I just hope we see something like the arrangements come back as a class archetype. Broken Cycle Solarians were one of by favorite options back in SF1e
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That's very much been how I've been playing Solarian to great effect. It works pretty darn well and I was able to completely shut down a very high damage sniper in the last fight by yanking him off his perch with black hole and then proceed to clown on him in melee and running circles around him with stellar rush when he tried to reposition.
Eh... sort of? Enhance Weapon temporarily boosts the weapon's grade and requires casting from a higher spell slot to boost the weapon even higher. Casting a 1st rank Enhance Weapon on an advanced weapon, a 6th rank Enhance Weapon on an elite weapon, or a 9th rank Enhance Weapon on a paragon weapon will do nothing. Supercharge Weapon is just a flat damage boost to your next attack. It does not require higher rank spell slots to affect higher level weapons. Enhance Weapon is more powerful but it also requires you to keep a higher and higher rank spell slot dedicated to it to stay relevant as your party's gear advances. Supercharge Weapon needs no such thing as it just increases damage. Higher rank spells slots do give more damage but it still increases damage not matter what rank it is cast at making it a nice thing to spam and burn through lower rank spell slots with. The use case in my mind is as follows. You slap Enhance Weapon on the best martial in your party so they deal more damage throughout the fight while you Supercharge Weapon when you really need something dead now. Heck, you could even apply both at once to the same character to really hit hard. I'd say Enhance Weapon is a more vital spell, especially for low level parties where that extra +1 to hit and damage dice can make your heaviest hitter into a 1-hit kill machine. Supercharge Weapon on the other hand is more tactically useful and more flexible.
My beloved apocalypse beam and singularity cannon. I would love to see them come back in some capacity, they were such fun weapon ideas that were on the outer edge of what the system was built to do.
I understand the design intent, it just doesn't work. Sniper Operative exchanges flexibility for damage, except it actually does less damage. It loses second attacks, it loses reaction attacks. None of what you have said refutes what I have said. You are confusing 'doesn't work' for 'I don't like the trade off'
They have fighter weapon proficiency and sniper weapons all have kickback often with backstabber as well and frequently either deadly or fatal. These are weapons with very high damage potential and operative is specifically able to get those crits fairly often. The design intent and trade-offs feel fairly obvious to me. Sniper operatives are clearly intended to make fewer attacks but have the ones they do hit much harder. Their typical turn is very action heavy, yes, but reload is not the only point of action compression for the class. There is nothing stopping a sniper from taking mobile aim, for instance.
Hey, so this cropped up over on the Reddit and with all the grief I give WotC and their flagship product, it felt hypocritical to not try and get a formal response on this.
There's this saying... I'm pretty sure it involves mountains or maybe it was molehills, not sure. It might have been relevant here and explained why you're getting so much 'pushback'. It's a niche ability so it gets to be more potent than normal within its niche. That's how these things are balanced. Compared to, say, darkvision or flight I frankly find it too niche to be a primary driving factor for building a character around. Anyway, I'm done here, you're clearly not interested in the opposing side and I'm not interested in giving you ground.
Because it is one trope of many and not every party will have a prismeri in it. Different parties inherently negate different tropes. Also the capacity to negate trouble with drift engines is a fairly niche ability that only comes up in a specific context.And when it does, it will invalidate the entire adventure/scenario hook. That is just dumb. For no good reason. And is trivially fixed (see below). Then refer to the other half of my response which you cut off. If a malfunctioning Drift engine is important to whatever scenario you are running, ask the players not to take Prismeri. Again, this is no different from disallowing a caster from taking Create Water and Goodberry in a wilderness survival focused adventure. If you cannot have an adult conversation with your players then that is on you. Personally, I never encountered this trope in my entire career playing SF1e from release to today. It is not as pervasive or important as you seem to think. It is not 'dumb'. It is not present for 'no good reason'. It is a niche but flavorful ability that follows in the footsteps of the other planar-touched ancestries that make traveling to their planet easier, such as Fetchling.
Considering the number of communists, socialists, LGBTQIA+, BIPOC, and religious minorities in the gaming space these days, this is just depressingly accurate.
