| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This is the single most exciting book of 2e so far for me - I can’t wait! Hoping that gazetteer is substantive and has info on Akiton’s humans.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
The Magic School Gang does John Carter of Mars. It's gonna be great!
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Just got my PDF today and did a full readthrough rather than just my usual initial skim, and HOLY CRAP this Book may be my favorite one yet. This thing's got all sorts of awesome stuff the party can get up to on Akiton, and has just enough of that Magitek mix that I can't wait to eventually get to in my own game of this.
One thing I really enjoyed was the "One Last Semester" at the beginning where the party can get in one last hoorah of Academic Life before setting of for the Doorway. Between some fine interactions with several of your fellow teachers that you got to know more in Book 4, to some of the subtle ways it prepares the PCs for situations they'll encounter once they actually get to Akiton, and of course I have to love the lovely little cameo from everyone's favorite former Runelord.
It's all just the right mix of fun social stuff I've loved from the AP so far, and then goes into the Crazy Awesomeness that I really haven't felt from a Book 5 since Rasputin Must Die!
(Also, I LIVE for every time there's been a Title Drop in the AP, and good ol' King Bitey-Bois' one was a Treat)
Is the volley range for the shobhad longrifle specified anywhere?
This adventure seems like a pretty great time, very interesting environments and cinematic scenarios should make for some excellent combats and fun exploration.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This adventure is really fun! I got to skim a subscriber friend's copy and liked what I saw. Everything to do with Seldo and the chase jumps off the page. The backmatter is what I'd most been clamoring for, and I'm pleased to report that it lived up to my hype!
I'm really, really enjoying the changes to the Ikeshti; it's nice to see them be more than aliens whose entire writeup is about violence and reproduction. The section on their place in Seldo is a lovely bit of nuance. I'm as impressed as I was when I saw how Starfinder tackle Lashunta biology/gender stuff - well done.
It's also interesting to see Shobhad have their appearance changed - they used to have pretty human-like faces, but now are noseless, tusked creatures. I wonder what prompted the shift?
Bummed to not see the local Humans written up at all.
I'm going to be a parody of myself here and say: I hope we get everyone written up here as Ancestries someday! I have friends who would definitely enjoy getting to play as a Formian, Ikeshti, or Shobhad. My hope for an Ancestry Guide 2 grows by the day!
…I thought this was the product page. My bad!
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The Ikeshti were by far my least favorite thing in Starfinder. I was hoping to see something other than "Ikeshti who don't have sex are turned into animalistic rage-filled monsters that are a shame to their entire species and should be killed". And while the transformation into a rivener is no longer explicitly tied to mating in this book, I don't think it got any better. As I read it, the transformation is due to being outcast for resisting gender norms, which almost certainly include breeding given the way the norms are described. Essentially, Ikeshti that are uninterested in sex are still doomed to become riveners, and in this book, Chaotic Evil, except now its because of the society and "evolutionary adaptivity" instead of hormones. Though I can only speak for myself, I feel hurt by this as a man who isn't very traditionally masculine and especially as a person who's asexual, and probably other people who don't fit into traditional gender norms and/or are asexual feel hurt as well. Asexual people are already stereotyped as animalistic, emotionally stunted, monstrous, and sources of shame for family. I'm sure it wasn't the intent to play on these stereotypes, but I'm still disappointed that this wasn't changed from Starfinder, especially since Pathfinder has had so much amazing ace rep before. (Hell, Pathfinder is how I learned that being asexual and biromantic is a thing that I could be.)
Other than that though, I love everything in this adventure, and I can't wait to run it, just without the Ikeshti.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm curious about this as well. Been trying to find out, but Archives of Nethys doesnt seem to have the answer. Especially considering the Shobhad Sniper has the Longrifle listed as well without a Volley range, but a 3-action activity to grab>throw>shoot. Would kinda hurt that attack if the grab (which deals no damage but incurs MAP), means that the shot is already made at -3 (due to flat-footed from grab), or possibly -5 if it's also in Volley range.Is the volley range for the shobhad longrifle specified anywhere?
This adventure seems like a pretty great time, very interesting environments and cinematic scenarios should make for some excellent combats and fun exploration.
Developer said Volley 30ft on the product page, where I asked.
Also, what are Formians?
They don't seem to have any type traits aside from their own which is unique, but also kind of confusing.
They were monstrous humanoids in 1e, so one would assume humanoids here as well.
Creative Director
|
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Formians are a weird case. They're not humanoid, since they have too many legs and arms. They probably should have been tagged as Aberrations, I guess, but that sort of gives them the wrong implied flavor.
