Syvis's page

If the new book was all about The Dominion of the Black, then I think it would be safe to say the end is nigh. in character

Oh man, I'd love some more detail on the Dominion of the Black. I'm not caught up with everything, but has there been an significant adventure material concerning them? I'm really only aware of one standalone adventure and one Society Scenario where you even dare head to Aucturn.

Isn't Datch in there?

I just doublecheck and yes, yes she is.

Great, now I have the decision of which character to play this scenario with. The ex-gang member Human and Downlow native that helped put Datch behind bars to begin with or the Shirren raised in an illegal penal colony in the Diaspora and who likely knows all too well about prison culture.

ABSALOM STATION, ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?!

Giving new meaning to the phrase "Bustin' makes me feel gooood~"

I see now why there haven't been a lot of spoilers coming out about this book from subscribers. There's... there's a lot going on here. A lot a lot. A generously ample pile of "a lot" is what I'm saying. Very dense book. Gonna take time to digest.

Honestly my favorite part so far is not even all that directly tied to the Drift Crisis.

Yeah, Akiton is that one planet in the Pact Worlds that seems to have a chance of actually benefiting from the Drift Crisis, seeing as how Drift Travel originally crashed the thasteron market and the whole planet really could use a bit of a makeover.

Hmm, the Chronicle Sheet download marks this as between able to credit levels 3-6. The description does mention they are set for level 5 though. Which is perfectly fine, since I got a Skittermander in that level range to work with.

Quote:

In-person attendees must show proof of vaccination (including booster shots, if eligible)

So does the above mean that those of us that are eligible for the second booster must have the second booster?

Probably. It's been shown that Covid-19 has mutated enough that while the earlier shots help, their efficacy is limited after a time. I know people who got the shots but still got Covid almost a year later (due to the variants springing up from it being able to circulate in unvaccinated hosts), though the shot helps reduce the effect it had. So the extra boosters essentially help refill the temp HP you get that the virus needs to burn through before it gets a good hold on you.

GO GO STARFINDER RANGERS

I mean, the moment I read 'four one of a kind mechs', the theme song started playing in my head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwbHW8MeHDU

Fingers crossed that the mechs have a combination option.

In re: Dragonkin characters --

If, for some reason, one is no longer able to play with the player character but that character is *not* dead RL is harsh sometimes, jobs/wars/school/pandemics/etc take people away from game is there a provision for 'retraining'?

Or does it require the player-character in question to actually be killed to clear the 'Bonded Partner' condition?

I am aware there is something that can get around the Partner Bond hard link.... but it's a spoiler to say more.

Huh, I see this has gone on to be fairly firmly debated. I admittedly am not sure I can read all this on one run, but as to the current point, I am fairly sure that spells per day and spell slots are literally the same thing.

From the Core Rulebook, page 330

'Some of the rules in this chapter make reference to spell slots. The number of spell slots of any given level that you have is equal to the number of spells of that level that you can cast each day (for details about exactly when you regain your daily spell slots, see Regaining Daily-Use Abilities and Spells on page 262).

When the rules say you must have an available spell slot, it means that you can’t have cast all of your spells per day of that level. When the rules say that you lose a spell slot or the spell fails, that means that you have expended one of the total number of spells of that level that you can cast per day.'

It may be worth noting, that this seems like it could be read as if you can cast level 0 spells only a limited number of times, rather than unlimited like most casters, you have actual level 0 spell slots.

But I fear I'm likely retreading old ground in anycase.

Not nearly enough starship battles with enormous creatures eager to eat you. Hooray for more!

Tomppa wrote:

Skeleton ancestry sounds super exciting, though, and it certainly brings hope that maybe one day we'll see other undead options too! (Looking at you, ghost and lich archetypes >.>)

Aren't we all skeletons though?

That's probably why they are making the exception. Got to get the Skeleton War rolling somehow...

Arawn703 wrote:

(Now that we have a symbol can we get it added to the forum instead of the blank space to the left of my name?)

That melancholy droning you're likely hearing right now is the collective sighs of Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo) followers everywhere.

Hopefully this may also update the Promotional Boons for the Faction Pins (For which Jadnura and Ehu still seem to be a bit in limbo of whether the Second Seeker's Pin counts for them), though I know they don't get used that much.

Yeah, I definitely don't think Magical Expertise was meant to make an ENvoy as good as a Mystic, but it does seem like it may be being read as being a bit less effective than it was intended. There is only one facet in which it is clearly superior to the basic Mystic Spells Class Feature, which is well balanced by all the other limits on spells per day and spells known.

