Malach the Merciless's page

I think it would depend on what city/planet/solar system they live in. Example, a human might live pretty well on Absalom Station, but not so much in the Vesk Empire.

Magic is magic, magic supersedes anything else because it is magic. Magic breaks the "rules". You your speed is limited by your armor (and yes, PA is armor), magic makes it go faster or slower, why because it is magic. Just as your bones and muscle don't explode when under haste, same with PA.

PA armor is armor, like any armor, the armor is considered part of you. Anything that effect you effects the armor.

Additionally, for things like Blitz Soldier skills. I would assume the Blitz Soldier is proficient in Power Armor? So yes the Blitz soldier because they are proficient in PA, can "make their PA go faster" because of their skill.

Try not to overthink it, it is a fantasy game

Rick and Morty

The Akatas with their high stealth could probably remain hidden and sneak up on the characters retaining surprise.

No, Starfinder has a definition of Android that is more in line Brainiac from DC Comics than Data from Star Trek.

As far as Star Wars like Droids, you could look into the SRO Race which is in the Pact Worlds books

SRO

I think you have a fair analysis.

There is no partial charge action like there is in Pathfinder.

Within the rules, what would you think is the best action for the monsters?

I think I could have shortened my house rule suggestion down to:
I want the melee monsters to delay their actions during the surprise round until the very start of the 1st round so they can act first with a full set of actions.
The party will no longer be surprised (flat footed) and that might be a fair trade off.

Well the best action for Melee Monsters is to hide until PC's are within attack range. In your situation and guess it would depend on how the monsters ended up with surprise? Did they burst into a room knowing the PCs where there? Were they hidden? Firearms end up negating a lot of surprise melee unless the melee is right on top of the players with firearms (which honestly is pretty realistic).

If the opponents who act in the surprise round don't have any type of ranged weapon, the surprise can only do some much.

Lets look at this through the realm of realism? (Yes I know d20 rules are abstractions). If you were hiding in 60' hallway (And not armed), and waited to pop out and surprise me while I was 40' away down the hallway would I be able to draw a weapon and shoot you before you reach me (and I am not a all powered space fantasy character)? 40' is just over 13 yards it is more than a first down on a football field.

Unless said melee characters can hide until ranged character get closer, there is really no way the won't be cut down before they attack.

True Gambling is hard to recreate in a RPG as characters skills are general so good to make Gambling based on skill checks pretty easy. Gambling is almost always set up so the house bring in 90%+ of what is wagered so the odds are stacked against the gambler.

Some gambling of course has some skill in it, especially card games, a good card player can play all night without losing much.

You could always do quick games of actual games of chance with dice, cards, and chips within your game, but they you are relying on the player skill and not their characters skill.

Of course too if you need to advance a plot by the character winning or losing . . you could just do some dice roles, role playing, and handwave for the result you need.

Darkvision is a form of Vision that allows your eyes to see in the dark with a 60' range. It originates from you eyes, or whatever you use to see with.

So if you were in a completely dark room, and had dark vision, and the bad guy was 70' away, you would not be able to see him.

If you were outside and some castes "Darkness" 100' away, your would have to move closer to see inside the darkness

Once upon a time we had a campaign with a precursor D&D variant where we didn't use a battle mat. But people playing archers kept complaining about "teleporting bear syndrome": enemies tended to go from being on the extreme edge of visibility to right in your face in just one round.

Anyone trying to play a build based on keeping distance, doing hit and run, or controlling space with attacks of opportunity, that basically didn't work without more rigidly defined space.

Also, I'm one of those people who can't follow directions. If you tell me how to go to the stores, you better write that down for me. Now try getting me and someone else on the same page about where give hyperactive weasels (the PCs) have run off to in the last couple of turns.

I can play without a grid. I can't play without a sketch map at least, otherwise I have to insist that there can be no more than two creatures. In total. Otherwise I can't keep track.

