HolyFlamingo!'s page

More HP on the daredevil was a very easy and obvious fix, so I'm glad to see it out of the way early.

On the Hunt basically never triggering in boss fights was my biggest slayer complaint, so knowing that's being worked on makes me happy, too. Looking forward to the phials and daggers getting buffs as well.

As for the daredevil, my #1 problem with the class was how a lot of the feats were just "you can do Normal Thing X except using Skill Y or targeting Defense Z instead," which was pretty boring and a waste of space. I'm interested to see if that kind of flexibility will be rolled into fewer, more general feats or just become a default part of class progression.

Overall, happy with the update, even if it's on the shorter side. As for the image of the fancy treasure vault and the word "delve" in particular... TheTownsend might be onto something with that Dungeon Core joke. Or maybe... a Darklands/underground campaign sourcebook? Finally?

What time do the surveys close? Like, do we still have time to squeak them in on April 10th in the morning or afternoon or something?

Alien Core combing still in progress (slow going due to long work hours). I think once I'm done I'll post some recommended fixes for GMs in addition to the data itself. Official errata may never happen, and I want people to be able to have fun with the Corpse Fleet and Azlanti Star Empire.

Like, these are Starfinder's flagship bad guy factions. They should at least be on par with other creatures of their level, y'know?

Finoan, this isn't about me being a killer GM (I am, in fact, a pushover). This is about a legitimate problem with the game's math. In 2e's engine, NPCs are built fundamentally different than PCs; their to-hit and damage curve factors in battlefield role and level, but not their ability scores (which are mostly for show/improvised checks) or what kind of weapon/natural attack they are using. Calculating to-hit and damage as if they were PCs results in creatures being unable to present the appropriate amount of threat for their level, breaking the game's balancing and making encounter building unreliable.

Higher-level creatures that do not use guns don't have this problem: their damage output sticks within the bounds of creature building outlines. So, it's specifically an issue with low-level and weapon-wielding creatures, probably because it's easier to just do PC math in one's head instead of consulting a table.

And the thing is, flavor-wise, these undertuned creatures and NPCs aren't supposed to be unusually weak: many are iconic villains/monsters and elite units. And even if they're undertuned on purpose, that doesn't make sense because we already have a device for that: the creature's level. The entire point of tethering a creature's statistics so closely to their level is to keep the game's math stable and reliable. If the math isn't stable, GMs have to go in and check/tweak each creature individually in order to nail the encounter feel they want, which is a massive time sink in a game that's already fairly prep-heavy. This is true regardless of whether you intend to make an encounter easy or hard.

Speaking of unstable math, I've seen damage output swing the other way, too: certain enemies have done way too much damage, and they've all had one thing in common: weapons with the Boost trait. But I'll rant about that some other time.

Anyway, sorry if this thread sounds harsh. I've had my eye on this issue for months, and the deeper I look, the worse it gets. I'm tired, I'm fed up, and I expect better from Paizo's design team. I feel like the money I spent on my special edition Alien Core was a complete waste, and my Society players--who already expect the game to be on the easier side--are struggling to enjoy themselves, because even "hard" combats are cakewalks.

I am steadily going through Alien Core to confirm that this is more than a hunch, but it's something I keep running into in Society scenarios, and I saw it in Murder in Metal City as well: tons and tons of creatures are desperately undertuned.

I first noticed something was up when my players were taking so little damage during a scenario that a single mystic was able to negate every hit, if anything managed to hit at all. I double-checked enemy stat blocks and, yep, they were all on the low side according to the creature building rules.

This seems to happen more often with humanoid enemies, low-level creatures, and creatures that use manufactured weapons. For example, every single aeon guard in Alien Core has absolutely scuffed to-hit and damage values, with a couple of them falling below the "low" values on the creature building tables (and no values going above moderate except for the Aeon Guard Commander's to-hit with their sword). Meanwhile, most of the higher-level "monstrous" creatures I've checked so far seem to be in line with statistical guidelines.

