mattdusty's page

So the way I run my games is probably much different than the way your GM runs theirs. I very explicitly tell my players to feel free to take downtime whenever they want. I will NEVER run a secret timer in the background, or rush my players to feel like they have to do something now or the world will end or whatever. If they do have to accomplish something within a set time period, I will very very explicitly tell them up front, hey guys, so uh, this time you have 36 hours before the volcano explodes, or something like that. Even then, I still have a couple of players that always feel everything is an urgency and they refuse to take downtime, even when its always offered, then complain about not taking downtime.

Your solutions are very good and I think I will use them all.

My only doubt is about action "Reconnoiter Hex": shouldn't the DC for this action be based on the level of the region instead of the kingdom DC, in order to prevent players from "remote-exploring" the map in regions that are inaccessible to the PC themselves in terms of difficulty?

I agree with this and will be adding it to my own list of homebrew rules for kingdom building.

My group has chosen for me to run Gatewalkers next and I read that running Stolen Fate after that is simple enough, so that is my plan. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or suggestions to foreshadow any of the main plots or main villains in Stolen Fate during Gatewalkers.

Should any of the harrow cards be introduced to the PCs during Gatewalkers? Also, how should the PCs harrow suite background be utilized if they aren't taking any of the backgrounds from Stolen Fates at first level. I intend on them to take only a Gatewalkers background to take a deviant ability when they create 1st level characters, but not sure if the harrow suites associated in the various Stolen Fate backgrounds need to be addressed as well at 1st level. Or just wait until Stolen Lands starts, then let them choose a suite?

I heard that AV is a really good AP as a prequel for Stolen Fates. We've already run AV several years ago and half of the current group were players in that campaign, so that is an AP that I don't want to run again with 2 players that have already run through it and 2 that haven't.

My group just finished a PF2e converted campaign of Return of the Runelords and we are wanting to start a new campaign at 1st level. We've already played through Abomination Vaults and Age of Ashes. After some discussion with the players on what we are all looking forward to play next and what I'm interested in running, i've narrowed it down to running Crown of the Kobold King. But that ends at 6th level. I know that I am going to try to connect that with Stolen Fate AP, but that doesn't start until 11th level. I've tried looking but can't seem to find anything that is published and designed to be between 6th - 10th level. Does anyone have any ideas or sources for a 6th - 10th level adventure? Or a combination of individual adventures between 6th and 10th levels? I can figure out how to connect the adventures, I just need something to run in between Crown of the Kobold King and Stolen Fate. I'm not interested in making my own adventure, but I have no problems converting a 1e adventure.

We literally stopped playing Starfinder 1 after about 6 months because its rules were so friggin clunky and PF1ishy. We just couldn't handle it anymore. Especially since we were also playing PF2e, which, to us is 1000x more elegant than PF1, SF1, or 'that other system'. Soooooooo happy SF2e that is using PF2e rules!!!! My group has been glued to our computer screens trying to eat up any information we can find about SF2e and it's making us excited to play in space again!! I do feel for everyone that is unhappy with this, but you all have many many books for the system that you prefer and no one will ever stop you from playing that game you love.

So my players are about to end City Outside of Time and I'm reading more in depth into Book 6 and getting ready to prep that. I'm confused about how to start this adventure. How do the players know that they have to go back through time, how do they know they are supposed to use the Cyphergate, and how do they know that they have to go to Zinnlun's tomb to get his skull? The Sihedron Heroes tell them? They go back to Jorgenfist and read about it, but then how do they know to go there at all? I guess I'm really asking where can i find in the AP where it says where and how they learn about what they are supposed to go/do regarding the Cyphergate?

And my second concern is this: Did anyone who has run or played the last book have any issues convincing the PCs to do the time travel instead of trying to save Varisia by going to all these places? My players are fairly stubborn and will try to take the most difficult path possible; they will definitely want to rush headfirst into Magnimar and try to fight Colyphyr instead of getting involved with time travel. I guess the special NPC comes in and begs them to do it?

It means what it says - item bonuses from multiples of the same structure in a Settlement stack up to that limit. The normal stacking rules otherwise apply, so multiple different Structures that give the same item bonuses don't stack.

