Torbyne's page

As the title, love the game and hope to come back to it again but its time to take a break for now...

I keep forgetting that actual Starfinder minis are coming... I have fallen in love with infinity and chronoscape minis for most PCs and have a mixed bag of ship options... it's weird to think but at this point the official minis are going to have to compete against the stuff I've already found. That's just a strange thought to me. Though I have such a weakness for ships that I will likely pick up those ones at least. Once they get to the stores. Was the issue with the curing on the minis resolved?

Bombardier soldiers get in on some fun but remember the bombarding fusion as well, stock up on multiple level 5 knives with this fusion and have a 1/day grenade for every situation :)

My go to, I think, will be a level 10 weapon with two bombard fusions and two grenades of wonder in it. Maybe use the class feature for a third one just to see what happens. Grenade of grenades or flood of squirrels or... yeah, fun.

It specifies the trick attempt happens as part of an attack action to add additional damage to that attack. If the attack misses than you cant do anything with that bonus damage.

I originally wanted a gun maze cored to a hacking kit. "Just give me fifteen more seconds... Done!" Then turn and your computer screen folds up into a handcannon and you blow a hole in an alien.

The Uniclamp allows this even better now, you can use the hacking kit while still having the weapon at the ready. One forward grip, one sight and two uniclamps, one for the hacking kit and the other for... hmm, cup holder or music player, depends on the campaign style I guess.

"That's 'cause a droid don't pull people's arms outta their sockets when they lose" might as well be talking about a Vesk with unarmed mauler instead of a wookie.

I would like to combine a spear and a gun. Bayonetta dont allow it and mazecore kind of works... really, I think I'd like to mount a gun as a bayonet on my spear.

I think that 7 is the maximum number of add ons you can have right now, 4 rail based, a grip, a stock, a muzzle device. I am not sure any of the stocks or trips interest me though.

I can only imagine that the increased bulk in such a way isn't due to weight itself, but by the literally bulkiness being added to the weapon by the accessories. While that bipod may not actually weigh enough to increase the weight of it, the added size of it does make it, well, bulkier to carry around.

That would make a ton of sense except the bipod is retractable and folds for storage, it calls out a move action to deploy it. Plus, holy crap, the guns as illustrated are so bulky already that you couldn't tell if a bipod was there or not anyways.

I don't mind bumping a weapon up another point of bulk for a bipod and sight though, the benefits are awesome. Set up your accurate fusion, bipod stabilized, scoped sniper rifle and laugh at your zero penalty to hit at a mile range while negating their cover. The players may throw dice at you for this though. Add energetic to the stabilized fusion and an overcharging mechanic becomes an amazing sniper with whatever you put in their hands.

Support told me I wont be receiving my pdf until after 2nd. So much for a subscription.

That's... odd. I suppose I am in the same boat.

A fusion seal can be found as loot though, this is it's one niche that I know of.

Pft. My order has been pending for two weeks, hoping it magically ships tonight so I can finally read this thing over the weekend...

Yes, a fusion seal is a magic item and will radiate an aura under a detect magic spell.

J.Nigredo wrote:

I hoped for a bit more love for the Exocortex mechanic, but from what I've heard, it's a no this time around...anybody that can confirm that?

Can confirm. Nothing exocortex specific.

Oh. That's a little disapointing.

I used to be a PC like you, until I took a trick shot to the knee.

When you're in dire straights, why would you waste time and resources waiting for it to fall from orbit just so you can spend even MORE time putting it on when it arrives? You live in a world of MAGIC! Instead, have it teleport from your ship and assemble itself onto your person!

Much faster, far fewer resources/effort expended.

Beamed down from an orbiting ship, becoming PC and machine, power Xtreme!

I agree with you in broad strokes, in most cases the PCs are far better served by stripping out armor and counter measures for shields and heavy turret weapons. In my Dead Suns game I've rebuilt the tier 3 ship along those lines and the changes to combat are drastic, the front arc went from a possible 3D6+1D8 to a 8D6 in every arc. Past tier 5 the ability of groups to optimize for combat is shocking. TL is almost never worth boosting when a turreted defense weapon has a far better miss chance than TL provides, boosting PCU and shields is pretty cheap compared to what it gives you, and focusing on few, larger weapons, preferably in a turret mount, is a much better option than trying to fit medium output weapons in every arc.

