moosher12's page

I've noticed something amusing about Starfinder, anthromorphic species tend to have proportionally big heads, much bigger than they would be in Pathfinder times. I wonder what evolutionary benefits led to this (Mostly a joke poke, but wanted to point it out).

Pact Worlds Common is said to be developed from several earlier human languages on Golarion.

While I was reading a Cosmic Birthday, Old Taldan was briefly mentioned as a dead language. I would assume Old Taldan to be that of Inner Sea Common, or Taldane.

This made me curious, what root language from Golarion is the dominant language within Pact Worlds Common. Is there any mentions in any Starfinder books about this? I've only barely started reading Starfinder 1E books early last year, so I've got a lot to learn.

And it makes me wonder if Old Taldane is to Pact Worlds Common as Old English is to Modern English. If, for example, Taldane/old Taldan was the dominant language that developed into Pact Worlds Common, would an Inner Sea character who hypothetically got Samurai Jack'd into the Starfinder future be vaguely understandable by locals? Or is it established to be another language entirely as the base.

This question is, fully aware that proper English does exist as a completely separate language on Earth.

When using a Gunslinger's Reload on a Repeating Weapon, does the Gunslinger's Reload contribute 1 of the 3 actions, or does it contribute to a full reload of a Repeating weapon?

One of my players asked for the ability to unlock a heritage when using a mixed ancestry. And using the Awakened Animal and the Yaoguai as inspiration, I decided to make this ancestry feat, if it helps anyone. Yes I am aware that Lineage feats can normally only be taken at Level 1, but the intent is that you would not be eligible for the feat if you already have a Lineage feat.

Awakened Heritage Feat 5
Traits: Lineage
Prerequisites: Aiuvarin, Dromaar, versatile heritage, or mixed heritage

You have come to exemplify the nature of your forebearers. You gain all the mechanical benefits of 1 heritage from either your ancestry, or your mixed heritage (if any).

In Starfinder 1E, magic has fallen out of favor. Magic items are dispersed among technological replacements. Scrolls are gone, in favor of spell gems, potions for spell amps, Magic casters did not breach the 6th level. The archaic is inferior, objectively. But that is Starfinder 1E.

Here, in Starfinder 2E, casters can go up to the 10th rank. A cleric can preach alongside a mystic, and a wizard can work at a corporation, crafting magitech.

But the itemization still acts like magic has gone out of favor. A modern derringer is somehow too complex to accept a rune, where a similar weapon, the barricade buster, somehow accepts one readily. A knife made from factory stamped steel slab would not accept a rune, where a masterwork dagger made from an adamantine alloy will. An archaic firearm can be kitted with up to 2 fundamental runes, and up to 3 property runes, and be equipped with a scope, a silencer, a bayonet, a reinforced stock, and a tripod, while this mystical art is somehow lost to the modern day. Yet it’s supposedly superior analog variant can accept at best, 4 upgrades, where some rune equivalent technological analog is competing with something as simple as a scope, a muzzle attachment, a bayonet, a reinforced stock, a tripod, a flashlight, and you have it.

The spellcasters got their part. They are stronger, more potent. An archaic weapon by default will now be allowed to stand side by side with an analog or tech weapon, no longer having greatly reduced damage. This was a retcon from Starfinder 1E, where magic is not as lost as we thought, and the old ways are not as obsolete. But the rest of the world has not been adjusted for this change. Should it be adjusted? Should runes and magic items be made more prominent to represent the restoration of potent magic in the average caster? Should magitech companies be competing with magic companies be competing with tech companies for the customer’s credits? Should modern equipment accept magic more readily? Where the tech, the magitech, and the magic, can truly dance among one another?

So, here's an old home rule I developed to allow for additional languages to be learned. It is supposed to work as a long-term subsystem.

