Can you use caustojet/caustolance weapons to inject biohacks?
Yes. This specific weapon’s rules for injecting substances overrules the general rule that normally biohacks have no effect if the weapon deals no damage.
..hmmm.. That would imply the biohack actually is a substance. I didn't think they were supposed to shut off a caustolances damage like that. But apparently they do.
Should biohackers be loading up on dart guns? KAC bites but less than having zero contribution to the damage directly.
Board Game Bounty huners is new windsor is looking for gamers. So far as we have plans, they are Tuesday and starfinder. No idea if folks want to do society, run an AP or something else.
(The store also has pokemon, paint and takes, Dungeons and dragons 5e)
It's right around the corner from Pizza heaven, home to the giant Slice.
(I walk past multiple pizza places to get there for a reason)
The #starship tag is a bit misleading. Sure, people may want to know if a scenario involves starships so they can bring their ace pilot, but I think more players are interesting in knowing whether a scenario involves starship combat or not. To that end the #starship hashtag is giving false positives.
I skipped buying and several opportunities to run a scenario #'d starship because I thought it contained starship combat.
Trying to put together a group for the scenario, and 2 responses were about the starship combat. So I'm not the only one getting the wrong idea.
I've opined before that the biohacker is a dip class. Since then two things have happened to greatly further that opinion.
1) The genetics inhibitor got an epic beatdown with the nerf bat, changing from vulnerability to Half biohacker level to damage. This doesn't just change genetics, it makes the spark if inspiration ability to put 2 biohacks into one bullet/ target much, much weaker. -2 AC and vulnerability was an awesome once per day boss bullet. Now its -2 AC and.. wait , why am I here for 4 levels for this?
2) well all those high level theorems ... are now available to the Envoy. just take signature tool medicine, grab your trichorder and go. Same bab, but they actually get skill points per level. Their bonus to medicine is higher than a biohackers. The only advantage is a bonus to life and physical science, but since you can take 20 to ID things anyway or just take skill focus.
Which leaves the biohacker with what? Couch cushion money free medical kit, and additional theorems that expand out but don't scale up.
Organized play recently gave everyone 80 achievement points, and new players start off with that as well. That ameleorates most of what I feel were the last 2 big problems with the ACP system:
That new players couldn't get weird races. Now if new guy really likes a race there's a 90ish percent chance they can start with one right away.
And the system traveler for a system you didn't play problem. If you don't like pf2/starfinder you couldn't get a critter in your preferred system without playing your... unprefered system. Now with your 80 points in both systems you can at least snag one character and toss them through a time portal to the other system.
How does blindsense scent react with a vacuum and environmental seals?
Environmental seals aren't something you just throw on when you get tossed into space or smell the whiff of gas. They're on the job personal protective equipment for adventurers. If you expect to be hit in the head with a dropped hammer, you wear a hardhat. If you expect to be breathing in dust you put on a mask. If you're exploring the galaxy and expect to be chucked into a vacuum, exposed to space spores, radiation, mind control pollen, and mind controlling radioactive space spore pollen, you put the environmental seals on after morning coffee and keep them there.
Physics wise, I keep hearing people say that scent is like sound, it can't exist in a vacuum. This is a bit of argument from two different definitions. While no, by definition a vacuum is empty so doesn't have anything to smell, it's not like a soundwave where it needs a functional atmosphere to propogate. The .01 parts per million you'd need to smell rapsberry keytones for example, could be all around you and not make an atmosphere but they're still there and detectable. Its not a physicists perfect vacuum, but that wouldn't make any difference to someone stuck in it or trying to flap their wings in it.
As far as tech goes, if Vision based humans have a way of taking a solid, sturdy substance that can keep air in, and dangerous levels of radiation out, but still let enough light through so they can see (ie, glass, and or force fields) and stick it on a space suit then Vlaaka should have some sort of Magictech goretex that lets through enough scent to function. (It would explain why we keep getting room descriptions of scents in ships with no atmo when you know 99 percent of the party will have their seals on...)
Or maybe there's a sensor that recreates the scents around you...[url=https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/oscillator/four-great-scents-from-outer-space/]Four great scents from outerspace [/ur]
The page as it exists looks pretty cool, but for actually using it is unworkable on either fire fox or chrome. Plain text, or at least the option to download plain text would work better.
The search function is overly literal, so if i look for power armor instead of powerED armor it returns no results.
Opening a question gets the entire page stuck, the page will stop scrolling. So if you looked at an faq and said no thats not it, you need to refresh the page and start over.
Because the text is hidden behind drop down menus you can't use a normal search function on the page.
Can't copy the question along with the answer. Useful for rules conflagrations discussions
You conjure a holographic interface you can use to communicate with the target computer. The interface allows you to operate an unfamiliar computer or one that lacks an interface as though you did have an interface, but it doesn't change your level of access.
Argument yes: "as though you had an interface" equals let the hacking begin! I mean what else do adventurers do with unfamiliar computers? Getting hacked is what happens to every computer the with a keyboard the technomancer can touch.
Argument no: It doesn't change your level of access. This blows remote hack out of the water as far as computers goes. The spell just replaces your hacking kit.
Not sure HOw this got stuck in my head, but for some reason I'm remembering a choose your own adventure type book that I can't seem to find.
I looked at a few list of the actual choose your own adventure books and none of them are ringing a bell, unless it's on some kind of funny offshoot.