While reporting this scenario I`ve seen green line "This scenario is replayable and will grant credit each time it is reported." in reporting form, but not "Repeatable" tag in PDF of website page. So where is the truth?

That seems to be an error on a lot of reporting. I've seen it on almost all of my reporting whether or not the scenario is repeatable. Go ahead and just trust the Scenario tags.

So, with some new options coming out if the current set of books, I've ended up going back to read the Envoy's Magical Expertise and a few things seem a little unclearly worded. Given, I may be reading them a certain way because I want it to work a certain way. I've discussed some of this on the Discord, usually in opposition, so I wanted to check on here.

Found a few threads on the Alternative Class Feature, but not quite on what I wanted to see clarified.

1. Does having the Mystic's Spell Class Feature, even a limited one, mean you also get access to Bonus Spell Slots when you are able to cast Spells of that level? The Feature mentions after the progression of the reduced spells known and spells per day, that the feature otherwise functions just like the normal Mystic's Spells Class Feature, of which Bonus Spells are a subsection of the Feature.

2. Does your Charisma ability modifier replace all uses of the Wisdom ability modifier for the Spells feature? It's been brought up that only the highest level of spells available and DC are the only specifically mentioned applications.

3. Do the three level 0 spell per day castings you start with count as spell slots? From my reading, spells per day and spell slots are essentially the same thing. If an ability or piece of equipment were to have spending a spell slot as a trigger, could you use one of your level 0 castings to trigger it?

I might have other questions, but these three are the ones that stay at the forefront of, maybe depending on the reading and intent, Magical Expertise might actually be a bit better than we've been given it credit for (or at least it's getting better as new options to compliment it are introduced)

Oooh, Qidel. Was curious to learn more about that place after a player in a home game decided to play Strix.

Ziggy! I wanna be a Heartlove!

Will the Advocates (and Cognates) be full factions, or minor factions like Manifold Host and SS Roheas?

From the sound of it, full factions. The Manifold Host is going to be joining the ranks of fully and freely joinable factions as well.

So as of Season Five, it seems there are going to be almost 10 Factions to support

Edit: Correction, there will be at least 10. The three well known flavors of Second Seekers (Jadnura, Luwasi, Ehu, but not sure about Roheas or others), the four factions that developed during the Scoured Stars Incident (Acquisitives, Dataphiles, Exo-Guardians and Wayfinders), and the three factions newly coming to the forefront (Advocates, Cognates, and the Manifold Host). Personally interested in learning about the Cognates, since they seem likely to be a foil to the Dataphiles, certainly from what I recall about ol' Royo.

Who digs GIANT ROBOTS?! WE DIG GIANT ROBOTS!

||A new Year isn't the only exciting news I've got up my sleeve! I'm pleased to announce that the following five races are being moved to always available as of the beginning of Year 5: dragonkin, pahtra, sarcesian, shobhad, and vlaka.||

Ooh, free access to three big boys as well as puppies and kitties. Already had a Sarcesian character I don't play much, so I presume that will be a retroactive ability boost. Also had a pahtra character I've not yet played and had plans for a Shobhad, so plenty of new things to try out.

A new ship to play with! What could possibly go wrong?

I honestly always feel a bit like an outsider because I'm one of the few people in any group who is actually excited about designing, testing and flying starships. Add in the fact we're learning a bit more about one of the starship manufacturers is a bonus as well.

Starfinder: Pirates of Skydock

Oooh, gonna get some crazy action on Verces...or technically in it's atmosphere.

What book will the evolutionist be in? That class strongly implies a book after Drift Crisis that has yet to be announced.

I imagine there will likely be a book dedicated to Biotech/Necrografts, much as Tech Revolution was dedicated to what we consider standard technology and Galactic Magic is dedicated to magical advances. Tech Revolution brought in the Nanocyte and Galactic Magic brings in the Precog. While Evolutionist does have cybernetic and magitech build options, those bases are mostly covered by the previous two books, so Biotech/Necrografts seem the likely area to focus on.

How many times does Guidance need to be infected by a virus and nearly kill a group of Starfinders before Celita upgrades his anti-virus software?

I believe the answer is a Fibonacci number. I'm guessing 5 or 8.

Maybe it didn't notice them? Just two tiny lifesigns just may not have caught the Kyokor's interest.

UnArcaneElection wrote:

^. . . and maybe succeed in keeping them long enough to get them repaired to full working order with some future technological improvement.

Plus, you don't want to be dependent for basic life functions on something that is potentially hackable, if you can avoid it. Or to have to be at the mercy of the manufacturer for maintenance and possibly even some End User License Agreement where you basically have to sign part of your freedom over to them.

