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Starfinder characters have impressive environmental protections at their disposal. This makes a number of traditional hazards a lot less hazardous. In particular I'm talking about some of these hazards:
- Thin atmosphere
- Vacuum
- Poisonous atmosphere
- Poison or sleep gas
- Airborne diseases and pollen/spores
- Underwater atmosphere
- Radiation
- Zero G
- Climbing/flying problems
- Groundbound problems
Armor with environmental protections can protect you from atmospheric problems for days at a time without penalties, so it's reasonable that while in the "danger zone", adventurers will have them up and running. The Life Bubble spell also encases you in a suitable-for-you safe atmosphere.
Armor also protects against low radiation (medium, at item level 7+, and high/severe with khefak/thasteron).
Armor, unless otherwise stated, incorporates boots that allow you to anchor against any solid surface while in Zero G. So while slower, you can make your way through a lot of Zero G environments without buying specialized equipment.
Jump Jets are a level 2 armor upgrade that allows a short burst of flying movement. Jet Packs are a level 5 item, and Force Soles Mk II a level 8 item. All of these are helpful in navigating a Zero G environment, as well as dealing with "it's on the high shelf" problems. They also help PCs get away from dumb melee brute monsters that can't hurt a character that can get high up enough.
Starfinder is a "new" game (well, going on its third year now), so of course some writers drop the ball on this. You might run into an adventure where the PCs are supposed to be challenged by thin mountain air, but their armor can easily keep them in normal air. Or a poison gas trap is supposed to provide them a challenge, but in the middle of a dungeon, why aren't they wearing their environmental protections? So you get some adventures that are a bit anticlimactic because an intended challenge fails to well, challenge.
And then you also run into some situations where the author insists;
- this particular poison gas is magical and bypasses armor protections entirely
- this trap first showers with acid that compromises your environmental protections
- this poison gas is so technologically advanced, it ignores armor protections
- this radiation is Special and ignores environmental protections
...and so on. If it was just the one, it might be an interesting thing. Do it a couple of times, and it starts to look like the writer is a sore loser who's trying to write a medieval adventure.
We can quibble about the individual cases and why each one might or might not be justified. But I don't think that's the right solution. Not having any environmental challenges also isn't the solution - we want more than combat alone.
And that's what I want to brainstorm about. Discuss!
I don't think life-bubble doing its job is necessarily a bad thing. That's a not insignificant character investment at lower levels , especially if you don't know when drift travel ends. Known spells are precious, precious things for a while.
Needlebomb: its a burst of hypodermic needles
Pointy Seeds: A seed bursts like a forget me not spraying needles/gunk all over the place
Old school bucket: You're dumped with gallons of liquid that start to eat through.
Nanite cloud
Microwave beam
Net of microwave beams
teeny tiny sentient irradiated air elementals
Negative energy zones
Flammable gases that react with weapons that deal fire or electricity damage
Fog/smoke
Ice or mold storms that slowly coat the players if they stay still too long
Inconsistent gravity
High gravity, so you need to really consider what equipment is worth the weight to take with you.
A cloud of spores that, instead of getting into your lungs as a poison, gives off a scent to attract local predators later if you don't get it off of you.
Vertical terrain challenges are more likely to still have effect at low levels. While jump jets are level 2, the vertical distance they can handle is limited.
Water level are an option as everyone should have the ability to brate but the environmental effects on movement and weapons still matter, and teamwork may stoll be needed to get less athletic characters through areas with strong currents.
Unstable tunnels, with risk of collapse.
Heavily ionized atmosphere that causes high tech equipment to be glitch and sometimes fail, while analog and magical tools are still reliable.
Extremely cold and extremely hot environments! These should be common all over the universe, and environmental protections only help between -20F and 140F. Life bubble extends that to -50F to 140F.
In our real life solar system, temperatures are usually WAY outside that range. You have seriously high and seriously low temps on every planet away from Earth, even those with atmospheres. Some atmospheres are quite wild, with ultra high temps and clouds of sulfuric acid, while others are super cold.