HWalsh wrote:

Shaudius wrote:

From Armory:

Soulfire, Level 1 Weapon Fusion: Only on Solarian Weapon Crystals. Add CHA to DAMAGE in addition to strength.

/thread

But in seriousness, this likely more than makes up for the issue with at the end of the day amounted to about a 1-2 pt negative to one save.

I would have preferred they went with +cha to hit and damage instead of strength which would have straight up solved the MAD issue but this works, I think.

This is absolutely a good thing.

What it does do, is (combined with Flashing Strikes) bring the average Melee weapon Solarian into the same (full attack) range as a Soldier (currently Soldiers tended to be +1 attack ahead) and allows them to pull clearly ahead in damage (by about 5 damage per hit) at levels. This is especially good at low levels where it jumps the typical 16 str, 14 cha, Solarian (with the +1E crystal) to 1d6+3(Str)+1E(Crystal)+1(Photon)+2(Cha) or 1d6+7

Now if only we can get errata that says skill adept gives you max ranks in your chosen skills, much like the operative's specialization, then the solarian might actually be going somewhere.

And let their skill booster work in ship combat so they can captain well.

The attack occurs in the square at 10 feet. I assume at least, based on older D20 games which allowed the attack but those reach weapons were unable to attack at 5 feet so it had to hit in the 10 foot square. With no other changes to the system, I'd use the same logic as older games.

On page 414 for curing afflictions, disease is different from drug and poison.

For diseases you make a save at the listed frequency. If you make consecutive successful saves equal to a diseases cure entry, you move only a single step towards healthy.

For poisons and drugs a successful save means you cure the poison and won't get any worse but must take a full days Bed rest or 2 normally active days to move back one step on the track.

So for poisons if you save then you'll eventually recover. Diseases you constantly save until you're healthy or reach the end state, and can progress either way with each save.

Hmm, that makes it worse. Not sure why but I had to read that passage multiple times before it occurred to me that bed rest might only apply to poisons. I would have preferred the recovery method for each type to be under that types header in the chapter, would have made it a bit clearer.

The disease tracks are brutal but aren't they easy-ish to handle with bed rest? Or does the remove affliction blurb at the introduction of afflictions only apply to poison and drugs? I read it as, a day or bed rest automatically moves you up one step on the track, bed rest and a passed save moves you two steps.

Claxon wrote:

I guess ultimately my problems is I expected Solar Armor + Light Armor to be better than Heavy Armor in some significant ways, or for the Solar Weapons to be better it some significant ways. But to me neither feels like it stands out as superior in any real capacity from what can be bought.

It's also crappy that Solar Armor doesn't come equal to Heavy Armor until level 10+, which is a long time to be worse as a character.

I hear you. The way I look at them, which is probably not the way most people look at those abilities, is they're not central to the class. They are minor bonus 1st level abilities. Sure they scale all through the game, but their overall effect is minor, like a bonus feat or three. Or perhaps a free piece of equipment (keep in mind if you're spending 120,000 credits on fire resist 15, the Solar Armor character can spend 120,000 credits on shock resistance equipment or a force field). They don't interact with any other parts of the class.

What defines the Solarian class are its stellar revelations, zenith revelations, its stellar modes and how they all interact with each other. In my opinion, the other stuff is mostly just tacked on to make the numbers come out a bit better to account for their MAD nature. Flashing Strikes is a general +1 to hit for full attacks, mimicking a +1 Strength mod for to-hit. Solar Armor is +1 or 2 to AC in light armor, mimicking a +1 or +2 Dex mod for AC. Solar Weapon is mostly for the cool factor.

They're not there to make them better than Soldiers in melee, but around the same level of capability, maybe a bit less.

