Rhunny's page

Eh, if you buy material for games you kinda can't get mad when an edition changes. That was always going to happen. Paizo isn't cheating you out of any money because what you own still retains the same value.

You'll look really silly if that Core Rulebook is, indeed, a core rulebook with all the rules in there, you realise that?

Like I said, I fully expect to see the reprinted rules from PF2e in the book to avoid having to flip between books.

Rhunny wrote:

WatersLethe wrote:

The fact that it's using the same (excellent!) rules chassis as PF2 does not mean it can't be its own game. It just brings a whole slew of side benefits.

that's literally it not being its own game tho. It's a campaign setting for an already existing (excellent!) rules chassis.

also, yeah of course it's going to have its own core rulebook to include new classes, feats, heritages, etc. Maybe it will even reprint the core rules so you don't have to flip between books too!

that doesn't make its own game tho

If that's your definition of a campaign setting, then it is >extremely< outside the norm for campaign settings to the point that it stretches your own definition to meaninglessness. If I were told we were using a campaign setting and I had to buy three new core rule books and I wasn't allowed to use any content from the "base game" without explicit GM consent I would not hesitate to say "That's a new game, not a campaign setting."

I don't know what to tell you, if two games are fully compatible to the point where the only reason why I can't freely use options from one on the other is "not setting appropriate" then clearly it's not two mechanically different games, it's two settings sharing the same core rules.

Let me level with y'all. I'm saying something that is pretty much the truth as I understand it: Starfinder 2 will use the Pathfinder 2 core rules, to say something that sounds very negative (although equally not untrue) : Starfinder 2 isn't it's own game, it's a campaign setting that uses the Pathfinder 2 Core rules.

That said, I don't want to make anyone feel like I'm attacking 2e. It's a great game in its own right. I just happened to like SF1 better and I'm bummed about the fact they are not even going to try to come up with a new set of rules for it and instead just use another one they already have.

I understand the commercial and logistical reasons for that decision but that doesn't mean I have to like them or change the fact that we are effectively losing an entire, mechanically differentiable game.

The fact that it's using the same (excellent!) rules chassis as PF2 does not mean it can't be its own game. It just brings a whole slew of side benefits.

that's literally it not being its own game tho. It's a campaign setting for an already existing (excellent!) rules chassis.

also, yeah of course it's going to have its own core rulebook to include new classes, feats, heritages, etc. Maybe it will even reprint the core rules so you don't have to flip between books too!

that doesn't make its own game tho

Starfinder, as its own separate game is seemingly going to end in 2025.

Not trying to exagerate or be extremist about it. It's just fairly evident whatever SF2 will end up being, it's not a fully realised system but an add on for PF2.

"I argue there's no such a thing as SF2, as there's no new game being announced.

In all honesty, the only thing they announced is a new Pathfinder 2 campaign setting based on Starfinder."

That is absolute sophistry and flies in the face of not just what Paizo is doing but what the Starfinder developers themselves are saying.

Dislike the direction and levy your criticism, now is the time to do so. But don't pull this BS of "SF 2e is just PF 2e in a trench coat" gatekeeping, no-true-scottsman trite.

Nothing that I've read here or in the field test has made think this isn't a re-skinned PF2e. You can grab the Tashtari as is in the pdf and run it in any PF2 game, absolutely 0 conversion needed.

Are there going to allow for computers, mechs, starships, etc? They have said as much and I believe them. But it's not looking like they'll be anything you can't easily snap in and out to make the core system still be that of PF2.

If you enjoy that, all more power to you. But don't accuse me of no-true-scottmanship when we're literally not getting a new game.

Rhunny wrote:

YuriP wrote:

Rhunny wrote:

My personal issue is that we're not getting a new game, we're getting what looks like a paintjob on a game that already exists. SF1 wasn't PF1 in space, but SF2 sure looks like PF2 in space.

