Nyerkh's page

It is hard to overstate how much of a number's game PF (and others) can be.
Numerical superiority is huge. A tremendous threat can die in a flash if outnumbered.
As long as your players outnumber their foes 4 to 1, you're gonna have a hard time challenging them, and doing so is likely to require opponents that have a more than decent chance of one-shoting a couple of them (and still die quick).

I'd worry more about having them face more enemies at the same time than about throwing higher CRs at them.

Also yeah : some glaring holes in their defenses if you want to target their weaknesses, Will saves being the most obvious one. But only going after that is not really fun, so take care not to abuse it.

With such a big party, you're bound to have long fights but that's not exactly avoidable.

This is such a bad way to go at limiting a group's power level. Not gonna redo the several discussions on this we've seen since the release of PF1 but in short : the builds these limits hurt the most are the ones they should worry about the least.

Anyways.
Your party has the martial aspect covered, with an emphasis on melee.
I'd advise you to play the SADdest full-caster you see yourself enjoying. It's the absolute perfect setup for a god wizard, but a witch would do good, (evangelist) cleric is also a nice option ... most 9/9 casters can be pertinent really.

If that's not your thing then yeah, Bards and Skalds are fun, People's Council paladins and exemplar Brawler do the Inspire Courage thing (though that might be a lot of melee for one party) ...

You actually guessed it.

Bombs (Su) :

Bombs are considered weapons [...]

So : weapons or Su ? Why not both ? Both is the answer. (Not an entirely unique case, even.)

"Special Abilities" is, after all, one of those half-defined things that may or may not apply. And some weapon affecting effects don't combine well with weapons that exist no longer than a fraction of a round, depending on how they're written.

The thematic's already here, if mostly in themes and archetypes.
Also, keep in mind the one PF1 caster class that could actually deal with tech was the Psychic... Maybe all technomancer are psychic ? (I kid, but not really)
Also also, many of the Mystic connections lead heavily toward psy/occult theming, indeed.
Witchwarper and the incoming Precog can also fit the bill decently.

But ultimately, it doesn't really matter, what with the arcane v divine v psychic/occult (v primal) distinction just not being a big deal anymore.
Your caster PC uses whatever flavor of magic you want it too.

Can we get more options for what the classes we have ? Always. And we will, eventually.
Can we get PF ones adapted into SF ? That's not really the trend, and many don't translate that easily. But maybe.
Until then, we have a bunch of ways to do it already.

I have a few simple questions, mostly on matters on formulation, clarity, intent and the like. Also a few thoughts. Not gonna touch the EP situation in this one though.

- The attack necessary for Evolution Drain doesn't do damage, does it ?
Feels like it could simply be about making contact, no harm done, just as well as it could be a matter of "if you deal damage you also steal essence materials for your own evolution", so I'd rather check. (If it does damage, I assume it's regular Adaptive Strike damage ?)
- While Augmented Form can increase a discount on augmentations from other sources (like the biotech theme or the Augmented archetype), the Augmentation Focus does nothing more to said other discounts, yes ? You get the 20%, or you get the same X+5 you'd have anyway ?
- Is the Mechanized's instinct ability to reduce damage actually Damage Reduction ? The Rapid Reboot's effect on your "hardness" should probably be reworded, unless it is indeed Hardness (seems unlikely).

- Unlike Explosive Strike, the Area Strike adaptation makes no mention of needing a ranged adaptive strike, is that on purpose ? I'm okay with the added versatility, mind you.
- It wouldn't be much use, but I'm kinda surprised we don't get the option of taking the Extraordinary Sense adaptation more than once, to get more alternative senses.
- Extreme Mobility can interact with Enhanced Mobility's swim (and fly) speed, but does nothing for the climbing part of it : is that voluntary ? Feels like it might have meant to give climbing the same speed upgrade swimming gets.

- Why specify Species grafts as one of the Vital Niche augmentations of choice ? "Species grafts can be cybernetics, biotech, magitech, nanite enhancements, or any other form of augmentation." Are Sepulchral, Mechanized and Eldritch Evolutionists not able to get their usual discount on their species augmentations ?

- Cybernetics and Magitech might need a way to compete.
Biotech can reproduce any cyber for a price and Necrografts can just do anything cyber or biotech, and do so at a discount (which seems like it might stack fully btw, considering the wordings).
Not too worried about that one, considering we're getting a full tech book, but it's worth keeping in mind. Well, noone can imitate Magitech so far, so it can stay on its island I guess : it simply having more options could suffice.

