I just hit this point in the book, and I made quite a few. Between the difficulty to identify some of the rare/unique items found in the first area of book 3, and just learning about how deep the situation goes, I think I wound up making around 25 notes, but those included some personal story reworking I did as well as some fun little notes here and there.
I'm running this online in Foundry, so it was easier to do than handing out physical sheets. With journal entries, it was a way that players could peruse them at their own leisure.
I made a Journal note with a journal page for each topic. I "encrypted" the topics by leaving the notes blank, with just a suggestion of what might be in the note - "The sketches on this page hint that it could have something to do with XYZ." Then, once they were ready to settle down and start decrypting, I would paste in prepared stuff after they spent the time to do it. I also rearranged the various thoughts so that they didn't give away too much, but lead into other notes so that they would use that to lead in more research.
Having just done it with my players a week ago, I do suggest that if you do handouts, instead of just reading it to the players, be sure to let whoever is doing this decrypting read and then summarize it to the rest of the group. My players had a lot of fun with the "I found ABC in this note" "OH! If ABC then that makes the part of my note that says DEF make more sense!"
It was a lot of work, though. I spent a LOT of time crafting and proofing my handmade journal entries as opposed to just copy/pasting from the sidebar. I want to say I spent a good 10 hours out-of-game on them. Between deciding what goes where, and how much to drop, and re-reading things. The decryption part lasted them about two hours of our gameplay session, between deciding what to decrypt next and sharing with each other and generally fuming over the implications as they peeled stuff back. Going forward though, they have things they can check for themselves instead of asking me "what was that thing on the note about ABC?" So that may save some more time.
Almost complete replacing the need for a returning rune but adding in a small chance to lose your weapon on any given attack feels like it could be very frustrating in actual play in non-ABP Games.
Honestly, I feel the opposite. A returning rune is 55 gold, and that's an entire class feat. Sure, this works for all thrown weapons and ignores some range penalties for weapons with very short range increments, but there's also the thrower's bandolier that can gather your stuff back up, and can have a returning rune put on it. So for 115 gold, you have this feat minus the range increment caveats.
Have the rules for testing in Organized Play been published yet? I don't see it in the guide and I have interested players wanting to try these classes out. I'm especially interested in how we would test characters higher than level 1.
Rules for playtesting in Organized Play have been out for a while. The Org Play rules for Playtesting can be found here.
I was prepping this for this weekend, and just started the thread to give some early thoughts. The premise sounds good. There seems to be a lot of rounds of RP in the beginning, but with all the stuff that comes afterwards, I think it may have to be rushed.
It seems we have a minor "big creature limited by room size" issue in area B2, though not as severe as those in the past. Still looks like it can be an issue.
Area B2:
The Pillar Room has very few spaces for the large creatures to be able to move in, given the pillars going throughout the room. Depending on subtier and challenge points you can have up to three large creatures in a room that as only 16 spots they can stand in.
It is looking relatively easy for both the GM and the players to lock the NPCs out of the fight by placement.
I also had the same questions. In reference to question B, I would have loved it if that surprise wasn't spoiled ahead of time.
As for part C, I'm assuming they intended to run it as a "Run Away" chase as done in the Gamemastery Guide given that they reference those rules in the text, and giving the stats to make the pursuers' rolls with, which is:
"The PCs attempt to escape. They’ll go first in initiative since they’re being pursued. It’s usually best to start them one obstacle ahead of their foes and end the chase if they reach a certain location or are three obstacles ahead of their foes at the end of a round."
As for when the chase ends: "Chases often end when the pursuer reaches the same obstacle as the pursued, leading to a combat encounter or other scene."
So unless they clarify otherwise, it sounds like "Stay Ahead or Die" which seems very deadly, but it kind of sounds like that was the intent given the warning of
Scenario Text:
"Make it clear to the PCs that they would face
overwhelming numbers should they choose to stay in the
temple and confront the awakening <pursuers>."
In theory, there are lots of options for each obstacle on the chase for PCs to make, and there are a few free points possibly sprinkled in. However, if the pursuers act as one unit, it basically limits the amount of points they can earn to maximum 2 per round, which wouldn't be much challenge if they still need to hit the target numbers for each obstacle.
On page 23, there's also a small typo on "Gree Silk Peak" on the map, as well as a stray "A" on the map, which I assume is marking an encounter in the AP that players shouldn't know about.
