Quinn

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Goblin Squad Member. Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber. ** Starfinder Society GM. 120 posts (124 including aliases). No reviews. 1 list. 1 wishlist. 4 Organized Play characters. 1 alias.



Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Please cancel my Pathfinder AP subscription. I'm moving to Starfinder.

If I subscribe to all the Starfinder physical books do I need to also cancel my Society subscription or will it automatically become free?

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo) 5/5

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I want to start running Starfinder Society games but I have a number of questions.

Firstly, I've tried to join NWPFS a couple times and haven't been able to join that forum. Everyone I've talked to says that's the first place I should go if I want to run Society, but I can't access it.

Secondly, what I really want to do is more like an "open table" concept than fully public games. I'm hoping to build a community of new gamers out of people in my neighborhood, not just attract people who already play Starfinder and know the scenarios and have all the books. This year I introduced a group of people to RPGs, and since we played at a bar we got a lot of attention from people in the neighborhood. That campaign ended and to replace it I want to run Starfinder, and I've had lots of positive interest. Because of how many players I expect to have coming through week after week, I wanted to use the Society framework to track everyone, but it's not very accessible to new or casual players - my target audience - if they have to buy a Core Rulebook and carry their chronicle sheets around.

I thought about just pretending it's a private game, and handling everything that way, but since it'll be in a public place with the ability to walk in off the street and into a seat, I wasn't sure if that was allowed. It's also in a bar, which I wasn't sure if I could do either.

Anyway, how do I make this game happen?

I want to hit the following points:
-Game at this bar because it is a neighborhood gathering place
-Accessible to new players without requiring $50 and a login just to sit down
-Able to keep track of characters across multiple scenarios and groups
-Easy structure (SFS scenarios, as opposed to homebrew or APs)

If I can get these it's a bonus:
-Players can take their characters to other SFS tables
-Develop more regular players to play APs

I feel like I'm rambling, but I'm just not sure if I'm interpreting the rules of Society right or not since I don't know anyone to talk to.

TLDR: I want to run a game at a bar for whoever shows up in order to create a new community of players out of the disparate people I've run into over the last several months of running games in this neighborhood. Is SFS the right tool for this, and if not, what would work?

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

I've been out of the Paizo loop for a minute, but I'm looking to get a case of minis for my new campaign. It'll feature lots of goblins, orcs, kobolds, and other relatively basic humanoids at the beginning, along with plenty of animals.

Should I get one of the newer sets, or a couple of the Goblin sets, or is there another set that works particularly well for this kind of thing? Should I look into the pawns instead, since I'd only be able to get one case of minis until the end of summer?

Any help would be appreciated, thank you.

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

My account doesn't seem to have my society number attached to it. Tanis was able to find it for me, and I used it all weekend at Paizocon, but it doesn't show up on my account here on the Paizo site. The number is 447508.

Thanks for your help.

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

So my players, being rather clever, figured that they could drop really heavy rocks on the roof of the Garrison and/or stone shape a hole in the ceiling and come in that way instead. Gonna skip the details, but it worked. They have stone shaped their way (with a scroll they bought for the purpose) into Deradnu's room from the roof and that's where we stopped the session.

My question is, does this cause a problem, story-wise or CR-wise? Obviously, the inhabitants are going to come running up the stairs once the alarm gets raised, and Jeslyn and Deradnu are not going to be pleased with a bunch of adventurers melting holes in their walls. The PCs are also still level 3, since there are five of them, so it might be a little overwhelming when every tiefling in the place comes running upstairs. Finally, they're missing almost every opportunity for devotion points.

Should I change anything, or just leave it as is and let the natural defenses of the Garrison handle them? Will it matter if they don't get the devotion points?

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

This order was placed one month ago (August 9th) and is still pending, even though my September subscription has already authorized payment.

At first I thought it was because an item was backordered, but your FAQ says that if an item is on back order, everything else would ship separately. Is it a credit card problem? My card had not yet expired at the time, and I've updated my account with my new card as well.