Imagine Solarians didn't get Solar Armor or Solar Weapon. The actions of Solarians in combat really wouldn't change. Its not really fundamental to their play style. Now they are iconic and cool from the roleplay and theme point of view, but from a game mechanics point of view, aren't what makes the class play uniquely. They're like the +4 initiative and +10 speed of a blitz Soldier or the healing...

This was actually rather eye opening for me. The super awesome thing that solarians get is stellar rush at level two... everything else is really cool but not enough to push me towards solarian over soldier. I am going to mock up a solarian 2/soldier X and see how well I like that. Maybe blitz 1-3, solarian for 4 and 5 and then back to blitz for the rest. Get the standard action charge, +1 damage, +1 AC and the saves boost...

Joe Pasini wrote:

The Ragi wrote:

No hint for next week's blog post? I'd love something about the player options.

That would be cool...

Wouldn't it?

Yes. Yes it would.

One part and one part only can have two augments in it. Which part that is though is up to you, once chosen you will have to remove the second augment if you want to double up on any other system.

I will be surprised if there aren't any reach Crystals in the armory book.

I usually tell the solarian to end up behind me, the vesk soldier tank. I can take the hits with bleeding edge heavy armor, DR, and energy resistances.

Honestly giving solarians some sort of early access to Spring Attack or something similar to allow them to end turns behind cover would solve a lot of their mortality issues.

Play with solar armor and use a reach weapon, stellar rush is a standard action that includes an attack, the reach weapon keeps you out of their threatened area and you have a move action leftover to get to cover with.

Maybe Reaper can take over at some point. Great quality, amazing even considering their price point on the bones series. I use their bones chronoscape for most of my campaign already.

Sounds neat, looking forward to seeing the new and clarified rules for them!

... cant shake the feeling though, that stagstep suit looks oftely familiar somehow. Destiny maybe?

I prefer armor over weapon, the weapon still needs a crystal that costs the same as any other weapon and only makes you competitive with a weapon when you use one, but the armor stacks with every light armor in the game and adds freebies to it that dont take up any armor slots. The always available nature of the weapon is too niche to make it stand out to me and melee weapons have more variance to them so I favor the extra range of options when not using the solar weapon. (reach crystal when?!) Solar armor also helps you build for mobility which us vital for melee characters and the energy resist is almost worth more than AC anyways.

I hadn't thought of it before but some species probably could regrow a lost limb. Astrozoans naturally and I would allow a SRO to collect and reattach severed limbs. Not really RAW though.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Hiruma Kai wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

What is there in the Solarions tool kit that lets them move in and move out on the same round without standing there as a glass cannon begging to be full attacked? Or sucking up the AOO for moving in and out?

Not every fight or enemy lends itself to this, but a reach weapon plus Stellar Rush lets you standard action charge, hit from 10 feet away, then move back.

How?

Stellar Rush (Su) [Photon mode]

As a standard action, you can wreathe yourself in stellar fire and make a charge without the penalties.

When you are attuned or fully attuned, you can substitute a bull rush for the melee attack at the end of the charge. Whether or not you succeed at the bull rush, the target takes 2d6 fire damage (Reflex half). This damage increases by 1d6 at 6th level and every 2 levels thereafter.

The square you have to go to and the fact that you stop is not "the penalties" its part of the charge rules. Unless you're combining it with something else i don't get how you're spring attacking with it.

You're missing the "As a standard action" part. As in, you're left with a move action remaining you can use to move away.

Hopefully the armory book will include reach property crystals, otherwise, this makes advanced melee weapons even better for solarions.

I GM for a group with a solarion in it, the PC has high strength and charisma and didn't take heavy armor so they are just resigned to eating every hit that goes their way. The damage is superb though, higher single target damage than any other character by a decent margin and excellent accuracy to pair with it. They are still looking for a role in ship combat though. When the Envoy isnt here then they are captain, if the envoy makes it to game night then they are a secondary gunner. They are also the limiting factor on adventure days as they need to spend resolve after every fight in addition to hp loss so they burn through resources faster than any other PC.

No one minds though so it is working for us. So far.