Even if you lizardfolk spellcaster with +0 str, you will have more chances to hit with your claws. Of course, dinosaur have more damage but does it matter with this chances to fail?
Remember the note in the spell that says "If your unarmed attack modifier is higher, you can use it instead." If you had a higher bonus to hit with an unarmed attack, you use that, but get Big Dino Damage.
Closest thing we got to Farming God is Erastil and arguably Cayden Cailean right?
There is an Azlanti goddess, named Jaidi, who is pretty much the harvest Goddess, but she's not worshipped much anymore, except in a few small pockets. It seems like there are a good many comparisons to these two.
Didn't they change requirements for using a kit to match? Most kits, including snare kit, now say something like "You can draw and replace a worn kit as part of the action to use it." That means that the drawing and storing are part of the three-action snare deployment now.
I'm giving it a try now. A little slow to get stuff entered, but seems worth the money. If anything, I'd suggest some way to make a character's turn "hidden" from players when rolling initiative. Sometimes players don't know all the enemies in the fight, and having 5 enemies on the tracker but only 3 visible might give info away. Also, a way to just flat out remove a single something from initiative order would be good. That way we don't have to skip over it.
Essentially asking to use Channel Smite without having to take Channel Smite? That's pretty obviously not intended. I also don't think that a strike fulfills the requirements of a somatic component, because a providing a somatic component is a manipulate action and a strike is not. Making them openly interchangeable would not play well with grappling rules.
Also, what does Emblazon Weapon have to do with this? Nothing about emblazon weapon indicates the weapon replaces somatic components. The weapon becomes a divine focus and a divine focus replaces MATERIAL components.
Quote:
If you’re a cleric Casting a Spell from the divine tradition
while holding a divine focus (such as a religious symbol or
text), you can replace any material component the spell
requires by using the divine focus as a focus component
instead.
Emblazon weapon saves you from having to switch items around or drop your weapon if your second hand is unable to present your focus or provide material components, like if you've got a shield strapped on it.
Just remembered to check back in on this after my game finished book 3.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone. I'm glad you're liking it. My group is liking having a whole bunch of shadowy figures running about doing our bidding. I've already lost three agents, and having names to remember them by was a good RP moment.
I'm a player in this AP, and we just got to the point where we are getting our agents, in our Cult of Personality. I decided to make some tables to generate descriptions and backgrounds for my agents, and threw together some tables. Hopefully this will make it seem more like a motley crew of locals throwing themselves in to help the cause than "you have some agents. They do things."
One note that didn't fit on the page with the table: For a more "courtly" agent set, use 76-100 on the "Commoner" table instead of the whole table.
Oh yeah. I did forget about them! A Evocation/Transmutation/Conjuration Occultist would do nicely. It would be a little low on spell variety to start, but could do well.
Hello all. I'm looking to help a new player create something like Final Fantasy's version of a Red Mage; a sword-and-sorcery jack-of-all-trades. The challenge is to do it using only a single class, using Paizo-published Materials, without reskinning/reflavoring abilties.
Before I start, let me just get some stuff out of the way, because I know these forums!
- Yes, we know there's a Final Fantasy D20 system with a Red Mage Class. It's pretty good!
- Yes, we know that this could be better achieved with multi-classing.
- Yes, we know there's myriad third-party options that can emulate such a thing.
- Yes, we know you can just ask the GM for something to help fit the concept.
With that said, this is more of a thought-exercise and brainstorm, than a restriction on what can be played. The GM is awesome, and is fine with pretty much anything brought to the table, even if its tweaked or reflavored. We had certain qualifications as to what we consider a good replication of the Red Mage:
1) Decent Melee Weapon-based Proficiencies/Abilities/Features
2) Ability to cast Elemental Damage Spells, preferably earlier on in levels
3) Ability to cast Healing Spells
So far we have a few front-runners:
- Battle Shaman: The Shaman spell list gives access to requirements 2 and 3, but has very little to help with 1. We'd need to spend a good number of feats to get their melee skills to a good level, and that would probably just be leaning on the staple feats.
- Puppetmaster Magus: Puppetmaster Magus gets access to the Bard spell list, which puts most of the Cure X Wounds and some of the Remove X spells on their spell list. As a magus, elemental damage is a part of the kit, but the tradeouts to Spell Combat, Spellstrike, and Arcane Pool lower its normal weapon abilities.
- Arcane Duelist Bard: The Arcane Duelist gets all sorts of cool weapon abilities and feats to not only buff himself, but also his allies. The Bard spell list doesn't have many elemental damage spells, especially early on.