- Damage vulnerability drawbacks take me back to the Consumed Oracle curse. And I can't remember anyone enjoying that.

- If this is to be a class that does nothing but fight, having a full BaB baseline seems necessary. It's also a missed opportunity, so I'd rather have some out of combat utility.
I get that the idea is that the money saved on weapons is supposed to go into discounted augmentations to round everything out, and it's certainly helpful, but I'm not convinced that's enough.
Many augmentations also compete with adaptations - and can come out on top.

Literal body builder class. That's always fun, looking forward to it.

Also, I'm very curious to see how it'll be handled, considering this really is a teaser. Steady progression or shapeshifting ? Bit of both?
Will there be a "become a humanoid" option, considering so many pc races aren't ?
Yeah, I'll be looking at this playtest.

Says you. The Oracle has enough nature related options that I don't know that just being a "spontaneous Cha Druid" is enough to make a class. The spontaneous witch isn't Cha based, but it too crosses that niche somewhat.
Still.

Shaman is the most divisive of the 9th level caster classes when it comes to these questions.
I don't care for it much, nor do I hate it, but it's easy to see - including in this very thread but it's a pattern we see in many, many shaman discussions - that some are just in love with it, and others refuse to consider it could ever be considered any good.
So it's safe to say it's not for everyone. And that's fine.

It's finicky, there's a lot of moving parts (more than any other 9/9 caster ?), some very strong options baseline, a weird, unwieldy spell list...
(not gonna go into the archetypes much since every class has a mixed bag of those, but yeah : some powerful things there too)

I'd say it requires a player to take the time to really learn its intricacies, but absolutely rewards putting in the effort.
It's not for me, but I know better than to pretend it's bad.

Very true.

And beyond that, this really isn't a Starfinder issue : it's just a space thing.
Which makes it a sci-fi/space-op thing.
Every sci-fi game has to deal with the fact that yes, at any moment the PCs could just decide to nuke a planet from orbit with a heavy thing or two.
Gravitic bombardment hardly rely on anything Starfinder specific, it's every bit as devastating in Star Wars or 40k and likely even more so in a more hard-science setting.

Yet it's rarely used.

The Galactic Empire really didn't need the Death Star to raze Alderaan, they could have thrown rocks at it.
The 'Star does make for a much better show, but it's incomparably more expensive and just way too much work to be worth it, rationally. But that's part of what makes it fun, and therefore relevant.
"Meh, just throw stuff at it from space" is just not the interesting way to deal with issues in most cases.

Doesn't mean there's absolutely no place for tungsten rods ever, but there's very much a place and a time for things like that.
Most starfinder games probably won't have much room for that kind of devastation, at least from the PC side of things. On the villain side, maybe moreso ("Ohnoes, the Corpse Fleet has accelerated an asteroid and aimed it at a populated planet ! Hope your Bruce Willis impression is on point, cause it's time to reenact Armaggedon.")

So yeah, there's no rule against it, it's more of a trope thing and a gentlemen's agreement.
Same reason Daimalko gets mechs to fight their kaijus, rather than parking dreadnoughts in orbit to bombard the beasties into oblivion... Or throw rocks at them.
It's not as fun.

And then, there's the in-game rp consequences of being known as someone who's entirely willing to unleash that kind of firepower, which is another issue entirely. That's hard to come back from.

Why are prices absolute and fixed, once and forever ? Shouldn't they fluctuate depending on whether there's a mine down the road or if the only one is on the other side of the world ? Can't I grab the cheapest diamond around and sell it to my bud for 1000gp, thus making it what he needs for his spellcasting ?

Because it's convenient and easy to handle.

That's it.
That's very much a game balancing thing, not a realism one - which is true for pretty much everything money end economy realted, if we're honest.
With how old of a world Golarion is, there otherwise would be pretty much no diamond left.

Besides, are diamonds really that rare in a world of magic ?
Because I'd absolutely expect an ambitious spellcaster to try and set up a mining operation in the Demiplane of Infinite Precious Gemstones.

That said if you're running a grittier/low magic game and want to restrict access to certain spells without removing them entirely, that's a pretty good way to do it.
Hint at it early on, then have your players realize that not only are these things getting pricey, they're also becoming simply much harder to find in the first place, making every spell cast a real choice. Fun times.