You're an apprentice mage of some sort and you have to defeat an evil wizard. You start off walking through the woods and that can go badly for you.
At some point with most of the good paths you manage to screw up so well you turn yourself into a dragon. Confronting the wizard though just gets you baleful polymorphed into a pet salamander lizard. You have to roll around in tree sap and have your sister cover you in silver dust so you're mistaken for a much more powerful dragon.
Feats have some pretty expansive language for changing if they've been errata'd. class abilities only seem to be alterable if they changed an ability score.
The genetics inhibitor was recently errata'd from imposing vulnerability to adding only half level to damage.
That makes the option something you only do if you're combining it with another biohack for the studious biohacker breakthrough. Its a pretty worthless option (I like the genetics booster, but any genetics biohacker that already has blindsense is going to want to ditch this)
Sometimes you try to build something a little different and it doesn't work out. Sometimes an option doesn't pan out like you thought it would, and sometimes a new splat book comes out with the absolutely perfect ability for your character that you can't get.
The Mnemonic editor is incredibly limited. This item only takes you back one level (the level you're on and the one before that) . More often than not, its earlier decisions that aren't working out. In starfinder a large number of really cool abilities have a pretty meh pre requisite, meaning that if you undo the thing that isn't working you're still left with it's even less functional pre requisite.
It feels very weird that an organization with access to skilled members from all over the cosmos are stuck with whatever tricks they picked up their first mission.
Proposal: Allow characters to spend their downtime and some Achivement points retraining
Ability Score Increase: 10 AcP per ability score
Archetype: 10 AcP per Feature
Class Feature: 10 AcP per Class Feature
Class Level: 15 ACP per Class Level
Feat: 10 AcP per Feat
New Language: 5 AcP per language
Racial Trait: 20 AcP per trait
Skill Rank : 5 AcP per skill
Spell Known :5 AcP per spell swapped
Swap species? 50 AcP + Any AcP cost of the race you're swapping to
not sure if this should be a thing or not, but snagging a xenodruid for the otherwise banned reincarnate isn't any weirder than anything else starfinder get into.
All retraining occurs at the same time, (just like leveling, you can lose an ability and it's pre requisite at the same time) but must result in a legal character, ie, you can't get a character through retraining that you couldn't get leveling up organically. Its for fixing something that isn't working not providing an advantage.
I mean, THIS is the moment he's been waiting for his entire life, he should be out and about showing starfinders how the dewie decimal system works or something.
In a playbypost and some piloting checks have the chance to go south in a hurry.
So who would be the deity of gravity?
The devourer has black holes, the ultimate expression of gravity. Gravity causes a lot of entropy, which is also their bag.
Of Course I'd like to put saranrae forward for the job.
1)She's the god of the sun which is the biggest source of gravity in the pact worlds. i
2) She can be the godess of laser firce AND of milk and cookies, so being photon and graviton would fit.
Well, not the heat death of the universe. The endless void of the devourer should terrify us all and we should devote all science on its prevention... But what about Entropy points?
-They can be spent for an enhancement bonus to movement. The problem is those are relatively cheap and useful to acquire permanently, so this is just a problem for the first few levels. A pair of enhanced legs make this very niche to non walking movement and One viridian bulbis aeon stone and this ability is out of business.
-Can be used to make an uberpunch at +1d4 per entropy point. But this is a move action, so outside of being a skittermander or having a hyper graft, this is essentially a full round action to punch once against someone already standing next to you. Full attacking is almost always better, and a full attack is going to outscale a few D4s as you level
-can activate some Disiplines, but if you don't have any of those the entropy points are just kind of sitting there. you're almost bound to build up points faster than you can spend them with just the special stuff.
Invigorating Strike (Ex) Victory reinvigorates you. Once per round when one of your
attacks defeats a significant enemy, you regain Stamina
Points equal to 1d4 + your key ability score modifier. The
number of Stamina Points you regain increases by 1d4 at 5th
level and every 3 levels thereafter.
Is your key ability score modifier your highest key ability stat of your classes or the stat that is associated with the class the ability comes from? The wording makes sense for a soldier or a biohacker who can pick one of two stats, but for an operative ability i don't know why it just doesn't say dex bonus (unless it's future proofing against some kind of operative?)
As a standard action, make a ranged attack with a melee
weapon you’re wielding against a target within 30
feet. If you hit, you add your Charisma modifier
to the weapon’s damage instead of adding
your Strength modifier. At the end of your
turn, the weapon returns to your hand
unless you don’t have a free hand, in
which case the weapon lands in your
square. If attuned or fully attuned, you
can use this ability to perform a full
attack with the melee weapon at range,
but each attack must be made against
a different target within range. These
attacks can benefit from the flashing
strikes class feature as though they were
melee attacks
Does the ranged attack use strength or dex to attack? The description makes it sound like you're throwing your weapon at them but doesn't use the word throwing. If its not being thrown it would use dex as it's a ranged attack?
Does the ability work with a solar weapon? Solar weapons usually shut off if they leave your hand, but it's not clear if the thrown/not thrown ability triggers that or not.
With friends old and new joining us online for gencon I've collected a few useful notes for playing society and especially playing online. Because if you can explain how to do that to the druid you can explain how to do that to anyone.
PC woof macro mule A macro mule character sheet. If you have a character, enter the attributes and abilities on the page. Pressing your token on the map will then give you pop up buttons for attacks, full attacks, and skills.