- Battle Oracle: I mean, the're good at what they do, and they do get some some great abilities. They don't get many elemental-damage spells until later, though.
I've come into a situation where a lot of class decks have been gifted to me, unboxed and jumbled together. Some of the class decks are multiples. For example, I think it has at least 3 Cleric Class Decks from the amount of Heggals I've seen. I'm not 100% sure that all the cards are there either. I want to split them into individual class decks, but I also want to make sure that they're complete.
The Class deck lists available are great for telling me the different types of cards that are in each class deck, but don't tell me how many of certain cards are there.
I know that each deck contains multiple Blessings of the Gods and may have multiples of some of the lower level B stuff. If I simply divide everything by the number of estimated class decks, I won't know if I'm missing cards or if the number of missing cards is divisible by 3.
Any help appreciated.
EDIT: Now that I think about it, I'd only need the cards that come in a quantity of 3 or more in a class deck, if that helps.
I don't think it's an error. For the most part, many of the season 0s how lower gold than usual at higher tiers. Mostly, it's an issue of carry over from 3.5 to Pathfinder as its own system.
Looking at the first AP section, it may accomodate mounted combat at times, but remember that this is an urban AP and as such a larger mount or a more "beastly" mount will have a hard time getting into places, not only space-wise but socially.
In other words, be able to function without a mount, and not a one-trick pony.
A survival knife is an Operative Weapon. (It's a special tag on the weapon entry.)
Operative Weapons wrote:
OPERATIVE WEAPONS
Operative melee weapons are basic in design, but they are capable of dealing precise damage when wielded by a trained combatant. An operative can use the trick attack class feature with a weapon with the operative special property. Additionally, any character can add her Dexterity modifier rather than her Strength modifier to melee attack rolls with these weapons.
In my experience damage in Starfinder, despite looks, is not as forgiving as in Pathfinder where you could just wand everything away at the end of a fight or after a blown trap. (However, that's one of the reasons why I like it!) You can regain your SP or HP but you have to spend a finite x-per-day resource to get it, be it a Resolve Point, spell, or use of a healing ability or item.
With that said, taking very small amounts of damage is a bit more "dangerous" in that it's usually not worth the use of an RP to recover small amounts of Stamina Point loss. And thus, the team may be going into the next fight not in 100% condition, which sort of ups the difficulty of those encounters.
(This won't count for much, because the Computers skill as a whole is designed to hand-wave most of this stuff away, so that people don't have to worry about it. But I figured I would post it anyway.)
If we're using real-world application, it's going to vary heavily by system. There is no one answer to this because it would depend on how the alarm and doors were built. It would depend on what sets off the alarm, and how the systems communicate.
Situation A (The hangar door controls send a "Hey, I'm opening the door!" signal to alarm monitoring system, which then sets off the alarm in the hangar area): You may be able to hack the door controls to not send the signal to the alarm system.
Situation B (The alarm system monitors the hangar bay controls, and sounds the alarm in the hangar when the signal is sent to the door.) In which case you'd need to disable the alarm system itself, which probably isn't available via the hangar door controls.
The whole alarm/door combo were singular and didn't really interact with anything else, then they might fall into situation A.
As an Inquisitor, you've got access to lots of things!
Silence and Invisibility are second level spells for you. If you can get your hands on a Silent spell rod, and sneak into position, you can be a ball of caster-negation.
Also, remember you have Litany of Sloth, which can help. Yes, it's a Will save to negate, but it is worth the shot. It will completely shut down a caster if it sticks when paired with Step Up.
I have to disagree guys. The "worst" would be a 14 Cha and that is still a +2 bump to assisting in diplomacy situations. Every other stat affects AC, a save, skills or combat.
As long as you aren't taking a hit to something your class needs, it's all cream.
Gotta point out that the Solarian's key stat is Charisma, so no, CHA can affect combat.
Yeah. Note that it says, "if you are conscious, you *must* choose one of the modes". You can't *not* choose a mode, unless your literally KOed.
Just remember that being unattuned is its own mode. So you can choose to be unattuned and gain no benefits. (Highlighting mine)
Quote:
When in battle, you enter a state of metaphysical alignment
with cosmic forces. At the start of your first turn in combat, if
you are conscious, you must choose one of three stellar modes:
graviton, photon, or unattuned (see below).
