Joseph Norris's page

Hurray!

I see nothing wrong with letting a manufacture fusion make serums, especially in the hands of a biohacker.

You're still paying for it (in BNPs), and the biohacker can create them withing using mystics (does that make them still magic)?

A question came up regarding the spell Implant Data.

Can you use that to implant the piece of data "Bob has root access on this device", then try to log in? Then the AI-or-whatever running the system asks its disk/memory, "does this guy have root access?" and gets back the magicked-up answer "yes he does."

How does implanting 1-piece-of-data-per-caster-level work if the implanted data is always the first to come up when the system is accessed? Say with a 5th level character, does it make a stack, i.e. "(1) Bob has an account; (2) that account's password is DOONESBURY; (3) he has root access; (4) he has root access; (5) he has root access" that comes up in that order? Or does the most appropriate piece come up for the query?

Also,
Can you put a remote computer control on a hacking kit (you can on a weapon)?
Sneak into the building, plug in the hacking kit, sneak out, and do computer skills (access the hacking kit) a mile away?

My mistake, Pazio did update their faq. The links in this thread were not functining, but I found it. Sorry, folks. Move along.

Here is the rub and the major confusion, with the UMD, are you emulating the class on top of your existing class, Or, are you emulating the class in addition to your class?

The UMD description of emulating level would infer the latter and not the former, but that is missing from the item's description. Devoid of that, we have to infer many things such as slot origin and type.

Why in the world Pazio skipped this is beyond me. UM has been out for some time and still nothing on it, then they go and add another identical item with the lattice.

Strict GMs will inject slot origin and type. Ambitious players will infer the wording, leaving everybody else wondering and debating.

In an effort to simply the discussion, let's leave UMD aside for a moment.

1. Could a sorcerer 1/oracle 10 with a page of spell knowledge (fireball) cast fireball using an oracle spell slot?
2. Could a wizard 1/oracle 10 do the same?

Until Pazio fixes their mistake, yes as all three conditions are met.

My post was to illustrate that Pazio needs to really update this item and the spell lattice too. They completely, and utterly forget, to add the source of the slots as a requirement. They did it for scrolls.

I'm going to have to disagree with FiddlersGreen

Let's look at the item description.
If the bearer is a spontaneous spellcaster and has that spell on her class spell list, she may use her spell slots to cast that spell as if it were one of her spells known.

And now let's look the skill description.
Emulate a Class Feature: Sometimes you need to use a class feature to activate a magic item. In this case, your effective level in the emulated class equals your Use Magic Device check result minus 20. This skill does not let you actually use the class feature of another class. It just lets you activate items as if you had that class feature.

So, I hold the item, and invoke my Use Magic Device Skill to Emulate a Class Feature, in this case Spells-Sorceror.

With a success, the item now accepts I can cast arcane spells on the sorcerer/wizard spell list and my class level in casting those arcane spells equals the Use Magic Device check result minus 20. I do not have these abilities, but the item just thinks I do.

The item now accepts I am a spontaneous spellcaster (of type Sorcerer) so condition one of the item requirements is met. I have now also have the spell the item holds on that class spell list (sorcerer), so condition two is met. Having met the two conditions required by the item, I may now use my spell slots to cast that spell. The item does not say what spell slots I must use, only that they be mine. We can infer many things, but unlike other items, the item description neglects to say that the slot must be of the correct type as they do with scrolls, even if they must that class slots. They only requirement listed for the item is that the spell slots are mine.

An FAQ with "may use her spell slots OF THAT CLASS to cast that spell as if it were one of her spells known." would clear this up. Until that time, the only three requirements are
1.) spontaneous spellcaster
2.) spell on her class spell list
3.) spell slots

Here is what the GM of our group had to say:

The capacity of the weapon, is just that, the capacity. When you buy a weapon it does not come with a battery. The battery must be purchased separately. The same way you buy a bow and then arrows in Pathfinder

So if you have that level 1 shock rifle with a max capacity of 40. While it CAN use a level 5 battery, until 4th, you only have the 20 charges of the level 1 battery for 10 shots.

Now.. as far as the batteries themselves:
The amount of energy needed to inflict damage to another person requires a battery that holds a pretty serious amount of energy. These are not things you plug into a wall. Recharging a weapon-grade power cell is not like charging your computer. They have specialized facilities that can generate the energy needed to charge these batteries.

