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Owen K. C. Stephens wrote:
Gilfalas wrote:

I assume that alignment will still be part of the game so are you guys going to give the alignment definitions/examples a once over to update them for the new setting?

At least in our world as mans knowledge and technology advanced so did his concept of individual rights and morals to the point that some things that may have been 'good' in the middle ages, for example, would be considered wrong or even 'evil' in today's more liberal, human rights oriented world.

Will this be addressed in the new rules? Will there definitions of who is a 'person'/sentient being in the new interstellar community and will it be limited to humanoid bipeds or will it take a more broad approach?

I don't feel like we limited good and evil to any specific timeframe in Pathfinder, so I don't see what we'd have to "update" it in Starfinder.

Similarly, I don't feel that we suggested in Pathfinder that only humanoid bipeds are sentient or can be a person, and I don't see any reason we would add such a limitation in Starfinder.

I guess I was not clear in what I was asking for as I seem to have implied something I did not mean.

I suppose what I should have asked is will there be a legal system of any sort defined for the Pact Worlds in the setting to handle 'adventurers' and such. In most fantasy games the 'heroes' seldom get arrested for murder or assault and such since the nature of those settings is one of limited communication and where 'sentient rights' are not so codified as law as they are in more technologically advanced societies.

So will there be cops arresting you for murder when you kill that group of marauding space orcs (or at least detain you and investigate the incident) and such?

Do dragons and intelligent non humanoids/undead/outsiders have protection under the law and if so how much?

See where I am going here?

Medieval adventurers can get away with a hell of a lot more (murder hobos is a thing for a reason) than most people in a more organized advanced civilization can.


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I would hope it would not be illegal to defend yourself against maurauding space orcs! A dragon is sort of a monster. Most science fiction setting don't have intelligent creatures such as dragons. So if there are dragons in Starfinder, what do they do? They can horde gold, or they can deposit it in a bank and earn interest. Would dragons loan out their treasure hordes, and pay borrowers a visit if they fall behind on their payments? Does a dragon loan shark make any sense?

Sczarni

Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

Will there be a hard cover book on corporations and groups in the galaxy?

Ideas:

The federation. A group of highly advanced life forms that formed an alliance for the betterment of the galaxy.

Lux Corporation. A corporation that is secretly a cult trying to make contact with an evil God.

or even a group similar to the borg where they share a hive mind.

I think it might be a fun little book to have.


Some parts of the world might have government-sanctioned "adventurer's guilds", analogous to privateers who operated under letters of marque and reprisal issued by their patron government. A letter of marque permitted these privateers to intercept and capture enemy ships and generally ignore the usual maritime laws against piracy in their home country.

Members of a sanctioned adventurers' guild would be able to operate on land as well as sea, and would be immune from prosecution for theft, murder, etc as long as they were acting against declared enemies of the state. Mainly this would cover armed forces of a hostile foreign power, including spies and traitors, but it could include hostile tribes of humanoids (orcs, goblins, etc) and other types of threat categories. Of course, to be able to benefit from this 'license to kill', one has to be a licensed adventurer, be a guild-member in good standing, have one's membership fees up to date, and so on.

While governments might declare a criminal "armed and dangerous" or put an arrest warrant out or announce a bounty for the criminal's capture, or evem declare someone or an entire group of people outlaws, each adventurers' guild might have a list of species they designate as "monsters", which are creatures too dangerous to be allowed to roam free near inhabited areas. Most guilds would have different danger ratings for monsters of different levels of danger. The highest rating may require an adventurer to kill that monster on sight, while others may permit a certain amount of discretion. Having a certain species be listed on the "monster list" would absolve a licensed adventurer from having to compensate the alleged owner or trainer of such a creature if the monster is found roaming free and killed.

The larger Adventurers' Guilds would also have different membership ranks or titles. The better you are in your chosen field, you might qualify for a higher rank, or you could be awarded the higher rank by the guild leaders. As an example, a certain Guild might have several tiers of membership of increasing rank and privileges: candidate member, full member, veteran, candidate master, master, high master, grandmaster. Candidate members would have access to very basic services such as discounts on scrolls and potions and other consumables, and have to pay dues. Full members might be allowed to trade in inferior equipment for better gear in addition to the foregoing. Veterans and higher might be allowed to borrow certain items from the guild armory to take with them on a guild-sanctioned quest. Masters and up would enjoy even more privileges including the expectation of a pension for themselves or next-of-kin. Masters and high masters would be expected to do most of the mid- and high-level instruction of new members. Grandmasters might expect to have living expenses taken care of for life as long as they donate a couple dozen hours each week helping test and train new candidate members, occasionally sit in on the training sessions, and write their memoirs for the guild library.