No, as casting the spell is a standard action. Doing a full-attack is a full action. You wouldn't get the action economy to do both. There are a spells (like magic missile) that do an extra attack if you cast it as a full action instead of a standard though.
While it's not in the CRB, Devs did state that it should twice the tier.
See this link to the blog post here.
Quote:
Computers themselves are in their own section in the equipment chapter. In general, a computer has an item level equal to double its tier. A tier 1 computer might be something as simple as a common datapad, while a tier 10 computer may be running an entire space station or handling major systems for a large company.
As for size, dimension are never really spelled out. But remember the weight approximation for bulk, and use that to drive how big a pile computer parts (which are usually developed to be relatively light) would be.
Wait, so if I ready an action to shoot a spellcaster who begins casting a spell with a 10-minute casting time, my readied action goes off 10 minutes later? WTF!?
Don't exaggerate.
Readied action wrote:
If you come to your next turn and have not yet performed
your readied action, you don’t get to take the readied action
(though you can ready the same action again).
You can shoot him on the second turn at absolute worst.
Aside from weapon damage, there really isn't a "starship scale."
Yes, there is. There's a whole sidebar that explains that starship scale is greater than creature/object scale on page 294 of the CRB.
Starship Scale wrote:
STARSHIP SCALE
Though the size categories of starships have the same names as the
size categories of creatures, they operate on completely different
scales. Even within a size category, a starship’s exact measurements
might differ between base frames and manufacturers. The size of a
starship also modifies its Armor Class and Target Lock as indicated.
It depends on what type of weapons your ship is equipped with, and where the missile is coming from! There's a a starship weapon property called Point that can shoot incoming missiles as they get close to you.
Point weapon property wrote:
Point
A weapon with this special property is always short range and
can’t be fired against targets that are outside the first range
increment. If a tracking weapon would hit a ship in an arc that
contains a weapon with the point special property, the gunner of
the targeted starship can attempt an immediate gunnery check
with the point weapon against the incoming tracking projectile
using the bonus listed in parentheses in the weapon’s Special
entry (instead of her usual bonus to gunnery checks). The DC for
this gunnery check is equal to 10 + the tracking weapon’s speed.
If the attack hits, the tracking weapon is destroyed before it can
damage the ship. A point weapon can be used to attempt only one
such free gunnery check each round, but this usage potentially
allows a point weapon to be fired twice in a single round.
While point weapons are great defensive measures, they are limited in offensive range and can only stop one missile per round. If you have two ships concentrating on one of your arcs with targeting weapons then your point weapon can only try to stop one of them each round.
No need to retcon Gaedren. They've already gotten that win, let them have it. In the future, try to get people's buy-in on some plot lines before your start the path; yes, it ruins some of the surprise, but you avoid things like this. With that said, you have several options on how to get the story back on track:
Possible re-direct:
Instead of having the queen tell them to work with the guard, have the town guard and Kroft approach the PCs. Cressida's level-headed enough to understand their not wanting to choose sides, and have her appeal to at least help keep the peace. Many of the missions and tasks Kroft gives are not directly tied to the queen's agenda, so the party may be better suited at breaking up brawls, dealing with otyughs coming out of the sewers, etc. Then you can have the queen stick her nose in when she "requests" (read as "demands") the guard to go after Trinia Sabor. At this point, the AP sort of assumes the party may be suspicious of the queen, and may want to question/hide Trinia so it still falls in line with the AP by that point.
As for shortening the path by changing who the "big bad guy" is, that could work.
Story Change:
Bahor/Glorio, as an influential man in Korvosa, could have fooled Ileosa by having the cultists spread the disease and then send Dr. Devaulus to introduce himself. Bahor's motivation could be to use the Senechal as a puppet to get onto the throne himself. While still evil, Ileosa doesn't need any more PR problems, so she'd gladly accept this doctor and declare martial law thinking that will boost her image as a powerful ruler (Blame it on the Fangs of Kazavon?). As such, she's more willing to go along with any suggestions Dr. Devaulus makes as long as he's backed by military might. As they PCs adventure on, they may want to go it alone or possibly even team up with the Queen or Sabina in an "enemy of my enemy" situation.
I've been using this blog post from the devs which says that it's twice its tier (emphasis mine):
Quote:
Computers themselves are defined in their own section in the equipment chapter. In general, a computer has an item level equal to double its tier. A tier 1 computer might be something as simple as a common datapad, while a tier 10 computer may be running an entire space station or handling major systems for a large company. Beyond its tier, a computer is defined by its size, user interface, access and authorization, basic function, modules (which define what the computer can do or control beyond its basic functions, and may include controlling other devices or computers), and countermeasures.
