McBugman's page

"..plus rules for gaining a creature companion that can accompany you as a pet, a mount, or even a fearsome combatant! And over a dozen species have rules for making your own playable alien character.."

The back rules portions are easily becoming my favorite parts of the Archives. Building NPCs, Summoning, Polymorph, and now building PC races and companions? Fingers crossed that Armory 2 follows suit with gear or vehicle creation systems!

..refresh, refresh, refresh..

I'm really happy to see a lot of the community here in agreement! Near Space, The Vast, and Threats to the Pact would be lovely. Also focused books for Ships/vehicles, Magic, Planes, and a Players Guide with new classes.

I would love solar system maps and maps of sections of the galaxy too, but that one might just be me.

The one thing I really see missing is bio-punk, I'd like a class focused around biological manipulation that's akin to the Mechanic.

An update to above.

I used Pathfinder Flip-Mat Darklands (I believe side B, the open-spaced one) for the exterior. For the interior of the hermitage I pulled this up off the cuff. It all worked pretty well, for those who rock the mini's.

The Marrowblight Hermitage could easily be done Theater of the Mind as well, much like the stampede at the beginning of the second books expedition. An issue I had was letting Xerantha wait out the combat with the Ellicoth before stepping in. If my cat was an Ellicoth (awesome parallel universe, I know) I wouldn't stand by at all. In addition to the creature being massive and likely very loud when in combat, I chose to introduce Xerantha during round 6 of the combat. That gave her 36 seconds to notice the commotion, get to her gun, and then get in position. In my opinion other things can factor in here, like landing their starship in Xerantha's front yard... but for the most part it's what I would recommend.

A good and hard set of sequential encounters. As I have felt the rest of the book has been easy, these last three are very legitimate player deaths. My group has a healer and the Elicoth/Xerantha battle contained a lot of combat healing. Excited for the climax this weekend!!

As someone who got into PFS a couple years ago, being on the ground floor of the Starfinder Society story is insanely satisfying. I'm loving the build of this arc and so pumped for it to explode into whatever the next turn of longterm events are. Viva la Elsebo!

Boon: 1d20 ⇒ 1 Huzzah!
1d2 ⇒ 1

Player name or forum ID: McBugman
Character name: Bossk Cradossk Jones
PFS # (including the -70x for character number): 113761-701
Faction: Wayfinders

Intimidate: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (19) + 9 = 28
"Prove yourself, goblin. Wana be part of the Chartreuse or not?"

Iseph zips around and puts both of the ships in their forward arc.

Back at ya Navasi!

Iseph turns on some tunes as they start getting into the grove and rapidly slams combinations of thrusters.

"S!~~ s%~& s$~$, incoming! Hold onto your circuits!" Iseph slams the ship into an evasion combat maneuver as the lights on their system screens start to flash erratically.

I have 4 ranks in Piloting for AC and TL purposes.

"The Rune Drive Gambit" is an awesome title and I'm all in for a heist finale. Flip it and burn!

Zoso stops walking, Ok, on three. One.. two.. he thinks.

When the timing is right, the drow turns and faces the crowd that has built up behind them. "BACK OFF OR STEP FORTH TO F+&@ING DIE ALREADY!" Zoso yells at them all, hoping he isn't alone.

Intimidate: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (10) + 14 = 24

Iseph holds their tongue for a moment, then Obo speaks and they feel better about telling the truth.

"Got a tip on a ship skimming between some black market connections in the Armada. Once it left Absalom Station we followed it, disabled it pretty quick. What we found was worse than I could have imagined. The quick of it is we killed them all. Once the enslaved androids were released about half cried as they saw the stars for the first time. Most couldn't make it in society and renewed within the month. That's around when I started to fall out with the AAF, I learned they had sat on that intel for a few trades until the shuttles' personnel was 'right.'"

