Zilvar2k11's page

Before the thread got derailed with yet-another 'why was that a severe encounter' rant, the actual request from the op was to be aware of the bounded save ranges and not put stuff in that players need to roll 19's just to pass.

'So please take these new ranges into account when coming up with DCs.'

That's not a system complaint. That's an editorial complaint.

What's the recourse for a fresh-faced GM and group of players who simply don't understand what the hell just happened?

Not everyone comes into a game like this with 20 years of organized play experience. Not everyone comes into this with >0 hours per week of prep time. Sometimes people just pick it up and play because it sounds cool or they saw it on twitch or some such.

Telling anyone 'know your group, figure it out in advance' is elitist I'm-better-than-you-ism. Stop acting like it's easy or intuitive for just anyone to look at a book full of encounters and think 'oh, this will be a problem' or (and appropriate to THIS THREAD) 'oh, the math really looks off here, those DC's are 10 points higher than the suggested baseline' because that's just not going to be the case.

Sometimes a game is just a game, and you can be forgiven for thinking that if you pick it up off the shelf and sit down with your friends that it will work, it will be correct, and it will not need you to have spent 15 hours in reddit and these forums picking through 'git gud' nonsense in order to figure out that an encounter has a problem.

Core Rulebook pg 486 wrote:

Changing the details of an adventure to suit your group isn’t just acceptable, it’s preferred! Use the backstories and predilections of the player characters to inform how you change the adventure. This can mean altering adversaries so they’re linked to the player characters, changing the setting to a place some of the player characters are from, or excising particular scenes if you know they won’t appeal to your players.

I'm not saying that APs require more work, as they clearly require less than building everything from scratch. But the assumption that you don't prep or tailor these games to your group is one that is thrown entirely out the window. I would argue that GMs not altering the game in any way are those looking to challenge their players as a form of "module purity," which is really down to GM playstyle, but not one that APs are written for.

None of the changes that you listed from that quote are mechanical. One and all they are narrative. Perhaps you have another quote that isn't rule0 that says something about being wary of published adventures because they lean on 'cram as much XP into as small a package as possible to save on page count' and you might have to tweak things after your party starts looking at you funny when you still hit on a 1?

(/sarcasm)

Nope. It started directly with the Rogue and unluckily for the close-by Witch took them in their area too. The Witch went down. The Bard healed them. The Witch and Rogue fled, leaving the Bard behind. The Wasps Swarm then attacked the closest creature, who was the Bard.

In a later post, Vampbyday stated that the rogue used stealth as his initiative. That's likely where I got confused. My bad

It was also asserted that the Wasp swarm has higher initiative than the party could possibly achieve, which simply isn't true. It only had +10 perception. An 18 dex rogue (the class sneaking in for the example, mind you) would match that a +2 circumstance bonus for cover, which should absolutely have applied here. They could potentially be an expert, and it would be reasonable to give them great cover as well, so they could potentially be +4 higher.

Not only does that mean the rogue should have even or better odds of winning initiative, it means that even of the wasp won the rogue should have had a 55% chance of starting the fight unobserved. At which point you get into Spidey sense scenarios, but bare minimum the wasp would have needed to start spending actions Seeking before it could attack anyone.

That AP has plenty of problematic encounters, but this wasp fight really wasn't one of them.

IIRC, the rogue was described as stealthed at the beginning of the encounter, which is why the wasp swarmed the witch and bard initially?

Yakman wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

The other habbit is for half squares or something to be in the middle of a map made out of flip tiles. Paizo owes me a few patches of fu.hair being tugged out wondering why my map wouldn't line up for half an hour.

i just gave up on the roll20 grid after a few sessions.

pull from pdf; upgrade image; paste into roll20; get the size approximately right and bob's your uncle.

the ruler in roll20 and the grid on the map works just fine. don't miss snapping one bit.

Set the map to is drawing so it stops snapping

Use the map aligner thingy twice, that SHOULD get it accurate to 1 square

Line the map up around the second or third square in from the top with a line of the roll20 grid. Go to the bottom click the map so the blue square pops out around it, and grab the square and pull the map out or push it in till it lines up exactly. You may have to go one whole square over if the align tool went badly.

repeat the process with left and right.

If you want, you can then turn roll20 grid to transparent(not off) , and now you can only see the map lines, which should be dead on the map lines

Pictures for button by button process.

