Mind Flayer

pandapeep's page

Organized Play Member. 21 posts. No reviews. No lists. No wishlists. 2 Organized Play characters.


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So, my group has been played Dead Suns since launch basically. We just finished book 3, are taking a break to try out some 2nd ed Pathfinder, but plan to return to finish it out. And, thus far, I'm having a lot of fun, but I have several disappointing issues with it.

1) On the whole, the AP feels very railroady and outside of the physical actions, the PCs seem to be mostly secondary to the plot. They're always too late, one step behind, unable to crack that computer code. Just wait, the NPCs will tell you were to toddle off to next.
The whole hunt for the Marrowblight in particular was a good example of this. It looks like a mystery, feels like a mystery, but, in reality it is just a trap. The Marrowblight just sending a message saying, "Hey, I'm with the corpse fleet, I live in a hut, come flight me,' would have had the same effect and been easier and less prone to failure on there part then the whole convoluted theft and recruitment ruse they pulled to get us out there. And once again, having the next piece of information being hidden on a hard to crack data pad that is prone to wiping so you once again, must wait on the NPCs to exposit at you where to go is disappointing.

2) The jungle part of book 2 is one of the least fun parts I've ever encountered in a game. Super railroady, too many status effects, and not nearly enough loot or money to make it feel worth the while.

3) Status effect overload. Look, I get it, you have new disease and poison rules. You want us to see them. But nearly every single creature you fight has some aura, disease, poison, ect. that just heap negatives onto the characters. Constantly having your abilities compromised because you have to make a fort save every round isn't the most fun thing.

3) Uninspired antagonists, across the board. The Devourer Cultist in particular is kind of rough, because while they're obviously very bad, the whole murder cult thing makes them difficult to engage with. It's hard to really feel antagonism toward them, because they just murder, it has no rhyme, reason, or aim, it is pain for the sake of it. And that just isn't all that engaging.
The Corpse Fleet are a super cool concept, but the whole last half of book 3 is so much sound and fury to just end up in a trap that feels hollow. The hopping Vampire guy shows up after the (incredible, scary, and wonderful) fight verses the Elicoth, and is all 'Ah, you are a thorn in my side, grr!' and this is the first time we've ever met him, so my group just did not care. Between the aforementioned Elicoth and the also rather disappointing fight with the cowering Marrowblight, it was just combat overload. And the guy at the end of book 2 felt very similar. He swaggers down after having, of course, already sent the signal (thus making most of the reason we where out there pointless) like we have any clue who he is. We did not.

4) Eox was super disappointing. Instead of being like a cool Dark City esque world of gothic horror, what we interact with is a grubby, slummy, broken down street corner. I feel like this was a major missed opportunity.

I know, that's a lot of negative, but I want to stress that I am enjoying it! I loved the first book, especially Absolom Station. The first part of the second book was also super fun, especially in my group where we ended it with a surprise concert that my icon musician Shirren played. I'm just curious what others think, if people agree, or at least had similar issues, or if they are totally loving it and think I'm way off base!


Considering that book 2 gives players no real gear and no real money, giving them extra won't hurt. You have item level to balance power of gear.


Played this encounter this last weekend and my party bodied the elf dude. We are a Dragonkin whip soldier/mystic, a SRO bombard soldier/mechanic, an android operative, a vesk solarion, and me a Shirren Envoy. The Dragonkin with 15 reach basically shuts down a lot of melee fights, because they just constantly are eating AOOs. Honestly, one of the worst fights for us was the Lore Guardians. Granted, despite being a 5 person party, in combat we are essentially a 4 person party, because my Envoy is not built for combat at all.


I noticed this with the musical instrument. Up until the release of armory, I'd been using a tool kit (musician). Now, my GM was nice and didn't charge me the difference in price but just said I could take a musical instrument, but yea, my check goes down by 2 and it would have cost 80 credits more. Seems like a mess up somewhere.


First off all, you're all kidding yourselves if you think there won't be more classes coming. Seriously, it's a D20 system based on 3.5. More classes are all but assured.

But, I do have to say, I disagree pretty strongly about the 'archetypes solves this!' thing. No, the archetype system is pretty bad. there are a scant few decent archetypes in Pact Worlds, but the archetype system as a whole is flawed. Most classes lose out on too many important things.

Envoy basically loses the main meat of their class, Operatives and Mechanics lose important pieces. There is no customization here, no variation. You lose good bits to get meh bits. They should have, and should still, go back to the way pathfinder did it with archetypes being tailored around specific classes to vary up how they feel.

The thing about one size fits all is that it ends up just not fitting anyone well.


I really like Androids and Aliens. I started Roll for Combat and dropped it like a hot rock as soon as A&A started up. RfC is just a very boring group of players, /way/ too combat focused, no attempt to even do character voices or build characters at all. And they just strike me as the most stereotypical gamer dudes ever and that's not much of a compliment.

I started Cosmic Crit but haven't followed up on it, hope too soon (too many podcasts!) and I'll have to check out Rogue Exposure.


Ciaran Barnes wrote:
I give this a thumbs down on the premise that it is class specific. That is bad design IMO.

That is a weird thing in Starfinder. This lack of class specific stuff. It's ok to separate things. It really is.


Claxon wrote:

As a player that has had my party barely survive the 1st space battle encounter of Deadsuns because of a string of lucky rolls on our part and unlucky rolls on theirs, and lost the second battle in a incredibly long drawn out annoying space combat...yeah I'd like an alternative where my melee Solarion can actually contribute.

