Ravien999's page

Very excited to see how this plays out in the end. The previews we've gotten from playtests so far make this a very melee-centric beatstick class, especially with the focus on Strength.

As a lover of the Flare and Armor Solarians, Strength has always been antithetical to the vibe of all of my Solarian characters, so switching them away from the thematic mental key stat from their lore to a Strength key stat feels like encouraging the bad meta solarian stereotype from 1e over the theme.

So I'm very excited to see how that battlefield control vibe goes down. I do love my Agile Wavelengths!

Oh, we eating good this month, we already get a preview of the next adventure after!?

Thank you for putting to rest the nervousness around Technomancer and Mechanic finally. And yeah, SFS is gonna be fun come Paizocon ;)

Great write up, lots of cool stuff here! Looking forward to more playtesting soon.

Low key, I hate the look of it.

Part of the beauty of R20 and Foundry character sheets is that they resembled the physical sheet.

Its one thing to improve the automation and make everything work better.
But don't reinvent the wheel: present it in a form where people don't have to hunt for things

So Dandle Dreng is alive and well after all season 2!?

This is a fun little blog. A lot of character in not a lot of space.

I picture the "author" as someone who rolls their eyes a lot and laughs loud haughty laughs with a hand covering her mouth which hangs wide. And always wears a fashionable necklace at all times.

Discussion today yielded two major contradictory rules regarding Tiny Creatures:

First:
The usage of melee on Tiny/Diminutive species.
Examples: Stellifera outside of Hydrobody, Raxlites not using LFAN.

Per the rules, they have a reach of 0 feet, and "must enter an opponent's square" to perform a melee. However, there does not seem to be any rule allowing them to do so - only one denying it. This is obviously not RAI, so it seems we need an FAQ on this one. Both PF1 and PF2 have language allowing Tiny creatures to move into a size-disparate square, but this seems to be missing in SF.

Second
NPC size and reach.
The section on reading stat blocks states that a creatures size should determine its space and reach, but also that if a space and reach is not specifically stated, it is 5ft for both. RAI is obvious that creatures which omit this information should follow the size-based norm, but right now RAW codifies all unstated creatures as Medium space and reach.

As an aside:
Additionally, Guardian Skittermander implies that even a Skittermander, a small creature, should be able to share spaces with others, and gets special modification of unstated penalties.

For additional humor, the Scurry feat exists, which allows you to do this "without penalties," and the Underfoot feat allows you to do it at advantage. However, both of these are restricted to creatures of size small, which doubles as both insight into RAI and a request for an errata to include smaller races.

Relevant Rule Citations:

The elemental stat block uses Strength as the primary statistic.

With every statblock, the strength goes up, and the damage goes up relative to the CR and strength variance.

However, the Elder Elemental stops counting Strength, making the Elder statblock hit weaker than the Greater statblock on average.

I feel this is an FAQ candidate with a lot of impact (since Elder is used for 6th level Summon), unless intentional.

How is gunner supposed to keep up or be worth using in starship chases?

Unless they're a 3/4 BAB class using piloting ranks, a full BAB class is likely going to have 0 ranks in piloting, and no insight to piloting, so it's just going to be BAB+Dex, while everyone else is going to be between 3 to 10 points better, disregarding item options and racial bonuses.

From level 10 onward the gunner is basically critfishing unless they have a maxed out dex.

I can't help but feel like something is missing like a reduced DC for non-pilot gunners

Pathfinder Accessories (Digital Only)

Pathfinder Flip-Mat: Shattered Dungeon

I sure hope the flip mat isn't digital only! ;)

So as the title says: its a question that seems straightforward, but its an argument that I've heard renewed with a certain Revelation.

The question is two abilities - the Throwing fusion, and TechRev's new Weapon Orbit revelation - and if they can be used on Solar/Lunar weapons, as the usage of either cause the weapon to leave your hands.

I believe that the answer is No. That this is a case of "The specific trumps the general" and that nothing, unless it specifically states otherwise, can counter the specific language of what applies to the Solar Manifestation, as this same reason is why Flare can't use Soulfire fusion.

If you're familiar with all of the above, feel free to give your thoughts here. The below is added details of what I've heard from other arguments, as well as more details:

In the core rulebook, under the solarian, and again in COM under the new manifestations, the following line is at the end of EVERY manifestation:

Your solar {weapon|flare|shield} is automatically dismissed if it ever leaves your hand.

People state that the thrown fusion, since it modifies the crystal and allows it to do something it ordinarily couldn't, will allow the weapon to be thrown - but I think this would cause it to be dismissed, as the solar weapon's ability is more specific.

The new revelation, Weapon Orbit also uses very similar language as Thrown and Returning, with no exemption for Solar weapon. The body as below.