Roll 20 has two different common sheets: The simple sheet which was made first, and the official "starfinder by roll20" sheet. What's important to know about them is that characters made with one will not work on a table set up to use the other.
The simple sheet looks a bit like a blank fill in form and when you do an attack prints out a very cool looking red and blue attack results box, or a dark blue and lighter blue heading for skills. The official sheet looks more like a character sheet with grayed out data entry areas and outputs a very cool dark blue and electric blue box when you attack or use a skill.
The biggest hiccup I see for starfinders at an online convention is someone showing up trying to import the wrong character onto the wrong sheet, assuming that "everyone" uses the same sheet they do. Most groups use the simple sheet. But some regions use the official sheet and aren't aware others don't.
DMs: Please be sure to clearly label which sheet you are using: Simple or official. If you just say "by roll 20" I guarantee you half the group will NOT know that means the official sheet.
Players: please import your characters well in advance and make sure they work with the table. I don't know why guy with wrong sheet is always guy showing up at the last minute but its a bad combination....
As a spread that's going to target an intersection and.. well. Hit you. Is there some general rule about spells not hitting you when they're centered on you or is anyone casting this spell going to be hurt as much as the other team ?
Almost half (44%) of the scenarios we know about for this season have starship combat. That seems to be a lot more than before. Has the count increased for his year, the starship scenarios are all front loaded and there will be less for the rest of the year (iirc the planned amount was 1/4 or so?) or did I not take enough socks off when doing the math?
Year of the Data Scourge no
Settling accounts yes
Battle for the beacon yes
Adventure not found no
A Waltz Through Myriad Worlds yes
Combatant's Concerto: Prelude to Revolution no
A Haven for Scourged Machines no
Precious Cargo no
Through Sea and Storm yes
Negating difficult terrain is pretty good. The problem is this won't scale at all. While airborne difficult terrain is possible its rare, and Starfinder characters take to the air far earlier than in any other system.
It could use either some way to scale, or perhaps an overland travel component.
Shoo **
This one is hilariously thematic and I love it on flavor. Good way to scare the poor critters away from the heavily armed starfinders before they get too hurt. The details get to me though.
It has a skill check AND a save AND only works on a limited set of critters. Starfinder has a lot of sentient plants, robots, oozes, robot oozes filling in some of the niche of critters. The creature moves away from you with frightened... and then the condition ends. Its free to move back to you if it wants.
Spectacle ** **** at 6th ***** with the improved version
Both thematic and useful. It even scales without a greater spectacle on its own. Trading your own standard action for a -2 to hit when NPCs have so much hit piled on isn't the best idea, but against a room full of people it's pretty good. This works either for the back line envoy (who isn't being shot at) or a front liner envoy tank.
4th
Perfect Insult *
The action economy here is more than a little off putting. JUSTIN....How long would you have to spend in combat for a +2 to matter? 10 rounds on average? Ouch. If your combat are shorter than that you've just spent a feat to succeed at fewer checks (kind of like Deadly aim)
The one minute duration probably keeps this from being used in dinner scene and non combat encounters. Working longer out of combat could have helped this one a lot.
Quickshoo *
Not sure if you're going to be using shoo so often you want to use half your improvs on it. This probably should have been built into shoo at 6th level on its own.
You've Got this ***
I debated with the voices in my head between 3 or 4 stars, because opening reactions to envoy improvs vastly improves their action economy without their abilities competing with each other for attention. I think it's amazing for crossing cliffs and narrow bridges (and am looking how to fit this one into my build). If you have a good acrobatics/athletics score, you can get an entire party of clutzes over a ravine or up a hill without any trouble.
What Makes it a 3 rather than a 4 to me isn't this ability itself, but the fact that the person most likely to have enough acrobatics to tumble, the operative, doesn't have the action economy to tumble. So a tumbling party member in combat is rare.
6th
Fast Camoflage ****
This is effectively skill expertise for stealth for you, and your party scout if you want to spend the resolve point. A biome, as listed in this book, isn't just a forest or a jungle. Its also a desert, a city, even in space. About the only place it wouldn't apply is on a space ship.
Natural Spectacle *****
Something REALLY epic to do with your swift action. Sign me up. Your action economy should now be +2 for your party to hit, -2 for the bad guys to hit, and what you do with your move.
Quick perfect insult **
Better, but by this level you could be making the same check with that move action instead of improving your chances slightly with it.
Shocking Weakness ****
People forget that envoys get almost as much out of int as charisma. With this you can flat foot an entire room. It's real flat footed, so your party members can move up on those ogres while they're feeling self conscious about their SAT scores.
Take em alive * or ***
As a Saranite I absolutely love this one. But you have to get some non lethal damage on someone ,have this ability, and they STILL can't hit the bad guy too hard. Most of its viability stems from whether your DM uses the Quentin Tarantino rules (where NPCs explode into chunky salsa at zero HP) or the GI joe rules where opponents drop to zero and you have three rounds to stabilize them.
8th
Changing Circumstances *
Readied actions in starfinder are pretty bad. The one thing you'd want to change would be the reaction, not the trigger. I can't see why anyone would be using them often enough to justify this, especially as a top level improv.
Early warning * with the possibility of getting better at some point.
You can use a reaction to use an improv, but it doesn't say that it lets you use a non reaction improv. Since reaction imrpovs are currently few, far between, and not something you'd want to use before the combat this ability doesn't have much use.
Yet.