As an example:
If your Kingdom is level 15 and you have a City (max item bonus +2) with a Festival Hall (+1 Celebrate Holiday) in it, that Settlement gives you a +1 to Celebrate Holiday checks.
If you build a second Festival Hall in that City the +1 bonus stacks, becoming a +2 bonus. If you then built a third Festival Hall in that City you don't get an item bonus from it, because the maximum item bonus you can get from identical structures in a City is +2 ("stacks up to this limit").
If instead of building an additional Festival Hall you instead built a Shrine (+1 Celebrate Holiday) in that City, your Celebrate Holiday bonus remains a +1 because you have two different Structures giving a bonus to Celebrate Holiday and their bonuses don't stack.
If you built a Cathedral (+3 Celebrate Holiday) in that City, you get a +3 on Celebrate Holiday checks even though a City's "Max. Item Bonus" is a +2...

So basically a village and a town can never have two buildings that stack item bonuses because their max item bonus is only +1?

Can someone help me understand the following regarding Max Item Bonuses:

"Normally, item bonuses do not stack, but if you build multiple structures of the same type in the same settlement, their item bonuses stack up to this limit." And then I reference the Settlement Types table and see that there is a column for Max Item Bonuses.

What does that mean? Does that mean that if I build three Breweries in a settlement, which a single Brewery grants a +1 item bonus to Establish Trade Agreements, that they all stack to make it a +3 item bonus to that activity since all the +1 items bonus' of the same type stack?

I also don't understand what 'stack up to this limit' means.

Also, what if you build the same building in different settlements - do their bonuses not stack?

If that's true, what is the benefit of building more than one settlement?

Mr_Shed wrote:

there's no real way to offset their Consumption without a Kingdom needing to spend at least one of their three Region Activities nearly every turn to generate Food for them,

You can also use one of your Leadership Activities to purchase Food Commodities, and given that I’ve found it difficult to use all 12 available activities every turn, it’s not a terrible option. Given how useful the Trade skill is, it usually goes well.

So if you have 5 PCs in a leadership role, that's 15 leadership activities they can take in a turn?

The way I square the circle, of her motivation is that Nyrissa is trying to kickstart kingdoms that will be easier to take when they ripen. Her original plan was to take Pitax, before Irovetti rebelled by hiding Briar and using it as leverage to protect his pet tyrrany.

So she moves onto the Stag Lord, a bandit Kingdom should be easy enough to take, but she underestimated the Stag Lord's sloth. When the PCs destroy that she doesn't have enough information to know if they'll succeed at building a kingdom. So she inspires Hargulka to build a kingdom of monsters, she figures it could grow big enough to be her final apology, but be too chaotic to organise against her.

When the PCs defeat the monster kingdom she sets her sights on taking the PC's kingdom. She figures Vordekai and Irovetti will soften it up enough for her to deal the killing stroke.

That's a cool idea. How is this information conveyed to the players?

My guess, and it's only speculation, is that it'll release on the 26th or 27th - exactly one month before the date for retail sales.

Paizo has said that they will not be offering the pdf free to subscribers as they usually do because it was a backer project. Nothing about not selling the pdf. VTT version is not going to be available until sometime next year last I heard though.

Will a PDF still be available for purchase on paizo.com on 26 Oct or later? Not going out to subscribers for free I get. I think my concern was they weren't offering it for sale at all.

I've heard from another source that a PDF for this will not be made available to people who did not back this, that Paizo will not be selling a PDF copy when it goes on sale on Oct 26th. Is that accurate or was this source incorrect? I only play via VTT so that would be a huge bummer.

Am I running Computers correctly in Starfinder? If I'm not making the below rulings correctly, then is the Computers skill just WAY too OP?