That's really not for everyone though, so if you're not running it that way, with all your players explicitely on board with the idea... Suspend your disbelief, ignore the economic nonsense, and buy your standardized, fixed price ration of diamond dust. There's worse things to worry about.

I'd guess that's the issue, all in all. Different people expect different things from the game.

Here, quite clearly, silver diamond and his players are not looking for the same kind of experience.
Pointing out that for every major hurdle they encounter you actually had provided them with a tool - and they wilfully chose to discard it despite warnings - that may help, yes. But it only goes so far.

If they expect to roll over everything without any challenge, and don't care to learn after repeated failures, it's likely by choice. They don't want to adapt, because the "puzzle" (simplistic and well known as it may be) doesn't interest them.

Are they interested in the rest of the game ? The social/political/intrigue/whatever stuff ? Or the exploration, investigation, lore etc ?
(clearly having to figure out better ways to fight doesn't, so let's not mention tactics and combat tricks)
Are they just here to get their murderhobo on ? Or, switching that around, do they just not care about combat in the first place and just want it to get over with asap?

To salvage the situation I suspect you'd need to figure out what they want, what you want, and figure out a compromise.
Don't run a game that bores you, but don't expect their interests to align perfectly with yours either.
You'll probably have to make concessions - just don't be the only one.

I'm not sure I understand why there isn't simply a blog post. It's where the news are, and it's where all other playtests showed up.

And I, for one, certainly was not expecting to have to look at the 42nd (nice) comment of an old post to learn that the playtest had started.
If not for the forums, which I suspect not everyone checks, I certainly would still be unaware. And getting impatient, might I add.

As any transformation using the Beast shape is a wild shape

Is it ? I'd say it's the other way around : Wild Shape acts as Beast Shape (early on and in most cases). But a Bloodrager, Magus or Sorc just casting the spell is not "wild shaped" in any way. At no point does that language appear in the spell's text, nor does it appear in Elemental Body or Plant Shape, the other spells default Wild Shape emulates.

Having the class feature is what matters here, any old polymorph spell is not enough.
Being a druid is not necessary though. As long as you have Wild Shape, you're good.

Now, is there room for something broader, for the other polymorphs that lose you your armor's AC ? Maybe. One could houserule something, though it would likely have to be even more costly than this already is.
But the Wild enchantment as it stands is very specific and exclusive.

You do not need to absorb the exact thing you end up manifesting. What it is you absorb doesn't matter, really, only its value.

That's your limiting factor : you absorb a single 5000 credit technological item (and a 10% UPB supplement), meaning you can learn forms of that value, and then manifest any of them, but only one at a time.
And there's enough discussions around here about the issues of the investement mechanic that I won't reiterate.

Adaptability is the name of the game with the gear array.

I was about to say something about sleeping turning arrays off, but having double-checked it turns out being asleep is not being unconscious? Good, if strange.
Still, locking down your array for one single piece of gear is highly counterproductive : you still need to have paid for it, and you're now preventing yourself from using any array.

Of course I mention fusions as an issue for array weapons but it's mostly the old issues with fusion seals, rather than anything specific to the Nanocyte. It just happens to make things worse for the gear array.

Right now, there's little to no incentive to use either of those.[meaning cloud and sheath]

Ah, that's why we can't understand each other. What I don't get is why you value Gear Array made weapons so highly above regular ones.

On another note, I don't get the "I need Knacks for that" argument.
You have knacks. You're going to spend part of them on whatever you choose to focus on anyway. Even if you're all about the gear.
Someone relying on array Heavy guns/armor (and why wouldn't you) will also need or benefit from a Knack, and Knacks and Disciplines (to a lesser degree) are the one way you'll have to make your weapons better (since fusions and accessories are out)... What part of this makes those options a Cloud and Sheath only concern ?

Gear Array needs new major forms to stay relevant, because weapons don't age well in this system. Minor forms are more about adding pure versatility, but I have no issue with these.
I might be giving a different impression with all this talk but I don't hate Gear Array, far from it : I love it. It's part of what I hoped for and expected from the class. It's a huge boon to the class versatility, as it should be (although I do believe we need a bunch more technological/personal items and cybernetic augmentations to really make it shine).
It's just that I really don't see the point of GArray weapons as the core of a Nanocyte's offense. It's not good enough.
I'm not even sure it's a bad thing : it's already (potentially) the most versatile of all arrays, it doesn't need to be the best at everything.

