MVulpius's page

It especially problematic to be banning Mother Vulture considering Paizo had been trying to be culturally diverse and she was one of the few things that really pushed the assumed normality by challenging Eurocentric concepts of how to treat the dead. If Paizo is saying this is not allowed should kholo (gnolls) be limited too, since they are also explicitly stated to practice endocannibalism?

Equally misunderstood is the kholo practice of ancestor worship and endocannibalism. Kholo consume their dead as a sign of reverence, holding a grand feast and transforming the bones into art or weapons. Kholo extend this honor to respected foes, hoping to bring their enemy’s cunning or strength into the clan.

It's kinda funny. I have a beloved 1e PFS character that I just revived for 2e PFS (exemplar due to sort of being mixed up with the events of Tyrants Grasp) who was a sort of "paladin" of Mother Vulture (cavalier[knight of arnisant]/mortal usher) who was sent off to the Pathfinder Society by the Knights of Ozem due to religious bigotry and here we go having the IRL Pathfinder Society trying to erase him for being too 'weird'.

It also has disappeared for reporting so something has completely removed it from the reporting system too.

Benefit: You can develop, organize, and work in your game store by GMing Starfinder Society games. Whenever you GM a game after January 1 2024, check one box below. Whenever you GM a game at an RSP-supported location, instead check two boxes below. Whenever you GM a game at a convention of any size, instead check three boxes below. Bounties check one box regardless of where they are run. Running sanctioned content longer than a scenario (such as an Adventure Path volume)allows you to check three boxes upon completion and reporting of the adventure. You must check these boxes in order, beginning with People Person. When a set of boxes is fully checked, this character gains that benefit while this boon is slotted.

Should we be checking off boxes for playtest games run or not? They are reported and grant SFS ACP, plus are a time and effort commitment like any other SFS scenario/adventure.

Thanks for the game everyone!

Rolling Precog into Witchwarper looks great.

Any particular reason Zemir has a streetlamp now?

He has a FFCMD of 23+? Damn!

I'll just have had Mr. Badger 5ft step out of the way then to avoid too much retconning.

Correct, though when double checking I think I moved Mr. Badger 5ft too far. I've moved him back.

Assuming someone can use my CLW wand that will be 5 charges for Renart and 4 charges for Mr. Badger.

That would be weird since my archetype implies that you need an exception from that to threaten an area while grappled.

Practiced Strangler (Ex): At 2nd level, when a strangler has the grappled condition, she does not take a –4 penalty to Dexterity and does not lose her Dexterity bonus to AC. At 9th level, a grappling or grappled strangler still threatens an area and is still able to make attacks of opportunity while grappling or grappled; when pinned, she is not denied her Dexterity bonus and does not take a –4 penalty to Armor Class. This ability replaces AC bonus.

If this were true there would be no point in adding that. But then again inconsistent rules are a hallmark of PF1e.

Anyways, if we are ruling it that way, Mr. Badgers last attacks would be 2 higher from flanking.

Renart's CMD is 25 (27 vs grapple) right now (though he has agile maneuvers so it is due to adding dex from rage not str).

Mr. Badger's AC is only 17 so that will hit, though the goblin would not be flanking since you don't threaten while in a grapple unless you are a 9th level strangler brawler or some other exception to the rule.

Forgot to note due to my archetypes Renart does not take a –4 penalty to Dexterity and does not lose his Dexterity bonus to AC when grappling and takes only half the normal penalties to Dexterity, attack rolls, and combat maneuver checks when he has the grappled condition.

Boon: 1d20 ⇒ 17

I'm fine with either.

I've been having trouble with my SFS subscription for the past few months too. It seems to have turned into a regular thing where I have to email CS to get it moved along; I'll have to go check if it is time again. At least the discount from the subscription makes it more than just a convoluted way of getting the scenarios after everyone else who just buys it on street date.

Edit: I checked, I'm missing 6-11: Gifts Ungiven so looks like I'll have to write an email tonight.

I also haven't been getting my subscription without having to remind CS.
Plus the order I put in for the holiday sale has just been sitting there since the 23rd but that could just be a predictable delay from the holidays.

Very interested about this since the 2e way of handling Ancestries is one of my concerns for SF2e.

Part of cantina feel to me is having different species being different from the start. I know Paizo has, in the large part correctly, moved away from biological determinism in recent years, but that works differently in science fiction setting where an important theme to explore is the similarities and differences brought about by being/interacting with creatures that have fundamental differences from the naked apes we are IRL. So I worry PF2e's general 'start out mostly the same (other than minor things like vision or movement speed) and earn back a few limited things that make you different from a human' might feel extremely wrong for a game like Starfinder.

