Tim Emrick's page

I would always recommend picking up the Core Rulebook, even though Starfinder Society doesn't require you to own a copy in order to play. AoN is wonderful resource, but as you found, it's sometimes hard for new players to identify which stuff is available to them vs. which isn't, or where to find essential rules. The CRB also presents a lot of that information in a much more user-friendly way, if you just want to get a feel for the basics.

Every Starfinder PC needs, at minimum, armor, a melee weapon, and a ranged weapon. Envoys have limited proficiencies in each of those, which will limit your choices, especially at 1st level.

- Second skin is almost always the first set of armor that any PC limited to light armor will buy, and it will be a couple of levels before you can afford something that's enough better to be worth the expense of upgrading.
- Unless your envoy favors Str over Dex, you'll probably want a weapon with the operative property (which can substitute Dex for Str on attack rolls), so you're pretty much limited to the tactical baton or survival knife.
- There are slightly more choices for level 1 small arms: a laser pistol (lowest damage, best range), pulsecaster (nonlethal), or semi-auto pistol (best damage, but targets KAC, which is almost always a couple points higher).

Taking another weapon proficiency at 1st level is one way to open up your choices, but once you reach 3rd level and get Weapon Specialization, you'll need to take another feat to gain the same bonus damage with weapons your class didn't give you proficiency in.

As for other gear, here are a few suggestions for stuff to look at:

- If there's a toolkit available for any of your trained skills, you may need one to use the skill, or want one to give you bonuses in certain applications of the skill. If you're trained in a Profession, professional's tools and professional's clothing are solid choices (and pay for themselves after just a few day job rolls).
- Backpacks are cheap, and help increase your carrying capacity.
- Mk 1 healing serums are 50 credits, and are life-savers if a fight goes poorly. (Even if you have a mystic at the table, they will have very few spell slots at low levels.)
- Few armor upgrades are affordable at 1st level, with the notable exception of infrared sensors (200 credits). They're very popular for characters who lack darkvision and have the credits to spare.
- If you have 120 credits to spare, you might consider a weapon fusion for a 1st-level weapon. Regardless of what else the fusion does, it makes your weapon magical for the purpose of overcoming DR. (That's not the most common need at 1st level, but it does occasionally happen.)

Tim Emrick wrote:

Torch/Shadow Lodge Campaign

Hi Tim, sorry, one other question for you... Are there any of these scenarios that you would count as filler / that you would take out if levelling didn't matter? (I assume the four level 1 scenarios aren't part of the story based on your comment, but I'm curious about the rest.)

There were a number of 1st-level scenarios that mention the Shadow Lodge but don't have very much to do with it, so we decided to play some repeatables instead for that level. So, yes, that level was filler.

Night March of Kalakamedes is filler, and once that was added, Valley of Veiled Flame was added because of how its reward interacts with the former scenario's.

Beyond that, I'd have to do some digging through our group's discussion to figure that what else was filler.

IIRC, the player who worked out the initial draft found most of his information by combing through scenario tags for "Shadow Lodge" and using PathfinderWiki to identify all of Torch's appearances.

I've now run Parts 2 and 3, and the run time continues to be right about the 4-5 duration of the original adventures. My home group is more comfortable with 4 hours at a time, so I still have some work to do to get better at pacing to finish in that time. The final fight for Part 3 was long and nasty, so pushed us to around the 5-hour mark (and everyone was exhausted IC and OOC by then).

On the other hand, this an AP for a home game, so we can break an adventure into two sessions if we ever need to. I expect I'll need to with a few of them, especially at the higher levels.

Parts 6 and 12 are conversions of multi-table specials, and allow (and expect) the PCs to play through ALL the available content, which you can't always do during a strictly-timed special. The authors suggest these will each take two 4-5 hour sessions to play out. I'm expecting to need a minimum of three for each with my group's schedule.

Scoured Stars AP: Parts 2 and 3: Summaries of my run of the second and third adventures in this adventure path.

