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In WW2 some soldiers were rumoured to pull out the pins with their teeth before throwing. In the far future things would have moved on. Now, maybe you need a PIN number. I've been told that that is a great way to end up with ruined teeth and an entirely unimpressed (and unexploded) grenade. Can't say I've checked though.
Also, jobs wasn't a mechanic. Wozniac was his mechanic (and probably a lot of other people he duped like him). Jobs was an envoy pretending to be a mechanic.
Considering I don't expect to see any colossal-sized player characters any time soon, I suspect they'll deal however much damage is appropriate for the creature's challenge rating. Also, considering that a colossal-sized club isn't a player-useable item... I wouldn't feel too bad about upping it's damage to whatever feels about right.
Nothing's stopping you from loading a fabricated weapon with purchased ammo,so yeah, you can manufacture a grenade launcher/bow/whatever and load it with stuff from your backpack. As for your second question... nothing in the hack states the weapon comes loaded, regular ammo isn't mentioned anywhere, and neither is the running out thereof. There also isn't an faq entry I'm aware of. Soo.. this all boils down to gm fiat I think. First off, I think it's fair to assume it doesn't come 'permanently loaded', becouse that'd be a deviation from the rule, and those normally need to be mentioned. Personally, I'd say the weapon is created with a full clip/magazine/battery of ammunition that cannot be removed, and you need to perform some manner of action to reload it, but I could see someone else arguing you'd need to re-create the weapon when empty, or that you need to bring your own ammo.
I'm guessing Voss is alluding to 'exploding someone's head' not being exactly 'honorable battle', not that it's an inherently evil thing. And I'm tempted to agree. Glaring at someone untill their head goes *pop* doesn't strike me as an especially fair fight, if you care about such things.
If the object in question isn't on the floor but on a table-hight thing along the route of the charge or is sticking up out of the ground I'd let it count as 'drawing a weapon as part of moving' or I might let a player make a sleight of hand check to do it as part of a charge. But yeah, rules as written, Ciaran has it correct I think.
with the statline you've got up there, I'd definately advise you to pick up solar armor and go with ranged weapons, gravity-attuned solarians with longarms are quite good from what I've heard. Gravity I think also has the highest density of support powers, though still the majority is about improving yourself rather than your friends. Being gravity-attuned also provides you with some DR, so your squishy fluffball won't splat quite so easilly. Though with the party you're looking at, if you're looking to do support-y things, you might be better off switching your int and cha scores and going technomancer. They've got a reasonable amount of solid debuffs you could use to provide your big, scaly buddy with the backup he needs. Flight, grease and supercharge weapon come to mind as first-level spells that might be helpfull. Hope that helps you a bit.
Do keep in mind that while using UPB's is a fast and simple way to build things, I don't think it's been stated that it's the most efficiënt. I wouldn't be too surprised if it turned out that it's far cheaper to build things in a more 'conventional' way than by using UPB's, but that it's just not feasable to do so outside of large-scale manufacturing operations. This'd also handilly explain why it's impossible for players to make a profit turning UPB's into consumer goods at all. It's just an inherently inefficiënt process. Not saying that's how it is, but it's something that sprang to mind and makes a lot of sense to me personally. YMMV.
Wrath, I think you're forgetting that stellar rush is a standard action, unlike regular charging, and as such you can run along a wall / jump jet over something / reposition to avoid cover before triggering it, wich is what HWalsh seems to be alluding to in this case.
This reminds me of the old Marvel Comic U.S. 1, the 1st ever space trucker comic... Wasn't he just a normal trucker with a metal plate in his head that cought CB radio signals?