If I had to guess, I'd say someone on the team is calculating damage as if the enemies were player characters using regular weapons instead of following creature building rules. For example, the Ravenous Drake has its damage calculated as if it were a player character: a natural jaw attack (1d6) plus its strength (+4), and the bandits seen in a handful of Society scenarios have stats that line up with PC-based calcs (attribute + proficiency + level for accuracy, weapon damage die + attribute for damage). This means a lot of creatures aren't performing as well as they should, combat balance is unreliable, and players are getting bored because there's no actual challenge or danger against certain enemies. Also, humanoid foes--the type of enemy I was most excited to use--are basically dead on arrival.

Needless to say, this is really, really bad. I feel like I can't trust the stat blocks as-written anymore, and need to double-check and modify before every combat. This is also something that should not happen, as it requires 1) Paizo's higher-ups demanding the Starfinder team make a new game without actually explaining the engine to them, 2) the Starfinder team not taking it upon themselves to learn the engine on their own, and 3) nobody on the editing team bothering to double-check the math.

I love the Starfriends, but this kind of persistent error is simply unacceptable. This needs to become a priority for errata immediately, and Alien Core will need to be carefully combed through before it is reprinted.

I'll update you guys with actual statistics once I'm done going through literally every stat block, but that's going to take a while. Unfortunately, the pattern's holding true so far, so things don't look good.

I can support Squark's hunch with play experience: according to the testing I've done, barbarians and fighters absolutely tear through any SF2 encounter that doesn't intentionally cause problems for them (which you can solve by giving your PC flight). Lower ranged damage means that enemies have a hard time taking down melee characters before they close the gap (even when they focus fire), and SF2 creatures have lighter defenses on average.

Ooh, I think I know the combat you're talking about. When I ran it, the PCs pursued other options, so that condition never came up.

It is, to be fair, an awesome combat encounter and probably my favorite scenario so far. How'd you and yours like it?

But yeah, still a bit silly that it took a dozen bad guys with two stacks of the condition each for glitching to actually make a difference.

Shoutout to Rue and Avi in particular, who've been huge inspirations to me personally. Love to see my transmasc bros winning.

I'm sorry things are so scary and awful right now. The work the two of you have done has made things less scary and awful for this trans guy, at least. Thank you.

Shockingly, I saw glitching matter twice in a single combat!

... In which there were 12 enemies, all of whom were glitching 2 for the entire encounter due to being sold faulty rifles. Which is a very unique situation that will probably never happen again.

Hm. Would creatures native to the Drift fall under the Religion umbrella? Since most spectra were created by Triune directly?

In addition to Society being used for the Swarm, I can also see someone using Nature (because bugs), Occultism (because creepy), or Warfare Lore (because history).

Blending awakened animal and entu colony is pretty easy, and the game gives you and your GM permission to do so via custom mixed ancestries. Won't fly for Society, sadly, but it's a good option for everyone else.

Any chance someone could list off the madrosai blood colors and what their social niche is? Also, is the color coding a hard and fast 'you will be socially dead or legally punished if you try to do something else', or are they looser?

Based on what I've read, it looks like their caste system is loose and informal, with strong expectations that you'll take up a societal role corresponding to your blood color, but no direct legal consequences for failing to do so. Their governance is feudal, but neither feudal station nor blood color is hereditary, meaning there's a lot of inter-generational mobility, despite the presence of these two notable, overlapping social hierarchies.

While not directly stated in the text, I've inferred that madrosarai are generally on the competitive and judgmental side: queens are chosen via combat between their most trusted and competent handmaidens, and people can lose their jobs for being too outwardly emotional. Combine this with blood types, their feudal governance, and their current queen's desire to expand their territory, and you get a pretty messy and flawed society, which is a nice break from all the other happy little artists and scholars in Galactic Ancestries (seriously, this book and SF2 as a whole needs more jerks).

Anyway, blood types!

Golden madrosarai are associated with leadership and gain Intimidation-related perks.

Lime madrosarai tend to be builders and inventors, and receive perks to Crafting.

Red madrosarai are generally warriors, and get a weak, pseudo-rage ability that can be upgraded with feats.

Gray madrosarai are often scholars and doctors, and get the analyze target cantrip.

Teal madrosarsi represent the bulk of the population and are usually laborers. They get the orc Ferocity feature, reflavored as Tenacity.

