Pantshandshake's page

I'd hazard a guess that if you can name a drug, there's a place where humans gather to use said drug. People being people, and all.

Dude, there's like 70 races...

The only place you're going to get a shortened list that still maintains functionality is the CRB.

Kevin. Or Jerome. Those are good second deck names.

I don't think anyone will contest that if there were another wall behind it, the attack would also strike the wall, too.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Oh
Oh man
Oh that tickled me.

There's a thread somewhere in the rules section, something about adamantine rail gun rounds, that will probably blow your mind about who will argue about what.

Rovagog/the devourer took a bite out of the space time continuum and the gods had to put it back

That's why so many things don't quite work the way they should. We're in the "Play-Doh and popsicle sticks" reality.

Maybe they could rework them into an actual trait for robotic aliens.

I had Titanfall in mind, in which you have regular weapons and anti-Titan weapons

I dunno, heavy weapons that can target a mech's core on impact, or scramble its auxillary systems, or whatever :P

Doubtful on the legs. They'd need to be either just flavor, in which case, go ahead and do it, or they'd need to rework various racial bonuses to account for the added legs bonus.

Weapons that are specifically anti-mech seem a little too niche. Nobody is going to buy those unless they're also at least as good as regular weapons as well as having anti-mech properties, and if that's the case, they're going to have to be ridiculously overpriced, which is a lot to ask in the starfinder economy for 'just in case there's a mech fight.'

Yes, as long as the character has a free hand while wielding the weapon, you treat it like its not unwieldy. Trick or full attack becomes a legal action.

Well, there are the X Legs augmentations for players. Everyone can have 4 legs. I agree that we also need treads. Or a hover disc!

As far as anti-vehicle weaponry, we've already got weapons with Penetrating to ignore hardness. What other kinds of anti-vehicle do you have in mind?

I've come around a little on SMGs.

If they weren't eligible for trick attack, and instead served as a midway point for classes that don't inherently have longarms, I think they'd be pretty good.

That's a hard no from me. Not a big fan of racing.

I did some further research, and I'm surprised that there is no option for unarmored character builds. I know that SF is designed to keep PCs within a specific range of game values, and to ensure that many of those require PCs to get regular upgrades of equipment to create balanced PCs; but it is missing a element of the genre that PF1 and PF2 actually has.

It works pretty well in a game where armor is, barring enchantments and such, just a way to get AC. You can do a Monk and add wis to AC, increase the AC at certain level intervals, bake it into class bonuses, natural armor, spells, etc.

It's kind of out of place in a game where you need armor just to go outside in a fair amount of the setting, not to mention it's how many people communicate, and where everyone stores a good portion of fancy items (armor mods.)

My initial post about the GM rebuilding ships was to make sure I understood the dynamic we were talking about. That being, if every ship has to use the same build rules and the same build prices, then nothing has changed. The playing field is still level, everyone has the same options relative to their opponents. Maybe you’re doing a total of 10d4 damage instead of 15d6, but so are they, and each ship’s defensive arrangements are likely in a similar state.

That being said, Senko, I find your post to pretty much be wrong. I believe you're theorycrafting without enough actual play experience to back your points up. I could be wrong, and if I am, I apologize.

However, nobody needs the best twin linked turreted weapon to win a space fight. That it might not be affordable with certain weapons at certain tiers now is immaterial. I've been building and rebuilding the ship for my party through 10 tiers of ship now, I've never twin linked the best gun, and we’ve yet to get into a fight we couldn’t win. (honestly, I find the entire idea of the ball of death super turret ship to be distasteful min-max munchkinery, and if I have the option, I won’t play with those kind of people.)

Additionally, with the highest rated power core, and assuming 1 engineer to divert every turn, a ship is getting 15 shield points back per turn. And that’s with the BEST power core. In all likelihood, it’s a less powerful core, with an associated lower amount of shields per divert action. Granted, there might be a second part-time engineer for emergencies, but that character probably has another job that isn’t getting done now.

I'm not sure I'd put heavy or light torpedo launchers above nuclear missiles. Aside from their original stats in the book, they also sound like they're a sub-nuclear munition just from the name.

I'm on the fence about whether a plasma based explosive would be stronger than a nuclear explosive. My knowledge of plasma is somewhat sketchy, but I believe it's just an energetic state of matter, and I'm fairly sure that a nuclear explosion has enough energy to convert matter into plasma, which makes me think it's probably not "stronger" than a nuclear weapon.

Hellfire/Quantum/Solar is just stuff you're making up, so no reason why those couldn't be stronger than nuclear, if you so desire.

Antimatter is definitely many orders of magnitude more energetic than a nuclear reaction. I guess we can presume that in the Starfinder reality, they've solved the expense of making and containing it, and have figured a containment method that's safe enough to have the weapons be fairly common.

Step two would probably be to homebrew some sort of environmental protection item, since you're losing that aspect of armor.

