Mage of the Wyrmkin's page

This sounds like a fun idea. I was thinking of a Ghost Rider/Lobo type character. So a supernaturally powered bounty hunter probably with a demonic (or undead) stead as his mount and companion.

I have played both part I and II as well but have replays to spare. I have a 15th level Wizard as well as other characters in the 12th-18th level range.

I understand I will probably not be picked but if you don't ask you can't play. :)

Sure, you can run something shorter. Not all scenarios are made equal. Dungeon crawlers (for example) where you do not have a change of scene usually run the fastest but as long as you push the game along I see no reason why you would not finish most scenarios well before the deadline.

Otherwise go the other way and run a module. This way you know you probably are not going to finish on time anyways. :)

I am interested as well. My 5th level Technomancer is at the tail end of an adventure. When is the expected start date of this mission?

Thanks GM Top. I will try to get Lini and Droogami on board today. :)

Sure I can leave Sylvester on the shelf for now. I am leaning towards Lini as the pregen. Can I change her prepared spells?

^Very true however this is not a scenario I would recommend replaying more than once. The Confirmation experience (back in the day) devolved into extreme silliness once you are on your third replay. :)

I don't really believe that he is only one person with the amount of games that he pumps out. He must an avatar or two of Weydan himself. ;)

^These levels play quickly and can typically be finished in a typical 4 hour gaming slot while played live. In fact Emerald Spire is often looked as a mechanism for speed levelling. :)

I would highly recommend it to anyone that enjoys a good dungeon romp.

^Sure I will trade you a GM Valen for a GM Redelia. ;)

Per the email that GMs (hopefully) should have received:

Door Prizes

Paizo has graciously offered up prize vouchers for Gameday, and we will be randomly drawing winners from a pool of all players and GMs for reported games. These vouchers will need to be emailed, so please encourage your players to fill in their emails when signing up so that we can get them their prizes when they win.

We also have a set of boons for our PFS1 players. Each GM and Player of a PFS1 game has a 10% chance to win one of our lovely boons at random. Have everyone at your table roll a d20 and a roll of 1 or 20 wins. Please select the prize won in the dropdown field on the RPGChronicles report (page 2 if you are using RPGChronicles for signups), and make sure they filled in their email addresses so we can send them out.

Would it be possible to PM people (on Paizo) if they win a prize voucher and you do not have an email for them? I am sure that people will come running to you with an email if you have a prize voucher waiting for them. :)

Level 2 seems deluxe after spending 3-4 sessions in a funnel. I would like to give it a try too.

Thanks for being so generous to all the great GMs out there bigrin42!

Also thanks for the all the hard work organising and coordinating. :)

Well that should do it Ed. A healer type is always appreciated if that is the direction in which you would like to go. :)

I have no other options (they are all in play) but we are pretty close to the edge already. All we need to do is to lose two character levels and we can opt to play low tier. So for example if a player decided to play a 3rd level character instead of a 5th level character that should do it. :)

There does not seem to be enough interest in this game so I will withdraw my wizard as well. See you all around in the other games. :)

Thanks for the heads up. I am making sure that my paper copy (backups) are all up to date. Copying over the information to Google Docs is an excellent idea as well. I can at least pretend that we are in the 21st century. :)

@roll4initiative: I suggest that you do the following:

1) Boil a large package of pasta.
2) Wait for the pasta to cool.
3) Tie up the player in question with large wet noodles.
4) Read the Core rules to this player for maximum retention.
5) Quiz said player until they learn. Repetition is key here.

(All said tongue-in-cheek of course)! :)

Perhaps helping them to fix their character sheets to be compliant with the core rules is a good first step instead of forcing them out of the core game. We need more core players and honest mistakes are going to happen. :)

I have a 6th level wizard to offer up. :)

^Following your logic it would be possible to play a level 6 character in either the 3-4 or 8-9 sub-tiers then as long as there was not another character playing in the opposite sub-tiers? I just want to be clear. :)

A lot of players might have played this one. I know I have. You might want to try another one or put up an evergreen like 8-07.