My players are all 6th level and one of them, (a technomancer) has decided to max out her computers skill as high as she can at that level. That's fine, though there is literally no check she can fail at this point, she is rolling over 30 consistently. But my question/concern is along the lines of this: She is wanting to use Computers for EVERYTHING. For example, a few sessions ago she had her own radio comm and wanted to roll Computers to use that to hack into a datapad of an NPC across the room and download its contents to her datapad. I ruled no, that is not the purpose of a radio comm and you can't remotely hack things like that without somekind of remote hacking module. She argued that computers in Starfinder are all connected wirelessly thanks to the Infosphere and that it made no sense that she shouldn't be allowed to hack any computer she sees from her radio comm. I ruled that not every computer is on the Infosphere.
Another time, she hacked into a secure system on a moon prison and learned that the system controlled only the lights and heating systems. She said that is impossible, that she has root access and that she should have access to everything that is controlled by any computer in this facility, including oxygen. She wanted to suck the oxygen out of the facility except the room they were in so they would kill all of the guards. I ruled no the computer only controlled lights and heating. Another time, she has tried to use her radio comm to hack a drone robot and command it to attack another enemy, and I ruled against that as well. Overall, that player is extremely dissatisfied with the campaign due to me constantly saying that's not what Computers are or how to do it. She has also argued that door locks are connected to computers and therefore should also be connected to remote cameras and she should be able to disconnect cameras from a door lock terminal.

Is the technomancer player correct that once you hack into any computer, you get access to EVERYTHING not listed as a module? And you can control anything that a computer can control, including life support, lighting, flight controls, AI, anything? I've read some modules that said such and such a computer terminal controls lighting, but remains silent on if they control anything else.

Question says it. I'm looking mostly at a champion dedication with a summoner and how most of the reactions target an "ally".

I'm excited to see what new options specialists wizards get. Something to make Evokers more evokery and necromancers more necromancery.

Cool, that's what I thought. These players of mine are trying to squeeze every +1 out of Lore checks as possible.

So would anyone else allow this...I have a player who plays a Wizard but has a very very low WIS. But he wants to be like a Lore Wizard. He wants to be able to know stuff about Nature and Religion (but they use Wis modifiers). He wants to take Lore Nature and Lore Religion so he can use his Int mod instead. Is that something doable you think?

My gut reaction is 'no', Lore skills are meant to be more specific.

One Stealth roll for both is how I see it. If you beat their Perception, either you stay hidden and sneak by them unnoticed and no encounter even begins, or you spring from your hiding place to attack first.

If their Perception is higher, they saw you coming and act first.

Yeah, I think this is generally how it works. But what if the PCs have Incredible Initiative? What if you rolled a 25 for your Stealth Initiative (incorporating the +2 for the feat) and the enemy rolls a 24 Perception initiative. You get to go first.....BUT are you hidden? Does that +2 (that specifically ONLY refers to initiative checks) also apply to your Stealth check to stay hidden? Do you have a 25 Initiative but only a 23 to stay hidden?

mattdusty wrote:

So you can't use a kazoo with no hands for example.

as long as it takes at least one of your hands to do so. So you can use a Kazoo, but it still needs to occupy a hand in order to use it for spellcasting. The whole reason they can use instruments to cast is because their composition spells require Performance checks, and if you're a guitarist it would be pretty annoying to have to deal with spells and a two-handed instrument at the same time. It's just a way to simplify Casting for bards that use instruments that require two hands and still cast spells without any issues.

It's not a Buff to Bards so that they can Cast a Spell without using any hands.

Hence why is said with no hands, you have to use at least one hand.

See, ha ha, rabbit hole to snap our ankle in.

I think my main confusion was that the first printing of the rules marked the instrument as a focus and foci automatically have the manipulate trait.

The new errata for 2nd printing just cuts out the ability for the instrument to wholly substitute for the required somatic component. The new ruling just says the Bard does not have to put thier instrument away to affect a somatic manipulation.

I was just looking for the instrument to gave the manipulate tag, when it didn't do away with the somatic component at all.

But, like above? Does an instrument bonus affect spellcasting in addition to performance checks?

The instrument's bonus would not affect the spellcasting unless the spell calls for a Performance check.

The 2nd printing does not cut out the ability for the instrument to wholly substitute for the required somatic component. It still says "Because you’re a bard, you can usually play an instrument for spells requiring somatic or material components, as long as it takes at least one of your hands to do so. If you use an instrument, you don’t need a spell component pouch or another hand free." So you can't use a kazoo with no hands for example.

I think its easier to not bring the 'instrument' into the thought process for a bard casting a spell with a somatic component - if the spell has a somatic component it is going to have the Manipulate trait regardless if its an instrument or a component pouch. An instrument really is just flavor regarding somatic components.

I've read from somewhere else that it is indeed just one roll whenever players enter encounter mode.

Just delayed on twitter to 9/1.