You forget that regeneration is also rather cheap in Starfinder (Regeneration Serum for 600 credits)

600 credits probably isn't cheap for every single person in the universe, to say nothing about being a level 6 item. If you assume the Profession check as a non-adventurer person's amount of weekly income, someone with a +10 modifier (higher than your average level 1 adventurer who is more commonly at risk of losing limbs) makes about 40-50 credits a week. That means three months or more worth of wages for a serum, assuming they don't need to spend any credits on, oh I don't know...housing, food, maintenance, communication, family care, personal expenses, emergencies, or other medical expenses just of the top of my head.

And that doesn't even touch on the serum limitation. Yes, surprisingly, magic still has limits.

First off "When using a regeneration serum, you choose one body part that was severed from your body or one organ that was ruined (such as by the wounding critical hit effect) and inject the serum via syringe to the corresponding region on your body." Note severed limb or ruined organ. This says nothing about a limb or organ that is attached but no longer functions due to neurological damage or other sources of disability. Sure you could just cut the limb off and regrow it, but chances are that won't deal with the actual problem that causes the limb/organ not to function correctly in the first place.

Second off "For 24 hours after injecting yourself with the serum, you require a day’s worth of food and fluids every hour (which you can ingest without any of the normal repercussions of such excessive consumption) or the serum’s effects stop without effect." Meaning, you need to eat nearly a month's worth of food inside a day and that's probably all you do for that day. Now the food isn't that big of a deal creditwise if you just want to have four blocks of field rations on hand (tasty!), but let's look back on that. Really read it. You need to eat for 24 solid hours on the hour. If you try to do that on your own, chances are you'd fall asleep unless you have something that lets you sleep for almost no time (some cybernetics can do that if you have thousands of credits to spare) or are a specific species that doesn't sleep. So chances are you likely need someone to monitor you (or go to a facility where you can have the serum medically administers and where you can be housed to maximize the chance it works) to make sure you eat or else the serum is wasted. 600 credits down the drain.

Of course, the big thing is that we are talking about adventurers for who 600 credits isn't that big a deal, not the average person, right? Funny thing about not being the average person, you don't always act the way the average person would act. Sometimes you make decisions that aren't strictly logical, for whatever reason be it pride, honoring an event, or simply because it doesn't feel right to do the normal logical thing. Maybe they've even gotten so used to the way they function now that changing it would mean they need to relearn and replace certain almost instinctual behaviors they've built for months or years.

I get that some people think that these problems can be simply solved, and maybe they can in some or even many cases. Some or many is not all. And if such people insist on realism, then that cuts both ways. Rejection rates for magic/biotech/cybernetic aid, paying higher than standard amounts for goods or services, supply limits, lack of skilled crafters to make the goods you want or even just not knowing the formula or schematics, all the dozens of different things that are currently a default "Yes, that is available/works/is known how to replicate" for simplicity, GONE for the sake of realism.

Honestly, the imagine of being overwhelmed by an apari swarm is both hilarious and terrifying.

Back on the topic of this scenario: So you're telling me that Starfinder Society gets into high shenanigans at a Triune summit, what, two months before the Drift crashes?

No, no, I don't see anything going wrong here.

I may need to rethink sending my Formian Soldier and his malware infested datapad... eh, what's the worst that could happen?

Oh man, I LOVED reading about the Absalom Run and the fact we are going to get an adventure around it sounds absolutely awesome!

Just happened to think: Wonder if Akiton is suddenly going to find its fortunes change overnight, since thasteron drives are still around and are a well-known technology...

I forget if there was a specific drive involved, and may need to reread some adventures and books, but my main recollection was that thasteron was simply fuel meant for sublight travel on this plane. It's still used, but given Drift travel doesn't use it, the call for it outside of moving around your local solar system quickly peaked. Though if there were a breakthrough that allows thasteron to be used for fuel for long distance travel again, it would most definitely be cool to see a renewed and revitalized Akiton. Though hopefully having learned to have multiple sources of income to help mitigate the possibility of another planetwide bust in the future.

The realism to the day-to-day condition of the character is really awesome. I don't have any firsthand knowledge, but it seems both very believable but also amazingly inspiring to see a character who has such issues and still manages what they can.

Admittedly, the part that most caught me (and I can't believe it never occurred to me to try this in the playtest for Precog) was the fact that it brought up something in lore I deeply care about being explored. How Elves (and other long-lived species) deal with the Gap, since many of them were alive during it and essentially have a chunk of their personal memory missing. Memory loss is yet another issue that many people have to deal with and it can honestly be terrifying to realize that pieces of what make you who you are might be lost forever.