Because we're only doing this chronologically within each level, not overall, there has been a certain amount of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff. Most notably so far, we played through Destiny of the Sands (S5, post-Shadow Lodge) immediately followed by Shadow's Last Stand (S2, when Amenopheus's reputation is dramatically different).

Tim Emrick wrote:

...which is essentially a curated history of Torch's involvement in PFS plot lines (occasionally out of chronological order due to level tiers), with Passing the Torch as our final adventure at level 12. This one is more round-robin, with the five of us having aporoximately the same number of scenarios to run over the course of the campaign. We are 6th level now, having recently completed the Destiny of the Sands trilogy, and will be finishing Shadow's Last Stand next week.

You don't happen to have a list of all of the scenarios your group is playing through, do you?

Here is our schedule, which was originally drawn up by @cmlobue, then modified by committee:

Torch/Shadow Lodge Campaign

(roughly chronological within subtier; multi-table specials not included do to logistics)
Lv 1: 5-08, 6-10, 9-16, and Murder's Mark (all slow)
Lv 2: 0-01, 0-14, 1-45
Lv 3: 2-15, 2-17, 2-19
Lv 4: 3-01, 3-18, 4-19
Lv 5: 9-04, 5-12, 5-15
Lv 6 5-16, 2-23, 2-24, 4-21, 4-23, 9-21 (all slow)
Lv 7: 2-06, 2-07, 2-09
Lv 8: 3-12, 3-14, 4-03
Lv 9: 4-22, 4-24, 2-25, 6-07 (first 2 slow)
Lv 10: 2-04, 2-26, 3-20, 3-22 (last 2 slow)
Lv 11: 4-12, 4-20, 9-07
Lv 12: 9-25, 10-22, 10-23

Where only one part of an arc was tagged Shadow Lodge, we tweaked the schedule to fit in the whole arc. Between those additions, and the number of relevant scenarios at that level, we're currently playing all of 6th level in slow mode. (We are doing 2-24 tonight.)

Level 1 is mostly repeatable filler. We avoided quests because you have to play pregens for those, and we only wanted to play our new, weird PCs.

Our party conissts of any four of the following five, depending on who is GMing:

95. "The monster didn't use this special attack on anyone else until now because I--I mean it--only just remembered that it had this ability. But you have its attention now, so roll that save."

I've been playing PFS since S7 of 1E, Starfinder since partway through Season 1 (it took a while to get traction in our area), and PFS 2E since its inception. Like Hmm, it's been my primary RPG outlet for most of that time. Even my home gaming group tends to favor scenarios and APs that earn us organized play credit these days.

I have a fairly large stable of characters for each of those campaigns, but there's usually only a handful of them that see regular play at any given time.

In the most recent seasons of PFS, the metaplot has been broken into short arcs of 2 or 3 scenarios that each tell discreet parts of the season's overall story. That helps make the metaplot more accessible to all players, both the long-time veterans and the newbies who know none of the back story yet.

As Hmm said, there are many opportunities for roleplaying and character development. At times, you might have tone down some of the theatrics in order to keep the pace of the game on track, but if you can inject some fun color without significantly delaying game play, by all means embrace that!

Nearly every venue will have some regular players whose characters you will get to know over time, and depending on scheduling and the scenario, you may even be able to coordinate with them to play certain combinations of characters who work well together--or who are just fun to play off each other. My wife and I have created at least one set of characters who only adventure together, because they're built to be partners, but we and other regular locals also have several characters who are old companions simply because they've always been playing at the same tier together most of their careers. (At the other end of the spectrum, conventions are a rare treat because we get to play with very different folks, which is its own kind of fun.)

Hmm makes a good point about PbP offering a way to inject more roleplaying into the experience, without the time pressures of a live game. There's more time to think about developing your character's style and mannerisms, their likes and dislikes, and how they interact with the world. And even if you know a character pretty well, you might discover something surprising because of the opportunities to pause and reflect. (I had a 12th-level Starfinder character whose lovelife I'd never really thought about in all the time I'd played her, when suddenly she meets a new and unusual NPC who made her go, "Oh, so that's what I like." She didn't pursue the NPC in any way--that would have distracted from the mission and potentially could have been very awkward, both IC and OOC--but it definitely informed her interest in that conversation and attitude toward the NPC. And it was one more note to file away for future roleplaying.)

