Sparrowhawk_92's page

Picked the Kasatha to see how they handle four (and presumably more than four) armed species and Borai to see how SF2E approaches them as a versatile heritage.

Excited to see how SF2E maintains the cantina feel with the way ancestries are written. I doubt we're going to get the 100+ species we have now converted over (granted a significant number of them could use PF versions in a pinch). I'm also concerned that we'll lose some of the species unique character if they're not more front-loaded than PF ancestries.

I'm also excited to see what new heritages we get for PF Legacy species to better represent how they exist in the setting. Asteroid Dwarfs and Masked Elves, and red-skinned Hylki humans.

It seems like a lot of the balance was down to technology.

If Michael had been equipped with Jennys gun do you think you would have come to these same conclusions regarding the balance? Because it sounds like all the nrgatives for him boiled down to the single shot weapons.

This is honestly one of the things that's going to make crossover PF2E characters interesting is seeing how those characters interact with a system that's much more gear dependent (assuming gear works anything like SF1E). Vice versa, how viable will SF2E characters be in lower-tech PF games? Sone classes like mystics or solarians might cross easily, but others won't.

Is there going to be a way for a gunslinger to become proficient with future space guns? How will those future space guns interact with their class features? This set of encounters is interesting to look at in isolation, but I wonder at long term viability of characters from either system crossing over.

None of the existing APs necessitate the need for a vehicle or mech bay on a starship, but they're super helpful for homebrew games that want to include a mech or vehicle as a huge part of the narrative.

Because I'm a massive Mass Effect fan, the homebrew campaign I'm working on will likely include vehicle sections where the party can deploy a customized rover or similar vehicle to get around a map. In this situation, having a vehicle garage makes a ton of sense. Similiarly, if I was running a game where having a deployable mech was an option for certain situations, having the mech garage would make a ton of sense.

I wonder how the "enhanced" class variants will play alongside the existing classes. Are they meant to replace them completely, or are they just supposed to be alternative approaches to the same classes? Likewise, how will they interact with previously published additional class options. The classes are already fairly modular, but if level-gates for certain features are changing that could complicate things unless there's guidelines for "updating" those old features for the new class chassis. Seeing how the unchained classes functioned in PF1E, I imagine it'll be a mix of everything, with each class being it's own beast as to how it's handled with legacy content.

Similarly, is the narrative starship combat supposed to be used instead of the standard starship combat, or is it just another tool to run starship encounters in situations where pulling out the hex-grid wouldn't enhance the storytelling?

I'm very excited about the new playable species, and the "revisiting" of some previously published species. If the entries are even half as good as the stuff that came out in Interstellar Species I'll be very excited. Will we finally be getting stats for some of the name-dropped species in other books perhaps?

Oh, and Destructicus is adorable and must be protected at all cost.

Robust, scaling cantrips would also be great!

Scaling cantrips appear in Galactic Magic FYI.

What about the 3 action economy system? This is what Starfinder really needs.

Integrating 3AE into SF is not something that would be easy to do for a number of reasons.

So will this bring SF closer to how PF2 presents its rules?

I wouldn't expect it. This is a balance patch to a system that was originally released as a one-off standalone side product for PF1E. The fact that it spun into an entire second game system due to it being so popular has caused some issues that have piled up.

Don't think of this as a sequel, it's a balance patch now that the game has matured plus lots of new goodies for us long-time players. :)

All of this sounds fascinating, I'm curious how the new versions of the classes will interact with what's already been published (are they designed as "replacements" or are they more just variants of the existing classes that can be chosen instead).

The Technomancer seems like the odd one out in the list, as it's the class mentioned I've seen the least complaints about.

I for one am incredibly proud of everyone involved in this initiative.

Sparrowhawk_92 wrote:

It's not even our first in Starfinder. The iconic Precog is a hoverchair user. Gotta love seeing the representation across the board.

And Barsala has a prosthetic hand.

True! I forgot about our science gal and her cool robot hand.

Sparrowhawk_92 wrote:

I love seeing the ADHD (or the Pahtra equivalent) representation in this piece. Always love to meet a new iconic.

100% agree. I'm glad we have a Starfinder iconic now with a disability. I have both Tourette Syndrome and Schizophrenia and it's been hard to get other people all throughout my life to understand me and not laugh at me or get angry with me. Seeing a tabletop rpg iconic character's story of going through this very same ordeal and triumphing makes my day feel good.

It's not even our first in Starfinder. The iconic Precog is a hoverchair user. Gotta love seeing the representation across the board.

I love seeing the ADHD (or the Pahtra equivalent) representation in this piece. Always love to meet a new iconic.

My gut tells me (i.e. if precedent holds) it'll be the Galactic Trade rules from Fly Free or Die, possibly revised and/or expanded to a slight degree.