Beyond temperature, corrosive atmospheres that deal acid damage are pointed out as still a hazard despite environmental protections. As would be any other atmosphere full of dangerous projectiles, electricity, or similar.
Even more mundane dangers like disease carrying biting insects can get past environmental protections. If they deal even 1 damage they could deliver an injury poison.
EMP microburst trap.
Burn out all the batteries and circuits of all that lovely tech in a 30 foot radius.
High gravity is just really. really. really annoying to calculate. Its more punishment for the players than the characters
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There's some great ideas in here. To be clear: I wasn't looking for better explanations of why you might negate environmental protections. I think we need a year or two without writers trying to sabotage environmental protections. The previous cheesy writing kinda poisoned the well for it.
Rather, we need different environmental challenges. I love set piece encounters.
Slippery surfaces - and I mean way slippery. Frictionless surfaces. If you move on them there's a risk of falling, but even if you succeed at the acrobatics check you can slip into the next space.
Conveyor belts. Lots of conveyor belts.
Centrifuges, so basically a cylindrical room where you can walk on the wall and ceiling and back down again on the other side.
Moving platforms.
Pendulums. Really big ones.
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I like the idea of pollen/mold/spore storm causing sight inhibition. If you stay in it, over 2 ish rounds pollen build up so that you can't see. Move action to clear your 'helmet'. (It is not cheap by ignoring your envi protections)
While I agree with BNW that high gravity is really tedious, I wouldn't be opposed to it every so often. I mean, we are in space...an entire galaxy...sometimes you're going to have to deal with high gravity.
In that same vein, low and zero gravity could appear more. Again...we're in space.
Long distances. With the current situation causing more things to be run online, it is very easy to shrink the player tokens to 1/4 and have every square be 10ft. (10ft square maps make it a lot easier to draw big maps...think about the creators people)
+1 to slippery surfaces. Ice planets have been covered, but everyone likes a good Hoth.
I'd be curious to see what a mountainous adventure looks like. It would be map hell, but I envision 10ft squares, varying elevations, it'd be cool...probably..
+1 extreme cold and extreme heat. A GM could have fun with mirages.
+1 fog/smoke
All of my thought revolve around the same thing that I've been complaining about to my fellow players...
We are in space! The possibilities for crazy environments are endless! Just because environmental protections overcomes it doesn't mean you can't go with it. Not all planets are going to be 1:1 gravity, normal breathable atmosphered, and full of sentients that act just like humans. Just because it's not a mechanical obstacle doesn't mean it isn't cool!
Wonder what kind of havoc a GM can cause with High Winds on a Slippery Mountain Trail in Low Gravity...
Sounds like a fun high-speed chase! Spread your arms to gain speed, but make a acrobatics check every round or suffer a catastrophic wipe-out.
1. I really enjoyed the ideas that the writers of The Expanse thought through for hazardous space "mishaps". Little things like making sure all of your tools and spare parts are locked down in a zero-G spacecraft maneuvering situation.
GM: Your ship's gravity system has malfunctioned during starship combat. All of the repair tools you've left lying around suddenly become dangerous projectiles! Roll Reflex saves, please.
2. Another idea certainly more relevant nowadays -- viruses. Presumably there are sterilizers that most spacecraft use on a routine basis, but they can't account for every possible mutation. . . .
3. Unexpected "feedback fields". Unusual energy or chemical fields/areas that negatively interact with the operation of environmental fields. These don't disrupt the environmental projections so much as they generate damaging or detrimental feedback cycles so long as the PCs remain in them with their armor's protections activated. Perhaps some Star Trekesque tinkering with their armor's "phase harmonics" and "field polarities" (with appropriate Engineering/Computer DCs) allows them to adjust. Perhaps not and failure brings with it its own set of unpleasant consequences.
We definitely have artificial gravity in setting. Aside from published adventures assuming it on ships, the CRB writeup of planets lists Absallom Station's gravity as artificial.
We do not have details on how it is generated.