On the other hand if the goal as stated before is 100% compatibility between PF2e and SF2e, it might be awkward having to tell the strix PC they have to wait until 5th level and spend an ancestry feat to be able to glide at half-speed, while the dragonkin gets to fly at 1st level. Or the kitsune can't be a true shapeshifter while the astrazoan does.

Is shoelace code really still a thing? I would have thought that it would have died off when WP skinheads crawled off to where ever they went to die out. Either way I guess this makes it more apparent that the android with purple skin and a head of amazing ruby-red hair isn't a racist skinhead. :)

Any information on how we are supposed to use other sources of replays not tracked in the system such as the one that allows you to give replays to others?

This issue could be avoided with a simple check box on the reporting page for "replays tracked elsewhere" or something along those lines that allows credit without subtracting from the online replays. If worried about trust you could make it require VO approval or something.

1) Vulkarisu, how can you not!
2) Nelentu (while the a la carte version of entu symbiote is too flexible for SFS it should be fairly simple to make a set version of it for SFS use that is only everyone's favorite fungal bats. Especially if entu colony can be purchased or a sentient gas cloud (thyr) is always available now)

I am curious- is this available for purchase early because of Paizocon? I played it there, but I have not seen it in my subscription.

The opposite. I think they pushed it back after PaizoCon so they could premire there. I haven't gotten anything about my sub either and it isn't listed (only 6-03 & 6-04 for next month) so I think whoever was in charge of that missed it with the release date change or still recovering from the con.

You don't have to do them in numbered order. That is just the order scenarios came out in each month this year. You'd just skip those and run ones that are an appropriate level range for the characters your players have. The typical order to start new players with is Intro 1, Intro 2, current season intro (ie 4-01).
Your players can comeback to do the higher level stuff once they have characters leveled up to that point.

Excited about Tanuki, but I want to know, are you going to fix up Kitsune? As it stands there are a ton of issues with it that prevent them from functioning as proper shapeshifting fox people, especially if you want to go for more of the magic fox rather than human with tail character.

Most of those issues were fixed in the Kitsune of Golarion Infinite product but that can't be used in Society and it is kinda embarrassing that the quintessential shapeshifting tricksters shapeshifting is represented by choosing to either be a human or an incredibly mechanically flawed approximation of a fox through pest form.

How are we supposed to handle reporting for replays outside of the replay points system? (e.g. 2020 SFS GM Boon, Seeker of Knowledge (Ehu/Jad))
I don't want to lose replays I earned by having me use Endless Potential but the system use my points, but it sounds like as it stands if the GM puts in my info and I've played it previously they either 1) check off that I am using a replay and it takes replay points or 2) they don't and it doesn't give me credit for playing that table as if I replayed for no credit to make a table fire.

I notice it says "the orc ancestry/species is now always available for both Pathfinder and Starfinder Society". Since it just says Pathfinder Society does that mean it's been opened up in PFS1e too? Or is that too much wishful thinking? :)

Also, the 25 playable Starfinder races mentioned in the product description are: astrazoans, astriapis, cephalumes, contemplatives, dragonkin, formians, hadrogaans, hanakans, kalos, kobolds, maraquoi, nuars, pahtras, psacynoids, quorlus, raxilites, ryphorians, scyphozoans, shimreens, SROs, trox, uplifted bears, urgos, vlakas, and worlanisi.

Aww. Was kinda hoping we'd get PC Ixtli in this. (Come on Paizo you know you have to give us the bunnies sooner or later!)

GM Numbat wrote:

alexpalmiter wrote:

is this actually going to ship this month after the delay? it's holding up my other items.

Probably best to email customer service. They can send it back to your side cart so your order can move forward.

Last I heard they are not yet in our warehouse yet, so you may want to do just that.

That's really weird; I got the kobold one (clever kobold better than silly goblins!) at the LGS on Saturday. Strange that you guys would get them after the stores do.

Third warning: they give 0.25xp. If you don't want to deal with fractional XP on your character pretty much forever, do four at once. :)

Another trick is, as long as you do less than four, that fractional xp effectively doesn't matter; you just have some extra credits. (An 5.75 xp and 5xp character are effectively the same; both are level 2 and after playing their next scenario will be level 3.) The only way it would matter is when we get bounties at higher level you would need to remember how many you have done in case that would be your fourth bounty.