Gilfalas wrote:


See where I am going here?

Medieval adventurers can get away with a hell of a lot more (murder hobos is a thing for a reason) than most people...

I don't, particularly. The settings Starfinder is drawing inspiration from have a heck of a lot of random murder-hoboing with no consequences.

Star Wars kicks off the introduction of one of main characters with a public maiming and straight-up public murder with zero consequences. Before even gaining Spectre status (and the accompanying legal immunities), Mass Effect 1 has the protagonist and friends storming a bar and shooting everyone in sight, and this gets an irritated complaint from the human ambassador and no response from the police forces. Despite said police explicitly having an argument about one of the (likely) participants promising to kill the individual in question, and he (Wrex) then dares the cops to 'try' to arrest him.

Even Trek is often randomly casual about death and consequences, though that often depends on the series and if it's a western or war movie that week. Firefly I don't even think I have to touch.

If Starfinder runs on the principle of 'don't do it in front of Stewards,' I wouldn't be surprised. I don't see any reason to expect that Starfinder (like Pathfinder) won't run on traditional adventuring rules.


You mean Princess Leia shooting a stormtrooper right? The stormtroopers' objective was to capture her alive, that is why their weapons were set on stun, her's wasn't, she killed one stormtrooper before the others managed to stun her. As for the poor stormtrooper that she shot, well that's just his tough luck! Seems Princess Leia was already in a lot of trouble with the Empire before she shot that stormtrooper, and I think the stormtrooper himself was inconsequential to the Empire, they wanted her captured alive for other reasons, mainly they wanted the plans for the Death Star, and if she was dead, she wouldn't be talking, a dead stormtrooper was an acceptable loss for accomplishing that mission.


No, I mean Han murdering poor Greedo, and Ben dismembering people in clear violation of health and safety standards

Why would I care about storm troopers?

Liberty's Edge

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Voss wrote:
No, I mean Han murdering poor Greedo

What occurred there was not murder, and Greedo was not "poor" anything.

Why Han was legally justified in shooting Greedo


Voss wrote:

No, I mean Han murdering poor Greedo, and Ben dismembering people in clear violation of health and safety standards

Why would I care about storm troopers?

Well the Stormtroopers were looking for them after that incident. Ben slicing those two aliens just drew the attention of the stormtroopers, of course, and having a dead body in the Cantina was a bit unsanitary.


Shisumo wrote:
Voss wrote:
No, I mean Han murdering poor Greedo

What occurred there was not murder, and Greedo was not "poor" anything.

Why Han was legally justified in shooting Greedo

In the original edition it was Han who shot first from under the table, in the later edition they had Greedo shoot first to justify Han shooting second, but later we have a scene with Jabba asking Han why he had to "Fry" poor Greedo! it doesn't seem realistic that their are many places where someone can shoot someone in a bar and just walk out of there without someone calling the police. It might be a "Hive of Scum and Villainy", but there are limits!

Creative Director, Starfinder Team

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Gilfalas wrote:


I suppose what I should have asked is will there be a legal system of any sort defined for the Pact Worlds in the setting to handle 'adventurers' and such. In most fantasy games the 'heroes' seldom get arrested for murder or assault and such since the nature of those settings is one of limited communication and where 'sentient rights' are not so codified as law as they are in more technologically advanced societies.

So will there be cops arresting you for murder when you kill that group of marauding space orcs (or at least detain you and investigate the incident) and such?

Do dragons and intelligent non humanoids/undead/outsiders have protection under the law and if so how much?

See where I am going here?

Medieval adventurers can get away with a hell of a lot more (murder hobos is a thing for a reason) than most people...