I always worry (probably irrationally) about what to do about trans representation in various kinds of fictional settings. Whenever I decide I won't make it a big deal for a character to be trans in a given setting, I worry I'm marginalising the problems that they face in real life, especially when something technological or mystical handwaves the physical changes away. That does kind of imply that all their problems would go away if only the change wasn't as difficult as it is, even though the biggest problems are caused by people being just... the worst. And when trying to invoke the problems they have in real-life nowadays, I worry I'm misrepresenting something I can't fully understand from an outsider position. I should note that I don't tend to extend that kind of scruteny to anyone else's work, when reading, watching or playing something someone else made I'm generally fine so long as they're not being dicks about the whole thing. While I've used trans as an example here, this extends to a lot of maligned social groupings in society and how to fit them into games. I try not to be a dick about things and be open to people telling me when I'm messing up somewhere. I'd love to hear some other people's takes on this.
The most difficulty I've had with 'queer' things in a game I've run (as a straight male I should add) had to do with a genderfluid character one of my PC's had as a contact. I was running stars without number for a group of friends and we ended up on our group's soldier's home planet. She wanted to meet up with an old army buddy, who she told me was a genderneutral person (excuse me if I get any of the terminology wrong, I promise it's not out of any form of malice). I'm not the best roleplayer and I'm not terribly experienced with those kinds of people, so it wasn't especially easy to run that in a beleaveable way without running afoul of stupid cliche's or the like. It ended up working out pretty allright, the player was satisfied that the 'challenge' she'd thrown my way (her phrasing) had gone down fairly well. And in the end, even though I'd been quite stressed about doing that 'right' at the time, I'm glad I got to do it and that it went down well with my group. I guess my takeaway from the incident was to try and distance myself from stereotypes as much as possible and (big shock) try to think of the character as a person seperate of whatever labels where attached. Not the easiest thing in the world when npc building for me usually starts with slapping a few labels together and then filling in gaps and smoothing off edges where needed. Donno if this'll help anyone, but it seemed relevant and I felt like sharing.
That looks absolutely awesome and I for one hope you'll share stories of how this goes when you get around to playing. Best of luck to you in your games, and have fun. ^_^
You generally want two weapons available per gunner, don't you? So you can't fire a gun more than once per phase, but there is an action that lets a gunner fire two guns at a penalty, if memory serves. So that's why you have a big, impressive gun on a turret and some cheaper ones scattered around the hull. Also, its nice to have a gun to spare so when your engineer or science officer feel like they have nothing better to do, they can shimmey over to one and pew pew a bit.
Things have changed since Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. And thank frick for that, we live in (mostly) better times for it. No-one needs Thac0, floral shirts, satanic scares, disco or, you know, crippling social inequality. (granted, don't think we truely got rid of even one of those, but at least there's markedly less of them).
Allright, here's a short list of some things the drone is good for from pretty much the start, in no particular order. Hope this helps you. Access to flight at first level means it can easilly get into position to ignore cover. It can fly over at high altitude and scout outdoor locations. Its a machine, so it can go into places that'd be too dangerous for you to enter, like heavilly irradiated areas for example. Sure, its weapon options don't start out great, but getting it access to longarms isn't hard to pull off and makes it entirely respectable in that regard. You can get it longarm proficiency by 3rd level and heavy weapons by 5th if that's your jam. And with its 16 dex, the hoverdrone is the best shot out of the lot of them. Even if its own skills aren't great it can still roll aid another to help you. Depending on what skill it's helping with though, you might have to give it manipulator arms or a tool arm if you want to do that. I'm sure there's more that I haven't thought of, but for now this'll get you started.
In absence of a proper ruling, mystycism checks make the most sense to me. In the case of the radiation revalation though, the most obvious issue would be noticing they're being affected by something at all, considering radiation tends to be rather invisible and if I'm not mistaken, the solarian doesn't have to do anything particularly obvious to make it happen. Now, if someone's got a Geigercounter ready, they might very well be able to put two and two together and figure out that the guy who just a moment ago was swinging a mote of stellar energy at their friend's face might be one of them solarian types doing something dastardly. Otherwise, they're mostly puking their guts out and not knowing why. Maybe all-you-can-eat discount shrimp wasn't a great choise for dinner the day before the big climactic battle?