Finally, welcome, and I hope you find the kind of game experience you're looking for!

My rather infrequent blog has a new post!

The subject of multi-classing came up recently in an online discussion (on these boards, IIRC?), so I decided to write up an overview of how those rules have changed over time, and some examples from my own personal player history.

my Sarkisian GM baby

*sarcesian*

Thanks, phaeton_nz!

Hi, long-time SFS player and only very occasional PbPer here. I'm interested in playing something level 1-4 to get my Sarkisian GM baby up to 3rd level before The Day the River Died drops in a couple months, while also playing her at least once before then.

I've either played or run all but a handful of the 1-4 scenarios and bounties and am prepping some of the remaining ones to run for the newbies at my FLGS. If anyone would be up for running #6-14: The Missing, that would be ideal, as that may be the last one I'm not yet spoiled for. I'm also up for a repeatable, if that's easier to make fire.

Shortly before COVID started, a group of us who GMed regularly at our FLGS started up a weekly PFS 1E game for just us GMs. We alternated books of two APs (Giantslayer and Shattered Star, different GMs for each AP) in PFS-mode, with a few levels of Emerald Spire or other module or PFS scenario to fill the occasional leveling gap. We were forced to go online halfway through the first book, and have been there ever since.

After we completed that campaign, we started our current one, which is essentially a curated history of Torch's involvement in PFS plot lines (occasionally out of chronological order due to level tiers), with Passing the Torch as our final adventure at level 12. This one is more round-robin, with the five of us having aporoximately the same number of scenarios to run over the course of the campaign. We are 6th level now, having recently completed the Destiny of the Sands trilogy, and will be finishing Shadow's Last Stand next week.

This might very well be the last campaign-length thing this group does with PF1, so we all spent some time combing through old boons to apply as many as we could to our PCs. As a result, we have party composed of a dhampir, a naiad, a Triaxian, and 2 tieflings--and my wife's inquisitor worships one of her retired PCs, thanks to another boon. For me, it's also a chance to try an archetype (escapologist) and PrC (shadowdancer) that I've never played before.

Qimok looks really cool! Could you tell me what program you use to draw your characters? I'm sorry if that's a silly question, but I'm new to this!

I hope you won't be too disappointed to hear that all the art I post here is hand-drawn, on paper.

I'm old enough that I earned an art degree before digital art was *everywhere*, and never really had the patience to put in the practice required with a drawing program to be able to produce something that looks anywhere near as good as what I can do physically, by hand. (My 20-year-old son, OTOH, has been doing digital art almost half his life, so it's second nature to him by now.)

My first post was June 2015, but I wasn't a regular poster until January 2017, when I started posting about my homebrew setting Pathfinder campaign.

I know there are tons of threads on these boards for theory-crafting character concepts, some of which involve dipping into multiple other classes, but I'm curious about how often you actually see characters with more than just two or three classes being played at the table?

Our former Venture Lieutenant became infamous for arcane builds that cherry-picked low-level abilities from multiple classes--usually taking an unusual archetype for every class--in order to achieve some combo he had in mind. It became something of a running joke for us to express shock and amazement any time his PCs took more than one level in a single class. One of his more effective weird builds was focused on sunder attacks with multiple natural weapons. IIRC that PC had 4-5 different martial classes by level 5-6. He's gone to similar extremes to achieve a specific schtick at least once or twice since then. (He's particularly fond of dipping two levels of paladin for divine grace, and even when he doesn't he almost never dumps Cha because he enjoys being the party diplomat too much.)

I have rarely multi-classed my own characters simply because many classes' core abilities require investing levels in them to remain effective, and many higher-level abilities are too good to want to delay access to them. Casters are the ones most obviously affected in this way, but even a rogue's effectiveness in combat will suffer a serious hit if their other class doesn't make up for their sneak attack progression in some way. (At once point, my dash-1 rogue took a level of cleric for RP reasons, but soon retrained out of it because he could better serve his god by becoming a more effective rogue.) Out of my 17 PFS 1E characters, only 5 are multi-classed, and two of those are because I specifically built them to qualify for a prestige class. (I have one more who was aiming for a PrC, but the advent of 2E meant she never got played enough to get there.)

