kaid's page

For PC options, the standard answer seems to be that yes, they do need to breathe unless specified otherwise.

Looking at Construct Ancestries:

Automaton says that it doesn't breathe narratively, but mechanically it still does need breathable air and can suffocate like other PC creatures.

Poppet doesn't specify in the base Ancestry entry, but the Windup Poppet Heritage mentions that Windup Poppet needs to breathe the same as all other Poppet heritage options do.

Yeah stuff like that is more of an issue for a player ancestry for a familiar I can't see how it not having to breath would have any major impact on anything.

I never noticed it did not spell that out but I think it depends a bit. If it is an organic construct it maybe needs to breath. If it is inorganic stone/metal/undead bone it shouldn't need to breath.

Weapon rune tatoos for unarmed would be pretty dope honestly.

We already have several ancestries that have have armor runes carve don their scales and such after all.

Yeah a tattoo version of the handwraps would be both cool and a very flavorful option. When adding upgrades to it doing it as adding to the tattoo and making it more complex changing its design would be neat.

Same. And yeah Impossible Spells hopefully are the kind of insane broken stuff that will feel memorable whenever you get to use one.

I would have to suspect that such a spell would also have some long lasting effect/repercussion.

One interesting thing for summoner was it seemed like they were highlighting streamlining terminology/descriptions of stuff which sounds like it should slim down existing stuff and allow them more page space for new stuff.

I wonder if that will be condensing the stat lines for eidolons to make them consistent str or dex or caster favoring instead of having slight variants for each eidolon. Could free up a lot of space for more eidolon types.

Overall I don't think the summoner needs a massive rework so tightening stuff up and then adding more eidolon options should be pretty solid.

_shredder_ wrote:

Stellifera in sf2 would be awesome.

I'm actually legitimately shocked they're not in the game yet.

Although there are SO MANY SF1E aliens, I noticed that both myself and a lot of people who look through them tend to gravitate to about a dozen or so with really strong hooks and gimmicks.

Before the Galaxy Guide and Galactic Ancestries, I remember seeing both myself and a lot of people request the same aliens with extremely strong gimmicks: Contemplatives, Entu, Izalguun, Novian, etc.

Literally the only alien I would repeatedly see from 1e that isn't in the game already by now is Stellifera. Their cuttlefish water bubble gimmick is fantastic!

I am sure the stellifera will show up sooner than later. They are pretty neat and the galaxy guide shows they can do some fun stuff with tiny ancestries.

It will be interesting having a hologram luminary. It is hardlight constructs all the way down.

The support angle of the class seems to have a lot of focus but basically no juice. The low level feats and focus spells seem to want you to also just mainly ignore the spotlight mechanic and have you leave it on yourself forever which feels odd?

Being able to do no savedebuffs that last a turn is useful but I don't see much to attract people to the class outside of the wacky fantasy (which doesn't work for me personally since it's a very niche pitch and this is a game with 6 second combat turns

I would have to see it in play but I suspect the spotlight should be moving around a lot turning on the roles of those it is currently on. The minus save ones I think should be pretty strong if you have people in the party capable of using it.

I think this is one of those classes though where people are going to need to play it a bit to get a better feel of how its combats flow.

Another thing I would like is a grenade focused archtype that gives you free grenades per day. I know there's that one magic item that can act as a 1/day grenade but man do these things drain your money.

They had a lot of that in SF1 so I would be surprised if we don't see something like this pop back up in SF2. Like a mechanic who can make a certain number of temporary jury rigged grenades per day.

I am curious how much will be covered about how sailing ships manage to defend themselves vs aquatic enemies. Sailing ships I would think would be really vulnerable in a setting where there are fully aquatic intelligent civilizations that have magical capacity. Seeing/hearing a boat rumbling around compared to beings that can well below the surface. There almost has to be a fair amount of detection magic that allows ships some better way of seeing the threats around them and protecting themselves.

There are questions about how long Quick Alchemy Poisons last.

The most common ruling I heard is "until start of next turn in your hand, 10 minutes on your weapon". But that isn't a actual rule.

Also, what about Familiar Poison Reservoir? Would it last 10 minutes in there?