There is absolutely law enforcement in the Pact Worlds! So much of it that sometimes you get jurisdictional conflicts and blind spots where criminals (and adventurers) can operate with relative immunity. And of course it's impossible to adequately police every newly discovered world. But yeah, if you go around murdering people and taking their stuff, the local law enforcement is likely to ask some questions! This generally extends to all sentient species, though of course local government is likely to have its own prejudices. In a lot of ways, you can think of the Pact Worlds as a cross between the EU and the UN, but with people like liches and robots on the governing councils. :P


The whole Han Solo debate needs to be taken in context. Tatooine was a fringe world primarily settled by independant moisture farmers and outlaws. There was pretty much no centralized government or law enforcement as standard so the shooting and light sabre action that went on there was the same as a shootout in an old west town without any law.

But that stuff would not have gone on unchallenged on say Aderaan or Coruscant, planets that were shining examples of law and cilvilization in the old republic.

What I am saying is when technology advances to the interstellar travel level, when you have vast interstellar corporations able to mass manufacture on huge scale (Abbadar Corp for example) and there is an admitted organization called the 'Pact Worlds' that there will have been an advancement of law, phylosophy and civilization as well.

Yes on the lawless worlds and the fringe planets 'adventuring' will probably be the same as old times but on say Absolom Station or one of the actually civilized planets with real governments, standing armies and police forces, instantaneous planet wide communications et al. that there will be problems for 'adventurers' who take lethal measures into the own hands. Just like in our own real world.

With advanced Tech and communication comes advanced governments and, generally, advanced concepts on what it means to be a 'person' and the legal rights that are applied to that concept.

What I am asking is will this be covered in the setting material?

They have said that Eox is a staunch supporter and member of the Pact Worlds. A planet of all undead beings would normally be 'game on!' for most adventuring groups but I have to assume that since they are now an acknowledged civilization by the Pact Worlds and have some sort of representation in that, that they would have rights and legal protections for their 'citizens' under the law.

That is what I want to know. Are intelligent undead now protected as sentient beings as long as they don't harm others? Are intelligent non humanoids protected as 'people' and if so what is the extent of their legal rights?

These are questions that WOULD be asked, answered and legally codified in a Starfaring society that has such creature in it.

Dragonstar had a great section with a rundown on this (it's flavor and Starfinders seems to be very close) and I am hoping Starfinder does as well.

Edit: AAAND Ninja'd by James Sutter as I was typing this. Tank you sir!

Liberty's Edge

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You don't have to go to Starfinder to run into the "intelligent undead" problem. Geb has you covered just fine in Pathfinder...


What if an intelligent creature's diet required consumption of other intelligent creatures? What are his rights? Does he have to survive on vorarephiliac volunteers?


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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

There seems to be a whole lot of post about alignment and the legal system that may be in
the game. I am much more interested in how combat, feats, class, abilities, and damage works than the legal system and alignment work. To me alignment is important when you have class abilities based on it such as clerics and Paladins. If the PC is lawful good and shots a shopper keeper to rob them and they are also a Paladin then yes the alignment and legal system come into play short of that not allot of interest in it.

Dave2

Scarab Sages Developer, Starfinder Team

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It's always been the case in Golarion that there are places where law enforcement is strict and effectivel, places where it is loose or confused, places where it is totally ineffectual, and places where no one even bothers.

My expectation is that in Starfinder, which has a much vaster volume of potential adventuring areas, that there are places where law enforcement is strict and effective, places where it is loose or confused, places where it is totally ineffectual, and places where no one even bothers.


Changing topics, I'd personally like to know if the creature types will be the same.


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

last post should have said shoots shop keeper. This is what I get for trying post on small iPhone 5 with big fingers.

Dave2


Give the planets a security rating as in EVE Online as part of their universal world code :D

Adventuring in zero-sec space!


A Law Level.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Torbyne wrote:

Give the planets a security rating as in EVE Online as part of their universal world code :D

Adventuring in zero-sec space!

But will there be Besmara-worshiping space pirates to ransom your pod?

Sovereign Court

Shisumo wrote:
You don't have to go to Starfinder to run into the "intelligent undead" problem. Geb has you covered just fine in Pathfinder...

I may be misremembering, but I think there was something in the fiction line where a paladin was hanged in Geb or somewhere similar for the killing of undead.

The Exchange

Are there going to be rules for blending magic and starships? What rules for building/constructing your own starship?


