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Undead are always evil is such a non sense in some situations, that Paizo themselves break that rule often. Several good aligned ghosts im different Aventure Paths prove that.
There are a lot of examples of redeemed/good/neutral undead in many many lores and stories. From Twilight to undead ancestors that guide you in Return of the Jedi to The Crow to Sixth Sense to Sylvannas Windrunner to undead protectors of good aligned Kings (and tombs) in some cultures
Although ghosts can be any alignment, the majority cling to the living world out of a powerful sense of rage and hatred, and as a result are chaotic evil—even the ghost of a good or lawful creature can become hateful and cruel in its afterlife.
Ghost have ALWAYS been specifically noted as being an exception to that general rule, so using them as evidence that undead can be not evil is somewhat disingenuous. As for examples in fiction, while it is true there are creatures that are similar to what Pathfinder calls undead portrayed in a positive light I would contend that put into to Pathfinder terms most of them would be of different creature types (i.e. force ghosts are quite clearly Prana Ghosts) and, more importantly, aren't actually from Pathfinder. It's all well and good that undead can be benevolent in other things, but the question is why are undead not always evil NOW in Starfinder, while in Pathfinder proper they've always (with very rare exceptions) been portrayed as Always [Insert Ethic] Evil.
Actually that raises a question... Has anyone ever stolen a house?
My party once 'technically' stole a ship. It was full of undead created from cursed gold. We uncursed the gold, used the gold to renovate the ship, and now we have a guild hall floating in the Eleder harbour. The local dignitary tried to have us thrown into jail because it was apparently an Aspis ship, but we 'won' the court case.
We're pretty sure judge had never seen a defence this utterly baffling, horrifying, annoying, and yet rock-solid.
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Actually that raises a question... Has anyone ever stolen a house?
Every group that's played Reign of Winter.
Or the house stole them.
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It may also have something to do with the UBPs or whatever the abbreviation is. (Universal Build Somethings) that most everything is made of. They're 1 to 1 for credits, but perhaps deconstruction isn't an option (once they're manufactured into a form, they can't be turned back into functional UBPs). This produces a society that is very big on custom, personalized _everything_, and a reluctance for off the shelf (and bloody, battered, used) equipment. If it can't be customized to just the right shade of velvety lavender with a widget just so on the back, the customer will pass.
I think Voss hits the nail on the head. If anything you want can be made to your specific desires just by utilizing UBP technology, its rare someone is going to want to buy something, someone else had made for them. Unless of course the item has sentimental value (that blaster belonged to my great grandad Blazer Bill).
I'm noticing that a lot of the game is less focused on buying the latest, and bestest hardware, and more about adding on and customizing what you have until you absolutely have to buy the next thing.
Also, the game seems to have heavy mandates on GMs controlling the wealth and item availability for players. Naturally this is going to create its own problems when players from other GMs come to play and the GMs are a bit more relaxed with their rules (You're level 3 and you got a Grindblade? What the actual f!). But this isn't a new problem for older gamers like me. We're used to the oldschool D&D games where DMs would play Monty Hall and give away absolute relics like Stormbringer, or the Staff of the Magi (I'm not even kidding about this, you'd be stunned to see how many people were walking around with Thor's hammer).
One way you can help keep a group's wealth in check is to remind them that their ship also needs upgrades and such, and push them to make a party fund for it.
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One way you can help keep a group's wealth in check is to remind them that their ship also needs upgrades and such, and push them to make a party fund for it.
Unfortunately, the money and ship systems are entirely disconnected from each other. Your personal wealth has no effect on your ship, nor can ship parts be bought or sold for money.
But you still have to have someone who's assigning you these jobs and paying you when you finish them. You have to be doing these discrete jobs for someone.
You can't be the bunch of schmos who stumbled across the villain's plot and got dragged into a campaign length adventure.
Unless there's some other reasonable way to get the cash you need to keep up.
I think this is easy enough to fix within the DM role. If you're players don't like pay-for-heroics campaigns, just make sure the villains they stumble into have some untraceable, valuable goods stashed away for their nefarious schemes.
Personally, I find that far more realistic* than looting bodies and selling used goods easily for 50%.
** spoiler omitted **
Actually, in setting in makes sense. The villain has acquired goods for trading with on the black market. Since reselling weapons/armor doesn't have much value nearly anyone who expected to do a lot of trade would have hard goods available for trade, especially for any groups who wouldn't want to work with credits or don't like their trace-ability (if that's a thing).