Way before minis and battlmats became the norm for D&D, I used graph paper for maps, and players marked positions using said graph paper as rounds went on. We also a lot of use of theater of the mind. As a DM I would try and be accurate with distance so Player 1 knows Enemy 1 is 120 feet away, next round enemy is now 90 feet away. etc, etc, etc. It takes a little bit of talent and some decent one the fly note taking, and homemade combat charts. I still play a lot of other RPGs like this, GURPS and Call of Cthulhu come to mind. But since D&D 3.0 we have used battlemaps and minis/pawns. I haven't tried Starfinder without a battlemap and pawns, but if I had too I could.

The issue you are having is 5E while a neat system is very simplified from previous D&D Systems. Starfinder is based on Pathfinder, which is based on D%D 3.5. D&D 3.5 is more complicated and math and rules heavy compared to D&D 5E.

It is kind of like playing Stratego and jumping to Axis and Allies.

That being said, you can do this, many of the concept in 5E are similar concept to Pathfinder/Starfinder.

Make sure you have notes and cheat sheets if you need them.

For new players, I always make cheat sheets, combat ones, what you players powers are, etc, etc, etc

You can look at something like Star Wars, everyone was walking around with weapons and even armor at points in most places. The only place I can recall not seeing armed citizens is Naboo

Starfinder is not the real world, there are monsters, aliens, robots, magic, Solar Weapons, psychic abilities, cybernetics, etc, etc.

Because of this trying to apply real world logic or rules fall apart pretty quickly. Regulating what firearm or armor you can wear is only small part of the problem.

With that being said, if you want more Shadowrun Flavored Starfinder campaign, make sure you set up what the normal is with your players, it is you game, and theoretically you can whatever you want.

Lord Fyre wrote:

Malach the Merciless wrote:

I can give you a in game example. So myself and my kids and nieces and nephews are play D&D 5.0. My daughter is a Druid. She is on top of a 100' cliff, while the other player characters are down the bottom of the cliff chasing the big bad. Daughter tells me she wants to shape shift to a bear and jump of the cliff landing in front of the the Big Bad. She knows she has chance surviving the fall as a bear. What do I do? Well this is awesome cinematics, so she jumps, survives, and land right in the path of the Big Bad, and roars. If she took enough damage, she would be dying. I allow it because it was good thinking and interesting use of the her powers . . the rule of cool.

Stupid question (since I don't player/own 5E), was there a reason she could not change into a flying creature?

Flying forms limited by level, action economy, the usual.

Not high enough level, I believe if remember correctly, you need to be 5th level to access flying creatures

Wait, in 5th ed druids animal forms have separate HP pools?

That's uh...different. But I think I like it.

When you transform, you assume the beast’s hit points and Hit Dice. When you revert to your normal form, you return to the number of hit points you had before you transformed. However, if you revert as a result of dropping to 0 hit points, any excess damage carries over to your normal form. For example, if you take 10 damage in animal form and have only 1 hit point left, you revert and take 9 damage. As long as the excess damage doesn’t reduce your normal form to 0 hit points, you aren’t knocked unconscious.

Malach the Merciless wrote:

Dungeons & Dragons and all it's iterations from it's humble beginnings (including Pathfinder and Starfinder) have always been a simulation. The rules are a abstract way to simulate what happens. So to try to make a D20 roll "realistic" you'll rip your hair out and look like me, a bald middle aged man.

Because of the abstract simulation nature of the game, you need to have some creativity.

For example, many high level character could survive a jump of a 15 story building, that of course is not realistic buy because of the abstract simulated nature of the rules of falling the could.

So what do you do? Well it depends on the character and style of game you want to play.

Lets say they did in the in a Call of Cthulhu game? They would be dead

Let's say they did this in a high fantasy super heroic Pathfinder game? Well it might be allowed, the character had done a few things to prevent his out right dead (ex used some acrobatics to parkour down the building, slowing themselves a bit and landing in a hay stack, they got hurt, but are not dead).