Umber madrosarai are associated with psychic powers and the occult, and gain an occult cantrip of their choice.

(EDIT: Formatting.)

Actually selfish queston for a PDF-Haver

Ijtikri! How any arms do they have? I assume it's just two based off their pf1e art, but is there an option for 4?

Just 2 arms by default, but they can take the lv5 Prehensile Limbs feat to get one extra hand out of all their remaining tentacles. No support beyond that, though.

EDIT: Oh, wait, there are a couple feats that allow you to improve your grapples by using your extra tentacles, but no quadruple-wielding or anything.

TBH nothing has made me want to re-learn how to draw more than Starfinder. You can make so many cool characters with all these aliens.

I just find so much of this conversation amusing, because I've never seen Homestuck.

The Madrosarai are actually supposed to be kinda sci-fi Bloodborne inspired >_>

OMG that's hilarious, RIP Thursty.

Also, IDK who decided to give the madrosarai big ol' basset hound ears, but I love them. Absolutely inspired artistic choice that makes them really stand out, especially when they have to share a book with ryphorians, moyishuu, and elves. Plus it gives them that slight dash of silly that makes the design memorable (things that are too cool/sleek tend to just look generic).

It says "+5 status bonus to your speeds and melee Strikes." Which is... ambiguous. Usually the text specifies "Strike attack rolls" or "melee Strike damage." I'm going to assume they meant damage because +5 accuracy is way too big.

I definitely agree that it's tied to the weakness thing--honestly resistance only applying once is much easier to run and how I was doing it at home anyway, so I'm all for it in this specific instance--but I'm side-eyeing these aggressive errata applications in a more general, principled sense. I don't like how hard Paizo seems to be leaning on patch culture, especially considering how badly they apparently want us to buy physical books.

> we're seeing it demonstrated that they have no idea how their own game works.

The people making the rules changes aren't the same as the people who wrote them in the first place. There has been a lot of turnover in the past few years.

Regardless of who's in charge, though, changes to fundamental mechanics should probably wait for the next edition, imho.

It took some doing, but I managed to muscle past the payment processing issues and get my GA PDF. Sorta.

I'd say more but I'm on vacay and just taking advantage of a 20 minute break to do some posting on Paizo Dot Com, which is a normal and healthy thing to do.

Update: Tried again (deleted and re-entered card, then hit "retry" on subscription page), and the charge went through! Only getting the per-chapter version of GA as well (and the Lost Omens book is nowhere to be seen), but hey, progress.

Update: Was able to successfully re-enter both credit cards. Bank charge for the cheap merch I ordered went through. Subscription still not working and is sending me emails about it (both cards).

Want funny aliens. Sadge.

Same issue. Successfully updated to new payment method after switching browsers, but got an identical payment error email for that one, too. Even placed a regular order (bought a pin because it was cheap) to verify the store itself was still working, and that went through just fine. Am going to delete and re-enter the original card.

EDIT: Cannot update payment method :(

A couple years ago I asked a lot for more troops, mass combat rules, humanoid enemies, and nonhuman NPCs. And lo and behold, we got Battlecry! and NPC Core. Around the same time, I expressed a lot of interest in the idea of a war campaign with Cheliax as the chief antagonist. Now, the Hellfire Crisis is, like, a whole thing. I also really lucked out with Lost Omens: Shining Kingdoms and Draconic Codex, as my homebrew campaign has a lot of dragon-themed PCs with a home base in Andoran. Plus all the spacey/techy things from Starfinder 2e, which I wanted really bad because 1) Numeria rules, and 2) I loved the Starfinder setting even more than Golarion but could never wrap my head around 1e.

So I've been really, really lucky with what Paizo's been putting out. I feel like all my book wishes from when I first entered the space are being fulfilled, even ones I didn't voice. Literally the only two things missing are Arcadian and Darklands sourcebooks, and we might be getting the latter soon-ish thanks to how sourcebooks and adventure paths tend to go together (Blood Lords with Book of the Dead and Impossible Lands, Ruby Phoenix/Seasons of Ghosts and the Tian Xia books, and now Vaultlines and a hole in the lore where OGL stuff used to be).

