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Demolitions, as others have already mentioned. Forensic examination kits and devices. Energy field scanners and air sniffers. Downloadable databases, software and cloud services, such as ship registration database, monster recognition database, who's who, fake comms image generator, or engineering design stress test.
I went with Accountancy with Vid Presenter in addition. Because I think it's funny to have a CHA 10 Icon Android being famous for dry, monotone, accountancy Space YouTube vids.
The wiki article states, "Each of the planets in the Pact Worlds system hosts its own infosphere that is rarely synchronized with each other due to the lag time involved with interplanetary communication." I think that needs expansion and 'rarely' is too harsh. I say banks pay to synchronize their transaction logs frequently to avoid people overdrawing and running away. You'd be hard pressed to outrun your banking history even in remote systems. Banks particularly regard adventurers as non-creditworthy and too risky. Space Wikipedia updates more frequently than other non-profits, taking up to a week in-system, rather than up to a month, and up to a year galaxy-wide, rather than if you're lucky. Space CNN updates as fast as communications allow.
My hypothesis is explaining the Gap includes explaining its economic history, a minefield that Paizo see no need to risk.
If such equipment did exist in-game, and it was being run as the default heroic drama rather than absurd comedy, the OP is just not thinking technological space fantasy enough. Corporations will design, patent, and sell counter-measures. A Make it Everyone's Problem Ray is an example, with flying drones constantly zapping secure areas, leaving a wake of concerned people shouting "What's going on?" Another is the Child-like Bothering Familiar, which is a tiny robot that sits on your shoulder, is too stupid to understand what's going on, points at people it doesn't recognise, and asks in a shrill voice "Who's that?" It insists on an answer and never accepts "Who cares?" Reports of actors in live theatre jumping off stage to attack them are merely rumours. Alternatively, consider the hand-held Zen Detector device. Those utilising SEP fields need to act in a calm manner, as if there's nothing to be concerned about, in an area where inhabitants have their own problems to deal with. Where a creature within range is clearly not agitated or concerned, the device connects with the organisation mainframe and will project a hologram of the local manager demanding some project status. If no manager applies, it defaults to a zealot trying to recruit for a local religion. If the reply isn't an expletive or a punch, the hologram points at the target and issues random insults about their hygiene. Adams Technologies does not sell this to children and it's not age restricted anyway.
I think the only barrier is getting hold of sufficiently accurate equipment. I say if player can work out how to do this, let them have an answer and the in-game fifteen minutes of fame as it doesn't (presumably) break the adventure and it's a good story. Why invent a way to say 'no' when 'yes' is more fun?
Holy thread necromancy, Batman! My theory is the designers wanted the option to copy stuff from Pathfinder into their new space fantasy, so they put it in to same universe but they'd get pestered for the history linking the two. They wanted a setting like the modern world, so players could understand it, but that would make the history comparable to our history, including economic development during technological revolutions. Much like religion was a seething issue during medieval times, economics is a seething issue now. Any economic history the designers could invent risks a never ending flame war. Better to invent an excuse to never write about economics or economic history.
This is a long one but you asked for it. TLDR: examination of the Androffen spaceship slowly changed reality, Rovagug broke free, the gods had to hide Golarion, and wipe memories to reinsert themselves back into mortal concerns. Natural and supernatural laws slowly change over centuries, affecting even the gods, as sentient beings 'discover' what they believe them to be. People being people, such 'discovery' is as much what they wish them to be as what they rationally determine. When a spaceship from a different cosmos, containing a race called Androffens, crashed on Golarion and it and its scattered contents were painstakingly examined, such cosmic laws changed slowly but in a radically new direction. The Androffen cosmos contained incredible technology and radical philosophies but no arcana or divinity. A cosmos where gods and the power of nature are regarded as the ramblings of the superstitious and entertainers. Technological secrets were slowly 'discovered' and combined with arcana but divinity slowly shrank. After all, why worship nature and gods as much when technology improves harvests and conquers disease? Why ask for the mercy of the gods when humanism and government organisation mitigates the effects of natural disasters that are natural, not caused by gods? Rovagug, nearest the source, realised the changes and, as a being of chaos, embraced the changes. With new atheist philosophies whispered into minds and mass media across the centuries, the gods that imprisoned it would be gradually and inevitably disbelieved into myth. It would have its revenge. The other gods, buoyed by the expanding rate of souls enabled by technology, didn't notice, except for Nethys, whose warnings were ignored. Until an impatient Rovagug broke free from its outmoded prison, a transcendent cloud of disassembling nanobots, software viruses, and nihilistic memes, laid waste to Golarion. Rovagug played its hand too early and the other gods, realising their upcoming non-existence, still had enough power to band together and fight it. Casualties were terrible but Rovagug was imprisoned in a modern prison in new demi-plane. For the gods that survived and weren't insane, that still left a devastated Golarion and slowly disbelieving mortals on the other planets. The gods seemed doomed but they knew how mortals believed and they still had a few tricks up their sleeve. After all, most of them created the mortals. Freeze time, hide Golarion where it could never be found, wipe all historical documents, atheistic philosophies and explicit memory since serious examination of the Androffen ship, create more church buildings, print more religious texts, and insert procedural memories of worshipping. The Gap. The gods knew that when time restarted and mortals suffered an immediate cultural crisis, they'd revert to older instincts and as well as re-read philosophy, ideology and religious books. Even though the gods aren't as important as they once were, philosophies, ideologies and stories where they're still the embodiment of mortal's ideals and values. The gods re-invented themselves for the technological age.