The Nanocyte's main gimmick is the Gear Array.

Says who ? I don't necessarily like it but if there's one "Main gimmick", of all three arrays it's probably the Cloud. It just gets the most, more efficient stuff. I also expect (and hope) the goal to be having all 3 fairly balanced.

So ... Yeah, I really don't see "Gear Array for weapons" being a main focus of the Nanocyte, at least as it is now.
Aside from the much discussed Investment issues, which are very much a thing, relying entirely on the array for weaponry means no accessories and no fusions. And I don't feel like the faculties and knacks do enough to compensate, though I could certainly be wrong.
Not ideal.
Array weapons as an emergency panic button, absolutely. But I wouldn't rely on it for my main offense.
Besides, "surprise weapon" is a lot less effective in a setting where half of everyone can kill you with their magic hands or just their minds. And everyone else can do it with the right tech, no need to be a Nanocyte.

I also don't know that the solar weapon progression would be as helpful as you seem to believe. Aside from the fact that one is the core feature of a class and the other is an option even Sheath specialists can safely ignore (if one great enough to build around), IUS + double specialization is at its best better than solar weapon + normal spe (and at its worst still competitive). Solarians do rely on crystals to supplement their output, and you're not getting more than basic specialization of top of an innate progression.

We don't talk about the halfling mafia.

And I feel you Merisiel. I suspect there aren't many of us who haven't had to suffer through overly elaborate plans.

A fun read, as always.

Be respectful (and at least somewhat accurate if you're pretending to be) ?

It's hard, building something so new that it manages to not borrow from any real world cultures. It obviously gets all the more difficult when you do it more than once.
What is easier is not building something that's straight up insulting to your inspirations.

The point on economy is important.
I do however believe Starfinder to be more versatile than just high fantasy in space. But that's another discussion.

To the original point : I would only have players feel the weight and weirdness of law and bureaucracy when it adds something, which is likely to be when circumstances are highly unusual.
- Dealing with customs of a culture with surprisingly different laws/rules.
- A port they're used to suddenly becoming a pain to deal with, and having to figure out why : is a higher up pressuring the port's staff to mess with them specifically ? Is everyone on edge because war's on the horizon ? Are they looking for something or someone ?
- Coming back to find your ship dismantled by jawas only to learn that yeah, that's legal here.
-...

This is however the kind of things you probably shouldn't abuse, as it's a valuable tool because it's uncommon, and you'll want to know if your players care for that kind of plot.

Or to put it more simply : don't have paperwork that is as boring as it is in the real world.
Make it clear that it happens, because you don't dock at Absalom Station and not register/sign a bunch of paper... but as long as it's routine, that's something for the characters to deal with, not the players.

There's a lot of potential there, for more intrigue focused campaign. But it's not for everyone.

I'd assume it's the same landmass, and the more general texts only mention Kortos because it's where the globally important stuff is, with Erran being a mere satellite of it.
It has its important aspects, but few compare favorably with the city at the center of the world.

It's also simply very unlikely that it just survived the starstone's impact from that close and managed to stay above water.

Agreed.
Also, I'm fairly confident Asmodeus would accept options other than summary execution anyway.
A trial and subsequent public execution, as a show of force. Accepting the surrender at the cost of an oath of fealty/servitude. Etc.
There's more ways to "not show mercy" than straight up slauthtering everyone, and Big A is all about those subtleties.

Take the mysticism out of it ?
I'd really hoped Vanguard would be the reasoned scientific answer to the Solarian's philosophical mysticism. Analyzing the situation with cold rationality and introducing the perfect amount of entropy in the system to achieve the desired effect.
The (oh so sad) loss of the relevant science skill post-playtest hurts that idea quite a bit but the source of a Vanguard's power is left vague on purpose : there is just no equivalent to the Cycle and the importance it has for Solarians.

For that matter, on the other hand, the Cycle itself is also quite viable for a Vanguard.

Well, good news : there kind of is ? In a way ?

There's a Str prerequisite to those proficiencies, if gotten via feats. So there's that.
On top of that, Heavy Weapons specifically also require 12 or 14 Str to be wielded without penalties.
Power Armour somewhat carries its own weight, by definition. Which is partly represented by it replacing your Strength.

