LotsOfLore's page

It's looking reeeeally really good!

What a great writeup, really interesting and detailed, thank you!

In short, I think the ranged meta still has some work to do before it can be implemented effectively. For that, we'll need to drastically increase ranges, add obstacles to the map to make Cover more interesting, and also increase ranged damage. There's no point in concentrating on a ranged attack with 60ft range (or half that, hello Rotolaser!) when an enemy at that distance will simply stride once or twice and eviscerate me with double the damage.

Finally, I found the Soldier's game design to be quite profoundly flawed. In itself, the class stands out for its focus on heavy weapons. And it uses its Con for just about everything, except... instead of its Dex, for ranged attacks, which it's supposed to do (Primary Target) and its damage.
So we have area damage with a ridiculous range, a monocible attack with less precision than a classic ranged martial, damp squib damages, and the bizarre image of a huge military lizard with +0 in Str and +3 in Dex. Really, it's extremely disappointing.

I agree completely!

Glad to see I am not the only one with this opinion.

I really hope they are going to make good on their promise to put more emphasis on ranged action and DECIDEDLY buff those ranges.

In my opinion, the melee option should NOT be the optimal choice in every situation. It should be advantageous when the battle scenario is cramped, like tight starship corridors, or a thick jungle forest, because of cover. The presence of strong and abundant cover makes ranged combat harder (as it should), and thus gives an advantage to people who can move to bypass cover and strike in melee using their cool melee oriented actions (reactive strikes, free steps, whatever you might have). On the contrary, in a wide open field, ranged weapons should be king. Melee only combatants should feel ad a disadvantage for having to make up the distance. This should be achieved by increasing weapon ranges.

Please devs take this into consideration, thank you!

NPCs aren't built like PCs. You build them like monsters. So when we include a short stat block with a level, that level is telling you what to aim at if you were to build that NPC up as a fully-statted character, using the rules in the GM Core or Gamemastery Guide on how to create monsters/NPCs. You have a LOT of leeway there in making up the exact stats and abilities.

But even more practically, that number tells you what DC should be used for things like attempts to use Intimidation or Diplomacy on an NPC. Those DCs can simply be the "DC by level" so you don't need to know all of their stats to decide what the chance of success is.

For the specific example of Yinhasmerea, as a 5th level smuggler and a shopkeeper, she won't go save the town first of all because that's not her job and she's not interested in that, but on top of it, that 5th level lore is pointing to her skills at smuggling specifically. She's probably awful at other things. It's really up to the GM to contextualize things in that case... but in the end... those NPCs aren't going on the adventures because that's the PC's job. The PC's destiny. Their fate. An NPC doesn't get to be a part of that. If they did... they'd be the PC.

Thank you for the explanation! The use of the level to gauge what DC to use for checks directed towards the NPC is really useful , I didn't think about that. Nice!

LotsOfLore wrote:

Curmudgeonly wrote:

Hey Aaron, any word on an updated PDF?

Still nothing on this front ?

By the way, I just bought Howl of the Wild and it's spectacular, no issues with the pdf. So it seems that this was a tragic occurrence limited to Rage of the Elements...
I will keep waiting, my finger on the pdf buy button xD

Note that Aaron is not working for Paizo anymore, and he was the only one looking at the forums outside of moderating. (And he was ddoing it off the clock more often than not...)

The best way to get an answer would be to contact Customer Support.

Ok, thanks for the info.

Hello,

This may be a naive question, but I have always been wondering how to interpret the NPC information that is often given in parenthesis next to their name. Specifically their "class" and level.

Example: Yinyasmera (CN female human smuggler 5) from Abomination Vaults, she is a shop keeper, yet apparently a FIFTH LEVEL character... First of all what is a "smuggler", if no such class/archetype exists why even mentioning it in such a rule-oriented text label? How do I use it?
Secondly, what happens if the 1st level players somehow realize that she is that strong, wouldn't they ask themselves "maybe she should go save the town or whatever they ask us 1st level noobs to do, instead of us"? What are we even here for? Maybe she's a bad example because she simply wouldn't, but almost all friendly NPCs have higher levels than the players.