Learn a Language
Traits: Concentrate, Downtime
You can learn additional languages by using the Language Learning subsystem. You must have access to a teacher who both can communicate with you in one of your languages, and knows the language to be learned. To Learn a Language this way, you must gain an appropriate number of Fluency points. Most languages require 30 Fluency Points to learn. Alternatively, you can learn the sign language of a language you know, which typically requires 10 Fluency Points. To gain Fluency Points, you must spend 7 downtime days practicing the language with your teacher; these days do not need to be consecutive. On every 7th day of practice, attempt a DC 15 Society check.
Critical Success: You gain 2 Fluency Points in your chosen language.
Success: You gain 1 Fluency Point in your chosen language.
Critical Failure: You lose 1 Fluency Point in your chosen language.

Special: As an optional rule: 10 points of Fluency would result in beginner-level communication, 20 points of Fluency would result in intermediate-level communication, and 30 points of Fluency is absolute proficiency with the language. As another optional rule: this activity can be an exploration activity, requiring at least 1 hour with your teacher per day.

So I need to ask, what defines a "gun"?

At first, I was coming to TheGentlemanDM's thread to ask the following, incomplete question.

On the subject of Pathfinder compatibility, there is one thing I would like to add as an topic but not an answer to your suggestion.

I feel a major reason that the gunslinger had crossbow proficiency was because it would not get banned at no-gun tables.

I think I'd like to see that the Operative gets its firearm expertise with crossbows as well. Unless it already is? The Operative just says it gives expertise in guns, but guns is not exactly defined.

So this raises the question. What is a gun? In Pathfinder, a gun would have been defined as being in the firearm group. But in here, it's probably safe to say that an Arc Pistol is a gun, and a laser rifle is a gun. Of course a Scattergun is a gun.

But what about a Needler Pistol? a Crossbolter, a Flamethrower, or a Card Slinger? Are these guns? What defines what is and is not a gun for these purposes, if the weapon group itself is not defining it?

You sense the surface thoughts of intelligent creatures around you. The amount of information revealed depends on how long you concentrate on an area or target. The spell can penetrate some barriers, but 3 feet of dirt or wood, 1 foot of stone, 1 inch of metal, a thin sheet of lead, or any force barrier blocks it. Creatures who are immune to mental effects are immune to detection by this spell.

[1-Action] You detect the presence or absence of thoughts from conscious creatures that have Intelligence modifiers of –3 or higher.

[2-Action] You detect the number of thinking minds and whether or not the creatures are telepathic. Creatures with telepathy have louder thoughts than creature who don’t have telepathy, and might be able to sense your intrusion, at the GM’s discretion.

[3-Action] You gain a +1 status bonus to Perception to Sense Motive against the target while the spell is sustained. A target who succeeds at its Will save prevents this.

With a cursory mental touch, you attempt to read the target's mind. It must attempt a Will save. The target then becomes temporarily immune to your mind reading for 1 hour.

Critical Success The target perceives vague surface thoughts from you when you Cast the Spell.

Success You find out whether the target's Intelligence modifier is higher than, equal to, or lower than yours.

Failure You perceive vague surface thoughts from the target when you Cast the Spell, and you find out whether its Intelligence is higher than, equal to, or lower than yours.

Critical Failure As failure, and for the duration of the spell, you can Sustain the spell to detect the target's surface thoughts again. The target doesn't receive any additional saves.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but at a glance, Detect Thoughts seems to do what Mind Reading can do as a Rank 3 spell as a cantrip. I was trying to talk it over with my partner, and they interpreted that perhaps detect thoughts cannot actually read thoughts, just detect whether or not thoughts are happening, as the 1, 2, and 3 action varients do not specifically say that you perceive their surface thoughts, but at the same time, I still see that Detect thoughts says that you "sense the surface thoughts" of creatures.

Considering the Starfinder Playtest allows the use of Pathfinder Player Core spells, of which Mind Reading is one, I think Detect Thoughts should be clarified on just how much information you are gleaming in its use, and how powerful it should be compared to mind reading. At a glance, it looks like it is as powerful as an at- will Rank 3 spell without a Will saving throw with one interpretation, but another interpreation would level it out to be much more cantrip-level.