To those people coming from PF2 saying they are glad they can now try out Starfinder... I'm not sure what you mean, this is the same thing you were already playing except "but she's got a new hat"

The same couldn't be said about PF1 and SF1?

nope.

For instance, most people don't consider 3.5 to be fully compatible with PF1. The differences between PF1 and SF are far more pronounced. Action economy is similar at a glance but any close look will show they are fairly different. Classes, species, equipment and combat are all different too

But in practice PF1 is an improved 3.5 that uses same main rules, BAB, AC, Thrown Saves an so on even the DCs, BABs and Saving Throws formulas and numbers are the same.

Same happens to SF1 with the notable exception of Stamina and have 2 ACs for different damage types, the core rules are basically the same including most of base numbers and formulas.

The difference between classes, species/races/ancestries, equipment are more thematically related to the scenario and self-contained to specifics of the classes and not a general rule.

In the end all 3.0, 3.5, PF1 and SF1 keeps the main basis and gameplay feeling. In the end all them are basically a 3.0 modified in many degrees.

I'm sorry but no. SF1 plays nothing like 3.x and PF1. The 3 action economy in the game works much more like a puzzle and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Readied actions don't work the same, reactions replace immediate actions and attacks of opportunity, spellcasting works completely differently, there's a bound accuracy system, damage now also comes from level, what and what doesn't provoke is streamlined to the extreme...

the games just do not operate similarly even at a glance.

SF2 will follow the same thing to PF2 but granting that they wont made anything that brakes the compatibility. This doesn't prevented they to create new conditions, new weapons mechanics, new exclusive class abilities. They are just preventing that new things becomes mechanically and numerically incompatible with PF2 while keep the both games independency.

I argue there's no such a thing as SF2, as there's no new game being announced.

In all honesty, the only thing they announced is a new Pathfinder 2 campaign setting based on Starfinder.

And this make sense commercially, helps the both games maintenance, help players migration between both systems, allows 3rd party developers to do material to both games...

I actually do agree with you there, this is the most economical solution to the need for a new edition, which I agree Starfinder needs.

Rhunny wrote:

My personal issue is that we're not getting a new game, we're getting what looks like a paintjob on a game that already exists. SF1 wasn't PF1 in space, but SF2 sure looks like PF2 in space.

To those people coming from PF2 saying they are glad they can now try out Starfinder... I'm not sure what you mean, this is the same thing you were already playing except "but she's got a new hat"

The same couldn't be said about PF1 and SF1?

nope.

For instance, most people don't consider 3.5 to be fully compatible with PF1. The differences between PF1 and SF are far more pronounced. Action economy is similar at a glance but any close look will show they are fairly different. Classes, species, equipment and combat are all different too

I take umbrage with the idea that people aren't liking this because of some idea of system loyalty or aversion to change. I welcome change! I was stoked when 2e was announced!

My personal issue is that we're not getting a new game, we're getting what looks like a paintjob on a game that already exists. SF1 wasn't PF1 in space, but SF2 sure looks like PF2 in space.

To those people coming from PF2 saying they are glad they can now try out Starfinder... I'm not sure what you mean, this is the same thing you were already playing except "but she's got a new hat"

Not a fan. I didn't want a SF2 but I understand the need for it, I just hoped it would be its own game and not being absorbed into 2e.

Congratulations now we have one fewer game.

This is GOLD. Thank you for going all out with this concept!

Alright, last stretch of Devastation Ark book 1. No fancy formating this time, not much to disect.

As a 15th level Evo not much changed from the two previous sessions except for the fact at this point I've stopped even trying to find a good use for the Packmaster, there's simply not going to be one until I hit 18th level and can do Fission on my allies.

I also spent resolve on every fight in the first round to get up to 4 EP in the first round,spend one EP to gain full BAB since now it's effectively a +3 to hit. In the second and consecutive rounds I kept my EP at 5+ to earn me a bonus to damage 1/round.

I didn't do Explosive strike once. There simply weren't enough clustered enemies to make it worth the damage diferential.