I dunno, I guess I just wanted to throw a "thanks" out there? I'm eating good right now. Like, I'm still salty about the PDF price increases, PaizoCon's cancellation, and some truly baffling balancing choices on the Starfinder front (I'm going to write a dissertation in the errata suggestions thread, I swear to God), but when it comes to the actual books themselves, I've been quite pleased.

Sorry if this comes across as kissing Paizo's booty or something. I just know the community can get crabby sometimes (self included) and wanted to take some time off from that to acknowledge that the stuff I begged for both here and on Reddit was actually delivered.

Keep on keepin' on.

TROX ARE IN!!! Check page 100 of Paizo's annual catalog and see for yourselves!

No idea what the blue guy is, but I think he's an orc???

I wasn't talking about weird so much as comedic, in that make-your-players-groan-and-roll-their-eyes kind of way. A spider-sheep is weird, but a spider-sheep that rambles about new-agey B.S. like your one kooky aunt who's really into essential oils is the kind of thing that builds up some friendly, playful antagonism between players and GM. Same with Homestuck references and challenging the PCs to a dance-off because they insulted the fire crab's honor. It's a different flavor of silly than, say, skittermamders.

Personally I'm still emotionally processing the fact that Homestuck is both old and popular enough as a cultural entity that it's now being openly referenced in other media. Terrifying to think about.

Anyway, all of the Kazmurg's Absurdity ancestries feel a little s***posty to me. Dancing, fire-breathing crabs? Spider-sheep with a new age "indigo children" joke? I wouldn't be surprised if each were originally designed to help Thurston better troll his players, in that "oh great, these guys again" kind of way. After bearing witness to the sawsoarers in Rotgrind (hoot hoot, b****), this seems on-brand for him.

Heh. Troll.

The Pathfinder 2e chirurgeon alchemist takes this even further: it straight-up substitutes Crafting for Medicine completely, meaning it can forego both WIS investment and skill training.

It's been a while since I looked at the playtest, but I believe the mechanic got some extra skill boosts, so maybe they don't need it, but still I think SF2 could use another healer besides mystics and certain envoys.

Only just started reading it so I can't give any useful critical feedback yet, but I really love how much inspiration you took from both the PF1 shifter and SF1 evolutionist. The biomechanical perk of being able to install tools into yourself is so cool!

God dangit, when will I escape the scourge of Homestuck references?! They look cool, though, I wonder if the extra eyes will be full on All Around Vision or something more limited.

It wouldn't be a Thurston Hillman special if it weren't a cognitohazard on some level. But yeah, All Around Vision would be neat. The goloma from PF2's Mwangi Expanse have a feat tree that starts with a stance that gives you All-Around Vision for a turn and later upgrades to a Deny Advantage clone, so I'd either expect something like that or an even stronger version.

And if it is stronger, I'm buffing my sweet goloma babies to have the same.

I don't know about putting Starfinder into Destiny (I doubt SF has enough cultural relevance for Bungie to bother), but making a Destiny-inspired hack of Starfinder is something anyone with enough time, effort, and system knowledge could do from home. The Warframe adventure even provides a decent example of how to adapt the system to match a videogame's vibes.

I'm looking forward to the entu. They remind me of the symbiotes from Marvel. I hope they are a universal heritage that plays up being slime/ooze-like more than being a fungus. Getting them with a starfinder-ified Awakened Animal sounds like a great combo for the bat-like nelentu.

Good news! Per a comment from Dustin Knight on a Twitch stream earlier this evening, entu are included in Galactic Ancestries. Looks like they'll be a full ancestry rather than a versatile heritage though, with customization options to help define what sort of animal the symbiote merged with.

Not just urogs (my booooooiiiiss!!), but entu colonies/symbiotes (sounds like they're getting rolled into one) and the brand new madrosarai!

For those who haven't read Galaxy Guide, the madrosarai are a Homestuck reference colorful humanoids with extra eyes in the back of their heads.

Honestly? Bad. I can't see this helping sales at all; for every one person willing to eat the cost, two or three have jumped ship.

"Legacy" means the item was printed prior to the mid-edition "remaster" update and might contain some minor rules incompatibilities, such as references to alignment or outdated terminology. 95% of the time, you won't have any issues using it. For Society specifically, you're expected to use the remastered version of any item if it's available. However, since no such version of the Endless Grimoire exists, you should be fine.