I would like very much to receive these items, so if there is anything I need to do or if you're missing some piece of info from me or something let me know.

Shoot, I even live in Seattle so if would speed things up, I'll drive on over and pick them up myself. ;P

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

What have you guys done to make the owlbear fight at the end of book two more interesting?

Reading through it, even with the 6-player conversion, my players will basically take one look at it and go, "We lock it down and administer murder". I'm thinking of implementing one of the various "colossus" rulesets people have posted on here. Have any of you tried anything like that? How did it work? Has anyone had a good time with the more "basic" versions presented in the book and the conversion? What about mythic stuff?

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

One of the guys in my group wants to run the last several books of this AP, but hasn't read it yet. Is it viable to start in the middle, around level 10 like he wants? Try not to give too many spoilers, since I'm gonna be playing in the campaign, but if you put them behind spoiler tags I can just send him a link to this post.

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Does anyone know of a good PDF app for Windows 8 that actually allows you to fill in character sheets?

Adobe Reader 11 has some pretty awful reviews, so I haven't tried it yet, and the reader that comes with Windows 8 isn't great. Pretty, but doesn't actually do much. Certainly can't fill forms.

There's one called Nitro that I tried, but the interface is really obtrusive and it freaks out if you try to write a character sheet and does all the calculations wrong.

Is Adobe 11 really that bad? Any other suggestions?

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Ok, so this came up in my game last night. There are a number of issues with the way it's written, not the least of which being the discrepancy between the stat block and the text of the power.

Questions:

1- Does the creature get the death roll on the turn it bites the enemy? If it's intended to work like rake, then no, but if you go by the RAW, it's unclear and could be interpreted to go off whenever he bites someone.

2- Does it do the damage listed on the stat block AND damage from a bite attack? My interpretation of it would seem that they intended that to mean that the death roll damage doesn't replace the bite damage on a successful grapple check, but the RAW suggests that it goes one step further than that - adding another instance of bite damage on top of death roll damage with every bite attack that successfully grabs the enemy.

3- Does it make a trip attack when it death rolls, or does it knock the enemy prone? Poor editing.

Our party recently gained a summoner, so celestial crocodiles are starting to pop up all over the place. When the player read the monster, he was super excited to start doing "bite>grab>death roll>release>repeat" for effectively (triple bite damage) +2 each turn and that seems excessive.

My solution:

I'm likely going to rule it the following way, but if anyone has feedback, I'd love to hear it.

You have to start your turn grappling the enemy to use death roll, but unlike rake, it automatically goes off if you succeed on the grapple check to maintain. The enemy takes automatic bite damage from the grapple, then extra damage from the death roll. Then the crocodile makes a trip attempt with no AoO, and cannot be tripped himself if he blows it.

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

My group had a pretty epic combat last night, and one of the players wrote a short story from the perspective of several of the participants. It's a little too long to spoiler, so here's the link.

In my game, the party has just finished dealing with a beast from beyond the stars that threatened to destroy their fledgling city, so they decided to take a few months off of adventuring to rebuild and take it easy. Unfortunately, in the first month, they got a monster attack - a pair of wyverns had taken over the bridge leading back to Brevoy and was eating peasants and livestock. So much for R+R.

Dramatis Personae:
Baroness Olivia: Paladin of Erastil, Ruler of Maesky
The Witch: Spymaster, healer, and loremistress of Maesky
Marchwarden Krispos: finest marksman in the land
Raven: Grand Diplomat, half angel, half ... something else
Frank: Well, he's Frank.

All level 4. Raven is a Dark Tapestry Oracle, hence the question, "What did it see?" in the above story. She's been having a rough couple of months, what with the Spawn of Yog-Sothoth and now nearly being poisoned to death.

TL;DR Level 4 party fights a mated pair of wyverns and it goes poorly.