I recently had this problem crop up in our Quest for the Frozen Flame campaign.
Example: the heroes start out being humble 1st level hunters while their entire following gets attacked and targeted by very dangerous raiders, and all of a sudden they are asked to be the "tip of the spear" (to use a Glass Cannon Podcast reference) and go against these raiders, while almost every important NPC they interacted with is at least a level 5 character. Isn't it completely irresponsible of the clan leaders (especially those who pride themselves of being worriors, like Merthig) to let the pups fight battles and protect the clans with no help direct help from them, when they would easily dispatch any threat the PCs face for the entire 1st chapter of the adventure?

Argakoa the Songsinger (NG female human skald 7) SEVENTH LEVEL!
Merthig the Firekeeper (NG male dwarf hunter 8) EIGHTH LEVEL!
These two alone, with Nakta the Healer could finish book 1 and 2 while drinking mead. No need for PCs...

Hey Aaron, any word on an updated PDF?

Still nothing on this front ?

By the way, I just bought Howl of the Wild and it's spectacular, no issues with the pdf. So it seems that this was a tragic occurrence limited to Rage of the Elements...
I will keep waiting, my finger on the pdf buy button xD

Field Test 5 looking real cool! Just one gripe:

I see that ranged weapons still have very short ranges, which makes their automatic fire underwhelming.
It's something that bothered me in Starfinder 1ed too, and it seems at least from this example that you are doubling down on very short ranges.
This sees completely at odd with the statement included in Field Test 5 about how you want to give more relevance to wide maps and ranged fights... right ?

If you tell me that's what the ranges need to be in order to balanced, I would say it feels bad: please rework it so that they are balanced with longer ranges.

I decided to purchase both the Treasure Vault and Secrets of Magic PDFs in addition to this one (Rage of Elements) and I'm afraid that I can confirm what others have said in that this PDF, for whatever reason, has a much higher level of compression applied to it than the other ones.

Specifically the artwork in Treasure Vault almost seems uncompressed; even when I stretch a single page to 1440px width the artwork seems perfectly preserved, down to the digital brushstrokes.

In second place is Secrets of Magic which has at worst a bit of oversharpness to it but again only when I stretched a single page as above, the artwork otherwise seems mostly unblemished.

Rage of Elements when stretched is noticeably pixelated with fabrics, textures, elemental effects, etc looking very blocky but also with dramatic oversharpening that can at times give a kind of strange outline to some art.

In fairness it's not something that would be easily noticed especially on mobile devices so I agree with Aaron that it's "acceptable" by some standards and not really a deal breaker if you need a PDF as a quick reference.

But it is odd that clearly different policies in compression are being applied to different PDFs. IMHO the best solution would be to go with the Treasure Vault policy across the board because I don't think it ought to be controversial to say people are drawn to Paizo's high quality artwork and production values and I think most are willing to spare even hundreds of MBs to preserve that electronically. Maybe there could even be uncompressed and compressed versions of each PDF if Paizo's servers and customer's storage requirements are at a premium.

Yeah, that's a deal breaker for me. I will wait for them to upload the fixed pdf, and then I will happily buy it.

I will wait for the errata updated pdfs then. I don't find it attractive to be offered a product that is supposed to be a fix and an upgrade of an existing one, but that itself comes out with a slew of new and important errors on day one...

LotsOfLore wrote:

Wzrd wrote:

Just wanted to share the response from Customer Service regarding the PDF image quality in RoE. Good news is that they are working on a fix!

Thanks for writing in about this issue! At this time our art team is aware of this PDF image quality issue and that the compression in the zip file and file size it's self are what is mainly causing this and are actively working to get that pdf looking better for everyone in the future. We ask for your patience while that file is addressed as most departments are still getting back from gen-con atm thanks for your time and patience in this manner.

Hello, I would like to buy the pdf as my players are now interested in the content, so I finally have a good reason.