Someday I want to try out a blitz 1/solarion X using solar armor and advanced melee weapons. I still think it is overall a more versatile option.

So today I inflicted some diseases among the PCs and we noticed that once weakened there are some serious penalties to weapon damage... which makes sense for melee weapons or bows but is a really weird effect considering guns, lasers and rockets. I realize this may have been intentional but we were surprised enough to wonder if this was this a hold over from pathfinder where most weapons relied on the character's strength instead of an outside power source? Accuracy penalties, sure, but how is my grenade less explosive-y when I am sick?

The pact worlds also has a com-net thingies to share sensor ranges, that's about it. I would allow allied ships to use captain actions on each other and verbally relay scan information but it isn't spelled out in any book.

I think some people are confused due to the book using a mix of game terms and setting terms for ship weapons. I find it best to describe ships as having five arcs with the turret arc just being treated as any other arc. Then describe the mount limit per arc per size. Nice and sinple.

I would interpret that anything that doesn't interact with the temp hp aspect of a force field also ignores the fortification aspect of it.

House ruling these checks by rolewouldnt be too hard:

Captain, flat DC for a +2 each round. Making a demand is based off the character being demanded.

Pilot, flat DC determined by the action they are taking, this would effectively lock a lot of stunts beyond low levels. I am ok with this, being a better pilot let's you do more things.

Gunner, DC set by enemy ship.

Science officer, DC set by enemy ship.

Engineer, DC set by tier of your ship, as the complexity of your ship goes up so does the difficulty in maintaining it.

Overall this is a very small change but it seems like it addresses Mr. Jade's concerns

Torbyne wrote:

Two races have a bonus feat which may be the single most powerful racial ability so far. Most other bonuses can be bought as items or armor upgrades and stat wise pretty much all races end up with a 13 point total buy so it's hard to call one out as better. Nothing shocking though.

We're actually up to three races with a bonus feat; humans, ryphorians, and kish.

Oh, true. There is also a species now with a bonus on unpowered (or is it analog?) Weapons. Either way, a racial bonus to attack rolls is pretty strong in this game, especially when its tied to a weapon trait instead of a favored enemy.

Two races have a bonus feat which may be the single most powerful racial ability so far. Most other bonuses can be bought as items or armor upgrades and stat wise pretty much all races end up with a 13 point total buy so it's hard to call one out as better. Nothing shocking though.

Torbyne wrote:

I can see it as a very abrupt shift from Pathfinder. I think my group had a softer landing since we spent some time going over expectations prior to the first session so they jumped right in to using cover and single attacks. But also, the kind of game it defaults to excludes some styles.

I don't mind either of those changes, it was more the radical shift in casting and the dual hit point system. We were also trying out 5e at the same time and just found SF to be a relatively more unpolished and unfinished system.

We also are having some real difficulties managing ranged and melee damage, because half the party specced to be extreme range and the other melee, magnifying an issue that D20 systems have had with ranged vs melee damage.

That's interesting, I was posting on another forum earlier in praise of how Starfinder handled ranged and melee. Melee specialists flushing gun users out of cover to be picked off by allies and creating choke points to hold off monsters to defend the ranged players has kept everyone involved and feeling like their movements were just as important as their attacks. They have really rolled over some encounters by changing angles of attack to get around cover or using the surprise melee rush to break a formation... freaking solarian grenade. It's too bad that your group has not enjoyed the system, I think it's pretty good as is with a lot of potential for improvement over time... but I acknowledge that you all don't have to like what I like ;)

I can see it as a very abrupt shift from Pathfinder. I think my group had a softer landing since we spent some time going over expectations prior to the first session so they jumped right in to using cover and single attacks. But also, the kind of game it defaults to excludes some styles.

I think that I expected ships/vehicles to be more integral to the design philosophy of Starfinder than it clearly was, as did my players.

We love Pathfinder, and were really looking more for Pathfinder in space, not a redesign of the basic fantasy/RPG systems and an ad hoc ship system.