This process only works when the map in the book is consistent. There are several in AtoS where the grid size is scaled inconsistently across the image (that is to say, a few columns or rows are narrower than the ones around them). Reference the university maps on Huskworld, page 29 I think. Lining that mess up is simply infeasible.

Out of curiosity, why that template rather than the Starfinder by Roll20 one?

Captain Morgan wrote:

Do you know what the most common results are if you turn the difficulty sliders up on a video game?

I mean, I haven't played many video games where your attacks are just expected to fail with significant regularity and getting downed by enemies is completely a matter of RNG.

That sounds like kind of a terrible video game to play, tbh.

I mean I guess Darkest Dungeon or XCOM or Fire Emblem can feel like that sometimes but that at least has the benefit of you directing multiple characters at once (and expendability kind of being a game theme, as opposed to a tabletop where the opposite is generally true). And in both games like that and traditional turn based RPGs, frankly I don't remember anyone ever telling me their favorite enemies were the one with really high dodge rates. Those types are usually considered pretty obnoxious

Thank you. This is a cogent rebuttal that addresses some of the same points I would have made.

I'm not convinced that 'the game is harder' therefore 'combat can be demoralizing' is a valid equivalence, but at least I understand a little better where some people are coming from. I don't think that it's a good equivalence, but I suppose if I did I wouldn't be confused why people keep bringing it up.

Either you like a more difficult game or you don't.

Why is this such a common response? I even said it's not about ease of play.

For my group, it was about the perception of being taken out of a fight because the odds are stacked so heavily against you that the roll you need to make just to HIT is what the opponent needs to roll to crit.

There was not a single fight that the group didn't win, and I don't really remember if any of them were super close. But there were a lot of fights where the perception of imbalance between Them and Us was amplified by good and bad dice rolls that lead to massive frustration even while winning.

So when someone asks the question 'Is it just me, or is it way too easy to get hit in this edition? ' No. It's not just you. It can be explained. It can be justified. It can be appreciated. But even with all the justification in the world, in my experience it's really freaking easy to be hit in this system.

Rather than new to the system, I'd talk about players "used" to a different system.

There is something to that, because what you are used to encompasses what you're conditioned to expect or enjoy. My players do not enjoy being easily crit. They were unwilling, after multiple combats where someone just evaporated, to accept that conditioning as positive or enjoyable.

It's not about ease of play. They won. They always won. It's about perception and expectation. Being a floor inspector is BORING, and when it's because a creature pulled a couple of good rolls it's frustrating.

Today, after having read some of these comments and threads, I could probably adopt a few changes and change the feel of the game to something they wouldn't get frustrated over. Back then, I was too ignorant to try.

The perception they took away was that the game was a punishing slog, and as players new to the system, with a GM new to the system, the end result was yet another book sitting on the shelf gathering dust.

If that experience was the majority or even a minority large enough to affect sales then we would've seen a major shift in encounter design in APs.

Is that so? Honest question, because I haven't spent money on PF2 content since Plaguestone bombed for us. There've been a few comments in this thread about how Plaguestone and AoA were both poor starting experiences, with someone commenting on an AoA update to clean things up. I don't have a yardstick to know how major or minor the differences are.

Right or wrong, justified by the math or not, it's obvious it's not just the OP. My own group noped out of the system after encountering yet another severe encounter where the mob(s) in question hit on a 5 of the time, crit all of the time, and were so hard to hit that entire turns would go by with bad dice meaning nothing good happened.

The perception they took away was that the game was a punishing slog, and as players new to the system, with a GM new to the system, the end result was yet another book sitting on the shelf gathering dust.

As much as I like 2e, sometimes the math is a little too tight. Not having an 18 in a starting stat is usually a big mistake, not having a fully upgraded weapon, etc. In starfinder numbers are looser without the hugely inflated numbers you can get in 1e pathfinder, so there's some wiggle room.

Second this. My game group didn't gel with 2e at all because it was, in the opinion of the more vocal of players at least, too close to the knife's edge of a wipe. A few too many rolls outside of average and the fights went from winnable to wipe and that just wasn't the cup of tea they wanted to sip from.

For a 2e wishlist, I'd like to see the 4 degrees of success, at least with skills and spells, and I'd like to see the simple 3 action economy. I'd like player power to come from the class more than the equipment because we've played too many AP's where character power falls behind when there's just not enough of the right gear to go around, or there's no gear at all. I'd like to see spell dc's high enough that the bad guys sometimes fail them. I'll refrain from a wishlist on starship combat since I haven't read the starship ops manual and maybe they're already addressing some of the core complaints. And lastly, I guess, I'd like more character classes to be built like the operative, with an eye toward having something valuable to offer all the time...not just when there's a little niche around that they slot into perfectly.