Not sure anyone's brought this up... But you ever think the resale value should also apply to some parties trying to sell to the party?
Imagine you're a GM... And you have two parties running in a shared universe (in other words, both parties can meet up, but usually don't run together), and the two groups decide that if they're going to sell their stuff, they may as well sell to each other...
... At that point, you've got one group selling their stuff to another group at 1/10th the price, but the other group is also getting a bargain on that same equipment. Effectively buying some good quality gear at a fraction of the price of getting it new.
Which quickly puts you down the path of asking why they don't typically conduct their buying/selling this way normally anyways? Even without another player party, there are other under the table bargains like this likely to be going on between people being like "yeah, we know that official stores aren't going to give you full price, so you may as well sell to us at that price, and in exchange we'll sell stuff to you as a similar price."
Criminal organisations likely have similar issues as adventurers with resale of stolen goods, so adventurers with less... Lawful bents... Have a good reason to shop around for a reasonable one in order to get equipment at similar costs to what they'd get for selling them at retail.
I know that any GM allowing this is probably going to have to make a few "buyer beware" motifs at some point though... And probably also make the players do some sort of check just to find someone with the second hand equipment they need. (Unless they just tell their "usual supplier" to tell them if they get any such stolen goods of a certain type they want off their hands.)
I'm not sure where else to go with this train of thought, I think it just went over a cliff.
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Because the game isn't built on the assumption that you run a business and also adventure, or to put it another way, that you can buy equipment at 10% costs.
If you want to have a business as part of your character then that would be something you'd have to work out with the GM, most likely with some investment (like the Leadership feat).
They're also powered by Furbies now.How does that make them less evil?!?
I have no f*#%ing clue, I'm still waiting for them to explain it.
Why can't I play a character, of any class/theme, who's dad owns a weapon shop on Castrovel or w/e, and part of the backstory is that he was murdered and now I own the shop and would like to find the murderer, but also keep the shop. GG, it automatically goes bankrupt because I can't sell anything?
In that situation, realistically you have to pay the running costs of the shop (advertising, security, rent, taxes/bribes, staff to run the shop if you're not there), and you have to keep a good selection of items in stock, and you might have to wait a long time before any given item is sold. You'll lose money in the short term as you build up stock (assuming the GM isn't letting you inherit a ton of valuable stuff for free), but in the long term you should make a modest profit - which the GM may decide to restrict according to your Profession: Shopkeeper skill (or whatever that's called in Starfinder). Or the GM might reasonably decide that that all this is too much of a hassle, or unsuitable for the campaign in question because you're too busy doing exciting space battles.
10% is the instant sale price for adventurers. Imagine you found an assault rifle in the real world, just lying in the street, and you decided to sell it for cash and you needed the money right now. The purchaser has all the power in this situation, so you'd get a lot less than you'd normally pay to buy one.
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You realise the first person in the Starfinder universe to reinvent eBay (or your local equivalent) is going to make a killing?
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(Trying to come up with a reason why this wouldn't work.) Selling things on eBay is only going to make money if the postage costs don't eat up all your profits. And interstellar package delivery through space-pirate territory sounds expensive.
They're also powered by Furbies now.How does that make them less evil?!?
For me, the 10% sale-back price is all about the type of stories you want to tell. Me? I'd like to tell the stories where people are, at best, as mercenary as the heroes in Firefly. Even in Firefly, how often do you see the crew systematically stripping all of the dead bodies and then going and selling every single item (including small clothes) for 50% retail value?
After 9 years of murder-hoboing and greyhawking every single dungeon, I'd like it if my players stopped greyhawking everything they come across. Once upon a time it wasn't the default behaviour to Greyhawk stuff, let alone baked into the rules.
I still don't think the 10% sale price fixes that issue (though it does fix a couple of others). I added a form of automatic bonus progression to Pathfinder and removed all magic shops, and that meant looting everything was no longer mechanically rewarded. Nothing less seems to do the trick.
If all wealth is convertible to combat power, then most players will still loot everything. If they only get a fraction of the value for selling their enemy's underwear? It's still better than nothing.
I still don't think the 10% sale price fixes that issue (though it does fix a couple of others).
The more you reward players for doing things other than greyhawking the less incentive there is for them to do the greyhawking.
But you're right. If you're players are determined enough to want to penny pinch and scrape together every single credit then there's nothing you can do besides say "you get nothing for this".
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For me, the 10% sale-back price is all about the type of stories you want to tell. Me? I'd like to tell the stories where people are, at best, as mercenary as the heroes in Firefly. Even in Firefly, how often do you see the crew systematically stripping all of the dead bodies and then going and selling every single item (including small clothes) for 50% retail value?
