Kishmo's page

Our Skitterpal will try and Divert power to weapons.
Engineering DC 25: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (9) + 14 = 23
Also jumping ahead a bit, but, here's Varuthalla's piloting Initiative.
Piloting Init: 1d20 + 22 ⇒ (3) + 22 = 25
Just crushing it over here

Assuming we lose init, Varuthalla would move ahead 4 hexes while Evading. (I haven't actually moved anything yet, just stating it, so GM S can go ahead when it's time.)
Piloting DC 25: 1d20 + 22 ⇒ (17) + 22 = 39

to add to that, the precog was combined with the Witchwarper, so we have 9 of the original 13 Sf1e classes.

Yeah, but ... all that the 1e and 2e Precogs have in common are the name :( The 1e precog was beautiful - playing with predestination with your banked Paradox d20 rolls, interesting and useful applications for even low Paradox rolls, and incredible build diversity: there was support for blasty casters, utility casters and/or off-healer, ranged attackers, or even (my personal favourite) a dodge-tank style melee build.

Khajiit did Kishmo did nothing wrong! Kishmo is innocent of this crime! What is the charge? Enjoying a sanctioned adventure? Enjoying a succulent, generically sanctioned, adventure?
(Maybe some shitposts will help the cause? I'm trying here, ok? XD)

Those of you saying “this isn’t a big deal” - it may not be a big deal for YOU. But as someone who organized conventions, sometimes you have to hand a GM a scenario and ask them to run it on the fly. “But, Mark, they can use their phone to get the stat blocks!”. It isn’t that simple. Some convention halls don’t have good cell reception, and most don’t have available wi-fi. I can’t tell you how many times *I* have been asked at a con to run something on the fly.

Mark, I agree with everything you just said. I started in 2010 and my experiences have been the same. This is a significant barrier to growth and participation.

That's fair enough - running something cold, with no prep time, feels like a very fair and valid reason to want to have all the stat blocks in the scenario.

I get it happens, but - does it really happen often enough, to warrant being a major, or even a significant, driver of policy?

I'm excited, but I also really hope some sort of shared ancestry feat system is on the books so that they don't get overshadowed by the core races.

I really agree - this would be a great way to add more "Starfinder" flavour to the game. At one point during the Playtest I thought it would be neat to see groupings of feats for Species with similar physiologies or characteristics, called, I dunno, "Phylum feats" or "Clade feats" or something. (Don't @ me biologists, I know that different species couldn't possibly share taxonomic categories; it's just an easy short-hand for "species must be similar to take these feats.) But like, a handful of feats for Flying species, or multi-armed species, or a handful of feats for Plant or (plant-like) species, or aquatic / amphibious species, etc etc, would be both flavourful, and distinguishing for Starfinder.

(also: please gib stellifera) (...or hanakan) (🤍)

A player at one my games pointed out that, although they have a Campaign Coin, by RAW, it doesn't do anything at a SFS2 table, since there is no RAW. Which leads me to ask: are Accessory Perks still a thing for SFS2e? To be honest I had just default assumed "use the same Accessory Perks as PFS2." But it would be good to have something official to point to, or relevant SFS2 entries on the Accessory Perks page.
...asking for the small pile of skittermander dice pouches beside my desk a friend.

I'm honestly surprised at how big of a deal so many people think this is. I just bring a side-device with me (in my case, an older mobile phone from two upgrades ago) to have stat blocks available on. If I'm going to be GMing somewhere with no / questionable internet, then part of my scenario prep is to rip said stat blocks from a PDF/AoN ahead of time, and plop them onto my side device as a local file (pdf, jpg, whatever.)

I dunno, doesn't feel especially onerous or deal-breaking to me. Maybe I'm just used to doing a bunch of digital prep work ahead of time, from all those years of Pandemic VTT, though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Are there any updates on the "can SF2 adventures/modules/APs be run for Society credit?" issue? Asking since that is a big factor on if I pick up Guilt of the Grave World or not.