I can give you a in game example. So myself and my kids and nieces and nephews are play D&D 5.0. My daughter is a Druid. She is on top of a 100' cliff, while the other player characters are down the bottom of the cliff chasing the big bad. Daughter tells me she wants to shape shift to a bear and jump of the cliff landing in front of the the Big Bad. She knows she has chance surviving the fall as a bear. What do I do? Well this is awesome cinematics, so she jumps, survives, and land right in the path of the Big Bad, and roars. If she took enough damage, she would be dying. I allow it because it was good thinking and interesting use of the her powers . . the rule of cool.

I know this is the wrong system, but. . . why, exactly, would she by dying? IIRC, Druid animal forms have separate HP from the character's normal pool. No matter how bad the fall, she'd just revert to her normal form with the HP she...

My point is RAW vs. Realism. No bear would survive jumping off a hundred foot cliff in the real world where RAW says they might.

Flanking
Source Starfinder Core Rulebook pg. 254
When making a melee attack, you gain a +2 bonus to attack rolls if your opponent is threatened (see page 255) by another creature on its opposite border or opposite corner. Only a creature that threatens the opponent can grant this bonus, and your bonus from flanking can never be higher than +2. Creatures with a reach of 0 feet can’t flank an opponent.

When in doubt about whether two characters who threaten an opponent flank it, trace a line between the two attackers’ centers. If the line passes through opposite borders or corners of the opponent’s space, then the opponent is flanked.

Exception: If a creature takes up more than one square, it gets the flanking bonus if any square it occupies counts for flanking.

I also use them, much cheaper than minis

Dungeons & Dragons and all it's iterations from it's humble beginnings (including Pathfinder and Starfinder) have always been a simulation. The rules are a abstract way to simulate what happens. So to try to make a D20 roll "realistic" you'll rip your hair out and look like me, a bald middle aged man.

Because of the abstract simulation nature of the game, you need to have some creativity.

For example, many high level character could survive a jump of a 15 story building, that of course is not realistic buy because of the abstract simulated nature of the rules of falling the could.

So what do you do? Well it depends on the character and style of game you want to play.

Lets say they did in the in a Call of Cthulhu game? They would be dead

Let's say they did this in a high fantasy super heroic Pathfinder game? Well it might be allowed, the character had done a few things to prevent his out right dead (ex used some acrobatics to parkour down the building, slowing themselves a bit and landing in a hay stack, they got hurt, but are not dead).

I can give you a in game example. So myself and my kids and nieces and nephews are play D&D 5.0. My daughter is a Druid. She is on top of a 100' cliff, while the other player characters are down the bottom of the cliff chasing the big bad. Daughter tells me she wants to shape shift to a bear and jump of the cliff landing in front of the the Big Bad. She knows she has chance surviving the fall as a bear. What do I do? Well this is awesome cinematics, so she jumps, survives, and land right in the path of the Big Bad, and roars. If she took enough damage, she would be dying. I allow it because it was good thinking and interesting use of the her powers . . the rule of cool.

I too also hand wave unless they character is an environment where no such objects would exists, which is extremely rare.

Even in a prison cell there are things like buckets and random debris here and there.

The spell specifically states "an object weighing up to 5 pounds (less than 1 bulk)". Sitting here in my office, that is literally about 100 things i can see from my desk

If you are running a Adventure Path consider having them play "Gesalt" Characters. Basically give them two classes, and when they level they level both classes at the same time and get the benefits of both classes when they level. They will be very powerful but they should be able to take on an standard adventure path.

If it is a homebrew campaign you should be able to write it just for two characters with out any issue. Especially since it seems you will get more players eventually, you should be able to put something together for two players pretty easily.

As far as one player controlling multiple characters? I always hated that as a player.

Ravingdork wrote:

But what if the second layer of baseball pant had been specifically modified to fit over other baseball pants? Would that not alleviate at least some of the issues you mentioned?

then you don't run twice as fast or slide twice as far or take half as much damage from skidding across the ground.

Why not just use double thick Baseball pants? LOL

Honestly though, the rules overall are pretty vague when it comes to this, I would not allow it, but I can see the argument why someone would.

So I am going to take this into the real world.

I play a lot of baseball.

Baseball pants are tight and form fitting, and provide some modicum of protection. Underneath the baseball pants, I wear sliding shorts and as a well as a sliding pad on my left knee. Both are form fitting and padded, and provided nice protection from abrasions and bruises. It is very comfortable to wear.