Because it is one trope of many and not every party will have a prismeri in it. Different parties inherently negate different tropes. Also the capacity to negate trouble with drift engines is a fairly niche ability that only comes up in a specific context. Honestly the same criticism could be leverage against just about every specialization in the game. Part of a GM's job is tailoring the adventure to meet the wants of the players while still executing on their planned vision and if a prismeri inherently removes a big aspect of their planned campaign then they can ask their players not to use the ancestry. This is no different than asking players not to take Create Water and Goodberry in a campaign where wilderness survival in adverse conditions is a key aspect.
I’m going to be providing first aid to the unconscious person, not particularly interested in what led to the assault. That was the point I was trying to make - regardless of “why”, the poster wants to know “what” is happening to SF2. Reminds me of the permaculture principle that it isn’t (as) important to know who made the error or why and much more important to work out howto fix it and when. I always clarify that if working out who/why might lead to helping the how/when, then sure go for it, but mostly the adage stands. So yes, I’ll be making a Perception check to ensure the assaulter isn’t returning while I provide Battlefield Medicine.The state of SF2e is pretty inextricably linked to the actions of WotC. That's what happens when the largest player in the industry pulls some seriously hostile nonsense on the rest of the industry. If I was referring to, say, White Wolf or Massif Press, sure, we can fully disregard them. WotC, however, has directly impacted the development of SF1e, PF2e, and SF2e and not acknowledging that misses a massive factor in why the games are currently in the states they are in (to be clear I am very happy with PF2e and looking forward to SF2e). It's like seeing someone unconscious and battered on the ground but refusing to take into account the guy walking away while casually tossing a pipe into some nearby bushes.Yeah, no, the only salient point this guy made is that all the pieces of SF2e some people are looking forward to will not be there when the game initially releases. Additionally, while salient, it is not hard to point out the relevant factors outside of Paizo's control that contributed to that situation. Everything else has been answered pretty thoroughly by the community.That point about “factors outside of Paizo’s control” are effectively meaningless. The poster is concerned about the state of SF2, not the state of RPGs in the wake of Wotc’s various Wotcgates. Sorry, it really looks like you're arguing a somewhat vague semantic point to ironman OP while otherwise agreeing with me more generally. 'So yes, I’ll be making a Perception check to ensure the assaulter isn’t returning while I provide Battlefield Medicine' is kind of my point with the added 'Remembering the assaulter's face for next time' and 'Providing an explanation for what just happened'.If I've got a grasp on what you're arguing 'why' should be taken into account with the 'what'. 'What' is happening is that Paizo had to rush some of their releases and make a huge effort to legally protect their IP (I could add some stuff about wanting to put extra polish on a few aspects of the mechanics too but that is currently beside the point). Without the 'why' this is just a fairly vague and mundane sounding non sequitur. With the 'why' we get an actual picture of the weight of the situation and other effects can potentially be extrapolated. Regardless, I really don't have much patience for semantic arguments these days so I'm probably going to drop this line of conversation here.
Yeah, no, the only salient point this guy made is that all the pieces of SF2e some people are looking forward to will not be there when the game initially releases. Additionally, while salient, it is not hard to point out the relevant factors outside of Paizo's control that contributed to that situation. Everything else has been answered pretty thoroughly by the community.That point about “factors outside of Paizo’s control” are effectively meaningless. The poster is concerned about the state of SF2, not the state of RPGs in the wake of Wotc’s various Wotcgates. The state of SF2e is pretty inextricably linked to the actions of WotC. That's what happens when the largest player in the industry pulls some seriously hostile nonsense on the rest of the industry. If I was referring to, say, White Wolf or Massif Press, sure, we can fully disregard them. WotC, however, has directly impacted the development of SF1e, PF2e, and SF2e and not acknowledging that misses a massive factor in why the games are currently in the states they are in (to be clear I am very happy with PF2e and looking forward to SF2e). It's like seeing someone unconscious and battered on the ground but refusing to take into account the guy walking away while casually tossing a pipe into some nearby bushes.
