Icefyer's page

I agree with the limited telepathy. It seems odd it's only one-way, which makes it way less useful. As for skittermanders and other multi-armed species, it seems odd to have to constantly eat actions to swap when they're a major draw to the species to begin with.

I remember seeing a suggestion on here to allow designating a pair as active for free at the start of your turn, with further swaps taking actions as normal, and letting off-hands to basic stuff like opening doors or the like that require an empty hand, but more complex combat stuff like grappling requires you to swap to your "hugging arms" for it. If I remember right the current wording weirdly doesn't allow for such basic actions?

Personally I love the Prismani and totally plan on playing a prismani next chance I get to play. The Living Battery is really cool. I love being able to zap a fool or give items temporary charges and usage, being able to dip in and out of the Drift is cool.

Witchwarper does seem pretty lackluster in the warping department compared to all the stuff that Mystic can do with their connections. For it being their main feature a lot of it feels... tacked on, I think? Like the Precog's warp is just...5 feet of movement when the enemy will often just shoot you instead. Kinda miss the old ability to mess with ally dice rolls of the 1e one. As far as I'm aware that's partially represented in Analyst now?

So it really does feel like, instead of how the Mystic for example really leans into their connection and supercharges it, the Witchwarper just feels kinda...there and somewhat ignorable.

While I have never played a skittermander myself, I have GM'd, or played alongside, lots of other people playing skittermanders. My big take-away from that, is - don't confuse "friendly" and "helpful" with "idiot" or "oblivious, to the point of self harm." Especially in ways that disrupt play.

For example, I have played with skittermanders who, upon witnessing a slavering, 45 ft tall, wild dinosaur-analogue eat an NPC, will walk up and say "hi me want be friend?" (...without any of the ways to talk to dinosaurs, to be clear.) I have seen skittermanders, on assignment deep behind enemy lines, confronted with the Big Bad Evil Person during a high-stakes, end-of-storyline mission, spend the first round of combat saying "Hemlo nufriend can I be of any help?"
Don't be that skittermander :D
It's fine to have a tendency to see the best in people, but it's not fine to disrupt play by acting suicidally naïve :)

Ha. Yeah. Like I said, they're not stupid at least. Have you had anyone you thought played skittermanders 'properly', as in, not that naive 'gonna go get myself killed and it's someone else's problem as long as I make friends' attitude?

The one skittermander witchwarper I've met is played by a 10-year-old, so the manic energy and wandering attention came naturally to him. :D

On a more serious note, my own skittermander is more on the, well, serious side. He's a soldier who was trained as a gladiator, Fighting is largely a game or sport to him, but he also has a strong instinct to help and protect weaker characters. This often manifests as gloryhounding while acting as a living wall between enemies and the rest of his party. For example, in one recent adventure, he started combat by sprinting up to the nasty-looking giant robot, and kept its attention on him while the rest of the party dealt with the weaker foes. He was helping by keeping his companions safe, while also having an exciting and challenging duel, so he's rarely been happier!

Huh. Cool! On my end, had the idea that my skittermander worked as a resort worker in one of the Vesk-3 resorts, at a BBQ / juice bar type place with the Vesk's near-religious appreciation for meat and its preparation combined with local skittermander fruit juices, smoothies, etc. Then eventually signed up on a luxury cruiser as one of their staff...before it got attacked by pirates in a drift-lane. He ended up getting blown out in a hull breach, woke up on Vesk 3 and found himself as a Witchwarper with ties to the Drift, possibly that new drift-based planar scion if I like what feats and such it offers. He has absolutely no idea if he got saved by a Spectra or what exactly happened, other than hearing later the ship was recovered and the guests and crew held for a readily-paid ransom.

I'm hoping that SF2e goes a bit more in detail about skittermanders, since they're apparently becoming a core ancestry from what I've heard. A bit like how in Pathfinder 2e they went into how gnolls are pack-oriented, physically affectionate, practicality-minded, etc. Stuff like that.

Like I know they don't recognize long-term authority and whoever's the leader is just whoever has the best skill for the task at hand, then it dissolves and they become just another skittermander when it's done, or another person steps up. And I've heard tales of skittermanders going full-on malicious compliance on people who harass them, weaponizing their helper instincts to get back at them, but other than that I'm not sure exactly how to play their distinct brand of "helpful chaos". I know they're far from stupid, at least, so if something's obviously cursed or dangerous they won't mess with it.

So my question is...how exactly do you go about playing a skittermander in general? It mentions they have no real recognition of authority, a tendency to wander off if they aren't kept on a short leash, and "all of the manic energy of a goblin with a flair for the ridiculous but none of the malice", but also an instinctual need to help others.

I have absolutely no idea how to play any of that since that's very far from my own personality.

Was planning on giving a Witchwarper Skittermander a try in 2e depending on how the class changes, and wondering how that might affect it.