Oh, just wait until you see the boar creature's actual name. That Alex understood the assignment XD

I don't disagree that Wild Bond's additional movement speeds are great, but - it's really the 2 abilities from Eldritch Bond vs only 1 from Wild Bond that shoot EB way ahead in usefulness. Eldritch Bond granting, say, Mental Resistance and 10 ft Reach, or Darkvision and 10 ft Reach, or ... literary anything and 10 ft Reach, at lvl 2? Pretty hard to say no to that.
(Especially considering how the prevalence of flight options devalues the usefulness of a Fly Speed at lvl 2. (Not that I'm complaining, Starfriends!! Thank you for letting shirren and dragonkin et al fly!))
Although, saying that out loud, maybe the Ranged Meta devalues the usefulness of melee reach..? I dunno, there were still loads of melee in the games I played/GM'd at GenCon.

I think Eldritch Bond and Wild Bond need some errata, even beyond Perpdepog's excellent point, above. Or, at least, Wild Bond does, because it is just empirically worse than Eldritch Bond.
EB grants two abilities, from the list; WB grants only one, although the list of possible abilities seem roughly on par with each other. EB bumps up the number of targets to 5, and increases number of damage dice for granted attacks, at level 4. WB has the exact same - at level 5. One of EB's options is a ranged attack; WB only has melee options.
The only thing that I can see that "balances" WB is that is lacks the Concentrate and Manipulate traits, which doesn't feel big enough to justify it being worse is nearly every other way.

I'm also hopping onto the bandwagon!
I admit that, when I found out all of the four SFS2 scenarios available at GenCon had custom content on the boons, I was pleasantly surprised, since we haven't had bespoke content on every chronicle since, like, season 1 or 2, in SFS1. While it would be amazing if SF2 Adventures/APs had custom Chronicle stuff too, I think it's more important that they just provide generic rewards: XP, Credits, and ACPs Spacey-Ps. I would gladly accept "generic" chronicles for Adventures/APs, with no custom items, boons, spells, etc., if that's what it took to get Org Play credit for running or playing them.

Oh, dang! New lore dropped! Well, that's fairly conclusive, then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I am not sure that is true that AI have a soul in game. Anacite's at least in descriptions I have seen are called sentient but didn't have souls or at least mostly didn't I think some SRO may be anacites that acquired one.

I am 90% sure that somewhere, in some long ago Starfinder Wednesday (GOSH, who remembers Starfinder Wednesdays <3 "He's trying, folks!" XD ) Rob G McC or Owen K.C. Stephens clarified that yes, SROs and Anacites are complex, ensouled, creatures. I('m pretty sure I) remember this, because I am 90% sure I asked this very same question, once, in The Before Time :D

What Perpdepog said. To expand on that, in First Edition, there was a distinction between:
VIs, virtual intelligences, which are effectively what we in the real world would call large language models but are not truly independent, innovative, ensouled, creatures,
and
AIs, artificial intelligences, which are self-aware, sapient, sophonts with souls. If you have access to Tech Revolution, there's a good overview on VIs, and how they differ from AIs, on page 163.

In short, though: as computers/software/machines/whatever gain more and more complexity, the odds that they attract actual souls from the River of Souls and stop being tech or VIs, and become true AIs, increases.

The write-up specifically says "This weapon is an extension of yourself, and you can change its form with meditation," so you can determine its general shape and appearance, however you like. It's probably still recognizable as a weapon made of coherent energy, so it probably wouldn't pass as, like, a physical mundane sword made of metal or whatever; but that feels like the kind of thing you could discuss with your GM.

For what it's worth, in 1e, it was generally the same, but the write-up had more details:
This weapon appears to be made out of glowing light or solid darkness, as determined by the appearance of your solar manifestation, but it can be whatever general shape you choose. Normal melee weapons like axes, swords, and spears are most common, but other shapes, such as a large rune of stellar energy, a mass of writhing energy tendrils, or an energized fist that fits over your own hand, are possible as well. Your solar weapon’s general design has no impact on its function, and doesn’t give the weapon any special abilities such as reach. Once you’ve selected the general design, you can’t change it until you gain a new solarian level.

