I would go with perfect, myself.
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For my house rules dragonkin have diverged enough that dragonkin born to the dragonkin parent are dragonkin, while those born to the non-dragonkin parent belong to that parent's species with draconic traits (in other words, a fairly common origin for the dragonblood theme).
After reading the latest scenario, I'm brewing a gut feeling that the next First Seeker is going to have some big problems to solve...
On the Starfinder side, the (semi-)monthly AP volumes are being replaced with single hardback releases. This AP happens to be a compilation/revision of Starfinder Society scenarios, but that's not the pattern going forward. The next, as-yet unannounced AP will be an original story dealing with mechs.
Boy, there's... there's a lot to digest here.
https://www.space.com/nasa-mars-rover-perseverance-speed-of-sound "That means that if you were standing on Mars, listening to distant music, you would hear higher-pitched sounds before you would hear the lower-pitched ones." Science! It's weird!
The original products weren't updated; this is a new product. Which is to say the PDFs of the original AP volumes have not been updated, no. That said, look in the Starfinder forum for a breakdown of the changes between the AP volumes and the hardback.
I have not seen any.
My educated guess: 1-01 (confirmed, with some narrative changes), 1-05, 1-11, 1-13, 1-17, 1-99, 1-23, 1-26, 1-29, 1-34, 1-39, 2-00
My interpretation: If you are a drow and take Psychic Power, you add limning light (as a spell-like ability rather than supernatural) to the list of SLAs you can choose from. If you choose limning light, you can use it once per day.
This AP "unlocks" several new potential PC species. Two have been published in Alien Archive volumes. This hardback will present stats for one more, I think, and another species introduced in this AP will get PC stats in Ports of Call.
Doesn't sound like it; that would be more in Galactic Exploration Manual's wheelhouse.
All I'm going to say is that if you ever get a chance to eat a witchetty grub you should do it.
If you want to dig into some fun science trivia (that the game doesn't touch on), high-pitched sounds are nearly inaudible on Akiton, while low-pitched sounds carry just fine. Places this could go: Akitonian fauna probably exhibits distress via near-subsonic rumbling and growls rather than screeches or screams. No coincidence that Skumka beats, a percussion-heavy musical genre, is currently eating up the charts. No one can hear your flutes or whistles!
I imagine shirrens love diner menus, but a restaurant could get away with a limited menu by offering multiple-choice courses. Soup or salad? Chicken or fish? Cake or sorbet?
I'm not aware of any 3PP witchwarper options, personally.
Due to the presence of our astrazoan PC, I've house ruled that shifting between "pretty similar" forms (such as female damaya lashunta > female damaya lashunta, or male human > male android, damai, etc.) is "close enough" that the astrazoan doesn't need to swap out or adjust their armor or clothes. 'Cause otherwise, yeah, the rules make it pretty clear through counterexamples that armor and clothing should not normally change when the astrazoan does. (Between the game's shapeshifter PC species, polymorphing, morphic skin, and the like, Starfinder is overdue for a simple armor upgrade that makes worn clothing and armor adapt to a shapechanging wearer.)
It's confusing, but I think the intended reading would be better expressed by labeling the columns Zone, Hazard, and Effect. So, for each route, the PCs are presented with a hazard that they'll encounter in every zone* ("1-3"), and then an additional hazard they'll encounter in one zone. * More specifically, Zone 1 in round 1, Zones 1-2 in round 2, and Zones 1-3 in round 3+. To take the Beach Route for example, my read is that the PCs encounter sand dunes in zones 1-3, and in zone 2, they also encounter a flock. But I dunno, I could be wrong.
No. The opposite, in fact; if you downloaded the Devastation Ark PDFs as they came out, the file sizes were huge but the images were intact. When the formatting/file size problem continued into Fly Free or Die, those Devastation Ark PDFs were replaced with the versions that are currently available.
Of last year you mean? SFAP #45 (Horizons of the Vast #6) came out in May.
Who is the artist who created the PC portraits?
Biohacker fields of study: Efficiency and Thermoregulation
Update: It's (potentially) used in #5-12: Envar's Expeditions.
The game sort of handwaves that without mention; it just assumes that species have interfaces that work for them.
Nothing for Vanguard or Solarion? Solarians get two new solarian weapon crystals that scale in item level from low (2nd and 3rd, respectively) to 20th.
Page 54, left to right:
Page 55, left to right:
Thank you for the prompt PDF fixes, Paizo folks!