If you have a battery that can take an even larger charge, then it would require a more specialized setup and equipment. If not military, then industrial set ups to charge these monster power cell that are probably made from some insanely expensive materials.

Charging stations are not kiosks like charging your phone. These are specialized businesses that charge industrial batteries. Looking at it from the power station point of view, it would not matter if you only had to charge one charge or 25, it still takes the same amount of energy to spin up the generator needed to power up your weapon-grade cell. So in other words, once they have to activate their charging equipment, they still have to pay the same amount so they are going to charge you the same amount no matter if you ask for 1 charge or 50. It is all determined by the size and draw of the generator they need to plug your cell into. If it's a heavier cell then they will need to use the bigger machines so they are going to charge more.

I like this ruling and plan on using it in my own games.

Are there any rules regarding the negative consequences of using analog projectile weapons (like the Semi-auto pistol, Tactical) aboard starships or zero-G?

Correct, I'm looking for when that bonus actually would actually matter...clarity.

According to the Life Science...
IDENTIFY CREATURE
You can use Life Science to identify aberrations, animals, humanoids, monstrous humanoids, oozes, plant creatures, and vermin.

I only added Constructs since androids fall under that category and they are bioengineered creations, but the rest are from that list (same order too).

According to the book on Theme Knowledge:

You are an expert in one particular field of study, and your passion for the subject shows. Choose either Life Science or Physical Science and then choose a field of specialization. If you pick Life Science, you can specialize in bioEngineering, biology, botany, ecology, genetics, xenobiology, zoology, or another field of biological science. The DC of skill checks to recall knowledge about your specialty is reduced by 5.

So, does that apply to recalling information about creatures you identify with Life Sciences?

If that is the case, then wouldn't it break down as follows:
constructs - bioEngineering specialization
aberrations - xenobiology specialization
animals - biology specialization
humanoids - biology specialization
monstrous humanoids - biology specialization
oozes - xenobiology specialization
plant creatures - botany or ecology specialization
vermin - zoology specialization

Otherwise, where would this specialization apply?

FYI: I applied xenobiology to aberrations and oozes because xenobiology (contrary to science fiction) is the study of biological systems and biochemistries that differ from the canonical DNA-RNA-20 amino acid system.

Could you, for example, play an Android who looked like C-3PO or K-2SO from Star Wars? How about one that looked like a T-800 from Terminator? Or a Necron from WH40K? As long as it fits the basic humanoid frame?

So long as the core stats don't change, I don't see why the "skin" matters.

I'm dumping the whole Starfinder Society.

The setting section of the core book states:
The Pact is not a single system-wide government, but rather an association of independent worlds bound by treaty to work together and acknowledge each other's sovereignty. Though its powers technically extend only to the facilitation of trade between worlds, interplanetary law enforcement, and mutual defense, over the last several centuries the government has gradually broadened the scope of its authority.

Borrowing" a few things from other games/media, here is what I've got as a multibranch replacement for the Starfinder Society.

mutual defense a.k.a. The StarForces
The StarForces are the military arm of the Pact and divides into a number of branches: Starship Command, Science, Engineering, Technicians, and Medical.

The Space Marine Corps is the elite assault force of the StarForces. Every Starship carries a complement of Marines for landing and boarding actions, as well as for major planetary raids and invasions.

The StarForce Commandos are an elite force within the Space Marines organization which trains for deep penetration raids and prolonged operations behind enemy lines. Commandos are also dropped onto enemy-occupied planets to assist BRINT agents to mobilize resistance groups.

Bureau of Intelligence - Military Agency
BRINT is the intelligence-gathering agency of the StarForce. BRINT operatives can expect to operate in enemy territory as ‘spies’ and saboteurs and may be required to organize and train resistance groups on planets Occupied by the enemy. BRINT agents also keep a close watch on the Bureau of State Security, whose agents are not part of the Military Establishment.