I think you just roll with it. In 1e, there was a blanket rule that said "unless specifically stated, all gear works with all physiologies." I haven't read the 2e Core book cover-to-cover yet, so I'm not sure if that wording is still in there, but I think the spirit is, for weirdo offbeat species like Astrazoan.
Oh, also, FWIW, there is the flavour text for Swarmsuit armour, which specifically says it is designed to work with transformable physiologies.

I'm sure they're coming, but, I can't wait for some of the more whacky super-science / super-magic-science weapons from 1e. Stuff like: the black hole cannon! Man-portable rods-from-gods deliverers! The transmutation rifle that turns your enemies' kidneys into stones! The sniper rifle that doesn't fire projectiles, but instead targets bits on your enemies' insides, and teleports them to their outsides! And like others have pointed out, stormcaller, my beloved <3 Can you imagine a 2e Soldier with the flexible line?
(I would like to take this opportunity to say, maybe that could be better named projected line, rather than flexible line? To me, "flexible" implies, like, bendy or curved lines. The actual mechanical effect is still a straight line from Point A to Point B; it's just projected away from the attacker, rather than starting at the attacker, as with a regular Line Attack.)
I've said it before, but, I'm also excited to get some of the crazier weapon descriptions back, too. Like, a really wild super-science "reverse E=mc²" write-up is what made the energy converter so, so, flavourful and cool. At its base it's just a zero cannon; but making it a boxy nerd science project that converts energy into matter gave it style beyond compare.

Amazing - thanks, Jessica & everyone who made this happen!

So, all told, that's what - ten ancestries in the Core, six in Galaxy Guide, one in Metal City, and now two here in the Player's Guide, for a total of nineteen species available at launch? (And that's not even counting the PF2 ones?) Including some mechanically bonkers, or very iconic "Starfinder" species, like Contemplative, Skittermander, Astrazoan, and Barathu?

It feels like a Cantina up in here :)

It's not always (or even often) possible, but I like to try and experience things first as a Player, and then GM it - either for home / IRL groups, or Online, or whatever.

In practice, this ends up looking like playing new scenarios as they come out at the big online conventions (either VTT or PbP) and then GMing them, in whatever medium you want.

One piece of advice, though - when you're juggling which PCs can play a scenario or receive credit for GMing them with multiple play modes, do recall that, although the rules are very clear on PCs only being able to participate in one adventure at a time, Chronicles from GMing can still be assigned, even during a long PbP adventure - they just don't take effect until after.
(At least, that's how 1e works. TBD if there'll be changes in 2e, once that campaign's rules come out!)

Echoing others: I like the idea of a casual AMA stream with just whatever random stuff going on for visuals. The chibi-Iconics were lovely, and it was pretty cool to see their creator getting rep'd in Chat!

But, also like others: I don't know much about Warframe, and didn't get much out of that specifically. Especially since that aspect was mostly watching hyper-acrobatic space-ninja jumps. Made me a little motion sick :D Something a bit less ... frenetic, may be a better choice. I'd def watch again with, I dunno, Darktide or Helldivers 2 or something!

Thank you, everyone, for your congratulations - and thanks to all those who've played in my games! I couldn't've done it without you, and the Online Region (because I live in the city from Footloose that hates dancing, but also TTRPGs, strangely? Some day, our Kevin Bacon prince will come.)
Congrats to our new coin-holders, and my fellow Five Thingy-Havers!

As the dust cleared, she heard, “Navasiiiii!” echo from the extemporary exit Trace’s grenade had blown in the wall

Na-va-siiiii! *shakes fist at projected sky*

Hey Kishmo! To clarify, are you referring to vouchers or other stored Paizo store credit?

I appear to have a voucher from Outpost VIII; but it would be good to know for either, really :)

Yes, all Gen Con releases will be available in the Paizo booth during Gen Con. :)

Related question: do you know if there'll be a way to use Paizo Store Credit (like for having GM'd at PaizoCon) at the Paizo Booth at GenCon?

I can't wait to browbeat cordially invite a handful of like-minded players into making an all morlamaw party for this. Surely, politely forming orderly queues is a winning strategy for this high pressure reality TV race, and who better than The Dapper Flappers to do so? XD

Holy shit Fitch is still alive? Dang, way to go, Grandma!