"Once you hit 1,000 XP, you level up! (That's for every level, so whenever you have 500 XP, you'll always know you're halfway to leveling up again! And if you have any extra Experience Points after leveling up, they count toward the next level.)"

Interesting, so I'm assuming this will go off APL vs the encounter's CR? For example, 100xp for an APL = CR encounter, then adding 25xp for every CR over APL or subtracting 25xp for every CR under APL.

"Touched down, engines.. powered off." Iseph spins in their chair. "Always accepts donations, sounds like they could smell our allowance from orbit." the android scoffs before heading to their room to store some items.

Sorry, I'll stop ranting. Just know, you're not alone. I feel your pain.

Naw, a rant for a rant, it's much appreciated. I'm sure some of the gametime juggling is just the newness of it all. Once the Aeon Throne is here we'll be having no problems!.. never thought I'd say that phrase..

Zoso finishes his litany as the mangled beast dies, "Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." He plucks the short bow string once and grimaces at the loss of his beautiful longbow.

"That was unexpected, is there anything here worthy of Drow to drink?" Zoso first asks, trying to get a feel for being a Drow still and their art of being dicks. He sighs and smacks the wood of his bow into his open hand, "We have come to ask Vorjans Gost a few questions, the fella around?"

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (9) + 14 = 23 If Intimidate is thematically preferred, the roll is the same.

Starship Rules

quothe the SRD wrote:

As the PCs go on adventures and gain experience, they need an increasingly powerful starships to face tougher challenges. When the characters’ Average Party Level increases, so does the tier of their starships (see Table 9–1: Starship Base Statistics). The PCs receive a number of Build Points equal to the Build Points listed for their starships’s new tier – those listed for its previous tier, which they can use to upgrade their starships. For example, a group whose APL increases from 2 to 3 receives 20 BP that the PCs can use to upgrade their starships. This could represent salvage gathered during their exploits, an arrangement with a spacedock, or called-in favors from a wealthy patron. Some GMs might require PCs to visit a safe, inhabited world before they can spend these Build Points, but this shouldn’t be allowed to impact the campaign too much.

Emphasis added...

quothe the SRD wrote:

PCs can’t upgrade the base frame of their starships. They can rebuild their starships with a new base frame if they so desire (within the limits of their budget of Build Points, of course), but that new starships will have a different look (and should probably have a different name). PCs can purchase Huge and larger base frames only at the GM’s discretion, as these usually require large crews and thus are normally reserved for NPC starships.

Buying a whole new starships is a process that can take between 1d4 days and 1d4 months, depending on whether the PCs are purchasing a used starships from a spacedock or having a custom vessel built from scratch.

The BP system doesn't work like loot and normal gear purchases. The group is supposed to just get more BP/higher tier ships automagically when they level. My impression is that you're just supposed to handwave it using whatever excuse works for your group. It mentions under refitting that upgrades usually take 1d4 days, but...

Yeah.. the balance was pretty bad in my game.

They finished book two and essentially had 40 BP to upgrade their then tier 3 ship to a tier 5 per their new APL. What my awesome players did was sell all their guns and install only two to replace them. Heavy Antimatter Missiles on the front arc and a Plasma Cannon on the turret. They put minor upgrades onto a few other things as well like their armor, shields, defense, and computer. Then boom off to the races in the Diaspora.

That first encounter was an freaking breeze with the Rusty Rivet. They had a better piloting check so just flew up along the side and slammed it with both weapons. The damage total was something like 83! Blew the thing out of the sky like total bosses immediately. To round it off once they boarded the Rivet their soldier was threatening and the percentile dice rolled under a 20, fate just wanted more fight I guess.