It would no be comfortable to wear two sets of baseball pants, sliding shorts, shorts/pants/shorts. I would decrease my effectiveness at playing baseball, running etc and I would also look ridiculous.

Again, this is not based on rules, more on common sense.

I would imagine that Second Skin has similar properties to Sliding Shorts and Baseball pants, form fitting, skin tight but with built up layers to protect joints and vital areas.

The Economy of Starfinder is a abstraction of an actual economy, just as combat is an abstraction of actual combat. It is not meant to be realistic (either one).

Shadowrun and Starfinder and GURPS Space and Star Trek and Star Wars and Firefly and Cyberpunk are all different genres in Sci-Fi, and all different types of games. They all do some form of hand waving/abstraction and none of it is perfect.

Personally if you dislike a game this much, there are literally a hundred other games you can play (you could pretty much recreate Starfinder in GURPS if you want something more "realistic" for example).

They point is are you having fun? If not why waste your time with this game?

Malach the Merciless wrote:

I am also excited, my group and I have experimented with the free adventure and they had a blast.

My group consists of my kids, my nephew, and their friend, (Males and Females age range 15 - 18, they are also big fans of Call of Cthulhu, so this was right up their alley)

That's so awesome to hear! I'm so glad everyone had fun.

** spoiler omitted **

Dismembered yes, did not experience the torso swap though

I am also excited, my group and I have experimented with the free adventure and they had a blast.

My group consists of my kids, my nephew, and their friend, (Males and Females age range 15 - 18, they are also big fans of Call of Cthulhu, so this was right up their alley)

I treat "Power Cells" and "Batteries" as the same thing, but specific to each item. This being high technology is in a part of the item and just needs to be reloaded (recharged). Also extra powercells can be replaced in the item in a pinch, but they need to be same as the powercell they are replacing. A laser weapon powercell cannot replace the power cell in power armor for example.

Real World example, a cell phone battery or power cell, cannot be used to power a electric car, just as a power cell from a electric car cannot be used to power a cell phone.

I also make it really easy for my players to recharged their items, as long as they as they can hook it up to a power source. Again, high technology, should be relative common in most advanced worlds, and really should not take loads of time.

I would assume that passengers is equivalent to a typical humanoid, so number of passengers would adjust based on what went into the vehicle.

This is just using common sense.

By literally reading of the spell and the rules of androids, I would say yes it will heal an android, I agree that is the scheme of everything 1d4 once per day isn't game breaking. I also agree the wording of the spell could be made much clearer

As far as bulk, unless I have missed something, bulk does not apply to creatures but objects. Additionally Constructs are not objects but creatures, and the spell specifically calls out constructs.

NOOOOOO!! Sorry been playing Dungeons and Dragons since 1979, Mimics and Rust Monster are way played out. We only bring them out as jokes now a days.

Sorry to my Buzz Killington here

I Keep tell my kids that my next Starfinder Character is going to be Bianca Belair, with a crazy hair whip weapon.

Slurm, space always need Slurm . . Enjoy Slurm

D20 Modern had a take on Auto Fire and Burst fire

Here is the rule from autofire from the D20 Modern SRD

Autofire

If a ranged weapon has an automatic rate of fire, a character may set it on autofire. Autofire affects an area and everyone in it, not a specific creature. The character targets a 10-foot-by-10-foot area and makes an attack roll; the targeted area has an effective Defense of 10. (If the character does not have the Advanced Firearms Proficiency feat, he or she takes a -4 penalty on the attack roll.) If the attack succeeds, every creature within the affected area must make a Reflex save (DC 15) or take the weapon's damage. Autofire shoots 10 bullets, and can only be used if the weapon has 10 bullets in it.

Autofire is not the same thing as Burst Fire, which involves firing a short burst at a specific target. Firing a burst requires the Burst Fire feat. If a character fires a blast of automatic fire at a specific target without the Burst Fire feat, it's treated as a standard attack. The attack, if successful, only deals normal damage-all the extra ammunition the character fired is wasted.