Another piece of media that involves something realy close to an exocortex mechanic is Aldnoah Zero. It's a mech anime where in the second season the main character ends up with a computer in his head due to plot reasons. They at points go into how he can actually make parts of his brain that he isn't conciously using at the time available to the 'A.I.' that lives in that analytical engine, as they call it. 's pretty cool stuff. And yeah, don't worry too much about what the book sais, if you want your exocortex to be able to talk, I don't see a problem with that so long as you're not trying to leverage it into gameplay benefits. Jarvis in the marvel cinematic universe susposedly wasn't truely self-aware untill he became vision, but that didn't stop him from talking to people.
I'm pretty sure this and the piloting minor action mostly exist so fighters actually function, with 'the pilot/gunner fell down and hit his head!' being a fringe scenario you can also resolve with them.
If nothing else, it's definately a solid basis for argueing that a modification that lets your kalo breathe in air shouldn't be any more rare or expensive than that.
To try and keep this ball rolling, becouse I like this kind of thread, I'm going to have a stab at the cast of voltron: Legendary defender. Kiro: Human eldritch knight soldier with the mercenary or spacefarer theme I initially was tempted to label him as a solarian, but given how he doesn't do anything particularly supernatural or mystical beyond having his cybernetic hand glow, eldritch knight soldier ended up feeling better. Mercenary is a reference to his gladiator days, while spacefarer goes a bit further back to when he was involved in manned spaceflight alongside Pidge's brother and dad. Keith: Human blitz soldier with the ace pilot theme OR Human ghost operative. One of the two likely picks for best fighter in the main cast, soldier just seems right for him, and blitz moreso as he uses a sword almost exclusively. Ace pilot theme becouse he's also likely the most capable pilot initially, and that is a big part of his early characterisation. Alternatively, he could be an operative who uses a particularly long knife to trick attack with, given how he gets sneakier later. Soldier definately feels more right to me though. Lance: Human sharpshooter soldier with the ace pilot theme He went to the same school Keith went to to study basically the same thing, so them sharing a class and theme makes a lot of sense to me. Sharpshooter becouse he uses a longarm and later takes to calling himself the team's sharpshooter. Pidge: Human drone mechanic with the scholar theme OR Human hacker operative with the scholar theme Pidge is definately a techie of some sort, and technomancer doesn't feel quite right here considering the setting. After the drone goes away though, there's lots of sneaking and hacking done, so I'm torn. Hunk: Human envoy with scholar theme Easilly the most diplomatic person on the team with the only real contender being Allura, envoy feels right for this big lug. He read the threads saying it'd be a good pick to go with an unwieldy weapon when you're an envoy and whent right for that. Diplomacy and Engineering would be his most prominent skills, and profession: chef. Allura: Altean star shaman mystic Xenoseeker OR Altean technomancer with the xenoseeker theme As the only person doing much of any mystical stuff on the show, shaman feels like a good fit, though you could easilly argue technomancer aswell, given how much of said mysticism involves tech to enhance the effect. Xenoseeker becouse she seems utterly fascinated with every alien species she finds.
Edit: Damnit, sniped =p Hm... tricky. Envoy is the skillmonkey-est of the lot, so you could have them take care of engineering / science officer, switching roles as needed. Solarian takes captain, mystic goes star shaman and pilots, soldier goes gunner Alternatively, envoy goes captian, mystic invests in science/engineer, solarian and soldier both max pilot and determine between themselves who flies the ship Or overlord mystic captains, envoy skillmonkeys, solarian and soldier determine who flies and who shoots between themselves. decidedly sub-optimal, but as a GM it should be perfectly do-able to adapt to that I'd think.
