Magyar5's page

Having just hit lvl 13 and picking up the Heavy Fire style from Bombard I need a little help with clarifying some examples.

If I understand this trait, it basically adds your Str modifier to ranged attacks when you spend a full action to do so. You can use it with the automatic, explode, or unwieldy.

My concern is that it says you can make a single ranged attack against all targets. Does this mean that if I have 10 enemies, and enough ammunition in my weapon, I can make a single ranged attack against each of them?

How would this work with automatic? with Explode? with Unwieldy (see page 182)?

Does it work with Sniper weapons? Pistols? Cluster Launchers (the grenades themselves have the explode property)?

Could folks provide examples with the following criteria: I am in a hanger bay and there are 10 enemies arrayed in a semicircle in front of me at approximately 40 feet away. Could I use this ability to fire a shot at each one of those enemies provided I have ammunition enough to make each shot?

Dermal Plating: (CRB 209-210)
You line your skin with hardened composite plates that deflect physical attacks. You gain an amount of damage reduction that depends on the model of your dermal plating. If you have natural damage reduction equal to or greater than your dermal plating, adding dermal plating increases the value of your natural DR
by 1. If you have natural DR of a value less than your dermal plating, the value of DR from your dermal plating increases by 1.

Enhanced Resistance: (CRB 157)
Choose either kinetic damage or one of acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic. If you choose kinetic damage, you gain damage reduction equal to your base attack bonus. If you choose acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic, you gain energy resistance against that type of energy equal to your base attack bonus.

Does the benefit of Enhanced Resistance (kinetic) cause Dermal plating to only supply a +1 bonus?

My read is that it does not and that Dermal Plating would add it's bonus to Enhanced Resistance as this feat does not give you natural DR.

Thoughts?

Could we get an official ruling on if a player can interrupt an enemies spell casting by using a readied action?

The CRB pg 331 implies that this is possible, however previous posts by designers have given pause to the RAW. (Though I must state that those posts are prior to the official release of the CRB and may have been part of development).

Can you interrupt an enemies spell casting with a readied action and if you can, would you please provide examples of the readied action vs spell casting and vs other actions (ie.. use of the automatic property, blast property, etc.) giving both offensive and defensive examples?

Thanks in advance!

Last night we had a fun session in which our characters were jumped by 3 mercenary Trox who called in the backup of 4 more mercenary Trox.

My melee soldier hit level 11 prior to this session and so we leveled up and I used the Haste circuit in my armor to make a full attack with the Soldier's onslaught.

My vesk is lvl 11, Has 24 Str. (+7), Is using a Storm Hammer, Ferromagnetic with a Blasting fusion (Summoning Grenade Mk3), and my GM allowed our Technomancer to make an Advanced 2 Handed Melee 'grip' which functions in all respects like a Null-Space Gunner Harness but for 2-Handed Advanced melee weapons only. (Basically reducing the penalty of a full attack action by 2).

My Attack bonus is +19 (11 + 7 + 1 for the Weapon Focus feat), and the bonus damage is + 21 bonus damage. (11 for Weapon Specialization, +7 for Str mod, + 3 for Melee Striker gear boost).

On my 2nd full attack action I rolled 3 times against a KAC of 25 and rolled 2 natural 20's and a 12, All three were hits.

I calculated the damage to be 30d6 + 105.

Was that correct?

Our group reached level 9 last night and my Vesk Soldier has a few options. The problem is that I have an interpretation that I have to make and talk to my GM about.

I wanted to get a little advice from the guys in this forum.

At level 9 the Soldier gets a secondary fighting style. The rules ready as follows:

"SECONDARY FIGHTING STYLE 9th Level
You choose another fighting style. Once you choose this second style, it cannot be changed.

SECONDARY STYLE TECHNIQUE 9th Level
At 9th level and every 4 levels thereafter, you gain a style technique unique to your secondary fighting style. For the purposes of these style techniques, treat your soldier level as equal to your soldier level – 8."