Weapon Orbit

As a standard action, make a ranged attack with a melee weapon you're wielding against a target within 30 feet. If you hit, you add your Charisma modifier to the weapon's damage instead of adding your Strength modifier. At the end of your turn, the weapon returns to your hand unless you don't have a free hand, in which case the weapon lands in your square. If attuned or fully attuned, you can use this ability to perform a full attack with the melee weapon at range, but each attack must be made against a different target within range. These attacks can benefit from the flashing strikes class feature as though they were melee attacks.

This, along with the new Solar Battery revelation, appear to both be centered on alternate options for solarians - and notably Armor solarians. But people say it has to work with Solar/Lunar weapons because its a solarian ability. This I feel is a terrible argument, especially as it opens up an argument of allowing your charisma modifier from Soulfire to stack with Weapon Orbit's addition.

So I'd like to just have some community thoughts (or a push for a specific FAQ list about interactions)

Hello!

Writing because I've had a long-running issue I can reproduce on multiple systems with the Starfinder FAQ page.

It appears something with the search function breaks the scrolling of the website.

On browsers when it is working appropriately, entering a search operator will state the list of results, alter the coloration of results to highlight the positive entries, and open/collapse categories as necessary, before finally scrolling to the first successful result.

The issue I have observed on multiple browsers is that everything except the scrolling works properly. However, afterward, the scrolling is effectively "stuck" and I cannot navigate away from the search bar, even if I clear the filter and attempt to scroll further. This persists both with the scroll wheel, as well as if i attempt to grab the scroll bar, in which case it performs a "rebounding" effect.

I've replicated this a number of times, but the current examples I have are on:
Windows 10 x64, Chrome 91
Android 11, Firefox 89.1.1

So the uniqueness of Gunnery checks and being vs AC allows someone who is a pilot or a gunner to be equally good at their job.

However, in Starship Chases, a gunner is worse than every other role, unless a pilot is acting as a gunner.

100% of all actions in Starship Chases are Skill checks. This puts dedicated gunners at a severe disadvantage.

Gunners in chases make Piloting checks, with a caveat which sounds very similar to the gunnery augment but on analysis it isn't.

† A gunner can substitute their base attack bonus for their ranks in Piloting when attempting a Piloting check.

The big variance between gunnery and a skill check is all the added modifiers. In a skill check, most people will also get their +3 class bonus, and most of the skill check balance assumes some amount of insight/other misc bonuses towards high levels.

With a dedicated gunner, you miss out on all of these bonuses. Most classes can remedy the +3 class bonus single rank in Piloting, but a Mystic or Solarian (without Skill Synergy, Star Shaman, or dumping Skill Adept) is going to be at least 3 points worse than everyone else at meeting the same DCs that everyone else has to match.

A stopgap measure is something would be a rule along the lines of "If BAB is used instead of Piloting ranks, treat Piloting as if it was a trained class skill" but as is, it is near impossible as I read for a true gunner (and not a pilot in the gunner seat) to come close to the utility of literally every other option available in a chase, especially as Gunner has no written unique obstacle actions and only one chase action.

(Sidenote, action DC is just 10 or 15 +1-1/2xCR, despite being charted)

In the frujai gravity anchor it says "if the attack hits, the soldier can attempt either a reposition or a trip combat maneuver against the target as a free action, using it's gravity anchor's attack bonus of +4 to perform the maneuver"

But the attack bonus is +22? Does this mean using an additional bonus of +4? Or what?

So per the leveling mechanism and how it operates like Personal Upgrades:

... its level doesn’t actually increase until you spend the time and effort training it to match your new, greater degree of expertise. This requires you to pay credits equal to the cost of buying a new creature companion of the creature companion’s new level on the Creature Companion Statistics table, minus the cost of its previous level...```

So this would make you assume this follows the same exponential curve as weapons, and you'd be mostly right. But there's a bit of weirdness with the costs, and I cant figure out why. Here's the chart for reference <https://thehiddentruth.info/player/equipment/companions/creatures>

To go down the line of the cost for a creature companion for every level, compared to the total cost, it exposes some weirdness: 100, 400, 700, 600, 900, 2200, 500, 3000, 3600, 5k, 6k, 8k, 15k, 17k, 31k, 50k, 62k, 109k, 155k, 240k.

There's some other weirdness in the chart, but to focus on level 1-7, it appears that the scaling is off from normal mechanics, with level 5-6 costing as much as the previous three levels combined, and level 6-7 being cheaper than even level 3. This is really the only major element of concern, and I feel like someone mixed up the scaling of the numbers during the design phase.