There is errata that spells this out now and it basically is what was expected. Once it is "activated" by applying it to a weapon it lasts for 10 minutes. The familiar poison reserve should worth the same way loading it into the familiar would be like applying it to a weapon and good for 10 mins.

This is an excellent example of why friends don't let friends train their LLM on reddit.

griefninja wrote:

The movie Project Hail Mary is very fun and I enjoy how the aliens are depicted in that. An ancestry inspired by them would be super fun.

Having way different atmosphere requirements reminds me of how a lot of aquatic ancestries need to soak in water to avoid drying out. You'd just "replace soak in water for an hour" with "breathe in ammonia for an hour." The way they use their limbs could also be fun. Do you use all four as legs for more speed, or do you hop around on one to have three "hands" free? It'd be interesting to see ships or stations built with two atmosphere zones or space suits for personal use.

Their vision being totally different is also fun. They echolocate, basically, so not being able to see stars or most other species writing could be a very interesting hurdle for a species in a sci-fi setting.

Rocky has been what I've thought of pretty much every time someone has brought up Vlaka senses over the past year.

Yup it is a good demonstration of an advanced spacefaring race figuring out work arounds like using devices to translate one set of input into another. Once they realize that information is important or they need to interact with it whipping something up to translate it into something they can work with is reasonable.

The movie Project Hail Mary is very fun and I enjoy how the aliens are depicted in that. An ancestry inspired by them would be super fun.

Having way different atmosphere requirements reminds me of how a lot of aquatic ancestries need to soak in water to avoid drying out. You'd just "replace soak in water for an hour" with "breathe in ammonia for an hour." The way they use their limbs could also be fun. Do you use all four as legs for more speed, or do you hop around on one to have three "hands" free? It'd be interesting to see ships or stations built with two atmosphere zones or space suits for personal use.

Their vision being totally different is also fun. They echolocate, basically, so not being able to see stars or most other species writing could be a very interesting hurdle for a species in a sci-fi setting.

And the nice thing with environmental high tech armor is you can really go wild with stuff like this and not have it be some massive hinderance. Like rocky basically makes his own lil exo armor at the end to hang with his buddy in the bio dome.

Would be easy on space ships to have crew quarters setup with whatever flavor of air/water/other medium they are comfortable in and just use force fields to keep stuff where it needs to be.

Ugh I hope so. Maybe some tech core in there if we're exceptionally lucky.

For real though I'd imagine if any book is getting spoilers it's going to be LO: High Seas. That's the next one up, right?

I believe high seas is the next big thing on the horizon although we are getting to the time where it is possible for another playtest for SF2 to get announced in the next few months although they may wait for closer to gencon for that.

I also want a nice helping of new weapons. I think perhaps my biggest gripe with the system thus far is it feels like there's massive gaps in the weapon options right now.

No rocket launcher (stellar cannon deals piercing), no martial one handed laser gun (plasma caster is 2H despite apperances) and so on.

Also I want the super shotgun from doom. It's gotta be done.

It would be weird if tech core does not contain a whole bunch new weapons. The player core options are fine but clearly missing a bunch of options.

Side note on melee in zero-g. If there was going to be a melee class good at zero-g fighting, I think it would be Solarian.

Yeah Solarians have BYOG bring your own gravity.

An official ooze ancestry would be nice. (Or did one of those appear in Starfinder? It's hard to keep track.)

Definitely would like to see more creature types get ancestries.

There is a really neat SF2 ooze ancestry. They do have some small brains that are by default not fully goo but they can take feats that let them be squishy too so you can squeeze through almost anything.

Given how many aquatic/semi aquatic ancestries are around in starfinder I don't see much reason to restrict them. In starfinder just about everybody has/should have long lasting environmental protections. It isn't much of an advantage as long as you have some kind of ship/base to recharge your suites as well as lots of magic options to do the same.

Aquatic races and non aquatic ones still will need to do most of the same tasks gathering resources and what not because underwater breathing is unlikely to be much of a help/hinderance but finding food/shelter/equipment effects everybody.

kaid wrote:

ScooterScoots wrote:

My continual flame doesn’t take up a hand, it’s a helmet light. With a cover and everything. If I want multiple instances I can get multiple and chuck them.