So instead we just tagged them as "formians" and that's that, since we don't have a "monstrous humanoid" category in 2nd edition. The "Formian Characteristics" sidebar on page 82 sums up what the formian trait includes. My original developed text titled this sidebar "Formian Trait" so it was more clear. Not sure why that got changed during edit/design review, but the information's the same.
If I had a time machine, I think I'd push for us to use a different word than "humanoid" for "creatures that have a society and aren't beasts or extraplanar things or weird outside of the natural order aberrations" so that we could include non-humanoid alien creatures like formians in that category, but my time machine still isn't working.
That all said, monsters in 2nd edition don't really HAVE to have a "basic creature trait" like animal or beast or humanoid.
|
Creative Director
|
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
So what skill would be used to identify them? Society seems like the neatest fit but if Formians aren't humanoids it seems a bit iffy to me.
Though occultism also feels off.
Society is the best bet. You'd use Society to identify things with societies, after all, and formians got that.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
If I had a time machine, I think I'd push for us to use a different word than "humanoid" for "creatures that have a society and aren't beasts or extraplanar things or weird outside of the natural order aberrations" so that we could include non-humanoid alien creatures like formians in that category, but my time machine still isn't working.That all said, monsters in 2nd edition don't really HAVE to have a "basic creature trait" like animal or beast or humanoid.
Mortals maybe?
Designer
|
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
Mortals maybe?
If I had a time machine, I think I'd push for us to use a different word than "humanoid" for "creatures that have a society and aren't beasts or extraplanar things or weird outside of the natural order aberrations" so that we could include non-humanoid alien creatures like formians in that category, but my time machine still isn't working.That all said, monsters in 2nd edition don't really HAVE to have a "basic creature trait" like animal or beast or humanoid.
I kinda dig that because then we could refer to the planar entities as "immortals". Losing "outsiders" as a category occasionally makes it hard to have a conversation when what I want to talk about is "the entire combined families of planar entities formerly known as outsiders." (There were excellent reasons for that change, but sometimes you still want to use one word to draw a very specific line.)
I kinda dig that because then we could refer to the planar entities as "immortals". Losing "outsiders" as a category occasionally makes it hard to have a conversation when what I want to talk about is "the entire combined families of planar entities formerly known as outsiders." (There were excellent reasons for that change, but sometimes you still want to use one word to draw a very specific line.)
Mortals maybe?
That's how lay people call undead, outsiders, feys and aberrations in my campaign (immortals), while humanoids, monstruos humanoids, giants and magical beasts are called mortals. Sages use the actual grace's name (demon, azata, human etc.)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I just ran my first fight against Formian Mageslayers, and Shred Spell is extremely brutal. Not only do spells already have a 20% chance of failing while you're in the aura, but each Mageslayer gets a reaction every round to counteract ANY spell in the aura. When you're fighting a group of them (which you always are in this book), that basically just lets them counteract every single spell. And with their Arcana check vs. my players' spell DCs, they only need to roll a 5 on the d20 to successfully counteract a spell of level 8 or higher, and they only need to roll a 2 to counteract any spell below level 8.
Strange question, the Crimson Acolytes's Thousand Ants Stance allows them to cause enemies they have successfully Tripped to become flat-footed until the start of their next turn. But prone already makes someone flat-footed. Is there an edge case that I'm missing here?
Might be a remnant of 1e lingering in the Devs memory. If memory serves correct, Prone in 1e =/= flatfoot.
|
Designer
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Strange question, the Crimson Acolytes's Thousand Ants Stance allows them to cause enemies they have successfully Tripped to become flat-footed until the start of their next turn. But prone already makes someone flat-footed. Is there an edge case that I'm missing here?
Not familiar with these ones since they were added in dev, but I'll ping Ron and see if there was something specific that was supposed to be happening here.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
is it DC 35 or 38 to know which stairs are safe for the flensing chute? the statblock says, "Perception DC 38 to note which stairs have slightly different wear patterns to know which ones are safe to step on" yet the text above it says, "when stepped on out of sequence. This order can be detected with a DC 35 Perception check"
is the order to step and which are safe different? how?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
a few niggles as usual - mistakes perhaps or things missing
looks like a map for event 2 is missing - for izem's big apartment
also super vague as to what you're supposed to do to convince the pixies! if any kinda skill is used, they'll likely crit, due to them being lvl 4!
the encounter with the spawn of toan in A4 appears to be mislabelled in difficulty - the PCs are lvl 15, the spawn are lvl 11, so are lvl-4, which is 10xp each, there's 8 of em, so total 80xp, which is moderate, not trivial!
Anyone know how tall the ceilings are in the Mandibles of Fate? The King has Prismatic Wall, but is he actually able to use it on the bridge?