Alien Archive 2 boon


Starfinder Society

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1/5 5/55/55/55/5

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Starfinder Superscriber

The Alien Archive boon was hugely popular. Virtually every SFS player for months was asking for their boon sheets to be initialed after games and players pondering which of the races they'd play.

While Nufriend Skittermander was a great spiritual successor to it, now 14 weeks after Free RPG Day most regular players have unlocked their Skittermander PC.

Alien Archive 2 is set for release in a few weeks, it'd be awesome if a similar unlockable race boon is released for a few of the dozen+ playable races it includes.

Paizo Employee 5/5 Starfinder Society Developer

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I'm sure we'll be talking about Alien Archive 2 in the coming weeks. :)

1/5 5/55/55/55/5

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Starfinder Superscriber

My husband lost his mind reading through Alien Archive 2 last night, he usually wears this Bearbarella shirt when he GMs SFS so of course he wants a PC to match

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

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OhMyGosh that's sooo perfect!

I'm an XL, pick one up for me next time! ^_^

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

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Arc Riley wrote:

My husband lost his mind reading through Alien Archive 2 last night, he usually wears this Bearbarella shirt when he GMs SFS so of course he wants a PC to match

Must have

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

I am glad that we are considering a second Alien Archive Boon for players!

Hmm

1/5 5/55/55/55/5

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Starfinder Superscriber
Lau Bannenberg wrote:
Arc Riley wrote:
My husband lost his mind reading through Alien Archive 2 last night, he usually wears this Bearbarella shirt when he GMs SFS so of course he wants a PC to match
Must have

You can buy them online at the artist's site.

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

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...aaand purchased ^_^

3/5 5/55/55/55/5 *** Contributor

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I expect to see that at the next con, Nefreet.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

I want pictures of Nefreet wearing that shirt!

Scarab Sages 5/5 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Netherlands

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Thurston Hillman wrote:
I'm sure we'll be talking about Alien Archive 2 in the coming weeks. :)

Im boarding the hype train!

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

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I foresee more species of uplifted animals in future Archives.

*crosses fingers for uplifted raccoons*

1/5 5/5

Nefreet wrote:

I foresee more species of uplifted animals in future Archives.

*crosses fingers for uplifted raccoons*

Possibly with special rules that give them a bonus to strength to determine whether or not they can use heavy weapons?

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

And an affinity for creatures of the plant type.

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Agent, Georgia—Atlanta

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Also looking forward to more Plant-creatures.

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

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Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:
I want pictures of Nefreet wearing that shirt!

I'm just gonna leave this here...


Arc Riley wrote:


While Nufriend Skittermander was a great spiritual successor to it, now 14 weeks after Free RPG Day most regular players have unlocked their Skittermander PC.

Just for a sense of scale. We play every week now and have an AP group that is every other week. The DMs are done or nearly done but the players still have a little way to go.

With the previous AA cert I was able to finish it just in time with this schedule so it was just about right.

Scarab Sages 5/5 5/5 *** Venture-Captain, Netherlands

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Nefreet wrote:
Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:
I want pictures of Nefreet wearing that shirt!
I'm just gonna leave this here...

I want to be able to like this post several times.

Silver Crusade 5/5 5/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Germany—Bavaria

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Nefreet wrote:
Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:
I want pictures of Nefreet wearing that shirt!
I'm just gonna leave this here...

Thank you for sharing, though I am not 100% believing that you are not an extremely well disguised Tengu ^^

Manifold Host 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ****

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Nefreet wrote:
Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:
I want pictures of Nefreet wearing that shirt!
I'm just gonna leave this here...

SQUEEE!

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

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Nefreet wrote:
Hilary Moon Murphy wrote:
I want pictures of Nefreet wearing that shirt!
I'm just gonna leave this here...

Rrrawr.

1/5 5/55/55/55/5

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Starfinder Superscriber

I'm helping one of our local player 3d print this awesome uplifted bear mini.

Grand Lodge Venture-Agent, Ohio—Cincinnati

Arc Riley wrote:

I'm helping one of our local player 3d print this awesome uplifted bear mini.

The Game, Konflict 47 has a 3 pack of Bear soldiers


Arc Riley wrote:

I'm helping one of our local player 3d print this awesome uplifted bear mini.

that looks great I cant wait to see it in action

Second Seekers (Roheas) 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 ***** Regional Venture-Coordinator, Appalachia

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Uplifted Bears are a Must-have boon if it ever drops

1/5 5/55/55/55/5

Starfinder Superscriber
Douglas Edwards wrote:
Uplifted Bears are a Must-have boon if it ever drops

Many people said the same about Skittermanders.