On the GM side, the more sane interpretation is to say that Detect Thoughts cannot actually read thoughts, just detect the loudness or general flavor of them as if it was converted to an adult in the Peanuts talking, but I just want to be sure.

The credit being a base unit of currency, of course makes sense, I will not deny that. And in Starfinder 1E, it would not have been needed, based on what I've studied of the Core Rulebook. But the problem is, Pathfinder, and it's economy, which has been tied to the Starfinder Economy. 1 silver piece is supposed to have the same purchasing power as 1 credit.

But the problem is, like Pathfinder 1E going into 2E, Starfinder 1E has experienced a price crunch going into 2E. For example, let's look at the Arc Pistol, it went from 750 C to 25 C, and then the Laser Rifle, it went from 425 C to 60 C. What does this mean? It means that the credit is a lot more powerful of a unit of currency in 2E than it is in 1E. But the problem with being more powerful, is that for some services, you are overspending. Look at how you also went from starting with 1000 C to 150 C

When we compare the price of a basic service in Pathfinder to Starfinder, for example, a square meal, which would be 0.3 C, now costs 1 C. 3 times it's price. An item of street food that might cost 0.1 C? It is now 1 C. A fighting knife, here, has the same price as two AbadarMart Chocobars would. A single chocobar would have the same price as a burger, fries, and drink from your local Harpies Drive-In.

The Starfinder 1E Core Rulebook said that "some credsticks are designed to allow fractional credit purchases," establishing that fractional credits exist.

In short, should cheaper services, like food, snacks, rations, room and board, and bits and bobbles on the lower end be considered on a fractional scale of 0.1 to 0.9 credits for consistency with the copper piece? Especially now that 1 credit in Starfinder 2E, can do a lot more than 1 Credit can do in Starfinder 1E?

So, I've been thinking on it. After watching BadluckGamer's video on the Oracle, I see that the Oracle has now become a 4-Slot per Rank caster. Alongside the Sorcerer and the upcoming Mystic, which is also a Spontaneous Spellcaster in the upcoming Starfinder 2E. This leaves Bard alone among the known Spontaneous Spellcasters in this aspect. (The Psychic and Summoner being spontaneous caster exist, but they're also in a weird place as they use variant spellcasting allotments that are far from the norm, and by my opinion, technically do not count for this argument, as they are also Legacy, and this is a question more towards the remastered state of play).

I'm trying to think, what makes the Bard worth keeping as a 3-slot class, balance wise? Should it be updated to a 4-slot like the other spontaneous casters? Or is there a balancing point that keeps it to where it needs to remain 3-Slot, while Oracle and Sorcerer have 4-Slot.

Badluck Gamer also points out this may be an error. Should it be reserved for Sorcerer? But additionally, what makes the Mystic worth having it?

Magic with the illusion trait creates false sensory stimuli. Sometimes illusions allow creatures a chance to disbelieve the spell, which lets the creature ignore the spell if it succeeds at doing so. This usually happens when a creature Seeks, Interacts, or otherwise spends actions to engage with the illusion, comparing the result of its Perception check (or another check or save the GM chooses) to the caster’s spell DC. Mental illusions typically provide rules in the spell’s description for disbelieving the effect (usually via a Will save).

If a creature engages with an illusion in a way that would prove it’s not what it seems, the creature might know that an illusion is present, but it still can’t ignore the illusion without successfully disbelieving it. Disbelieving a visual illusion makes it and those things it blocks seem hazy and indistinct, which might block vision enough to leave the other side concealed.

You create an illusion that causes the target to appear as another creature of the same body shape, and with roughly similar height (within 6 inches) and weight (within 50 pounds). The disguise is typically good enough to hide their identity, but not to impersonate a specific individual. The spell changes their appearance and voice, but not mannerisms. You can change the appearance of its clothing and worn items, such as making its armor look like a dress. Held items are unaffected, and any worn item removed from the creature returns to its true appearance.