Some firearms-particularly machine guns-only have autofire settings and can't normally fire single shots.

And Burst Fire

Burst Fire

Prerequisite: Wisdom 13, Personal Firearms Proficiency, Advanced Firearms Proficiency.

Benefit: When using an automatic firearm with at least five bullets loaded, the character may fire a short burst as a single attack against a single target. The character receives a -4 penalty on the attack roll, but deals +2 dice of damage. Firing a burst expends five bullets and can only be done if the weapon has five bullets in it.

Normal: Autofire uses ten bullets, targets a 10-foot-by-10-foot area, and can't be aimed at a specific target. Without this feat, if a character attempts an autofire attack at a specific target, it simply counts as a normal attack and all the extra bullets are wasted.

Special: If the firearm has a three-round burst setting, firing a burst expends three bullets instead of five and can be used if the weapon has only three bullets in it.

The autofire rules are interesting, I haven't played D20 Modern in a very long time, so my recollection of how well it works is not there, but maybe something to glean some stuff out of. Obviously it make Automatice Firearms a bit more powerful.

I the real world how does one put out a large bonfire like that?

1. Large volume of streaming water
2. A large pile of sand or dirt to snuff it out

So you would need a spell that can generate a volume of water of earth to snuff out a 15' x 15' Bonfire quickly. 15' X 15' fire is pretty big so I would rule you need a equivalent amount of extinguisher that can cover that area to put it completely out. If you cannot cover the entire are then you need to use multiple methods.

I can put on a standard campfire with 1 or 2 shovelfuls of dirts. Several people with shovels could probably put it out and fire that size but it would take some time, I would guess at least 20 minutes.

A bucket line would also eventually work, but again probably half a hour or so of constant dousing.

Summon a Earth/Water Elemental? That would probably go out rather quickly

You could do some research on the original Brood run from the X-Men comics, where they use a living ship, The Acanti. The Acanti are large whale like space species that have been enslaved by the Brood which they use as ships

Look at Star Wars. Everyone carries weapons, and no one seems to bat an eye at it.

Yes, there are probably places where an open display of firepower is discouraged if not outlawed, but in Starfinder that is the exception. Many of the places in the Pact Worlds are the Wild West.

Been playing since 1978. My groups has been pretty consistent until about 5 years ago.

When we played we switched system all the time. Played a few sessons of Pathfinder, Dungeons and Dragons, Call of Cthuhlhu, GURPS, etc, etc, etc.

So we play and play all sorts of systems genre and games, we each too turns DMing, etc, etc, etc. The longest we system we ever played was 2E but that was in High School.

Why did we play? Fun, camaraderie, mutual interests, a creative outlet

Now that my original group is not playing consistently any more, I have a new group. My kids, nephew, and their friends. We have doing 5E and Call of Cthulhu, both which they very much enjoyed, but are starting Starfinder tomorrow. Why do they play? It is a fun diversion once a month from video games. They range in age from 15 - 18.

Pre 3.0 versions of AD & D had 1 minute rounds, so there was a lot of potential movement in that.

Anyone know if there is a Sin and Virtue table like in the RotRL Anniversary Edition that I can't print from the interwebs? Having trouble finding one and to lazy to create my own.

Maybe my players a rare breed but they never have issue, nor I for that matter if the GM says, x is restricted.

All my players are long time players, all I need to give them is some idea of the game system, setting, house rules, and such, and they go with it. They will ask questions but I don't generally limit their options as to what they want to build as long as they can give me some good background of their character concept and how it fits.

They will even bounce ideas off of me and other players while creating.

Of course we all have 30+ years experience gaming, with multiple systems and none of us are really interested in breaking the game, we are very interested in concepts, even if those concepts might be less than powerful characters. They always send me copies of their characters and will take criticism and suggestions for changes from me, but i don't force them on them.

As a good example?

We are starting the RotRL AP this week, they have made:

A Dwarf Barbarian
Half Orc Zen Archer
Human Fighter
Human Rogue.