Also, they really should have a way to get at least 1 rep if you do 4. 2e bounties give rep to add up to effectively be a scenario but if you do 4 SFS bounties you are behind some reputation for your level which can feel bad since the extra credits aren't really that much. (A bit above 'rolled really well for a day job' amount.) Kinda feels like the flawed first attempts at quests back in 1e.

(On that note, I know Ambush in Absalom is available free but what about The Urge to Evolve? I'm a bit of a completionist and the only way to legally do that one would be to hunt down an old copy of Kobold Quarterly 23.)

Speaking of Vault of the Whispering Tyrant, with his return will we be seeing his wife, Mrs. Tar-Baphon?

boon: 1d20 ⇒ 16

Before it sounded like the GM was questioning what I wanted out of reading the skeleton because it was a generic skeleton with no back story. I assumed as a 3 star they'd have come across an occultist once or twice but if you're not, per Nethys:

Gravedigger Archetype

Occultist

Object Reading (Su): At 2nd level, an occultist learns how to read information from items he examines. Examining an item in this way requires him to spend 1 minute handling the item. If the item is a magic item, the occultist learns its properties and command word as if he had successfully examined the item using detect magic and succeeded at a Spellcraft check. This ability does not reveal whether the item is cursed unless the occultist’s class level is equal to or greater than the caster level of the item. If the item has any historical significance, the occultist learns one piece of information about its past (as determined by the GM). Finally, if the item was last used no longer than 1 day ago per the occultist’s class level, the occultist learns one piece of information about the last creature to use the item. This information might be a glimpse of the creature’s appearance, a brief vision of what it saw while using the item, or perhaps its emotional state when it last used the item. The GM determines what information is gained in this way. This functions like the psychometry occult skill unlock (see page 196), but doesn’t require a skill check and can be used at will.

I'm mostly just killing time with some roleplay until the others post so it doesn't really matter :)

We are doing some upgrades to the site and server. It might be down a bit once in a while, but steps will be taken to improve it. :)

Are we getting the rest of SFS S4? We are now on S5 and it still hasn't been updated past 4-07.

Congrats!

Why does Jim have a plushie of the german company Ulisses on his shoulder?

If I recall correctly they are the official German language translators for Pathfinder. I think he mentioned in a post awhile back they sent him the custom plush as a gift.

If you are going to make up ridiculous statements like that, good riddance.

I'm still waiting for them to process my order from the clearance sale in late March. I've emailed twice to try to get things moving but I'll probably have to email a few more times. The last time (over a week ago) I was told it has been ready to pick but they'd rather deal with the subscriptions.

Will we be seeing an update to the listings? They are really behind. Most of S4 SFS is missing along with the more recent PFS.

If you are updating it I'd like to have the ability to check off bounties and intros. I know they are evergreen but it is nice to be able to record what I've played/GMed before.

What will happen to PDF to Foundry now? It would be a shame if this partnership just results in the commoditization of something that was previously a free community resource. (Assuming you own a legal PDF)

Stavian III, Stavian seems to be a first name. What's the family name of royal house?

I don't think that is ever stated. The legendary founder of Taldor is Taldaris, so you could call the royal family of Taldor the House of Taldaris. That being said there are a lot of gaps in the named Grand Princes in the 5,862 years between the death of Taldaris and the ascension of Eutropia Stavian IV so it is safe to assume there probably were at least a few cases where the main line died out and was replaced with a cadet line.

Edit: In fact I just dug a bit deeper on the wiki. Grand Prince Beldam II (d. 4499 AR) died childless and adopted Micheaux, a Taldan nobleman, as his legal successor. So the current royal family if actually still descendants of Taldaris are a distant cadet branch. Micheaux was the father of Stavian I and most of the Grand Princes since have been named Stavian, so I would call the current royal family the Stavian dynasty.

I suspect that is Harmony of Many, the barathu leader of Manifold Host.

I'm also wondering about that. Will Manifold Host be getting new boons? Other than the tier 3 Manifold Host Exemplar that frees up your personal boon slot the other boons are a hodgepodge of boons from the other factions.

Also, while probably impossible to implement it might be neat if we had something for pre-year 5 Manifold Host members, like a Manifold Host Veteran boon or vanity.

Still showing as pending for me

YES!!! Some Manifold Host love! Not that it would be an issue if there is nothing, but will there be anything for characters that had done MH before? Especially since I used it on my Vlaka.