Bulk is also a part of the equation : heavy weapons and armor are cumbersome, you're not gonna carry much else if you went for a low strength.

Another thing : a Skittermander would use an aptly sized heavy cannon, with no impact in its effectiveness. Weapon size has no effect in Starfinder : a specific gun does the same thing, whether it's made to be wielded by a Small PC or a Large one - and they can be adjusted to their user's size with a little engineering and/or a small fee.

I don't mind the argument that those should be 2 different items, but I don't get why bipods that are able to be used as foregrips, designed by civilizations with crazy sf spacetech and magic would be too flimsy to do what they were conceived to do.
The Pact Worlds have access to tech a tad better than our own, both in materials and weaponry. Who's to say their heavy guns pack more recoil than a bb gun ? It's enough of an issue that I'd expect compensating to be a decent priority in gun design. Not that a laser has much recoil to begin with.
Let's not use our 21st century's gun knowhow to balance a science fantasy space-op game, yes ?

To the original bracing question : if I was a gambling man, I'd be willing to bet bracing on a surface or with a forward grip is supposed to work the exact same way.
And we don't really know the duration of either, which is absolutely an issue, but I'd expect "until you move from that square, change your handedness or somehow use your grabby appendages for something else" to be the answer, as Ravingdork speculated earlier (... almost 2 years ago).

Here, as is ? Unlikely.
I think a clear post containing what we know and the issue we see, along with a bunch of FAQ clicks is the best chance to get an answer.

Let's try :

Tooth That Seeks Honor (Ex) 2nd Level

The second doshko tooth resists dishonor. Your training empowers you to recover from missed blows by extending your reach or changing tactics. When you miss an opponent with a melee attack with your doshko, you can grant that doshko the disarm, reach, sunder (Armory 30), or trip weapon special property until the start of your next turn. If you miss again before the start of your next turn, you can grant the doshko an additional special property from the list. You can grant a doshko only two special properties at a time with this ability.

The issue being :

All this meaning that gaining maneuver weapon properties, after an attack, that end at the start of one's next turn does basically nothing.
Reach has it a bit less bad, thanks to the potential for AoOs, but barely.

What's the intent here ?
Should it last until the end of next turn ?

...
Should this be its own thread ? I'm not sure about FAQ etiquette.

One needs some degree of power to ping, as has been pointed out earlier.
The most evil of weaklings won't get much of a reaction.

If those gobbo children ping, well, they're not actually kids. They're faking it, and hey : your paranoid paladin smelled it out before it became a problem.

He is the quintessential cult of personality autocrat. There's been enough of those to pick whichever one you want as inspiration.

Razmir being dead is a possibility, if an unlikely one. Although we don't know how he's doing these days, he was alive and reasonably well before the the 2E update. I am curious to see where he is going : the old man was worried, if not obsessed about his mortality ten years ago, and that usually does not get better. Will his new neighbours tempt him towards lichdom ? Is he just too attached to life and if so did he ever finally get himself some sun orchid elixir ? What other options is he looking at?

Also, how long until a lieutenant of his gets ideas about how and when the succession should happen and the skills to try something ?

It's not that dramatic a shift though, which I believe is the point.

From a god of order that almost exclusively concerns himself with humankind and is the absolute dominant faith (and one of the major political power), to a diabolist regime that puts humans (especially chelish ones) above all else... Not necessarily that much of a transition.

It's not for everyone, for sure, but neither is going over to the Inheritor. Iomedae might have been Aroden's Herald, but their Dogmas are quite different.

Is it really that much of an inconsistency ?

Before the Vesk conquest, Vesk-4 (then Talphiriax) had a preexisting solarian tradition : the spiritual leaders of the Talphi were powerful Solarians. They're presumably the ones who found the crystals in the first place.
Those solarian leaders also died en masse during the brief resistance to the Veskarium invasion, taking most of their ways and knowledge with them.

Fast forward to 289 AG, an enterprising vesk and latent solarian rediscovers the crystal deposits, realizing their nature and potential as whe awakens her own.

It's not crazy : we've certainly lost and rediscovered (or not) things in less time than that in our magic-lacking reality, especially during times of war and/or colonization.

I'm curious, what makes you think Hellknights or the Knights of Golarion (or both together) have the manpower to scrub the system clean, let alone the firepower ?