I took around 1/2 my Stamina in damage from a trap and didn't heal it for the entirety of the section. I only took some minor hits here and there but overall the adventure is simply too easy for me to bother spending RP on anything but EP.

I rolled 3 Will saves. 1 out of combat that I made easily, 1 in combat at a -2 penalty that I succeeded on and another one at the same penalty that I failed by 5. All in all, Vital is still fairly ok drawback.

I'll be back with this character at 16th level in two weeks. I'll finally have Controlled Transformation

Played Devastation Ark again, this time having leveled up my Evo to 14th level.

The good: I did get to use explosive strike and I have to say it's great that the DC for the save scales so well. I sort of wish it was something you could access earlier. Went through a starship combat that turned up well enough. I was tied for best piloting but took the gunner seat instead.

The Bad: Nothing I haven't talked about before. Packmaster has been of little to no use since the enemies keep on dealing kinetic damage and giving a fly speed at my companions at 14th level is simply redundant.

Short Veredict: I should have taken Controlled Transformation. I love explosion weapons but getting the extra damage online earlier is simply too good.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply I'm the one excluding anyone's experiences. Just stating the fact of the matter that the playtest is focusing on actual play feedback.

"We’re looking for your feedback, comments, and criticisms regarding the evolutionist class but will focus our attention on feedback from actual play. "

That's from the pdf.

So, keep the critiques coming but remember they are unlikely to be addressed correctly if you can't back it up with experiential evidence

I had the night off and decided to play in a waltz through myriad worlds with a 4th level evo. I decided to try a more challenging build and went for kinetic melee (S) with the Eldritch niche just to test how bad it could get. I picked a xenometric dragonkin android for the race to get extra reach and some limited flight and the laborer stats for extra STR and CON. For adaptations I went with distant strike and dazzling outburst.

The good: Something I failed to mention the last time but that was also extremely relevant in this session. The first level ability to pick an extra class skill is incredibly useful when everyone else in the party is locked into their skills and they realise there’s a glaring hole in the party’s repertoire. The melee damage output was very good.Every time my turn came around, there was less of the enemy. With maxed out STR and weapon focus I only missed a single attack and purposefully NEVER spent the extra EP for full BAB. I didn’t take as much damage as I expected I would. I got hit twice for non magical damage on different turns but it was only for an extra 3 and 4 damage. Not quite life-threatening
The bad: Oh boy. I figured I was lucky to find a party with a mystic that would let me get some feedback out of Eldritch but no such luck. The mystic didn’t show up to the game and the ability only triggers for Spells only, not SLA. SR never came into play. I guess I shouldn’t complain since the negative aspect was virtually unnoticeable but having to rely on a party member to have a specific class feature or you don’t get to use your main subclass focus is bad. Dazzling Strikes is awful, I didn’t expect it to be great since… I can read… but I expect the reaction activation and the non-a-cost-but-actually-a-trigger-when-you-use-a-real-power activation to carry it somewhat but a range of adjacent, on reflex to negate dazzle effect is just lame. Distant strikes, can’t say I’m a fan of the swift action activation since it locks you out of full attacking. A problem which arose with how the playtest is being carried out is that I get a pointless 3rd level weapon but barely any money for other stuff I would want like augmentations, fusions and other magic items. This wasn’t an issue in the Devastation Arc game since in campaign mode we followed the normal rules for creating a character above 1st level.
Short verdict: Eldritch Niche was every bit as disappointing as you could expect. The upside of the damage not piling up so much that it becomes a concern is overshadowed by the fact that you’re simply not going to use this if there’s no spellcaster in the party. For SFS that means no one in their right mind is ever going to risk picking this. Heavy armor + some middling DEX is still the gold standard for melee. I never even reached HP damage. I didn’t include a “mistakes I caught myself making” entry because with one game under my belt, I had no trouble remembering what I got from each EP level. Something else not necesarily the Evo's fault is the lack of good magitech augmentations. I settled for a Gravitational harness mk1 which... didn't do much of anything but it was kinda nice to have.