Just Like that
Probably the only use for early warning, lets you give improved critical effect on one target once per fight. I'm not sold on how often something that has already taken one critical hit needs a second critical hit overlap the venn diagram of this ability giving them the crit (one shot in 20)
Quick Study *
By this level a weapon you pick up off the ground isn't YOUR weapon. your weapon is not only a weapon you can use well, but has been chosen to work with your build, outfitted with modifications, and has just the right fusions on it for you to do your thing. You should also have proficiency with a non pistol weapon before now.
Its kind of weird that the envoy tops out at level 8. Thats not even half the game. What do Ya'll think of some higher level abilities?
It's kinda weird that the envoys abilities top out around level 8. There's plenty of places they could go, not quite sure why they don't go there.
10th
Clever barrage (Ex)
You can attempt multiple feints against a single target or bluff multiple enemies as part of a full attack. As part of making a full attack action you may attempt to feint your target as part of your attack against them. As with clever feint apply the flat footed condition before your attack. You must have clever feint and improved clever feint to select this improvisation.
Greater shoo!(Ex)
Your shoo and Quick shoo improvisation now works against any creature with an intelligence of 3 or lower that is not mindless. In addition creatures are frightened and must flee for 1d4 rounds instead of one round. You must have quick shoo to select this improvisation
Not today! (Ex)
You can use inspiring boost on your allies even when they are unconscious. Allies at zero Hit points given staminia points this way also regain your envoy level in HP.
12th
Get em good (Ex)
The Morale Bonus of your Get em ability and abilities that have get em as a prerequisite increase to +3
And chew bubble gum (Ex)
As a move action, you can both move up to your speed and apply the benefits of hurry to one ally. This ally must be within range before during or after your move.
It's not poisonous (Ex)*
Whenever you effect an ally with inspiring boost or an improvisation that has inspiring boost as a prerequisite you may also apply the benefits of Don't quit. You can't use don't quits ability to remove the condition by spending a resolve point until 16th level.
Inspiring Replay Your allies may be effected by your inspiring boost and abilities that have inspiring boost as a pre requisite twice before needing a 10 minute rest instead of once.
14th
Roll OUT! (Ex)
As a full round action you can apply the benefits of hurry to a number of allies equal to your charisma bonus.
Placebo effect (Ex)
If your inspiring boost or an improvisation with inspiring boost as a prerequisite heals your target to full stamina, any excess points may be used to heal the allies Hit Points.
16th
Hype man (Ex) As a full round action you loudly extort the deeds and victories, and abilities of your allies. A number of allies up to your charisma bonus gain your level times two plus your charisma bonus temporary hit points and a +2 morale bonus to all skill checks. These temporary hit points last for 2 rounds, or 6 rounds at level 20. An ally can only benefit from this ability once per day.
18th
Never gonna keep you down (Ex) When you use Not today your ally may stand up as a reaction. You must have Not today to select this improvisation.
Ball Room Blitz (Ex) As a full round action spend one 2 resolve points to gain a pool of move actions (as per hurry) equal to half your charisma bonus. For the rest of the round you may grant these actions to your allies, although no ally can use more than 2 per turn. At 20th level this increases to three. Allies who benefit from this ability can't do so again until they take a 10 minute rest to recover staminia.
Starfinder has been out long enough that some campaigns are breaking the double digit mark and the envoys lack of high level ability is starting to show. Picking multiple level 8 abilities just isn't keeping up with the power level of the rest of the group.
1)The best they can possibly do is flatline. The abilities are all balanced for 8th level. Someone picking up a level 8 ability and a level 12 ability has gained power AND versatility. Someone picking up 2 level 8 abilities is at best picking up versatility but...
2) The abilities you pick are weaker for you. That's why they weren't your first pick. So you should be increasing power, you COULD be flat lining, but you're not. Your're picking up less and less useful abilities.. your third pick should probably be considered a 6th level ability (and it very well might BE a sixth level ability)
3) The envoys action economy makes the flatline/downcline pretty severe. An envoy has an attack with get em, and a move action. Picking up other options get used less and less because it means not doing the other thing.
With this many expansion books it's starting to look like there's no plans for higher level envoy stuff. Unless there's a high level play book coming out to fix this and a few other problems with starfinder at higher levels it doesn't look like paizo considers it a problem.
At birth skittermanders have a horrific worm tendril belly umbilical cord thing.
At some point in development they lose it.
Is that like a kid losing their baby teeth? Is there some sort of bellyworm fairy in Skittermander mythology that gives you a handful of credits for a desiccated bellyworm under your pillow?
TLDR The pilot has all the choice. The gunner has all the effect. The system fills the DMs brain so making the bluff check to ham it up is full. This is a game, its supposed to be fun, and starship combat just isn't. It feels more like work or something we have to put up with to enjoy the stuff we want to do.
Starship combat has been problematic since it's inception. It's a lackluster system that was further hindered by worse organization. I would say it's the most divisive element in SFS, but I don't see too many people who actually like it all that much. It's almost universally panned, and we should see less of it in SFS, or at least some way to avoid it besides just not playing 25% of the adventures. If you can tag scenarios starship combat, perhaps the DM can tag their runs as no starship combat or something.
The only system I've seen more universally groan inducing is the chase scenes from PF1, and I think we would have had a mutiny if they were in 1/4 of the adventures.
What's wrong with the system
A good role playing game where you build your character gives you proximate agency, ultimate agency, and effect. Starship combat lets the party have half of this at best.