That is currently what I am concerned about. It honestly feels like common sense for it to cascade to every race that has unarmed strikes. But this means that two of my SFS characters (Morlamaw/Formian) are going to have to buy a hecking Mnemonic Editor to rewrite the levels in other classes/feats they took to make shields a part of their outfit. I felt like we simplified things a bit with the errata with unarmed strikes around when COM came out, but now we've taken a step backwards into complexity/"well in this case that doesn't work."

Wait, really? You have to spend character resources to correct something broken by a rules update? That's insane.

Wouldn't a GM have to rebuild NPC ships to follow the optional budget rule anyway, regardless of the cost of various ship ingredients?

I mean, I presume nothing in the books have been using this optional rule, so if a GM is forcing players to use it, I'd think the GM would also have to use it.

I was afraid that would be the most apt answer.

The only issue with that I have is "why play [Base] connection..." if you are going to be forced to 'hop' into a second one to make up for something you lost trying to not be 'like every other [same] connection'. I like the idea of the mystic but it feels like they spent all their efforts giving other classes multiple options to make the class PCs want to play and ran out of time to make the 'space cleric' dynamic.

You can be a space cleric, if you want, though its not generally considered a good choice. Just take the healing connection.

As far as your other point, between connections, epiphanies, feats, and spells, mystics have a ton of customization options. The only thing making you be a cookie cutter build is... you.

Well. The weapon description says "More expensive versions encase a fired dart in a monofilament casing." So I'd guess that's code for "only the higher level versions have entangle." So it's probably not an error in the Archives that the lower level versions don't have it.

The level 3 version seems like trash, in that you're paying a gigantic premium just for the injection property, compared to other similar level rifles.

But the other levels all look pretty in-line in terms of damage/range/cost.

Since there's no language allowing lower level connection powers, then it's either 2 or 3, since those are both the same answer.

Now that's a cool homebrewed ship module. I knew you had it in you.

As far as the economy of giving players free money (even a pittance at at time can add up), it's been my experience that even if you dump more money than WBL would usually assume players have, as long you're on top of enforcing item level restrictions, you'll probably see players upgrading weapons and armor slightly earlier than usual, but for the most part it ends up with players spending more money on cool, but not gamebreaking, things that they otherwise wouldn't have purchased.

There's way too many cool augments that get skipped by because players need to save 50k credits for the next level and a half so they can get another d8 on their weapon or 1 more AC.

I presumed that this would be for a game where fuel costs aren't handwaved. Otherwise, my answer would have been much shorter.

On another note, it doesn't cost 1000 credits for 1 UPB. I think you're getting hung up on the numbers given in the UPB section. Its actually 1,000 UPBs have 1 bulk, and the cost is 1,000 credits for 1,000 UPBs, thusly:

SFS Legal UPB (1000)
Source Starfinder Core Rulebook pg. 233
Category Trade Goods
Price 1,000; Bulk 1

He's being too nice! THEY'RE CANCELLING STARFINDER!

Not bad.

I'd like to see it come in different models, like sensors.

A basic model that's cheaper that basically only automates fuel collection.

A more expensive model that maybe converts a percentage of what it collects into UPBs.

A very expensive model that lets you actually collect things from space (mining various kinds of metals, etc.)

Anyone remember the AD&D barehanded/wrestling charts? I'd like that, but for mechs.

And some truly weird mech-scale enemies. I want to Evangelion up this mess.

Bio-mechs!

A setting that includes a giant colosseum for mech gladiator fights.

A gyroscopic cup holder so I don't need a second operator to hold my beer.

I'd rather see something a la the Geth, a not-necessarily-evil society of artificials that won the war against their murderous/oppressive creators, and now harbor a grudge against organics.

Pantshandshake wrote:

Dracomicron wrote:

It's easy, they just use their grooblutz.

Can you imagine people not knowing about the grooblutz? In this day and age? Ridiculous.

I don't blame them. Solids. They don't know any better. They've never had or needed a grooblutz in their entire lives.

Then again, they don't go out of their way to learn about the wonderful diversity of grooblutzes, either.

Ooze lives matter.

Just once I wish the cultural appropriation would go both ways, Draco. Sure, everyone polymorphs into an ooze. Great resistances, they say. No problem finding food, they'll exclaim. Do they once think that maybe an ooze wants to check out how fingers work? No. No they don't.

Sounds like step one is for the players to eventually get to an individually tailored mini dungeon as 'random' plots of solid ground in the drift.

Perhaps each one contains a puzzle that interacts with another player's dungeon (red warrior hits a switch, a door opens in the green archer's dungeon.)

Maybe once the final puzzle is completed in all the dungeons, the separate landmasses join together, and now you have a party adventure based on escaping or being rescued from the drift.

Which would segue nicely into "these aren't rescuers at all, they're mindflayer slavers!"

Or those spider people that liked to enslave umber hulks in old-timey Starjammer.

It's easy, they just use their grooblutz.

Can you imagine people not knowing about the grooblutz? In this day and age? Ridiculous.

It says it increases the size category by 1 for calculating armor cost. So do that.

It doesn't say it increases the ship's size category for anything else. So don't do that.

The vast majority of them have a range that makes it quite easy to use them as a direct fire weapon. A smart pilot will maneuver his ship so gunner isn't firing a missile at an arc with point defense.

