Sebastian Hirsch's page

I was excited for an AP that lets people take on Tanglebriar, but the Razmiran character on the temp cover is giving me pause.

There might be reasons for it, but it is certainly something to talk with your local VO about. It might also be the case that the GMs find it easier to see the dice than you calling out the number - or there might have been issues or worries about people cheating.

Or maybe try some online gaming, where using a VTT is perfectly normal, and people wanting to roll their own dice are the minority.

It's a solid video, but I really did not vibe with that feedback about the mystic, though I can fully admit that the current method is not sacred.I can totally see that you could remake the pool with charges that heal X per charge and recover a charge per turn etc. though personally I really want to keep the aspect of recharging the pool.

The way the recharge scales is may be something to consider.

Yeah, he is your point of contact and gets players out of jail if the bank heist does not work out as planned, I would spend a bit of effort on setting it up, but beyond that, once the players are in the elevator that setup story has done it's job.

Congratulations to the campaign coin recipient and the 5 donut GMs, org play would be a shadow of itself without talented and motivated volunteers like you.

Special callout to Charlene, it has been a delight to see your GM skills improving over the last couple of years, and the recognition is more than deserved.

I agree, the network and especially the ability to to cheat action economy is what really elevates the mystic into a class I am excited to play - and I never really had quite that reaction to the cleric.

I have now seen this feat in action in a couple of sessions, and the -20- foot penalty is absolutely brutal, the stunned one on a crit fail is already pretty backbreaking, but the combination is something that worries me a lot.

Especially if you want to use enemies from PF2, but even in the recent playtest adventures, a lot of enemies get reduced to 5ft movement speeds (because even if your movement speed is reduced to 0 you can still move 5ft as an action), and especially if they are written to use area weapons, it tends to break their tactics, and how they are supposed to work.

My suggestion would be to either remove a higher speed penalty than -10 ft. from the game or at the very least limit it to -15.

For the final boss, it might make sense to split the ability to return home from the regeneration. My group was beating up on a regenerating enemy who stood up and spawned one of those bubbles.

I allowed my players to separate the connection between the midwife and the reactor while it was knocked out/regenerating, as killing it was not in the cards, the group simply could not do this type of damage.

Actually, sanctification is not something SF2 classes can get right now, that certainly makes it harder to deal that kind of damage at that level.

The final area was pretty hard for my players.

I am prepping this on short notice, though I could manage to watch the stream where TMun ran it for Jenny and Jon Compton, so I am already a bit familiar with it.

My one big question is regarding the Shimmerstone Exposure disease:

SHIMMERSTONE EXPOSURE

The shimmerstone in Shim-Tek mine is corrupted, and
prolonged exposure to it stokes feelings of aggression,
anger, and frustration. This functions as a disease.
SHIMMERSTONE RAGE
RARE DISEASE MAGICAL
Creatures exposed to corrupted shimmerstone risk
becoming overcome by anger and violently attacking
nearby people and objects.
Saving Throw DC 30 Fortitude; Onset 1 hour; Stage
1 stupefied 1 (1 hour); Stage 2 stupefied 2 (1 hour);
Stage 3 stupefied 3 (1 hour); Stage 4 stupefied 4 and
confused (1 hour)

Unfortunately, the scenario is unclear how often exposure happens and what level the disease is (relevant for counteracting it). The DC would be correct for a level 12 affliction/disease (and that seems compare well to the level 11 Brain Worms disease on page 89 of GM core that uses the standard level 11 DC).

Since multiple exposures to the same disease have no effect (source player core page 430) it might not matter too much if the players are fast, though the stupefied condition will be very brutal for any spellcaster.

Sebastian Hirsch wrote:

I am still apprehensive about the ability to disrupt spellcasting at range, as that happened at a crucial moment in my A Cosmic Birthday game, it absolutely is a nerf, but I feel like the ability to interrupt spellcasting is an issue.

It might be fine if it could just interrupt interact actions and ranged attacks.

You forgot it can interrupt movement too.

My understanding is that like Reactive Strike it can only disrupt manipulate actions:

You attempt a ranged Strike against the triggering creature.

If the attack is a critical hit and the trigger was a manipulate
action, you disrupt that action. This Strike doesn’t count
toward your multiple attack penalty, and your multiple attack
penalty doesn’t apply to this Strike.