Yeah if your party does not have low light/dark vision light cantrip is a champ. can just have it follow most of your group around with no hands required. Just fire it up and have it last all day. A real lifesaver for dungeon crawlers.

Of course, carrying (or wearing, etc.) light sources in a Darklands campaign (such as the upcoming Vaultlines AP) make the entire party detectable from a long way off...

If you are in the darklands and need light to begin with it may broadcast your location but it beats walking around totally blind.

While there was a lot of dwarves involved in the quest for sky it seems hard to believe that all of the underground orcs had to flee heck not even all of the dwarves fled.

From what I recall the orcs were not initially overly hostile but given how resource poor the darklands were and the dwarves moving such numbers up through a lot of their territory stuff got heated pretty quick.

Real question for you centaur fans. How many of you have played centaurs that were in dungeoneering parties that encountered…rope ladders, rope access, ladders, hatchways - all the things centaurs aren’t really that…good…at?

Sure, there is “but…magic” to help, however sometimes even magic ain’t going to assist…

What does the centaur…do? I guess there are other ancestries that suffer similarly…lamias, ol’ yuan ti types, bariaur from Planescape etc…

Playing a centaur has challenges. If you pick one some planning and conversations with the party are highly recommended. The medium sized centaurs are a lot easier to work with the larger ones like any large ancestry can be a problem if you are going cave exploring.

I had a centaur kineticist that I wound up taking earth for one of my gates. The various ways to make walkable stepping stones/molding/widening earth/stone helped. Also a centaur charging at somebody in earthen armor is like the juggernaut.

Also note that especially for the medium sized ones but even the larger centaurs they are less big domestic horse body and more wild horse/pony bodies and wild horses/pony can be very sure footed in mountains/rocky areas.

I've been playing a whole bunch of Subnautica, and have been thinking about what a Subaquatic Submarine Focused Hexploration/Base Building campaign might look like using Starfinder 2nd Edition rules, and whether there is a planet that would be well suited to such a campaign?

There is a galaxy worth of planets that would likely work on. Especially if you want to do a colonization type campaign or setting up a base. Take something like horizons of the vast and set it on a more aquatic world. Tons of aquatic ancestries are available for it. In the pact worlds one of the pact races the kalo are from a fully aquatic society based on a water moon of bretheda.

But if you are looking more at exploration/colonization super easy to just whip up a world in the vast.

Nice thing about starfinder is basically everybody with tech body armor is effectively wearing a scuba suit rated for moderate depths.

My continual flame doesn’t take up a hand, it’s a helmet light. With a cover and everything. If I want multiple instances I can get multiple and chuck them.

Yeah if your party does not have low light/dark vision light cantrip is a champ. can just have it follow most of your group around with no hands required. Just fire it up and have it last all day. A real lifesaver for dungeon crawlers.

NoxiousMiasma wrote:

Brinebeast wrote:

Moldfolk (formerly known as Vegepygmies). I find their Golarion lore fascinating. And a mold based Ancestry is such a fun idea.

Unfortunately moldfolk are yet another casualty of the OGL crisis, so we shan't be seeing them again. It's a shame, I would also quite like an ancestry option with the fungus trait that doesn't also have the ability to take the plant trait.

Fungus Leshies it is then.

If you are willing to branch out the Entu Colonies from the new galactic ancestries book are only Fungus tag. Something like the Entu colony would be a great underdark type ancestry. Fungus thing that symbiotically merges with/controls various other critters seems very appropriate.

Standardized Ancestry Feats make so much sense.

Yeah there is really zero reason this should not be the standard going forward. It makes adding new ancestries a lot easier. You can just give your small block to show which standard ones are appropriate and now you have whatever page space allotted for new ancestry unique stuff instead of half of it just used on repeating standard options.

Also it allows for future adding of standard options to quickly distribute to existing ancestries to give them more options.

Nitrobrude wrote:

DemonicDem wrote:

It doesn't say in addition, it says its hearing does this, overwriting what it usually does.

You're right. Just like 1e, it says that they perceive/sense sound through their "skin rather than their ears". 1e says they gain Blindsense (Sound). 2e says they are automatically alerted of creatures within 30ft. More with feats.