There are no rules about whether or not it can be adjusted in small areas.
Which begs some questions:
Do we even have artificial gravity? My group hasn't really explored this, and I don't recall seeing it any of the books I've read.
If yes:
How is it generated?
Can it be changed as described above?
Based on absalom and the first book of signal of screams, yes there is some form of artificial gravity.
No idea if it can be switched around like that normally, but in hazardous locations, why not? Walking on a 'wall' with mag boots while gravity tries to throw you off the cliff sounds pretty damn hazardous.
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I would also point out that "how artificial gravity works doesn't have to be the same everywhere. You probably have dome kind of hybrid system running absslom station. You could find sone thing out in space with a purely magical gravity setup that changes from room to room. You could wind up aboard a much lower tech ship where "turn off the gravity" means "cut the main engine, and stop accelerating."
Walls made of absurdly strong materials are also fairly common, in my Starfinder experience.
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I would also point out that "how artificial gravity works doesn't have to be the same everywhere. You probably have dome kind of hybrid system running absslom station. You could find sone thing out in space with a purely magical gravity setup that changes from room to room. You could wind up aboard a much lower tech ship where "turn off the gravity" means "cut the main engine, and stop accelerating."
"Oh don't tell me some idiot installed an old mk one point seven gravity coil in a greenhouse. The manifold gets even a little damp and... " bzzzzzt the party flies up to the ceiling. "yeah that starts happening"
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By higher levels, when weapons get really big and scary, just NOT having walls made of extremely strong materials, and employing a rule that missed shots go somewhere (due to the fragile surroundings) could be an environmental hazard.
Living on Earth, as we know it, is "natural". We develop a pretty good idea of the principles on which things work just by living it as a human being. Fantasy role-playing games rely on this common (and common sense), shared experience to extrapolate to the medieval-esque settings and situations they envision. Living in space or on some other non-Earth planet is not "natural". Understanding anything about what it would be like requires education—often lots of it. And the more of it someone has, the better they can extrapolate ideas of what it would be like to live there.
This fundamental difference between fantasy and science-fiction genres makes the fundamental principles underlying game design especially challenging. Designers, authors and publishers must find their own idea of balance between broad accessibility on the one hand and satisfactory simulation on the other. It seems likely to me that the variance in attitudes created by this problem, as it applies to fantasy settings, is going to be much lower than it will be for science-fiction settings.
The designers of SF made choices that, to them, seemed like a good balance to create a broadly accessible game in which individuals still had flexibility to craft their own stories. I have not seen or read anywhere that the designers set out to simulate the natural sciences of life in space in game mechanics. Are there cool stories that could develop from doing so? Certainly. But there are also cool stories that my 6th grade daughter and her friends want to create in space without any knowledge of quantum theory, metallurgy or the laws of motion.
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How about a non- Newtonian terrain hazard? If they move across it quickly there is no detriment, but if they stop to take standard actions, everything becomes difficult terrain. weapons don't do much but cold and fire grenades change the consistency in their radius for an amount of rounds equal to their item level (cold removes liquid properties and hot removes solid properties).
If they get tripped, they become submerged, and must take their whole turn slowly standing up. They get DR/1 against piecing/slashing bludgeoning that round and still need to move out of the difficult terrain. What makes it really fun is when one of the PCs trip and an enemy trows a cryogrenade!
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Airborne magically-active microbes that drift between the Ethereal and Prime Material Planes. Force effects (like force fields) can hedge them out or otherwise affect them, but they can phase inside normal environmental suits.
This made me think of really small phase spiders that get inside your armor
Airborne magically-active microbes that drift between the Ethereal and Prime Material Planes. Force effects (like force fields) can hedge them out or otherwise affect them, but they can phase inside normal environmental suits.This made me think of really small phase spiders that get inside your armor
A swarm of really small phase spiders that get inside your armor and turn off your environmental protections.
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Airborne magically-active microbes that drift between the Ethereal and Prime Material Planes. Force effects (like force fields) can hedge them out or otherwise affect them, but they can phase inside normal environmental suits.