Given just how entrenched and deep-seated the drow matriarchy is, I imagine they had a simular thing going on that the spartans had back in the day, where the ladies hook up with eachother a lot simply becouse its the only way to have intercourse with someone who is 'their equal'. The spartan tradition of brides dressing up as dudes for the wedding night also comes to mind here. Gives some... interesting societal implications.
I'd suggest going 16/18 rather than 17/17. You'll get a higher bonus in one of the two attributes without losing anything, and when you get to level 5 a 16 or a 17 will each increase to an 18, so nothing lost there. Aside from t hat those are perfectly fine choises, should work out nicely for you.
In response to your third point, if memory serves, you only need to know the spell at the highest level to be able to cast it at all the lower ones. When your mystic gets access to 2nd level spells, you can learn mystic cure level 2 and in exchange switch the 1st level one for a new spell while still being able to use mystic cure as a 1st level spell when you feel like it. So the padding isn't actually all that bad.
I just realise I completely forgot about theme bonuses, but otherwise it would appear we're mostly in agreement. It's not a super big deal, but it'll be noticeable on occasion.
Yes it does, the amount of points you get are static, you get a total of 62 points from your race (a base 10 in each stat and a net +2 gain) on top of wich you can speand 10 points to get stats where you want them to be. Say I'm making a technomancer gunmage favoring dex and int and my race gives me +2 str, +2 cha, -2 int (the absolute worst stats I could get), I end up with a starting array that looks something like this: Base: 12 10 10 10 8 12 Increase dex and int: 12 14 10 10 14 12. Level 5: 12 16 12 12 16 12 Level 10: 12 18 14 14 18 12 Level 15: 12 19 16 16 19 12 Level 20: 12 20 16 16 20 12 Now, say I picked a race that gave me a +2 int, +2 dex, -2 str, wich is pretty much optimal for what I want to do. Base: 8 12 10 10 12 10 Increase dex and int: 8 16 10 10 18 10 Level 5: 8 18 12 12 19 10 Level 10: 8 19 14 14 20 10 Level 15: 8 20 16 16 21 10 Level 20: 8 20 18 18 22 12 By picking the second race, I am far better at the two stats I care about than I would've been with the other race, so those bonuses are not 'free' becouse not all stats are equally important to you. That being said, neither of these characters are awfull or unplayable, but if anyone asks you wich is the mechanically better pick, it'd be dishonest to say they're equal. Edit: added level-up stat boosts becouse Ravingdork mentioned them. While the difference becomes less noteable as you go up in levels, it never goes away entirely. The biggest impact of your sub-optimal choise is definately getting up to level 5 or 10.
To me, it all boils down to one rule that tells you you can't do this, and that is the rule that sais any class feature can only be used in starship combat if it specifically mentions it can. Neither this spell or technomancer spells in general mention being useable in starship combat, so as far as I'm concerned, they're not.
Paul, to be sued they'd have to do something *far* closer to what a jedi is, given how they can't even sue over a lightsaber unless its specifically called a lightsaber (Anyone can put a blade of light at the end of a hilt in their material, even one that looks largely identical to a lightsaber from star wars. If not, series like Gundam would've gotten hit with a lawsuit ages ago, and games like terraria and no more heroes would've also been quite suspect) Given how the solarion's philosophy is entirely different from a jedi's (neither focus is inherently good or evil), they tend to wear armor, their weapon is made out of energy they themselves produce in whatever shape they want... 's ultimately no-where near sueably close.
I'll throw my hat in with the folks saying mechanic, becouse the 40K techpriests to me feel more like exocortex mechanics with the priest theme than actual technomancers. Sure, there's some ritual in the way they use their tech, but for the most part they use their machines pretty directly. They don't mess with the laws of physics to make an explosive blast, they just lob an annointed grenade at you etc. Also, you get quite a bit of that 'augument the body, the flesh is week' flavour out of the exocortex mechanic's tricks.