So... either both editions take away their normal hearing...or...neither do. *shrug* Either way, it seems to fall under "as intended" to me. Perhaps replacing "Your hearing is an [...]" with "Your Dermal Hearing is an[...]" would solve the issue if they are meant to keep it. It's a non-issue if they aren't.

Quote:

In addition, "alerting you to the presence of creatures in the area" is the definition of vague sense, not imprecise or precise senses.

This however? No. As currently written, if you succeed against both Perception DCs to Sneak past a Maraquoi and a Human, the Maraquoi will still know the moment you come within their Dermal Hearing range and will likely attempt to Seek you out. The human doesn't suddenly smell/hear you just because you got within Xft.

I think I agreee with the original post that this could use a Errata. And thus is suitable for the Errata suggestion thread.

This and there are some other ancestries that have similar stuff like gaining an imprecise smell but I am under the assumption unless you are bantrid that specifically has no sense of smell everybody should have that by default without needing a feat.

There are a bunch of weird things about Galactic Ancestries:

Maraquoi's Dermal Hearing:

Quote:

You perceive sound through sensitive receptors on

your skin rather than their ears. Your hearing is an
imprecise sense with a range of 30 feet, alerting you to
the presence, but not the precise location, of creatures
within the area.

This is likely supposed to make their hearing better, but this just makes their hearing worse. Hearing is already an imprecise sense, with no listed range.

Urog's Overproduction:

Alchemical items are not recommended to be used in SF's Anachronistic Adventures. Is this supposed to be Serums?

Copaxi's Aggressive Antlers:

These seem really, really bad for an Ancestry-feat weapon. 1d4 piercing finesse is effectively worse than base fists. Is this supposed to be 1d6 at least?

Copaxi's Armored Shell:

Ignoring the weirdness about upgrades being split into another feat, this is not given an armor category and thus you never can get this better than trained.

Formian's Flight Specialist:

Despite being listed as "ambassador, queen’s court, or soldier, formian only)", it does not actually override the prerequisites of having the Basic Flight feat, and thus cannot be taken.

There are a few things like the hearing one where they grant senses that I believe are already just as good or better by default unless we assume without it they just don't have that sense or it is really terrible?

I personally think 2028, but 2027 has a decent shot, and 2026, while highly unlikely, isn't entirely impossible.

The dice are fickle things. Basically if you roll a one on the flat check you basically lose the actions you were using is pretty strong. Given the amount of times I have rolled a 1 when it mattered it is bound to happen from time to time.

JohannVonUlm wrote:

- Camping Kit (contains 1 week of food, tent, bedrolls, fire igniter and a survival knife), 30 cr

I'd say that is best saved as a group buy or in play purchase since multiple creatures can make use and it's likely rarely needed.

Yeah unlike pathfinder it is really going to depend on the your adventure for if you have any need/use of a lot of the normal adventurer outdoor stuff. Even when you are going exploring new worlds often you are still basing out of a town/settlement or your own space ship so a lot of the long term outdoors things like tents weeks worth of rations/canteens may never get used. Also if you have somebody with a maker kit it is often just easier to have UPB and just print them if you do wind up needing them.

Also it is REALLY handy if somebody in your group has a maker kit it allows you to make stuff you need out in the field or enroute. Starfinder due to how starship travel works tends to have a lot of chances to make stuff between parts of an adventure in your ships workshop.

In our groups for things that did not have a type that matched one of the normal recall knowledge we used computers. I figured in a setting like starfinder googling stuff you don't know should be a thing.

As they are basically the tech version of the PF2 handwraps they should work fine on all unarmed attacks including ranged ones.

For carbs (and I'm making up fantasy nonsense here) I imagine a region unique substance; Wood Gruel all the heartier trees and such that still couldn't cope with the Eternal Storm have been beaten and battered. but instead of just wearing down, larger chunks have broken down from the constant lash of water. They can be juiced, and so long as the pulp is extracted, the resultant liquid can be dried in smoke houses into a gel or powder that is high in basic carbohydrates, but lacking the indigestible parts of wood (basically it's cellulose). It lacks flavor other nutrients of it's own, used to stretch meals usually,

There are areas where they will import various wood logs sticking them at just the right point where they won't blow away but get the constant lashing of water needed to be converted.