Society does expect you to own or at least have regular access to any books you pull material from (excluding Player Core 1 and 2 and a few special cases), so pay attention to which sources you're using and make sure you can bring a copy (physical or digital) to the table with you.

Additional spell slots don't cancel each other out, so you should be fine on that front. Rogue dedication is great. Low level staves are pretty meh, so you're not missing much.

Hoping everything goes well for you, and thanks for giving us a heads up!

Man, you know what would make this go over a lot easier? Making 1e PDFs cheaper. Like, there are two whole games with multi-year lifespans that have already paid for themselves, and nobody's buying the functionally infinite supply of PDFs available for them.

Seriously, if I could get old adventure paths and lore books for a good price, I'd gobble them up. But the back catalog is inaccessible to me because I don't have that kind of money. Meanwhile, there are a ton of people out there who would probably like to play something, even if it runs on an older and more complicated engine. Heck, there are still plenty of 1e loyalists alive and kicking! I'm sure they'd love to be able to pick up Iron Gods or Scoured Stars or any number of legacy products legally.

Although, considering soldiers are able to make singular attacks with area weapons with their Primary Target feature, I don't think it'd be too broken to allow one to use one for Overwatch. It'd be a houserule for sure, but not a bad one.

I wonder if the math will genuinely work out in their favor, here. Will the increased profit per sale really make up for the people jumping ship? Like, I know most regular customers are whales (points to self), but are there really enough of us to justify screwing over everyone else?

(For the record, the only reason I'm able to whale at all is because I spend money on literally zero other hobbies. I picked Path/Starfinder as my sole luxury expense. If prices keep going up--either here or in general--that might have to change.)

I'll always advocate for my personal favorite (shatori) and my wife's favorite (stellifera). As for new guys, I've always wondered why anacites weren't playable, seeing as they've been part of the setting before Starfinder was even a thing (and have played several major roles in Society metaplots besides).

I was going to say the failure state for losing your detached lower half was too harsh, but genetic regeneration is a 4th rank spell, which shouldn't be too hard to get access too at level 9.

Also, huh, regenerate and genetic regeneration are basically the same spell, and both are found in Player Core. What a weird choice on Paizo's part.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually got an Azlanti sourcebook or adventure that dropped a lot of ancestries from ASE space, like stellifera, gosclaws, shatori, and the like. Seeing as the Szandite Collective adventure is willing to drop six of them (and Graveworld provided the two most common Eoxian inhabitants as well), it wouldn't surprise me if the pattern continued, with future adventures providing ancestries native to the adventuring region.

As a random aside, I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of the talphi, as I remember being disappointed that an entire society of mole people native to the Veskarium only got a passing mention in the 1e Near Space sourcebook--not even a picture! It's nice to see those guys get a follow-up, even if I'm personally not super-interested in playing a mole.

Looks like Anayctes are a no go for now, though I wonder if there is room for them to be an SRO heritage?

Still clinging to the hope that anacites are one of the yet-to-be-revealed options in Galactic Ancestries. They were my most wanted ancestry that never made it to 1e (which always struck me as odd because they'd been around since OG Pathfinder).

Is Raxilite planned anywhere?

Confirmed for Galactic Ancestries.

"Edge" is used a ton in other TTRPGs, so probably not that one. "Momentum" is already a term for how well each turn builds on the last in meta discussions, so that might be a bit confusing as well, but it does work thematically.

I think the reason you got roasted on Reddit is because Reddit is a collection of strangers. The userbase here is small enough that most active members are familiar with each other.

Like, the vibes of someone in a crowded mall ranting about being naked are completely different from the vibes of your pal Bob doing the same while you all sit around drinking beers.

If it's true that the goo dudes are the Fonqugon, then we now know 14 of the 21 options in Galactic Ancestries.

Absolutely no idea on the other seven, but subscribers will start getting their copies in about 3 weeks. I'm excited to see what's in store! Hope it's more weird stuff and fewer anthropomorphized animals (nothing wrong with furries and furry enjoyers; I just prefer aliens that look and feel like actual aliens). Even so, there's a great variety among what's already been spoiled.