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

The most epic fight of our entire campaign happened this week. The PCs almost went down against a huge flying worg and his pack, but pulled it out thanks to a really lucky roll from the paladin, and some fine shooting from the gunslinger.

Spoilered for length, unless noted otherwise.

Background:

Really early in the campaign, three weeks into exploring the Greenbelt, the group ran into a random encounter with worgs near the Temple of the Elk, which they promptly killed. Two days later, near Oleg's, they had another random encounter, which ALSO came up worgs. The single worg in the second encounter turned out to be related to the ones in the first encounter, and came looking for the PCs to get revenge. He stayed well away from the party, howling in Goblin (a language that none of the PCs speak), leading them to believe he was summoning a horde of goblins to swarm them in the night. Since he was too far away for the witch to cast her hexes on, and too fast for the melee people to catch, the gunslinger took it upon himself to deal with the threat. At night, at range, through cover, it would have been a near-impossible shot - unless you were Krispos Marksley, son of the famous gunslinger Rex Marksley. His bullet struck the worg in the face, tearing off one of his ears, and forever marking him as the Scar-of-Leaden-Flame. The worg then fled and the Greenbelt was safe from worgs. Or so they believed for the next 18 months.

Cut to Spring 4712 AR, the party has founded their domain on the northern shore of the Tuskwater, and are building a road back towards Oleg's former trading post (he moved south with them when they made him their Councilor and Svetlana their Grand Diplomat). Their road and the associated settlements have come within striking distance of the South Rostland Road, and everything is going well as they begin preparations for their first Founder's Day festival, but suddenly, one of their marchscouts comes stumbling in from the north, covered in dirt and blood.

"Wolves! Dozens of them, they've swarmed down on the farms and destroyed the new village!"

The gunslinger (now the Treasurer) asks him if any of them were missing an ear. The attack was in the same area they had encountered the worgs, after all.

"They were ALL missing an ear!"

Cue the PCs riding north to go hunt a worg!

Worg Hunt!:

Several days later, they find themselves at the village. Wolf tracks are everywhere, but not nearly as many as they were expecting. Certainly not dozens of wolves. Later that evening, as they're getting their camp set up, the witch falls over asleep. Everyone else comes running, just to get grabbed by rabid undergrowth sprouting up around them.

They see a horse-sized worg, flying on bat wings, and missing an ear. He hovers there, laughing at them. As they begin to break free, he swoops down to attack, but they fend him off and he flies away cackling.

The party is quite confused, but they realize that this is the same worg from before. Over the next day, they go searching through the woods, and don't find a single trace of a giant worg. They do find the tracks of a large wolf pack. Ordinarily, wolves run in small packs, 3-6 at most, but this is clearly a large group of 8 or 12. They follow the tracks back to a cave in the side of a hill. Their scout and the wolves laying in ambush both miss each other, but the wolves find the rest of the party and attack.

Worg Lair and Final Battle:

They deal with the wolves outside easily enough, though they get flanked by half the pack that split off, and head inside. Inside they are assaulted by the overwhelming stench of sasquatch, and soon by the thrown stones of those same sasquatches. A pair of worgs also begins harassing them and retreating. The witch gets fed up with the whole thing and casts obscuring mist over the whole room. When it lifts, the monsters are gone, deeper into the cave.

The rest of the cave gets cleared out, and they make it to the final room, where Scar waits with his mates - a pair of dire wolves. The sasquatches have retreated here and are taking cover behind piles of stones and skulls. Lastly, a fat trollhound is lounging around.

Their halfling rogue, an Orlovksy, tries to run across the cave before anything else can catch him, but doesn't make it to cover before the sasquatches pelt him with stones. Scar, knowing that the rogue and the witch can both turn invisible casts faerie fire on the rogue, causing him to glow bright green in the dim cave. Meanwhile, the dire wolves rush the rest of the party and inflict horrific damage while knocking the PCs to the ground.

