Rafkin's page

It's still Paizo. Every possible way to build a character will exist eventually.

Use his job as a merchant to help transport freed slaves and/or AAF members.

StarCitizen ship matrix

The only good thing I can say about StarCitizen is that its ship matrix has a lot of cool ideas for Starfinder ships.

Brief background: Android with exocortex commits a crime, is caught, chooses to let the Machine Court hears his case, found guilty, android chooses renewal instead of his sentence. Player's character begins when this android wakes after however long.

What do you think the status of the exocortex would be? Functional? Memories intact?

Not really a rules question, I'm just looking for quasi-logical explanations for whatever the status of the exocortex is.

Lord Fyre's rework of my Upper Class theme is better written and avoids the original balance issues. Here it is:

Stellar Noble:+1 Cha
While not all worlds will have anything resembling a titled aristocracy, but most have a “nobility” consisting of families commanding unusual wealth, prestige, or political power. You were raised in one of these powerful families, learning from a very young age the importance of etiquette and appearances. As an adventurer, you are able to leverage your family’s reputation to advance yourself and your causes.

Theme Knowledge (1st)
"It's Not What You Know. It's Who You Know" is a maxim you have taken to heart. Reduce the DC of Culture checks and Diplomacy checks to recall knowledge about the political, economic, or titled aristocracy of any world by 5. You receive double the normal starting credits at character creation, and your family connections always allow you to buy items at level +2 (or level +3 in a major settlement). Due to your social rank, you gain an ability adjustment of +1 to Charisma at character creation.

Only The Best! (6th)
A noble must maintain suitable appearances (and one who behaves or dresses shabbily may be cut off by the family). You no longer need to track payment for many services, including clothing, lodging, and such (at GMs discretion of course). No you may not casually share these items and services with other characters not possessing this theme, without risking your family’s ire.

Social Standing (12th)
At this point, your wealth and status no longer depends on your family reputation, your own accomplishments (or scandals) make you a force to be reckoned with (A DC 10 culture check will recognize your name). When interacting with another “noble” (be they an aristocrat, merchant prince, or similar high official) you may role Diplomacy twice and take the better result.

Power is Wealth, Weath is Power (18th)
At this point you have likely gained whatever inheritance you are entitled to, and adding this to your personal wealth and prestige, you are now a person of consequence that no one in the galaxy can ignore. Up to twice per day, when you are acting in a position of leadership or authority, you recover 1 RP. On this normally takes at least 10 minutes of work (and obviously doesn’t count as rest to regain SP).

Upper Class: +1 Cha

You were raised in an upper class family. Wealthy corporate bigwigs, powerful politicians, maybe royalty on some planets.

Theme Knowledge[1st]

You have an air of superiority about you and can use this to intimidate others into doing things for you. At character creation you receive 2000 credits instead of 1000. Reduce the DC of non-combat Intimidate checks by 5. Intimidate becomes a class skill, etc, etc.

Daddy Please?[6th]

At 6th level and every two levels after that, you can make a Bluff check vs DC 15 to receive 5,000 credits, an additional 1000 credits for each point you succeed by.

Abadar Black[12th]

You have an unlimited credstick that can be used to pay for any services, including lodging, professional services, recharging stations, transportation, and other at GMs discretion.

Nepotism[18th]

You gain a influential role in your families endeavors. Whenever you make a Profession check to earn wages you gain credits equal to ten times your skill check result instead of two.

Once per day, whenever you successfully Intimidate an NPC, out of combat, you regain a Resolve point.

So, definite A for effort, although there is a definite cis-writer's-take-on-being-trans, come to a decision, hop into a building, tada, one-and-done angle here which is arguably dismissive of what we have to deal with in reality.

I'm not sure that's fair. This isn't reality and in a universe where gender doesn't really matter and can easily be changed its possible that "what we have to deal with" doesn't apply.

Well, by order of operations:

DC= 10 + 2 x ship tier would be:

Tier 1= 12
Tier 2= 14
Tier 3= 16
etc,

If it's suppose to be DC= (10 + 2) x tier then that's a problem as a tier 3 ship would require a DC 36 just to put it in reverse (Back Off maneuver)

You can't use realistic economics when your scenario involves a flashlight that cost more to make than it sells for.

If you met a priest of the religion you followed, regardless of their level, wouldn't you start as helpful anyway?

I'm not religious but when I see nuns at the grocery store I feel guilty for not carrying their bags or something.