We have no numbers that I know of, and I can guarantee neither of those are popular everywhere and with every government. Vigilante justice, or the occasional bounty hunting, tend to be frowned upon by legitimate authorities.
And you do not deploy massive armies in-system without their express agreement.

For that matter, most orders of Hellknights have more pressing matters than pirate hunting. The Gate, Pike, Nail and Pyre have business elsewhere. Who knows what Furnace and Eclipse's deals are.
The Scourge and the Chain are the only obvious ones.

On the other hand, Pirates need allies, because stealing stuff only gets you so far if you can't sell it. And there are many, in the system alone, who wouldn't mind supporting them as one does a business partner, including a few with actual Pact World member status - something neither Knights have.

Besides, when would such a tremendously large scale operation have taken place ?
We have roughly 3 centuries post Gap. First few years/decades have to be people coming to terms with it and relearning hown to live normally. Then the Silent War takes up 255 of those years. Then the swarm incursion.
And that's without taking other more specific events into account : there's been a system wide plague, two alien races appearing seeking refuge, the android rights struggles, the Lashunta-Formian war went on right until 30 years ago, the forever dangerous Corpse Fleet, vicious "frictions" between established Pact World nations (Sovyrian vs Apostae), the entire world of Akiton basically becoming bankrupt following the sudden and unexpected obsolence of thasteron, and the first, ever so unfriendly contact with the Azlantis ... To name a few.
The less than 30 years since the Swarm is about the only moment when the world isn't on fire and going after highwaymen can be a reasonable use of such major resources.
And dealing with piracy isn't easy.

The Rock itself is more a matter of convenience than a strict necessity. Blowing it up might annoy the Captains and slow them a bit, but only for a time.

I will point out that every exploit that modifies what Debilitating Trick can do very explictly specifies a duration when there is one (even though it's usually "until the beginning of your next turn", like the default version).
Bleeding Shot is one of those who don't include that language. Now, granted, the other ones tend to either be instantaneous or refer to other basic rules, but there's no reason to believe the bleeding exploit doesn't follow normal bleeding rules.

It's also worth noting that Extended Debilitation specifically mentions Bleeding Shot as an example of exploit "without a set duration".
So yeah.
Pretty sure you bleed the same way everyone else does : until healed.
It's nice, but not game breaking.

The alchemist errata was supposed to come out not too long after new years. Almost 4 months later and zip. I got tired with being a liability to my party and I don't bother with the alchemist anymore, I rerolled for the new batch of low level PFS adventures and I'm not looking back.

Well... There was an errata. That's when the mutagenist actually got features, since he had none on release.

The alchemist just does not do much, and that's a shame because it is such a cool concept.
It somewhat finds itself in the situation of the 1E core rogue early on : Fun idea, but the mechanics really don't follow.

Worse part is, I'm afraid the way it's designed will make it difficult to "fix".
Better alchemical items will not help the preset infusions. Better research fields would only help by making those we have obsolete. Better feats.. Well do you want to be feat starved as an Alchemist ? Plus again, only works by making current options obsolete.
This is going to be tough, and I don't envy the team.
Including it in the CRB was a pretty big move, it's kind of a big iconic PF "thing", even going for radical shift in play style - which was fine... But it kind of fell on its face, and now needs a lot of help.

Mystic only, I believe.
It seems good, but not that far ahead of the resistant armor line (past the lesser iteration) and that lasts ten times longer.
So trading duration and versatility for slightly better DR and some retaliation.

The crazy part is the level.
A level one spell has no business competing that closely with a level six.
It really feels like it was supposed to be a line of a 3 to 6 spells , but slipped through as a single scaling level 1 somehow.
I expect a fast, fast errata, either splitting it into several or drastically slowing down the scaling.

"Mech" is still way too broad a concept.
We got power armors, a lot of which are large, with 1 Huge and 1 Gargantuan. That's a mech, by some definition.
We have a couple walker type vehicles. That too is a mech, by some definition. The ones we have so far are more AT-ST than Gundam, admittedly, but the rules still work.

Fiction gives us mechs anywhere from barely bigger than their pilots to comparable to SF's biggest ships.
Some transform, many don't, others are gd megazords. Some are lumbering giants, moving slowly and deliberately, while others are oversized ninjas.
Most are crewed by a single pilot, to the point it's almost the one defining constant of what a mech is. But that's not quite an absolute rule

So. More bipedal vehicles, more power armour, sure. And that's gonna happen organically anyway, I bet.
I don't really see the point of ship-like mechs, but small ones, maybe ?
Specific mech rules, though... What for ? What does it bring to the game we don't already have ?