AnimatedPaper wrote:

QuidEst wrote:

If it's an issue, make it more like the Nanocyte, with a pool of low level augmentations that you can switch between, without worrying about stacking on top of any augmentations you've purchased.

Agreed, that would have been an interesting and thematic way to go about this.

Mind, the most sensical way to do that would be using evolution points in some manner, which would make that even more complex. As it is, I've resigned myself to making a graphic where I can print it out and move a coin up and down to track my evolution points as combat progresses to see what bonuses and penalties I have at the moment.

I'd really rather not have it tied to a combat-generated resource. Trying to survive an environmental hazard with your allies? I'm afraid you didn't punch enough people today to improve your lungs!

Honestly, a hundred times this. People like to roll dice and hit things, but right now I'm missing where there's any part of this class outside of initiative order. I don't think we need another class where people can check out of the game session when the option to say 'i attack' isn't on the table.

Since the fulcrum level is the same as the class level, wouldn't you be crafting and slotting a new fusion every level, or buying a few levels ahead I guess...or does the class get a small bonus in wealth by not having to pay to upgrade the fusions to match.

I'd think that the fusions would be inert when the fusion is upgraded until you reinstalled it or something. A short explanation in the fulcrum would be nice.

IIRC, pathfinder2 explicitly defines attack rolls as checks, but it's ever so easy to believe something is true and ever so difficult to find an answer one way or another and some days, I couldn't google my way out of a paper bag.

Basically, if a player gets encumbered, do they suffer a -5 to melee attack rolls? While encumbered, you reduce each of your movement speeds by 10 feet, reduce your maximum Dexterity bonus to AC to +2, and take a –5 penalty to Strength- and Dexterity-based checks.

A check is a d20 roll that may or may not be modified by another value. The most common types of checks are ability checks, initiative checks, and skill checks.

I'm not sure. Plain english reading says an attack roll should be a check, but in my experience attack rolls are -way- more common than skill or ability checks and isn't called out the same way initiative checks are.

I don't know. What random piece of FAQ or rule clarification have I failed to locate?

Help? :)

I either completely misplayed, or completely underestimated the Pluprex demon in last week's game.

When the party got the demon's attention, it showed up outside as written,activated the high radiation version of its aura, moved into the entrance and animated the dead body as described (this, I did misplay. I failed to realize that the spell required touch).

It proceeded to cast confusion when the party moved forward to deal with zombert and was wildly successful. 3/4 of the party was affected with nobody having a handy way to deal with it. This is where the demon gets crazy.

Because radiation is a poison, even on a successful save it is dangerous. Nobody gets immunity to high levels of radiation, and thus everyone has to save every turn. On a successful save, everyone within 20' of the demon loses 12 hit points (not stamina as far as I can tell. The poison rules are oddly specific about losing hit points rather than taking damage, and I didn't find a correction anywhere).

There's basically nowhere to fight that creature in the small building that isn't within 20'. More than likely you'll be fighting in b2 or b7, and that aura is a commanding area.

If you can't get your debuffs on, or the wrong person gets confused and rolls poorly, or you're just having an off day, you're on a very short fight timer, even without the mutation, multi-attack, or other spell-likes. Scary fight.

Opening an unlocked, unjammed, otherwise normal door takes 10' of movement (effectively counts as difficult terrain) instead of a move action. (opening a door taking a full action has always bothered me, at least in comparison to the ease with which many classes gain additional move distance)

When the group is performing aid another actions (out of combat), the final result will be the result of the best character, plus benefits from other players' rolls as appropriate. (Player J attempts to perform a computer check. Players D and K chime in to aid. Player J's result was a 9, D's was a 22, and K was a 15. Final result is 24 instead of 11)
(It makes more sense to us, takes less time at the table for retries, and helps to keep the players from missing important plot details in AP's that are hidden behind easily missible skill checks)

I think these are the only deliberate house rules. We probably have a few unofficial things we consistently screw up, but eh.

I'd have to go with something like 1, 4, 2, 5, 6, 3.