I came up with some guidelines for astrazoan shapechanging for my own campaign a few years back and was extraordinarily pleased/relieved that they stayed compatible with the Interstellar Species revisit. (In a later conversation these were sort of dubbed "sanity guidelines.") Looks like my astrazoan PC's player doesn't have any questions, so I'll just note (hopefully for your entertainment) that we got some interesting emergent roleplaying out of her character concept. She's an astrazoan raised by an astrazoan couple who chose to commit themselves to lashunta personas ("selves" to switch to the IS term) for professional reasons. (They're diplomats who assisted in ending the Lashunta-Formian wars.) They raised their child in Qabarat as a female lashunta to the extent that she now "identifies" as a lashunta woman (who as it happens can shapeshift), but at their core they still see themselves as astrazoans who've simply committed to long-term "selves." Before becoming an adventurer, the PC followed her parents' career as a diplomat, but eventually, after moving offworld, she discovered a love of (and talent for) singing and created a new "self" to become a sugar-pop musician. The PC hid this self from her parents for years, thinking they wouldn't approve of her wasting time on such a frivolous career but then, during actual play, she eventually got to go home and reveal the truth. Turns out her parents were delighted to learn she'd created a second self; they were worried that their "daughter" was too tied to a single persona, and strongly encouraged her to embrace the creation of new selves. She also learned that since she'd moved out, her parents had switched selves: "Mom" was now "Dad" and vice versa. Their explanation was that they wanted to keep their shapeshifting skills sharp (and be ready in case one of them needed to cover for the other for whatever reason), but really it was more of an empty nester thing. The PC, who still primarily thinks of herself as a specific "self," found this... weird. Basically it turned into a first-/second-generation immigrant scenario, with the kid being both immersed in their parents "old ways" but more strongly embracing the adopted culture. Her parents, who also only had the one child, also feel guilty about not doing enough to perpetuate their species, so they keep trying to matchmake her with other astrazoans, which the daughter also finds mildly annoying. Side Note: The PC is also terrible with relationships; turns out as a teenager she fell in love with a lashunta boy, tried to reveal her true form to him, and... it didn't go well. When, during actual play, she charmed another lashunta off his feet, she kinda freaked out (and literally ran) the moment she realized he was getting serious about her. Side Note 2: There's a particular Starfinder Society scenario wherein supernatural radiation can cause the PCs to temporarily "devolve" -- I had fun reskinning the rules to have her devolve into an ilee (so, basically, a collection of weird, alien body parts). She spent most of that scenario with a shirt wrapped around her head to hide her monstrous features. Anyway, thought you might find this real-play report amusing.
I just purchased the Starfinder Adventure Path #49: A Light in the Dark (Drift Hackers 1 of 3) PDF and noticed there are no interactive maps included with the download. I see in the the post above there is a ticket in to fix the issue(s). Once fixed, will I be able to download the updated Adventure Path and Interactive Maps? If you bought the PDF, it's permanently in your library, which will automatically update if/when they modify the product. Which is to say, if/when they upload a new file, just download it again and you'll be good to go.
Ooh, hello high level!
Random question but...what is the range of the 'volcanic wrath' spell? Medium.
Initial reaction on a quick skim, aka "the plot hole that isn't." The Plot Hole...:
My first thought was, "How is Ilia's team of data jockeys unable to locate a guy who habitually sends out vlogs of his travels? Each vlog probably starts with him yelping, "Yo yo, it's your bro Envar here on [Planet X], checkin' out the [shiny thing] here in [local region or town]!" My gosh, lady, you used to facilitate teleconferences for Datch; get your act together. Bellingcat would geolocate this dude to within a meter in half a day.
Envar himself even comments that his mom totally should have been able to find him just by like-and-subscribing. But lampshading the plot hole doesn't explain it. ...That Isn't: However, the adventure also notes that Envar's vlogs don't include time stamps. Having Envar, an inveterate doofus (the... "polite" version of my players' take on him), be so sloppy as an infosphere influencer that he forgets to include metadata in his uploads seems totally on target.
But wait! Surely he posted these vlogs days, weeks, or months apart, after he's flown to each new planet. Even if he's too sloppy to include metadata (and/or just canny enough to avoid making his vids feel "dated" by mentioning specific dates or episode numbers), Ilia could surely see the infosphere release dates and track him that way. Plot hole remains, until we remember one thing... ...It's the Drift Crisis! Envar is, of course, posting these vlogs to the Pact Worlds infospheres via the Drift beacon communication network. And during the Drift Crisis, comms times are noted as being all over the map. Maybe Envar transmits Vlog 1, and it hits his channel 6 days later. He uploads Vlog 2 a month later and it hits his channel 6 months after that. Upload Vlog 3 a month later and it hits his channel 3 weeks after that. So, from the point of view of Ilia's geek squad back on Brilliance Station, "Here are his six most recent vlogs, we have absolutely no way to tell the order in which he recorded them" is pretty reasonable. So, combine Envar's tenuous competence with the Drift Crisis, and the whole situation suddenly makes perfect sense.