In the end I wasn't really disappointed about the ship combat going short. So far it has fit into the campaign weirdly. We've been having ship combat once every 2 levels and the process of upgrading the ship and remembering the ship combat specifics doesn't make up for the one event per book (or 5 sessions for us) in my opinion. It eats up half of our 4 hour session. This isn't a remark for or against the ship combat in general, just the spacing and weight of it. It kind of ruins the flow and takes us out of the story for a moment with the upgrading time at the table being the biggest pet peeve. Something I'm working on is a homebrew squadron arc that will go two or three levels where each player has their character sheet and a personal squadron ship. That way the can level it alone to their own preferences when we're not all together and the ship combat will mimic standard combat more.

We'll see. In the middle of searching the asteroid right now, next game is in a week.

I really liked the podcast, it has me optimistic but any real opinions will have to wait until I see the Character sheets and playtest rules.

We could try all appending a buff string at the bottom of our posts, modifying it for any action taken in your turn. That way someone just needs to copy/paste it in their post to pass it on most of the time. I start the string here as a test.

"And when it has gone past we will turn the inner eye to see its path," Zoso continues his countersong.

Rapid Shot, Deadly Aim, Haste, Fervor: 1d20 + 9 + 1 + 2 ⇒ (11) + 9 + 1 + 2 = 23
Damage: 1d6 + 8 ⇒ (6) + 8 = 14
Rapid Shot, Deadly Aim, Haste, Fervor: 1d20 + 9 + 1 + 2 ⇒ (13) + 9 + 1 + 2 = 25
Damage: 1d6 + 8 ⇒ (4) + 8 = 12
Iterative Deadly Aim, Haste, Fervor: 1d20 + 6 + 1 + 2 ⇒ (3) + 6 + 1 + 2 = 12
Hastened Deadly Aim, Haste, Fervor: 1d20 + 11 + 1 + 2 ⇒ (16) + 11 + 1 + 2 = 30
Damage: 1d6 + 8 ⇒ (4) + 8 = 12

AC is 23

Active Party Effects: Haste, Blessing of Fervor, Lifelink, Countersong

"To the Chartreuse!" Iseph then boards the ship after the initial festivity and spends the rest of their time before the mission in the flight and computer systems. They configure personal preferences like alarm tones, changing the background to an Android Abolitionist Front image, and setting up as much voice control as the ship is capable of.

2nd to 1st back conversion of future new material will be critical. It would save a schism from damaging a beautiful community and is the epitome of learning from other systems/companies mistakes.

Good news is, we can make this heard during the playtest!

"Yeah, that works." Iseph follows as Luwazi leads them through the facility, taking note of the credit amounts promised.

Walking into the hanger and seeing the ship, Iseph lets out a long inpressed whistle. "Now that is a beautiful craft! I'm in. They're going to remove the Starfinder Symbol, right?" Before Luwazi answers, Iseph motions to one of the nearby engineers or workers. "Can I see that datapad?" With the intent of seeing a readout of the ship's specifications.

That is exactly the face I'm wanting to resuscitate me!

A big round of applause and thank you to everyone that made the preformatted pregen docs. So slick, I love it!

It's March!!!!

Enjoyed the teaser to this in 1-08 Sanctuary of Drowned Delight, looking forward to returning to Castrovel after the Temple of the Twelve!

Update! we currently have:
Digger Chandler as Anthony Zamparelli : Hangman
Pedro Coelho as Doreen Makgree : Stalker
CaptainFord as Colt R Warwrik : Avenger
eriktd as CarlConrad Copperplate : Warlock
Tiger Claw as Brianna Reed : Zealot
Andrea1 as Furnok of Ferd : Stalker
Ouachitonian as Reynard Freeman : Mutated Defender
yiannisph as Darius Motalis : Warlock
Rysky as Osveta Daud : Masked Maiden
Woran as Agnes Briar : Mounted Fury
golfdeltafoxtrot as Adun Wulle : Avenger
Fighting Chicken as Borgol : Avenger
SodiumTelluride as The High Fool : Cabalist
Davia D as Jineiss Craft : Magic Child

I am crazy excited to get this going and we almost have the compliment of 3 games worth of characters in the running already. So, I've decided to move up the deadline a week, from the 18th to the 11th. Those listed as interested above will get a courtesy PM notice to the change as well. Feel free to reach out to me in a PM if this change causes a problem for you.