I think a wish spell should be able to create a starship, it is a 9th level spell, so its not normally available except through ancient magic items such as a ring of wishes, of from a djinn or other such creature.


Tom Kalbfus wrote:
I think a wish spell should be able to create a starship, it is a 9th level spell, so its not normally available except through ancient magic items such as a ring of wishes, of from a djinn or other such creature.

Going to guess that whatever currency exchange rates are used that even a small starship will be more valuable than 25,000 gold pieces, which seems to be the limit for a wish spells 'gimme free stuff' power.


If the 'compiler' that implements your Wish, decides it's easier to simply requisition an existing ship and give that to you, it may do that instead. Or even more likely, it will transport you to the bridge of this "ready to go" ship, and download into your mind whatever command codes are needed to access "root level" of the ship's controls or AI. The hard parts (ridding yourself of the presence of the 'previous' owner/s & crew) is left up to you to solve on your own. :) Maybe a second Wish is needed for that?


Gilfalas wrote:
Tom Kalbfus wrote:
I think a wish spell should be able to create a starship, it is a 9th level spell, so its not normally available except through ancient magic items such as a ring of wishes, of from a djinn or other such creature.
Going to guess that whatever currency exchange rates are used that even a small starship will be more valuable than 25,000 gold pieces, which seems to be the limit for a wish spells 'gimme free stuff' power.

What makes you think that? This isn't necessarily Traveller where the most basic starships can cost upwards of tens of millions of credits! If you are already starting out as a millionaire at first level, what is the point of going on an adventure? You can own a starship or own a castle and live in it! 25,000 gold pieces should be quite a bit of money. I got this from an internet search:

Quote:
That same dealer is also offering a 1 oz OPM gold bar for $1323. That’s about a $30 difference per ounce of gold bullion! Gold bars can also be purchased in fractional sizes such as 1 gram, 2 gram, 5 gram, 20 gram, 50 gram and more.

So lets do the math shall we? Gold is denominated in Troy ounces, there are 12 Troy ounces in a pound, a standard gold piece contains 1/50 of a pound of gold 12 x $1323 = $15876, $15876/50 = $317.52 per gold piece, now if you have 25,000 gold pieces that should be worth $7,938,000! You should be able to buy some kind of starship for that amount of money, obviously not a Star Destroyer, but some sort of basic starship, in Star Wars, that would be more than enough! Wishes in this setting are 9th level spells, most people don't have access to them, 6th level being the maximum most mortals have access to, so we are talking ancient magical items or genies that can grant wishes and that sort. If your basic starship costs more that $8,000,000, it is too expensive, they shouldn't really start out that high, otherwise 1st level characters are going to stay planetside, or be highly dependent on a patron or employer to give them a starship.

And you know what, having extremely expensive starships would tend to make PCs combat shy, their first inclination would be to run away from battle to protect their expensive investment in their starship, and if their starship gets destroyed, and they get out of this alive, they are down about $8,000,000, you think another bank I going to give them a bank loan after this? Pathfinder is fairly combat oriented, Traveller is not nearly so much, most of what PCs do in Traveller is talk, the combat encounter is usually occasional. In Pathfinder combat is frequent, your character gets knocked down to 1 hit point, and a couple healing spells and your good to go, in Traveller you have to spend a couple days in sick bay at least before you are ready for another encounter!


Gold markets and traveler have zilch to do with starships in Pathfinder. They covered a lot of this In the Q & A in January.

Starships are separate from the credit/UPB system. Players effectively can't go out and buy them, they're on a separate economy based on build points the party as a whole gets as they level. You can't cannibalize your ship for more personal gear, or turn credits into a new freighter. That doesn't necessarily make sense from a setting perspective, but it's how they abstracted the starship system for presumably a game balance perspective.


Why not? You can buy a ship in Pathfinder. And what happens if the PCs get into a losing fight and have to abandon their ship and it gets destroyed? It is an artificial problem after all, starships don't have to be priced the way they are in Traveller, Star Wars starships are actually kind of cheap. A starship is equipment, what makes it different from any other sort of equipment you might buy?


Tom Kalbfus wrote:
Why not? You can buy a ship in Pathfinder. And what happens if the PCs get into a losing fight and have to abandon their ship and it gets destroyed? It is an artificial problem after all, starships don't have to be priced the way they are in Traveller, Star Wars starships are actually kind of cheap. A starship is equipment, what makes it different from any other sort of equipment you might buy?