It's kind of the old hide in plain sight thing.

Stealth Warp allows to stealth, even without cover, concealment or a diversion.
What does stealth actually do ?
To quote the relevant part : The check is opposed by the Perception checks of creatures in the area that might detect you. A creature that fails the opposed skill check treats you as if you had total concealment as long as you continue to have actual cover or concealment.
So you would have total concealment.
And one just can't attack someone with total concealment.
Best you can do is attack the square they're in and hope for a lucky shot, which is different enough.
You don't AoO squares, but legal provoking targets. So you're free to move away.
They will however stay aware of where you are until you break line of sight, basically.

With no mention of damage type in the baseline vesk's ability, I'd always assumed their natural weapons to be bludgeoning, as per normal unarmed attack.
So probably more of a tail slap or slam thing.

Other, admittedly more recent races, have explicit text changing their natural weapons to slashing or piercing, hinting at what bodyparts are used.
With no such language, I don't see why the Vesk specifically would get to choose. With now the option to go Venom for the possibility of piercing+poison while keeping bludgeoning as an option.

It might be more hubris than being a bad judge of character, actually.
Misplaced trust is certainly a possibility but ...
The man was inhumanly old, one of the very best mages mankind had ever produced, a status he reached by breaking the long standing traditions of a country built on magic no less, was convinced enough of the right of his philosophy that he chose exile - from a country ridiculously advanced compared to the rest of the world - over renunciation, then led thousands of followers in the "barbaric" lands of Avistan, built a tremendous empire (and not a good aligned one, btw) from scratch and had been sitting on that throne ever since.
Not to mention his work sowed the seeds that would lead Azlant (and the runelords) to realize the influence of the Veiled Masters.
I'm not sure the idea of failure, of making mistakes, of being wrong, even occured to him at this point.

He chose the very best in their fields to become the incarnations of his ideas. It had worked so well for him, so clearly he was right.
Being the best in their respective schools had to mean noone could personify the corresponding Virtue of Rule the way those seven could. It only made sense. The theory worked.
Until it didn't.

Sounds like your everyday sky-high Int, low/average Wis wizard, really. No matter how it happened.

For that matter, speaking of said virtues : Kindness and Charity ? Not on the list.

Power corrupts. Not that they were chosen for their morals to begin with.
The ones who turned on Xin were the first class. The man had theories and ideals, but Sense Motive was not his strong suit.

For that matters, two of them original ones made it to the modern day, and Sorshen is still around.

It just so happens that Dragon scales are exactly tough enough to compensate for the scaly beast's size, AC wise.
While on the other hand, your tiny drone is made of materials lightweight enough to allow flight, which makes its construction precisely flimsy enough to take away the benefits of its size.

In other words, there's no size modifiers in SF, and you can justify it however you want.
It's not exactly uncommon, many games choose to ignore broad size modifiers, adapting each creature as needed. If a beast is supposed to be hard to hit, boost its AC. Whether it's because or size, toughness or otherwise.

Pretty ladies do get redeemed at a much higher rate than anything else. And there's still not a lot of dumb ugly Good things. That'd be worth examining on its own.

Sorshen is more on the side of normal, though.
She's human, by some definition. That's some amount of free will, the possibiliy of a choice.
And more importantly, there's a healthy dose of pragmatism there : the world has changed and in a mere few years the people from this new world have pruned the runelords down to two.
She was there when it began, she thought she'd seen it all and nothing like that ever happened, self preservation is a strong motivator to adapt. That she herself was tired of it is a nice bonus.

Sadly, the big of it happened off screen.
We knew it was coming on the meta front, we saw hints in WotW, but the details kind of just never made it to us.
To be fair, it'd be hard to involve PCs and just a huge infodump isn't easy to fit in most books. Still, I hope we learn more someday.

The hope for a kind of "faction book" has been around for a while. With an entire galaxy to explore though, it's understandably not happening that fast.
We got Pact Worlds, Near Space is coming... Maybe Far Space next, if only for the Azlantis ? I don't know what's planned.