Is the reslution problem fixed?
I will not buy the pdf if the image quality is not on the same level as other supplements like secrets of magic. The art and the writing are the two main reasons why I buy pdfs, since the rules are all free. So I will not buy it if it's not at least the same quality I am used to.
Thank you in advance.

No change to the PDF has yet been made.

Thank you for your quick relpy. I will stay tuned.

Just wanted to share the response from Customer Service regarding the PDF image quality in RoE. Good news is that they are working on a fix!

Thanks for writing in about this issue! At this time our art team is aware of this PDF image quality issue and that the compression in the zip file and file size it's self are what is mainly causing this and are actively working to get that pdf looking better for everyone in the future. We ask for your patience while that file is addressed as most departments are still getting back from gen-con atm thanks for your time and patience in this manner.

Hello, I would like to buy the pdf as my players are now interested in the content, so I finally have a good reason.

My issue with the blaster caster or wizard is that even your core blaster spells like burning hands, or magic missile generally do about as much or less damage than a martial just hitting with a sword attack - doesn't matter if you are using scrolls the damage is low.

Casters have generally lower saves and native defences, their survivability is generally given by the same very limit resource they have for blasting or support of debuffing. I don't think other than tradition there is a good balance reason for this, after all you can range with a non caster and generally get better saves.

At low levels blaster casters are very frustrating to play. Assuming 4 encounters a day you get 1 spell per encounter and low level spells are terrible for damage. Cantrips helped smooth it but with the loss of key attribute to damage this is no longer the case. Wait for the full remaster is cold comfort for those of us who waited for APG and SoM with the same assurances only to get more of the same poor low level experiences.

No one wants PF1 casters, but if you spend your limited resources stacking blaster spells and you still deal with the low defences and if wizard less skills as well is generally not fun.

Casters I see at my tables end up end up quitting and rerolling or taking the same couple of buff/debuff spells as blowing your burning hands for 4 damage on the dice then having the enemies save reducing it to 2 for one of your big 3 or 4 spells is awful.

It gets slightly better at 5 with lightning bolt or fireball (etc) for AoE but it seems for the first couple of levels enemies are much more likely to save. It is also harder to pull off unless you are ambushing enemies before they get amongst the party as casters generally have low initiative making the problem worse. Not sure why casters need lower initiative and perception in PF2e.

So you wait till level 7 to finally catch up in proficiency, a full 3rd or more of the way through a campaign where if you plan hard, wait for just the right moments of...

I could not agree more with all of this. It pains me that this is the current bitter situation most casters find themselves in. Paizo, for the love of Desna, please address this. Please fix this in the remaster, or I will have to begrudgingly go back to house ruling the s*** out of my favourite game and take back the title of "so good it doesn't need fixing" that I so hoped this game would proudly wear.

Question: have we had an explanation as to why casters scale their spellcasting proficiency at level 7, 15 and 19, while martials scale weapons at 5 and 13 ?

In my opinion this makes the majority of the life experience from the caster perspective to be frustrating. Getting to Legendary at 19 is essentially meaningless as the game is basically over and you have played catch up to martials up until then...

Is it because of the way spells scale in damage/effectiveness? If that's the case, are Paizo shifting the spells down with the remaster so that they can finally bring casters on a 5 - 13 path as well? I wouldn't know where to put Legendary in that case, but maybe there's no need, or maybe stays there at 19 ?

Spectacular concept!

LotsOfLore wrote:

Is this the one that will have a map, or maps, of the galaxy?

I am really looking forward to that

yes

YAY, finally!!

Is this the one that will have a map, or maps, of the galaxy?
I am really looking forward to that

Very very cool! I can feel the creativity bursting out of the Paizo team, keep it going!

It seems that there is no Starfinder 2nd edition coming up on the horizon after Enhanced, according to this Thurston Hillman interview: https://blubrry.com/stfplays/95676173/strange-table-fellows-unlimited-episo de-14-thurston-hillman/

I have to admit I was excited about enhanced mostly because of the implications for a new edition. I guess I am left with hoping that there is A LOT of enhancement in this book.