8-07 is a great choice in the standard play category as everyone should be able to play it (as a evergreen) and it is good fun as well. As a pure dungeon crawler it is pretty low bandwidth as well for both player and GM.

Waking Rune is epic especially at high tier. Definitely worth burning a replay. :)

There are a lot of good choices in the 1-11 level range.

That is a helpful list. I am interested as well. A seeker level adventure like 7-29 or 9-25 would be amazing if there is any interest.

I have a 11th level wizard, 11th level Druid and a 9th level Druid in tier so I am covered for both tiers of play.

I would be up for 2-16. :)

TOZ might as well have thrown chum in the water. :)

10-20 so far has the most support.

If someone were to run 10-20 I would be interested. I have not had the chance to play this one yet.

I am still interested as well. See you all soon. :)

I would be up for playing as well. I have characters in both tiers and my level 1 Witch could be converted over to Concordance if it made any difference at all.

The Waking Rune is really good (but hard). I highly recommend it. :)

Sounds good. I would be down for that series as well.

I signed up for Ghost Level Delve so we should have a legal table now and at least 4 with Jhaeman.

Yes, BNW for real niche protection you will want classes to have unique and powerful skill options that are walled off from other classes. Still if you can make an operative that is essentially as good (in terms of a raw bonus) as the other classes in all the relevant skills it is a real problem. So to answer your question it is a bit of both. Operatives are over tuned and the other classes need more cool and unique skill options to better defend their home turf.

Bretl makes a stronger point then mine even. Just allow full level to damage on all weapons period. This is a simple fix that is easy to understand and implement. Sure operatives will do a little more damage overall as they level up but the main issue with this class is how they overshadow every other class in the skill department.

Characters that want to be more competent in battle will still move to long arms (or other options) but at least small arms will be a passable out of the box option.

@Gaulin - A technomancer is the equivalent of a bard or magus and is not a full caster like a wizard. They should do reasonable damage when attacking with a ranged weapon right out of the gate. Small arms do not do a reasonable amount of damage for anyone but an operative.

It is alright for small arms to do less damage but then they are double penalised with weapon specialization being half as effective (for small arms) it leads me to think that most casters would be much better off with a great axe than a laser pistol and that is just dead wrong for all sorts of reasons. :)

It is generally best to explain with words and to include keywords outside the main body of the text. 4th edition D&D did this very well in my opinion. Designing complex games rules that are easily absorbed by the reader is a difficult process so getting it exactly right is just not going to happen every time.

CorvusMask makes an excellent point here and an online reference tool makes referencing scattered text much easier than in a printed book. Still reading a printed book (or pdf) is probably the best way to learn the rules (as opposed to referencing the rules) so organisation of the rules remains important.

This is ugly but it is not like there is not ugliness in the original PF rules. Wild Shape (in PF1) is a great example of a rule set that is found in multiple locations and can easily confuse new players. The main difference is that we know (and love) the quirks of the old system but may be less tolerant to learn quirks for an entirely different system. Most of us came into PF1 with years of 3.0/3.5 under our belt so picking it up was quick and painless (for the most part).

I think that many players were fooled by how different the two systems (PF1/PF2) actually are on a mechanical level and that it will take an actual commitment to learn the game as opposed to picking up Starfinder which was dead easy considering that most players already knew the original Pathfinder game.

Making use of key words is really good way to keep the level of confusion and discussion down and to consolidate your game terms in one section of your book. When you have ambiguously defined terms you slow down the game and give the GM a headache.

All that being said BNW makes a great point in that the rules should be understandable and accessible. If that means more words on the page then so be it. The rules should read like an RPG and not like a tactical war game or a legal document. So the writers have to be judicious in how they use these keywords so they enhance and not interfere with how the reader is able to absorb these rules.

I have noticed that since I responded to a discussion thread in one of my PbP games that my avatar picture will turn into a blue lovable character whenever I type this word in the body of the message(SMU-F). I am wondering if this was done intentionally by Paizo or if it could be a malicious script?