It's also possible, but slightly more difficult, to stack tracking weapons so they all arrive on the same turn, giving you a rather nice alpha strike to start combat.

The exception would be that normally burst effects are targeted at a grid intersection, and this isn't.

It would, but not because it's a burst. It would target a grid because its an area of effect.

This spell isn't really an area of effect, as it only effects one square, the square you target.

As far as I can tell, what the spell does would still follow the specific burst rules.

Well... Maybe? The FAQ only says that you can't change the speed, not that you can't magically add different modes of movement. I'd say it works, but I'd expect table variation and for some folk here to disagree.

Plus, if you do too good of a job making a machine to make machines, that original machine is going to suddenly get itself a soul, and BAM, now you're slaver.

So it seems clear that the intention is that this is an exception to the normal burst effect targeting rules. It targets a single 5ft square and the 5ft diameter burst affects that square.

It's not really an exception to the burst rules, so much as usually there would be a larger area effected.

Just play a mean SRO?

Pantshandshake wrote:

I couldn't quote you the rules to save my life, but I know Battletech mechs have inbuilt melee strikes. IIRC, kicks if you have legs and punches if you have arms with hands.

There's also DFA (Death From Above) if you have jump jets. You launch into the air and land on an enemy for massive damage. I mean, you probably break your own legs, too, but it's worth the price if you can flatten a tough enemy without having to plink away at their armor with guns and missiles.

Hah, good call. It's been so long since I've tried that I forgot it exists.

I couldn't quote you the rules to save my life, but I know Battletech mechs have inbuilt melee strikes. IIRC, kicks if you have legs and punches if you have arms with hands.

Ixal wrote:

I fail to see what the point of mech combat actually is.

The point of mech combat is RIDING GIANT ROBO MECHA INTO BATTLE!

Building mechs is gonna take time and effort, just like starships.

Pre-built Mechs is for people who don't wanna take the time and effort to build mechs. Just like pre-built starships.

Mech combat is a boost to PCs fighting tougher opponents or other mech opponents. It is a power boost.

I do agree that player agency needs to be addressed in starship combat and mech combat. Give players more options.

Yeah, you kind of need to think Mechs are really damn awesome (which I do) to get excited about it.

I mean, Starfinder and Pathfinder are essentially the same thing. But I like Starfinder so much more just on the basis of LASERS and 'SPLOSIONS over MORE SWORDS or LOOK ANOTHER CLERIC.

Cellion wrote:

Enhanced Resistance was changed to apply to your choice of only one kinetic damage type (slashing, bludgeoning or piercing) or one energy type. [ooc](Wow, the gravy train is finally over.)

Well, most of my melee characters are boned, I guess. Yikes.

Agreed. I'm going to push my GM to either ignore this or add a "you can take this feat multiple times for different types of DR" thing.

I don't know, letting solarian weapons do this presents some issues. Bigger versions of weapons don't do more damage in Starfinder, so why would a bigger solarian weapon do more damage? Also, if a mech can have a bigger solarian weapon that does more damage, why can't a solarian in a huge power armor, or just a large sized PC?

Why couldn't I put a Crystal Array in my jeep and have a car-sized energy axe for ramming?

Ditto for something that scales spells up. Why wouldn't I put that in a big old armor, or on a Hover Tank? Or hell, a power plant from a mech in my living room and turn my house into a big spell-gun?

Next AP: Someone's Moving The Beacons!

By the way everything is worded, I'd say yes, though you should definitely ask your GM before you plan on it.

Whoa. It seems insanely overpowered for a level 7 party to have 2 tier 6 ships.

I guess it would depend what you're fighting?

This thread really went some places.

What a black hole lacks compared to other supermassive objects is a magnetic field. They exist, but the means by which a magnetic field is generated are disrupted by the way matter is arranged and distorted by the overwhelming forces inherent in a Black Hole.

So you're saying that if my magnetic field gets sucked out into space and pulled into a black hole it'll get disrupted? Do I still get to go to heaven after that?

You actually don't split BP.

If you have two starships, both should be tier = APL-1 each, three APL-2, and so on.

Correct, and fair point. I should have been more specific.

Yes, and yes. Your first question is detailed in the Space Operations Manual which recently came out, and your second is at least partly answered by how expansion bays/hangar bays/launch tubes are ruled.

Well, you're not giving them any feats.

They're gaining the benefit of a feat you already have.

So yes, I'd say they receive the benefit whether they meet the prerequisite or not.

Re: Blowing out into space.
If the wall of a room you're in is suddenly gone, and the ship isn't internally sealed between compartments, then all the atmosphere tries to leave at once. That's kind of the only way you'd actually get ejected, and you'd still need to be free standing at the time. If you were strapped in, or even sitting down and could hold on to something that wouldn't also get ejected, you'd be fine.

Re: Black holes.
They have the same gravitational attraction as any other object the same mass. If the Sun turned into a black hole right now, the amount of gravity wouldn't change. So, the inescapable gravity bit is 'true' in that anything big enough would have the same 'pull,' its not a function of the object being a black hole or not.