Instructor Boon + Scoured Stars Veteran?

[Gaz Ozila]

I just completed both my Instructor and the Scoured Stars Invasion last night at Crittercon.

As a result, I now am wondering if I can apply BOTH boons to a new character, or whether one precludes the other. The wording on each is:

Scoured Stars spoiler:

"Rescued Starfinder: You can start a new character who begins at 2nd level. This new PC begins play with 3 XP, 2,160 credits, 5 Fame, and 5 Reputation with the faction that character selects a faction boon for. You must keep a copy of this Chronicle sheet with the character."

"Instructor: Once you have accrued 40 Fame with this boon, your student has come into their own and is ready to become a full-fledged Starfinder (a new character). Have your GM mark the Chronicle sheet where you accomplished this, and keep a copy with your new character"

Given what was discussed in "Definition of a new character" (link here), it seems like it SHOULD work, as long as I apply Instructor first.

Edit: Also, it's still thematically appropriate since the benefits of Instructor don't actually apply until level 5.

["Dr." Cupi]

I would default to yes so long as the aforementioned new character hasn't played anything or had GM credit applied.

[Ascalaphus]

I'm inclined towards yes, although a very harsh reading could go "Instructor starts a new character; Scoured Stars starts a new character" and you can't start the same character twice.

If you read the rest of that thread and my objections to Thursty, you can see that I am not happy with the fuzziness of the rules there and the disconnected between intended effects (no shuffling capstones) and the actual effects:
- Can't apply a capstone to a so-far unplayed new character that got campaign mode credit from the first chapter of an AP.
- Can't apply a capstone to a Scoured Stars Veteran.
- Can't apply a capstone to a GM baby

[Dracomicron]

Lau Bannenberg wrote:

I'm inclined towards yes, although a very harsh reading could go "Instructor starts a new character; Scoured Stars starts a new character" and you can't start the same character twice.

If you read the rest of that thread and my objections to Thursty, you can see that I am not happy with the fuzziness of the rules there and the disconnected between intended effects (no shuffling capstones) and the actual effects:
- Can't apply a capstone to a so-far unplayed new character that got campaign mode credit from the first chapter of an AP.
- Can't apply a capstone to a Scoured Stars Veteran.
- Can't apply a capstone to a GM baby

I believe that removing the uncertainty of order-of-creation-events was one of the big things Thursty said they would work on for the season 2 update.

That said, the only one of the situations listed that I think is really an issue is Scoured Stars Veteran, as you can apply a capstone to a new character and THEN make them a GM baby or give campaign mode credit. It isn't ideal, but I think it works okay, but the wording on Scoured Stars Veteran 100% prevents a capstone, which I feel defeats the spirit of the boon (veterans of the Scoured Stars should certainly be able to benefit from patronage... like the GI bill or VA act for Starfinders).

[Ascalaphus]

We have a bit of a legacy from PFS of finagling order of applications - how many boons can you apply as the first chronicle to a character? In PFS at least, you can apply a race boon to a GM baby that's already got some XP on it as long as it hasn't been played.

In my understanding, in SFS:
- You can apply a race boon to a character that hasn't been played at level 2
- You can apply capstones only to characters with exactly 0 XP
- Various other boons go one way or the other.

This is inconsistent and confusing.

I'm fine with boons (race, capstone) not being detachable. The sort of swapping around that Thurston is talking about isn't something I'd expect anyone to do in practice. But I generally don't like the logistics of detaching a boon anyway. Removing filled-in character names and numbers etc - looks dodgy.

What I don't like is that it creates artificial obstacles. Imagine this scenario:

Convention, day 1: I play Scoured Stars Invasion with my 701 character and earn Scoured Stars Veteran.
Convention, day 2: my 701 reaches reputation tier 4 and earns a capstone.
Convention, day 3: now that Agent 701 is just about to retire to the Seeker club, it's time to make my 702. Would be nice to apply that capstone to 702, but I can't, since I earned Scoured Stars Veteran first.

There's nothing perfidious going on here. No attempt to game the system or shuffle around capstones on L1 characters. It's just a combination of overly strict rules that don't quite fit together.

Strict clear rules, I like. But they do have to fit together.

[Sebastian Hirsch]

I would prefer just buying something like a capstone boon for a specific number and not really caring what kind of credit gets added to that.
This might be one of the areas where I see no real reason for abuse and the rules just stand in the way of players. Since I usually take level 1 credit from high-level AP volumes (I would like to actually play those characters at the mid to high levels) I have pretty much given up wanting to by those capstone boons.