I could not find a message board specifically for Necropunk, so I'm posting this here.
Questions
First, Resource Points equal gold piece in value, though not form. Is it expected for Necropunk characters to have the same wealth-by-level as Pathfinder characters of equal levels?
Eventually, my players will want upgrades for their equipment. Strength boosting armor, targeting systems for their weapons, and so on. Should I use the magic item creation costs as guidelines for this upgrades, or is something else in mind?
Psychic Efficiency (Weapons) states that the character gains +2 to damage rolls per PPI invested, instead of the normal +1. On page 22 of the campaign book, it has the following line: "The bonus to damage, AC, or DR may never exceed half the HD of the character (minimum 1) (Maximum +10 damage and DR 10/-)." This would render the feat pointless if page 22 was absolute, which seems unlikely. Could it be that it was intended to mean "you cannot invest more extra PPI into an object greater than your half your hit die"?
Social combat: Bob and Frank are about to get into a fight. Bob intimidates Frank, telling him to give up. Bob succeeds on his roll, but Frank ignores this command and takes Bob's charisma (+3) modifier in confidence damage. If Frank only has 2 confidence (after taking the damage, leaving him at -1), does this mean Frank has to do as Bob commanded? What if Frank had 3 confidence (meaning he was left at 0)?
Is it meant for Diplomats to be able to 'social combat' people into the dirt? I realize they are suppose to be good at their job, but at 3rd level, a diplomat is stomping all over the warrior types like...like...well, a fighter would stomp all over a wizard in a sword fight.
Sentinel boneskin armor provides a lot of bonuses, and requires 3 PPI to make it work. Is it 3 PPI to get all of the benifits listed under "charge effects", or simply the first and you have to invest an additional PPI per additional effect?
General Thoughts
Campaign specific melee weapons are expensive. Campaign specific ranged weapons are cheap. Not complaining, mind you, but its the first thing that comes to mind.
Cool armor is hideously expensive. The sentinel armor is fantastically expensive...if your not a sentinel.
Also on that note: boneskin is awesome.
Sacred Space tends to cause depression, a numbness, for frequent travelers. I think the use of euphoric drugs to counter it may be common. It would not be something that actually worked, at least not well enough for real game effect, but it would be a go to method for keeping the crews happy, along with higher paying passengers.
Scared space travel also can take up to a week. For the smaller ships hosting a number of low paying passengers, it seems likely anyone not absolutely necessary would be put into a coma like state, and allowed to sleep the length of the journey. As the passengers wouldn't be moving around much, you would cut back on a lot of extra space, entertainment, food requirements, and facilities.
Sentinel characters are this settings fighters. The Fighter and Gunslinger classes are still available, as is the Warrior NPC class. This makes me picture the PC's and important NPC's are Sentinels, impressive mooks (non-BBEG) are fighters, and the nameless NPC's are Warriors. This is including those NPC's that are part of the Sentinel organization. Basically, most of the "sentinels" the PC's run into are warriors with enough tech-increasing feats to use the armor and weapons. The reason I like this idea is because it makes the heroes (even more) special, right from the get go.
The above will also apply to engineers & experts, and the other classes.
That all for now. Thanks for reading, and any advise.
Hi Gator the Unread, conciser your post read! Thanks so much for asking the questions. You have a pretty keen insight into the necro lore! I'll to my best to answer your questions.
Is it expected for Necropunk characters to have the same wealth-by-level as Pathfinder characters of equal levels?
Yes. The exception would be if they have some additional funds from a corporation who sponsors them (like the Necromancers' Guild).
Eventually, my players will want upgrades for their equipment...
So an interesting aspect Necropunk has it that there are no magic items. However, look into body modifications. There are a lot that provide similar bonuses to the bonuses certain magic items would provide (cloak of resistance, natural armor, stat boosts, etc). Think of them as the "magic gear" of the setting.
The mundane crafting rules also present an interesting option on how to make your weapons stronger. If you want your players to be able to buy them, try adding in an NPC crafter with some of the crafting feats from the necro core rulebook. There are feats that allow the crafter to ignore the penalties you have to normally have to buy off the bonus (tier value).
Social combat
Frank could ignore the command so long as he was at a positive value. Which means the NEXT command Bob made would break him. This is the bane of all low Confidence characters. Remember to roleplay this though. What did Bob to to intimidate him? Did he have the backing of force required? Did he follow though with it?
General Thoughts
Sentinel armor is meant to be insanely expensive for anyone other than sentinels (as the name implies). This is a BIG part of their resource class feature (golem armor? Good luck getting those kind of funds without it) Then again, boneskin is not cheap in its own right
As you indicated, a lot of "smaller"* would be sleeper ships or at the very least some medications would be suggested/required.
Spot on with the Sentinels. There are relatively few sentinels in the setting (we go into that a lot in the Ewgee Source Book) but every Tom, Dick, and Harry can be a fighter if they are in the military. Same goes for gunslinger NPCs, though they might be more the Han Solo than the soldier. Mooks would be warriors, but probably without any augmentations. If you want to have a similar mechanical feel to a sentinel but don't want to be associated with the organization the merc. archetype is fantastic (and you can even multiclass into it!).
*I use quotations because they would still have to be a very large ship to thread correctly.