As it's written, this makes these styles very weak. Let's look at them for my lvl 9 choice?

Arcane Assailant - Already have a hybrid item. Nothing here.
Armor Storm - An unnarmed attack that does the damage of a lvl 1 battleglove? Pass
Blitz - Ok, so this is actually useful. Too bad that by this time, 2 feats could have easily substituted for this ability, and I already took this at level 1.
Bombard - Using a level 1 grenade as my action? I bet my GM would LOVE that.
Guard - Finally something that is useful although slightly useful.
Hit and Run - A feat? Ok.. so this isn't useful either.
Sharpshoot - Another semi useful ability. However my soldier is melee focused.

As it's written, it seems that you use your soldier level - 8 to make all determinations for these styles.

Another interpretation could be that you use your soldier level - 8 only to determine the style techniques you are granted by the style and that your actual soldier level determines the effect of style techniques. Looking at it this way,

Arcane Assailant - Again, nothing here.
Armor Storm - An unarmed attack as a lvl 9 battleglove. Useful and since I already have melee striker. This is again, quite useful.
Blitz - Useful. And at lvl 14, the next technique is useful too.
Bombard - A level 9 grende. That's worth a standard action.
Guard - Still slightly useful.
Hit and Run - Hit and Run on the first and 2nd turns of combat is useful.
Sharpshoot - Still Semi useful.
However looking ahead to level 14 and the next secondary style these also remain relevant.

If the interpretation were valid, then this actually makes these styles viable choices for this level of the game. Otherwise they provide little benefit, especially any technique that uses the soldier level to make a determination.

Thoughts?

I have done some research and calculations based on the information in the rule set and online, and have discovered that there is a series of skill checks that scale in difficulty in such a way as to make them impractical at higher levels. I will outline the skills and how I came to these conclusions. As a disclaimer, Paizo has addressed some of these for Starship Combat however this has not been done for the general role playing rules.

The skills and associated checks are as follows:
Acrobatics
Escape vs restained by rope/bindings 20 + 1-1/2 * CR
Tumble
Through (threatened) 15 + 1-1/2 * CR
Through (direct) 20 + 1-1/2 * CR
Bluff
Feint 15 + 1-1/2 * CR
Diplomacy
Change Attitude 15 + 1-1/2 * CR
Engineering
Disable Equipment 15 + 1-1/2 * CR
Identify Tech
Common 5 + 1-1/2 * CR
Less Common 10 + 1-1/2 * CR
Rare 15 + 1-1/2 * CR
Repair Item 15 + 1-1/2 * CR
Intimidate
Bully 15 + 1-1/2 * CR
Demoralize 15 + 1-1/2 * CR
Mysticism
Identify Magic Item 15 + 1-1/2 * CR
Repair Item 15 + 1-1/2 * CR
Survival
Handle an animal 15 + 1-1/2 * CR
Rear a wild animal 15 + 1-1/2 * CR

These skills begin to scale to a point where it becomes unfeasible to expect success as a result. I define a reasonable chance of success as a 50% chance to succeed.

I have a set of numbers below demonstrating this line. There are a few things to remember for these numbers.
First off, regardless of difficulty there is a 5% chance to succeed due to a critical roll (natural 20).
Secondly, these 2 sets of numbers are based off of a linear equation. An increase of 1 point will always increase the chance of success by 5% up to a 95% chance due to a critical failure (natural 1).