^ Update: Garaggakal part 2 ends up being a moot point for this game as they were able to dispatch it. They were pretty determined to prove they are not evil as well (after having no hesitation in mowing down the goblins) and put some serious energy and RP into Clara-247. The reality that there isn't another way off the rock set in for her and she deleted the hit-order on them after some "friendly" skirmish-talking. I bring it up because she was present at the end fight. I kept her in places with bad shooting lanes the whole time but it was pretty apparent that NPC vs NPC combat is definitely not intended. Did anyone else have to deal with Clara aiding the group?

For those yet to run this: If you have a non-murderhobo group I recommend taking her ability modifiers and gear, and stating up a simple sheet under the PC rules. NPC vs NPC is too skewed, too easy to hit and too much damage dealt.

I have a great opportunity here, they're a group of 4 and desire to hire a pilot so they can focus on other roles in combat. Essentially running the NPC pilot as a group in order to free up a set of hands for secondary gunnery, Science, or Engineering. So! I'm pumped to make a list of NPC applicants for this position, due to the PCs recent fame with the Drift Rock a whole slew of folks will be drawn to the job. Yes, Clara-247 is the perfect NPC in the story to slip into this roll, but the idea of them going through an interview process with whatever wacky NPCs I can throw together is too good to pass up too. I'm thinking she'll need time to get back to them, in the meantime they can interview and then decide among the pool after Clara-247 gets back to them. Only detail I need to resolve for Clara is how to keep her out of combat and exploring. I suppose a simple statement from her is enough, "I'll fly your ship for a wage, but I'm not interested in taking on the full risk of these silly missions you and the Society are so eager to get into."

Any have fun NPC ideas for pilots looking for work? :)

I'm glad this is picking up so well! I just want to pop in and thank you all for being so patient over the first two months. Life just likes to become all too busy sometimes but luckily Debug could help out. I had a blast running this with everyone, enjoy the end with Debug and hopefully see everyone around in future games down the road.

GM Bugman wrote:

Bugman, don’t feel bad. I did the same thing just this week with my delightful game of Incident at Absalom Station. As a new VC, and having a few job and family matters to deal with at the same time, I realized that I needed to step down as a GM, so asked another GM to take over for me.

We all have real life come up from time to time. I am hoping that all GMs reading this know that they can ask for help. There’s no shame in handing off your game to another GM if you need to do so. It’s better to do that than to continue to struggle.

When the time is right, you’ll come back rested and restored when the next game comes up!

Hugs,
Hmm

Thanks Hmm, to everyone who PM'd me, and to Shifty and Debug for being willing to swoop in for the saves. I've had my share of games fizzle and vanish so I know what it's like being a player left with the unanswerable questions and knew that I wanted these players to have a fair chance to continue on. This kind of thing is what makes us a strong community in my eyes and I'm looking forward to paying it forward down the road!

(Heart breaking)

They took out an authorization to charge for this today!!! Can't wait to read and run SFS!

Absolutely, in anxious prep I did some "Rise of the Voidlords", Skulls and Shackles, and "Starmaker" plot conversion. Haven't come up with a great name for the Skulls and Shackles though, toying with "Cosmic Corsairs" currently. Starmaker is so far the one my table is most interested in. I'm setting it in a single solar system where they need to explore the whole system but only colonize and terraform a moon of a close orbit Jovian planet.

Teaser tag:
During a Galactic Cold-war you are sent to colonize a strategically pivotal star in disputed territory. Terraforming the lone habitable mass, a moon of a close orbit gas giant, is your mission. Defending your solar system from the deceptive threats of both sides while exploring the unreal truth behind this stars power is your reality.