Tondro said that the original design doc was a lot longer than what the page count in FFoD allowed for. If it's an expanded reprint I'll certainly be happy because I love the system and would love to see more done with it.

Four new player character species, including giants, sentient oozelike selamids, the gaseous thyrs, and the reptilian xulgaths of Lost Golarion.

Interesting how selamids are getting a reprint. I suppose it's safe to assume the other Dead Suns species aren't going to be updated in the combined version?

Also, playable giants? I'm very interested to see how those work but it's definitely a niche that isn't being served.

As of this posting, there are 125+ playable species in Starfinder across all official sources. My current estimates pin it at around 129, when you include the species from Drift Crashers book 1. At least 50 more potentially-playable species have been name-dropped across official Starfinder media.

I have a spreadsheet that I try to keep up to date with every new release that currently has exactly 50 non-playable species that have been mentioned and could feasibly be PCs. I might be missing some from newer SFS scenarios but otherwise it's up to date AFAIK.

The second Wayfarers book means the world to me.

** spoiler omitted **

EDIT: I guess I should also say: the sci-fi elements are my favorite bits of Pathfinder! Thank you to everyone who adds a bit of interplanetary flair to their fantasy.

If you haven't read The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells yet you absolutely should.

This might be one of my favorite iconics yet, and I know this is a small thing to get hung up on, but I have to know - what's up with her eyes? They don't look like the typical Paizo-brand elf eyes, yet there's little indicating that Ciravel is a half-elf - what gives?

I love her design and story both aside from that, however.

I mean, her irises are still huge and she's looking sideways. Paizo elves still have sclera. So I would imagine that if she was looking at you directly her eyes would be more like what you would expect, with the irises seeming to be her entire eye.

That and artistic license let's different people interpret the description of paizo elves in myriad ways. She's still consistent with the description for elves we are used to, just maybe not as much with other art which is okay.

I've lost track of the various playtests. I'm assuming Ciravel is tied to one of the new Starfinder classes about to release. Which one doesn't seem to be mentioned.

She's the Precog iconic that is coming with Galactic Magic.

I can't speak for anybody else, but its my hope that if Paizo can unionize the staffers at larger 3pp like Kobold Press will look to unionize under CWA as well and then that will snowball into WotC staffers looking to do the same.

It might be asking a lot of this particular movement, but it could be the start to something bigger than just Paizo.

The games industry in general (beyond just the TTRPG space) has been in desperate need for unionization for some time. This is a huge step and I am incredibly proud of all the folks at Paizo for stepping up for their fellow workers.

Sara, this is badass! You should write more fiction! :D

The 3.0 version of the Combat Wheelchair she wrote for 5e has a pretty long piece of fiction about one of her OCs that is pretty great.

Tromlins! Gathol! I remember when these names were teased back when AtAT came out and I'm hyped to see actual art (and hopefully player stats) for them.

Our new iconic looks fantastic and I'm happy to see Paizo utilizing more non-core races for iconics. Soon enough we should start getting teasers for Galactic Magic and we can meet our precog iconic too.

For Tech Rev:

- What are the new hacking rules like?
- Are there some examples of favorite "technobabble" that you want to share?
- What are some of the new options for drones?
- What are the new explosives rules like and how do they interact with moment-to-moment gameplay?

I love reference to Allsix x'D

Also, "nufriend" and "'gree." I was disappointed the follow-ups to Skittershot didn't include more skitter-slang.

This story is very touching and makes me sad for our stone-faced squid friends and their lost history. I hope she finds what she's looking for out there.

There was a discussion on another forum regarding how to handle the cone of light from a flashlight moving during play and whether it took an action to set the facing of the light during a turn. While we didn't find consensus, I decided to search for precedence elsewhere to help the discussion and I ran across this odd bit of RAW that I wanted to share and get others take on.

The spell Detect Magic creates a cone-shaped emanation with a range of 60 ft, with a duration of concentration with a maximum duration of 1 min/level. However, according to the rules about duration for spells, I came across this fun bit of text.

If the spell affects an area, then the spell stays within that area for its duration

This suggests that once you cast detect magic, it only affects the cone-shaped area that you originally defined during the casting and does not move with the caster.

I decided to check the text on emanations under "defining effects" to see if it offered clarity.

Emanation: An emanation effect functions like a burst, except that the effect continues to radiate from the point of origin for the duration of the effect. Most emanations are cones or spheres.

And the text for defining a cone:

A cone-shaped effect extends away from you in a quarter-circle in the direction you designate. It starts from any corner of your square and grows wider as it goes. Most cones are either bursts or emanations (see above), and thus won’t go around corners.

Does this suggest that the caster is the point of origin and that the cone from detect magic moves with the caster, defining the caster as the "point of origin" for the spell (which I think is the most common de facto practice) or would the corner that you're casting the cone from be considered the point of origin for the spell and therefore the cone effect would not move with the caster (by RAW)?