Challenge Rating
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
DC Check per Challenge Rating
1 3 4 6 7 9 10 12 13 15 16 18 19 21 22 24 25 27 28 30

Class Skill (no ability bonus) 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Success Chance (20 + 1*1/2 * CR) 20% 15% 15% 10% 10% 5% 5% 0% 0% -5% -5% -10% -10% -15% -15% -20% -20% -25% -25% -30%
Success Chance (15 + 1*1/2 * CR) 45% 40% 40% 35% 35% 30% 30% 25% 25% 20% 20% 15% 15% 10% 10% 5% 5% 0% 0% -5%

Class Skill (ability score + 3) 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Success Chance (20 + 1*1/2 * CR) 35% 30% 30% 25% 25% 20% 20% 15% 15% 10% 10% 5% 5% 0% 0% -5% -5% -10% -10% -15%
Success Chance (15 + 1*1/2 * CR) 60% 55% 55% 50% 50% 45% 45% 40% 40% 35% 35% 30% 30% 25% 25% 20% 20% 15% 15% 10%

These are a bit hard to read due to the formatting, however the numbers should be accurate. It's easy to gauge the effect of feats and items which increase a skill. Every point increases the chance of success by 5%. By levels 7-10 things begin to fall off as keeping any sense of pace requires investment in feats and gear which specifically target the associated skill or ability score. Once you factor in the variety of skills and associated abilities making these checks at higher levels become improbable.

Unfortunately this makes some of the skills offered very unattractive.

A good example is Intimidate.
This is a class skill for the Envoy, Mystic, Operative, Solarian, and Soldier. It's primary ability score is Charisma. Unfortunately, outside of skill checks, Charisma has little combat relevance. For any class other than the Envoy and Solarian, it is unlikely that Charisma will be an ability score on which a player focuses with the possible exception of a socially oriented game campaign.

By level 6 this skill begins to fall off from a standard chance of success and requires the player devote resources in either character choice or itemization to keep it relevant.

To maintain even a 50% chance of success post lvl 6 you must find a way to increase Charisma to 18, an item to increase the skill itself, or an ability from an ally can increase your success chance.

I hope that Paizo will take a closer look at some of these skill checks and their difficulties and consider reviewing them. Many of the skills that these checks are associated with are defined by these checks.

Thank you for your time

My team recently acquired a heavy freighter and a few additional parts and I wanted to get some rule clarifications about starships, build points, weapons, mounts, and the process for uggrading a starship.

First, when building a starship I understand the rules around build points and their distribution, so I am clear. I also understand that additional systems require additional build points and those increase as your party's APL increases.

The central problem I have is in understanding the upgrade paths available around weapon mounts and turrets.

Let's look at the Heavy Freighter as our example:
Mounts forward arc (1 heavy, 2 light), port arc (1 heavy),
starboard arc (1 heavy)

There are no turret mounts stated on this ship as it reads in the rules , as it does for say, the destroyer (turret 1 light).

For New Weapon mounts it states:
By spending 4 BP, the crew can upgrade a light weapon mount in any of the aft, forward, port, or starboard arcs to a heavy weapon mount. (This means for the Heavy Freighter I could spend 8 BP and upgrade both light mounts on the front arc to heavy mounts and have heavy mounts all the way around)

By spending 6 BP, the crew can upgrade a light weapon mount on a turret to a heavy weapon mount. (This does not apply to the Heavy Freighter as it has no turrets).

By spending 3 BP, the crew can fit a new light weapon mount
in any of the aft, forward, port, or starboard arcs with enough
free space. (This would allow the heavy freighter to fit 2 additional light weapon mounts on the cost of 12 BP - 6 for the port and 6 for the starboard. These could then be upgraded to heavy per the above rules.)

By spending 5 BP, the crew can fit a new light weapon
mount on a turret that has enough free space. (This would not apply to the heavy freighter as it does not have a turret.)

The rules then outline the maximum number of mounts per arc and per turret a ship can have based on it's size.

My problem is that I don't see anywhere nor any way by which you can add a turret to a starship that doesn't already have one based on it's frame.

Is this not possible?

Can a ship frame which does not have a turret in it's list of mounts have one added and if so, what are the restrictions and costs associated with it?

Also if a ship has no mounts listed in an arc (for example a freighter has no mounts for it's aft arc) can those be added?