After 9 years of murder-hoboing and greyhawking every single dungeon, I'd like it if my players stopped greyhawking everything they come across. Once upon a time it wasn't the default behaviour to Greyhawk stuff, let alone baked into the rules.
Dude, all this does is make us have to greyhawking MORE stuff as we get less each one.
The merchant can sell it for 10% when he's on an adventure, and 100% (minus running costs) when he's being a shopkeeper.
The original intent regardless of source is 10% of purchase price when selling used gear. This is done primarily to balance and thwart the MANY buy item x strip it of batteries and sell them for profit schemes that exist.
Assuming the game / wealth by level is balanced around the party getting 10% of the value of anything they sell I feel it would be extremely dangerous to house rule this as you will likely see problems cropping up in the game economy that will only further create headaches for the GM.
In the end its a number and that is what they chose to balance around. Once the party gets used to it and see's that they will be able to purchase stuff just fine without murder hoboing everything it will be fine.
The economy is beyond screwy and let's not even into the fact that ships magically become better or worse if someone of a higher or lower level steps onto them.
Um, no. Your ship tier is based on your Party's APL, not on the level of who all is in it. It doesn't all of sudden downgrade if lower level players or NPCs get into it or steal it.
Besides, that doesn't matter to society play, which works off RAW no matter how ridiculous it is, and the Starfinder economy is already totally ludicrously nonsensical. All you have to do is be born rich and you become a god at low levels.
Rich corporate 18 y/o: "Daddy, can you buy me a Paragon Seeker Rifle so I can go on adventure this weekend?"
"Sure Son, here's a million credits because I happen to own a successful stock company and am worth billions. Go have fun."
Not really seeing the point of this statement since the same could be achieved in... pretty much any game system. Be the child of someone rich, a noble, a ruler, etc
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Dude, all this does is make us have to greyhawking MORE stuff as we get less each one.For me, the 10% sale-back price is all about the type of stories you want to tell. Me? I'd like to tell the stories where people are, at best, as mercenary as the heroes in Firefly. Even in Firefly, how often do you see the crew systematically stripping all of the dead bodies and then going and selling every single item (including small clothes) for 50% retail value?
After 9 years of murder-hoboing and greyhawking every single dungeon, I'd like it if my players stopped greyhawking everything they come across. Once upon a time it wasn't the default behaviour to Greyhawk stuff, let alone baked into the rules.
Why does people think this? If items could sell for 95%... do you think people would carry less stuff to sell? Why would it be true the other way around?
Why does people think this? If items could sell for 95%... do you think people would carry less stuff to sell? Why would it be true the other way around?Dude, all this does is make us have to greyhawking MORE stuff as we get less each one.For me, the 10% sale-back price is all about the type of stories you want to tell. Me? I'd like to tell the stories where people are, at best, as mercenary as the heroes in Firefly. Even in Firefly, how often do you see the crew systematically stripping all of the dead bodies and then going and selling every single item (including small clothes) for 50% retail value?
After 9 years of murder-hoboing and greyhawking every single dungeon, I'd like it if my players stopped greyhawking everything they come across. Once upon a time it wasn't the default behaviour to Greyhawk stuff, let alone baked into the rules.
Exactly.
People who Greyhawk (or play Bethesda games) are gonna do this, unless it has no value whatsoever.
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the Starfinder economy is already totally ludicrously nonsensical. All you have to do is be born rich and you become a god at low levels.
And that's nonsensical how?
In our world, if I gave you a million dollars to spend on military hardware, don't you think you'd have a major advantage in a fight with a guy with a budget of $1,000?
And that would be even more true if you could buy futuristic power armor.
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Why does people think this? If items could sell for 95%... do you think people would carry less stuff to sell? Why would it be true the other way around?Dude, all this does is make us have to greyhawking MORE stuff as we get less each one.For me, the 10% sale-back price is all about the type of stories you want to tell. Me? I'd like to tell the stories where people are, at best, as mercenary as the heroes in Firefly. Even in Firefly, how often do you see the crew systematically stripping all of the dead bodies and then going and selling every single item (including small clothes) for 50% retail value?
After 9 years of murder-hoboing and greyhawking every single dungeon, I'd like it if my players stopped greyhawking everything they come across. Once upon a time it wasn't the default behaviour to Greyhawk stuff, let alone baked into the rules.
Exactly.