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

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At this point I almost wonder why we need race boons.

Starfinder is so different, Society included, that requiring race boons almost feels like holding on to an element of Pathfinder Society.

Maybe consider opening up (nearly) every race as a playable option, and just re-emphasize the requirement that you own the source you're using.

1/5 5/5

Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

Some races are *significantly* mechanically better than others.

I could see opening things up after a while to all but the 'really powerful stuff' to prevent the 'building scenarios to the O/P races' syndrome?

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

I think overall Starfinder PC races are less far apart than they've been in Pathfinder. But perfect balance without making everything the same isn't possible.

I think boons could also be a vehicle to open up powerful races, but with a "except you only get 2/3 of these abilities" limit to bring them more in line. A piece of paper giving you the right to play the race in the first place is a much more visible place for such a rule than a note in the AR.


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I myself can't wait for an Osharu boon.

5/5

They're already opening up the Legacy races in the next SFS handbook update.

I suspect that, over time, certain other races may open up, as well (like, a percentage of each Alien Archive's races opening up a couple years after publication).

Starfinder's "signature move" is that you can play all sorts of crazy critters even from the jump, and Paizo has done a pretty good job of trying to make the races reasonably balanced, so I don't see them reversing the trend.

1/5 5/55/55/55/5

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Starfinder Superscriber

As a GM, I'll admit that I'm still very much motivated by race boons.

And well, given the wide variety of augmentations and technological equipment the race boons only shine at lower levels. Its the flavor that makes them cool to play.

2/5 *

The Slug race looks as fun as the uplifted bear.

5/5 5/55/55/5

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People start playing skittermanders all of a sudden something called skitterarmor is legal... why are there 6 claw shaped buckles on the front?

Skittermanders: helping to death. AND BEYOND!

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

Arc Riley wrote:

As a GM, I'll admit that I'm still very much motivated by race boons.

And well, given the wide variety of augmentations and technological equipment the race boons only shine at lower levels. Its the flavor that makes them cool to play.

I am too! I just tend to give them away a lot to my players to share the fun. Or to trade them for interesting Starfinder Player boons! Some of the new Player boons have been awesome, opening up interesting twists for character concepts.

Hmm

Manifold Host 5/5 5/55/5 ***

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BigNorseWolf wrote:
Skittermanders: helping to death. AND BEYOND!

You bet!

1/5 5/55/55/55/5

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Starfinder Superscriber

One thing I'd like to address since its been brought up by a few newer players, is its now impossible for them to earn various Alien Archive 1 race boons (I explained boon trading, but even then they'll become more rare and not all are tradeable). From a purely sales perspective, for new players there's less and less motivation over time to ever purchase Alien Archive 1 unless they GM.

To solve this, how about a RSP boon that includes every playable race from every published resource to date on a multicolumn % table. When a player wins an RSP boon, they roll a d% and their GM circles/writes/initials which race they unlocked from the table.

Between the two Alien Archive books, Pact Worlds, and the three AP series (10 from Dead Suns, 6 from Aeon Throne, assuming at least 5 from Signal of Screams) there's around 66 published playable races. A % table could be splashed down pretty fast along with which book its from and weight the races according to desired rareness.

Then copy/paste the existing race boon language. Players will only win 1/10 games at RSP venues so it'll act similarly to the earlier Alien Archive boon but without the game tracking overhead, and it'll add more flavor to society play while keeping the rarest society races rare (1/1000 chance to win per game) and RSP boons highly desirable.

You could even make some races even rarer by making a "100" roll lead to a roll on a 2nd "Extremely Rare" table.

Grand Lodge 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Captain, Minnesota

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Huh. That's an interesting idea. I still like the 'earnabilty' of player checkoffs to earn races, But I could see something like this being very interesting. I'm not sure that I would have the really rare races on the table though, as some Conventions (mumble mumble GENCON) need hard core GM incentives to get GMs to show up and work. But I could see a variant on this, especially one that included a number of the Alien Archive 1 races that were formerly distributed as Con race boons.

Because we got a whole bunch of Dreamers people to cover quest tables at a certain local convention, our little store has a huge Nuar turnout. So much so that a new player asked if that was a core race, and how to get it. They were disappointed by it being behind a boon wall. But getting some of those Alien Archive and AP races on the RSP could be a great way to make those RSP boon rolls more interesting.

Hmm

2/5 5/5 **

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

Why does it need to be random?

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/5 ** Venture-Lieutenant, Netherlands—Leiden

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I'm more a fan of "earnability" than random process. I'm one of (many, in our local area) people who is convinced (right or not) that they never win at random rolls.