As much as I still have Feelings™ about PF2 Assumptions & Meta bringing down the spirit of Starfinder - it is pretty cool to be able to unlock PF2 options for SFS2! Very interested to see what will be available there, and when! Access to PF2 species, especially ones that are still common in Starfinder times like elf or dwarf, feels like a slam dunk. I'm not sure I have an opinion on "having PF2 classes out of the gate runs a risk of diluting the SF2 classes." I can see the point that's being made, though. Requires further thought.

Also, to be honest, I’m just not sure what to call this new rank. Rings? Comets? Moons? Donuts?

Damnit Speidel, give the people what they want! The children yearn for the Space-Donuts! XD

As far as Achievement Point awards, I miss the expensive vanity purchases from PF1, like being able to buy your own island or ship. It was a lot of fun when you had to travel somewhere by boat to the adventure to say, "Let's take my ship!" I liked the ability to invest my characters further into the world. I'd love to see that kind of thing.

Seconding this. Even the handful of rare Vanity Boons, either official or unofficial, in SF1 were pretty cool. Things that weren't really 'mechanical' benefits but still impacted the narrative and overall story helped me feel like a part of the living world: stuff like Strawberry Machine Cake or Abysshead! albums, Personal Vaults from 1-16, or everyone's favourite pal, the Sharktopus (<3) not only helped the universe feel more lived in, but that it was lived in by us, the players.

I know that Starship Combat is still a ways away, but in SFS1 having special Starship Boons was always cool - you knew you were in for a ride when someone slapped a Gorgon boon sheet down on the table! Some way to bring that back in, even as just a flavourful narrative thing for now, would be cool, but full on custom starship stats when rules for such a thing exist would be awesome! (On that note, it's been three years, but, my offer still stands XD)

Like, picture a Spacey-P boon called "Space-Paint Job." For a modest fee of meta-currency, you can narratively declare the shuttle / Pegasus / Whatever that you're riding to the scenario location has a custom paint scheme, instead of the standard Starfinder Society livery. Cherry red Drake? Pegasus with Purple accents, to be sneakier? The dreaded Oops, All Sparkles Azata? Sure, why not! I don't know to what extent Vehicles will show up in SFS2 scenarios, but same idea there. An exploration buggy is cool, but an exploration buggy with dangly fuzzy d20s is cool.
Granted it feels a bit silly, sure, but, c'mon, it's Starfinder. Silliness in Space is part of the charm!

Replying to this comment:

These are really cool, especially the technomancer! Although something that's bugging me is the level 18 technomancer feat, Sudo Spell.

Sudo is short for "substitute user do"; it's a command you use to run other commands at a different privilege level (typically root). It has nothing to do with precision or duplication.

It kinda reminds me of those crime dramas with the terrible/hilarious hacking scenes, but it's also pretty confusing when there are existing class features and feats that have to do with root access. I spent more time than I'd like to admit trying to figure out the relation between this feat and 10th level spells :P

I feel the same way.

If I can make some suggestions, that I don't think go too far off into the weeds (no more so than, say, quine relay, anyways):

Speedrun (feat p 31; spell p 33) isn't actually about speed; it's about phasing through walls. This could more accurately be called Noclip, or you could recycle 1e's Glitch Step.

Sudo Spell (p 31) is about a spell effect repeating the next round; this could more accurately be called Echo Spell, or for more techie jargon, Loop Spell, FOR Loop Spell, DO Loop Spell, or BREAKIF1=0 Spell.

Debug Spell (p 30) isn't too bad, but debugging is more about removing errors, than tweaking code. This could more accurately be called Refactor Spell, Reformat Spell, Retool Spell, Recompile Spell, or something along those lines. Or heck, even just Optimise Spell. Which frees up Debug for something else more appropriate.

God Mode (p 31) isn't bad, but, I think God Mode could be better used. Since it's about adding more spellshapes, you could call it Memory Boost, or even Spell API Call or something with an "Adding Additional and/or External Resources" vibe. Or, to get real Starfinder-y, since it lets you add up to three spellshapes at once, it's a great use-case for a Triune reference. Triune's Glitch, Triune's Favour, Tripartite Spell, and so on.