I am curious how loss of ship or upgrade to a new ship will be handled since ships are supposed to pull from a resource pool separate from UPBs... it hasnt been fully explained but i was under the impression that you could not use regular wealth to acquire new ships. i suppose there should be some mechanic to support it. perhaps the party gets their free starter ship and can apply their normal pool of ship points to it and then if they so choose they could sink even more resources from their character gear pool of money into extra ships or ship gear. Perhaps some version of ship shares can be rewards, finding a salvageable ship as loot or eventually earning a new ship from a faction for doing enough quests for them.


Buying a car in real life is a pain. Maybe they expect the same in StF and would prefer to gloss over the torture part and go straight to the fun part.


What about ships as a part of treasure? Lets say the PCs defeat pirates and capture their pirate ship intact, now the PCs have two ships! What if the PCs decide to keep them both, they can hire extra crew to man the pirate ship out of the loot captured from the pirate horde. What is the GM going to do in that case? Is he going to say, "No you can't do that?" The PCs would then say, "Why not?, we defeated the pirates and now we got their ship." The GM says, "Its against the rules!" so the PCs say, "Fine so we sell the pirate ship!" The GM gasps and says, "You can't sell the pirate ship either! Pirate ships can't be sold for money!" "What do we do with the ship then?" asks the lead PC.


Tom Kalbfus wrote:
What about ships as a part of treasure? Lets say the PCs defeat pirates and capture their pirate ship intact, now the PCs have two ships! What if the PCs decide to keep them both, they can hire extra crew to man the pirate ship out of the loot captured from the pirate horde. What is the GM going to do in that case? Is he going to say, "No you can't do that?" The PCs would then say, "Why not?, we defeated the pirates and now we got their ship." The GM says, "Its against the rules!" so the PCs say, "Fine so we sell the pirate ship!" The GM gasps and says, "You can't sell the pirate ship either! Pirate ships can't be sold for money!" "What do we do with the ship then?" asks the lead PC.

How would they be able to keep the spaceship? They would need a specific crew number to take the ship in the first place.

Assuming the spaceship they are in requires four crew members, and you have four players. Unless they hired additional crew members in advice, I don't see how they are going to be able to take the ship. I mean, they need to control it, they need a crew to move it. It's not like they would store a spaceship in their bags.


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Pathfinder Adventure, Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Velr-Fex wrote:

How would they be able to keep the spaceship? They would need a specific crew number to take the ship in the first place.

Assuming the spaceship they are in requires four crew members, and you have four players. Unless they hired additional crew members in advice, I don't see how they are going to be able to take the ship. I mean, they need to control it, they need a crew to move it. It's not like they would store a spaceship in their bags.

Not unless they've got a Hangar of Holding they can't!


Tom Kalbfus wrote:
I think a wish spell should be able to create a starship, it is a 9th level spell, so its not normally available except through ancient magic items such as a ring of wishes, of from a djinn or other such creature.

Wish can create 100 Death Stars if the GM approved of it, according to RAW.


Opsylum wrote:
Velr-Fex wrote:

How would they be able to keep the spaceship? They would need a specific crew number to take the ship in the first place.

Assuming the spaceship they are in requires four crew members, and you have four players. Unless they hired additional crew members in advice, I don't see how they are going to be able to take the ship. I mean, they need to control it, they need a crew to move it. It's not like they would store a spaceship in their bags.

Not unless they've got a Hangar of Holding they can't!

How do you know there are only four party members I've seen Dungeons and Dragons modules for up to 10 character in a party! How many party members were there in those intial Dragonlance modules? You had Caramon (Fighter), Raistlin (Wizard), Sturm(Paladin), Tasselhoff (Rogue), Tika(Fighter-Rogue), Goldmoon(Cleric), Riverwind(Barbarian), Tanis(Fighter), and the Flint Fireforge(Fighter). That is 9 characters I believe, that group did split up by Dragons of Winter Night, so it seems possible that a group of 9 characters onboard a starship could take another starship.


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In a sea based Pathfinder Campaign how are ships handled? Have past APs dealt with this situation?

