James Alwin Shrike's page

For those of you who have not seen yet, HERE is the announcement I just saw from Archives of Nethys.

I have yet to fully digest how I feel about this news and I am trying to remain restrained about the matter and examine it from multiple angles. However, please do not be mistaken, I am quite angry.

The very least that should have been done would have been a blog post, preferably one that honestly explains the reasoning behind this decision. The reason the AoN crew said Paizo gave patently makes no sense and I have no reason to believe they are lying. They were never going to make Paizo royalties. They were a bunch of volunteers doing this for free. They barely monetized the website with ads and that was mostly to keep the site running. Paizo knew this going in to their partnership with the Archives. The fact that these 'royalties' were the end of that partnership is categorically nonsensical and if Paizo was expecting them to produce a steady stream of royalties then that should have been communicated on day one or any of the following days when Paizo realized they were not getting paid what they expected.

Now, I can imagine the reasoning behind this decision. The Diamond fiasco hit Paizo hard and maybe someone wanted to motivate a few more sales by removing AoN's early release period. However, the best way to handle that would have been transparency and open communication. I should not have had to find out about it via a confused and hurt message from a pillar of Paizo's community.

I have long been broken of the notion that a company can be the 'good one' largely by Paizo itself. The events and horror stories leading up to the formation of United Paizo Workers are what fully soured me on the organized play programs and prompted me to reexamine my relationship with the brand. I won't say this is as bad as that time but it could have been handled worlds better. The Archives of Nethys crew deserved way, way better. You could have negotiated a better model with them, maybe a grace period before new material hit their site. Something. Paizo's positive relationship with fans putting together services like theirs for free has been one of the strongest selling points for the company.

I have been trying to purchase more physical copies of books ever since the economic downturn and Diamond. I have collector's editions of all of the released Starfinder 2e core and setting books bought through my FLGS. I was considering buying the PDF of Impossible Magic on the day of release because of how excited I am for the necromancer.

I'll probably be back to buying books shortly but unless there is a better statement on what just happened, I think I'll wait for Impossible Magic to hit Archives of Nethys.

Alright, I am recovering from a minor surgery and need entertainment, so I am challenging you guys to grab the weird spam posts that crop up on the Paizo forums and Starfinder-ize them for me. Be they shady spellcasting services, travel agencies, drug suppliers, or 'Captain Jack's' latest attempt to get us to use his crypto recovery services, they are all rife for Starfinder parody in my estimation.

It would be fun to break some of them out on your players too! A crit fail on a computers check might bring a new tide of spam messages to harass your players with.

Planning a horror one-shot for spooky season at my FLGS and I need a good horror monster to build the adventure around for a party of around 4-6 level 3 PCs. I'm shooting for a pretty severe encounter to really drive home the scariness. Bonus points for if it has some abilities I can use to make red herrings for them as they try to investigate the monster before fighting it.

Hey, so this cropped up over on the Reddit and with all the grief I give WotC and their flagship product, it felt hypocritical to not try and get a formal response on this.

RISE OF THE MACHINES

I'm a sucker for power armor in sci-fi settings. Has there been any word on if, when, or how Paizo intends to bring back power armor that I just have yet to see?

I've heard secondhand that Paizo is not releasing any more pawn sets but my google-fu is failing to easily turn up more information on this. Can anyone provide a little more insight/point me in the right direction to find out more?

Specifically, I'd like to know if they are discontinuing their current pawn sets.

The affordability and quality of the pawns were a not inconsiderable draw for me and seeing this product line getting phased out is certainly going to dampen some of my enthusiasm, especially for the APs.

I tried asking in an older thread but so far haven't gotten a response but does anyone know if there are any plans to release a themed dice set for this AP?

I really enjoyed being able to buy the Dead Suns themed set for my players to use in the last session of that AP and would like to be able to do the same with this one, especially because three of my players have never been in any kind of long-running TTRPG campaign.