Casting illusory disguise counts as setting up a disguise for the Impersonate use of Deception; it ignores any circumstance penalties the target might take for disguising itself as a dissimilar creature, gives a +4 status bonus to Deception checks to prevent others from seeing through the disguise, and lets the target add its level to such Deception checks even if untrained. You can Dismiss this spell.

Trying to future proof here, because one of my players is planning on running a character that will be using Illusory Disguise a lot. And I wanted to determine if I was accurate in my understanding:

Can Illusory Disguise be disbelieved, and if yes, what triggers disbelief? My current impression is that an NPC can only uncover the disguise by passing a Perception check against their Deception DC, and is not capable of disbelieving the illusion as the spell does not mention the ability to disbelieve. But I would like to know whether or not I am correct in this assumption.

If an Illusory Disguise could be disbelieved, what sort of parameters would the illusion have to have for an NPC to ignore it.

As a home rule, I was considering expanding the Alternate Ancestry Boosts to give players the choice between two free ability boosts, or three free ability boosts and one free flaw, with the stipulation that the player cannot place all three boosts within the physical or mental attribute category (Though the addition of ancestries like the Vesk have been shaking this precedent).

I was curious if there were any caveats toward doing this, before I actually implement it.

Thought it would be fun to see what sort of ancestries folk would want for a hypothetical Player Core 3. This thread is not about whether or not there should be a Player Core 3, more in regards to what sort of ancestries people would like to see brought into the Remaster if such a book was made. So I’ll start with my speculative list, assuming 8 ancestries and 3 versatile heritages.

Ancestries
- Anadi
- Bugbear – completes the goblinoid trio, and are somewhat common.
- Caligni
- Kitsune
- Poppet – A fun ancestry that shares a thematic space with Leshies by another flavor.
- Serpentfolk
- Sprite – Quite common, and gives another Tiny option alongside some awakened animals.
- Vanara – They're fun, I just like em.

Much of these are chosen for a sense of frequency to see around Golarion. Anadi and Kitsune have many reasons to travel from their homelands, and given their ability to blend into cultures, can crop up in unexpected places. Calignis and Serpentfolk being added would give some extra representation from the Darklands, especially if serpentfolk are expected to replace the drow.

Versatile Heritages:
- Beastkin – Self explanatory. It's a flexible heritage, it would also bundle well with Howl of the Wild existing.
- Fleshwarp – Switch from ancestry to versatile heritage.
- Geniekin – Nephilim in PC1, Dhampirs in PC2, this seems a logical step to me. Hopefully would run the gamut for all 6 subtypes.

I’m curious what ancestries you all would like to see in this situation!

I wanted to allow my players to extract rations from the animals they fought in Kingmaker to gather meat-based rations to add extra benefit. I'm curious what systems other GM's have used for this sort of thing. So far I am considering giving a certain amount of rations appropriate to the size of the animal, with a Trained Survival check, probably appropriate to the Animal's DC by Level.

My appreciation for any advice.

I am under the assumption that a scattergun uses a removable box magazine, and is reloaded with with 1 action, using a saiga 12 as an example, as opposed to using a built-in pipe magazine such as in a typical pump shotgun.

I would like to propose a notation to apply to both Pathfinder 2E Remastered (for when guns and gears content are eventually brought back), and Starfinder 2E.

I'd like to propose modifying the Reload Entry between Pathfinder and Starfinder. Perhaps using terminology like, Reload 1/Capacity, or adding a "/X" to the reload if it reloads more than 1 piece of ammunition at a time, say Reload 1/4 to refill the commercial scattergun. And for other analog weapons that use loading clips, you could even do something like Reload 1/4 on a weapon with a capacity of 8, where each reload half-fills the weapon.

Additionally, I think for compatibility reasons, the Pathfinder Capacity Weapon Trait should be renamed. (In personal opinion, removed in favor of Starfinder's Capacity Weapon Trait would be preferable to me, as spending an interact action to cycle to the next ammunition piece feels like it defeats the purpose of having a capacity weapon in Pathfinder when it might consume the same action as a reload).