People who Greyhawk (or play Bethesda games) are gonna do this, unless it has no value whatsoever.
When we play PF, we don't take the copper pieces in dragon hoards, because 20.000 copper pieces are like 50gp per player and nobody cares by that level. Same goes with mundane gear. We pick and sell swords and bows at low level because 50gp is a lot at level 1. We don't care about mundane daggers at lvl 10.
I expect gear to be the same. At lvl 1 you probably will care about ecery laser rifle. But soon you'll stop to carry junk, because the encumbrance isnt worth it .
Dude, all this does is make us have to greyhawking MORE stuff as we get less each one.
Not possible. The group lifts literally everything that isn't ailed down in PF. But are you saying if your group of 4 players get 24,000 credits going from level 5 to 6, they're still going to try to scrape together an extra 500?
And then they can pay for the business licenses, insurance, electricity, rent, etc., etc., etc... and find that after all the time and work, they're left with about 10% profit.
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The 10% buyback rate sounds about right as a BLENDED percentile. I think that's the best way to look at it. I also don't blame people who think otherwise; if you don't work with used items in a retail setting on a regular basis you wouldn't have this perspective.
Here's a real world perspective/example:
I work in a comic store. A big part of the business is taking in peoples' old collections, it's how comic stores keep an inventory of back issues.
If someone walks in with a copy of Marvel Superheroes Secret Wars #8 (1984,) I'm going to give them great value for it. It's a hot book that has decent value ($30-$80 raw depending on grade) and if put on display, will move over a weekend. No risk, easy money, would probably give upwards of 65% retail value, depending on condition.
If someone walks in with a copy of Silver Sable and the Wild Pack #1 (1992,) I'm going to (politely) send them away without even making an offer. There was half a million of those printed, nobody's asking for them, we have probably a few dozen sitting in storage. It is literally worthless. [Game mechanic note: THIS IS NOT DIPLOMACY-CHECK RELATED. If you're the sweetest sweetheart or the most cunning businessperson in the galaxy, I'll still tell you this is a worthless item. And it's not just me; you could take that book coast to coast and anyone who would pay you more than 50 cents is a fool or a sucker.]
Now it's rare that a person brings in just one comic to sell; usually they have a box or collection of boxes.
So what's the value:bulk ratio? About 10% of comics in any given collection are interesting/valuable. Huh. Funny how that works out.
(OF COURSE there are exceptions, shrewd resellers who only collect value, and cheapskates who only collect bulk, but again, they work out to 10%)
I think the way to look at it in-game is the same way: 90% of the items you bring in are going to be worthless, 10% of the items you bring in fetch top dollar. Even if you sell your stuff off one-at-a-time, the game can't take that into account, but over the course of your adventuring career, it should balance.
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YMMV can and will vary, but our table loves the new sell rules. Since you can only pawn stuff for 10% of base value you're much more likely to hold onto all the weird little dohickeys, dinguses and thingamabobs that adventurers usually run across but immediately sell, and they can come in really handy down the road. I finished a session 20 minutes ago where incendiary grenades were put to great use. If we'd been able to sell those for 180 credits each they would have been long gone, but since they are only 40 credits we're much more likely to hold onto them and use them freely instead of selling them.
Compare that to Pathfinder where in my experience, unless you drop customized loot that fits exactly what the party wants, they'll liquidate pretty much literally everything to improve their core items - usually a variation of the big 6.
Ultimately, if you want to run a campaign that's centered around "take all their stuff and sell it" you can still do that. Simply lower the credit reward for doing missions and assignments, then increase the values NPCs and monsters carry around on them. They can still make the majority of their credit income by breaking into someone's dungeon, killing the owner, and take their stuff. Stuff like Noqual is a good example of this.
I understand that Paizo wanted Starfinder to attempt to be new and different from Pathfinder, but if you have an entire table of guns and weapons with different tiers of power and then say "I'm sorry, but I can only give you 10% market price for your old gun", that's a tradition-breaking concept that is worthy of discussion and probable house-ruling.
Does the 'sell for 50%' tradition exist outside of the third-edition family? If I recall correctly, in earlier editions you mostly didn't sell stuff, because there was nothing worth buying. In 4E they reduced the sell price to 20%(?). And in most video game RPGs, the vendor prices are terrible. In Skyrim, for example, a merchant will buy an item off you and then sell it back to you for four times as much - and that's if you have maximum Speech skill. With no Speech skill, they'll charge nine times what they'll pay.
The people behind all these systems decided that paying adventurers small fractions of market price was better for game balance, and more fun in the long run.