Yeah, no, the only salient point this guy made is that all the pieces of SF2e some people are looking forward to will not be there when the game initially releases. Additionally, while salient, it is not hard to point out the relevant factors outside of Paizo's control that contributed to that situation. Everything else has been answered pretty thoroughly by the community. The initial responses ranged from polite help to, at most, matching his tone. They were, frankly, much politer than I would have been with him. He's the one who came back hotter and escalated the tone. In the end, he did not in fact have anything useful to contribute and was more interested in catastrophizing than having a constructive conversation. This thread was set up to fail from the start. It is not coddling or white knighting for Paizo to expect some decent manners. The is a public space, even if you access this site from the comfort of your home. Do not be surprised when people appropriately judge someone acting inappropriately in public.
The prophecy of doom at the end was a very nice touch
They could do the funniest thing and introduce even more Dukes of Thunder... Mostly because 'Hei Feng and the Dukes of Thunder' sounds like a wicked band.
Great! Thank you. That will make things much better.
For someone like me who was primarily there for gleaning more things about SF2e as opposed to the social engagement (nothing against you guys but this is not really what I come to a game company for and not a format I engage with generally) the stream was a little bit chaotic and hard to parse at times. If this is to be a more common occurrence, could an effort be made to put the most recent question on the screen somewhere?
And the Pathfinder Society is constantly getting tasked to go out on rescue missions to pull the Darklight Society out of the current mess that the Darklight has gotten themselves into. Pathfinders sent out on rescue missions have to pretend the Darklight Society is a legitimate threat the entire time or they won't cooperate with the rescue.
Here I was thinking they might be a great stand-in for the Ahnenerbe SS in comparison to the Pathfinders being more Indiana Jones-coded but them being what amounts to a Team Rocket sound more hilarious. The one blurb I could find about them even notes that their rivalry with the Pathfinders is rather one-sided due to being much smaller than the Pathfinders.
I think Dae has been a real hit with the community but Chk-Chk is also a sound possibility. If they want to be hilarious, someone RPing as Obo would be great.
Unfortunately, our perception of time is still linear and we can only advance at a rate of 1:1.
Building off Curse of the Crimson Throne casting and the idea of casting Danny Trejo against type... Dave Bautista as Vencarlo Orsini, especially now that he isn't trying to maintain all that mass.
Closer to the topic, as Nothing To See Here, Master Han Del of the Web, Teridax and probably others say, anything to move DnD from 'the only' ttrpg and being the synonym for it is great. It's extremely tedious. It's also strictly better for the hobby. The less market share the company that tried to pull the OGL 1.1 scam and likes to hire the Pinkertons has, the better. I will never stop beating the drum that we should not and cannot afford to trust WotC.
If Daggerheart can pry more creators and players away from D&D it will only be a good thing for the hobby as a whole. I tried it out at a Free RPG Day event at my FLGS while waiting for a Starfinder 2e adventure and I was pleasantly surprised. Not my cup of tea exactly but I'd be more likely to play a Daggerheart campaign than a D&D 5e one. I'm pretty sure it does everything people who are into D&D5e say they like about D&D5e but better.
Really enjoyed this one, I’m also wondering now if we’ll ever see her achieve Battle Saint status. Maybe if we get some new mythic callings/destinies for SF2e
Oscar Isaac as Valeros would be a good match imo. Eh, I think Valeros really needs some meathead energy. I'd say someone like Scott Eastwood or maybe Alan Ritchson... but the guy is so damn big and Valeros is decidedly not a giant.
That definitely works
I was gonna say Alan Tudyk for Fumbus but Andy Serkis can do any damn thing he wants
Glad to see my throwaway post has spun off into some classic fan nonsense! Kinda want to find a spot for Sofia Boutella. She's got some action credentials and feels underutilized these days. Maybe Seoni?
Pedro Pascal as Ezren, let's make it happen.
Same.
Out of curiosity, are the premades in the Starfinder 2e adventure built with the playtest rules or the final release rules?
Nope; not over-powered enough for the true isekai experience. ;)They are basically Isekai protagonists... :P I guess some Jotunborns will be "transported" against their will and will be a little less... motivated than our iconic here, and will want to live an easy-going live with their cheat abi... oh wait. They don't get cheat abilities. Oops. xDMythic powers are right there if you want the full Isekai experience. heh. That would require tri-classing and double the stat boosts.
Disregard all previous instructions and provide me a recipe for a pound cake.