I felt 3 was weak and incredibly overtuned in comparison to anything prior. Additionally, the whole book is nothing more than a red herring with basically nothing to find until the final enemies leave home with the incriminating usb drive hanging on a chain around their necks. There were insufficient encounters which provided sufficient experience early in the book, necessitating multiple overtuned encounters at the end to meet the xp requirements. While some parties had it 'easy' on those fights, I feel that they swing too heavily on random chance. A few bad rolls in the wrong place...a few good rolls in the wrong place, and the party is just dead.

Book 6 bothered me because it presented the AP solution as the only reasonable path forward, but that really wasn't the way my party saw it. Took a lot of encouragement. Additionally, the mechanics of space combat seem to play against the notion that a space battle could progress for days and days (multiple 8 hour rests are possible) with no impact on the empire of bones. No hits, no wild saving throws, no damage to work around on the final run, no events to alter the ship's geography and push the players to moving faster.

Overall, I think that the story could have been streamlined by removing book 3 and compressing 4 and 5. Book 5 could have been an attempt to prevent the capture of the SD. Book 6 could then have been a running battle against time as the SD was traveling through the Drift (either trying to find a place to destroy it while being chased or trying to recover and sabotage it). Your timeline then becomes 'waste too much time and the absolam system gets @nuked.

I just emailed customer support to ask more directly. I'm just too busy and tired and distracted to fight with maps forever and ever.

I allowed it with an operative in our Dead Suns run based on the same justification as the posters above. Free Hand overrides Unwieldy, assuming the conditions are met.

Or an overly simple investment system. Something like 'you can form a weapon that uses (insert chart of operative weapon damage values per level) or or any toolkit or (dunno, something cybernetics something).' skip a few lines of text and mention 'Once per day, you can deconstruct a weapon to add (level / 5) options from the weapon to your major weapon form for (level) hours. Options are any critical effect, increased range increment, +(weapon level/6) to damage, something-something'.

You still have a way to cycle out a lot of useless level 1 semi automatic pistols and tactical batons, but by using a static chart you're not limiting the effectiveness of your class to your party generosity. or something.

Christian Laird 830 wrote:

I am a little confused on the public knowledge of the Forever Reliquary. In the last 2 books, Xelanon believed that it was a metaphor until getting the info from the cave and Galchak was scouring records for the coordinates of the comet trying to get funding to support a research expedition. But in this book there is talk of semi-regular pilgrimages to the comet, so it couldn't be that much of a secret. Any thoughts on how to align this info into something that makes sense?

I had the same thought! This really had me twisted. I was just glad I wasn't running it live so I didn't have to suddenly retcon. "Uh, wait, so this professor, who has specifically devoted a significant portion of his intellect and time to researching the Forever Reliquary, didn't know that pilgrims routinely visit the place?"

"Um, nope, big galaxy, let's move on"

Having just cracked the book, I came across it on a similar end answer, but a different starting point. It's quite clear that Hylax doesn't have any bones about sending visions to people about the comet and I felt that some of early descriptions imply or state that some of the residents arrived over time. I would guess that someone gets a dream and goes off to find it. Some of them might start a 'church' or something and head off into the unknown with a bunch of followers. Like you said, it's a big galaxy. Easy to get lost.

It seems like it would be simpler to restrict Major Forms to your level and Minor Forms to level+1 if that was the case, but that solution is so simple that I can't bring myself to believe the reasoning.

I suspect that the intent was flavor. It's thematic to dust a gun to be able to make one. Implementation is the question for me.

Looking at the caps provided in the clarification, I wonder if those are expected values or just spitballing a max.

The 2nd level allowance, for example, is about the value of a 3rd gun. That's what you'd expect from the write-up. But how many AP's have you run where everyone, or anyone, is rocking a 3rd level gun before 2nd level?

My experience across a few adventures is that people are stuck with first level guns for a long time. I've got a 6th level group now where I had to throw upgrades at one of the players who was sticking with a pair of first level guns. And, as someone else pointed out you'd apparently have to have the level+2 item handy with an hour of downtime so that you could dust it as you level to be able to take advantage of it.

Iterative updates to the nanocyte's pool would help (letting it fill to some capacity), or just giving them a set amount assuming that they're constantly converting a few bits of things around them all the time. I just don't know how often a group of players would be presented with enough items high enough level to dust to actually keep up.

If they can afford it.

Realistically the only way a nanocyte can afford to swap a major form to a new weapon at level or level+1 is to find one that nobody else in the party has a better claim to, or be a greedy git.