Tech Revolution or Secrets of Magic or both?

So for subscribers, do the pdfs get released when the orders are generated or when the book is physically shipped?

Oh I see, its this sentence that is confusing: "You can usually also play an instrument for spells requiring verbal components, instead of speaking."

I'd make a call that the bard is replacing a verbal component with a somatic one in this case, and give it the Manipulate trait, but that seems like a GM call. And that can be tough when you have a player that questions every GM call with an demand to prove the call through RAW.

You can replace the somatic components of the spell with an instrument, but it is still a somatic component and thus has the Manipulate trait. It just removes the need for a spell component pouch (and possibly components that require a gp value in its cast?)

Somatic components automatically have the Manipulate Trait. If the bard spell requires the somatic component, then it has the Manipulate Trait. If the bard spell only has the verbal trait (as most bard compositions do), then it does not have the Manipulate Trait. Using an instrument to cast a spell for the bard is NOT an Interact action, it is part of casting the spell....which usually is a somatic component and thus has the Manipulate Trait anyway.

Yeah I think that's what the player (and myself tbh) thought, that Avoid Notice was basically an auto use of the Stealth skill for an initiative check. I think ya'll are right, and shouldn't be run like that.

Azothath wrote:

information can be both positive and negative, such as nature on undead would tell you they are not natural (defy the normal rules of nature).

This is how Arcana worked on Robots in PF1. A construct but doesn't follow normal(magical) rules.

This is what I do. If they unknowingly use an inappropriate skill, I at least throw them a bone on anything short of a critical failure. (Usually giving them just enough info that they can identify the creature's type and get on track with using an appropriate skill to Recall Knowledge.)

On a success with the correct skill, I almsot always default to the full creature intro description, though I occasionally omit parts if (1) they are not the least bit relevant or (2) would be giving away multiple useful pieces of information (I reserve that for crit success).

I like that as a rule of thumb because the Recall Knowledge rules say to go with the most well known features of the creature first, and I find the intro description do a good job of pointing out precisely what those are.

SOME EXAMPLES:

PC: I use Religion. *Crit Fails*
GM: It is a zombie brute, essentially a bigger stronger zombie capable of hurling debri and body parts like a catapult hurls boulders.

***
...

I like this way of doing it. The issue isn't that I have whiney players, I don't, usually. I'm trying to make this experience FUN at the table and the players consider wasting actions = not fun. I find it odd that my players (and other groups from what I hear) have recently been telling me that Recall Knowledge is 'wasting an action' (mostly due to the concerns in my original post) but have no problems rolling that third attack at a -10 penalty, when actually a Recall Knowledge can give some VERY useful information.

Unfortunately, in order to get the majority of my players on board to switch to PF2e from 5e, the GM rolling secret checks had to be houseruled out. They really really really really balked at that and wouldn't agree to switch over until that one, and just the one, change was made. So no secret checks. Ever. Yeah I know. But they do roleplay failures and crit failures really well, so I honestly had no issue with that once I saw the wouldn't metagame it.

Hmm...I may not have been running Avoid Notice correctly. I assumed that how the PC was doing it was hanging in the back of the marching order, pressing against the walls, only walking in dim light, ect. She doesn't use cover or states she does, so I haven't been giving the +2 for cover, but I basically was giving the player her option to use Stealth as her initiative every time combat starts anyway (her Perception is a +9 but Stealth is +14 at lvl 5).

Are you saying that if using Avoid Notice, in order to use Stealth as initiative, there MUST be cover or can it be more situational? Like if she says that she is only hanging in the dim light areas so she can be concealed (which would be pointless against creatures with darkvision or low light). Just because a player says "I'm using Avoid Notice as my exploration activity", they don't automatically get Stealth as their initiative check?

Were books being shipped and pdfs released today for subscribers or is that all going to take place on or about August 25th? I'm a new subscriber and not sure how that works.

If a player has Incredible Initiative and is using the Avoid Notice exploration action, when they roll for initiative, I know that they roll Stealth once and that is their initiative check and their Stealth check to be undetected at the start of battle. Incredible Initiative adds +2 to the initiative check. But is the +2 applied to the Stealth check when comparing it to the enemies' Perception DC to see if they are undetected? Does the GM use two separate Stealth numbers in this case?

