Lethallin's page

While I think it's a bit silly for the GM to allow putting any runes on an alchemical bomb, I can't find anything that actually prohibits this.

Book details Alchemical Bombs as: "Bombs are martial thrown weapons with a range increment of 20 feet." And, being Martial Weapons with the Thrown trait... should allow runes to be etched.

My assumption is that if you could and did put a +1 striking rune on a Lesser Alchemists Fire, it would more or less turn into a very slightly worse Moderate Alchemists Fire, by gaining +1 item bonus to attack and an extra die of damage to make it deal 2d8, but would still deal 1 persistent fire damage and 1 fire splash damage.

Presumably the runes that was on the bomb would then be destroyed along with the bomb if you threw it.

If you could put fundamental runes on it, presumably you could put property runes on it as well. Unfortunately Grievous doesn't even list "Bomb" so it wouldn't do anything, and Returning also likely wouldn't as the item is destroyed after the attack.

Shock and Corrosive would work though if the rest does, dealing some more damage from your extremely expensive bomb.

Does this work, even if it's kinda stupid to do?

Leaning heavily towards "no" on this, but would like some confirmation.

If you are a Cleric with deadly simplicity, you have a 1d6 Jaws attack, and your deity's favored weapon is Jaws, does it go up to 1d8?

No seems most likely, as there's a special stipulation in Deadly simplicity about it only affecting unarmed attacks that are smaller than 1d6, otherwise you would need to be 'wielding your deity's favored weapon', which you can't do with your own face.

A player just wants to play a biter, and is looking for every advantage they can get!

If a character has multiple sources that apply Persistent damage of the same type to a strike, how is it handled?

I'm leaning towards "no", but I need to reduce the doubt I have on it.

If one ability grants 1d6 Persistent Bleed, and another grants 2 Persistent Bleed, on the same strike, would these combine together into 1d6+2 Persistent Bleed before applying to the target?

I know if it was separate applications of Persistent damage applying, they wouldn't stack, as only the highest would apply. But if they're from the same strike, does that change the calculation at all?

Examples:

Bleeding Finisher
+
Knife Weapon Specialization (When Critting)

Wounding Rune
+
Tiger Stance Tiger Claw attacks (When Critting)

Bloodletting Kukri (When Critting)
+
Brutal Critical (When Critting)

I love the idea of a squadron, and having an HQ ship in order to facilitate them to fly around the Galaxy.
However the number cruncher is trying to figure out how lower level characters can even manage this without a lot of GM handwaving.

HQ Ships can be either a Heavy Freighter, or a Carrier. And the BP cost for them goes down to just 10%! Cool. Low level, lets assume Heavy Freighter then.

BP Cost: 4 for the frame.

So other expenses... well 4 person squadron needs 4x Shuttle Bays. That's fine since they also get the 10% cost, so they cost 1 BP each, total of 8 now.

Now lets get a power core in there! Needs one to do anything. Cheapest Core for a Large ship is the Core Arcus Ultra at 15 BP. Owch. 23 BP spend. Now, assuming we want the thing to move, add in the cheapest thrusters, so 4 BP on L4 thrusters, 4 BP, 27 total.

We probably want to also let it go into the drift, so the party can actually go on trips together, so a signal Basic is gonna cost 8 more BP (4 for size x 2 for basic), 35 BP total.

These last two are actually optional, but in theory you'd want to be able to see a little bit outside instead of just looking out the windows, so 1 BP for cut-rate sensors and 2 BP for basic shields to keep the rocks and bugs off those windows, rounds it out to 38 BP to build a HQ ship for 4 people that's bare minimum functional.

Problem is, that HQ ships only get 25% of normal BP. With 25% of the normal BP, this HQ ship needs to be Teir 6 in order to even get this stuff (155 BP x .25 = 38.75). And since the HQ ship is the same teir as the Squad ships, with a 4 person squad to have teir 6 ships you need an APL of 9.

tl:dr HQ ships are really impractical as written. It's good they're optional, as they're very useless for low level play.

Please do correct me if I'm wrong or missing something somewhere, because I'd love HQ ships to be practical.

In the Armada combat section in the Starship Operations Manual, a few times it mentioned a DC 10 or 15 "Flat check". (Pages 60, 61, and 62).

What is a Flat Check?

Had a player come up with an interesting idea/question.

If you used Harrying or Covering fire with a conserving fusion, and succeed by 'hitting' the 15 AC target, do you get your ammo back? You hit the AC, but didn't actually hit anyone in particular.