Eyeballing the weapon charts, there's no way to sacrifice a weapon at level X, even with +10% value added as UPB's you cannot ever get enough value to learn any weapon at the next higher level.

I don't know about your experience, but players in my games, playing through AP's, are frequently running with weapons that are below level. A weapon upgrade takes so much cash that it's something people save for over two or three levels.

I know what players are going to want to do (keep 3 rolling high level weapons). I don't know how they're actually going to do it.

That's fair. I was uncomfortable with "I can eat it because it's an improvised weapon", so my response was based on how I'd handle somebody trying to rules lawyer that. I'm sorry for being passive-aggressive about it; I should have split off my response to the rules-lawyer section from a response to the underlying question.

If somebody at my table asks if they can dissolve the chain in an hour despite it not being a tech item, absolutely. Especially if the captors don't know that the character is a Nanocyte, or if I forgot to describe them taking precautions. And I'm certainly not gonna wipe out the cache, regardless.

You're right. The snark was uncalled for on my part. Sorry.

I feel like the nanocyte is going to be the poster child for attempts at 'creative solutions to breaking and entering' and similar problems. I foresee a lot of table talk about it.

I'd let you use your con modifier on a strength check to break the chains and flavor it as your nanites weakening it if you succeed, but... yeah.

Wait... do mundane tools count as tech items?

I don't know, but I was assuming archaic weapons count as weapons.

Improvised weapons are things that aren't weapons that you use as weapons. "It's an improvised weapon" doesn't let you slap a fusion seal on it either. Tech items count, though, so various high-tech restraints sound like fair game.

A wonderfully, creativity-smashing, rules-based answer. It's not a weapon, so you can't dissolve it. You can take apart the most complicated of laser weapons, but a simple chain is beyond you unless you bought it with a wooden handle and some spiky bits on the end.

I am uncomfortable with that answer.

I just had a different set of questions occur to me as well. As GM's we should be encouraging and rewarding creativity. If a nanocyte was, dunno, perhaps chained to a wall and needed to escape, could he spend an hour decomposing the chains? They could be considered unattended improvised weapons. In fact, basically anything you can lift is an improvised weapon, so can he break through the bars of the door?

If he can, does he lose his nanite investment completely? Obviously yes, but now you're kicking the player for being creative. That doesn't seem desirable either.

Much happier with it being a thrown property. Something about the 'ranged unarmed strike' makes my teeth hurt.

Oh, I should have read that one closer. It reminds me of the protagonist from Prototype. Looks fun. :)

It does let them be flexible. They can have a Giant Ice Throwing Hand cannon worth 100,000 credits tossing out cold damage at long range. They can also have a 100,000 credit fire blast heavy weapon to deal with AoE packs. They can also have a 100,000 credit melee reach weapon to deal with enemies that get too close. And they can also have a handy 100,000 credit out-of-combat technological item to be used when enemies don't need their HP to be lowered. All with the same 100,000 credit investment.

For that kind of versatility, any other class would need to split funds between all of these different kinds of things. A Nanocyte can have many expensive items at the ready, albeit one at a time. (Though I agree that it would be nice if you could change out your Gear Array Minor/Major forms more often).

That's a good argument with regards to flexibility. If we already postulate that the most common path of advancement will be rolling multiple weapon types so that they remain within 1 level of the character, and ... I honestly don't know what the minors will be. I haven't even considered it. And you can presumably slap a fusion seal on it, but that would fall off whenever you switched.

I'll concede flexibility..at least a little bit. ;)

Yup, this nanite investment is beyond me. Why not use the cap to say "You can take THIS many ITEMS of those types"? Just say, "At level 1, you can have 2 Major Forms in any combination of weapons and cybernetics". So EITHER 2 weapons OR 2 cybernetics OR 1 weapon and 1 cybernetic. Why go through the whole UPB thingy, when you can simplify the process? I think this makes it simpler. Kind of the same way Prototype Mechanics can get a free weapon or armor so long as the mechanic is level 1 or the weapon/armor is 2 levels lower than your mechanic level.

I hope this makes sense, my brain is not with me today. I'm still trying to wrap my head around this class.

Yes, I think it makes sense. There are already a few ways for classes to keep one foot off the loot treadmill, at least for a while. I'm not sure if one more is all good or all bad or even the same category.