They realize they have no magic support, but don't care and want see how they stack up. They are extremely creative players and will get around there limitations using that creativity. They also realize if they really are borking themselves, they will adjust and dip into other classes and use NPC as needed. It would not shock me if they go really far without dipping.

We have a ton of fun.

SwnyNerdgasm wrote:

Are you and your group having fun? if the answer is yes, then you're playing the right way.

That's our general policy. And hellz yeah, we have a good time.

Even so, I'm curious if I as a GM decided to eliminate just one of these rules, which one it should be and what benefits might derive from that decision. I think we're all open to playing in new ways.

Try this, go completely opposite see what happens.

Five words:

A Greg Brady Cloning Machine

Here is a example from a recent combat my 6th level bard's party was involved in.

Fighting powerful BBEG and some of his mooks. Round one starts, the wizard on his turn hits him with a massive Lightning Bolt hurting him. BBEG moves into melee with wizard to kill him, hits wizard almost dead. Cleric bullrushes BBEG (who at this point was still very healthy) moving him out of melees with Mage, and back into the threat area of the fighter, and and flanking him at the same time. Changed the battle right there using battlefield control. BBEG is now flanked, in two threatened areas, in melee with two powerful melee combatants who could take his hits a bit better, and open for another killer shot from the wizard.

Without said bullrush, BBEG probably kills wizard and mess up bard with his full attack, while cleric and fighter close and attack.

Just a recent example.

If you start adding KB rules to 3.0 combat you add a whole new tactical rules to the game.

Malach the Merciless wrote:

This is covered under the Bullrush combat mechanic.

And no matter how many times you say that, the Bull Rush combat maneuver won't stop being awful. Have you ever actually looked at it?

Of course, but I see the need to have to "control" a mechanic like that based on the tactical rules nature of combat 3.0+ and how crowd control is king. It is what it is.

Again, if you really wanted to add a cinematic knockback, take a look a Mutants and Masterminds (D20 based), don't have the book right in front of me, but if I recall correctly, their Knockback system is damage based, and could be reversed engineered back to Pathfinder.

When I think of knockback, I am thinking superheroes. Knockback of a couple feet by someone falling form a blow, to me is not really knockback, but knocking prone. the original poster is talking about punches, strikes, and bullets doing knockback. Knockdown is much different than Knockback in terms of game mechanics.

Now pushing, or picking up someone, I would not consider knockback, but that is probably just semantics. This is covered under the Bullrush combat mechanic.

If you want to add Cinematic Knockback, pick up a copy of Mutants and Masterminds and convert their knockback rules (based on superheroes) to Pathfinder.

As for the "Physics" of knockback. Guns don't knock people back, and a bullet might not even knock someone down (at least not right away).

Physical attacks, well, just watch MMA, no knockback there, knockdowns yes, but knockback.

As a longtime player of LOTRO's PvMP (Player vs. Monster Player). I can tell you how they do it.

There is a seperate area, where you can bring your regular player in to battle players playing Monster (specifically Orc, Uruks, Wargs, Spiders and on the special occasions Trolls).

These Monsters are like a regular player character, you level them up, get new skills etc, with some major differences.

- First Monster players are overall weaker that regular players, monster players many time need to group up to take on regular players
- Monster player take much longer to get to higher levels than regular players (keeping them generally weaker)
- Monster players get not "Permanent" equipment. That only get essentially get consumables
- Monster players are limited to the monster play area (the Ettenmoors).

Monster players cannot communicate with regular players except by certain emotes. If a monster player talks while next to a regular player, that regular player will see gibberish, and vice versa. They cannot even communicate via Private message.

The regions is a psuedo war. Monsters vs Free People. The map has several regions, keeps, and such, that give bonuses based on what is taken over to the army takes it over. Monster players level by doing monster based quest (all simple gathering, and kill quests, no real plot) and killing Free People.

From what I know of the game PFO is a skill based system, not class based system. This means:

Anyone can pick up healing (Unless there are pre requisites)

So you could a Nercomatic Undead Master Warhammer Skills With healing.

Yes, political intrigue, social skills, ect