Ultimate agency When I run a skill monkey mystic through a scenario calling for a lot of skills and succeed, it feels like my build choices matter. When someone's combat manuever soflarion starts chucking people off cliffs, it feels like your build choices matter. For starship combat you are your bonus. Nothing else matters. You are a static number and a D20 roll.
Proximate Agency Proximate agency is the ability to make choices that matter now. A melee soldier can attack once, attack twice, move and set up the flank, take the aoo, loose their opportunity to attack etc. Casters get a large toolbox to pull from, and envoys, biohackers, and others get a menu of options to match to the situation at hand. In starship combat only the pilot has this. They have to balance the competing desires to be on the shield they've already hit, face the ships weak shields away from the opposition, while placing your ships strong guns towards their weak shields.
The science officer, engineer, first mate, and gunners lack any kind of real decision making. While many choices exist on paper, some of them are so sub optimal that they're not a real option, or simply reactive. Diverting the power to weapons adds almost nothing after 4th level, and because locking on to a specific system only effects one shot, statistically you'll blow a ship apart before you wreck their system anyway.
One stated goal for PF2 was depth without complexity. Starship combat is complexity without depth. As soon as you understand what the whole myraid of rules do your action breaks down into the same thing round after round.
The engineer restores shields, the science officer scans on round 1 then locks on if they can, the chief mate negates the targeting penalty, the gunner(s) shoot, the captain aids another on the biggest gun. (or commands on round 1)
Effect In regular combat most characters get to see their contribution to the fight, in terms of damage dealt, statuses imposed, or in keeping party members alive in clutch moments. In starship combat only the gunner and the pilot have any real effect.
Engineer: Starts off somewhat effective if boring at healing shields. As you level incoming damage greatly outpaces shield regeneration and this becomes less and less meaningful
Chief mate: aids the gunners
Magic officer: aid another the pilot
Captain: aid anothers the gunner. I've seen multiple captains just say "I can't fail the check to aid. I aid the biggest gun. Getting coffee.."
science officer aid anothers the gunner
Gunner has most of the effect. The pilot has a fair bit until the higher levels, when the ability to pound through a shield makes positioning far less relevant. The pilots effect can also largely be negated if the opponents ship regularly rebalances shields.
The Rules layout is horrifically spread out
Having the absurdly high DCs in the first publishing was problematic, but those things happen. But when the errata was put out the corrected DCs were listed... but without the uncorrected DC. So when looking for the DC you need to have both the rulebooks AND the errata out and try to find the rule on both lists.
The pilot has some fly options, and some stunt options. For some reason it was decided to separate them and put them in different parts of the book, rather than just having everything the pilot does be a stunt. So the pilot needs two different pages open.
The weapon ranges aren't listed with the stat blocks. So you need to look in the starship building rules to keep that chart open.
You're also going to need the critical threshold chart.
Sensors having range penalties isn't listed anywhere in the science officer, you'll have to look in the ship building rules to even know about that one.
The amount of shield that the engineers restore isn't listed, its 5% of the PCU. Not a hard calculation but just one more on the pile.
These are incredibly specific rules to remember or find. Mix that in with keeping track of one..or more, spinning ships with 5 health bars apiece and the DM is often out of RAM to ham it up or do anything else.
Society play exacerbates these problems. Because of the bag of mixed nuts, you can't know just one role. Players spend a fair bit of time sorting into who's going where and moving around, and I think that eats up the last bit of bandwith that could be used for a role playing patch over a very large hole.
Proposed solutions (and why they haven't or won't worked)
Just don't be bad at role play and you'll love it I have played a LOT of starfinder on both sides of the table and have never. I mean NEVER. Seen this happen. I don't think my sample size precludes some people enjoying it, but the idea that it is by and large enjoyable if you just get into it does not seem to be suported.
Just have the captain RP what the crew is doing, that makes them useful... That just passes agency mostly from the pilot to the captain. If its also not the pilots particular meta, you're going to really annoy their player.
Make something to keep track of SSC for you
Been trying. Nothing seems to work right when the time comes, especially for trying to codify the gunnery.
You're just terrible at starship combat I don't think there's a very high ceiling for ability in starship combat for this to be true. Since I haven't seen it, and no one can seem to describe what better at starship combat would look like, I'm calling horsefeathers on this one.
Just avoid it, that's why its #'d I think I may be at this point. But its really not where I want to be. I don't like missing out on running some fun scenarios for people in society that just happen to have one very unfun part.
Just suck it up I think I'm out of air pressure. The degree to which DMs have had to do this is too much for an activity I'm supposed to be enjoying. This is supposed to be fun, and it just isn't. As a player I usually wind up as the engineer and can sleep through that with ...literature in another window. As the DM I'm supposed to be having fun too and I'm really not.
What can be done to fix it?
At this point I don't think adding more ships or obstacles or asteroids to dodge around could help. Its partially that that's only fun compared to two deathspheres circling and firing at each other. Partially that after a few bad experiences with something the negativity from the previous encounters becomes part of the experience. Starship skill challenges tend to run a lot smoother and can provide the same role play. Less of it would certainty help. The squadron or even mech rules might be worth using if they're good and easy enough to lay out/use. But at this point the normal system just seems to put the group in a self reinforcing pit that there's no climbing out of.
Previously the rule to switch factions was to pay 2 fame buy a new faction card, start accruing new reputation.