The striker operative exchanges proficiency with martial guns for a similar proficiency with unarmed and one-handed melee weapons (as long as they have the agile trait) - unfortunately, the level 5 class feature "Master Gunner" does not give the crit specialization for those melee attacks, it still only provides that effect to guns for which the operative has expert proficiency.

That feels like an oversight, and as my group currently builds characters for Empires Devoured, a change would be most welcome.

Striker

You specialize in hand-to-hand combat and prefer to fight
using your fists or lightweight melee weapons, rather than
guns. Whether you’re a daredevil who lives for the thrill, a
martial artist who likes to show off, or an assassin who kills
with a personal touch, you take the fight to your foes and
use your body as a weapon. You’re trained in Athletics. You
gain a skill feat for Athletics. You can choose Strength as
your key attribute.
Exploit: You have expert proficiency with unarmed and
one-handed melee weapons with the agile trait instead of
with martial guns. Whenever you increase your proficiency
with martial guns, you instead increase your proficiency with
one-handed agile melee weapons and simple guns.

MASTER GUNNER 5TH

You’re a highly skilled sharpshooter and never go anywhere without your gun. Your
proficiency rank increases to master with simple and martial guns, and increases
to expert with advanced guns. You gain access to the critical specialization effects
for all guns for which you have expert proficiency.

A recent errata included this text that at least showcases the intention for how it work, it seems like an oversight:

Page 89 (Operative): The benefits of the Striker Exploit apply to melee unarmed attacks, including the increase in proficiency, benefits of Aim, and ability to use operative feats. Replace the second paragraph of the exploit with: “You can use one-handed melee weapons with the agile trait and melee unarmed attacks with the agile trait to Aim and to satisfy requirements and use operative feats and features that require a ranged Strike or gun.”

I am still apprehensive about the ability to disrupt spellcasting at range, as that happened at a crucial moment in my A Cosmic Birthday game, it absolutely is a nerf, but I feel like the ability to interrupt spellcasting is an issue.

It might be fine if it could just interrupt interact actions and ranged attacks.

The frequency of skill challenges has really ramped up, and personally, I feel like overusing them makes them more unpalatable, particularly the influence system, as I tend to think that it makes the RP worse, as you are busier navigating the system, and focus less on the RP.

Those systems often devolve into a lot of dice-rolling, especially discovery checks.

In general, the right subsystem can make sense - though I have seen too many chases used in situations that did not call for them - unfortunately, the issues do seem to get worse if an adventure chooses to include 2-3 of them.

When they get used a lot they really mange to take up a lot of sessions time, and as a GM that runs a lot online... fights are super easy, but illustrating a subsystem that involves player choice and a lot of rolls is hard work.
In situations where the actual impact of succeeding or failing at those roles barely matters (for narrative and or mechanical reasons) it can feel like an unpleasant drain on the player's rerolls.

The.Vortex wrote:

Don't remind me of THAT special. It ended right when it would have started to become interesting!

I'm not so patiently waiting for when we get to go back with higher level characters and explore deeper.

Yeah... the way the special ended was pretty unfortunate - felt like it was cut short on the second of 3 acts. Our not going back for so many seasons, only makes it worse.

I am conflicted, I really love how you can express yourself via your choice of Solarian weapon, and I appreciate the idea that someone might want to use other weapons (and likely would enjoy a stronger flare in exchange for a weaker solar weapon).

That said, I think the default weapon is not quite there yet, and I am not sure how their bespoke enhancement system via crystal compares to using a stock weapon, or archaic weapon with runes.

We recently got the ability to get the two-handed trait, but I wonder if 1 or 2 handed could be a choice that might also discount something like reach so it could be combined with another choice.

Before going into Act 3 did you end up allowing your players to shop up to level 4 items, or did you keep them limited to level 3 or below?

Something starfinder 1 tried and immediately undid that might help here is the hand cannon. A large pistol with a bigger MAP good for taking 1 shot so it combines well with a save spell a get em or an aim but not DAKKKA multiple attacks.

I think there is certainly demand for a 1 handed martial version of the semi-auto pistol

SuperBidi wrote:

If Paizo continues in this direction then I'll agree with the ranged meta. Map size is really the defining factor for the meta to be ranged or melee.

On my healer I can't work further away than 30 feet anyway, so I'm going to have to move along with the melee.

Did you see the update they made to mystic?