I know it's a rules vs reality check, and probably just GM discretion, but if you're covering someone, you're intentionally missing. Does the gun somehow know you're intentionally missing, just to provide covering fire, and refuse to refund the ammo because you're not actually trying to hit your target, and you meant to shoot over his head?

I assume either way if you 'miss' the 15 AC target for covering fire you get your ammo back. Because then the gun must have thought "Man you REALLY missed intentionally not hitting that guy, have a pity bullet."

So the new Small Arm Caustoject series is an EAC targeting Injection weapon, Nice!

It has the description of the following:

Much of the design of this pistol-like weapon is based off the biological systems of the disintegration lash class of small arms (Armory 36), though a caustoject’s more traditional appearance is in stark contrast to its techno-organic inspiration. Caustojects create an injectable field that transforms ordinary matter into an acidic compound, disintegrating their targets from the inside. Syringes can be loaded into these weapons, allowing other materials to be quickly injected instead of an acidic discharge (in which case only the injection effect occurs—no acid damage is dealt).

So if a Biohacker wanted to use an Inhibitor (or any poison/medicine/drug that can be used with an injection weapon) while firing this weapon, it would deal no weapon damage? That is unfortunate.

Does it still target EAC, even though it's not dealing any Energy damage when used in this way?

What if you doubletapped with it, one ammo firing the desired injection, one firing the Acid?

And then following up is its cousin, the Caustolance:

Drawing upon the same design and inspirations as the caustoject, this larger weapon is designed to resemble an assault rifle rather than a pistol. As with its smaller cousin, a caustolance uses its battery to generate an acidic field to inject directly into its targets, but it can also handle and discharge other substances that are poured into a special tank that is attached to the weapon’s barrel.

This doesn't state that it doesn't deal Acid damage when used with an inject-able item. We can infer that it probably shouldn't if the ject doesn't, but it doesn't state that.

Sudden Shift (Ex)

LANGUAGE-DEPENDENT MIND-AFFECTING SENSE-DEPENDENT
As a reaction, whenever you or an ally deal damage to an opponent within 60 feet of you, you and all allies within 60 feet of the opponent can take a guarded step as a reaction. All of the characters who took a guarded step using this improvisation have their speed reduced by 5 feet until the end of their next turn.

So I love this new ability for Envoys. It's got some great potential for a lot of good positioning shenanigans and can be extremely useful for getting out of sticky situations.

However, if you spend your reaction to activate the ability, you no longer have your reaction to "Take a guarded step as a reaction".

Is this intentional? Feels kind of awkward to include the envoy themselves as being granted the ability to move as well when they only way they could actually use it is if they were part Vanguard.

I don't see any reason why not for these questions, I'd just like some backup and reassurance on this topic.

Is there anything preventing me from putting a Bombarding fusion on a grenade, and then effectively pretend to throw it, with a mystic version of whatever grenade I loaded into it flinging off to explode baddies?

I like the idea of having a bandoleer of once-a-day grenades of various sorts on my person.

Being able to put them on grenades not only would thematically look cooler, it would be half as much credits for the fusions themselves (and cheaper base items...) as carrying around a bunch of light bulk small arms.

And also... on a level 10+ grenade, can you put two (or more!) Bombarding fusions on it, load it up with two (or more!) grenades? ... can I full attack with that one grenade, firing off both stored grenades in it?

I always loved the idea of a specialized grenade user, but the consumable cost thing always bothered me. I love the bombarding fusion, just want to squeeze out as much mileage as possible.

I may be completely blind, but what are the rules for recharging your personal force field armor upgrade? Brown, purple, black, etc.

Are they intended to be recharged? Can you recharge them in the same way as a space suits environmental capacity (I.E. free at any place of civilization)? Does it cost credits like recharging batteries for guns?

... are they one time use upgrades?

Just want to clarification in case I'm just really bad at finding rules.

I want to make a character that is extremely frugal, and really loves hoarding and using Junk.

Can you create some Junk Armor (light), and then cast the spell again to upgrade it to heavy? Spell is from Pact Worlds book.

RAW I don't see why not, the light junk armor seems to be a valid target to upgrade.

Also, the junk doesn't vanish or anything after it's used, right? My guy can just keep it all with him in his growing hoard of junk and recast the spell (twice) in the morning to protect himself again with the same junk?

I'd actually just have him constantly carting around 3 bulk worth of junk to cast Junk Armor and Junk Sword.

While bonded with your Eidolon as a Synthesis Summoner, do you use the Eidolon's speed for movement, or the summoners?