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I'm having a bit of an issue. I'm planning for a Kingmaker game, making my own unified map, etc., and I've come to realize that I can't find any narrative logic to how the regions referenced are named. Obviously, in the pseudo-feudal state of the game world, naming conventions are iffy and maps are uncertain, to say the least, and in an exploration-based game like Kingmaker, how are the regions defined? For example, the first adventure, Stolen Lands, takes place in "the Greenbelt". Where does the Greenbelt start and stop? I've been trying to find a logic, to it, but I just can't. I was thinking that maybe it was a specifically green belt, an arable region between this or that other area, but there's no clear natural borders. The same goes for the Kamelands. I was thinking that maybe it's simply the area between the Shrike River and the Tors of Levenies, but the I see that the Kamelands label stretches clear across the Gudrin River, too. And what is the distinction between Dunsward and the Nomen Heights, considering that the Nomen Heights are the region which is supposed to contain Dunsward? The only things I'm entirely clear on is the Narlmarches, which is obviously the large forest to the western end of the Greenbelt (or is it also a full part of the Greenbelt?), and "The Slough" is obviously justthe Hooktongue Slough. Am I just going to have to make it up?
I want Nyrissa to be foreshadowed better in Hardcover update, but its better not be super obvious she is main villain before the final book That's actually one of my main criticisms of the CRPG in terms of storytelling: It is outright revealed that Nyrissa is the big bad very early on.
I also think I need to be prepared to explain that the Swarm isn't interested in Utraneus. The Swarm has alien motivations and actions, and its reason for not attacking Utraneus can be hard to understand from a pure military perspective. I kinda like that, though, and would play on that, if possible. Make commanders let slip that they don't understand why the Swarm hasn't followed, why they're not striking. Build up some paranoia by rewriting some of the issues into being due to swarm subversion/mind-control (except it's low-intensity, latent, almost accidental and thoughtless on part of the swarm). Make the players really wonder why the Swarm isn't acting as according to military doctrine. This is a good point during which to build up that the Swarm have very different interests, and that the Swarm's focus can be exploited.
Have not purchased or read any of the other parts of this adventure path, does this conflict with anything? Thank you for the help in advance For whatever reason, none of the books even touch upon ranks. If I can get a hold of proper maps so I can run this game, I was planning to make my own, loosely based on real-life ones, with one player being the assigned squad-leader (with a rank of Lance Corporal) and another one being communication's officer - with other potential roles being decided on by the squad, but I'm going to suggest medic and engineer. I was thinking that the squad leader would get the "Get 'Em" Envoy Improvisation (and likely a ceremonial pistol of some kind), the communication's officer'd get the "Skilled Linguist" Envoy Expertise Talent as well as a custom "Eidetic Memory" (which does nothing except as a narrative excuse for perfect recall) feat (as well as the luxury of having to carry a heavy backpack eadiocommunications device), a potential medic would get either the "Inspired Medic" Envoy Expertise Talent or the "Field Dressing" Biohacker Theorem (as well as a handful of stimms and medkits and probably some combat drugs), and a potential Engineer would get a Mechanic Trick or Gear Boost (and a set of tools).
Here are some refugees; escort them and forget them. Here are some survivors on another planet; save them and forget them. Etc. I'm not trying to offend, but to me, you seem to have a strange idea of roleplaying. Roleplaying is what you make of it. It's not about having a tea-party or the enemy monologuing, or about inter-party conflict about whether the enemy should be killed or not. It's about if, why, and especially how you escort those refugees or save those survivors, and if, why, and how they are remembered. And as always, an adventure path is a framework. Those NPCs should absolutely interact with the players, and if you want them to show up later, make them. ... one of the players wanting to be from a space station so they ended up being from Spacedock Prime - 1 ... Oh god, that's amazing and delicious. I have to remember that one if I ever find maps so I can run this AP.
I actually contacted him quite some time ago, and he informed me that there is nothing he can do, it's all Paizo's.
I think the easiest solution is to simply ignore the word "sapient", and assume that Suskillon was settled during The Gap. Nothing else makes sense to me. I'm going to chalk it up to sloppy writing - a simple mistake made without considering the implications - rather than lazy worldbuilding. But then again, I've made a lot of changes to Suskillon anyway.
Still nothing on this?
I simply made the technomancer into a classic vancian caster. My houserules: • Technomancers are classic vancian casters, and must prepare individual spells in spell slots in order to memorize and then cast them.
Man, it's a very generous assumption that groups will calm down or subdue Susreth. I can't think of a single one of my groups that wouldn't be far more likely to blow him away.
There's always a chance the Swarm fleetfury could roll a 1, which is automatically a miss. I was under the impression that this only applied to attacks, not skill checks. The test in question is Gunnery check opposed by Pilot or a DC of 5, not an Attack opposed by AC.