With an Envoy in the party I don't have much option on what I can do. I can't really contribute effectively to space combat unless I invest my limited skill points into skills that really don't match the RP of the character at all. Which I don't mind my character not being good at space combat, but it does drag down the whole party with no other options. Yeah...I feel like my character drags down the party.

I've noticed and felt this myself. I was a Solarian in SFS for a bit, before giving up on it, and had an awful time in the two space combats I participated in. Then playing Dead Suns in my home game our Solarian was useless in the first starship combat of the second book. It was immensely tedious, maneuvering ourselves into position, do encouraging, boosting weapons, just to miss and have to do it all again round after round.


My group played this yesterday and it ran off after four rounds of combat. It ate two mindthrusts, a solarian explosion, 2 overcharged mechanic shots, a crit solarian hit, and a shot from my Envoy (4 dmg! Wooo!). Only thing he managed to pull off was that 5d6 attack to the Solarian, which my Envoy all but negated next turn with an Inspiring Boost.


Azalah wrote:
pandapeep wrote:
Wowsers, there is a lot of 'get off my lawn!' going on in this thread. Look, TTRPGs are healthier now then they've ever been. Huge youtube channels devoted to live plays, many, many, many podcasts that are immensely popular, not to mention just how many games there are. Gatekeeping, 'kids these days!'ing, and elitism are never good looks. So, much like Mark Twain, reports of death are highly exaggerated.

I don't think anyone has said that people shouldn't be allowed to play. And I'm pretty sure if someone actually did, they'd get called out for it specifically instead of just a generalized, "I'm seeing a lot of it."

So who, exactly, has said that people shouldn't play?

Where in my statement did I say anyone here said people shouldn't play? I didn't. But, people are winging and griping about how people play or that TTRPG is dead! And that's just silly and smacks of grognards huddled in a dark corner of a FLGS glaring at anyone who dares to enter to me.


I'm not a fan of the whole 'one size fits all' archtypes. Archtypes were fun in PF because they allowed characters to be more unique and specialize. Being tailored to a class allowed them to work with the types of difference you might want to see in that class.

In SF however, since everyone has to be able to take them and there is a static 'this is what you lose' they feel watered down, and fairly bland. Pact Worlds helps, but they just aren't worth taking, imo.

Prestige Classes in 3.5 where a mess, PF archtypes cleaned a lot of that up, but SF archtypes feel like a major misstep.


Wowsers, there is a lot of 'get off my lawn!' going on in this thread. Look, TTRPGs are healthier now then they've ever been. Huge youtube channels devoted to live plays, many, many, many podcasts that are immensely popular, not to mention just how many games there are. Gatekeeping, 'kids these days!'ing, and elitism are never good looks. So, much like Mark Twain, reports of death are highly exaggerated.


Since most of the Starfinder gods are Pathfinder gods, I'd assume some of them are the same as Golarion holidays.


Commodore_RB wrote:
There are a ton of Thri Kreen out there, if you want to embrace the no-pants aesthetic.

My bug is a daring fashionista, but that might bit a bit to bold, even for them. But not a bad idea to try and kit bash from.


I'm playing a Shirren envoy in a Dead Suns game, a high fashion, minor celebrity space bug DJ. I love this character, but sadly, they're proving nigh impossible to find a mini for. Yes, I know there is the icon Shirren in the upcoming set, but that Mystic is hardly going to be representative of all shirren.

I've dug around on reaper, toyed with hero forge, and I can't find anything or one that seems to make bug people. So, I'm curious, what are other shirren players doing for their minis?


ghostunderasheet wrote:
God i want a set of these for my dm. Last session he pushed one of the players to roll perception until he crit failed so he could force a staggeringly hard encounter on the group.

How do you crit fail a skill check? There are no auto pass or auto fails on those, at least not in the rule books.


JetSetRadio wrote:
I hope to understand one day how in a universe with highly advance tech, people still want to use their bare fists to do lethal damage.

Because punching is always cool. Martial artists are /always/ cool. It's just how it is.


So, I'm playing a Level 1 Envoy and I'm loving it. But, I'm useless in combat. So, I was thinking of taking a dip into Operative for trick attack, while keeping up with the whole party face thing.

So, I took the feat Skill Focus Bluff at 1st level. If I was to take a level Operative and go with the Spy specilization, would I get anything in replacement for skill focus bluff?


I know in my game the two will have to be separate characters as Caulky was 'befriended' and 'rescued' her. In that I mean the cooks mate who is a bit of an unbalanced alchemist Sylph decided that she and Caulky were best friends and knocked her over the head, stuffed her in a pickle barrel and dragged her over to the new boat. Still skittish, at least this new crew doesn't try and kill her or other things, so she has decided to stick it out, though a bit of Stockholm syndrome may be playing in there. I now mainly use her as bait to drag the Alchemist where I need here.


Wow. I'm glad I joined this board, seems like there is all kinds of info to take advantage of.

Anyway, I'm working on my second homebrewed game right now, and am fully aware of the problems and just how daunting it can seem. Heck, I haven't even finished naming all the major cities in my world! But I personally find it easiest to get your players to help as well. My plan with this world is to create several "groups" Monastaries, guilds, nobility, ect. and maybe come up with a smattering of things and then have a player fill me in on the other details. In the end I hope to have a fully fleshed out world that I can use for years to come.

In my last home brewed world, I ended up getting some much help from two players that they ened up being co-dms, coming up with story ideas, npc creation, helping run battle, assisting in NPC roleplay. But that tactic has its flaws. After all, several players then know most of the twists, but it worked for the game at the time and due to the sheer level of thought put into the world, my friend and I are turning it into a book series.