WolfhawkAz's page

Kinetic Invocation seems to allow an elementalist to cast spells (very specific ones, of a very limited selection, but spells nonetheless) as utility wild talents of the listed level. So, if such a caster (say, for example, a Dhampir, who took Life Channel) had an orange prism ioun stone, would it add to the caster level for the spell Life Channel? For the record, Duration is given as 1 minute/level...

There's little point in starting at level X because you'll run out of scenarios faster than they come out.

This is where we disagree. I plan to start multiple characters (basically a family with siblings and an overall family history and other notes on why individuals followed the path they did) and having a small number of characters start higher would not be insane, since I hope to be able to play lower games with the lower characters and higher games with the higher characters. I started with a pregen (eventually rewrote that char after not playing him again for two years. Then I created a set of triplets that formed a family band (identical triplets so they would have to start with identical attributes). Once one of the triplets died, I went on to create multiple younger siblings to fill out a large family. I keep my shareable boons within that family because well - family first. It gives me more role-playing background than just the min/max-ers get.

If the new system is planning to fail in the role-playing aspect, then yes there would be no point. I, however, choose to retain some hope.

Four thoughts/concerns:
a) If the characters don't carry over, then pretty much all of the early 2nd edition scenarios will have to start lower levels for a bit since we will have to create new characters and get them advanced. As one of the newer players, this will be frustrating to me. I would really like it if certain of the boons (one that I am thinking of was from a special) that let players jump a starting character from level 1 to 2 would be transferable. Heck, modify it so that it lets you start 1 character at (GM stars)+2, so some of the long-timers could theoretically start a character as high as 7th level.

b) Similar lines, I would like to see some benefits along the lines of the welcome boon. Also, how is the new numbering going to work? Will new chars start around 1k with the welcome to 2nd edition boon being locked to 1001?

c) The book boons. I've been working fairly hard on getting the book boons in preparation for a character concept I have (buying and reading many of the books, but have not used a single boon yet). Losing these is kind of a disincentive from buying any more books till the new boons come out and I can see which sets I want to collect.

d) Overall, I would really like the assign-to-new character boons to carry over, and/or be somehow transferable since I and others have spend significant time/effort/real-world-money earning such things and having them lose their value would be disheartening in the extreme

Just my 2 cents,
Thanks

Emphasis mine:

Second Skin

This flexible body stocking fits tightly against its wearer and can be worn under ordinary clothes.

I would assert that Light armor does not constitute ordinary clothes.

The closest (by description) would be Stationwear:

Stationwear (Business, Casual, Elite, Flight Suit)

Many types of reinforced clothing afford protection without sacrificing comfort or fashion.

So unless we get an errata (which I may be unaware of), Second Skin doesn't stack, even for upgrade slots.

So, thus far we are wanting some form of official rulings:

1 Clarification on whether the Venom Spur is a weapon (Natural or otherwise, and what kind of weapon is it, if it is indeed a weapon, and what are the attack modifiers if it is not a weapon since the Venom Spur does state that attacks are made with it)

2 Clarification on whether suit customization is needed for use in environments where gloves might be worn (e.g. space, also this might apply to Dragon Glands)

3 Clarification on whether venom spur venom can be made non-lethal at time of installation/creation (which might also be nice in the Electrostatic Field armor upgrades, and just for clarity, the Dragon Gland-although I tend to agree that the acid, cold and fire options would be harder to make non-lethal)

Until the above are properly clarified, we are stuck with the general GM question of:
Do we permit that which is not explicitly prohibited, or [exclusive or] prohibit that which is not explicitly permitted (no matter how clever an idea the players may have come up with)?

Additional Question:

Can a character, at the time the Venom Spur is grown & implanted, specify that the poison is to be non-lethal? (Always non-lethal damage for the poison itself, like a sedative, even though the sting would still do lethal damage).

Thanks, Missed that, but I figured that it had to be somewhere!

On a related note:
Where is the rider on a horse? If, for example, a pair of Cavaliers wanted to ride side-by-side in order to take advantage of the benefits of the Lookout feat, could they do so? And where do reach weapons for the rider get calculated from?
If there is a clear explanation in a book or FAQ, please point me there (there are a lot of horse reference to read here)

Another way of thinking of it:

Is one choosing to become unattuned by using a zenith revelation? That makes the zenith benefit the (hopefully happy) side effect of the desired choice of becoming unattuned. In that case, the cosmic ring should grant the one point.