You don't even need to reach much. In an area as wet and boggy as the sodden lands there should be plentiful things like cat tails many of which have edible starchy roots. You would also likely find things like wild rice thriving in that kind of situation and probably other stuff like cran berries or other bog tolerant species.

On page 70 of Galactic Ancestries, it says for the Tankmeat Goblin heritage "While you're wounded, you gain +5 status bonus to your Speeds and melee Strikes". Even with the wounded requirement, the +5 bonus to melee Strikes at level 1 seems unintentionally excessive?

On reddit the person who designed that heritage seemed to confirm that was an error and should be +1 to melee strike.

I do want to point out one of the funniest pieces of art in the book- The Gap-touched section includes a familliar face... I guess now we know why we needed a new Iconic Solarian!

Justnobodyfowl wrote:

The one that surprised me the most was the Ijtikri. It's one thing to say that an ancestry loves adopting and making found families, but it's another thing when they're the foot soldiers of the colonial empire. I feel like there's a lot of really messed up, complicated, and interesting ideas you could mine out of a planet of soldiers who habitually adopt war-orphans they created. What if a found family WASN'T perfect and wholesome?

Tangentially related to this, I do find it interesting that the Vesk boasting of conquering their entire home system rings hollow once you realize that the Ijtikri, Talphi, Skittermanders, and Kothama all offered almost no resistance and the Pahtra were at an enormous technological disadvantage since Pulonis is incredibly hostile to electronics and permanent construction.

Yeah it is hard to claim you conquered the skittermanders when all they wanted to do is help you with your objectives.

It might depend on how they got to the prime material plane (PMP).

If they were summoned, they go back to their specific elemental plane.

If they came to the PMP of their own volition, they could very well be dead permanently.

I can't see an elemental going to Pharasma's Court to be judged.

BTW, folks who have already been judged and sent to their afterlife, don't get judged again if they're killed on the PMP.

If they're an outsider and they came to the PMP on their own and die, they're dead forever.

If they were summoned to the PMP and die, they just go straight back to their own plane.

That seems about what I would think too. Most of the other planar stuff seems to just go back to their plane and reincarnate. We know in the first world nothing really dies there and the lower planes are basically the same and I assume the higher planes are the same.

As they said in the good place just a drop of water returning to its ocean.

I feel bloodseeking blade has IMO the same problems as weapon ikons in the exemplar, though in the case of the exemplar it isn't as bad since you can actually choose 3 ikons at 1st level and one of those its almost guaranteed to be a weapon ikon. Still, in both cases I think their damage steroid should be an innate part of the class and not something that's situational (in the slayer's case is way worse than the exemplar though).

Heck in the exemplar description of ikons it flat tells you that you should pick at least one weapon ikon.

I sort of suspect that the blood seeking blade should be default to all slayers and then the other options be what they select between.

I want an uplifted bear! I am hoping they will allow SFS uplifted animals at some point..

Yeah need to have my orbital insertion soldier uplifted bear. Show them how dangerous a drop bear really is!

So I'm guessing Kazmurg's Absurdity is where you would set things that lean a bit more... Douglas Adams?

That is one of the vibes I get from it for sure.

I mean, it is called Kazmurg's Absurdity. Feels like it's meant to be a little more Farscape or Lexx or Red Dwarf than Star Trek, a place you can Boldly Go into something for which the writer will be accused of drug use.

Are they any more unusual than a bantrid? The race that takes football very very very literally.

Having a nice part of the setting that leans into the space weirdness aspect of sci fi is great.

I'm a bit of a gear junkie for my characters. Starfinder can be kind of tight spending on starting gear. Not having adventurer's kits makes this a bit of work too. Here are some suggestions I have for starting gear. For an assumption, I'll assume you spend 80-100 credits on armor and weapons. So maybe you have 50 credits to play with.

- comm unit, 0 cr (easy to forget you get a free one in any armor with the tech trait)
- Commercial flashlight, 1 cr (as good as a torch)
- Container, ordinary, 1 cr (backpack, briefcase, whatever)
- Hygiene Kit, 2 cr (you know you need one)
- Camping Kit (contains 1 week of food, tent, bedrolls, fire igniter and a survival knife), 30 cr
- data chip, 2 cr (use with your free comm unit, store extra data)
- Infinity deck, 2 cr (card game for your character to play during downtime in the Drift)
- battery, commercial, 10 cr (a spare could come in handy)

That comes in at 48 credits.