The options to purchase faction membership with ACP require 15 reputation with that faction anyway: something I think is between impossible for some factions to outright not possible.
Did I miss something, is this something to be addressed in the new guide, or is this one of those small details that got borked in changing to a new system?
Seasons 4 changes mean that we no longer earn fame. A number of boons, abilities, and awards however rely on fame and will either technically stop working because there is no longer fame, or need a complete overhaul because there is no fame.
Note: given that the change happens soon and our overlords are mandible deep in paizocon prep, I realize there's no way for the problem to be fixed quickly.
I got prep to do so I'm just going to start with a few examples.
Instructor Boon
Why it broke: Requires you to earn fame to advance it. Characters with the boon could be half or part of the way through the old boon, having given up dayjob checks, without any way to reap the rewards.
Solution: Beneft: This boon represents time spent outside of adventuring
that you’re taking to train a potential new Starfnder. At the end
of every adventure you have this boon slotted, record the total
amount of Experience points you earned. You can expend your Downtime at
the end of an adventure to increase the amount of Experience recorded
for this boon by 1/2 of an experience point. Once you have accrued 20 Experience with this boon, your student has come into their own and is ready to
become a full-fledged Starfnder (a new character)....
(I think that makes the math work out roughly the same)
You gain the Weapon Specialization feat as a bonus feat for each weapon type this class grants you proficiency with. For weapons you have gained proficiency with only through the injection expert class feature, rather than the normal Weapon Specialization benefit, you instead add half your character level to damage you deal with those weapons.
So how exactly does this parse?
Half Level option
You gain the Weapon Specialization feat as a bonus feat for each weapon type this class grants you proficiency with
Choose one weapon type (small arms, longarms, heavy weapons, etc.). You gain specialization in that weapon type, which means you add your character level to damage with the selected weapon type, or half your character level for small arms or operative melee weapons.
The types of weapons are longarms, small arms, heavy weapons, simple melee, advanced melee, unique etc. The only type of weapons you can get specialization with are Basic melee weapons and small arms. So you don't gain weapon specialization with your caustolance.
Yes Option
For weapons you have gained proficiency with only through the injection expert class feature, rather than the normal Weapon Specialization benefit, you instead add half your character level to damage you deal with those weapons.
You have proficiency with longarms through your feat/level of soldier/archtype etc. Therefore "if you..." returns as false , so you get the full weapon specilization benefit.
For the no option that should probably read "for weapons you have gained specilization with..." Because right now those clauses are a bit at odds.
If you're getting into or thinking about getting into online play but are worried its complicated, its not. Just hand me
1) your character sheet
2) A pretty picture of your character(s)
You can try out the setup yourself with the directions here Fill out attributes and abilities
What I need
If you can show me your character somehow I'll turn them into a roll20 token for you. I can use a Mythweavers character sheet, excel cookie maker sheet, hero lab print out, snap a picture or scan your paper character sheet, have them done out on your paizo account, or scribbled on a piece of bark. Doesn't matter.
Give me a poke on most of the Starfinder discords, a pm here, or you can send the character to gmail bignorsewolf
How Do I use it?
Once the character is on the map, you click the token on the map. Pop up buttons appear way up at the top of the page. higher. Hiiiigher.. there. You click your token, you click the thing you want them to do. Attack, full attack, saves, etc. It only takes me 5 minutes.(spellcasters a bit longer)
To get it to your roll20 table, you can either say "hey wolf this is the roll20 link to my game, move this character here" or learn to import to your vault export to your table. The DM needs to set the table to allow imports, and either him, you, or me need a paid account.
Anyone can use it without having to keep roll20 and their character open
It will work on both simple and official starfinder tables (You can in fact, drop them into a game of ars magica or my little pony and they'll still work) Most society games use the roll20 simple sheet but every once in a while you find someone from meatspace that uses the official sheet. Character sheets will break on the wrong table
Druid proof Resistant initiative button: In roll20 you have to click your token before you hit initiative. Someone forgets this at least once a fight. Since the macros are tied to the token you have to click your token to roll init.
DisAdvantages:
It can't automatically crit. (You'll have to press the damage button again or just type in [[1d8+3]] extra damage
You get a very basic purple print out instead of the very cool computer tab styled outputs from the character sheets.
It doesn't double as a character sheet: You'll need a character sheet somewhere else too. (most do this anyway)
Leveling is almost making the sheet over, since nothing auto calculates.
Despite (or perhaps because of) really loving the concept, there is a lot about this class that I don't like. Despite allegedly being a skilled class, the class itself grants the same Skill points as a soldier or solarion.
The way the class is written relies on nesting inside nesting but without the consistency that nesting normally gets you. It's very easy to miss a gotcha ability because one thing is another thing with this exception for being something else: for example your field of study grants an inhibitor which is a biohack, but because its not a BASIC biohack your Studious biohackers spark of ingenuity won't work on it. Or it will because its not a basic biohack but it follows the rules of a basic biohack.....
The injection weapon proficiency is kind of pointless. You really want to avoid half specialization, but your proficiency doesn't match up with the requirements you need for the feats: you need longarm proficiency for long arm specilization and weapon focus long arms.
Level 1 seems to have everything you need to biohack. You get the -2 penalty to AC Int number of times per day (not improved by your level), you can use your int for 2/3 of the wisdom skills, and you can use your gun to autoselect which dart in a needle gun you'd like to fire, and the class skills you need.