R is the fourth letter of the word that I left out in the word above.

@Xenocrat - My assumptions are different from yours in terms of statistics. I pick numbers that I am likely to see in an actual game. 22 Dexterity seems excessive at level 5 for an Operative and would be a very fringe pick for a Technomancer. How are you even getting more than a 21 Dexterity at this point anyways?

@Gaulin - You are right about this. Operatives should be better at fighting than casters. My whole point is that small arms should be good enough that characters will want to use them and not be railroaded into using longarms to do decent damage.

Like Gaulin said. Please keep it civil. :)

I agree with you Davor. I would much rather have my casters casting spells than firing weapons anyways but I feel that this is not really the point. Small arms as is are not effective for anyone but operatives. This is a real problem thematically in a space fantasy type setting where you want players to feel that they can freely switch from spell to space weapon at a moment's notice and be reasonably effective.

Not to be contrary but showing is much more persuasive than telling. My initial analysis looks at 5th level characters against a CR 4 opponent with an EAC of 16. The full attacking Technomancer will score an average of 8.5 damage while a comparable Operative will score an average of 12.2 damage a round. This is assuming that the Technomancer has longarm proficiency and versatile specialization with the longarm in question. So they are not even remotely close. This is also assuming sonic weapons which do good damage and are not commonly resisted against.

I can show you the math if you like and we can look at other level points as well to see if your statement has any validity.

To be fair there are other areas that could use some shoring up. These are the two top (other) problems that pop into my mind.

Class balance: operatives are clearly too good in this system. It would take a skilled player to play another class and keep up with the operative in terms of damage and skills. Most builds from other classes will not even come close. The floor for this class is way too high. Play an operative and win the game without even trying.

Weapon balance and weapon specialization: Small arms are almost useless for any class but the operative. The caster classes (generally) do not have proficiency with better ranged weapons so are forced down the path of using their feats to catch up with other classes, use spell gems to be exclusive casters or insanely decide to focus on a basic weapon and grab a great axe.

Personally if they were to reboot Starfinder I would prefer that they do more of an update (so a 1.5 version) than to make it more like Pathfinder 2e mechanically. What I like about Starfinder is that it is so very much like the original Pathfinder mechanically but streamlined in some areas (for example critical hits or grappling). If they continue to refine and simplify the rules and work to correct the obvious problem areas then they can have a game that is both improved and very easy to learn.

@GM Roll4initiative - Are we close enough to town to make use of spell casting services for multi-hour spells? The description in the module is too vague to know. :)

If Jhaeman does not decide to play then someone that can handle traps and fight would be ideal. I think that the party would be better served with an alchemist, a bard or an investigator than a rogue. It is build dependent of course but most rogues do not pull their weight. :)

@GM Roll4initiative - I think we have a little boo boo with the math there. 20 divided by 5 should be APL 4 which is very comfortably in the low tier range.

I think Drukpa is actually level 4 but that will not change anything at all. There is a lot of leeway here to remain low tier. :)

I could bring my 6th level wizard with his Earth Elemental combat familiar to allow players to bring their martial characters. That would still be PFS legal (playing down) but not within the 3-5 stated range so it would be up to the GM. He has a free body recovery boon if needed and enough gear to sell should he die.

I would be interested in playing as well. For a low tier game I have Relgar a level 3 sorcerer that is focused on fire spells and for the high tier game I have Rogarch who is a level 5 arcane bloodrager. I would also prefer to play high tier but can play low tier as well.

^You can run it in CORE but realistically you have to expect the party to be either completely optimised or at the upper edge of the level range (level 5's playing down in a 3-4) to have a good chance of survival. A TPK here for a randomly selected party is not only possible but probably the most likely outcome if the party intends to see it all the way to the end.

All that being said it can be done (and has been done before). People just have to go in with the right expectations. :)

^Right you are. I jumped over it. As for sources I meant not simply Core spells. Kindly disregard my request as it is already done. :)