CorvusMask wrote:

I do kinda wonder if this book still sticks to the "in the future, magic is magic, doesn't matter if its divine/arcane/occult/primal" version or if other more specific form of magic will be introduced in this AU as well :D

I think it kind of makes sense that Starfinder does it that way. As time goes one things tend to get a bit more reductionist - at the beginning, there's lots of independent things and different ways to do things, but as time goes on you unify more and more as your understanding grows, until you hit an understanding level where it's all really the same core principles but with different applications

And it is thematically consistent with the "magic is just another science" approach that SF tends to use. The source doesn't matter as much as the application. Plus things like the Gap hitting a hard reset on a lot if magical traditions that may have existed.

I see the reference to Dawn of Flame there.

I dig this encounter a lot and want to find a way to fit it into a game.

Great! But when is it?

This is neat, as someone who has been curious about SFS for awhile now but haven't had a chance to get started. Having a go to "start here" adventure (or three) is super helpful.

As a side note, why is there a giant planet in the sky over the lorespire complex? :O

May I propose this list ?

Heh. You know, I haven't had the chance to try out Starfinder's new squadron combat system yet, but now I'm thinking I'm going to prioritize that for a one-off. With a party composed of a kitsune, espraksa, grippli, ysoki, and an SRO.

Because reasons.

DO A BARREL ROLL!

Space pirates! Azlanti! And weird aliens! Written by Chris Sims! Color me hyped.

I'm just reaching out to see if anyone has found/made an up-to-date starship spreadsheet that includes content from SOM and the updated CRB errata. Most of the sheets I've found so far are a couple of years old and haven't been updated to reflect some of the more recent changes.

Thanks in advance!

Placeholder art. We might have an iconic sketch by the launch of the playtest? We will share it when we get it!

Do we have a sketch for the iconic Nanocyte yet? Since I assume we'll presumably be getting this class after the full Nanocyte drops.

So does this mean we're getting a magic-book after tech revolution? Color me excited!

Continued spoilage!

If you're continuing being generous, can you share what the new themes they added or anything else interesting from the player's guide?

Fly Free or Die: One of these, probably.

Tondro has said that James Cameron was a huge influence on this AP as well as something like Firefly. Excited to see what it is and I'll be looking out for it.

I do have the adventure! My subscription PDF showed up last night - and I dove right in; still very excited to run this, assuming my technical issues can be addressed. As to your questions, these are obviously some BIG OL' SPOILERS, so only click through if you don't mind hearing core plot hooks!

Regarding your answer about the special ship. Does the adventure give the players their own ship to start, or are we bringing in our own?

Well, this doesn't have any real-world parallels that are being drawn from. Nope, not at all, completely fantastical.

Color me excited to see what the FFoD AP has to offer.

Now if the provided rules would only support this kind of gameplay, sneaking around with illegal weapons, dodging security system instead of assuming everyone is armed and armored everywhere.

I mean, the game has plenty of space to make this kind of scenario work and work well. Especially if you were running a one-on-one session that allows for more niche styles of play than what a party could ordinarily accomplish.

Groups of players with vastly different kinds of builds and specialization in the game space, ultimately limit some options for scenarios where everyone has to be involved.

This is why the typical "don't split the party" advice can fall short, as it limits situations where you can carefully craft a scenario where one player shines in their specific role, separate from the rest of the group.

Is there a reason the PDF for this is so huge? I don't think it should be 300+ MB for an AP volume.

Playable Gnoll boon when? :D

There's got to be some foreground-background size shenanigans going on in that image, but Ark Prime is definitely bigger than I was expecting it to be. Let's do this!

Oh wow, that was a heavy one. Great job HMM!

Question I see there were changes to the cost for weapons for starship did they boost the costs of shields at all. From what I remember from building our ship shields being pretty cheap and REALLY effective kinda ment that people just got as much shields as they could stick in their ship which broke a lot of encounters.

The build guidelines in SOM help with this. At one of the GenCon panels John Compton talked about having to backwards engineer how starship weapon values were calculated for the book. I imagine that work saw its way back to the core rebalencing of starship weapons and why most of the changes are in that section.

Hello there,

The PDF version of SF AP #29 was supposed to become available today and it's been showing as unavailable all day. Just wondering if there's any news about why that might be the case and an ETA on when it will become available for purchase.

Thanks!

The PDF for Cradle Infestation is showing as unavailable. I figure y'all are aware and working on it but wanted to signal boost anyway to be sure.

Okay, it's almost 3:00 PM pacific and I'm starting to get very worried.

It's now 3:15 and am concerned.

If they aren't going to hit the release dates with pdfs.. they should stop advertising release dates.

It pretty much always releases the day it's announced, it's just not until later in the day sometimes. It'll get posted soon Im sure.