As you level too many of the abilities are Meh. Spark of ingenuity is nice, but its once per day and if you miss it does nothing. Thats.. kind of rare for a big boom. Even casters get more than one max level spell.
Medication mastery is pretty good at some levels but at other levels its not that hard to just buy the medication to do the same thing. The level 6 biohacks are all pretty bad: I'd go back and get the level 1 versions first. The healing the class has doesn't scale very well, and is only good to get someone off the ground. Healing serums do the same thing.
Looking at all the things that move a move action to a swift action I have to wonder if either a full action didnt burn your swift action at some point. Or If writers have pathfinders action ecnomy in mind where the swift didn't do that.
What would be the point of quick draw? you can either draw the weapon while moving or as a move action, and then shoot. The feat would only be useful if you had to draw two weapons or if you needed to draw a weapon quickly and open a door.
Despite (or perhaps because of) really loving the concept, there is a lot about this class that I don't like. Despite allegedly being a skilled class, the class itself grants the same Skill points as a soldier or solarion.
The way the class is written relies on nesting inside nesting but without the consistency that nesting normally gets you. It's very easy to miss a gotcha ability because one thing is another thing with this exception for being something else: for example your field of study grants an inhibitor which is a biohack, but because its not a BASIC biohack your Studious biohackers spark of ingenuity won't work on it. Or it will because its not a basic biohack but it follows the rules of a basic biohack.....
The injection weapon proficiency is kind of pointless. You really want to avoid half specialization, but your proficiency doesn't match up with the requirements you need for the feats: you need longarm proficiency for long arm specilization and weapon focus long arms.
Level 1 seems to have everything you need to biohack. You get the -2 penalty to AC Int number of times per day (not improved by your level), you can use your int for 2/3 of the wisdom skills, and you can use your gun to autoselect which dart in a needle gun you'd like to fire, and the class skills you need.
As you level too many of the abilities are Meh. Spark of ingenuity doesn't do much because you either want your field of study biohack on a target or the -2 ac and the rest.. don't matter that much. Medication mastery is pretty good at some levels but at other levels its not that hard to just buy the medication to do the same thing. The level 6 biohacks are all pretty bad: I'd go back and get the level 1 versions first. The healing the class has doesn't scale very well, and is only good to get someone off the ground. Healing serums do the same thing.
I think any reasonable starfinders first reaction would be to check what they're doing with a senior starfinder/venture captain. For all anyone knows she's activating a nuke or turning off her security system. I would assume whichever venture critter is approached would tell the starfinders to do the mission ?
Signifigant otter....*facepalm* :)
A very cool scenario , really liked the way the passcodes were stored.
I tried buying a map pack and an adventure path last week. I thought it was an issue with either the gift cert or the store credit or that I'd previously purchased the pdf as a gift for someone else.
This morning the new starfinder society scenarios came out, so i tried to make a purchase
with the gift certificate on store credit
without the gift certificiate on credit
without the gift certificate by card
Clicking place order just give me a spinning wheel icon for half a second and then the page goes back to normal.
After having to break the bad news to a few players that an unwieldy weapon can't make an AOO, even with reach, I've wondered why the heck anyone would make a weapon that's unwieldy with reach. Whats the target audience?
Reach weapons make aoos. Can't do that with an unwieldy weapon.
Reach weapons give you more opportunity to full attack by having your opponent stay within reach after a 5 foot step and or giving you more opponents. Unwieldy weapons can't full attack.
You don't always need to move with a reach weapon. But unwieldy with reach you don't have anything to do with your move..
So who's this for? Melee envoys that want people in range for Improv + Whack? Thats a little niche but might be it.
Cover does not necessarily block precise senses, but it does make it more difficult to hit a target. To determine whether your target has cover from your attack, choose a corner of your square. If any line from this corner to any corner of the target’s square passes through a square or border that blocks line of effect or provides cover, or through a square occupied by a creature, the target has cover. Cover grants you a +4 bonus to AC and a +2 bonus to Reflex saves against attacks that originate from a point on the other side of the cover from you. Note that spread effects can extend around corners and negate these bonuses.
Cover And Attacks Of Opportunity
If you have cover relative to an enemy, it can’t make an attack of opportunity against you.
Low Obstacles And Cover
A low obstacle (i.e., a wall half your height) provides cover, but only to creatures within 30 feet (six squares). The attacker ignores the cover if he’s closer to the obstacle than his target is.
Soft Cover
Creatures, even enemies, between you and the source of an effect provide you with cover against ranged attacks, giving you a +4 bonus to AC. However, soft cover provides no bonus to Reflex saves, nor does soft cover allow you to attempt a Stealth check.
Partial Cover
If more than half of you is visible, your bonuses from cover are reduced to +2 to AC and +1 to Reflex saving throws.
Improved Cover
In some cases, such as when a target is hiding behind a gun port in a defensive wall, cover provides greater bonuses to AC and Reflex saves. In such situations, the normal bonuses to AC and Reflex saves are doubled (to +8 and +4, respectively).
Total Cover
If an enemy doesn’t have line of effect to you (see page 271), you have total cover from the enemy. A creature can’t make an attack against a target that has total cover.
Yes: to determine whether your target has cover from your attack, choose a corner of your square. If any line from this corner to any corner of the target’s square passes through a square or border that blocks line of effect or provides cover, or through a square occupied by a creature, the target has cover.