I suspose both matter about equally, you don't want bonuses to a stat you want to dump or penalties to one you want to boost. A penalty to a dump stat means 2 points to put into a stat you want, while a bonus to a dump stat means 2 points you can't use somewhere you want it. Not ususally a super big deal imho, a 5% increase or decrease in your chanse to do a thing is in and of it self not a super huge deal in the vast majority of cases, but if you're looking for optimal it's worth noting.
It doesn't matter super much, but it makes it harder to get the spread the way you want it if you also have bonuses to things you don't care for.
You get the wireless hack ability just for being an exocortex mechanic, make sure you read up on that one befor eyou play, as it's something unique to your class.
Interesting point... RAW it would affect humanoids regardless of caster, and historically in other games this has been the way it was handled, so I wouldn't assume the devs intention was anything else. Could be an interesting houserule though.
I can't say much for some of the things you've asked, but here's what I can tell you from what I know: Deadly aim generally isn't worth it, the math's been done, and it practically never gives you a dps increase, so probably best to skip it When it comes to hacking, the technomancer may have more dice than you, but you can do it at range due to exocortex, so you can actually do stuff like.. hacking a machine in operation during a fight, like making an opponent's vehicle crash or making a construct do something you want. Your technomancer can only realy accomplish that with spells, while you can do that just by forgoing your exocortex bonusses for a round or two. For stabilising the mystic, just keep some healing serums around, probably a better bet than getting connection inkling for it. Heavy weapons are a nice damage boost over longarms, so if you do go with them, you might want to ditch longarms entirely and carry a blast heavy weapon and one you can hit single targets with. If you're using boost most of the time, you might not even care about it being unwieldy.
Sooo, now that we've talked about all the good stuff; What do the masses say would be a race to use a Technomancer??? I already like the way this out and would like to give it a go.... Anything that doesn't have a penalty to int should do you fine. Elves get a special mention for any caster becouse they get a bonus to dealing with spell resistance. If you've got alien archive Ryphorians and Witchwyrds are interesting picks for different reasons. For the most part though, the general concensus is that so long as you don't have a penalty to a stat that's important to you, you aren't going far wrong.
Took me a while to realise the first world was pathfinder's version of the feywild. Took a trip down to wikisville, and that seems to suggest the first world maps (or at least mapped) roughly to golrion, and given how it's specifically mentioned to be 'out of time' compared to the other planes, that might be the closest to visiting golrion we can get at present. Something to think on, maybe. Beyond that, I'd say 'every planet gets its own first world' sounds about reasonable. The idea that the laws of physics might randomly apply differently seems fun to play around with. 'Yeah, the speed of light is much lower here, so the range increments on any laser weapon are now absolutely terrible and aiming at distant things is nigh-on impossible. Good luck with that!'
I'm an IT person, not a hacker by any streach, but far closer to it than most people get. Group hacking would probably look a lot like any group research. Maybe one is searching the web for information to use to unlock user accounts, another might be looking around for programs on the computer with known vulnerabilities that can be used as a method of entry, using some external device to read through whatever data they can access that way that'd help other attempts, running a password cracker on several different user accounts, using some social engineering to find information they couldn't get some other way. While they all have ranks in computer, in real life that could refer to various different specialisations within that range, and by working in tandem and sharing whatever they uncover they can each be more effective than any would've been on their own.
Given how you can use the better of the KAC/EAC between a suit of light armor and power armor when wearing both, I think it's pretty situational when wich upgrades apply. Though universally, I'd allow anything that gives visual upgrades, life support extensions, enviromental/damage resistances and such things apply regardless, while mobility upgrades generally aren't going to translate from your light armor to the suit of powered armor. Anything else is up for debate though. If you're wearing that powerlifter armor over a decent suit of light armor, I could see the electrostatic field still applying, considering that thing is remarkably uneclosed, for example. So.. GM Fiat, a lot of the time.
would re-fluffing a starknife suffice?