I wonder if those space dwarves just mined Golarian into nothingness

I didn't realize my 2012 Ford Escape was more advanced than a spaceship. It can charge all kinds of things.

The costs of everything is out of whack.
Survival knife 1d4 95 credits
Tactical knife 2d4 (the next upgrade) 6000 credits.

Battle Staff 1d4 80 credits
Carbon Staff 1d8 6150 credits.

We operate under the assumption that Hit Points are an abstraction of near misses, bruising, etc...Characters aren't getting stabbed 10 times with a sword even though their enemy rolled a hit 10 times.

So why are larger races getting more HP? If a "hit" can actually mean a "near miss"?

If a half-orc gets more HP because his extra bulk can take a beating then shouldn't a Halfling get more HP because he can avoid getting hit?

Edit: Especially in a system without racial limits where my Halfling can have the same Str/Con as any half-orc but gets fewer HP.

It would be great to resurrect StarDrive (Alternity) with Starfinder rules. It's the best setting book I've ever read.

I believe it was confirmed on The Drift podcast that Starfinder would hit HeroLab at launch. Sorry, my memory isn't good enough for details.

It would be a mistake to judge enthusiasm based on feedback from fans. If every forum member, every PaizoCon attendee, every podcast listener, all bought every Starfinder product, that's still not enough to support a product line.

We all represent maybe 1% (wild guess) of Paizo customers. No product in memory floods the market with books before they get a PROVEN customer base. Proven, as in, people buying their books.

Dead Phoenix wrote:

Yes! I hate that trope, but as soon as technology shows up, magic either disappears or just does not play well with it. And the excuses for it always seem half assed... Glad that's not the case here.

I have never seen a good explanation, it was always just hand-waving about the two interfering with each other so your electronics short-circuited when you cast spells and your spells were weaker if you had a bunch of cybernetic implants, all because.

Shadowrun tries to explain it with something like, removing body parts for cybernetics lessens your life force...which affects your magic potential.

Do these factions exists outside of organized play?

Can a regular character belong to one of these factions, without the boons, for roleplaying or backstory reasons?

Kingmaker in space? Yes please!

A free one!

J/K

Something that leads to the players getting their ship would be cool.

Thinking that "sandbox" requires open PvP for content was a mistake. I realize this was a decision driven by a meager budget but it really never gave PFO a chance. I don't think Ryan, or anyone else, had bad ideas. The budget forced bad ideas.

They should have realized during the Kickstarter that most of the support was from the TT players who just wanted the goodies.

What's the pre-reqs for the Four-Weapon Fighting feat? Hmm...

Kinda lost me at "tablet game". But I like the direction.

This training systems seems horrible.

For one, you're limiting player choice which is always a bad idea in an MMO.

Secondly, isn't fighter/cleric going to be better than any other combo?

Third, you want players joining settlements because they want to be social with those people. Because they have similar play styles or goals or they just think they're cool dudes.

You've now made "what classes do you train" the deciding factor in joining a settlement.

I can't even fathom how you thought this would be a good idea.

I disagree that they've strayed from their original vision. It's been a PvP settlement war game from the beginning.

I've always felt their use of the term "sandbox" was misleading and just a way to say "the game lacks content". At best it's only a sandbox for the 1% leading settlements. But everyone defines the term differently.

The bottom line is the only way this game gets made, with this budget, is to focus on PvP so GW doesn't have to hire 100 people to churn out PvE content as fast as we consume it. Which is a losing battle anyway.

I'd much rather have a game more in line with the PnP game but I understand it's just not feasible in the MMO market without a $100 million+ investment. So I'll take what I can get and make the best of it.

Herdy dur mur flipty floopin. Yer der shmer dor her foomty, der shoopin flerpty dur.

I think Ryan is as much a victim of perception over facts as Golgatha was. I don't think this thread is appropriate at all.

In a game where you can take other players hard earned stuff and Zerg forces can dominate it's going to be difficult to avoid a toxic forum environment.

We've done a fine job so far but it'll be a challenge going forward.

Keep in mind that we're not Goonsquad. I'm not in a leadership position but I've never seen any indication that we want to dominate The River Kingdoms. I've never seen a discussion on "how will we take someone's settlement away from them".

We want to have an nation/empire but it's not a "join us or die" scenario. We will expand to get the resources we need, not just because we can.