I'd say a recreation bay has commercial value for passenger transport. Depending on how much the GM wants to simulate supply and demand, it allows you to charge higher fares or you're just getting higher paying passengers. I don't recall any actual rules for this. I'd say just increase fares by 50%. A recreation bay strikes me as more than low-end market but still short of mid market prices.
214a. Sometimes, the anti-grav implants don't think you've landed yet, so the upward force confuses your instinctive motor functions. So you still have to make a DC 15 Acrobatics check or lose your next move action as it takes a few seconds to realise its mistake and switch off.
214. Anti-grav implants always kick in when falling, preventing damage, but always unpredictably cut off in the last few feet, requiring a DC 15 Acrobatics check or lose your next move action.
213. If you don't concentrate on the finger, gripping between fingers and thumb doesn't include the little finger, so it sticks out straight and is noticeable.
212. You keep getting threatening emails and phone calls from debt collectors for debts you never made.
Armoury has lots of gadgets but that's dwarfed by the real world. Presuming I get the GM to agree a real world device can be bought in-game, what real world currency to credit conversion ratio is generally used? As I'm British, I'd prefer from Pound Sterling but US Dollars is fine.
No interstellar banking? Not even Traveller style? That sucks. Well, you're a heavily armed mercenary. Carry your credsticks with you and, if needed, walk into the nearest non-hostile church. If they don't offer a fair price, look for a competitor. If the local churches, despite ideological differences, collude, exclaim you'll just incinerate the corpse and train another adventurer. Few let a profit margin walk out the door.
You were had, mate! Should have walked away and put the money in a bank account instead. If a death happens, withdraw the money from the nearest branch of the bank, visit the nearest non-hostile church and request the reincarnation service. Walk away and go elsewhere if they're dumb enough to say no.
I find it very hard to believe a liberal capitalist society doesn't have strong contract law enforcement. Besides, merchant churches understand the commercial value of reputation and reneging without good reason is bad for business. At the risk of turning this into a political discussion, I'm pretty certain US health insurance companies settle if it looks like litigation is about to reach court. Alas, they know the ill have the least energy and finances to push it that far. So I suppose I ought to qualify my statement that I reckon most Starfinder societies have strong contract law enforcement but only if you can afford it. In terms of adventurers pre-paying a resurrection service, I reckon civil courts keeps the church honest. Or rather, the customer can realistically invoke the force of law to enforce the contract. Adventurers tend to be wealthier and attract media attention. They can afford a lawyer and a voice in the court of popular opinion. Also, adventurers can always resort to keeping money in their own bank account and shopping around when required. When you can't **** over the captive market, you resort to having a reputation for a service worth buying.
Also, if you were surprised the token can only be used at Absalom station, you should have read the contract first. Now, contracts aren't absolute and civil courts can amend bad ones but I can't see a court demanding the service be performed elsewhere if the service limitation was already in the contract or well known.
The insurance described by ghostunderasheet isn't life insurance, it's a pre-paid service. Insurance companies collect premiums and pay out when requested. They wouldn't insure adventurers as it's too risky a crisis will happen, many adventurers get killed and paying out bankrupts them. Pre-paid tokens are not a problem as the church already has the money, even if every token is cashed in. That the token can only be used at Absalom is really crappy service. It's a capitalist society, find a church providing a better service. And yes, you can sue the church if they renege. I find it very hard to believe a liberal capitalist society doesn't have strong contract law enforcement. Besides, merchant churches understand the commercial value of reputation and reneging without good reason is bad for business.