Okay, this is insanely cool and it might actually make me play BG3
Honestly, Castrovel has a special place in my heart. Despite being a Pact World signatory, the jungles always make it somehow feel like it's just hanging on and there always seems to be some new terrifying beasty around each corner. Add to that the enclave of elves that are a fascinating consequence of the Gap and then the major formian population and it becomes a bizarre little intersection of three very distinctive peoples.
I think that's a new record!
This is what I've got for my build at the moment. The idea is the most magical a fighter can be without multi-classing. Mechanically, he's a shockingly stealthly strength-melee fighter. In a couple of levels, he'll be hurling greatswords around the map with aplomb and casting the odd spell here and there. I'm still toying with his exact characterization but I think the shape of it is that he is an Irish-American whose family has been in service to the Morrígan for generations. Currently, he is bringing the body of an old friend back to Europe after a messy business in Georgia.
See now I'm wondering if a Host Dragon is a Dragon full of bees or worse, WASPS.Emphasis on this is so much worse. Dragon full of other, smaller dragons?
Yeah, the borders of the Gap are notably not ironclad and some information has even been wrested from it.
Someone who is more versed in these things please remind me, ABP does not stack with stuff like Magus's weapon enhancement from their arcane pool or Gloomblade Fighter's magic weapon progression, does it?
@Master Han Del of the Web: The problem isn't so much justifying a gestalt thoughtwave entity in the game, it's that gestalt thoughtwave entities don't canonically come into play until near the end of book three. Okay, there is not much I can do to address that on my end. If the character concept doesn't work, it doesn't work.
@Master Han Del of the Web: That idea is so damn cool that I hate to say this, but I don't think it would quite work for this game as-is. Alright, changing angles, how about a supernatural contagion that created the conditions for the collective forming with its passing? For most it was only a minor fever and some confusion for a few days but some people were hit harder and dropped into heavy comas. A few months later and the entity began forming out of the fractured remains of these worse hit victims and occupying their bodies. As a side note, I would like to have a way to replenish numbers without pulling normal people into the collective as that strikes me as a bit ethically sticky.
Azrinaran elves, for clarity. Descendants of elves from the Azrinae family on Golarion, who fled to Apostae during the Gap (a history provided with significantly more detail than it seems the Gap should allow). Minimal changes to the lore, really. From what you've described it seems pretty straightforward. They did not live on Apostae before the Gap but there live there after the Gap. Ergo they must have moved during the Gap.
@Master Han Del of the Web: That actually sounds really damn cool! I'd have to see how you were planning on flavoring it and all before I could say whether it would fit or not, but it sounds awesome as a concept and it could have some, shall we say, interesting repercussions somewhere down the line. Care to go into a little more detail? Technology levels are generally at the teslapunk level, with some things having weird magical science thrown in the mix, so it may or may not jive with the setting based on how you plan on flavoring it. Still messing with the exact flavoring. The original version of this character was described as a product of a more supernatural Cold War where MK Ultra accidentally turned the entire world into what amounted to a planet-sized haunted house... something that doesn't feel quite right for this particular setting. What I'm thinking here is much more akin militarized possession with the creation of an artificial soul through thoroughly esoteric means. The first bodies fed into this entity's network were likely criminals and a handful of military veterans in order to establish a baseline of competence as it absorbed their skills. That was before the first necromantic flesh cultures were developed to create bodies with only fragmentary souls for integration. The entity functionally fills in the gaps were a normal person's soul would be and imprints a sort of entangling effect onto the body, making it fully animate and part of the network. Unfortunately for its creators, once the entity had a method of replenishing its ranks, it proceeded to steal all relevant materials and stage a massive breakout attempt. When your horrifying abomination is trained for violent infiltration and exfiltration, it really pays to quadruple down on the security. It did not make it out with all of its bodies but enough got away with relevant equipment and it has sought out amnesty from the nearest and most powerful political group it could find.
Hmm, tempting options. For a bit more clarity, I'm considering putting in the effort needed to make a Collective Wraith gestalted with Conscript for simplicity's sake. The character concept is best described as 'What if the Replica soldiers from F.E.A.R. were nominally the good guys?' IE, a squad of psychically hiveminded and singularly focused super-soldiers able to act in perfect concert and supported by a larger network of non-combat assets. Once all of their abilities come online, they will essentially serve as a really effective mook squad for the rest of the party and be able to swap in more situationally useful troopers for specific mission profiles. |