Page 82 (Mystic Feats): Add Network Connection as a 2nd level mystic feat with the same text as the ability from page 77. It has the mystic trait.

Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, unless the idea is for this one to update some less fighter builds a tiny bit.

Admittedly, the old witchwarper was never my cup of tea (I never built one, and the ones I ran for/with... essentially tended to forget most class features that were not spellcasting -though Starfinder Enhanced should have helped).

Unfortunately, I have yet to see a lot of playtest players that were really happy how the QF worked out. It takes a lot of actions to maintain, set down etc. and thus far has not been very impactful.
In the first A Cosmic Birthday game, no one wanted to play the class - mostly because of the complexity, and lack of real impact, or at least that is what I heard.

I might have one in my Empires Devoured game, but we will see. Compared to the mystic who feels very synergistic (thus far the rhythm mystic has been very popular), or the operative... it feels more like a chore to maintain the QF, particularly if you end up having to move to even cast your spells.

The recent change was welcome, but I suspect that the players will try to talk their GM into allowing a PF2 class instead of trying to juggle the class features of this one - or rather more likely, totally ignore QF and spend all or most of their class features on unrelated things/archtype feats.

A lot of the adventure and org play maps in Starfinder was on the smaller side, particularly since a lot of tables struggle to accommodate bigger maps. My general suggestion would be to look at the Flip Mats and similar products Paizo has been publishing and expect more like that.

Though with the operative gaining the ability to ignore(some) cover and AOE weapons and spells potentially ignoring it, I don't really see the benefit.

I question that a lot of this is necessary, helpful or that it would add a lot, particularly once the word "realism" crops up.

While it is tempting to offer solutions, Paizo's playtests tend to work best when people post their problems and avoid offering specific solutions, after all the designers might already have their own, plans based on the feedback they have received.

There are a number of reasons why people no show, unfortunately, limiting and controlling signups, requesting RSPVs or that the characters are imported etc. are all options you can use to limit this happening, but they do tend to take up a fair bit of time to administer.

Longarms used to be a good first step, but if we are real here, as the groups reach higher levels the encounters have a lot of hp, someone needs to reduce them an default small arm damage just was not cutting it.

And while I am repeating myself, I think ranged meta mostly means that guns are more viable, and with operative and soldier, the players have some rather nice tools that work at range.

Some folks might prefer a game with barely any melee combat, but that is certainly not me, while I enjoy using a sniper rifle, there is always the urge to take up a sharp sword and get very close to the enemy.

Driftbourne wrote:

If you want to test ranged meta in SF2e look at the maps used in Wheel of Monsters, one of them is 150x240 feet.

That really hoses casters on the pf1 30 foot casting meta doesn't it?

I think there is a good argument to be made, that casters (current SF2 casters and older classes) could benefit from ways to upgrade their range.

IIRC the mystic has an option like that - and can also take reach spell - though I feel like reach spell might not be enough/or costs too many actions.

Demoralize got various options to increase the range, some similar feat that upgrades your range to the first range increment of your gun, might be an interesting direction.
As is, all the 60ft. spells from PF2, like the popular needle darts, seem vastly preferable to any 30ft. option.

It's certainly an issue, though I would still expect, that encounters that start at ranges like that are going to be pretty rare, for every large open space, you likely have a couple smaller rooms and facilities.
Mostly because map sizes are not going to increase by significantly, there is only so much table space.

As Xenocrat has mentioned, the condition is subject to a lot of discussion thus it is a GM call. It would be lovely if the PF2 team could release a FAQ entry about it - personally considering the various cases this could happen, getting stunned during your turn is way too brutal to be applied like this.

Also, that title is at the very least not very respectful, you might want to reflect on that.
This is a playtest, minor changes to how the rules are structured, and how exceptions are written will likely get sorted out in time.

For the exterior map, just use the map and ignore the walls and the furnishings other than the ladders and guns.

Honestly it's the interior map that's confusing, since you have to ignore the ladders and guns without telling the players the map does double-duty and they might need to be on the hull later.

A separate map wouldn't have hurt.

They actually made one/altered the map, for the Foundry module, looks really neat.

I am pretty excited about the "not quite ready to act on yet" things listed, particularly the ones related to the Solarian, right how the disharmony options are not really all that attractive compared to others.

Oh hey, Paizo nerfed Hair Trigger! Who else is happy about that?