I give out mechanics/stats/combat information if they roll a recall knowledge check during combat; give out mostly lore information if they roll outside of combat, with maybe....maybe one commonly known thing about them combat wise...depends on the situation, creature, rarity, ect.

I mean my players loooooove the Recall Knowledge action. When they use it right, they know that I let them ask one question (two if its a crit), and they usually ask, what it's lowest save is or if it has a really strong special ability and they can use that information to their advantage. I have no issues with that, I know its not exactly per RAW, and I think its pretty cool that can happen. And I think, maybe that's why they always want to be successful in that action because they know they'll get something useful out of it.

I've just gotten to telling them which skill is appropriate, followed by 5 minutes of players trying to justify why I'm wrong and their skill with the highest modifier is actually the right skill to use.

I thought I saw it somewhere before, but wasn't the Recall Knowledge action an untrained skill action?

I'm liking the idea of using different skills for different aspects of a creature - like using Arcana to learn about any arcane spells it can cast or if it has any magic immunities or using Medicine to learn that it deals poison or can inflict diseases. I think that's balanced enough to let players use their skills they've invested in while still using the recall knowledge action and not feel useless. Using the suggested skill on the appropriate creature type grants the standard info from the skill check and having the specific Lore is an easier check to make. They will just have to understand that they can't get all the normal bits of info if they don't use the appropriate skill - like they can't know a zombie's lowest save from an Arcane check.

I should also note that they only try to use these types of justifications during combat only. For some reason, they tend to follow the recommended skills for lore/social encounters. At least I can't recall a time when they tried to use one of their usual antics in social situations.

The majority of creatures have double choice, but even with a single choice it's quite easy for the player to guess what skill is required....

Oh they know which skill to use to figure it out, that's easy for them. The issue is that they want to use the very specific skill that they have the highest modifier in, even if they know its not the right skill that the rulebook says to use.

Would you allow a player that didn't have Arcana, make a Nature check to recall knowledge about dragons because dragons are natural beings/live in the Material Plane/found in a specific environment/use elemental like breath weapons? Would you allow a player to use Medicine to identify a green dragon because green dragons use poison? Use Society to identify a type of fey creature because the fey have kingdoms, royal courts, and are found in local legends? These are literally questions/justifications I get from my players to use the skill that they have the highest modifier in.

So I understand most of the Recall Knowledge action. I'm a GM and I totally get that to use recall some knowledge on a dragon, a player needs to roll Arcana. I also am quite sure of what information to give to players and what DCs to set such checks for. I get all of that (I only mention this because it seems that 99% of all Recall Knowledge discussions fall into either of those two questions - what info and what DC). But here is my question:

I have a couple of players that want to use Recall Knowledge by using the exact same skill on every creature. For example, they came across a blue dragon and the bard didn't have Arcana, but he had Nature. The player could not understand why he couldn't use Nature to identify the dragon because "aren't dragons part of the natural world?" They ran into a group of zombies at one point and the wizard player wanted to use Arcana to use recall knowledge, but I said it had to be Religion. He didn't have Religion and got frustrated that Arcana wouldn't work "necromancers are wizards, how are there undead without the use of magic, Arcana should work!" I even had that bard with Nature try to use Nature to identify a stone golem, because I described it as being made of stone and he argued that since it was made of a naturally occurring substance like stone, then Nature should work.

It's gotten to be pretty much every single encounter, every player wants to roll their 'good' knowledge skill to recall knowledge and get frustrated that their 'good' skill won't identify everything. They then go about a 5 minutes trying to justify why it doesn't make sense that their skill won't work, which often never makes sense to me as the GM.

Does justifying a round about way to use a different skill make sense and not be OP - like using Arcana to identify Undead because necromancers are wizards? Has anyone else come across this at their table, where players just want to roll their one or two trained knowledge skills and get frustrated that such a skill won't work as written? Are there any good house rules or suggestions to alleviate the frustration players get when their skills aren't working when they think it should. It's gotten to the point where the players are using Recall Knowledge less and less when they should be using it more now that they are levelling up and facing higher level creatures all because I'm not letting them use non-applicable skills.