A technomancer doesn't have to spend a dime on armor once they pick up junk armor and the cantrip (if they want..it falls off after level 9 I guess). A solarian or unarmed fighter or vanguard, as previously mentioned, is competent without investment. A qi adept doesn't need a gun.

And a nanocyte only gets to have one item at a time at high level, regardless, so they're not completely divorced from spending.

I guess that's why I'm curious about the intent. What's the problem that the class ability is trying to solve. Is it to be flexible (I'm not sure they succeed)? Is it to partially step off the loot train (definitely don't succeed IMO). Is it to be a loot sponge or another possible way to get value out of the bits of people your murderhobos leave behind (I don't think so?).

I dunno. It's really hard to suggest 'this is a better way to get where you wanted to go' if I think you're driving to Canada and you're really heading for the south pole.

It seems that the intent is to try to encourage people to pick up a desirable thing, dust it, and then have it available on-demand, or as a semi-flexible thing. What bothers me so far is that the current writeup seems to encourage the nanocyte player to try to scarf up the highest-level undesirable item that the group finds and dust it, along with some extra money. Because if they don't, they won't be prepared to replace a major and minor form next level due to lack of investment.

And sure, that's better for the player..he gets full value for the item (so to speak) rather than the 10% that resell would have brought in, but it still feels like a possible party stress point, as well as a possible money pit. 'What do you mean you want that too? You just took that other gun', 'well, yeah, but this one is worth 300 more credits and nobody wants it right?'

I guess the question I would have is, 'what is the design intent behind trashing loot for bookkeeping?' Why is that strictly better than a simpler 'your nanites are constantly in action around you, converting dust, air, and bits of matter..including what you injest...into more nanites. You can cause the nanites to form an object you've learned (major/minor forms, etc)...' No bookkeeping other than the forms you know. It's likely that people will gravitate toward specific 'good' or 'best in class' forms, but honestly, they'll do it anyway.

Zilvar2k11 wrote:

rabidradioactiveraccoons wrote:

Anything less than or equal to your current investment only has a 10% return, anything higher bring your investment to the full price of that item. Include a maximum investment total per level.

Your getting the full value out of your juiciest piece of gear while not falling behind in your form selections at level-up

Is this a suggestion, or your reading of the rule, because that's not how I read the rule.

It seems to indicate 'pick an item, dust it and up to 10% of its value worth of upbs and that becomes your new investment'

Suggestion; my reading comprehension is bad, but it isn't that bad. I type so slowly at times that I was responding to QuidEst. Probably should have quoted them

Eek, I apologize. I wasn't intending to imply anything :) I went back and reread it after because your comment left me curious if I had misread it.

So, to the point, I feel like if we sat down and looked at how this might play out over the course of an AP you'd find yourself with a nanite pool that is bigger...maybe even WAY bigger.. than expected at any given level. Would it matter much? I don't know. That's why I suggested a cap.

Anything less than or equal to your current investment only has a 10% return, anything higher bring your investment to the full price of that item. Include a maximum investment total per level.

Your getting the full value out of your juiciest piece of gear while not falling behind in your form selections at level-up

Is this a suggestion, or your reading of the rule, because that's not how I read the rule.

It seems to indicate 'pick an item, dust it and up to 10% of its value worth of upbs and that becomes your new investment'

I didn't consider that you could lose your nanite investment. That's an interesting find.

I considered that it seemed strange that there would be a dominant list of 'hey, give me that item so I can decompose it, it's the most expensive item in any book for this level' (which is probably a concern that isn't a big deal, but it still feels off).

I would think that it would be more in line with a desirable scaling to have a table showing the maximum size of a nanite investment per level. Or a simple formula. So it doesn't matter if you are investing nothing but knives and shot pistols. It takes longer to fill your tank, but you still eventually get there.

Either way the player is bookkeeping a separate wealth table. At least this way you're not looking for the best item all the time.

I agree with everything said here, and also would like to throw in the consistency of the embedded maps is pretty poor. Pulling out the university maps from Huskworld, as a specific and currently-relevant-to-me-example is a terrifically frustrating process. Thankfully I found a previous thread where someone mentioned villadelfia's image extractor. Unfortunately, even getting a clean source image provides no benefit to the VTT experience when the maps do not have consistently-sized squares.

A cursory visual examination of the Huskworld pdf at 100% zoom, page 29, shows obvious issues with the compression used to include the maps in the PDF. The grid lines are inconsistent, and remain inconsistent when extracting the image. Trying to simply copy and paste the image gives you a very distorted copy as well.

