Droogami

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Pathfinder Rulebook Subscriber. Organized Play Member. 17 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 4 Organized Play characters.


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Thanks for the tips! I'll bring these to my players!


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Hey everyone,

My players, like a most, are finding kingdom turns to be daunting and difficult to handle. One of my players asked if there were some optimal leadership activities or possible trap options. I searched the forums but couldn't find anything. Does anyone have any experience with this? Thanks in advance.


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It might be easier to have them as moles of Irovetti than Nyrissa. I agree with Chris_Fougere with their method of foreshadowing Nyrissa more.


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It's just the one check. It acts as though they failed an entire 10 rounds.


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Anyone have any thoughts on how to make going to Ezorod feel more important? I may have missed it but it seems the only reason to go is because of the tablet and DCI wants the tech to further explore the sun. I was hoping for a stronger push considering how dangerous Otlo makes it sound.


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I had Taeress set up a lunch meeting with Nib in Asanatown. Nib was in Asanatown doing an interview with a local news station about DCI. The interview took place while the PCs were on the linecrawler and during that time Zeylan took control of the news station and announced his coup.


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Kishmo wrote:

The cost to buy more chips is always 1:1 when purchasing chips; it's only when you're cashing out that it gets tricky. The key to the whole system is keeping track of two things for each casino tab: current value and stake value.

However many credits you turn into chips becomes your stake value (and don't forget the 10% processing fee to buy chips, lol.) The tricky part to remember is that this stake value doesn't change, no matter how many chips you end up winning later. Casino winnings increase your current value, but not your stake value.

When you're cashing out, you have to split your casino chips into two groups: bits <= your Stake Value, and bits > your stake value. The first bit <= Stake Value cash out at 1 chip = 1 credit. The second bit > Stake Value cash out at 4 chips = 1 credit.

So, for example, let's say Trogdar the Burninator buys 1000 chips for 1100 credits (it's higher because of that 10% processing fee.) Trogdar's casino tab has a current value of 1000 and a stake value of 1000. Then, Trogdor hits a lucky streak and ends up winning 600 credits at the meteo-roulette tables. his casino tab has a current value of 1600, but still stake value of only 1000.

If Trogdor cashes out, he'd split that 1600 into two groups: the first bit of 1000 up to the stake value, and then the second bit of 600, in excess of the stake value. First bit cashes out 1:1, so 1000 chips = 1000 credits back. Second bit is 4:1, so 600 chips / 4 = 150 credits back. So Trogdor walks out of the casino with a cool 1150 credits.

And, just to further complicate things: you can buy more stake, and combine chips, if you want. So, like, when Trogdor has 1600 on his casino tab, he could buy another 500 credits: that'd up his current value to 2100 (1600 + 500) and his stake value to 1500 (1000 + 500.)

It's a complicated system, where your winnings are sort of capped by how much you start off with, but I can see why they did it - otherwise PCs with the right mix of skills would just spend months in the...

Thanks. It's definitely complicated but I get it now.


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I'm having some difficulty determining the exchange rate of the Vestrani Gaming Complex chips. There's no ratio mentioned unless it is after the initial stake value of the chips. Is it 1 credit = 1 chip to purchase chips and 4 chips after meeting the initial investment = 1 credit?

Any thoughts?


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In book 1 I had my PCs get hired on with DCI rather than be volunteers. As employees they get a paycheck of 1000 credits every two weeks. It has seemed to keep them content with their gear. We're moving into book 3.


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Cellion wrote:

Probably my final post on this book, but I kinda want to dump these idle thoughts somewhere. Perhaps they'll help someone thinking about the narrative in Dawn of Flame and how to present it to their players.

----

Over the course of running this book, I spent quite a bit of time trying to make sense of why the overarching events were happening. The moment-to-moment stuff was all great. The setting was awesome. The characters were not as good as book 1, but still not bad. But I had a heck of a time making sense of the reasons for the high level events. In summary:

  • Why do the Brass Dragons want to steal the DCI data, rather than just delete it? The adventure background says they do, but doesn't say why. The next book's adventure background details that Khaim discovered Noma during his own scouting, so its not as though he needed the DCI data to find it. The GM is left to create or puzzle out an explanation, otherwise the story of this book feels like a rather shallow fetch quest.
  • Why is the annotated DCI data on the Brass Dragons' computers? Is Charrel doing the analysis? Where did the annotations come from? The Brass Dragons don't have the capability nor (based on how they've been described) the inclination to research the sun's interior. The annotations must have come from Khaim's main group, but then why do the Brass Dragons have them now? Working out answers to these questions is left entirely up to the GM, and the truth is pretty important if you have inquisitive PCs who'll be trying to puzzle this out.
  • What else is in the annotated DCI data? This is really low hanging fruit, and I'm surprised that there's no Physical Science check in the book explaining it. Its hard for PCs to be excited about Nib's sudden breakthrough when the contents are almost entirely opaque.
  • Who works out the name Noma? Is it part of the annotations? The box-text has it come out of nowhere.

    I also felt that the Brass Dragons themselves were a real missed opportunity. The...