Not at all what I was expecting, but at least it's multiplayer, so I'm very interested!

YES! This is spectacular news! Much much much needed.
At this point I would have gone straight to Starfinder 2, to be honest, but this is a good compromise I guess. Would be great if we then went straight to Starfinder 3 at the next right moment

Art credit goes to our in-house artist Kent Hamilton.

Paizo print and PDF products are on sale. Kobold Press print products are on sale. Foundry VTT products are not. However, if a person buys a Paizo PDF at a discount and then the Foundry module at full price, separately, they then get a bit of a discount on the entire Foundry package.

AND PDFs! YES! Thank you!

p.s.: the art is spectacular.

Is the discount only for print products, as in paper? Please tell me it isn't

I think this is good. Your products are well worth it, Paizo. Happy customer here!

This analysis is pure gold, thank you so much for the transparency and care you show us!

LotsOfLore wrote:

Will there be a FoundryVTT version to buy for this AP, similarly to Outlaws of Alkenstar? Anybody knows?

Thank you in advance

At the moment, no. In the future, probably not. Unfortunately, they haven't announced any plans to go back and do the previous APs. With AP's being released monthly, it's unlikely that would be able to happen.

Thank you for the info. I'll get the PDFs then and start preparing it on foundry myself. Too bad, i really wanted to try those premium modules but we've done nothing but dungeons lately so I can't pitch a mega-dungeon to my group, and the Alkenstar one is not to their preference. This one, with its exploration and wilderness theme, is a definite winner for my group.

Rip Tanner, formerly Desna’s Avatar, formerly Stunt Monkeys (note the extra s), formerly a half dozen other aliases has been banned multiple times from the Paizo forums for repugnant views and attempts to impersonate other posters. They have the telltale sign of spam-liking every single salty or horrible post on the site, unnervingly right after it was posted usually, which definitely feels like bot behavior.

Back when they actually wrote reviews they were blatant in their misogyny, queer phobia, and racism, and would also blatantly lie about wording and events in the books in order to justify their reviews (a common refrain from their reviews was “minus 1 star for Paizo’s usual brand of feminism”).

Thank you for your information!

There's a user called "Rip Tanner" that has no profile, or a completely empty one, but has spammed around 50 "reviews" recently, almost all 2 stars and always without any text in them.
That has got to be a bot, right? If that's the case, it should be eliminated, I think.

Hi, looking at Table 1, page 17, it seems that house prices are a little off.

A wooden cottage costs 300 gp, but they rent it out at 20 gp per month. This means that a family living in that house and paying rent would be able to match the entire cost of the house in just 1 year and three months. That cannot be right. Either the house costs waaaaay to little, or the rent is waaaaay too high. In real life the price of a house is roughly equal to 15 years of rent, at least.

Am I missing something? Also, what does the "10 year period" in parenthesis mean? The price is for "buying it outright", as the text says, so I don't understand the 10 year thing. It would make sense if the prices in the table were annual payments over a 10 year period. This would mean that the cottage would actually cost 3000 gp.

Will there be a FoundryVTT version to buy for this AP, similarly to Outlaws of Alkenstar? Anybody knows?

Thank you in advance

It's still patiently sitting in my wishlist, and will stay there.
C'mon, you can do it, Mona! :)

I'm playing this game now and I'm having quite a bit of fun!
However the amount of swinging between high highs and low lows is stunning. One minute I'm awestruck by some aspect of the story or scene or combat, and the other I'm painfully cringing for some childish dialogue line or companinon behaviour (or lack of reaction).
It's a beautiful rollercoaster.

Personally, to make it even better I would have loved for it to:
1) Have half or even less classes and subclasses (It's way too much. They could have used that time and effort on strengthening everything else in the game);
2) Use the 2e ruleset;
3) Have local coop;

Here's hoping for their next game :)

Congratulations to both, especially to Rai: we really really need your work!
Thank you!

Does this mean a new website is coming??? Please let this mean a new website is coming…. :)

exciting prospect!!