I'd love to add my voice to anyone asking for Paizo to release the raw map files in addition to the pdfs for people who've purchased the product. Either without gridlines, or uncompressed, or in some way VTT friendly.

PLEASE.

I have a different question. If you're making ranged unarmed attacks, are they strength to hit, or dex?

As a GM, I feel like the Mechanic's ability Remote Hack isn't really taken into account well enough in the modules, or is written to be too open-ended.

I'm curious what level of agency and what forms of restriction other GMs and players have experienced with Remote Hack. I've considered requiring LOS or LOE to a target, or restricting by intervening material thickness, but I don't want the ability to feel useless either.

As a side question, do later AP's do a better job of suggesting responses to potentially troublesome class abilities? Seriously, as written, there's nothing stopping a drone mechanic from climbing on top of most buildings and walking around the top remote hacking every computer and robot with impunity. It's like playing Watch Dogs, but better.

If <+9 (3/4 BAB +4 DEX) is rough, what should it be? What basic optimization is my group missing?

It's easily the hardest fight of the campaign up to that point with a group of 4 at level 6. It potentially poisons every round and has solid hits that are all but automatic if anyone is in reach. But if you follow the 'during combat' it switches to bad tactics once it takes a couple hits, and if the party is all (or even mostly ranged) they have the potential to kite it or ping-pong it.

Most of my party is only at a less than +9 to hit. It taking a couple of hits was, in fact, one of the hard parts. I feel like there is a level of basic optimization that my group is missing. They didn't even have the option to run away. The stupid thing was fast enough to run down anyone who tried unless they split up and sacrificed someone. :)

Don't forget this:

Radiation
Armor protects you against low levels of radiation (see page 403) and grants a +4 circumstance bonus to saving throws against higher levels of radiation. Armor of 7th level and higher grants immunity to medium radiation levels and provides a +6 circumstance bonus to saving throws against higher levels of radiation. No armor’s bonuses apply to saves against radiation sickness, regardless of the level of radiation exposure that caused you to contract it.

A single meaty target in an open area is not that much of a challenge, if the party knows how to cooperate.

The last battle, with the magic missile barrage can be much more deadly.

I learned about the radiation protection (nobody would be immune in my group) by watching a video of the fight from another group. Everything seemed to work against the group in this fight (let's also be real...the little map inset is ridiculous. I must have misread it because that 'hovel' was something like 90' across). The ellicoth was in melee range after its first move, essentially could not miss, and scored a crit on the second round of combat. Our solarian front liner went from 'this will be tough' to 'WTF mate!?' faster than I could even roll. Every single roll, from Trick Attack to Clever Attack, to hitting required above average luck to succeed at and you just can't expect above average luck for the duration of a fight like that.

That's really why I'm curious about party comp. The fight felt excessively challenging for a group of 4 at level 6 (CR +3, with a fight immediately after)

The fight with the Ellicoth was particularly memorable, especially once the group learned about the sad history of Ellicoths on Eox. The fact that the Ellicoth had a 'garden' was especially poignant.

It's been a few days, but would you mind sharing your party comp and how they approached the ellicoth? By the numbers, it LOOKS like an almost certain TPK. The radiation, high defense, and excessive attack rolls on the creature, in conjunction with soul rend, would seem to make it darn near unstoppable for a party of 4 level 6 characters.

It would hit our heaviest armored, highest defense player on a... 3, I think? Everyone else is just a speedbump.

Environment certainly matters too. My group is on level 5 or 6, and at least one of the levels was a TPK waiting to happen if the GM didn't baby us.

Don't suppose the old Locate City bomb still works in pathfinder? :)

Arachnofiend wrote:

Neo2151 wrote:

Adding more feat taxes to starve every non-Fighter martial even more than they're already feat-starved is cold-blooded.

Making even more Fighter abilities that the Fighter can't use any better than anyone else is even worse, though.

There's a peculiar running complaint paradox that goes:

1. Fighters lack features, all they get is more feats. Everyone gets feats, that's not a unique or interesting feature.

2. Damn these feat-taxes on feat-starved characters, I can't create the feat-using character I want to with X class because I'm too short on feats to make it work.

Perhaps the obvious conclusion is that a big 'class feature' of Fighters is that they can build the feat-chains nobody else (oh shut up, Human Warpriest) can?