I might take a look at Traveller and try to homebrew some sort of Starfinder/Pathfinder/Traveller mixture. I really love the d20 base for classes, and really loved Pathfinder's improvements onto 3.X, however everyone in my group including me are fairly disappointed with Starfinder itself.

Up to and including the immersion breaking scale issues, ship building issues, and also the seemingly untested numbers published in the RAW.

As to the numerical issues, we've been running Starfinder games on and off again since release, and this is the first I've heard of a fix for this problem. Paizo needs to be a bit more aggressive about fixing these things. I've already had 3 players express that they are no longer interested in a Starfinder game in the future from the myriad issues.

I have never seen it myself but there is supposed to be a D20 Traveller system out there... which is a weird thought, Traveller does not lend itself well to things like leveling up or much in the way of growing stronger, it is more of the encourage you to figure out what to do with a character that has very little to offer outside of an interesting backstory style of play. Some editions are more bounded and biased towards capable characters but in almost all editions rewards are in money and prestige, you don't really upgrade from basic starting gear aside from maybe getting your hands on some military grade or artifact grade stuff if the GM makes it available. Normally the party is several million in debt for a starting scout vessel and most caplmpaigns are based around how to make the next payment on time and not get any of your people killed to do it. Saving or overthrowing the galaxy is just a byproduct of paying the bills.

As for Starfunder, aside from the ship system, what is off putting for your players?

I still think the system works quite well. I don't mean to imply that it was something bolted on at the last minute with no real work. But if you're looking for a Traveller level of interaction...then you're probably looking in the wrong place. Starfinder is a great space fantasy game, that also happens to have ship combat and creation rules. Traveller is a sci-fi game with hardwired ship rules. Two very different design philosophies there, and two very different end results.

Whoops, my bad. I thought you were implying it was a last minute bolt on. I fully agree with you, Starfinder and Traveller may both be Science Fantasy games but they have very different feels and ways of going about things.

Developers have noted several places that starship combat was more of a "in addition to" sort of system, rather than a purpose-built one. Trying to compare Starfinder to Traveller or any of a dozen or so other systems with purpose built starship combat rules is likely going to be an exercise in frustration. The design philosophy and inspiration was never the same.

Battletech probably has a more technical starship combat system...and that's not a compliment, from a system that has a fighter's main thrust torch capable of melting clear through to the mantle in a matter of minutes (or alternately, power an entire city for a month).

This is actually the first I've heard that the ship system was anything other than a core part of the design. It does fit with ships not interacting with any other part of the game but I had chalked that up to the few resources available so far. I still expect a "highguard" style book to come out and greatly expand on the rules and options for ships.

Though the BP system is a bit handwavium, it is a lot easier to manage and helps maintain system balance. Otherwise, nothing would be stopping the PCs from selling their ship and spending the fortune on hookers and blow an early retirement.

Oh, totally, BP saves you from a weird headache of trying to balance use of wealth and massive debt over a scaling level and value system. How can you justify buying a new particle beam, and turret mount for it no less, when your basic ship still has a 25 million credit loan on it?

But it is also somewhat limiting, you generally have one, maaayybee two weapon rolls each round; the game doesn't model scale at all with an interceptor not being too different from a destroyer until you get around tier 8 or so when the twin linked plasma from the smallest ship falls behind the firepower of a ship around twenty times its size; The PCs don't have any easy by the book way of piloting Large+ ships which puts an artificial cap on how much firepower they can bring to a fight... I would say a tier 20 ship for a party of 4-5 isn't bringing much more dakka to the table than a tier 12. The higher level just gets better shields and a few extra hexes of movement or a small boost in computer bonuses. And as always, you cant readily model a light carrier or squadron based game in the current rules, even with a sensor net and launch tubes you are going to need a lot of GM fiat... and tiny ships stop being a threat to large ships after a certain point due to weapon restrictions.

Still, all things considered, the ship system is in a good place for how little there is for it so far.

Torbyne wrote:

I don't follow your charts.. I mean, at level 1, 1 rank, 3 ability mod, 3 class skill, 1 class bonus feature (bypass, operative's edge etc.) Gives a +8 vs at highest a DC 16. At level 5 that should be at least a 14 against a DC of 22. Before computer or captain.