They become bottlenecked when Scar then casts deep slumber, putting the entire party save the rogue and the gunslinger to sleep. Krispos is able to wake everyone with a clever use of powder, taking a break from shooting Scar for the only time in the entire fight. Scar responds with glitterdust, but unfortunately only blinds the barbarian. This whole time, the trollhound has been trying to take down the Baroness, a paladin of Erastil, and they trade blows until the Baroness is on the ground.

Under heavy fire from the sasquatches, being pinned by the wolves and trollhound, everyone in the party is in dire shape. Several of them are unconscious, and those that aren't are close enough that the next solid blow could kill them outright. That's when the paladin decides to take a calculated risk and channel the holy power of Erastil to heal the party - and the monsters. It brings everyone back into fighting shape and they rally.

Monsters fall left and right as the witch puts them to sleep. A fusillade of bullets continues to tear into Scar, despite the swirling winds whiffling out of his wings. The barbarian, still blind, rushes out to rescue the rogue, who had been cut off since the beginning of the fight. The Baroness and the witch combine forces to dispatch the trollhound with sword and spell. Suddenly, Scar is left by himself, with only one sasquatch still taking pot shots at anyone he can.

Unfazed, Scar rushes into battle with the rogue and barbarian, dropping the barbarian again. He shrugs off the witch's hex and turns to eat the rogue, but the witch has taken the enormously risky move of walking right up behind the giant wolf, distracting him long enough for the rogue to scramble underneath and stick his sword into the worg's guts. Scar lets out an earth-shaking howl to let them know he's not done yet.

Krispos knows he only has one chance to finish the worg before it devours both of his friends, and lines up his shot. The halfling and the witch both present potential for collateral damage, but Krispos and his gun are one - and they only have eyes for Scar. His bullet flies true, and strikes Scar in the eye just as he lunges for the witch. The now lifeless body slumps to the ground and the entire party, too tired to cheer, breathes a sigh of relief.

Among the loot stolen from their village, they find the worg wearing a glass ring carved into the shape of a jabberwock, which gives the wearer better maneuverability and the ability to create a storm around themselves. The witch debates keeping it, as she'll be able to fly soon, but it is decided that they could probably get thousands of gold pieces for it in Restov or New Stetven.

Phew. That was much longer than I expected.

Next post: Actual Spoilers!

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

One of the players in my Kingmaker game wants to make a character that is an automaton. Is there any race that is a robot or anything similar?

I haven't really found anything yet, so I was planning to just go with a rules-human, but skinned to be robotic. He would still have to eat (fueled by organic compounds?) and sleep (his circuits overload after a day of activity and need to reset?) and breathe, etc. No weird immunities or anything, just IS a robot.

We're both huge fans of Steam Powered Giraffe, to the point where his gunslinger character is the son of Rex Marksley, so we both think it would epic (and so cool!) if we could get an automaton character in our game.

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

If someone casts a spell that calls a creature - like a druid calling an animal or a cleric calling an outsider - and then proceeds to kill that creature, does the party get xp for that? Our party druid can call animals that are higher cr than the apl, and could theoretically call animals all day just to farm xp and something about that just doesn't seem right. As dm, am I within my rights to say that doesn't work?

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

While the text says you can use weapons and cast spells with the hand that a buckler is on, it is unclear if that hand counts as a "free hand" for things like reloading firearms, grabbing potions, etc.

It seems like RAW, the buckler does take up your hand, but allows you to do certain things that would otherwise require a free hand (like shoot bows, cast spells, and wield weapons). That said, in other versions of the game, the RAI has been that a buckler leaves your hand free. Is that the RAI here, or should I just go by what's written?

My main questions are (since I'm considering writing a gunslinger with a pistol and a buckler gun):

Can you reload a firearm while wearing a buckler?
Does a buckler gun have the same basic rules as a regular buckler, with the additions in the description? Or is it a weapon that uses your off-hand and gives you +1 shield bonus to AC?