My first thought is that a lot of ship combat will be "to the death" laeving very little salvageable loot compared to capturing a ship. if captured... there could be a basic set of rules for bringing in a prize ship to the Pact Worlds. I would first off assume any ship captured in pact space and brought back to a hub would have to be registered and the controlling government gets first dibs on the ship as it was in their space, the PCs get a prize award or bounty for it. if captured outside jurisdiction than the party gets dibs on what ships to keep and what gear to move around between them, though i would like if you had to have safe harbor to remove turrets and hull plating that you wanted to move around, after that you sell the ship to a pact world nation at a fraction of cost for quick profits as the ships otherwise need a complete overhaul and safety review before being refitted and put back on the market for other adventurers/interested parties.

In short i could see lots of ways that PCs taking control of enemy ships could be handled both to allow PCs to keep ships or ways to hinder PC plans from amassing ships to build their own fleet.

just thinking about it, i bet Swarm ships are going to be hard to impossible to get control of. Vesk ships are probably an option for PCs, you won it honorably in combat after all... though flying around in a Vesk ship could invite lots of other Vesk who attack you to retrieve the ship and show their own honor. (actually, it could be fun to let the PCs come across a "hot" ship that has traded hands back and forth between Vesk, Pirates and Starfinders repeatedly and is now actively sought after by two pirate groups and numerous Vesk out to make a name for themselves by taking the otherwise lackluster prize back home) We dont really know much about the Shirren but i assume their ships will be available to PCs just by them being a PC race.


Its no fun having the government wanting a piece of the action after your characters have risked their lives taking it! As far as I'm concerned the less government involvement the better! I think PCs should be allowed to acquire ships by capturing them, the GM shouldn't be trying to thwart this of have the government step in to try and stop them or have all the ships get blown up in combat, after all if the enemy has treasure its going to be onboard their ship, if you blow up their ship, good luck finding that treasure floating around in space, some of that treasure might be of the sort that might be damaged by an exploding starship! Part of the fun of Pathfinder and D&D is in the accumulation of treasure and items of power, along wit level advancement and improved abilities that come with that. I think its more believable if the PCs acquire a starship in combat, rather than having a game mechanism that moves in lockstep with level advancement. Most ships are higher level will require a crew of NPCs anyway, the PCs won't be able to run it all by themselves. With their increased wealth they will need to hire a crew, large capital ships at high level will have large crews, and a lot of the action will be what the crew does with the PCs lending a hand here and there. In Pathfinder and D&D there comes a point when the players may acquire a keep, or a castle, or a wooden sailing ship, in all those instances there are a bunch of hirelings under their command, but the PCs will have prominent roles, the NPCs can't for everything for themselves especially with the higher level foes the GM will be throwing at them! This is a little different from Star Trek, while Picard often goes on landing parties, they don't often turn into slug feasts with the command crew doing the heavy hitting. Picard couldn't cast spells, he didn't have lots of hit points, he had to play it smart rather than just wade into combat each time.


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

All Paizo would have to do to discourage players from keeping multiple ships would be to set things up so that any NPCs they could hire as crew are distinctly inferior to the PCs, with the result that they would be better off selling one of the ships and using the profits to upgrade the ship that they keep.

Of course, clever players might still make good use of a second ship if they can keep that inferior ship out of combat.


The whole what do you do with multiple ships is where a good DM comes in. You have to pay crews and selling ships is not nessarly easy. Even if they give no prices I will come up with something that makes sense rather than say no you can't because it is a game. Also many ships after combat will be badly damaged.


Are all Eoxians evil by definition?


Umbral Reaver wrote:
Are all Eoxians evil by definition?

It is implied pretty heavily that the Bone Sages are evil though not of the destroy all life in an overly complicated scheme and twirl your mustache while doing so variety of evil, more of the love personal power and do what it takes to get more of it sort of evil. But Eox also has an area called "The halls of the Living" which i have always thought of as an ark or fallout shelter of sorts where the original, living, Eoxians took refuge and some of which are still alive as of the Pathfinder era.

In the Starfinder era with Eox apparently a participant in the Pact World Alliance i would assume they are no worse than before in that they want personal power and view the pact as a temporary situation until they are strong enough to stand on their own again. Though in practice i doubt the status quo could be altered in such a way that they could go back to each one being their own little king of their part of Eox and pretend that the rest of the universe isnt passing them by. So basically, i assume they are still evil but also smart enough to know that they are just too small a force to be independent on the galactic stage anymore so they come across as more selfish than anything else...