Interplanetary law enforcement:
Bureau of State Security BoSS
BOSS is a paramilitary organization which combines the duties of such services as MI5, the FBI, the KGB, and similar security institutions. The Bureau of State Security is a powerful arm of the Confederacy of allied worlds, for it is charged with conducting counter-espionage and anti-sabotage investigations, suppressing revolutionary and terrorist organizations, and maintaining the security of the state in general. Thus BOSS agents may be found in any government or civilian service, or in private business and industry. The Bureau is under the direct control of the Director-General of the Pact.

Interstellar Police Agency
The IPA is a paramilitary organization very similar to the StarForce and BRINT, except that it is charged with maintaining law and order in the volume of space controlled by the Pat and concerns itself with criminal activities of an interplanetary and interstellar nature.

Trade between worlds:
Merchant Marines
The Merchant Service is organized on a tight Guild structure. Normally, employment is maintained in one of the Guilds, but a general SpaceHand position may be obtained by any personnel unable to obtain employment in their Guild position. Most large vessels are owned by large corporations as both the cost of the vessels and the cost of operations are far too high for many private citizens to manage.

Department of Interstellar Survey
The Department of Interstellar Survey is charged with the exploration of deep space, to discover and chart new planets suitable for colonization, resource exploitation, etc.

Survey Scouts
The need for new Colony and resource planets is never satisfied, and while the Survey Service does extensive work in the discovery of new planets for settlement and industrial development, independent exploration companies have also entered the field. According to Interstellar Law, the discoverer of a planet uninhabited by sentient races becomes a First Claimant to all land and resources on the planet. If the discoverer undertakes the development of the planet, a very costly enterprise until returns are won from that development, he literally owns the planet. In most cases, the Only organizations capable of such development are governments and the great interstellar corporations. However, a discoverer can also sell his interest in his First Claim, the value of the Claim being dependent on the potential of the planet for colonization or resource development and the difficulties that may be encountered in undertaking such development.

Mercenary Companies:
The Mercenaries are fighting men who have, for the most part, been released from the regular forces. Mercenaries hire Out their services to the large interstellar corporations, to frontier planets that lack sufficient population to maintain a regular planetary defense force and need professional ‘stiffening’ for their Citizen militias, and to independent merchants requiring a heavy guard for voyages into pirate and enemy infested space.

They should have something.

Aballon's backstory is that an immense army of servitor machines, from simple drones to hyper-intelligent overseer units created by the First Ones on Aballon later upgraded themselves, spreading out and evolving to form an entire artificial ecosystem, from simple worker bots and the self-guided predator drones that prey upon them to fully sentient machines.

According to the planetary description, these fully sentient machines that make up a vast society came during that millennia long upgrade. The largest anacite settlement, Striving, is famous across the solar system as the seat of the Machine Court, a logical coalition of robotic judges that arbitrate conflicts between residents, assist the network of governing Als known as the Insight Array, and keep the peace between the planet's factions. It was in Striving where Epoch, Epoch, one of the machine god's three aspects was born. Again, all things that the text infers was not there when the First Ones created the Drones and overseer units millennia ago.

Sounds like an independent culture to me. They must have developed means of communication independent of other planetary cultures--Machine Code, for lack of a better name.

I'm going to add these to my StarFinder game.

Antibiotics
An antibiotic is a broad-spectrum medicinal designed to weaken all diseases other than Radiation in your system. When you take or are injected with an antibiotic, you gain a bonus (equal to 3 + the medicinal's tier) to saving throws against disease for a number of hours equal to its tier.

Stimulants
Stimulants are a broad-spectrum medicinal designed to combat sleep, paralysis, and the staggered conditions. When you take or are injected with a Stimulant, you gain a bonus (equal to 3 + the medicinal's tier) to saving throws against sleep, paralysis, and the staggered condition for a number of hours equal to its tier. If you take or are injected with a Stimulant while suffering from any of these effects, you may immediately roll another saving throw against the effect (with the bonus); you may gain this particular benefit only once per day.

Antiemetics
An Antiemetic is a broad-spectrum medicinal designed to combat nauseated or sickened condition. When you take or are injected with an Antiemetic, you gain a bonus (equal to 3 + the medicinal's tier) to saving throws against nauseated or sickened condition for a number of hours equal to its tier. If you take or are injected with an Antiemetic while suffering from any of these effects, you may immediately roll another saving throw against the effect (with the bonus); you may gain this particular benefit only once per day.