I don't see that in the CRB though, sadly. Between the quoted, and the needing ranks equal to twice the tier, I believe we've narrowed the intent.
I have a character (possibly for SFS, so being as close to RAW is appreciated) who I am looking into buying a personal camera for, but I can't seem to find any sort of price.
Outside of a few class features (Mechanic's drone and Expert Rig class features) I don't see how a character can access a camera. Obviously they exist, as several abilities (like Mechanic's Overload) and the computer description says that you'd need a control module to control an external camera.
Personal Comm units only do audio and text based communication, but it sounds like a regular computer would have access to the equivalent of a webcam. What I'm looking for is more of a personal video recorder, to take pictures as its owner explores, and can record findings for later. Any help?
No. Even though the class feature gives you proficiency, the 3rd level Weapon Specialization gives you the bonus to weapons you're proficient with as part of your first level in the class. For an example, look at the proficiencies you get as part of gaining the exocortex and the text included. You'd need something like the below (emphasis mine) to gain the specialization bonus.
Combat Tracking (Ex) wrote:
Your exocortex provides you with enhanced combat ability,
granting you proficiency with heavy armor and longarms. At
3rd level, you gain weapon specialization in longarms just
as if your class granted proficiency. As a move action during
combat, you can designate a foe for your exocortex to track.
As long as that target is in sight, the exocortex feeds you
telemetry, vulnerabilities, and combat tactics, allowing you to
make attacks against that target as if your base attack bonus
from your mechanic levels were equal to your mechanic level.
Designating another target causes you to immediately lose this
bonus against the previous target.
Because the proficiency mod comes from a drone mod, and drones don't automatically gain Weapon Specialization, they didn't add in the bit about gaining specialization, unfortunately.
You can always take Weapon Specialization as a feat though.
I agree with others that this is looking like you threaten both. I imagine that devs intended to specify somewhere that you only getting 5 ft. or 10 ft. and needing to switch your grip on your weapon to go between the two. Doesn't look like that made it in. Since they changed the action to switch your grip to a swift action (so you can only switch once on your turn and eat up your swift action) that may have been what they were going for. That's probably how I'm going to run it. But being able to threaten both at the same time probably isn't what they wanted.
The drone is a class feature, and unless called out specifically or houseruled, it cannot contribute to starship combat. Bolding below for emphasis.
Actions wrote:
Actions
You can take one action (usually defined by your role) per round
of starship combat. Certain actions require a minimum character
level or number of ranks in a certain skill. NPC crew members are
assumed to have a number of ranks in the appropriate skill equal
to the starship’s tier. Class features and items affect crew actions
only if specifically noted in the class feature or item. If a starship’s
tier is less than 1, treat it as 1 for this purpose.
I'd like to throw my concern in here as well. I've got a player who has lost his chronicle sheets due to an unfortunate fire. I can't even view his GM chronicles to re-make them currently because only his player sessions show when I go to look at them.
From the rules sheet at front of the faction card download:
Quote:
The number of goals completed is measured by those fulfilled on that card only—goals completed
on a different Faction Journal Card do not contribute to those on the first card.
Each Faction Journal Card provides one or more new rewards as well as at least one reward that appeared during a previous
season. If a PC would receive a duplicate reward that she earned on a previous card, she instead treats her effective number of goals
completed on all cards as though it were one higher. These bonuses stack—if she earned a duplicate reward on two season’s cards, she
treats her effective number of goals completed as two higher.
Tim, because they are attacked, and then confused if they fail the save. At that point if a confused creature is attacked, they go after the thing that attacked them.
First off... *marks down to take a drink when not at work*
Second, it's all based on intent in using such an item. My paladin has a hat of disguise. He doesn't use it to fool people or even fake his finery. He does it more to illustrate his points better. People usually know he's "in disguise" and there's no deceit to it at all. For example, a recent interaction was trying to get some info from some "less-than-bright" townsfolk, as we were chasing a man who went by several aliases.
Paladin: Have you seen a man who looks like this? *hat of disguise to take a similar shape to the person we're looking for, and follows it with a pretty decent disguise check*
Townsfolk: Yep! That's him!
Venture-Captain, Massachusetts—Central & West 764 posts (768 including aliases). No reviews. No lists. 1 wishlist. 74 Organized Play characters. 2 aliases. 