...I'm being sincere, just to clarify. Hair Trigger was broken. It NEEDED to be nerfed.

Oh yeah, pretty happy with the direction, though I am not sure of the feat could not use another nerf as well.

I am personally fine with the state of things, Operative feels like a great attempt to give players who want to play a ranged rogue the right tools, and in general, a lot of the power that is related to guns is part of class design.

Very promising, already build a group for Empires Deveoured, and of course errata is always welcome.

I am also in favor of this direction, a lot of it is just re-stating that the GMs actually do have some freedom.

As others have mentioned, unfortunately in recent years it has become an unfortunate reality that a lot of copy and paste and other errors have found their way into scenarios.

I believe that the team is trying to work on these issues but with the current volume, giving GMs more freedom seems like the right call.

I agree with a lot of the things the preceding posters have said, but I would actually suggest that we go slightly further:

As HMM has mentioned, sometimes delays happen or your time slot gets shorter, in situations like that it seems vastly preferable to cut one of the less essential fights instead of the final encounter.
Empowering GMs to make that call would be my preferred outcome.

To be honest, I would say the same could apply to subsystems, especially those where the outcome is pretty minor, but the system nonetheless takes a lot of time to resolve.

Frankly speaking, I would be fine if players could opt to skip it and go with the worst outcome of a particular interaction.

---

Of course, we could go ahead and simply run everything in adventure mode, similar to how APs work, considering how rarely players are earning less than 10 treasure bundles, large parts of the process feel like an empty ritual.

That is more extreme than what is suggested here, but I hope we can consider what org play scenarios can cut down on when we look at SFS2.

Yeah, I don't see it either, it is very, very different for e.g. an elemental barbarian.

Lovely, thank you Starfinder Team ^^

After prepping and playing it, the stabilization seems to be there to give people a chance to heal up, at higher levels that first encounter can be a bit rough.

That said, when the situation was presented to the group, players understood that doing what felt natural (to level someone behind to stabilize and run to the ritual location) was not something that org play regularly wants players to do.

The second fight was.... well almost over before my character got to act, but when the fight starts with a gunslinger critting the BBEG to death, there is only so much you can do.

I think the adventure goes downhill after resolving that fight, but I am still working on a constructive way to communicate that.

It's unclear and I am going with the opposite interaction, in the class it sounds like reminder text, but in situations like this, I am going with the default condition entry.

A clarification would be beyond welcome.

I am currently prepping this one and the flip mat chosen really does it no favors

You have to resolve a dead character before reporting as otherwise the character gets reported as dead and purchasing resurrection boons is no longer an option.

If you are managing to fix your dead status you should receive the same rewards as everyone else in the party scaled to your level as always.

Anyone else found the animated statue to be a TPK-in-waiting? Hardness 6 and a pretty punchy attack bonus/damage line proved killer [well, total-party-defeat anyway] at level 1 for my party.

They lost 1 member KOd to two back-to-back solid hits in round 1 (no mystic in the team), then with good rolls and ok tactics (managed to inflict flat-footed & suppressed, together with a get 'em, and restricted the incoming attacks with a diff terrain quantum field) nearly broke through the construct armor before crits took out the envoy and then the soldier in successive rounds.

Without a lucky nat 20 in the first round or two to break its armor [AC too high for crits otherwise], I'm not sure this is likely to be beaten without somewhat meta play (luring it under one of the gantries or such like, which would take a little bit of set up - my team were already one down by the time the danger they were in became clear).

As the ghost couriers had already been dealt with and there wasn't really any reason for it to murder (?), I had it return to its plinth until the team eventually came around, but...

Other experiences?

My group just recently took it down, it did not help that in the first round of combat I crit and took out their healer in one hit.

Eventually, this was taken down by a lot of smaller hits that managed to get through the hardness, and the solider was pretty lucky as the creature had an awful reflex save, thus the area fire caused a critical failure.

It died shortly after the construct armor was gone... maybe for this playtest, going with a hardness of 4 might have been better.

The envoy really struggled to hurt it, but with the envoy's get'em and the mystic's anthem, the group actually had decent static bonuses to damage.
I guess this is the encounter that shows you that having a big old melee weapon like a doshko can be worth it.

My group did not consider that flying away or running away was an option, but the enemy essentially spawns in front of them, and it is easy to fall into panic mode once a player gets dropped.