I'd also like GMing (even at game days) to earn a bit more than just showing up to play, but I'm quite fine with only playing still getting you there eventually. Maybe GMs should earn marks at double rate?

I think a general Cantina boon might not be such a bad idea. I really like the "Cantina" name actually; I'm imaging us hanging around there and picking up strange aliens and convincing them to join the Society.

I think really new races should be reserved for convention boons. Now that AA2 is out, we can use about 10 races from it as convention boon races (assuming 5 mega-regions and 2 races per boon). They rotate a bit and after another year we're staring AA3 in the face.

Something like at least half, maybe a whole year after the race is no longer an exclusive boon race, it could go into the cantina. So early spring AA1 races could become earnable. By then it's been long enough since boons for them were handed out.

I think this would be a good balance between having incentives for Con GMs, incentives for game day GMs, and making races available for all the people who don't, for one reason or another, earn them at conventions.

1/5 5/55/55/55/5

Starfinder Superscriber
Blake's Tiger wrote:
Why does it need to be random?

Because that keeps them rare and therefore at high desirability. RSP boon winning is already randomized; most groups have everyone roll d20 and a 19/20 on the roll earns a RSP boon. 10% chance isn't nearly rare enough for many of the races, though.

The effect of the randomness would be maximizing incentive play at RSP venues and players trading them with each other to get what they want. Both builds community which is exactly what the RSP boons are intended for, and even after regular weekly players earn their 4th or 5th per year the boon retains desirability.

Could always leave a set of highly desirable races out while they're in rotation for GM boons. There's just so many races now and new players especially are feeling left out.

2/5 5/5 **

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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens Subscriber

Right, so I was lucky enough to get a random RSP boon and then I've got a 1/66 chance (from your example) of getting a race I want.

True, there are many communities robust enough to trade for the ones you want or trade online, but when you get down to those narrow cuts, it's more likely that the one you want isn't in circulation.

I'd rather a select 5 that I could choose one from even if my favorite race wasn't included than a random chance among 66 with the one I want being a tease.

1/5 5/55/55/55/5

Starfinder Superscriber

I wouldn't expect every race to have the same weight on the table. Lets say you want a rare race that someone only wins when they roll 87. If you play weekly you'll have 5 chances a year to get that yourself, or about 1/20 chance.

... which also means that over the course of a year about 1/20 regular players will win that race. Even on a regional level that's pretty good odds that at least one person will win it.

But I would hope any hypothetical player would have a set of races they'd be interested in playing rather than just one, in which case you're nearly guarenteed to either win one of them or be able to trade with someone you game with regularly for one.

The benefit to society play is you'd have a well distributed, diverse set of races in play overall and you as a player continue to want to win the RSP boon regardless to how many times you've already won one... which goes back to the core purpose of RSP boons to encourage people to play at open to the public venues (eg game stores ) rather than private homes.

Sczarni 5/5 5/55/5 ***

Okay, yes, it's a bit of a thread necro, but I found this and thought it appropriate:

Arm Bears T-Shirt

Sovereign Court 5/5 5/5 ****

Well, a little bit of a necro, but that said, I would love to hear when the AA2 boon is coming out (although I appreciate there is a festive season slow-down winding up at present, so I am not expecting any imminent reveals in that regard) :-)

1/5 5/55/55/55/5

Starfinder Superscriber

It would be good to have news about 2019 SFS boons in general.

RSP GM#2 is expiring in under 4 weeks. We still haven't seen a replacement for RSP 10% boon, even though this was raised back in August.

Dataphiles 5/55/55/5 Venture-Agent, Netherlands

Arc Riley wrote:

It would be good to have news about 2019 SFS boons in general.

RSP GM#2 is expiring in under 4 weeks. We still haven't seen a replacement for RSP 10% boon, even though this was raised back in August.

Yeah, I'm going to end up stuck between Tier 1 and 2...I have enough for the race, but only about halfway through giving the race to someone else...so it feels like wasted effort for that boon now :/

Sovereign Court 4/5 5/55/55/55/5 **** Venture-Agent, Georgia—Atlanta

as long as you get the boon, it does not expire. But, the deadline to earn the Chronicle sheet goes away in February.

1/5 5/55/55/55/5

Starfinder Superscriber
Glen Parnell wrote:
as long as you get the boon, it does not expire. But, the deadline to earn the Chronicle sheet goes away in February.

I don't think that's correct. The boon clearly says:

Only games GMed between 2/1/2018 and 2/1/2019 are valid.

Paizo Employee 5/5 Starfinder Society Developer

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I suspect we'll have more news on boons Soon™. :)

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