The Diaspora Free Captains would fit in a faction-type book.
Plus I still want to know what those new Hellknight orders do, and which minor ones are around.
And more information about the one true megacorp that is the Aspis Consortium.
Plus we'll get to see who the bad guys and organized crime are in the Veskarium soon, and I if that book is similar to PW, that info will have to be somewhat superficial on the organization aspect, to fit the pages. Maybe more in depth actually, since the Veskarium is likely more united than the Pact system. Hmm. Hopes up.
Etc..

We still know little about most of Golarion on the PF side, it'll be a while before we're done exploring the galaxy on this side.

Beyond BG information though, I have to agree with xenocrat : the options we have aren't really "aligned". You can be a true monster with what the CRB has. Or a real good guy.
I actually feel like the few we do have are more thematically evil on average, though I'll admit I haven't counted.

We have little info on Casmaron as a whole, so you won't find much.
There's Kelesh, Vudra and Iobaria, Iblydos and what's peft of Ninshabur, and... That's about the extent of what we know. Well, there's bit and pieces.
Still, the wiki has some stuff.
But that's a massive continent, full of terra incognita. Here be dragons. Maybe ?
Also, legendary kingdoms fallen to ruin and surely full of stuff that could be used in the makings of doomsday devices, yes ?

Speaking of, there's also an absolutely massive landlocked sea in there as well. And I don't think we know who and what's on the shores all that precisely, so it's free real estate if you want to create stuff and still be in Golarion. If you're okay with a less european vibe.

Does it have to be an ocean ?
Because that sure sounds like a rekindling of the Nex/Geb war, with the Mana Wastes in between.
With Arazni gone, Geb's back to actually having to rule, so if you have Nex hinting at his own comeback, the region will erupt into total war. And those figureheads are so well known their countries are the named after them.

I can't really think of powerhouse nations on opposite sides of a sea in Golarion, at least not without neighbors that would absolutely interfere in your scenario.

Although, scaling it down around Lake Encarthan could work.

But really, I'd just make stuff up. If you want to steal things from Golarion, that's fine.

Edit : or, OR... Go full-on crazy and scale way up, make it intercontinental, Avistan versus Arcadia.
That's a big sea in between, and it's full of Azlanti things for all your doomsday devices needs.

You can't take Armor Proficiency and directly go for Heavy Armor. You need to be proficient with Light and Medium beforehand so that's 3 feats, which is the Signifier's issue.
Order of the Gate aside, you'll also need some form of weapon proficiency on top of that.

It's been discussed since the archetype came out, and I don't think I've read anything about about exempting wizards from the prereqs or making it easier on them. Nor do I believe the team's ever spoken on the subject?
Older threads might have more info and prove me wrong.

For how short those flash fics are, they're consistently just really fun.
I find myself looking forward to the next one, again.

Maybe she's big enough on some other world(s).
I mean, Nethys is around now, and he's not the only magic themed god around : the Golarion market is getting crowded.

Also, with New Thassilon being a thing she just might make a come-back. Probably not too much in the Sorshen part - unless she corrects her alignment which is highly unlikely (and I expect Sorshen is in no hurry to be reminded of that past) - but she should still be okay in Edasseril.

Ye gods. This works so well I'll never be able to get that idea out of my head now.

Damn you!

It's also not like there's a lot to compare him to.
Wizards that powerful are few throughout history - and of those alive, few are above question.
Sorshen, Geb and the likes, if they ever met him, could just say "yeah... Not a god, just a guy in a mask" but convincing the world is another issue entirely.
Sorshen's the goodest and most neutral towards him I can think of in Avistan, and she's an original runelord.

He has leveled cities on his own, and more importantly he has spent decades building its own myth. He can claim to be whatever he wants : he doesn't need to convince everyone, just enough to continue spreading his faith.
For all we know, that alone could grant him godhood at some point : most Gods don't care, but faith does have power.

However, we are getting ever closer to the day his age really catches up to him, and that is going to be interesting. I hope we get at least a few scenarios out of it.
I'm slightly salty something like the end of Sargava happened in the background, I hope we players get involved in the future of Razmir.

Oh wow, I didn't realize there was that much info available.

This confirms a lot of speculation : cavalier and vigilante as well as classic PrCs coming back as multiclass archetypes, planetouched and similar as "global" heritages,...
A bit surprised to see the Champions of Evil coming out first, but I guess villains need building...

A lot of good looking stuff in there.