There's some other strangeness of such small increases between some levels and much larger increments between others, as well as weirdness of other stats (such as most levels being +1 attack, but a few being +2, while only 12 and 20 get no benefit), but those are more minor complaints.

Is there any possibility of pieces that got heavy errata for usability/understanding that was initially prohibited in SFS likely because of this to get re-sanctioned?

To be specific, the rules mess that Qi adept was at launch compared to it's now heavily errata'd state, where I think it's relatively understandable and not vague as to cause rules disagreements at the table anymore. I'd like to see it sanctioned if at all possible (I understand if it is a balance issue instead, but it doesn't seem as such next to what shield Solarians can do with their unarmed power)

So for Manifold array, it seems pretty clear cut for the purposes of Sheath Array and Cloud array that it would affect the bonuses and size of the arrays, but the only thing that level appears to affect with gear array is your "forms known" which are chosen at level up.

So is it intended that the second/third form array can only summon forms up to level+1 (minus 4 or 8, respectively)? Or is it meant to be unrestricted and the gear array able to slot multiple high level gears at the cost of making your other forms inaccessible?

To pull from another thread regarding maximum form leveling this would mean that your tertiary form, if forms are swapped for maximum level, would only be able to be used for your two lowest minor forms. I feel like this was maybe intended but not declared through the primary rule wording - and if so would give Nanocytes a reason not to swap up to highest level options in some cases.

So curious question - I'm not sure if I'm missing something but I'm reading the rules for drop pods in SOM, and they mention that dropping without a pod does a certain amount of damage per round, as well as the falling damage at the end. But unless I'm missing something, I'm not seeing anywhere it recommends how long re-entry should take?

Slightly entertaining to me that if you can find some way to slow your momentum, say through a parachute or something, it would cause a thin atmosphere to do no damage, as there's no minimum.

So, going on a debate on this, I've realized there's some fuzzy lines when it comes to Darkvision and Magical Darkness, and it causes some abilities to be confusing when dealing with the vast majority of creatures that have darkvision.

In the Core Rulebook, darkness is only described in one way:

Darkness In darkness, creatures without darkvision effectively have the blinded condition (see page 273). Areas of darkness include an unlit chamber within a structure, most caverns, outside on a moonless night, or the surface of planets with distant or nonexistent stars. Unlike low-light vision and in areas of dim light, darkvision does not work exactly like normal vision in areas of darkness; rather, darkvision works only to a specified range and is in black and white.

Darkvision Darkvision is the ability to see with no light source at all, out to a range specified in the creature’s description. Darkvision is black and white only (colors cannot be discerned). It does not allow characters to see anything that they could not see otherwise— when a creature has darkvision, invisible objects and creatures are still invisible, and illusions are still visible as what they seem to be. Likewise, darkvision subjects a creature to gaze attacks normally (see the Starfinder Alien Archive). The presence of light does not affect darkvision.

Nowhere is a distinction made between darkness and total darkness except in Alien Archive, where there is a small distinction between Darkvision and See in Darkness which implies that darkness is not the same as magical darkness.

Darkvision The creature can see out to the listed range with no light source at all. See page 263 of the Starfinder Core Rulebook.

See in Darkness The creature can see perfectly in darkness of any kind, including magical darkness

For even further confusion in the distinctions, Gloom Mote mentions that it forces dim light on an area, while the Mystic's Shadow Shroud does the same, but specifically mentions that Darkvision does not help against this. But then we have the Darksight Goggles, which specifically call out in their flavor that they were made for penetrating magical darkness, but only give Darkvision. Notably, enshrouding gloom which forces magical darkness to cover an enemy, which sounds nice, becomes completely ineffective against a large percentage of creatures if magical darkness is the same as regular darkness.

It feels like the larger rule intent is that darkvision should not be effective against magical darkness, but that some rules were written by people who believed differently, but that's just my interpretation.

In short, it would be nice to have a formal FAQ ruling on if Darkvision is thwarted by general magical darkness, or if magical darkness is just plain old ordinary darkness with a flavor word added.

Couple quick rules questions I don't think there's RAW answers or FAQ/Errata for.

1) In the case of Xenometric Dragonkin - Does the change to Large Size include the 10ft reach as mentioned in the "Size and Type" section of the Dragonkin entry?

2) Nuar and Orcs - The Orc entry only has "Orc Ferocity" as a racial trait, whereas the Nuar get 3, including "Fierce Survivalist" which is typically an Orc trait. I don't think there's a question on this one but it'd be nice to have an errata.

3) As a xenometric android receives alternate racial features as if they were that race, can they swap those features for alternate features that they could have swapped for if they were that race? For example, a Xenometric Pahtra who gets (nimble, talented) trading "talented" for Near Space's "Natural Weapons" Pathra option, which is in place of "Talented"