I don't have the AP, so I can't read the section you're referencing, but there's no gunnery check vs a DC to hit something in starship combat. As far as I know, there's a gunnery check vs AC, like a regular attack, and gunnery check vs TL for tracking weapons. It's not Starship combat, it's a specific event with specific rules in the AP. It's basically a car-chase between a Halo Warthog and a flying gunship spitting acid.
Sorry for the double-post, but it feels inappropriate to edit my previous post for an entirely new point/issue. In Event 3: Gunship Showdown, pgs.18-19, it says that if nobody is piloting the vehicle, the Gunnery Check DC for the Swarmship is only DC 5. But then, much later on the next page, it says that the Swarm fleetfury attempts a gunnery check with a total +5 modifier. I'm sorry, I'm fairly new, maybe I'm missing something, but if the DC is 5 and the Skill has a total of +5, why even roll? Why not just say that if no-one is driving, the ship hits automatically?
Man, I like the idea of higher-level three-part adventures, but if a short three-part adventure takes us all the way from 13 to 19 or 20, it's going to be a hit jarring. At these levels, it feels (to me) like you really shouldn't gain more than a level per part at best.
That's a pretty big oversight, will there be a proper errata?It seems extremely weird to me that the vorphoma's venom attack isn't explicitly called out as a poison effect. That's just an oversight, I assume, and we're supposed to get that from the name? That is really not the same thing, though. Erratas let you know what is wrong and what has been fixed, while you have no idea what to look for just because something is updated on Nethys. Edit: Also, it doesn't include the correction on Venom.
It seems extremely weird to me that the vorphoma's venom attack isn't explicitly called out as a poison effect. That's just an oversight, I assume, and we're supposed to get that from the name? That's a pretty big oversight, will there be a proper errata?
I'm having the same problem. I have no idea why they insist on publishing these very small, very low-resolution, pre-gridded maps in official .pdf material. With the advantage of .pdf's, I really don't understand why the maps aren't larger, in higher resolution, and with the grids as a seperate layer on top of the maps. There's simply no excuse. Playing in virtual tabletops, the maps as-is are completely useless to me.
Has it been said who we'll be involved with? I'm still nourishing a faint hope that the assumption will be to be part of the Azlanti Empire in a major confrontation with the Swarm, with the Veskarium and the Pact Worlds as worried onlookers. It also has the benefit of having something resembling a unified military structure, most likely.
believable futuristic cities with all that entails (weapon laws, competent law enforcement, etc) We have very different experiences and ideas of law enforcement both in real life and in sci-fi, I see. :^)
The PCs are the real monsters.... That's why I always make sure ro waterboard them.
Dwarf. I'm hoping for dwarf.
Yeah, I don't agree on schools being antiquated (they serve both thematic and mechanical purpose) but as far as explenations go, I think the points regarding goal/method/inheritance are good, and could explain a fair bit of the misclassifications. Really, though, to gets to me because there should be a design document clarifying this to writers, and it should've been caught in proofreading in the first place. Instead, it just continues.
I'm sorry, I originally missed this, but saw it as I was reviewing the thread in order to create a bit of an errata list. But yeah, these are good points. Adding to it, I want to point out that Psychokinetic Hand also appears to be a form of telekinesis (let's ignore the fact that Starfinder is inconsistent or unclear in it's usage here; it would be preferable if it consistently referred to either telekinesis or psychokinesis, or clarified the difference if any), and Psychokinetic Hand is also transmutation. And whether all three should be transmutation or evocation comes down to the relatively simple question as ro whether we're changing the properties of the object moved, or if we're manipulating raw magic to exert a direct force. I'm inclined to say the latter, so I submit that all three should be evocation spells. This would leave us with this simple errata so far: • Corrosive Haze is Conjuration (Not Evocation).
I've been working on some homebrew stuff lately, and it was suggested that I post it here. When first examining Starfinder, there were things I felt were missing, including a way to make what felt like a classic paladin, as well as a way to realize the usual raging combatant. I wasn't missing the barbarian as a savage wilds type of thing as much as I was missing a way to create that krogan or klingon rage, but ultimately it felt like the distinction was moot (although it's the reason I avoided nature-oriented/totemic stuff). Anyway, here they are:
I'd love any feedback, but I'm especially interested in actual performance compared to others, issues with wording, and, more than anything, actual playtesting. So if you use this, please share. I have another homebrew to share, concerning a mystic connection that uses classic domains and has a much more pronounced religious flavor, but I need to (re)write some spells for it, before I can share.
Oh, yeah, as a prospective GM, I'd also love to see a video on grafting/NPC/monster creation.
I dug into the first video today and I must say, this is excellent. Great, great stuff.
Where has this been confirmed, and were there pictures?