So I am revving up to use the Influence system for the first time in Kingmaker. And I hit the first "What the" moment when I was plotting which Discover checks I should assign each PC to influence Amiri, for example. I noticed that her Warfare DC was low enough, that it was most efficient for everyone to use Warfare, even if untrained.

The Lore entry in the Core Rulebook says that Lore can be used untrained to Recall Knowledge. I technically don't think it counts as a Recall Knowledge, but I am not sure.

I am not sure how to approach this, and was curious if I am supposed to let them use untrained Warfare to influence Amiri, or if only trained Lore skills apply to the Influence subsystem.

I've noticed that if you make rations worth 3 sp, and 5 cp per week, they divide in to a clean 5 cp per day.

This allows for easy management of ration purchases on a more precise daily scale. A 4 sp per week ration supply does not easily divide, at 5.71... cp per day, making it difficult to log rations in VTT's on a daily level using the vanilla costs.

Additionally, when using this metric, all of the items in an adventurer's pack will add up to exactly 1 gp, and 5 sp, equal to the cost of the adventurer's pack itself (vanilla, the a la carte cost of an adventurer's pack is worth 1 gp and 6 sp). Which means that PC's who opt to remove items from their adventurer's pack can simply deduct the price from the adventurer's pack, as if buying the items individually.

Ultimately, this price change would be small to the point of having a negligible impact on balance, and provides for easier bookkeeping, gives more versatility in in-game shopping, and allows for easier customization of a starter kit.

I know Paizo is winding up for their new core rulebook, so I figured this might be worth putting out, even if it is very minor in the grand scheme.

The Eldritch Archer does not add a cantrip if you are already a spellcaster, and the Beast Gunner gives you a bonus cantrip if you are already a spellcaster, and appear to utilize your existing spells for their respective abilities.

Are spellcasting classes eligible to gain the Basic, Expert, and Master Spellcasting Feats for the Eldritch Archer or the Beast Gunner? Or are these feats reserved for martial classes in this case?

My gut instinct intuits that it would be allowed, and the eldritch archer would be denied a cantrip, while the beast gunner would grant one cantrip to the original class's spell list, while either archetype would provide a separate spell list, not including a cantrip, of their respective tradition.

As an aside, I am also considering home ruling the Eldritch Archer to grant a bonus cantrip like the Beast Gunner.

As title^

My current assumption is no, as the closest to a supporting rule would be how staves work.

Don't have much to elaborate on, as is the title. ^

I was reading over the classes, and was curious about the class feats that grant additional 10th-Level spell slots. Would spontaneous casters who take these feats be granted a third 10th-Level spell? Or does the feat only grant them two casts of their given 10th-Level spells.

My gut says no, but I am new to this system, and could not find another thread talking about this question. I was curious how other GM's would interpret this.

In the Core Rulebook, the Emblazon Energy cleric feat refers to a shield's "circumstance bonus to saving throws." Is this referring to it's circumstance bonus to AC when raising a shield, or only to the cover provided by a tower shield?

In the Core Rulebook, pg. 531, it says that "a suit of +1 resilient armor still gives you its item bonus to AC when not invested, but it doesn't give you its magical bonus to saving throws"

The exerpt does not mention whether the it is referring to the armor's original item bonus to AC, or whether it is referring to the armor's item bonus to AC after an Armor Potency.

I would be lead to think, rules as written, it sounds like an Armor Potency rune itself does not need investment, while other armor runes do, as it would be important to rephrase the exerpt as "a suit of +1 resilient armor still gives you its original item bonus to AC when not invested, but doesn't give you its magical bonus to saving throws or AC." if that was the case.

For one individual, all nuts, or all fish, or another miscellaneous food might be considered poison if they have a severe allergy. Alternatively, if a rougarou has similar dietary implications to canines, onions might be poisonous to them.

If a divine caster with such a weakness were to cast Purify Food and Drink, would the food be made safe for them to eat? Could a divine caster of another race make the food safe for such an individual at their table? Or does Purify Food and Drink only work on a "Common Context," where food could remain poisonous to other unfortunate individuals?