I also like the fact this allows you to make a Qualta blade from Farscape. I haven't seen that movie, but that 'stock' looks like it isn't very comfortable. I hope for that dork's sake that that space claymore doesn't have a lot of recoil.
the people implying the ghoulification is the only effect are just straight-up ignoring the part where it sais it follows the physical disease track, wich seems pretty flat-out wrong. I'm assuming Andy here seems to have the right awnser.
I like that asari write-up, realy captures the general feel of the race. Kudos.
Is there a specific reason why the people who launched that ship figured they'd need to include a living ecosystem of plants and animals with their statues and robots? Becouse that doesn't seem particularly helpfull to me. Beyond that, interesting premise. Not entirely sold on the andriod forgetting flesh to stone as a result on the gap though, becouse people's skills are specifically mentioned to not be affected, they just no longer knew how they got them. More likely the android simply doesn't remember these statues where people once.
funny problem would be solar weapon plus whatever for me ... The worst part is that there technically seems to be no reason that doesn't work beyond the solar weapon not having a listed price, considering they're not considered analog weapons for whatever reason.
There might just not be a gun installed in the turret section? The fact that it has room to fit one doesn't mean someone installed one per se.
Whoa, 8 players? That's pretty huge. I aplaud you for doing that, as it's quite tricky to divide your attention appropriately between that large a group. Personally, I'd be looking at splitting them into two groups of 4, perhaps having them run different adventures in the same world so they sometimes notice effects from eachother's exploits, or having them run through the same adventure just to see how they do different. Best of luck managing that. Best advice I could give is make damn sure everyone keeps their turns short and moving along reasonably rapidly, as with the increase in players and mobs, you're looking at pretty staggeringly long turn times. Also, has anyone thought about the space battles? with every role covered and 3 people to spare, you probably want a slightly bigger ship (more guns in each firing arc means more people can be on the guns and feeling usefull) Alternatively, you could keep the ship as-is but swarm them with more (but smaller) enemy ships so they have stuff to shoot at on multiple sides a lot of the time. Or, you could houserule a modification for the players' ship that lets them use it as a carrier for 2, maybe 3 fighters, and have some of the players sortie in those during fights. That would be a bit tricy to balance BP-wise perhaps, and neccesitate you modding the starship battles even more, but it might be the most engaging sollution. That's just off the top of my head with fairly limited experience with the starship combat, so take that with a decent pinch of salt.
Race Saiyans Source Dragon Ball/Z/super Example Goku, Vegeta, Nappa, Kale Ability adjustments +2 st, +2 dex, -2 wis. Saiyans are physically strong and agile, but tend to be impulsive and rash. Racial HP 6 Warrior spirit +2 bonus to morale and fear-based saving throws Zenkai (Not entirely sure how I'd write this one up. For those who don't know, this is the Saiyan's racial ability to rapidly increase in power after having been beaten. The most obvious way would be to give a bunch of xp for getting downed in a fight, but that doesn't realy sit right with me.) Tail Generally amputated during childhood, as to prevent giant rampaging monkeys from murdering everything. ---------------------------------------------------- Race Alteans Source Voltron the legendary defender Example Allura, Coran Ability adjustment +2 wis, +2 int, -2 con. Alteans tend to be wise and learned, but not as physically tough as many other races. Racial HP 3 Chameleon Alteans can change the colour of their skin at will, giving them a +2 bonus to stealth and disguise checks where differing skil colouration would be helpfull. Exceptional scholars +2 racial bonus to any two int or wis based skills of choise
Why not Zoidberg? He doesn't fit in a Yokshi's mouth.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of an evil, sadistic god deciding that no-one gets to pick on his sister, but there seems to be a conflict here. Personally, I quite like the idea of ruling it like ZK's clerics leaving Shelyn's clerics alone simply becouse it'd be interesting to see those quite objectively horrible people stand up to other evil groups and go '... hell no, you don't touch my baby sister. No-one touches my baby sister!'
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