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I still don't think the 10% sale price fixes that issue (though it does fix a couple of others).The more you reward players for doing things other than greyhawking the less incentive there is for them to do the greyhawking.
But you're right. If you're players are determined enough to want to penny pinch and scrape together every single credit then there's nothing you can do besides say "you get nothing for this".
The issue is that unless you as the GM give huge payouts of credits (rather than gear) or go out of your way to plant the items the players are wanting, then they are forced to "greyhawk" things, because it is the only way to acquire the gear they want. Heck, if i was given the option to tank my WBL in exchange for having my endgame gun from the start (so that all i'd have to do is add upgrades like enchantments, which you are getting a total loss on every time you "tier up" your gear) i would take it in a heartbeat just to avoid having to deal with all the money spent on upgrades and such disappearing into the ether.
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10% sell rate is there so GMs can hand out more stuff to players without having to necessarily worry about the economic ramifications thereof and makes it less important to worry about budgeting around NPC's equipment when designing rewards and managing WbL.
Not sure there's really anything else that needs to be said about it and when people start going off creating these weird scenarios about weapon shop owners or people with rich parents it feels more like they're just trying to invent reasons to be mad than actually bringing up real problems with the system. Especially since regardless of system they're things you'd need a GM to adjudicate anyways.
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There is ONE way to get around the issue of salvaging being garbage. In the Alien Archive we've got the Assembly Ooze, which can melt things down for 100% UPB value. So if you could hunt down one that makes UPBs then you could make an effective "recycler" of sorts by enclosing it in a case made of the correct materials (Which according to the pic in the archive, may be glass? Or just to be safe you could synthesize some sort of bone cage or something since it refuses to touch organic matter that lacks tech inside it)
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One big difference between Pathfinder and Starfinder in selling used weapons and armor is serial numbers.
Big Bad Evil Guy get's a report that one of his low level operations was eradicated. Calls around, and asks to be notified if anyone dumps 30 or so sets of xxx armor, yyy pistols and zzz rifles.
BBEG gets a call two days later, provided images of the those that sold the gear to a fence - confirms the serial numbers.
Puts hit out on the PCs.
Or turn it around: Police are investigating the brazen robbery and murder fest at XXXX corps. All the staff were left naked where they fell, obviously stripped of everything.
A round to the fences, and bingo, PC images and names (or handles) provided to the police.
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One big difference between Pathfinder and Starfinder in selling used weapons and armor is serial numbers.
Big Bad Evil Guy get's a report that one of his low level operations was eradicated. Calls around, and asks to be notified if anyone dumps 30 or so sets of xxx armor, yyy pistols and zzz rifles.
BBEG gets a call two days later, provided images of the those that sold the gear to a fence - confirms the serial numbers.
Puts hit out on the PCs.
Or turn it around: Police are investigating the brazen robbery and murder fest at XXXX corps. All the staff were left naked where they fell, obviously stripped of everything.
A round to the fences, and bingo, PC images and names (or handles) provided to the police.
Man I hope the Pact Worlds book has a sizable section on laws, law enforcement, and justice in the Pact Worlds.
One big difference between Pathfinder and Starfinder in selling used weapons and armor is serial numbers.
Big Bad Evil Guy get's a report that one of his low level operations was eradicated. Calls around, and asks to be notified if anyone dumps 30 or so sets of xxx armor, yyy pistols and zzz rifles.
BBEG gets a call two days later, provided images of the those that sold the gear to a fence - confirms the serial numbers.
Puts hit out on the PCs.
Or turn it around: Police are investigating the brazen robbery and murder fest at XXXX corps. All the staff were left naked where they fell, obviously stripped of everything.
A round to the fences, and bingo, PC images and names (or handles) provided to the police.
Smart people would scrap off serial numbers.
Smart people would scrap off serial numbers.One big difference between Pathfinder and Starfinder in selling used weapons and armor is serial numbers.
Big Bad Evil Guy get's a report that one of his low level operations was eradicated. Calls around, and asks to be notified if anyone dumps 30 or so sets of xxx armor, yyy pistols and zzz rifles.
BBEG gets a call two days later, provided images of the those that sold the gear to a fence - confirms the serial numbers.
Puts hit out on the PCs.
Or turn it around: Police are investigating the brazen robbery and murder fest at XXXX corps. All the staff were left naked where they fell, obviously stripped of everything.
A round to the fences, and bingo, PC images and names (or handles) provided to the police.
Smarter people would just scrap them for UPBs.