Bonus round! There was another Evolutionist at the table! I can’t attest to their exact build aside from the fact they were using melee and cold adaptive strike and picked a robotic niche. They seemed to rely a lot on spending resolve to gain extra EP, swapping their elemental damage some times.

I played part 1 of Waking the Worldseed last night with a 13th level Evolutionist Entu Colony. The rest of the party was a mystic11/envoy2 and a soldier12/vanguard1 (party of 3). I picked vital niche and packmaster focus. My adaptations were focused on giving stuff to my allies: Resistant Form x 2, Enhanced Mobility, Enhanced Resistance, Extreme Mobility and Area Strike.

the good:I had fun building the character. Getting to spend so many credits on augmentations was definitely a change of pace. The damage was pretty good for the most part and I managed to hit fairly often even when not using full BAB. The options to use cone and line came in handy and were well worth the 2 points each round. Being DEX focused allowed me to increase all the “vital” ability scores and still be able to increase my INT, meaning I had a good number of skills I was actually good at. I rolled a single will save at a -2 and still crushed it since that’s basically the bonus I got from my mk2 ring of resistance.

The bad: despite having been built as a party buffer, the buffs simply didn’t do much. Enhanced mobility only lasts for 1 round on allies which would be pretty lackluster even if by this level everyone already had reliable flight methods. Burrowing simply isn’t an option in a large number of places such as starships. The buff I figured I’d get the most mileage out of “enhanced resistance” did not come into play once though I don’t know if it’s bad luck or simply how high level behaves.

The mistakes I caught myself making: 2 though I should point out I fixed them fairly easily. The first one was thinking my allies benefited from vital instinct healing bonus. The second one was forgetting that at 5 EP I could deal extra damage. This was also largely inconsequential since the damage I dealt killed the enemy.

Short verdict: I don’t think this class needs any fixes to how it handles in combat at his level. I could hit almost as often and almost as hard as a *melee* soldier and would in fact out damage him once I reached 5 EP as a ranged character. If I had one gripe it would be that the Packmaster needs some better buffs to drop on allies.
On the other hand, though the skill side was very competent, I was functionally a soldier outside of combat.
Lastly, I didn’t know where else to mention this but I didn’t use Evolution Drain at all. I was simply never strapped for EVs.

Next week I'll play the 14th level version and update my notes but considering how little I cared about the drawback I'm going to be taking Explosive Strike to have yet another AoE option.

Yes, this is a PLAY TEST. Do remember to actually TEST the class through actual PLAY before making any definitive claims ;)

Rhunny wrote:

For no cash investment that is pretty good. A solarian can get a soulfire infusion for pretty cheap, adding CHA mod to damage. Plasma sheathe would also add an extra 5 damage but it's all fire. With those things you get an average of 44.5 damage(assuming 18 charisma). Higher than the Evolunist but with a lot of caveats.
I don't think there's anything the Evo can get that would offset this difference but it has nothing to envy the solarian

That is putting the Solarian at 20 Str, 18 Con, leaving little else for other stats, but point taken.

Solarians can and do absolutely get away with laser focusing on STR and CHA to the detriment of all other stats. You might think it's not great strategy since it does mean your defenses are very low but the bounded math in the game never lets them drop too fat behind and the ability to anhilate enemies in 2 swings does keep you safe /end of my solarian tedtalk :P

(also I think you meant charisma, not constitution but I got your point)

I don't like that Evo's don't get full BAB but it's far from the worst thing ever, weapon focus can really pick up the slack even if you're targetting KAC

I don't dislike the balancing between the benefits and the penalties but I do think not all penalties are balanced amongst each other. The Eldritch Drawback seems a tad over the edge while the Vital one might never even come into play for a lot of fights.