Honestly, the argument that "it doesn't matter (yet)" only makes it more annoying to me, not less, because it just makes it harder for me to understand why you'd misclassify them to begin with. If it would purely be a matter of fluff window-dressing (which I reject and I hope it will become less of as time goes on, and it certainly will not be in my homebrewed material that will frequently reference schools, expecting them to be consistent) then there'd be no reason to create an inconsistency at all. And assuming that we're not going to see DC boosters or extra spells known is a pretty big assumption. I'd be surprised if that doesn't happen in the future, in various ways, whether it's things like charging items with specific forms of magic or putting DC boosting behind resolve expenditure, etc. Playing to a specific school is an extremely common trope, and it'd be depressing if Starfinder never get anything like that. I personally love playing characters focused on Enchantment and/or Illusion, for example, and I think a potential Greater Spell Focus should absolutely be school-based in order to facilitate that. I think school specializations is definitely something the technomancer should get, even if it's just via a unique spell hack per bracket, with a prereq. of the preceding spell hack "specialization" in the same school; I'll probably end up doing that myself, of nothing else. And yes, that's homebrewing, but I think that not being able to trust the narrative-mechanical connectivity of the game is quite frustrating. Ezec makes some great points, too, and it would seem like they may be hesitant to inflate the number of transmutation spells, but man, misclassifying things is not the right way to go, and if you want Explosive Blast to be Evocation, there's no reason to conceptualize it as a Transmutation spell, just let it be a regular ol' Fireball.
I found yet another one. Explosive Blast is a level 3 evocation spell, and it has the following description: "You magically transform a used battery into a powerful explosive device". Despite expressly transforming A to B, it's classified as evocation instead of transmutation. The explosion doesn't even have anything to do with magic, the spell is just hou turning a battery into a grenade! (Which also begs the question how this works if you do not have a battery, nevermind that a battery isn't listed as a spell component!) Who wrote this stuff? Once is a mistake, twice is a problem, but six is a pattern of carelessness and indifference. Edit: It's extra weird that it has a a crazy, crazy range of 100 ft + 10 ft per level, and talks about hitting narrow openings at a mere 10-15 AC. A regular grenade has range increments of 20 ft, for crying out loud. That battery-turned-explosives better have some rockets and crazy targeting equipment on it.
I'd argue that since you're converting key particles of your blood(life force?) into nanobots(mindless unliving things...) that it isn't too much of a stretch to be categorized as Necromancy. That's just it, though, nothing is described as dealing with life force, you're just making some stuff into some other stuff, and they're not even alive or even undead in any way, they're literally just really small robots you made. Additionally, I'd agree with you that Corrosive Haze should be in Conjuration. You can find a thematically similar spell in Pathfinder called Acid Fog which is Conjuration. Yeah, that's the weirdest part, there's not even a precedent anywhere for Corrosive Haze to be anything other than Conjuration. I know D&D 5e had some oddities like how they turned Acid Arrow into Evocation, so I even checked if D&D 5e had something weird like that, but nope, clouds and such as still Conjuration, precisely because whenever you summon something or makes something out of nothing, it's always conjuration. At least in D&D 5e they can excuse it with it simply being a completely different spell that just happens to have the same name, i.e. instead of summoning an actual acidic arrow (Conjuration) you're instead shooting a "shimmering green arrow", i.e. some form of bolt of corrosive energy of some kind (Evocation). But in this case, it's very clear, and the description is counter to the classification. If you want more spells to be upset at, take a look at Fabricate Scrap(Universal), Junksword(Conjuration) and Junk Armor(Conjuration) all of which in my opinion should be Transmutation. Agree 100%. All of them straight-up says that you're turning X into Y, i.e. a transmutational process.
I think I found another one, and I think that it could be a result of forcing sci-fi elements onto spells that were mechanically realized without conceptual fidelity, because the issue is eerily similar. The spell "Inject Nanobots" is described as: "You concentrate key particles in your blood into tiny biological nanobots that you can inject into a foe with a touch, disrupting and damaging its natural processes. ... the nanobots deal 4d8 damage and swarm through the target’s biological or mechanical systems ...". It's classified as necromancy, yet seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with necromancy. If anything, it's transmutation, but when push comes to shove I have no idea why it's a spell at all, but at least with transmutation we can pretend that transmutation is used to change the nanobots.
I was just looking at spells, and this is part of the desceiption for Corrosive Haze: "A 5-foot cloud of acid-resistant nanites continually converts nearby water vapor into deadly acid. You can create the cloud in the same square as a creature ...". Now, Corrosive Haze is classified as Evocation. But if you create or summon the nanites, shouldn't it by all established standards be a Conjuration spell? And if the nanites are magical in nature, the transformation of water into acid would be textbook Transmutation, but let's say that what the nanites themselves do is irrelevant to the classification of the spell that creates or summons them. I just can't see how this is an Evocation spell. Is this simply an oversight, or am I missing something? |