David knott 242 wrote:

All Paizo would have to do to discourage players from keeping multiple ships would be to set things up so that any NPCs they could hire as crew are distinctly inferior to the PCs, with the result that they would be better off selling one of the ships and using the profits to upgrade the ship that they keep.

Of course, clever players might still make good use of a second ship if they can keep that inferior ship out of combat.

Why is it the job of the GM to prevent PCs from amassing too much power? When I was a DM, I let the players build castles and put together armies, what's the matter with a group of player characters being in charge of a fleet of ships? Provides extra challenge for the GM to find opponents for the PC's fleet, and then you can have pitched battles in space! Isn't that where all the fun is? I mean seriously, what happens to a group of player characters in one ship if their ship gets blown up!


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

The GM isn't necessarily preventing the PCs from amassing too much power in this case -- it might be that the rules of ship economics are such that a single ship upgraded from the proceeds of selling another ship really is more powerful than the original two ships together.


Thats a good point. You could outfit three followers with +1 swords each but that just puts off getting your own +2 sword that much longer and you will need thoses pluses to overcome DR before too long. Something similar might be going on with ships, to upgrade shields or get those shiny fusing mass projectors you basically need to sell a few lesser ships.


A Drift drive may be worth its weight in Wish scrolls compared to the sack of gold pieces that the rest of the ship costs (assuming the power plant is not integrated with the propulsion system itself). Basically your party's starship consists of a drift drive plus a glorified steering wheel and luxury options like pressurized crew spaces, mounted weapons, etc.

If I had to invent a way to keep ship proliferation down, I'd have all Drift engines be designed with uncrackable command codes as standard practices, to deter the "kill and steal" method of vehicular theft. This won't prevent 'starjacking' or theft by social engineering workarounds (intimidation, bluff, diplomacy, read minds) but it makes it harder to commit outright piracy.

Now when a party acquires a new ship, they might be stuck with their original Drift engine, but they could trade up from a beat-up station wagon chassis to a sweet muscle car with a much better performance. (Also assuming the Drift engine performs only as well as the energy levels you can feed it, in terms of voltage and current).


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That suggests another possible problem: If a ship that you capture lacks a Drift drive, your existing ship cannot carry the captured ship in its cargo bay, and the party is planning future interstellar voyages, you may be unable to take the second ship with you when you leave the solar system that you are currently in.


I recall that bringing a ship to 0 hp doesn't kill the crew, it just disables the ship. Now, if your players want to disable a ship, board it, "subdue" the crew, and then take the ship, great, but unless that's the intended goal of the encounter it seems like a lot of risk for what is now essentially space junk.


Steven "Troll" O'Neal wrote:
I recall that bringing a ship to 0 hp doesn't kill the crew, it just disables the ship. Now, if your players want to disable a ship, board it, "subdue" the crew, and then take the ship, great, but unless that's the intended goal of the encounter it seems like a lot of risk for what is now essentially space junk.

I never liked how they handle vehicles, in general. Why have conditions like the broken condition if it doesn't actually break something and you still need it to be reduced to 0 to actually be broken. Meh, whatever.


Steven "Troll" O'Neal wrote:
I recall that bringing a ship to 0 hp doesn't kill the crew, it just disables the ship. Now, if your players want to disable a ship, board it, "subdue" the crew, and then take the ship, great, but unless that's the intended goal of the encounter it seems like a lot of risk for what is now essentially space junk.

In Star Trek if you're able to overpower a starship's deflector shields it's basically the same as popping the breakers and draining the capacitors on their shield generators (otherwise shields should be able stay up indefinitely as long as there's antimatter left in the fuel tank).

To make it a little more drastic for Starfinder, you might say that overpowering a ship's deflectors causes the generators themselves to explode and take out chunks of the ship with them. A ship without working shielding can't fight and it can't protect the crew from the radiation of travel to any inner planets or radiation from blueshifted starlight (and 'particle rain') with relativistic velocities. Broken generators would not be repairable in situ but need a drydock for replacement unless you happen to have spares on board which most won't.

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