Speaking of PrC's, there are a few that require two classes to qualify for them (mystic theurge, eldritch knight, rage prophet, etc.) but I have yet to play any of those myself except as NPCs. I did GM for one back in my v.3.5 days. That PC was a cleric of the magic god, and had always intended to go mystic theurge once she acquired enough levels. Along the way, she also picked up a level or two of loremaster while advancing her arcane spellcasting, just because it was more interesting than taking more levels in wizard.

The only one of these archetypes I've seen in play is the Archivist. My wife played one to high level (low teens?) in PFS, and used the Naturalist feature to good effect almost every combat. Her Bard had a good Cha, but an even better Int, which helped her keep her Knowledge skills high. She also got some good mileage out of Magic Lore and Jack of all Trades, especially when the table was short on skill-based classes and/or casters.

She eventually multiclassed into Pathfinder Chronicler, and often used that PrC's Deep Pockets ability to produce just the right low-level scroll for the job, trusting to Magic Lore to cast it without significant effort.

The Lord of the Rings has come up in recent conversations with two of my (far less geeky) co-workers, which has made me realize I'm probably due for another re-read. So when I needed to grab something to read on the car trip to the con this morning, I chose The Hobbit. It's written in simpler language that LOTR, and it's short--perfect for light reading after a few weeks of intensive con prep.

I made it as far as Bilbo's escape from Gollum by the time we got to Columbus.

If the satyr's pipes were intended to exceed the HD limitation of sleep, then the text would have cited deeper slumber instead.

Never mind, deeper slumber just affects more HD of creatures, but still has the same HD cap as sleep.

Regardless, the pipes reference the sleep spell, so functions exactly as that spell, except as noted. The greater area of effect and higher DC are the only changes the pipes specify.

A friend of mine wrote a rock opera about Joan of Arc this past year, but sadly, we don't live in the same state anymore, so I wasn't able to go see it performed. However, I had that in mind when I decided to reread Bernard Shaw's play Saint Joan this past week.

I am currently trying to figure out what to take with me to read on the car trip to Origins in a couple days.

If the satyr's pipes were intended to exceed the HD limitation of sleep, then the text would have cited deeper slumber instead.

I've been playing PF 1E for roughly a decade. As both a player and a GM, I've yet to have a character with Deific Obedience (though my PFS warpriest will take it in a couple more levels, if she ever sees play again). And I've never bothered picking up whatever book divine fighting styles are in, despite playing a number of devout characters over the years.

Focus on the kinds of details that are given in the CRB and APG (domains, subdomains, alignment, favored weapon). All the rest is optional--and, I'll point out, is the product of many designers working over several years, in a shared world already rich in lore. Nobody expects you to build all of that right out of the gate for a homebrew game! If one of your players wants to explore that stuff with their character, work with them to build it. Otherwise, it's effort better spent on other parts of your world.

Even in my most ambitious homebrew setting, I only went one step beyond the basics I listed above: I worked out religion background traits for most of my gods, but I cribbed around 90% of them from Paizo sources rather than make them all up from scratch.

PaizoCon is entirely online now, so it seems highly unlikely that they would have any physical promotional items.

Inner Sea Races has some tiefling options.

I also realize that I would need a boon that isn't available for the Time Traveler background as well.

There is a boon for Time Traveler. Search for it under Chronicle boons, then find an opportunity to play that scenario.

Or at least multiclassing rules that make it painless to multiclass and DON'T nerf PCs who do this, so they can still be used in Organized Play adventures for their char level.

The core mechanics of SF 2E will be based on PF 2E, so I imagine that multiclassing will work just like PF multiclass archetypes do. In my experience, characters that take archetypes are pretty well balanced against other characters of their level. You're spending some of your feats on another class's abilities, but you still have access to your main class's abilities at your full level.