I figured as much. The current troop rules work really well for small battles. I think we had a total of 16 troop units on the field (8 on each side), plus 4 PCs and 3 individual creatures (2 giants and a dragon). It was a long combat, but it was fun to play with the troop mechanics and my players had a blast controlling the troops around. They did have to figure out how to read an NPC's statblock but that was simple enough. They have decided to settle down and recruit troops in our campaign to protect their hometown and hope to engage in a battle again soon.
Oh hardest part of the troop rules was physical placement on the battlemap. We used index cards cut out to match the number of squares with all the stats on each square written on it.
I guess you could also use pennies, shiny rocks, or pawns if you have enough of them if you want your troops to spread out more or have different shapes rather than being perfect squares.

I believe we're going to see what mass combat looks like in Kingmaker.

If it's anything like PF1e mass combat, I'll have to pass on it or tweak it quite a bit. I am buying the updated Kingmaker though

So I ran Kingmaker a short while ago. We used the mass combat rules from that and my players absolutely hated those rules. 'Boring, overly complex, not realistic enough, yet another system we have to know, ect'. So I ended up handwaving battles for the rest of the campaign and just putting encounters onto the battlefield for them to fight PC style.
Recently I ran a homebrew where these players would do another mass combat but this time I used the Troop rules from B3, basically just created two troops of soldiers per each PC for them to control, gave a couple ranged volleys, one of them was a spellcasting unit, ect. Used the creature creation rules to build them. Then made a sizeable force of skeletons and zombies troops to oppose them.
I have to say, those same players who despised the mass combat rules from Kingmaker/Ultimate Campaign so much they almost quit Kingmaker, loved playing with the new troops in this way. Biggest takeaway from using troops from B3 as a form of mass combat....players didn't have to learn a new system - just know what a couple of abilities did. They had tons of fun with just having a few troop units under their control that used the same exact mechanics as the normal PF2e rules.
So I think for small battles, these troop unit rules are just fine, just some extra work for the GM maybe. Larger battles with thousands of troops....dunno...

Has Hemlock been doing anything notable in the meantime? The PCs have the idea that they're doing all the work while Hemlock sits on his backside, so demonstrate that they're wrong. Have him deal with some goblins or Ulfen raiders or a house fire or something while they're busy elsewhere.

Also remind them that this is a GAME that they are PLAYING and if they want the NPC to do ALL THE WORK, then you can just stop playing TTRPGs and go play Catan or another game since they don't want to do any adventuring apparently. My players were doing this alot - literally screaming at NPCs because they 'hated a lazy NPC' - exact words from one of my players. Like, if an NPC didn't provide this one player with EVERYTHING he asked for - and he ask for alot - he immediately disliked the NPC. Not in character. As a player. I stopped that campaign and next session brought a couple of board games over, told them that the NPCs saved the day, the campaign is over, and I didn't DM for like a month. After that they got the hint. But mind you, I could do this cause I was DMing for a group of friends too.

That's what I was thinking. Thanks!

Can the Nyktera sprite use its "Seek action to sense undetected creatures in a 60-foot cone instead of a 30-foot cone" ability to also locate a creature with the concealed condition, say from smoke or fog if the sprite still can hear them? Or maybe ignore the concealed condition?

Exactly. Or I was also thinking that you can only control one or two minions per turn. There are 5 other players at the table, so I need to make a table rule for that.

yeah, I get that. It's the player taking 10+ minutes every turn to do her turn that I'm concerned about most. Because I know this particular player there's gonna be a lot of 'hmmmmm....I can run my bear in here and send my leprechaun there.....no no wait....have my corgi go here and my bear attack this....no no wait....leprechaun attack this zombie and bear move there instead....no no wait....." You get the picture.

Yikes! Really? I only ask because I am concerned with how long it takes a player to do all these actions, not really concerned with power levels or anything like that. It's a table issue that I need to get a handle on and resolve before it gets out of hand.

I have a player that wants to play a sprite druid. She wants her corgi familiar. She also is getting an animal companion from being in the animal order. And she is also stocking up on summon spells. She wants to be able to have three minions out and issue commands to all three of them on her turn, with each having two actions from her one action to command/sustain - giving her a possible max of SIX actions on her turn. I'm sure her corgi's actions will be limited but that's still ALOT of actions each turn! Is this accurate or is there a limitation to minion control that I'm missing somewhere?