Root Access (p 31) also isn't too bad, but as Dire Mosasaur points out, it's not not a bit of a stretch. This would be better place to use God Mode, if we freed it from above.

Then again, my railing against the use of "quantum" doesn't seem to have done much, so. I won't hold my breath observe my qubits.

Echoing others: I am very excited about all of these changes, save the cap. Starting at higher levels sounds great, and making most content available at release without boons or Spacey-Ps? Chef's space-kiss! Seeing That Cantina Feel remain as a core tenet of Starfinder Society from 2e's get-go warms the cockles of this longtime Starfinder Society fan's heart <3

However, the level 10 cap just doesn't feel good. I think a lot of people will agree that the "sweet spot" of play happens around mid level, roughly levels 5 - 15, where you have enough abilities to do cool stuff, but not so much complexity that a single PC's three actions takes 30 minutes and requires a delve into two rulebooks. Cutting down on the higher end of the sweet spot hurts.

I know the player counts aren't there for higher level content, but those of us who are there, love it. High tier is where all the cool stuff happened: high tier is where we fought demi-gods. High tier is where we ensured smooth transitions of power in AbadarCorp's Board of Directors. High tier is where we performed unexpected power cycles on Guidance. Those are the things I remember my high level characters doing throughout their careers, in 1e.

Maybe keep the door open for some "Space-Seeker" content at tier 11-12, someday. Mechanically speaking, a lot of cool stuff happens at lvl 11: proficiency bumps for the things your class is good at, aim dice ++, level 6 spells, access to lvl 12 "elite" weapons and the damage dice ++ that that entails, and so on. In many ways, level 10 feel close to a cool level to end at, but not quite there. Just one or two more levels would feel more "settled," if that makes sense. Level 10 feels like an unsatisfying, or perhaps unfinished, level to end at, in the 2e math.

Oh man, hat's off to whoever came up with the Technomancer programming langauges' names & write-ups :D
...that said, I really hope the final version explicitly allows people to re-flavour those names (but keep the same mechanics, of course) just for funsies. "Choose a programming language from the options" implies you must use the names are presented, but c'mon, we all know the children yearn for the mines dumb puns and arch japes of made-up sci-fant progamming langauges.
inb4 COBOLd

Starfinder Society Scenarios in Second Edition do not include ... challenge points, treasure bundles

Oh dang, sweet! As someone who's run a lot of 1e SFS but with very little familiarity with PFS2, having to figure out and memorise the maths for CP, treasure bundles, dayjob checks, etc, was one of the things I wasn't looking forwards to. One less thing to have to figure out in August :) And everything being replayable per character?! FeelsGoodVelloro.jpeg

I don't think anacites or SROs are good candidates for versatile heritages, but SROs can really push the regular, vanilla, heritage system to some cool places!
In 1e, SROs could be Small or Medium sized, and although they never got alternate species features, there were a number of neato feats and things that they could take; the usual feats and things of that sort (like go-go-gadget arms or super robo-optics) but also alternate class features specific to contructed creatures, like the Robotic Improvements mechanic, or hacking spell chips into your robo-body. Turning those types of things into Heritage choices could be really interesting - like choosing to be Small, Medium, or (gasp!) even Large, or having a heritage to grant built-in shortwave transcievers, or a built-in spell chip array, and who knows what other stuff the Star Friends could cook up!

In 1e, Anacites were not a playable species, but more like a family of creatures, similar to devils, or velstracs. There's everything from the low-level anacite wingbot messengers to higher level combat anacites. They had their own lore and backstory, and we saw their plot evolve over the course of 1e with the expansion and addition of various factions (most of which named themselves "Those Who [Some Verb]") as well as some veiled allusions to their history, cousin species, and ongoing lore stuff happening in the final season of Society play.

I'm kinda glad that they were never a playable species; it would get confusing. That said, there was nothing saying you couldn't play an SRO and flavour yourself as being an anacite, though! SROs were a broad category of "literally anything sapient and robotic" so there was a lot of leeway there to play around with.