Please support Organised Play, including a way to convert 1E characters to 2E without losing their experience or boons.

I don't see this happening. The colossal effort it would take to try to work out how to do this in any way that resembles fair (which I'm not convinced is possible anyway) would be better spent on producing tons of new content for the new edition. Organized Play survived the shift from PF 1E to 2E just fine, and I'm confident that SF will, too.

Please don't make non-human Ancestry use up a Feat slot. That just automatically nerfs all non-human PCs compared to humans and takes away their options to use other feats.

All ancestries will get the same number of ancestry-specific feats at certain levels in 2E, just like in PF 2E.

I am curious to see if SF Society 2E will use the same boon slot types as 1E. PFS 2E doesn't really use that same framework, and IIRC, its ancestry and heritage boons that cost AcP don't have a type descriptor anyway.

I've finished rereading Three Days to Never. Powers has a real knack for thinking through the mechanisms and consequences of the paranormal elements that his plots hinge upon.

I'm now rereading Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things anthology. The reason I chose to reread it is a bit silly: The actress who I "cast" as one of my longest-running and most-loved RPG characters has exactly the sort of Grecian profile that Gaiman gave one of the girls at the party. The story and the actress remind me of each other frequently, but it had been a few years since I'd read it. (I have yet to see the movie based on the story, but really should.) And, of course, the rest of the book is very much worth rereading while I've got it pulled out.

I also have and use full Acrobat to extract map images from PDFs. If you're prepping a PFS and SFS scenario that uses a Flip-Mat reprinted to fill a single page, and don't own the full-sized map in PDF, the resolution of an image extracted from the scenario will usually be plenty good enough for Roll20.

If needed, I'll crop the image, which can done in many different programs.

I usually don't bother cropping any partial squares along the edges of a map, but that's a personal preference. (I will sometimes set the size of the map so those parts extend past of the edge of the viewable map in Roll20.)

If you use the "is a drawing" option in Roll20, it won't automatically try to fit the image to the grid, and the image will keep its proportions as you move and resize it.

For maps that come with a grid, the "align to grid" feature is useful for getting the resizing right, but IME, it does takes some practice to master.

Another personal preference: I like keeping the original gridlines on the map, rather than trying to erase them. They're useful for getting the image lined up with the Roll20 grid. I often change the grid color to bright red while working on sizing and aligning maps, to make it easier to tell it apart ftom the image's grid, until they overlap exactly (or as close as I can get). When I'm done, I'll change the grid color back to the light gray default, which will either blend into the image's gridlines or highlight them where they are hard to see on the map.

Pathfinder's qlippoths are based on monsters that first appeared in Green Ronin Publishing's The Book of Fiends: Armies of the Abyss for D&D v.3.0 (later updated to v.3.5 in the collected The Book of Fiends hardcover). Of the five qlippoths in that book (chernobue, hydraggon, nyogoth, Shiggarreb, shoggti), all but the chernobue were illustrated by Toren Atkinson. Lovecraftian monsters are one of his specialties, and i much prefer his original B&W drawings to the qlippoth illustrations in Bestiaries 2 and 6. I've included links above to two of those images, which he has shared on his website.

I have started rereading Tim Powers's Three Days to Never. I haven't read it in over a decade, so remember very little of the story, but I've very rarely not enjoyed a Powers book.

Which is.... eight skills? Will you feel the pain if the party is missing Acrobatics, Athletics, Culture, Disguise, Intimidate, Life Science, Medicine, Physical Science, Sleight of Hand, Survival, or Stealth?

Acrobatics and Athletics are commonly required to navigate obstacles. They can occasionally be used to impress NPCs who appreciate physical skills.

Survival is used for overland navigation, enduring environmental conditions, and interacting with animals. Unless you constantly remain in a ship or city, you'll need it eventually.

Culture is how you get languages and knowledge of people and places. Without it, first contact and archaeological missions will be at a severe disadvantage, and you'll routinely miss useful background data on many other missions.