At level 1, I'm assuming a +7 before computer vs a DC 16. It continues from there. Adjusting the number to a +8 before computer only adds a flat +5% to every data point from there on out.

And the captain can add a +2 to any one person per round, so again, that just adds a flat 10%. That none-the-less still ends in very bad numbers without having a computer to add to you. If you want the captain to succeed at giving you a +4, he would need to roll on the without computers chart, meaning he is increasingly likely to fail also to do so.

The numbers still are not balanced, because in the most munchkin of cases, you are still becoming progressively more incompetent.

My players do not munchkin, so their numbers are lower than this better than average set of chances.

I don't think you can use the term munchkin with Starfinder just yet, the distance between ground and ceiling on optimization is one floor with an unfinished basement and an overhead crawl space.

Assume a +2-4 in the skill's ruling stat, increase it every five levels and assign it at least your secondary stat augment. This is really bare minimum, if your players are upset they cant pass a skill check for an off class skill that they have a 13 or less in than no one can help you. Assuming you are in a ship role that benefits from theme bonus (forget that in previous posts, add an extra +1 to maximum values) or a class bonus, (operative, mechanic, technomancer, mystic and envoy will all start with this, and a +8 at level 1 is really, really easy to come by. If it is a skill they expect to be using often, computers or engineering being two of the most common skills in the game, skill focus isn't that hard to imagine. Even without that, about half the classes in the game get automatic scaling bonuses that will match skill focus soon enough. The closest to "munchkin" you can claim is a species with a racial bonus, which by my math just makes ship checks ridiculously easy.

Look at pilot role again, at level one with a ranged character, the default assumption for this game, a 16 starting Dex which isn't yet maxed out. Assuming they are an Ace Pilot and then your looking at an easy +10 (1 rank, 3 class, 3 ability, 1 theme, 1-3 misc feat/racial/class) from the get go. If you want to really munchkin with it, a racial +2, a maxed out stat and either operative or skill focus can bring that up to +14 for a Core Only optimization. Assuming a 7 baseline kind of lowballing things.

Sure, you can front load things a bit so that you start off with slightly better odds than you'll have at later levels but the odds are staying good without the captain or a computer as long as you are playing a class strong class or spend a feat to compete. That's not too much of an investment.

Sorry, posting on my phone, I have to post something that's just a few lines first and the. Edit for the rest of my thought. Weird issue... any ways, when I look at the math, it stays about the same at most levels.

I don't follow your charts.. I mean, at level 1, 1 rank, 3 ability mod, 3 class skill, 1 class bonus feature (bypass, operative's edge etc.) Gives a +8 vs at highest a DC 16. At level 5 that should be at least a 14 against a DC of 22. Before computer or captain.

Assume you raised you skill mod to a +4 at level 5 and maybe even put your +2 augment in that slot, a feat or class ability for a +3 skill bonus. So that level five character brings a +16 against a DC 22. If it is really vital then you can ask for the +2-4 from captain and computer. If it just has to be done let the captain demand it and you've got a +20-22 vs DC 22.

At level 10. 10 ranks, 5-6 ability mod, 3 class skill, 3-4 skill boosting feat or class ability. Likely minimum of +21 vs DC 30. Maybe up to 23? 25 for a lashunta or other racial bonus race, and again, if you cant risk failure, +2-7 between captain and computer.

My issue with ships comes more from, the game pushes for these designs with lots of guns in all the arcs but the BP and Power Core limits coupled with generally small parties means almost everything will be built with one or two large turret guns and nothing else. This removes most of the need to maneuver around unless every fight has weird space clouds and asteroids everywhere...

And on a more minorn note, the sense of scale for ships is really weird. Large ships should have lots of space and probably either more expansions bays or expansion bays that do more when on a larger ship. I just looked at the deck plans for a Large ship from the AP and it's actually much smaller than the Medium ship the PCs have. More of an annoyance than anything else though, the BP and PC system is more frustrating.