I think I'd like the penalties to be much on the lines of the Vital Drawback, where it could potentially be a problem but most of the time it's not

That dragonkin is a dead ringer for my SFS character. He's a corporate agent always trying to hire people off of the society for his own organisation

I’m getting a group together to play the Giantslayer AP, but since I don’t really care all that much about Golarion I’m adapting it to Eberron. Here’s a list of things I’m changing/adapting:

- I decided that since giants were most prominent in Xen’drik that’s where I should place the town of Trunau.
- As for the orcs, though it would be plausible to create a clan of orcs that resemble the ones in the adventure, I think the more flavorful way about it is to re-write them as Sulatar Drow (they are somewhat civilized and have a degree of respect for their former Giant masters).
- Taking into account the above stated, half-orc NPCs will be either left as such or swapped for half-drow where it suits the racial discrimination theme of the AP
- The hopeknives are crafted from small dragonshards (Eberron or Siberys, most likely).
- As for the dragonmarked houses, a small number of them is present in the town. Most notably Tharashk, Ghallanda (Cham Larringfass), Sivis (I’m probably changing Agrit Staginsdar to a House Sivis gnome) and Deneith (maybe Omar Frum or the even the Grath family).
- Since religion doesn’t play a big part, I barely gave it a thought but Dol Arrah would replace Iomedae rather seamlessly

That’s all I got for now! I will appreciate any and all feedback.

PS: Sorry for any grammar/spelling mistakes I made or if anything I wrote reads awkwardly, English is not my native language!

so, I'm running an all-tech campaign and one of my players come up with the idea of a cavalier that has a bike instead of a mount. right now, im just throwing things in the air to see what sticks! Sorry if it comes up a little messy!

Steel rider

A cavalier does not take an armor check penalty on Ride checks while riding his mount. A ride consumes 1charge/hour and has a battery that can hold up up to 50 charges

Class Level HP Natural Armor Bonus Speed Special
1st 11 +2 60 Link, hardness 10
2nd 16 +2 60 —
3rd 22 +4 60 Evasion
4th 27 +4 60 Special Ability
5th 33 +4 60 —
6th 38 +6 60 Unbreakable
7th 38 +6 80 —
8th 44 +6 80 —
9th 49 +8 80 Special Ability, Improved ram
10th 55 +8 80 Hardness 15
11th 61 +8 80 —
12th 67 +10 80 —
13th 72 +10 100 —
14th 78 +10 100 Special Ability
15th 78 +12 100 Improved evasion
16th 83 +12 100 —
17th 89 +12 100 —
18th 94 +14 100 —
19th 99 +14 120 —
20th 105 +14 120 Special Ability, Hardness 20

Link (Ex)

A cavalier can sustain the speed of his ride as a swift action instead of a move action and accelerate/decelerate as a move action. He also receives a +4 bonus on drive checks.

Evasion (Ex)
When the cavalier succeeds on a reflex save for half damage while riding, the ride suffers no damage at all.

Unbreakable (Ex)
A ride is immune to the broken condition while being riden.

Special abilities (Ex): *just random ideas at this point

Side-spill (spill some oil or caltrops)

Fumes (makes a small cloud of toxic fumes)

Side-rider (may share a square with a friendly creature while riding)

move it or loose it (trample)

Drag along (improved drag)

Improved Ram (Ex): The ride's tire attack now deals 2d8 damage.

Improved Evasion (Ex): When the cavalier fails on a reflex save for half damage while riding, the ride suffers only half damage.

I've finished successfully running the Age of Worms AP in Greyhawk. Lashonna escaped, a PC became the new Prince of Redhand and Kyuss was slain, with one of the PCs taking his place as the new wormgod.

I'm setting my Kingmaker campaign 20 years after that with a new cast of PCs, adventurers who answer the call of the Prince of Redhand to rid the Bandit Kingdoms of unlawful behaviour and the presence of the Old One's forces.

I'm planning on using Iuz and Lashonna to stretch the AP to lvl 20 (maybe even 21) but I've no idea how to implement it. Any ideas?