Add to that the other six Szandite Collective members as well as the minotaur-like nuar and garbage-collecting gnarefuroids in Absalom Station, and we've got over 30 ancestries due to drop this year, bringing us to over 50 total, already over a third of the way to SF1's jaw-dropping 143 options a mere year and a half deep. Looks like the cantina's staying open after all!

(As a funny side note, even if you subtract the overlapping options between them, it's possible the combined total between SF2 and PF2 could crest 100 this year, depending on what's in that Feybound book that got accidentally announced earlier. We're guaranteed to be in the 90s for sure.)

I'm eager to participate! I've been GMing on Foundry for a few years now, so I'm familiar with the platform.

I made a SFS poster for my FLGS that looks like this. I use LibreOffice instead of MS Word, but I'm pretty sure the program can export .docx files. I'll need to get rid of the custom fonts before turning it into a template for you, though. Is that something you'd be interested in?

Driftbourne, the issue isn't that Boost makes combats too easy (SFS not being tough enough is a separate problem), but that characters with access to Boost tend to flatten out their combat routines while making those who don't have it feel like chumps. So, they make the game worse for themselves by choking out other options, and worse for other people due to the relative power differential. The ideal way to play should not be spamming the same move over and over, especially when this move is available to basically everyone (since simple guns with Boost exist).

I am happy to report a workable homebrew fix, though: limiting Boost to just once per minute allows for players to still experience the unga bunga big dammies that make the trait worthwhile, but adds in the tactical choice of when to use it, keeping it from becoming a locked-in turn element and allowong players to feel better about using more of their kits.

I feel like the odd one out, here: I love my rangers, but can't get into the slayer at all. It's the most boring playtest class I've ever seen. I see no point in having a dedicated "killing monsters" guy in a game where everyone already kills monsters, and none of its unique mechanics grab me as interesting or fun. Rangers, meanwhile, have a very obvious core playstyle in mind, along with options that support multiple different character types. The class identity is weird and based on a bunch of legacy stuff that doesn't really matter outside of gaming/fantasy tradition, but I can still get a guy out of it. Meanwhile, I can't get a guy out of the slayer chassis that wouldn't be more colorful as a different class.

I'd also say the ranger and investigator and such having strong out-of-combat identities isn't so much a flaw on their part so much as it is a problem with everyone else, in that a lot of classes don't have anything to do besides unga bunga hit stuff, so exploration feels like the boring bit you have to muddle through in order to get to the fun part. I can see the appeal of better separating these two parts of the game so that expending a class's power budget on one side doesn't leave it wanting in the other, but at the same time I wish more attention was paid to noncombat elements in general. Why do the two strongest classes during one half of the game (barbarian and fighter) have to twiddle their thumbs during the other half? Shouldn't they have something to contribute other than the occasional athletics check?

Recently, a thread appeared on Reddit where a GM expressed concern over the plasma caster weapon, specifically how everyone in the party seemed to be taking it because it did so much more damage than anything else. SF2's diverse weapon catalog was being entirely ignored, and this GM's players were twisting their builds in knots to make sure they could use boosted weapons. Slotted spells, solarian strikes, and the soldier's primary target + area fire were not keeping up.

I've also noticed in a few Society games I've run that 1) players tend to get caught in a Boost loop, which results in very samey turns, 2) players who DON'T have a boostable weapon feel bad/weak compared to their boosting peers, and 3) enemies with boosted weapons punch waaaay above their weight, to the point that it's really hard to make fights against them feel fair (one enemy in particular was able to oneshot the tankiest member of the team on a regular, non-critical hit).

This has got me wondering if the Boost trait was a mistake. While it certainly solves the early game peashooter problem, it causes heavy melee builds to just win even more, while also causing combats to devolve into just piling on as much damage as possible, eliminating most tactical elements from the game. I don't think this is a healthy or interesting metagame at all. Perhaps some kind of fix is in order, such as limiting Boost usage to once every 10 minutes? I'd like to know what others think.

EDIT: I just remembered, Boost was added later in development, well after the initial public playtest began. Thus, the trait was never adequately playtested and thus not as subject to public feedback.