The last two 1e APs haven't had any special boons in their sanctioning but are there any special plans for Tyrant's Grasp sanctioning? It would be neat to get something for 2e seeing how this AP is the largest event influencing the setting changes in the Inner Sea for 2e and considering what happens to the PCs at the end.

So I somehow had the party manage to complete the scenario meeting both primary and secondary success conditions without actually getting the big reveal. Was this meant to be possible. It would have been nice in that case (not failing the scenario) for them to have been told about Historia-Prime by Guidance, Celita, or some other SF leader during the debrief at the end, since they had all the piece just weren't able to put them together.

This was unexpected. One of the ideas I've had floating around my head lately was converting Crown of the Kobold King into 2e with a party of poppet pregens that have to go rescue their kids.
Guess that can wait until it's official.

To anyone that says slavers can't be redeemed I submit this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3G-suuZgK4
Per Wikipedia
"John Newton (/ˈnjuːtən/; 4 August [O.S. 24 July] 1725 – 21 December 1807) was an English Anglican cleric, a captain of slave ships who later became an investor in the slave trade but subsequently became an abolitionist. He served as a sailor in the Royal Navy for a period after forced recruitment.

Newton went to sea at a young age and worked on slave ships in the slave trade for several years. In 1745, he himself became a slave of Princess Peye, a woman of the Sherbro people. He was rescued, returned to sea and the trade, becoming Captain of several slave ships. After retiring from active sea-faring, he continued to invest in the slave trade. Some years after experiencing a conversion to Christianity, Newton later renounced his trade and became a prominent supporter of abolitionism. Now an evangelical, he was ordained as a Church of England cleric and served as parish priest at Olney, Buckinghamshire, for two decades. He also wrote hymns, including "Amazing Grace" and "Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken".

Newton lived to see the British Empire’s abolition of the African slave trade in 1807, just months before his death."

Evil people don't always have to stay evil. They may never be able to fix the harm they have cause, but they don't have remain a bad person. That is a trap that often keeps people from becoming a better person.

I know it's a different issue, but will we ever see a digital version of Heroes for Highdelve? It's the only modern PF book that is not available in any form.

I assume the Manifold Host Instructor boon will also be changed the same as the Luwazi/Ehu ones?

I also really hope Manifold Host Exemplar is getting patched since it is very unlikely I'll reach another 11 rep on that character by December unless I rush things.

For what it’s worth, I don’t need my management team to be writing RPG content, and I think that’s a silly thing to hold against them (after all, they’re managers, not writers)… especially in the face of allegations of tangible, serious problems.

EDIT: If the manager of a restaurant is mistreating staff, I wouldn’t go “and they can’t even cook!”

I agree with that; I was more curious to see if they had written anything but couldn't find anything. Would have thought they would have tried their hand at it at least once in ~10+ years.

Yeah my argument isn't that they need to write content to be leadership in the company, but that they're not the reasons that I love the company, because I love the company for the worlds they've built. Erik has certainly contributed to that, with adventures and other content in the campaign setting. The rest of the executive team hasn't impacted me in the same way. (note that I've never read Emerald Spire, so I can't say one way or another if Lisa's writing impacts me or not)

ES1:Tower Ruins is okay and Emerald Spire is the best thing that came out of the PF:Online project. (Not that that means much considering the mess that was/is) According to PFSTracker it's the most played evergreen module and 5th most played evergreen, but I think that has more to do with it being fairly quick and uneventful so people would speedrun it for an easy 3xp to get out of 1st level.

Cori Marie wrote:

Heck, with the exception of Erik Mona, I don't think I've ever seen a single adventure written by any of the other executives.

Huh.

Never stopped to think about that one before. Thank you.

I looked into this 'cause I was curious. Here are the Paizo adventures I could find with a short search for each of them. I'm probably missing some though.

Jeffrey Alvarez
-?

David Reuland
-?

Erik Mona
-Legacy of Fire 1: Howl of the Carrion King
-PFS1e 0-46: Requiem for the Red Raven
-Thornkeep Floor 4: Sanctum of a Lost Age
-Emerald Spire Level 14: The Throne of Azlant
-The Gauntlet

Does anyone know if Jeff or David have written any adventures, even outside of Paizo? David Reuland I can understand since he's the CFO and thus more of a business person, but I would have expected someone that is President and COO of a major TTRPG company to have written something in the past.

How will the Year of Scoured Stars boon be handled now? It seems like a good candidate to be integrated into the new boon system, but for some reason it hasn't.