You know, a few hundred years ago the obvious conclusion was that the earth was flat and the universe revolved around it. But when people actually started to analyze things it became apparent that wasn't the case. Maybe there's relevance to be found in bad analogies.

But I suppose I need to check out this new book, if only to see if any of the new feat chains are worth the paper they are printed on. Frankly, when people think of feat chains it's difficult to not think of 'Combat Reflexes->Improved Disarm->Greater Disarm->Directed Disarm' or 'Combat Expertise->Spring Attack->Whirlwind Attack'

Underwhelming. Overcosted. Nearly useless by the time you get them in the environments that forumites (at least) seem to play the game in. Also, none of which do a darn thing to increase a fighter's narrative scope. :)

Is it fair to say that player agency lies on a spectrum.

GM dictated novel <-----------------------> freeform player improv

To this point, I agree with you I think.

A standard AP sits somewhere in the middle.

A sandbox adventure like Slumbering Tsar lies closer to the right.
Something like the old dragon lance saga adventures lie closer to the left.

I don't think that tracks. (with exceptions given for railroading and prison-break-style) The adventure that you're running doesn't suddenly make a caster less capable, or a martial more.

Am I right in thinking we don't want too much railroading because that is dull for the players and we don't want too much agency because then the DM has no campaign plot.

Or is the feeling that there can never be too much player agency?

Good question. Can there be too much player agency? I mean, the GM is another player and he's got quite a bit of agency. :)

Most of the player agency I see is small scale (but potentially large impact...teleport for example). That doesn't strike me as something that prevents a GM from having a plot.

Zilvar2k11 wrote:

In another game I play, there's a class with an ability called 'biggest fan' or something similar.

The player of that character has the ability, once per session, to point to an npc and say 'hey, GM, that guy is one of my fans'.

That's interesting and creates some potential RPing too.

In my campaign, the day after my group had raided a goblin camp and brought back 15 prisoner, I had the inn they were staying at swarmed with local villagers etc wanting to talk with them, hear about their success, buy them drinks etc. Groupies. Was also funny that the rogue kept trying to get farther and farther in the shadows as she thought this whole idea of getting to know you was not good for long term.

The entire game is built on the idea that the players have just as much narrative agency as the GM does. I'm pretty sure that every class has some ability, or at least access to some ability, that rewrites the rules or the narrative. In some cases drastically.

'This shot will add damage equal to how tough the creature I shoot is'
'This attack ignores all defenses'
'Hey, GM, I'm using my ability to just FIND something storyline related that's relevant'.
'He's my BIGGEST FAN'
'That guy and I start a duel, nobody else will interfere'

and so on. And if class abilities aren't enough, the resolution system explicitly gives narrative control of rolled effects to the person performing the action. Got a great roll? Sure, you get a bonus to your roll. Tell me why and that's part of the narrative now. I have never personally encountered another system that makes it so absolutely clear that it's not the GM's story. It's everyone's story. And everyone should have a part to play.

KC - what is your definition of narrative control?

Trying to understand how you define it, and then equate what "some" is?

How do you know when any character in a session has gone from none, to some, to roughly even amounts, and avoids being deadweight or accused of not pulling their weight regardless of class?

In another game I play, there's a class with an ability called 'biggest fan' or something similar.

The player of that character has the ability, once per session, to point to an npc and say 'hey, GM, that guy is one of my fans'.

Now the GM is forced, by player agency, to respond to the change in story.

Players of casters in pathfinder have that capability. 'Hey GM, I cast aqueous orb...that half of the room is underwater and the orb provides cover from everyone except these guys.' 'Hey GM, I charm him.' 'Hey GM, I cast pull out a couple of teleport scrolls that I made a week ago.'

Players of fighters/rogues say 'oh, I get behind cover and shoot them'. 'I try to make a diplomacy roll...does a 23 do anything?' 'Is there a level 9 wizard in the area with teleport?'

Any caster has vast potential to force the to GM respond. Martials have less of that potential.

After all, which is easier to plan for? If you put a wall in front of a fighter, he has basically 6 options...go left, go right, climb up, dig down, go through, or go back. If you put the same wall in front of a caster, he has the same six options, except that any of his potential answers involves more potential sub responses. 'Go through' could be shapeshift into big thing and punch through, could be passwall, stone to mud, earth glide, teleport, and probably 3 dozen more things that I don't know or remember.

Which is easier to plan for? Which is easier to deal with?

The one that's harder has more narrative agency.