Woot wooooot, all aboard the Starfinder Society Hype Space-Train!!! (Irrisen, eat your cold heart out XD) And, can I just say, it's very heartening to hear wording like "radically different" and "taking some risks" about Starfinder!

The Starfinder Society has been front and center for many major events in the Pact Worlds including ... the liberation of Pulonis

Oh dang, is this happening "On Screen" somewhere? Or is this referring to the Combatant's Concerto arc?

I think what you have is not a Starfinder- or Science Fantasy-wide problem, but rather a game tone, or perhaps game theme, problem. If you're playing a lot of corporate espionage, dystopian cityscape, or cyberpunk-y kinds of stories - yeah, that stuff goes quickly. Planet-wide infospheres and digital actions mean that everything could move really quickly.

Maybe you should try and lean out of those kinds of stories, and try some other ones where timing maybe isn't so important? A long voyage through the Drift to the Vast where you've got nothing to do for weeks, or helping xenodruids cleanse a blighted icecap on Aballon that could span months or more, a slow-paced space-cattle drive on Akiton where a hungry predator is slowly picking off one head of space-cow every week, or who knows what else!

To borrow from the upcoming Galaxy Guide's ideas - we've heard the Star Friends talk about sections in the book giving toolboxes for how to run different kinds of stories in Starfinder. Maybe it's time to veer away from a Dystopian or High Tech story, and instead try a Fantasy, Into the Unknown, or "Weird?" story, instead! See if that changes peoples' assumptions, and the narrative tone?

Thursty ruled, way back in the day, that you can apply boons a PC has to Chronicles assigned to that PC from GMing, so - you're good to go! I think the general idea is that GMs should never be 'punished,' in terms of what they get on a chronicle, for GMing (as opposed to playing) a scenario.

Dae's art continues to rock, hard. Also - omg is that a slice of pizza on the ship's console?? Pizza confirmed in X-Finder lore! XD

So not only do we get full, updated Starfinder lore, but if so inclined we can now properly populate our fantasy games with dogfolk, dragonfolk, shapeshifting doppelgangers, and giant floating brains to boot?

I really encourage you - and everyone else, for that matter - to give Starfinder itself a shot! Don't just think "neat, dogfolk in my Pathfinder game" :) Vlaka are their own unique thing, and - as you'll find out when the book comes out - aren't just space-dogfolk. (Or, heck, skip the line and read about them now!)

Woot woot, all aboard the SF2 Hype Train!!

Very interesting, to hear that SFS2 scenarios will be shorter!

I fully intend to sign up to GM some SFS2, but - first I need to make sure I can actually get Housing at Gen Con this year, after getting burned when Housing sold out last year. I figure you'd rather have a GM sign up solidly later, rather than a GM sign up shakily, now.

In general, some vesk have the blunt, rounded, snout of an iguana (like 1e Obozaya,) whereas some have the same blocky, pronounced, underjaw of TriStar's 1998 Godzilla remake, and then there's the more 'draconic' ones like Tassada Kor from 3-11 or Enktuya Shipbreaker from 2-04, that have more of an anthropomorphic dog-snout lizard deal thing going on?

When it's come up before, Paizo People have said that it varies depending on the artists and authors involved.

There's talk of a "design bible" and consistent guidelines for 2e, so it could change, though, and maybe the blocky jaw that 2e Obozaya's sporting in her 2e pregen art will be the norm!

I think we can all agree, though, that yeah, they're lizards, through and through. No mammalian chest stuff going on. Near Space talks a bit about vesk physiology, and we know they're a warm-blooded, egg-laying, species. I would assume they're scaled all over.

One could guess that, like Earth lizards, they're less protected on the 'underbelly,' but then again - there are no bipedal lizards on Earth, so that may not be a safe assumption? If anything, the vesk's long history of war and conflict probably means evolution has weedled out any obvious weak spots in their natural armour, so it wouldn't be improbable for vesk to have tough scales all over with no 'underbelly' area, of softer/smaller scales.

There's some stuff and guest appearances I hope you really like :-)

So pumped for this one! I'm very curious to see if the whole Salvation's End thing gets a neat little bow put on it, or if it will keep being A Thing in 2nd Edition Society!