Solar System will be modeled off of HD 1690 or Gliese 876, and described as:
The star is rogue, having been ejected from it's native nebula billions of years ago. Just in the recent millions of years has this system entered the Galactic plane, passing through a void between the two arms of the barred spiral galaxy.

Some of us, players and GMs alike, have gotten together on Roll20 in preparation and have setup a "game" for discussion and collaboration purposes. The intention is to organize groups for AP runs and to connect a network for SFS in the Virtual tabletop world. If something like this is happening elsewhere as well or in some official capacity with the Online Captains and Lieutenants we'd love to cooperate, the more players and game options the better!

https://app.roll20.net/lfg/listing/79869/starfinder-slash-looking-for-playe rs-and-gms

So! If you're a fan of the Virtual Tabletop gaming medium or are interested in trying it out please feel free to stop by and join!

REALLY soon!

I've TOTALLY been feeding my anticipation by internalizing conspiracies for the website maintenance going on the past few weeks... Site down, must be Starfinder subscription work.. Oh, big outage!.. must be close... they'll announce any day now... any day now.. Always followed by rapid refreshing of the Paizo Store blog.

This was just the article I needed to read tonight! I really dig the changes to combat at first glance. I will be standing at the door to my LGS tomorrow drenched in hype.

Would love to see this list expand by a couple more themes every AP volume. I like the way it is implemented though in comparison to traits and archetypes.

REALLY excited for the War for the Crown. The angle and possibilities sound riveting to me. My hope is they're able to take the best of the location-centric urban campaigns and the open narrative sandbox (and slightly sandbox) campaigns. Recipe for another classic.

It sounds like part four might be our first trip out of the solar system! Excited to see how a long jaunt in the drift plays!

I've recently learned that the often misconceived barrel roll is actually an aileron roll. BUT that doesn't change my excitement!!

Maybe this is a Starfinder plug? A "simulate the Gap for immersion" thing?

I've been converting Skulls and Shackles to a space theme lately in anticipation and preparation, and I must say it has been making the wait soooo much harder! It got me thinking though..

You've done two hardcovers now and it's been made clear that they are not normal or to be expected for every AP, but only in special cases where they make sense. So, in the case of one or two that may be awesome plaything through the Starfinder lens, it seems (IMHO) like it would be a low resource consuming project with a lot of upside. It would not compete with either the original AP or Starfinder's AP line and would generate a large cut of content for a new line that (IMHO) people are ready to gobble up everything in.

So, are you, Paizo, even remotely open to the concept of publishing a hardcover of a Pathfinder AP converted and re-imagined in Starfinder?

And if so, you are more than welcomed to hire me ;)

Ok, ok, who brought in the aboleth as an intern?

Lol, so let me get this straight. So far we're a band of aspiring entrepreneurs looking to establish the traveling bar and spa known as the Thunderbucket, the sole supporters of a delusional claim to royalty, contributing members in the underground world of Divine Magic fan fiction, and perhaps an indie band too?

Sheet up dated GM.

... also I've been contemplating Arcane Trickster...

GM: just noticed and corrected that Nebraska's AC and Touch were wrong, a point high each. Checked your combat rolls and no harm caused by it, but a friendly FYI incase you track some stats offline.

What do you think happens when a new soul occupies a fully kitted out Android Shell? Something with integrated plasma emitters and a full assassination protocol package installed? Awkward first week?

Ha! They become Guy Pearce in Memento?

It would be interesting to experiment with a homebrew where player characters cycle through souls several times. To fully capture the mood players would probably have to get a randomly rolled new shell with level appropriate wealth. I doubt many people would be willing to wipe their character clean every 5 levels or so though..

GM: I was worried if my Mage Armor would burn away, thank you very much for these last 5 minutes!

Who's game to try to convince these freed slaves to bullrush this person in a 'Seize your freedom! Seize your destiny!' moment?

In her unconscious fever dreams Nebraska recalls the moment she was preparing for this mission and chose not to purchase the scroll of CLW. The agony, the foolishness.