Hey, my google-fu might just be failing me here so forgive me if this question has already been exhaustively gone over elsewhere, but does power armor benefit from movement speed buffs or is your speed always effectively capped at what the power armor gives you?

I was looking at building a power armor solarian with the electrical attunement alternate class feature. The energy mode says 'While energy-attuned, your speeds all increase by 5 feet'. Does this apply to movement speeds given by power armor?

So, I'm running a game where the party is a bunch of interstellar castaways stranded on medieval Golarion. I've been modifying rules on the fly to reflect them scrounging and producing resources but the most recent sticking point in my game is the question of power generation. Starfinder does not have a lot of rules when it comes to methods of power generation other than stating that you can often recharge batteries in most civilized settings. I looked at the options from the Pathfinder Technology guide but those were frustratingly vague in a few areas.

Currently, they are looking at putting solar panels up on the roof of their headquarters to help address their power consumption needs but I could easily see them needing more power as their gear and projects get grander. As such, I need a range of potential options.

Things to consider would be the item level, power output, credit/UBP cost, size of installation, and unique benefits or drawbacks. Wind and tidal are not great option for practical reasons but here's a few types of generator I was considering:

Solar:
-Perks: Cheap, clean, low-maintenance
-Needs access to the sky (but not strictly sunny days, that's a common misconception. Cloud cover does cause a slight dip in efficiency but not complete shut-down)
-Relatively low out-put

Geothermal:
-Probably can't do full geothermal power on a planet with so many cave systems, but heating and cooling is an option. More a support system than anything.

Hydroelectric:
-Probably relatively low power
-Cannot construct a dam system so alternatives would be needed.

Reactors:
-Fancy future tech? I don't really know enough about potential power-sources to really speculate.
-High-yield but expensive.

So I've been working on a bit of an experiment that I think the folks here would be interested in. On another site, I'm running Curse of the Crimson Throne: Anniversary Edition as a PBP Starfinder game. Story-wise, the party is a group of castaways from a possible future non-magical Earth that had their colony ship pulled into good ol'Golarion's orbit and destroyed by various supernatural/technological shenanigans.

I'll likely be figuring out tweaks to make to the old Pathfinder encounters to make them closer to CR for the Starfinder PCs as I go. This thread is mostly for anyone that wants to follow my observations and maybe as a space to workshop and discuss a few ideas here and there. Of course, given the speed at which PBP moves, there might be considerable time before updates here. The party has just gotten to the end of a dramatic prologue I had planned for them and are about to start the first book.

For reference, the party consists of...
-An Uplifted Bear Solarian
-A Human Soldier
-A Human Technomancer
-A Lashunta Envoy (reflavored as an AI in a biological chassis)
-An Android Mechanic
-A Skittermander Mystic (reflavored as a genetically modified pet that had been hiding their sentience)

Mechanical tweaks to be tested:
-Starfinder weapons target Pathfinder touch AC if the target is not wearing magical armor.
-Wealth from encounters to be adjusted according to a factor derived from the two games' wealth by level charts
-Pathfinder enemies with iterative attacks will instead multiply their weapon damage die by the number of attacks they could make with that weapon as long as the weapon is magical. They will otherwise follow the Starfinder rules for full attacks.
-Pathfinder weapons will have the 'Arachic' tag unless magical.

It goes without saying that there may be inadvertent spoilers for Curse of the Crimson Throne in this thread.

So, I'm running Dead Suns for a group of friends and want to claim it for GMing credit.

HOWEVER, only one of the players is in SFS. Is this okay?

So, new Starfinder here. I joined up a couple of days ago and wanted to know if there were some general tips those more experienced with organized play and Starfinder in general would be willing to share.

Question 1: Damage Variety
The two scenarios I played both featured an enemy that could reflect energy attacks. Should I be taking pains to carry multiple damage types?

Question 2: Gear Utility
What are some useful basic bits of equipment no Starfinder should leave home without?

Question 3: Weapon Variety
Is carrying and maintaining multiple weapons a zero-sum game?