I'd have thought insurance companies would refuse to insure adventurers. Far too risky.
New releases of Esdevium Games, or rather Asmodee, can be found at http://www.esdeviumgames.com/new-releases/ Nothing about Armoury so far.
You can detect radiation hotspots much faster with Detect Radiation but I agree. Make it one of the limited 1st level known spells and expend a spell slot to be faster than a fairly cheap, hand held device? Not gonna happen. Meanwhile, there is no magic detecting equipment and the spell equivalent is level 0. Make it one of the limited 0th level known spells, which can be cast at will, to be faster than a fairly cheap, hand held device? Maybe.
Sci fi needs lots of guns. However, I'm playing a Technomancer with Fabricate Tech and I'm hoping for lots of gadgets I can pull out of my ass when needed. Metaphorically.
Culture clash! A human dons sunglasses because it makes him look cool but is threatened by his Drow ally for offering a pair as it implies he's a lower class pleb.
I find it really hard to believe that the designers, when porting Drow from Pathfinder to Starfinder, didn't think of cheap sunglasses and redesigned the race with them in mind.
I shall repeat one of my previous posts. A Starfinder version of the Alchemist. I see it as the cousin of the Technomancer, transforming materials and living beings rather than manipulating energy and fields. I loved the bomb throwing and potions in Pathfinder but thought it needed demolitions. I envisage an artillery/healer/utility class.
Because in my experience, good GMs are a rare commodity. Let me get this straight. Pushing Fabricate Tech created washing machines out of windows to use as a weapon should be blocked because good GMs are rare. Due to the lack of good GMs, we should block an example of good GMing.
People are arguing whether a magically created washing machine used as a weapon should be rejected? GMs should generally say yes to player inventiveness as it's fun and makes a better story. Of course, GMs should say no the game breaking exploits but a Fabricate Tech washing machine pushed out of a window isn't one of them: situational; non-repeatable in the same scene (move away from the drop zone); one-shot; weak save DC; burns a limited resource. The Technomancer is better off casting Magic Missile. If a player thinks it's funnier to push a washing machine out a window than to cast Magic Missile, why say no to that?
An electric guitar. Wielded, of course, by someone with a theme of Icon (Rock Star) and their Solarion powers come from power chords.
You mean artillery, as in actual artillery, not some man-portable cutting laser. That'd be military equipment, rather than equipment used by the usual small team of troubleshooters. I guess they're saving that for expansions like 'Starfinder Armory'.
One possible solution is the enemy ship is better armed but slower. Once the PCs realise they're losing, they can flee to the nearest space station, which is neutral. The station doesn't care about the PCs but chase away the enemy for shooting. Ships shooting each other in the system is just bad for business. This leaves the PCs safe with the facilities of a station but with a damaged ship. It's up to the PCs how to deal with their problem.
I can picture some lower planar fiend looking over a whole wall of electronic boxes in the material plane. Each box a complex AI waiting to attract a soul, which then gets sent to his home plane so the box can get another. Devils hiding behind proxies that exploit social media. I always thought Facebook was a tool of the Devil. :) This does suggest a way to better answer the OP. There are four hypotheses. 1. The Outer Planes don't have the raw materials and mentality to make technology themselves and are just acquiring it.
The answer to whether planar beings, hiding behind proxies, spread propaganda in data networks helps decide which hypothesis is best. If yes, 1 makes no sense whilst 2 does. If no, the opposite applies.
Strikes me that the denizens of the Abyss would adopt any advantage and would regard escalation and MAD as opportunities. And if the Outer Planes were holding back technology to avoid an arms race, why are they using it now but not millenia ago when other races had hi-tech? I say a solution is the Outer Planes lack the materials, organisation and dynamism for an industrial base. For a start, most places lack decent quantities of the various metals. More importantly, the existing rulers and workers don't understand industrial economics and engineering and the souls that could teach them are too euphoric or too tortured to know or care. Rulers that try don't appreciate the re-organisations required as demands and capabilities change, so manufacturing stagnates at the early Industrial Age. In short, the Outer Planes still think like a medieval, agrarian society. The Material Plane is where all the cleverness really happens. Even when they acquire technological items, they lack the industry to maintain them. So most rely on their native, supernatural abilities. Where technology is used, it's reserved to counter mortal race's use of technology. Where technology was used in a medieval, mortal world, historians didn't recognise the use of technology and the user didn't have the quantity or understanding to exploit it fully.