From my perspective at least, this new iconic is not only exploring the reality of dealing with certain physical limitations but certain mental limitations as well, and how one manages and pieces together the resources they still have to remain as functional as they can and contribute their best.

I believe two APs and at least one standalone adventure have been promised (more being left to the realm of speculation), plus "about four" Starfinder Society scenarios.

That sounds about right. I could be wrong, but I believe I saw or heard that there is going to essentially be a Campaign Setting book centered around the Drift Crisis, likely meaning it's encouraging people to make up their own adventures as well as the ones Paizo is officially making simply BECAUSE of how expansive an entire plane of existence (to say nothing of how integral it is to extrasolar space travel) going haywire would affect the galaxy.

Anyone who made any regular use of the Drift is going to have their own story to tell. Heck, just throwing this out, think of how messed up Drift travel would affect the Azlanti Empire. All of a sudden their Empire is fragmented and difficult to keep reliable tabs on everything. It would be a huge chance for conquered planets in other star systems to attempt to break away since their planetside overlords can't easily call for back-up, though there is definitely risk there.

Only people I can think of who aren't going to be too put out with the Drift Crisis would be species who don't need to solely use the Drift, like the Witchwyrds (oh man, just thinking of the profits they could make on the panic).

GM Wageslave wrote:

Steven Schopmeyer wrote:

Man, can I manage a three slot day? And manage three different systems?

Never go tri-system.

Stares into the middle distance...

Someone SHOULD have told jadnura that...

Someone get some SPF 3,000,000 for that burn...

It is what it is. Got a place or two in my town, but they aren't in the program. Might have a chat with the owners to see if they are interested in joining for next year.

CrimsonKnight wrote:

will there be any actual high tech options in the book like...

... permanent terraforming
... cybernetics beyond the limits of biology (i,e, augmentations to make a stronger, faster, smarter, more resilient, etc than any meatbag)
... biosculpting/bioforming
... smart guns
... stellar or planetary annihilations/harvesting
... star lifting
... controlling multiple drones
... von neumann machines
... remote mind machine interfaces
... Matrioshka Worlds, world ships, moving stars
... dyson swarm/sphere
... Nicoll-Dyson Beams
... mind uploading
... uplifting
... weaponized gamma ray bursters
... weaponized black holes or kugelblitz?

A lot of those are soundly outside of what we've seen of typical game balance so far and are much more in the area of 'GM plot device' as opposed to balanced player options.

Granted, more than a few already exist in the game to one degree or another... there are already Uplifted Bears and Technopathy Nodes, for instance.

Smart Guns as well, there are Manufacturers in the Armory Book that specifically makes guns that use either biometric or psionic safeties to prevent anyone other than the person coded to the gun from firing it. Given, those these are technically biotech and psitech, but some of the options do already exist in other sources.

Robots huh?

-punches in a comm number-

Yes, Multifold Industries? How much does your biggest ion cannon cost? ... I'll take three.

Given I'm planning to eventually play a character who was raised on Aucturn, definitely interested in learning more of the unspeakable lore to make a convincing and realistically disturbed character that helps get across how unnatural the place is.

Gotcha, thank you for clarifying.

So..I've looked over the Tech Revolution Playtest stuff again and something just occurred to me. And again, I am trying to be sure what is in my head is not an abuse of that system.

-----
Applying Credit: As we want to encourage extra play of the higher-level versions of the nanocyte, we're also going to open up the rules for applying credit when playing a playtest character. A player using a non-1st-level playtest character may choose to apply the earned Chronicle Sheet to an existing Organized Play character. To do so, simply replace the credits earned on the Chronicle Sheet with credits from the list below that match the level range of the existing player character.

Levels 1-2: 720 credits (2,160 credits for Adventure Path module)
Levels 3-4: 1,460 credits (4,380 credits for Adventure Path module)
Levels 5-6: 4,085 credits (12,255 credits for Adventure Path module)
Levels 7-8: 5,835 credits (17,505 credits for Adventure Path module)
-----

So reading this, a question hit me. From the wording, does that mean one could play a 1-4 Scenario with a 4th level Nanocyte and then apply that credit to a higher level character, such as a level 5-6, and gain the listed credit amount in the process?

Because while I do know it mentioned the intent is to encourage people to playtest the Nanocyte, I worry this sounds a bit abuseable to pump up a character.

This is... I'm not sure there is a word that encompasses both this magnitude of beauty and sadness.

Thank you for the help. Bit late for me to use it myself, but got some friends who may be interested in starting Organized Play and this seems like a good little nudge for that.

Hmm, is the Welcome to Starfinder Boon still available? I'm aware it's been well over a year since the latest post here, so not sure if I am looking in the right place for the friends I'm looking to invite here.