Just bought this. The story seems pretty cool, but the artwork is aboslutely horrible. And I don't mean the map, that looks ok, it's the illustrations. They are abominable. I'm very disappointed by that.
I bought the Bounty n. 2 together with that and it has much much better artwork.

Adventure Author here!

...
If you're running this online, or have access to a digital display for your in-person group, you should ABSOLUTELY consider getting this. Not only is it going to save you dozens of hours of prep time, but the result is what you would get if you spent hundreds of hours crafting this experience.

First of all, congrats!

It looks spectacular!

I do hope there is a permanent shift in Starfinder canon regarding how FTL/Drift travel works, as currently written its easily one of my least favorite parts of the setting. A reworking of FTL would be a very welcome change.

This!

Also, would be nice to have a galactic map for the game, something more all encompassing and detailed than the Pact Worlds illustration

I love the art by Ekaterina! Wish we had more of that style

I'm here to say CONGRATULATIONS!! This is amazing :D

No. You can stalk the FAQ looking for errata like the rest of us for all of our various questions and concerns.

Also, did you really need to necrobump two separate threads for this?

Is it against forum rules to ask the same thing in different threads, that both concern the same argument that I am asking about?

EDIT: actually I'm not even sure about that anymore. The crit fail text says it transforms BODY AND MIND, which clearly implies a change in stats, even though it never specifies which stats.

(Thank you for your input.

From another discussion on reddit, I think the only way to interpret is by the principle of "if it doesn't say it changes the stats, then it doesn't". Which I don't know if it's an actual spelled out principle in the rules, or just an interpretation of the authors' intention.
By the same logic, nothing justifies using other effects like Pest Form for this spell. If it fucntioned like Pest Form, it would have said it clearly (I HOPE!)

So apparently what the spell does is: transform a 300 HP, 41 AC demon into a 300 HP, 41 AC beetle that doesn't take any offensive actions, that even thinks its a beetle in the case of a crit fail.

Pretty good, but I'm disappointend in the dangerous lack of clarity. )

So can any Paizo dev with authority tell us exactly how does this spell work, please?

As it is written, nothing prevents me from turning anything into a slug and squash it dead with the next action. It seems very very badly written. If you wanted it to be: the creature maintains its HP, AC and Saves it should have simply said so.

Any help please?

So is there anyone with authority on the rules that can tell us exactly how does this spell work, please?

What are the stats of this "harmless animal"? What stops me from interpreting it as: "it turns into a slug, I squash it. I win."

Thank you in advance.

You don't. Just like with traps, curses or similar things in the game, not everything is meant to be scaled up. Just use a higher level siege weapon instead - or homebrew a high-level ballista based on the numbers of the higher level siege weapons.

Okay, thanks

I'm pretty certain that you cannot.

And anyway, since Striking Runes don't increase the number of damage dice, but SET it to a certain number, adding them to a Ballista would lower the damage.

That's right, I did not realize that. So the rune would be useless indeed.

But then, how do I scale siege weapons to adapt them to different levels?

Hi, I'm asking because I'm running a small naval battle and the ships have levels and HP / AC values dependant on it, and they scale in line with npcs/hazards, which means the damage they receive and deal should also scale with level in a similar way.

Before Guns and Gears I made custom giant crossbows to put on ships, however now that we have official ballistas I would like to use those, but their damage output doesn't seem to match the math that we are used to with normal wepaons/npcs, so I don't know how to scale them. Can I just slap striking runes on them, or does that skew it all off in your opinion?

Thanks.

Lebombjames wrote:

Can you give any details on how scaling cantrips work? Will it be something "damaging cantrips do a number of damage dice equal to your highest spell level", or something more detailed?

Spell damage will increase in various ways at certain levels. Something happens at 3rd level, at 7th level... etc.

Scaling cantrips?! WOW! YES! If you start fix.. ehm enhancing the core mechanics with these new books I'll have a whole lot of new reasons to keep buying them. Thank you!

Instant buy!