That actually sounds like an example of exactly what the original post was trying to avoid, to me.
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Airborne magically-active microbes that drift between the Ethereal and Prime Material Planes. Force effects (like force fields) can hedge them out or otherwise affect them, but they can phase inside normal environmental suits.This made me think of really small phase spiders that get inside your armor
Swarm of tiny phase spiders came to me just after I hit Submit Post : )
How about gas-based traps that incorporate a magical suggestion to disable environmental seals? Since there is still air pressure and no toxins (yet) the suit's automatic confirmation process shouldn't be engaged.
Conversely, you can have scent- or temperature-based cues that the PCs would miss by having their environmental seals activated. I ran an SFS adventure once in a frozen lab, in which the players used environmental seals to avoid the cold and didn't notice the temperature gradually rising until the torpid BBEG got warm enough to activate and start a murder spree.
One way to make environments dangerous is running down the clock. There is a limited place they can actually land on the planet and the target is well outside of that zone. All suits have a limited attery according to the rules. This puts a ticking clock and, depending on how you play it, can even lead to portions of the travel being unprotected from the hazards or forced to conserve the environment protections for more severe moments.
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Airborne magically-active microbes that drift between the Ethereal and Prime Material Planes. Force effects (like force fields) can hedge them out or otherwise affect them, but they can phase inside normal environmental suits.That actually sounds like an example of exactly what the original post was trying to avoid, to me.
Well, yes.
There's a couple of "it's magic it just goes through environmental protection" gas traps out there that are basically just lazy writing. You needed a trap, you thought gas trap, and then got reminded that it doesn't work that way. But you insist it does.
It's at its dumbest when Life Bubble just works fine, but armor, regardless of whether it's level 1 or 20, doesn't.
I'd be much more tolerant of armor-piercing gases if the level of the armor played a role; a more advanced armor with better environmental protections should be able to resist these things better. Kind of like how they did radiation resistance.
A cleaner design could have been to divide gases into grades just like radiation, and say that for example level 1-6 armor will protect you from hard vacuum and simple gases, but not military gases designed to breach basic protections; against those they only give a bonus. And then level 7-12 armor keeps out military gases but not extreme stuff.
But yeah, I think overall we just need a bigger playbook of environmental hazards that don't rely on frustrated authors coming up with more or less contrived reasons to bypass environmental protections.
Because some of the reasons have been good: the acid shower was a cute idea for example and made sense in the spot where it was encountered. But after you've had a lot of poorly done traps your enjoyment of a well-done trap that works in the same way, is rather diminished.
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I myself hate the "magical gas is magical" routine that I have witnessed several times before. It even caused my characters to start carrying around Life Bubble Spellgems just in case it is used again (Spellthrower Fusions do the trick for those). I have witnessed the acid spray to disable the protection, which was nifty, but less appreciated by me after so many magical gasses ruined it already.
Nevertheless, some amazing other hazards have popped up here and there in other adventures. I really liked the industrial magnet hazard (I was stuck to that thing for almost the entire combat, but I didn't mind). Conveyor belts have also been spotted, which were nice additions (even though one was trapped). Laser grits, fog, water, unstable buildings, etc. So not all is bad. But when it comes to poisonous gas, it just isn't as viable in starfinder as in pathfinder. And I assume that people in the space-companies that try to protect their wares know this (and therefor should not have it as part of their security measures, because it is meaningless).
Poison gas does become more interesting when it isn't meant to threaten the PC's. Hostages / trapped people can up the ante of poisonous gas, where the PC's need to do something about it even though it doesn't affect them personally.
As for ideas regarding the brainstorming session:
- Magnetic / Gravity fields that pull creatures in a certain direction every round.
- Resin defense: sprinklers that shower the area with a liquid that slowly hardens. first two rounds are fine, but after that you become entangled, and later even unable to move.
- Some sort of turret defense that can be accessed from multiple places on the map. Have people fight each other while 2 opposing hackers are frantically trying to control the turret-grit in their party's favor.