In my experience (mostly SFS), Disguise hardly ever gets used, and Sleight of Hand and Stealth are highly dependent on the scenario. Pretty much everything else gets used fairly regularly, even if it's just to understand clues the PCs find.

"That is outside the scope of the adventure, persist at your own risk" seems most reasonable to me. Don't even bother asking for checks.

First, low-level characters have very little hope of successfully assaulting anyone powerful enough to join the Decemvirate. (Without spoiling any revelations from recent adventures, I can confidently say that rude, pushy 1st-2nd level characters pose absolutely ZERO threat to the Waterfall.)

Second, point out to them that attempting to unmask her would constitute an unprovoked attack against Society leadership. Awarding Infamy for that sounds perfectly reasonable.

And if THAT doesn't dissuade them, proceed directly to handing out Chronicles with zero rewards, because nobody is trusting them with this mission.

"What kind of cleric multi-classes into monk? One who survives."

(After the cleric/monk PC used Deflect Arrows for the first time.)

IME, skill use in Starfinder is often less about which class you are, but instead 1. how many skill ranks your class gets, and 2. which ability scores your class tends to have prioritized. Technomancers and mechanics are Int-focused, so tend to be the best at "tech" skills (and will have max skill ranks in most of the them), while soldiers are usually the best at Athletics, operatives (and some soldiers) at the Dex skills, envoys at the Cha skills, mystics at Mysticism, etc. And of course, thanks to operative's edge and the class's abundance of skill points, an operative with decent scores in a skill's associated ability can often compete with another class who specializes in that skill.

On average, Starfinder classes get more skill ranks than their nearest equivalents in PF1, but I feel that SF is less forgiving towards characters who shortchange Int. Many essential adventuring skills are trained-only, and every party member will be expected to contribute in some meaningful way to most kinds of skill challenges, even if it's just being able to make attempts to aid now and then.

The system allows several Off-hours study-s for at least a year now

And it's been over 2.5 years since that last post to this thread, so why necro it?

My home group has completed Part 1 of the Scoured Stars Adventure Path. We're not sure about our next date yet; May and June will be a bit hectic. My wife's at a work conference this week, has a concert later this month, then we and out two (barely-adult) kids are going to Origins in June.

OTOH, we are finally getting Starfinder back onto our FLGS's schedule in a couple weeks. It will mostly be me running that at first, so that my wife (the VL) can focus on keeping PFS2 going (though she has recruited a 2nd regular GM now, thankfully!). It will be low-level fare at first, to cater to new players--like one or two we hooked at a local convention last month. (I had to gently discourage one of them from joining a level 5-8 game I ran on the last day of the con. Between the higher-level play, the metaplot lore, and the content warning, I could not in good conscience recommend it for a newbie.)

Other than prepping my first session for that, I've been busy helping my wife and eldest child prep for the games they'll be running at Origins. I'm GMing some, too, but fewer than they are. We have an extensive map collection, including both actual flip-mats, and drawn copies of ones we don't own. (1" gridded easel pads are the perfect size to copy all but the biggest flip-mats.) But there are always a few new ones we need to buy or draw for every con. Fortunately, I have an art degree and enjoy drawing the maps, except for the really busy ones.

My wife and son will be running enough games at the con that they will be just using basic pawns and candies (mainly Starbursts) to represent enemies, but since I'm running so few I'll either be hand-picking pawns or building LEGO minis for my games, which is what I do for my home games.

I ran the first adventure ("The Commencement") for my home group this past weekend, and it ran pretty much about the same length as the original scenario. Perhaps shorter than usual for this one, as the notoriously time-consuming junkcycle race was replaced with a starship combat.

I plan to post about the AP in my blog as we go through it. The first installment is here. These posts won't be as in-depth about the events of each session as some of my past campaign journals have been, since this is an AP based on popular SFS scenarios, rather than a homebrew game. But I will definitely comment on how things went where the AP and/or I deviate from the original scenario. For example, this first installment talks about my decision to use the narrative starship combat rules, because the standard rules are my least favorite thing to GM in Starfinder, and my players' least favorite part to play. (Short answer: resounding success, both IC and OOC!)