Vlaka is an interesting choice, since that species is one of the posterchildren posterdoggos for perceiving your environment, with congenital blindness or deafness being out-of-the-gate options for 1e vlakas. As someone who's written a lot about how wonderful the cantina of 1e species variety is, but also how either a blanket FAQ entry or some baseline augmentation options could forestall a lot of questions and confusion, I'm very curious to see how this is handled in 2e.

If nothing else, I really, really, hope that the Starfriends make it super clear with vlaka verbiage on if you can gain a sense. Even with just the stuff in Playtest core, there's tons of stuff that I know is going to be asked about: "Can my blind vlaka see if they take the Predator's Eye lvl 7 Nature feat (p. 155) / the Spiritual Eye lvl 15 religion feat (p. 156) / an autorecognition lens or darkvision capacitor augments (both p. 198) / nano-optics node (p. 199) / retinal reflectors (p. 200) or crystal lens (p. 200) / psychoactive eyes (p. 201)?"

(And, to be really clear, I don't care if the answer to that question is yes or no. I just want the answer to be clearly and plainly stated. Because, if it's not and if 1e is any indication, we're going to get a billion forum threads asking about it.)

The time to set clear precedent is now - I hope we get many of the other zany Cantina species with funky senses (bantrids, khizar, stellifera, and so on) in the future, so the time to address all of this stuff is now. Ideally, in a way that doesn't just address sight & hearing with vlaka, but any sense, in future species.

I haven't checked the pregen sheet, but I know this is actually the case in foundry. I will contact the author to learn more about that

Oh - I can answer this one, 'cause I too stumbled through figuring it out on Foundry - you need to find the Effect: Solar Weapon effect, and drag it onto your character token in Foundry. This will open up a window to choose your weapon's effects, which will then populate a solar weapon your Actions tab.

It's not a particularly intuitive way to handle this, and there's literally no guidance on this process anywhere that I found, so. I hope this is somehow improved in a future Foundry release.

I'm getting ready to GM this, and the adventure background makes it clear that the "Atuity Accords" aren't a formal, over-arching peace between the Azlanti Star Empire and the Veskarium. Rather, it's a ceasefire, and blueprint for shared governance, taxation, citizenry, etc., in Atuity. That's it. It's reach doesn't extend any farther than Kehtaria. And it's mostly the actors in Atuity that are pushing for it - the Veskarium captain and Azlanti commander that are stationed there, and have formed a sort of camaraderie in the two years since the Drift Crisis. Like, this isn't the Star Imperators and the High Despot converging to exchange formalities.

The other thing to remember, is - Kehtaria is the link in the Conqueror's Path, the two new Drift Lanes from from Vesk-4 to Kehtaria, and Kehtaria to Oyojii in the Azlanti Star Empire’s Oyoya system. So all of a sudden, both empires have a brand new galactic highway dropped on them. Creating a sort of buffer / neutral zone where those two drift lanes meet is a good idea to prevent border friction, and allow some modest commerce and cultural exchange to take place in a way that is controlled, monitored, and taxed, by both empires.

Datch in PFS confirmed?

For reference, here is the Solarian's Attune action, with emphasis mine:

ATTUNE [One-Action]
Traits: CONCENTRATE, SOLARIAN
Frequency once per round
You steady your body and mind and attune yourself to your stellar focus. If you are unattuned or not in your favored state, you become attuned to the favored attunement of your stellar arrangement. You can also manifest any of your solar manifestations if they are currently dormant, and if you have the free hands to use them.
Special In addition to the above usage, you can also Attune as a free action when you roll initiative.

I think a lot of people haven't realized that Degradant and Radiant solarians can only attune to Graviton Mode, and Photon Mode, respectively, with the Attune action. I've pointed it out to a couple solarian players at tables I've GM'd, and it's so far been met with "....oh, that messes up my routine."

A lot of Solarian players have a default "script" for the first few rounds of combat, and one of the most common I've seen a lot is: a solarian that wants to stay in one Attunement will roll initiative, and assume that they can use the free-at-initiative Attune action to start in their non-favoured attunement, so that they can then use a Cycle action on their turn to finish in their favoured attunement.