No: Creatures, even enemies, between you and the source of an effect provide you with cover against ranged attacks, giving you a +4 bonus to AC. However, soft cover provides no bonus to Reflex saves, nor does soft cover allow you to attempt a Stealth check.
The level of skill supremacy the operative has still grates. Far from a knee jerk reaction the more I see an operative in the party with any other class the more I think they either overtuned the operative or (whats more likely fixable) didn't give the other classes enough juice in their own areas of specialization.
Even without specializing in the area the operative with a hobby is as good, better, or too damn close to the biohacker in medicine and the technomancer in computers and the mystic at their mystical connections and (most importantly i think) the mechanic at engineering and computers. Making an operative diplomat isn't out of the question, (and would arguably be the best diplomat) but they don't waltz into beating an envoy at their schtick on accident.
Within their own specializations the operative starts at a +3 compared to everyone else's +1 or +0. They tend to stay ahead or only come even after most campaigns have ended, and aren't ever all that far behind. The very linear and pass or fail nature of the d20 skill system does not lend itself to a variety of different modifiers that a roll and keep, pocket of d10s, or roll dice and draw cards system might. For example, white wolf can give you more d10s or drop the difficulty. In pathfinder/starfinder your skill value is the + and little else.
The other classes get very few special abilities to enhance or even be non comparable with the operative for their skills. Something cool like the mechanics remote hack ability has a value that can't be strictly compared to a bonus. But these abilities are very few and far between. Meanwhile the operative within their specialty has gimmicks, as well as the near "i win" button of take 10 for their specialty skills and any skills they feel like taking skill focus for. Other classes that want to speed up their proficiency by taking skill focus wind up wasting a feat they cant retrain out of, while Operatives get that nice I win button. (The envoy TECHNICALLY gets one but its so bad its barely technically)
Encouraging a higher int bonus in the other classes doesn't help them nearly enough. Most of them get surprisingly little out of having an uber (as opposed to merely good) Int score. The technomancer is a bit of an exception, but for the rest they're making the exact same trade of skill utility for combat prowess as the operative. An 18 dex 16 int isn't a niche build for an operative... or a technomancer or a biohacker or a mechanic. At most it puts the other class 1 or 2 points ahead of the operative (sometimes entirely due to the stat booster, since a starting 16 and starting 18 have the same bonus at levels 5-10)
Other classes need a consolation prize for taking skill focus and or some unique class abilities to do with their skills. Otherwise the operative is just eating everyones cookie.
The biohacker is proficient with all injection weapons, be they advanced melee weapons, long arms, special weapons or whatever.
The problem is that the rest of the game is set up with weapons fit neatly into the long arm/smallarm/simpleweapon/advanced weapon categories.
Yes. You're proficient with the caustolance. You can even use a theorem to get real specialization in it. The real problem is weapon focus. For a biohacker if you're not hitting your opponent (or sometimes your ally...) You're wasting the round.
But weapon focus goes by weapon type. So you really want to pick up weapon focus, but for the weapon you're going to use you can't, because you're proficient with the caustoject, not the long arms that weapon focus requires.
So either you take
Weapon prof longarm
weapon focus longarm
or
Weapon focus small arms
Versatile focus
This greatly devalues the arms expert theorem, because at that point you can take versatile focus and get arms experts benefit as a feat, and get it 3 or more levels sooner. The only person who'd still want to use it is someone using small arms. At the level it comes online, small arm weapon damage starts to diverge greatly from long arm weapon damage. A two gun kid build is going to be horribly sub optimal at that level.
The starfinder erratta/faq page is borked and has been for months. I get that people are out of the office and can't fix it, but could someone that can see it just copy/ paste it somewhere? Yes, I have tried clearing my cache, switching browsers, signing in, signing out, left foot in, left foot out.. it doesn't work anymore.
Modern
warriors use refned versions of the weapon that are effective at
delivering poisons and similar substances through contemporary
armor. You apply such substances to the blade per rules found
on page 232 of the Core Rulebook
The weapon describes using poisons, and the crit is injection DC +2, but it doesn't seem to have the injection weapon special property. Was it just left off by accident?
Arms expert: Is functionally two feats. Longarm proficiency and specialization long arms. One of those you kinda have build into the class already. If you're going longarms though, why wait till level 8 for this? If you're going small arms, it's one of the few ways to get full level specialization, but it comes online when longarm damage dice are about to rocket away from small arm damage dice. You'd want to take weapon focus in longarms anyway way before this, not waste a feat with versatile specilization. which would make the trade one feat for 1 class ability, class abilities are usually better)
Far Injection: I can do most of that with a scope. Not when full attacking, but it gets you more than double the range.
Improved Tread condition: Frightened and nauseated. While the auto clear is nice, I can use medication mastery (or just buy) an antiemetic to give a reroll with a good bonus vs nausea and a sedative for frightened.
Powerful Biohacks: If you're going toxicology i think you have to take this. But it;s a rare biohacker ability that doesn't run into a backdoor ban on it not working. (such as undead not taking subdual damage or needing fort saves at all in addition to their poison immunity)
Stable Biohacks: Might be good if your operative is willing to use a caustoject. Not sure who elses action besides yours would best be spent removing conditions. If you need conditions off of yourself, buy some medicine off the shelf and hand it out.
Tranq dart: Requires a living creature in addition to being a poison effect. So a lot of creatures will be immune and its only once per day. Its either not going to work or make your boss fight anti climactic once in a blue moon.