After a hiatus of nearly two years, I finally have a new blog post!

Scoured Stars Adventure Path: I've started running this AP for my home group, and we've completed the first of its twelve adventures.

I GMed at my second con (and GMed my second SFS special) at a local con (LexiCon) last weekend. I got to run for some of the same fun players I did last year, and got to GM for our RVC for the first time (which was a blast, after I got past my initial nerves). I'll also be GMing at Origins this summer (my second time at that con, first as a GM).

I've decided to run the Scoured Stars AP [SF] for my home group. We've had our Session Zero for char-gen, and will play the first adventure sometime soon. I'm sharing the same weekly time slot with my eldest, who is running us through Sky King's Tomb [PF2], with our schedule largely determined by the availability of our one part-time player (SKT on weeks when he's available, SS when he's not).

One of our local branches has a surprising number of RPG books on its shelves: PF 1E CRB, lots of D&D 5E, Star Wars, and a smattering of other systems. Or they did pre-COVID, anyway; I haven't really been back to it enough since then to check if they still do.

Around this time last year, my wife (who was a VO then, and is now a VL) was investigating public spaces where we could run OP games, to try to revive in-person play in our area. Our FLGS had very limited hours post-COVID, and weekends were dominated by CCG events, so we had to find new venues.

She found that our local library system has meeting rooms that are available for use on a sign-up basis, but IIRC they had a strict limit on how often the same person/group can request space, in order to keep it available for others. We did run at least one game at a branch library before discovering some other options. However, one of those options (a new game/coffee/comics store) has since become a bit TOO popular and crowded, so we may go back to looking at libraries again.

Given that the cover is using the new Starfinder 2e logo, I think this is now the first Starfinder 2e product.

I'm glad it's 100% backward compatible.

I noticed that, too. Someone decided to give the new edition's trade dress a trial run?

The real difference lies in available build paths, I suppose. And how people tend to build their DEX characters.

People who dump their STR to 7 because they know they'll get DEX-to-dmg later on deserve to suck at the early levels. And it's often compounded by DEX builds choosing small races with STR penalties in addition to lower dmg dice, while already being limited to weapons with low dmg dice.

So what we're really trying to "balance" is a medium sized Barbarian who put their focus in a Stat made for dmg, and a small sized twerp who dumped theirs.

I've seen a number of low-Str, high-Dex builds, but dumping Str can be risky: If you get hit by even a tiny amount of Str penalty or damage, you could suddenly find yourself encumbered or even overloaded. It also severely limits the type and amount of weapons and armor you can carry--especially at low levels, before you can afford things like mithral armor, bracers of armor, or a handy haversack. And when your limits are that low, each of those solutions still takes up a significant portion of your carrying capacity.

Another poster pointed out that carrying capacity is often ignored in play, but if some players are consistently dumping Str, that could be a sign that those limits need to be enforced a bit more often.

Not long after I started playing PFS, I wondered why Merisiel's stat block gave her a 14 Str when she's obviously a Dex-based rogue. Then I calculated the weight of her gear, and she actually needed that high a Str to stay at a light load. Granted, she does carry an excessive number of daggers, which add up quickly, but she also had a reasonable assortment of practical adventuring gear. Her build doesn't stand up (literally!) if she lacks the Str to carry what she needs to succeed in the dungeon.

Arachnofiend wrote:

If a beast starts devouring gods the first thing I'd check is if anyone's seen Achaekek recently.

He's probably in Pharasma's basement still. I'd make sure Rovagug hasnt had any more kiddos

From the overall feel of the story, this makes me think that something very similar might have happened during the time before Rovagug was imprisoned, but instead of Erastil as the first victim, it was some primeval god nobody remembers anymore.

Granted, this never-seen predator sounds far more subtle than the Rough Beast is ever given credit for. But maybe that's just because it changed tactics once it was finally flushed out of hiding. And, as we all know, the victors write the history books.