So, for example: a tanky degradant solarian starts off in Photon mode, then uses Stellar Rush to Cycle to Graviton mode, so they can be in Graviton mode in between turns for the tanky Graviton riders on Nimbus Surge or Solar Shield. But, that is not what the Attune action does - you can't start the fight off in your non-favoured alignment. A Degradant must start in Graviton mode.

Now, solutions exists - the Attunement Control exploration action does let you begin combat in any attunement. But, this means every Solarian is going to basically always use that Exploration activity, which is kinda boring. They'll never be scouting, or sneaking, or whatever other fun stuff.
Alternatively, you can, of course, just use two Cycle actions to flip-flop and end up in the alignment you started in. But, this basically forces every solarian who wants to stay in one alignment to choose something as their lvl 1 or 2 Class Feat to reliably Cycle, which means your lvl 1 or 2 Feat is almost always going ot be Meditative Analysis or Eclipse Strike, which are the first and only one-action Actions with the Cycle trait without stringent requirements, that you'll get access to. Instead of choosing the feats you want, you have to pay the "Cycle feat tax."

Where I'm going with this: I think Degradant and Radiant solarians should just get a reliable one-action Action with the Cycle trait, that they don't have to spend a Class Feat or Exploration Activity on. Or, the Attune action should let you attune to any alignment, not just your Arrangement's favoured one.

Glad to see this one! It'll be good to get closure on this plot line that's been simmering since season 1!

Ahoy, friends - Backup GM Kishmo slidin' into your DMs, while GM Bret is indisposed this weekend. I look forwards to critting you all a smooth and enjoyable Swarm-smashing time :)

I'm putting this under the Soldier subforum, since it's the most likely place for it to come up, but I guess it's relevant everywhere. So: do attack penalties, like the multiple attack penalty, apply to DCs from that attack?

For example: if a soldier makes a Strike, and then throws a grenade (which uses the Area Fire action, which has the Attack trait) would the grenade's DC be lowered, from MAP?

Reading through the available 2e stuff on AoN suggests no - I can't find anything in the MAP entry (linked above), nor in the section on calculating DCs. There doesn't seem to be a counterpart to SF1e's rule: any penalty you would normally take to your weapon attack roll also applies to this DC, including penalties from the weapon’s range increment.

I don't know if this is intentional or not. It feels weird to me that if you throw a grenade and then Strike, your Strike takes a MAP; but if you Strike and then grenade, the grenade's DC is unaffected?

Oooh. Are those two, uh, 'napping,' let's say, at the base there Iorian and Yridela Ixomander, current joint Star Imperators of the Azlanti Star Empire?

I also wonder, "why?" Not because I have any great attachment to either Shelyn or Zon-Kuthon, nor any great dislike of the new Zon-Shelyn. Mostly, I have a sort of bemused curiousity about why these two were chosen, and how the idea of merging deities came about.

And, were other deity shake ups considered? I mean, definitely nothing against ol' Zonny Shales here, but - what if, instead, Iomedae and Meyel had merged, after a climactic battle to save Pulonis from Damoritosh, to become Iomeyel (...Meyelodae?) god of crusading to take the vengeance you are owed? (And, I dunno, dressage, 'cause horsey dancey.) What if Uvonn, the Welcome Oblivion, and Eloritu, the Hidden Truth, became Uvitu, Hidden Oblivion, nihilistic god of erasing all information from the universe? I dunno, just spitballing here, but I'd love to know what discussions led to Zon-Shelyn. Was deity merging always a goal they had in mind, or did it sort of come about because one of the Star Friends had Feelings™ about one of the constituent gods, or something else?

The only other issue I have seen, and that I personally agree is an issue, is fixed by Ungainly/Heavy weapons having a built-in limit of 1 at a time, that can be baked into the Traits/Rules for such weapons/items...

Agreed. I've been saying it since last October, but shouldn't Flourish / Unwieldy / Whatever Other Space-Trait handle most of the problems, that stem from "what if a Skittermander did it three times?"