125. It became full of Bronies. Then one of them ascended to godhood.
Myself, I'd like to see a Starfinder version of the Alchemist. I see it as the cousin of the Technomancer, transforming materials and living beings rather than manipulating energy and fields. I loved the bomb throwing and potions in Pathfinder but thought it needed demolitions. I envisage an artillery/healer/utility class.
Disguise Self. That raises a different question. If Raise Dead identifies a known spellcaster as the murderer but it was actually another spellcaster using Disguise Self, how much effort will the police put into investigation? Don't bother and just chuck the suspect out the airlock? Check CCTV footage around the crime scene? Send in a forensic team? Ask witnesses to check the alibi?
You can always say sunlight does not follow the inverse square law because Saranrae, making Triaxus more viable.
I just realised energy weapons should cauterise a hole, blocking a paste from filling it. Starfinder is still soft sci-fi so sod logic. This sealing paste dissolves burnt armour to reach the hole, even with magic suppressed. PCs taking actions to deal with armour punctures would ruin gameplay, so bugger science.
I don't know the lore but it all looks soft sci-fi. Call armour automatically self-sealing using reservoirs of solidifying paste.
Space fantasy needs propaganda. Propagandist: +1 Int
Theme Knowledge (1st)
Publicity Campaign (6th)
Grand Publicity Campaign (12th)
Master Propagandist (18th)
I think there may be a solution to the evil lair map problem: legality class, a concept from GURPS, meaning how much governments care that you have it. Restrict data in Fabricate Tech to open legality class, meaning it can be purchased openly.
The question is about deciding an item's level based on its concept, perhaps using existing spells as a baseline.
Hmm... No FAQ or even quotes from a designer. The distinction between 'has' and 'uses' might be seen by the less pedantic as rules abuse but the examples only consisting of consumable items should be convincing. Still think it'd be cool to magic up a fire extinguisher when confronted with a fire. This still leaves the item level problem. Creating a hand-held translator then sticking a battery in it sounds great but what item level? The nearest spell is Tongues, which is level 3, so expending a 3rd level spell slot could create this item of level 9. However, such a device would differ from the spell in a few ways. Lasts 1 min per level, not 10 min per level.
That reduced duration, in particular, is limiting. I'd say item level 5 but I'm guessing. Are there any useful guidelines or rules of thumb for deciding item level?
The Technomancer's magic hack Fabricate Tech allows creation of technological gear that can exist for a few minutes. I'm considering choosing this when my PC levels up but there seem to be problems that render the class feature near unplayable. First, I can't find guidelines about what qualifies as 'technological'. Presumably, the dictionary definition applies and any manufactured item is possible but only the artificial, engineered aspect. I could create a box of blank paper but not a newspaper. I could create an empty food tin but not any processed food in it. Second, the level of the created item is limited according to spell slot expended but I can't find guidelines of item level if it's not listed. If I create a radio spectrum analyzer, how can the GM adjudicate the item level? Third, items with limited use or charges can't be created. Looking at the Technological Items table, that's most of them. Toolkits and locks are fine but not flashlights, fire extinguishers, personal comms units or spy drones. So, Fabricate Tech would seem to be a cool class feature as long as the item isn't too powerful to descend into engineering or technolobabble power level debate, is non-consumable, and is non-electrical. This class feature seems near pointless.
Ah! I forgot about that geographic feature, the Chelaxian navy may kill the idea. I know the PCs will be pressganged in Port Peril and eventually mutiny, so I was thinking of sailing to Andorra and saying how the crew were enslaved but heroically overthrew our oppressors. Huzzah! Hopefully, this will be backed up by non-pirate looking NPCs grateful they're in a civilisation that doesn't have slavery. In case I try the idea, I better check some details. Would a sailor who visited Port Peril be arrested by the Andorrans as a suspect pirate anyway? Would the ship be impounded? Would the Chelaxian navy do this?
I will be playing in S&S as an Elven Rogue who's already a pirate but won't handle slaves. Apparently, S&S is 'sandboxy', so I'm wondering if being a privateer for Andorra is feasible. Mostly so my character can snigger that a bunch of do-gooders grant (restricted) license to commit robbery. Would Andorra issue Letters of Marque? Would the Pirate Lords accept privateers within their confederation? Are privateers outside the sandbox of S&S? |