If you can scrounge up 30 credits more, a medpatch is very handy for when the Mystic goes down.

Starfinder is also a bit of an odd duck because it is very likely you have a space ship for your group. So a lot of the normal camping gear/rations may not be really needed but check with your GM before hand. If you think you are going farther afield the explorers canteen thing is really nice. As much fresh water as you can need and ability to use UPB to make basic food. It isn't fancy but that one item you can fill your critical survival needs for a long period of time.

Could also make them young nymphs who have not yet undergone their binding to a region/place.

I'd like to see Dirindi in SF2E, they remind me of what a Ferengi news caster would be like.

I hope to see Stellifera; to me, they are the poster species for how strange things can get in Starfinder, although Barathu does a good job of that too.

I also really like the lu-venon. I'm excited to see they will be back in Starfinder Society Scenario #1-23: Psychic Echoes. If lu-venon become player may depend on what happens or what we learn in that scenario, since it appears that lu-venon haven't left their moon yet. It would be fun to play the first lu-venon to travel to other planets, meeting other species would almost always be a first contact situation for them.

Is season 2 getting a player's guide? I was under the impression that the Invasion’s Edge Player’s Guide was just for the release of SF2e to give s more player options at launch. Unfortunatally the answer was likely in the blog post comments that are now gone.

SF2e is starting pretty strong with Astrazoan and barathu out of the gate weirdness.

rainzax wrote:

I do have a 4th level PFS character that hasn't purchased a single item yet.

So yeah, naked. And carrying nothing.

=)

Where do you put your Runes ?

There are some ancestries with innate armor where you can etch the runes on their natural armor. Otherwise you can do kineticists built in weapons built in armor depending on what you go for gates. You could get by with nothing for a good amount of levels on a kineticist before eventually needing some clothing to stick runes on or if GM lets you etch them on your body.

Oh excellent! I'm excited to see what they do for the nymphs - up until now the main option has been Battlezoo's, and the ridiculous emphasis on how hot you are all the time, how your abilities are half about being hot, 'YOU MIGHT: not realize how hot people think you are! OTHERS MIGHT: get upset that someone so hot is friendzoning them!' was not what I wanted out of playing a cool nature spirit. Fingers crossed they also add a gargoyle ancestry sometime.

I'm excited to see what the curses are too. And archetypes and items! There's so many weird fairy tales to be inspired by.

I assume there will be some of that simply because nymphs are by their nature alluring but hopefully it is a bit less of their focus and more focus on their nature background and muse like encouragement of bards and the art.

Ohh ok, thank you! Does sneak attack work for bombs?

I would assume it does. Bombs are thrown weapons.

But what do all of these foxes say?

In Pathfinder, I feel like it's legitimate to not wear clothing in a universe that once semi-canonically crossed over with Red Sonja and Tarzan. Those are the Ur-Texts of Semi-To-Mostly-Nude adventuring heroes. Maybe we need an archetype that gives you an AC boost when rocking the Chainmail Bikini?

In Starfinder, polite society frowns upon it more, but I think there's actually more chances for it. It would be really easy to just only use holographic projector based "clothing". I figure most Astrazoans would WANT to avoid the same distinct pieces of clothing that they can be recognized by. Maybe the Nudist archetype would give you a boost to using the SF2E-Exclusive "Livestream" exploration activity as well?

Starfinder is interesting because a lot of their armor basically is clothing in a space station somebody sporting environmental body armor is probably expected as a reasonable safety measure. But they also have a lot of armor that looks like normal clothing reinforced with force fields. There is also weirder stuff like hardlight armor where you are just wearing some projectors and could be totally naked just running around wearing a light show.

Given how many aliens are wandering around I suspect if you just wanted to strut around au naturale you would get a couple glances but otherwise probably not much else.

This is the adventure path where we find that aroden had a very very large flock of crows as followers.

Seems like maybe something along the line of the book of the dead which could be a good format to cover more first world info and stuff.