Anyone notice that the rules listed for running poison mentioned in A8: Memento Chamber are different to the ones in PC1 (and CRB)?

Apparently once you hit the final stage of an affliction you lose the affliction without needing to make any more saves...

Yeah I noticed it as well, this might be a case of this affliction bending the rules, though personally I expect the combat to be pretty fast.

It doesn’t really help that it’s quite unclear as to what it applies to (does it apply to Tech armor considering you don’t take actions with armor?) and a staggering amount of stuff is just not Tech. In my playtests this condition has never done anything because all the commonly used weapons are Analog. This should be rectified if the stickiness issue also goes away.

I think tech weapons deserve some class features that really reward using them, but we are unlikely to get those until next year.

Supercharge weapon is certainly not strong enough yet, particularly compared to runic weapon/runic body.

I think that is a good way to describe it, after all if the thing you have taken cover behind is no longer between you and the enemy, I would expect it to do anything.

Personally, taking cover has not really worked out in my playtest games, particularly A Cosmic Birthday, moving away always made more sense.

I just ran a combat where an enemy inflicts that condition and... I feel like it is way too sticky. Essentially you have to make a LOT of checks, and in most circumstances, it only ends on a nat 20.. even if the combat is over... that just feels unpleasant to resolve.

Out of combat many groups will likely just hand wave it, but in combat, or other high-stress scenarios like a chase it could be unfortunate.

Personally, for me, it is annoying enough that I can see a real argument to avoid weapons that can be affected by it.

On tech enemies like robots, the conditions is effectively permanent when applied in combat or before that. Players have access to the Percussive Maintenance feat, but I feel like a 1-2 action check using the craft skill should at least lower the glitching DC on enemies (or eventually tech companions).
Percussive Maintenance is still a pretty relevant feat since it just takes one action and the DC is only 10.

This is a general rules question and thus a better fit for other parts of the forum.

Archaic confuses me because "a knife" counts as archaic, even if it's a very well-made knife and modern combat knives are essentially the same thing as knives from centuries ago, but "I punch you with my regular human fist" does not.

I guess futuristic combat weapons are made of carbon fiber and other high tech stuff, though I agree I personally tend to not love the setup or archaic and tracking/runes.

I assume the guns on the ship are ... the guns that will trigger this, the whole ship is biomechanical after all

Using Pathfinder 2 classes in Starfinder 2 will certainly be forbidden in environments like SFS and around most tables I expect it to be limited by the GM. Both games are compatible but it still means some work to include a PF2 character in SF2.

But I'm wondering about Archetypes. Pathfinder 2 has a lot of Archetypes (and class Archetypes), which are mostly compatible with Starfinder 2. In terms of balance, I don't expect an Archetype to mess up with SF2 balance to the point of being an issue. And there's no real work to allow these Archetypes: A Soldier with Barbarian Dedication stays a Soldier first and foremost.

So I'm opening this conversation about PF2 Archetypes in SF2.

I personally feel it'd be a good thing to allow them all across the board, including during the playtest. A Soldier with a spellcaster Archetype will definitely be a thing once SF2 will be live and as such I feel that testing such a character is definitely a good thing for the playtest. Similarly, the Solarian has a feat to grab a second weapon, it should definitely be tested with abilities like Double Slice or Twin Takedown (unless SF2 Dual Weapon combat is meant to be completely different than PF2's but I question why it'd be the case and what it'd be supposed to be then).

As a GM, I think I'll allow PF2 Archetypes. And as a player, I wonder how you'd react if one of your players bring an SF2 character with a PF2 Archetypes.

I also think about the future: In my opinion, PF2 Archetypes should be generally accepted as part of Starfinder 2 the same way PF2 spells are currently considered part of it. This is really a big bunch of compatible content with low chances of being disruptive, players will certainly be happy to dive into them.

So, what's your opinion?

Org play is strictly not done for SF2 and the team will have to balance a lot of demands and interest here, so I would not worry too much.

That said, I see no good reason to limit access to archetypes like medic in SF2 (even the playtest.

I am looking forward to the return to the island (I am already signed up to play that one soon), after the preview in Demonic Afterparty I am a bit apprehensive about this season's storyline but Rigby is a very dependable author and I have heard some good things about the season's intro from those that got to play it early.

Trying to play with pirates in Starfinder sounds like fun time ^^

That feels unintentional but I admit that is how the abilities seem to interact.