I like the art well enough taken in a vacuum, but that NPC will be reskinned as a ganzi if I run this as a home game. (Fortunately, the "reskin" only requires changing that one word.)
Where do I input the code? The payment step of checkout.
Wasn't a kid, but yes.
Just wandered through here again at random and, thinking idly in hindsight, I'm still not clear on why the Drift beacons were being disabled. In terms of motivations of the entity behind it, I mean.
Historically, these hardback compilations are not included in AP subscriptions, but if you preorder the hardback you do, so far, get a free PDF as well.
Year 3 and its three "mini"-metaplots avoided this pitfall, and Year 5 has as well, so far (though #5-11 may change that). Narrator Voice: It did.
I ran Into the Unknown first because I and my players were new to Starfinder, and it functionally serves as a series of rules tutorials as well as adventures. But you could just as well place it last of the three.
Without divulging any specific spoilers... Very Mild Spoiler, If That: The early 200s AG is slowly developing into a very interesting and detailed period of the Starfinder Society's history.
Oh; somehow that slipped completely under my radar.
Might want to give them a day.
I don't believe it's seen use yet.
Hey, significant problem with the PDF at time of writing. When I first opened it, I noticed that the inner back cover was included alongside the inner front cover (instead of its actual location)--creating an odd "three panel foldout." Not a big deal by itself, just not something I've seen Paizo do before. But then I went to grab images and saw that we're back to slicing every image on every page to ribbons. A quick check reveals that this is true of both the single file and file-per-chapter versions. Unlike Fly Free or Die, this hasn't reduced the file size (as compared to the Drift Crashers average). I'm hoping that this PDF was accidentally released in a flawed state, and not that we're back to the Devastation Ark/Fly Free or Die status quo.
- Dragonkin can reproduce with other species? Is that a normal thing in Starfinder or something special to Dragonkin only? Their entry doesn't seem to think that its a big deal. It's an interesting take and one based, I assume, in 3E/Pathfinder/Starfinder dragons being able to reproduce with virtually anything.
In the Documents folder on my hard drive, there is, among other things, an RPGs folder. In the RPGs folder, among other things, there is a Pathfinder folder and a Starfinder folder. In the Pathfinder folder, the notable folders are 2E, 3PP, Adventures, Campaign Setting, Companions, Core Rules, etc. Those folders are mostly named for the 1E product lines each contains (Companions = Player Companions). The 2E folder is where I store my 2nd ed Pathfinder files; 3PP is supplements from 3rd-party publishers. In Adventures (sticking with 1E), I have... a lot of folders. Adventure Paths are labeled by volume number and AP title. So Rise of the Runelords is "AP 1-6 Rise of the Runelords" for example. That folder contains a separate folder for each installment (and one for the hardback and other related products). I rename files to make them human-readable, as opposed to Paizo's PZ- alphanumeric codes; Vol. 1 of Rise of the Runelords, for example, both folder and pdf, are labeled "PF1-RotR 1 of 6-Burnt Offerings." I don't have a huge collection of Pathfinder Society scenarios, but over in the Starfinder folder, there's a "Starfinder Society" folder in the Adventurers folder. In that folder there's a folder for each year of scenarios: "Year 1-Scoured Stars," "Year 2-The Thousand Bites," etc. In each of those folders there's a folder for each scenario. But since I'm actively running these things, I have them organized by "(intended order of play)-(actual number)-(title)". So, take #1-01: The Commencement for SFS, for example. That was the second adventure I ran in the campaign, so its pdf and folder are labeled "02-S1-01 The Commencement" And then, finally, in each folder, alongside the PDF itself, I store any additional files specific to that adventure, such as maps I've prepped for the virtual tabletop, additional relevant art I've scraped off the internet or from elsewhere in my library, GM notes, etc. It sounds complex, but it's a cataloging system that's developed over the years, and with a collection running back to the D20 3.5 era it saves oooodles of time. I'd be able to jump around in it even faster if Windows 11 hadn't abandoned preview images for folders.
New options by class: Biohackers: 1 alt class feature, 2 fields of study, 5 theorems
In addition, every spellcasting class gets new spells.
As someone who has never played Starfinder Society, I am curious to hear from folks who have (and who are familiar with these scenarios) how well they feel like they will work as a cohesive campaign rather than a bunch of one-shots? I've been running Scoured Stars as an AP for years (ironically I'll be wrapping it up around the time the hardback is released) and I think it's one of the best APs Starfinder has published. Also, I've been treating like an episodic TV show, with seasons, mini-arcs, b-plots, and so on.
And lo, the long wait begins.
I have a player who's been playing an astrazoan PC ever since Pact Worlds came out. She isn't on the forum but I'll ask her if there's anything in particular she wants to ask.
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