I'm speaking for a lot of people and I shouldn't be but my impression over the last year with Pax is that we'll have a lot more fun with trading and diplomacy than we will with conquering.

The settlement alignment restrictions is what drove us to split into three guilds. We needed a place for every member to play whatever alignment they wanted. It wasn't a strategic move. One massive Pax Aeturnum would have been more of a threat than what we have now.

I guess I'm confused. Its been stated that guilds can buy votes, bargain for votes, do whatever they want for votes.

But then its also been said you shouldn't vote for a guild that you're not going to play with.

How are those both true statements?

Xeen wrote:

The expansion outside of that will only happen if the game becomes massive... Good luck with that plan.

With as big as the existing Pathfinder fan base already is I don't think this will be a problem. It might take a year or two to grow to the sizes where they would need to expand but I definitely think it will happen.

I'm not sure the popularity of the Pathfinder game is a reliable indication of anything. This is a PvP game where you can lose stuff. That sentence alone will turn away 99.9% of MMO players.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing. It's suppose to be a niche game and would probably break with 100,000 players.

At the risk of proving your point I have to say this is a ridiculous, unwarranted accusation. These boards have been the cleanest I've ever came across.

One thing I've always thought Everquest did well was having the various class trainers in appropriate settings. Warrior trainer is in the arena, Necro trainer is in hidden sewer tunnels, cleric trainer is in a temple, etc, etc. Good and Evil clerics even had different trainers in the appropriately styled areas.

A lot of games now just have one trainer for all classes or they place various trainers all in the same room. It's a little thing but it made a big difference when it came to immersion.

I doubt many settlements will be able to support having multiple cleric trainers but I'm hoping that not all "training halls" will be identical.

I like the UNC. They will unwittingly help me roleplay a monk with a vow of poverty.

Are those minis the same ones were getting from previous Kickstarter? Assuming we pledged earlier enough?

The grip on that staff is too low. Looks awkward.

Environments look awesome.

Trying to change someone's behavior on the internet is nearly impossible. I'm not wasting my time with them and they'll be ignored like every other game.

Crowdforging isn't going to work if every debate devolves into people arguing about who was rude first. Or calling people out as "being negative" whenever they voice an opinion different from Goblinworks.

Let's try to focus more on the topics and less on each other.

What's always concerned me with tying mechanics to alignment is that there will mostly likely be a "best" or most efficient alignment and most everyone will be that.

The roleplaying nature of alignment is being totally bastardized by attaching overly restrictive mechanics to it.

I hate the real money stores because I don't have the willpower to not spend money there. I'm playing Marvel Heroes, a free game, and I spend more than $15 a month at their store. (I really hope they run out of different Ironman suits soon)

What I really don't like is the subscription game PLUS a cash shop. You end up with the marketing guys taking all the best stuff for the shop.

20 odd years of playing RPGs and never once seen anyone affected by an alignment shift.

I'm not against an alignment system. I just haven't seen a single thing from GW regarding alignment that sounds interesting. It's all very black and white and bland.

It's a sandbox game. If we want our settlement to have a paladin training center in the town square and an Assassins Guild hidden in a back alley then that should be our choice to make.

I don't mind having an alignment system but any system that forces player segregation, especially in a sandbox, doesn't sound like a good idea.

Jan 5th will be the Black Friday of the River Kingdoms. With prices dropping as the markets are flooded by merchants with a day of bandit free travel.

I like it!

We could probably spends days debating the relevance of alignment in the table top game.

All I know is that if alignment didn't exist the good guys would still be good and the bad guys would still be bad. Having your alignment written down on a character sheet rarely affects any gaming session.

I don't imagine the alignment system is going to impact the way I play the game but it will impact who I can play the with.

Systems, be it alignment or not, that put restrictions on players is the antithesis of an open sandbox world.

The reputation system is needed to combat griefing. The alignment system seems forced.

In my opinion the alignment system seems to be more trouble than its worth. The amount of enjoyment or benefits players get out of this system is minimal compared to the amount of work required to make it functional.

I think the Reputation system should be broad enough to accomplish anything that might be covered by an alignment system.

I just want to move with the mouse. Classic MMO style. I have a hard time with games that force keyboard movement.

I didn't read all the post so I apologize if this has been asked but will the 2nd tick of a DoT spell/ability count as hitting someone twice?

There's an obvious way to settle this, Ryan, you're going to need to give us access to your internal testing servers.

:o)

It's always better to fight with people you know will buy you an ale later