  • I would like to know your thoughts on making the Brass Dragons better. So far I've had them frame the party for a bombing and producing propoganda to turn people against the crew. My next step is to have them followed while in Corona. Any actions they take will be twisted against the PCs to make them look like trouble makers. Thoughts?


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    CorvusMask wrote:
    Hmm, yeah, that is true, and they don't really detail in adventure why Malikah believes conquering the sun will help her become a deity. I guess its possible that it wouldn't actually do that, but she still wants to people worship her as god even if she isn't actual one? They would still need to specify why the pact world's sun in particular though.

    Perhaps the Pact Worlds are the beginning of an empire on the material plane. If she expands her reach and control over other species then maybe that could jump her up to godhood.


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    CorvusMask wrote:

    Noooot really. Malikah is featured(she is CR 22) in continue the campaign article and Khaim doesn't make any appearances until final boss battle.

    Its kinda why my review of the module I'm writing is pretty much 3.5 :'D Adventure is otherwise pretty good for what it is, but the main villains lack presence

    I had actually forgotten that book 1 Also told Malikah's backstory. I think that is biggest issue with Khaim and Malikah, their backstory everytime its mentioned in one of six books is exactly the same and its never expanded much beyond what you already know.(and in character I don't think they find out before they interrogate soldiers in final book?)

    That's a huge bummer. I'll have to find a way to incorporate them more often.


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    CorvusMask wrote:
    Huh. So Malikah is Ragathiel's half sister :D

    I haven't gotten my copy yet but does the final book manage to tie everything together? Reading through books 1-5 it doesn't feel like Khaim or Malikah are at all important.


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    Cellion wrote:

    So after some careful consideration, I've decided to take Dawn of Flame for a whirl with some changes to fix perceived issues with the overall story and the specific bits of Book 1.

    I'll drop my thoughts off here, in hopes they may be useful to someone. Fair warning that I only have the first two books right now, so anything I suggest below could be contradicted later.

  • Malikah's plan is to seize the Starstone and use it to become a god. The original adventure overview provides no good reason for why Malikah wants to conquer the sun, or what it has to do with becoming a god. As a fan of dramatic, potentially-setting-shattering events, I see her plan as threefold - use the Anassanois' psychic/telepathic influence to throw the Pact Worlds into disarray, drag Absalom Station into the sun to burn everything except the Starstone away, and finally use the temporal vortex at the heart of the sun (Mentioned as a rumor in the CRB) to create backup copies of herself and attempt the Test of the Starstone as many times as needed.
  • Malikah isn't trying to completely conquer the sun (which is pointless anyway) She's just trying to sow chaos to distract from her General Khaim's seizure of the Crucible.
  • The Far Portal isn't that mysterious. But I'm having the escaping mystery ship emerging DIRECTLY from the sun itself, not from the Far Portal! Instead, Khaim's fire whale is the one that comes out of the Far Portal in pursuit. That way the mystery ship is of 100% interest to the DCI.
  • The fire whale bites the fire immune ship, rather than using its breath weapon The mystery ship is being piloted by an escaping Anassanoi, but the fire whale manages to chomp the ship and take out its bridge in the process.
  • The PCs find a psychic suppressor made with magic and technology unknown to the Pact Worlds - one made by the anassanois - on the mystery ship This adds a mystery (what is this strange device), a motive (the PCs are tasked with secretly delivering the device to the...
  • These are really great! I hope you don't mind if I take some.

    One caught my attention. You say that the vessel will come out of the sun instead of the far portal. Book 3 has the PCs going after a ship that can go into the sun. I don't think this is really a problem for you because you plan on having the ship being mostly destroyed by the fire whale.


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    Cellion wrote:

    I think the idea that Malikah plans to use the Sun as a staging point for attacking Absalom Station seems good, but I mostly want to make sure I'm not contradicting intentions stated in later books. One of the things I often like to do when running APs is seed the early books with rumors, hints, or allusions to the BBEG's future plans.

    For Q5, I don't think we have. But other objects seem perfectly capable of being sent to different planes without a Drift Drive. So I'm not clear on why it was needed here. I was hoping it was discussed in one of the other books and I just missed it.

    I've read all the books except the sixth one. I too wanted to read them all before I started the game. I wanted to place seeds throughout each book. Unfortunately, reading up to book 5 has little to no information on General Kam or the Malikah. I am hoping I get more in book 6 but I'm not too hopeful. I feel like the AP is just meant to showcase the sun.


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    Pantshandshake wrote:
    Ravingdork wrote:
    Who wears armor on their own ship? It's not like there are boarding rules, or a quick means of exploding a ship and exposing you to space.

    On the high end, anyone who doesn't want to die in the vacuum of space.

    On the low end, anyone who wears a life jacket when they get on a boat.

    I mean, I'd hazard a guess that more than half the people who play Starfinder have their character wearing armor basically 24/7.

    My group definitely plays with armor on 24/7. The only thing I am thinking of which may work once is that they have to activate their environmental protections. That could get them during some of those events.


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    I've been reading through the AP and have seen a lot of environmental hazards from the sun but doesn't the environmental protection on armor make these useless?

    For instance, during starship combat in the sun, it says that if the shields reach 0 then the inside begins to heat up and radiation becomes prevalent but wouldn't the armor make this moot?