For a recent example, the movie Wonder Woman 1984 features an antagonist who gains the power to grant other people's wishes, rather than getting his own directly. And, yes, it very much goes wrong, on a global scale. (The movie has some glaring flaws, but the basic premise is a fascinating one.)

You will almost always want at least one person who's good at tech skills, and more often than not, you'll want someone who's good at interaction skills. Beyond that, it very much depends on the scenario, but having a good spread of skills is best. That's where having an operative is handy, though a well-rounded enough group can survive without one.

As Taja pointed out, there are three essential crew roles that every ship needs. And it's often useful to be able to "switch hit"--for example, having ranks in Piloting even if you're never the pilot, so that you can jump onto a gun when your usual role isn't needed that round.

I've only run a couple of them before (1-01 and a low-level table of 1-99) but enjoyed playing pretty much all of them. My group is looking forward to it, and a couple of them already have ideas for interestingly weird PCs.

The part of this AP that concerns me the most is starship combat, particularly at the higher levels. Half of the adventures in this AP have at least one starship combat. My group are not huge fans of that subsystem, so I'm going to see if they're up for trying out the narrative starship combat rules from Enhanced.

Familiars use the Pet rules, but have access to special abilities than normal pets don't. You can never have more than one pet or familiar; if you have the Pet feat, but then gain an ability that grants a Pet through that feat, then you immediately retrain the old Pet feat to another general feat.

Animal Companions are a different category of companion, so use different rules, and you may have a familiar or pet at the same time as an animal companion.

Both groups of creatures use the minion rules, which limits what kinds of actions they can take. You use the Command an Animal action to give them actions. Minions are considered to be loyal and obedient, so you don't need to make any checks to make them follow your commands, and there is no need for the Train Animal feat or for expending downtime on training.

Do the maps listed have names or anything to maybe find something close on a flip map or other maps?

One of my groups just now asked if I have this yet to run....... GULP!!

Tom

I acquired the print version this past week, and have started reading through it in preparation for running it for my home group whenever we can fit it into the schedule. I've played all of the original adventures, and a couple of our other players have played most of them, but we certainly didn't play them in any kind of coherent order. (1-99 was my third SFS scenario ever.)

I haven't yet compared the maps in every adventure with the original scenarios (that's coming eventually), but there have been a few map changes here and there. It looks like most of the changes involve substituting newer flip-mats or flip-tile sets for maps that originally used map packs that are now long out of print (like Starship Decks, which saw heavy use in 1-99). Every map that uses a flip-mat or flip-tiles has a note with that map's product name (much like how they're labeled in SFS & PFS scenarios). And there are still a number of maps that were unique to the original scenarios, which have been reprinted with few if any changes.

As far as I can tell so far, there is only one jinsul-related Society adventure which was not included in the AP: 1-23 Return to Sender, which chronologically comes right after The Scoured Stars Invasion.

I do very much appreciate the Developer Sidebars throughout the AP. Some note connections to other scenarios (like Return to Sender, and the S1 Historia arc) that GMs can use to expand their campaign. Others point out changes that were made, such as one of the Commencement missions being replaced, and the reasons for them.

Finally, I just have to say that final adventure promises to be very exciting! I played the original at the highest subtier (11-12), but the AP version has been rewritten for levels 13-14, so that very last boss-fight promises to be even more dangerous and epic.

Has anyone else had any issues with the physical version of this flip-mat? The one I got from my FLGS was weirdly distorted, with the image (including gridlines) printed on approximately a 3/4" x 5/8" grid. I contacted Paizo customer service about a week ago, but haven't received any response yet beyond the acknowledgement that my email was received.

My home group plans to jump on the SF2 playtest bandwagon to try out the new rules, but I will also be running the recently released Scoured Stars Adventure Path for them as well. (A couple of them have played most of the original adventures, but not in any kind of sensible order.) And I'll be playing and running SFS 1E scenarios at cons for at least a couple more years. And debuting at least one more new 1E SFS character, because I had an idea for someone to make use of the new SFS GM boon.

Wow, I didn't realize this thread had been recently necro'd before I made that longish post. Oops.