters differently, depending on play style?

The smaller ships seemed fair to me, but yeah, bigger ships seem... Off. For example, most colony ships in sci-fi are usually among the largest of any fleet, if among the weakest in terms of combat. Since no (sane) game is going to have 500 players under one DM, I don't see the min/max crew as absolutely vital in terms of player coverage. However, for flavor and ROLEplay (as opposed to rollplay) the numbers are important to me, for story fodder - valued NPCs to kill off, as well as redshirts.

So far, with everyone's input, it sounds like I might bring in some house ruling for ships, and a LOT of flavor over mechanics for the story. I did a bunch of convoluted math, and what I found was a ship of the dreadnaught size in Pathfinder would have an area of several dozen square miles, if not a couple hundred (math is NOT my strongest skill). My own town has a population of 50,000+. Ships about three miles in length would have a LOT of people on board.

SO! Thank you all for the input so far; I think I'll use the rulings with minor tweaks, if any, for combat stuff alone, but larger ships are going to have a LOT more crew/passenger options, as well as the bays. I'd be interested to keep this thread going, just to hear folks' own tweaks to the rules and what not.

So I've been working on building a few different ships, both for NPC vessels as well as learning how the rules work so I can better assist my players as they play. The rules I'm trying to figure out the most right now involve the maximum crew.

So using sources from many science fiction world's I will explain my confusion. As examples we have the UNSC Infinity from the Halo franchise. It would classify as a Starfinder dreadnaught, since it is over 15,000 feet in length - 18,682 to be exact. According to Starfinder the maximum crew is 500. Then, from the Halo wiki and lore comes this:

"The total known estimate of Troops aboard Infinity is 7,150. This is spread out among an unknown amount of Spartans, 5,400 Marines, 750 Orbital Drop Shock Troopers, 800 UNSC Army Troopers, and 200 UNSC Air Force personnel."

And:

"In total, the crew was about 11,112. This was composed of about 8,900 Naval Personnel, 1,700 ONI Personnel, 480 UEG Personnel, 24 Swords of Sanghelios, and 8 Special Assets."

With the Starfinder rules on crew and guest quarters, I don't see a dreadnaught in the Starfinder universe housing anywhere close to that number.

Star Wars, another VERY known sci-fi (and one that certain elements of Starfinder we're inspired by) has another example.

The Imperial-1 Class Star Destroyer measures 5,249 feet - a Starfinder battleship in size. Yet here are the numbers for it's crew.

"CREW
Officers (9,235)
Enlisted (27,850)
Stormtroopers (9,700)"

So.... Are the maximum crew numbers in the rulebook just as who is on the clock while the others are sleeping, while the minimum numbers only for the most dire circumstances? Or are the Starfinder ships just woefully undercrewed and undermanned compared to other well-known sci-fi universes?

So here's the story: our party of adventurers are all not-so-nice people to begin with, but the new guild master of our guild is even worse. So far he's tasked us with finding a few artifacts; the concept behind him is that while he himself has very little magical talent, for some reason he is a very good conduit for magical items. So he's become somewhat of a collector.

I need help compiling a list of items; I've contemplated taking some themes from movies/games/etc. One is a blade similar - SIMILAR, not a clone! - of Frostmourne from Warcraft.

I so far have a small fist-sized star sapphire, the sword, a piece of armor, a spear, and some kind of obelisk or something. Main advice I could use is certain powers. Like I said, the sword will be a soul-stealer among other things I already have planned... but as for the rest I've been drawing blanks.

The party is level 3, almost level 4, and while we have to find these trinkets we are also secretly plotting to kill our jack!$@ of a guild master. It'll be around level 11 or so when we get around to killing him; he isn't the end-all be-all villain, but he's still tough.

Any advice for abilities/powers, or even suggestions of other artifacts that give bonuses to evil peoples would be awesome!

(I'm not asking for artifacts like a bag of devouring or anything like that heh)

I am fairly new to necromancers myself; I have always wanted to toy with them, but have never had much opportunity (Our primary DM for a long time was a bit of a prude).

Now that I'm branching into other groups however, we are a lot more open. When I say a lot, I do mean A LOT. We've often taken classes from 3.5 and converted them over, simply because at the time they did not have the class for Pathfinder, such as playing a Duskblade until they came out with the Magus and such. One player we have LOVES the class Healer from D&D Minis. It's got pretty much zero combat ability, but good lordy they keep the party alive.

My favorite Necromancer class in these regards (IF your DM is willing to let you convert from 3.5 over to Pathfinder) is the Dread Necromancer from Heroes of Horror.

Neceros has already done it if you look in Pathfinder database, or you can tweak it of your own volition. But let's face it, if you really want the Horde Style this is a BRILLIANT way. Dread Necromancer level + your charisma bonus HD worth of creatures PER LEVEL. Seriously, that's awesome (and can break a campaign if you don't have the right DM, so choose carefully)

Awesome; thanks for the help in this matter. Another random question; what would everyone say is the closest to a Scottish/Irish type of people would there be in Golarion?

I'm be inclined to say either Varisia and that area, or even Nirmathas. As I have ancestry from there, I'm just kind of in the mood to play a Scotsman-esque character.

Recently my friends and I have played off and on an episodic campaign designed more around when we feel in the mood to play, but not so much any serious adventure path. It's short, sweet, and one that can be picked up and dropped with little to no fuss.

My question concerns how I can get in touch with folks from Paizo about letting them pick apart my brain like a psionic truth-seeker. Or... however they want to go about it. I'm not a published author, yet, and while I'd like to be, it's sometimes tough getting the ball rolling.

In spite of this, I would like to submit an idea or two... or ten... to Paizo's good administrators and other in-charge people, or find out ways I can go about proving myself first if it is needed. I'm not new to the game, but sadly I'm still new to the forums. I'm not sure where to go, and as it's late and I should be sleeping to get ready for work tomorrow, I find my brain won't STOP TALKING! and here I am, burning the candle to a stump.

If anyone, Paizo employee or otherwise, has advice, an open ear, or constructive criticism to offer, I would greatly appreciate the help and/or advice.

Also... I appologize for the wordiness. I get wordy when I'm tired.

I personally would LOVE a celestials even, but if we could get more in-depth to each sept- angels, agathions, etc.- I would be a happy camper. I hear a lot of people wanting more devil and demon and other fiendish things because it's admittedly fun to play the darker characters sometimes, and it's also fantastic to have the sources for making truly villainous, evil, wretched bad guys.

But why shun the light? After all, a half-elf enemy of a devil or demon might get just a tad less interest than a half-angel enemy. Know what I mean? In all honesty, it was one thing that 4th edition did that tended to bug me. They focused on tieflings, a lot of more evil creatures, and gave stats for them as playable things, and for a long while neglected the good side of the pond. I'd just like to see the opportunity for those of us who enjoy playing the clerics and paladins a lot to get some fun to dabble in the holy side of things just a little more.

Regardless, I am always in love with Pathfinder's worlds, and now that I have a job and all, I'll be able to fill my gaming library with yet more books. And more!