Anti-rad
Anti-rad is a broad-spectrum medicinal designed to combat which increases the capacity of the body to withstand the effects of exposure to high radiation levels without suffering radiation sickness. When you take or are injected with anti-rad, you gain a bonus (equal to 3 + the medicinal's tier) to saving throws against radiation for a number of hours equal to its tier.

Quicktime
Quicktime regenerative drugs greatly speed healing. The drug affects the DNA complex of the patient’s cells and speeds up natural healing rates and body defenses against infection. When you take or are injected with Quicktime you gain fast healing equal to the 1+medicinal level for 2d4 rounds, as well as closing any open wounds the subject has or receives while Quicktime is active, preventing ongoing damage from bleeding

The source code is in the sheet itself. I've been doing a lot of work lately that I can post once I'm done with the first pass of simplifying the calculations.

I mean the source code for the VB application being worked on, not the excel sheet. Unless I missed something in the last down load

Purple Dragon Knight wrote:

Blue Canary: do you have any plans to continue supporting the Excel character sheet one day? My group swears by it. I'd be ready to pass a hat and support this with $

I WISH OH WISH I could keep this thing alive in Excel. But unless Microsoft would correct their own issues, I can not keep it alive anymore.

My real life has keep me from doing anything to this. I'm hoping to find some more time. My job has keep me so busy I have not gamed in three months!

Please post the source code on http://sourceforge.net/ so others can help.

CA, LaDera Ranch - Pathfinder

Once again, another player has moved leaving an opening in my bi-monthly Friday Pathfinder game. Come play in the upper tiers (avg player level is 10th).

I've recently come into a bit of money, and after working 10 years in a local game store, I'm toying with the idea of opening up my own.

However, my local area has pretty good game store coverage, and since location is king, I've come here seeking some suggestions.

I had a look at Boise, ID, but it looks like it has pretty good coverage.

Anybody out there have any other suggestions?

Herodotus(at)cox(dot)net

FYI: Pazio removed the playtest restrictions on mixing hybrid with parent classes, so you don't need the tblClassAlt.xml checks.

Very nice, far more along than mine. Your skill is clearly superior.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/aquavitae/

Idea time. So I've been digging, and I'm thinking of going with VB.Net (Windows Forms) with a XML based data structure. I'm very familiar with VBA and VB, so I expect the learning curve to be less. I'll finally be able to get away from many of the limits I hated.

Now my question, what the heck do I call it? Friend suggested sCoreForge Plus+, wife's idea characterCore. Anyone else have any ideas?

I am an experienced C# developer of 12 years, and classic ASP (vb) 5 years before that. If you need any help, don't hesitate to ask.

The future. OK I'm having some issues. I am not sure if this sheet can keep going. There are some major memory issues. And some of it might be my fault, but a lot of it has to do with how MS does things. I started added in the new classes for PFACG, and now the sheet isn't functional at all. It just crashes, and crashes. I've been looking into converting the sheet over to some other application, but is it worth it? I could break the sheet down again, but this will just slow down the same issue we are already having.

Thoughts? Ideas? Does anyone care?

Like many others, I care.

The nature of the game has outgrown the capabilities of excel. You need to move to something else, something with real programming power.

Have you thought of making it .net winforms application.

Need to check if this is legal:

If a Magus with Wand Wielder arcana casts Weaponwand spell to embed shocking grasp wand in a longsword , can the magus then take two swings per round (both at -2 of course) using the long sword 2 handed (one normal, one via spellcombat/spell strike) by expending a charge on the wand for the second attack.

Wand wielder states, "The magus can activate a wand or staff in place of casting a spell when using spell combat."

Weaponwand states, "You can attack normally with the weapon or use the weapon as if it were the encased wand"

On the the text for the colorize character sheet is missing. The check box is there, but the text is missing. It also doesn't turn the range box orange (cell c70).

So does that mean all light weapons, regardless if piercing or not?

Existing pathfinder game needs players. It is a Savage Tide adventure path meets 7th Sea.

http://tentulic.freeforums.org/introduction-to-the-game-f11.html

I've yet to get it to run. 1.4.7 just hung on starting. 1.5 locks up I try to highlight a player name, require an end task to kill.