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.

P.322 core rulebook specifically calls out spellcasting as something doable during starship combat (The blue section on "Other Actions in Starship Combat"), so clearly spellcasting is usable. The part in question is simply which spells are usable and what consequences do they have. Some may be range limited (again the blue section on 322 indicates that a character might have to reposition for a round to become adjacent to another crewman - likely for healing spells) while others would have no usable range (magic missile vs enemy fails due to extreme size of hexes)...

The ongoing debate is why we clearly need an official ruling (and hopefully and faq entry/updated text).

WolfhawkAz wrote:

The spell I am currently interested in is "Supercharge Weapon". If it can affect starship weapons, would it use the 4d6 or 2d6 boost

I'm pretty sure that doesn't apply to Starship weapons. As page 292 states, hit point damage and hull point damage aren't remotely the same and aren't supposed to interact with one another. Yes, the spell just states "damage", but I would be extremely surprised if that was supposed to include hull point damage. It's a level 1 spell, that would be ridiculous.

Starship weapons deal 10 times their listed amount in hit point damage, so Supercharge Weapon would only add 4d6 divided by 10 hull point damage, provided you even got it to work.

Heard the divide by ten argument before. The reason I don't buy into it is from the spell description:

This bonus damage is the same type as the weapon's normal damage.

So from a text description, one could consider the damage to be of type "Starship".

From the scaling perspective, if 4d6 added to a 1d4F damage laser pistol doesn't break the the system, and the lightest starship weapon I can find is the Gyrolaser at 1d8, although around CR 1 or 2, ships seem to mount light lasers (2d4), linked gyrolasers (2d8) coil guns (4d4) or missile launchers (4d8), then having the spellcaster use precious spell slots on each shot, with a miss using up the spell with no benefit seems to produce similar damage compared to having my character fire for effect with two off-arc weapons (which can be done endlessly for non-ammo weapons). This becomes especially true since higher level weapons scale for both starship and personal weapons into damage that diminished the 4d6 (or 2d6) add.

Basicly, the extremely small number of times it could be used at low levels, combines with the lose-it-whether-the-shot-hits-or-not part of the spell, and the fact that starship weapons start with more dice than regular weapons, tells me that it's not overpowered.

Having said that, Metaphysician's argument has some merits (at least to me), although the gunnery check is described as part of the attack procedure.

To help with the discussion:

<snip>
Interesting question. You have to touch the weapon. To me, this would mean you would have to be outside, on the hull, in order to touch the weapon and cast the spell.

Being outside should be very dangerous, especially if a character is next to a weapon that is in an arc that took a critical effect.

From what I Have read about the spell and about "Other Actions in Starship Combat" (page 322), it would like take a while for a character to get next to the weapon in order to cast the spell but they could do it.

Give the nature of space combat, I would think the reduced "area" damage would be correct.

I don't think time would be a problem if it was my normal duty station (next to the turret's weapon). I would also say that "some" part of the weapon is probably inside the turret, but yes being an Android in a skin suit would help with the vaccuum suckage (Pun intended). The spell doesn't require me to fire the weapon, so why not just charge it and let the gunner do his job?

Is spellcasting one of the class features that is prohibited from affecting starships?

Most spells don't seem to have range or reach to affect most starship combats, but one spell in particular (Passwall) calls out that it cannot be used to pass through starship bulkheads - thereby implying that some spells _could_ affect starships.

The spell I am currently interested in is "Supercharge Weapon". If it can affect starship weapons, would it use the 4d6 or 2d6 boost, (or variable depending on weapon) and if not, can future versions of the spell please note (as Passwall does) that it does not affect Starship weapons?

Looking for official rulings due to just levelling my Technomancer and being in a scheduled game soon.

Thanks,
WolfhawkAz

I had a stupid thought (one of many): Supercharge Weapon is a spell and does not specify what kind of weapon it can enhance. If my technomancer is on a starship and casts it on the starship's weapon (which would then be fired by the group's gunner) would it

a) Not work at all because the spellcasting ability does not specify that it can work on starships (thus no spell could work on starships)

b) Provide a 2d6 damage bonus regardless of weapon type as starship weapons are big and area-y always

c) Provide the 4d6 damage bonus to weapons that target a single ship and 2d6 to any weapons that target multiple ships.

d) Something that I haven't thought of yet