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One of the things that was an incredible draw (for me, at least) to Starfinder was the diversity and variety of different species that one would encounter.
In fact, at one point it was referred to as 'that Cantina feel'.
With the launch of a new edition, are we going to see the nearly two hundred species introduced in PF1 once again 'gated' behind new content releases, or is there going to be an omnibus with shorthand indicating how all the species now interact in the new edition?
We've already seen that pahtra are going to be one of the iconic species -- are we going to see other changes to that lineup?
Starfinder has incredible breadth of lore and history for characters right now in the current edition, it would be painful to say the least if this was erased.
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When I went to give pf2 another look, I saw ratfolk having the cheekpouches available to level 1 ysoki taking FOUR feets, and not available till level 9 ish. And still not being anywhere near the number of abilities you get as a ysoki.
It was definitely a huge turn off. 6 more months of PF1/starfinder from that.
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When I went to give pf2 another look, I saw ratfolk having the cheekpouches available to level 1 ysoki taking FOUR feets, and not available till level 9 ish. And still not being anywhere near the number of abilities you get as a ysoki.
It was definitely a huge turn off. 6 more months of PF1/starfinder from that.
And this is the *other* concern, beyond the cantina being closed and I had completely forgotten about thanks for mentioning it.
Are we going to see abilities (We've already been told that species that have flight at L1 get to keep it) that are going to require 'leveling' up to use effectively and are pretty worthless at L1?
And worse, are they going to require a bunch of Feat expenditure just to get to 'suboptimal' performance levels compared to SF1?
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Maybe Racial classes/archetypes could be a thing, and the sunk costs could be delimited with Free Archetypes? Personally the “not a proper [insert ancestry] until level [insert high number] “ has irritated me about PF2 from the start. I want to have at the very least, all of my biological if not cultural abilities from the get go. If I were to ever play a dwarf, I want to be a dwarfy dwarf at 1st level, not a proto-growing dwarf.
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It will certainly be harder for scenario writers to just drop a random new playable species in a starfinder society scenario but I do think this is a potential benefit to the game being 100% cross compatible.
We already have mechanics for a lot of species so they will be able to focus on just the most alien ones. I imagine there will be full mechanics for all the common pact world and scoured star species from early on. Especially since Ysoki, Android, and Human plus all the "legacy" species already have mechanics.
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Maybe Racial classes/archetypes could be a thing, and the sunk costs could be delimited with Free Archetypes? Personally the “not a proper [insert ancestry] until level [insert high number] “ has irritated me about PF2 from the start. I want to have at the very least, all of my biological if not cultural abilities from the get go. If I were to ever play a dwarf, I want to be a dwarfy dwarf at 1st level, not a proto-growing dwarf.
Ancestry Paragon is a variant rule that's functionally Free Archetype for your Ancestry Feats :)
They wont be able to have a species statblock fit into 1 quarter of a single page in a two page alien-archives spread anymore, I cannot imagine they'd be able to get to a reasonable number of playable species in SF2e without either having a dedicated book early on that is basically just new species (which I can't imagine they'll do), or they make a collection of ancestry feats that are broad and themed like "Desert Planet Ancestry feats" available to all ancestries from desert planets, so that new ancestries only need a handful of heritages & feats rather than a whole tree.
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When I went to give pf2 another look, I saw ratfolk having the cheekpouches available to level 1 ysoki taking FOUR feets, and not available till level 9 ish. And still not being anywhere near the number of abilities you get as a ysoki.
It was definitely a huge turn off. 6 more months of PF1/starfinder from that.
As a ysoki I'm fine with that as long as humans have to take 4 feats to be able to use all 4 limbs.
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Maybe Racial classes/archetypes could be a thing, and the sunk costs could be delimited with Free Archetypes? Personally the “not a proper [insert ancestry] until level [insert high number] “ has irritated me about PF2 from the start. I want to have at the very least, all of my biological if not cultural abilities from the get go. If I were to ever play a dwarf, I want to be a dwarfy dwarf at 1st level, not a proto-growing dwarf.Ancestry Paragon is a variant rule that's functionally Free Archetype for your Ancestry Feats :)
So, this:
When creating an ancestry paragon character, instead of starting with one ancestry feat and gaining another at 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th levels, the character starts with two ancestry feats and gains another at every odd level thereafter (3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, and so on) for a total of 11 ancestry feats.
I guess two at first level goes a long way to making my dwarf…dwarfy. At 3rd level I’m mostly a dwarf and by mide-high levels I might be two or three whole dwarves. Ok, sounds good/better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick and I was close with the FA concept. Thanks keftiu…
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Hopefully, the cantina is covered by the Starfinder meta Paizo said they would leave in place, I know they said flying at first level will still be a thing. I don't mind ancestry feats, but not if there spread out over several levels what we're used to in Starfinder . I don't mind the more cultural feats as you level up, but physical feats like cheek pouches need to be there at first level. Starfinder species aren't just a bunch of humanoid bipeds with minor variations.
I'm generally overly optimistic about Starfinder. the cantina feel of it's one of the things I love most about Starfinder. Lose the cantina and you might as well call Starfinder it Pathfinder in space. If that happens I'll start making skittermander characters so I can wave 6 protest signs at one time.
If we need 4 books similar to Interstellar species I'm fine with that. As much as I love the cantina feel of Starfinder I'm not expecting the cantina to fill up overnight in Starfinder 2e, but I do hope the design space per species is not compromised in Starfinder2e.
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If that happens I'll start making skittermander characters so I can wave 6 protest signs at one time.
I think with the new limb rules you would only be able to swing two at a time.
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If that happens I'll start making skittermander characters so I can wave 6 protest signs at one time.
By the current raw you'll draw 3 AOO's for switching your limbs as an interact action so.. don't protest in front of the fighter. :)
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If that happens I'll start making skittermander characters so I can wave 6 protest signs at one time.I think with the new limb rules you would only be able to swing two at a time.
If I understand the rule right, with a 3-action economy, and the switching active limbs rule I could still wave all 3 signs 2 times every 3 rounds. Protesting while still following the core rules, that's what I call disruptive compliance...
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Back to the cantina issue. It was announced Paizo is looking into updating the forums (no date set yet.) Starfinder with its over 124 playable species is sorely lacking forum avatar pictures.
If it becomes necessary to protest the cantina closing we will be needing those images for our mug shots when arrested. (hoping it doesn't come to that.)
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Back to the cantina issue. It was announced Paizo is looking into updating the forums (no date set yet.) Starfinder with its over 124 playable species is sorely lacking forum avatar pictures.
If it becomes necessary to protest the cantina closing we will be needing those images for our mug shots when arrested. (hoping it doesn't come to that.)
"It's not a real protest unless you get arrested for at least 3 alcohol related crimes."
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"It's not a real protest unless you get arrested for at least 3 alcohol related crimes."Back to the cantina issue. It was announced Paizo is looking into updating the forums (no date set yet.) Starfinder with its over 124 playable species is sorely lacking forum avatar pictures.
If it becomes necessary to protest the cantina closing we will be needing those images for our mug shots when arrested. (hoping it doesn't come to that.)
Since we're protesting outsides the cantina that won't be a problem.
"Bartender I'll take another double shot."| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The SF1 "cantina" is massively overblown. Most of the ancestries are shallow and mostly untouched, and the vaunted level 1 unique abilities people talk about are almost all immediately overwritten by technology.
I much, much, much prefer the PF2 system, where you can get really cool stuff throughout your career, not just intro stuff that doesn't matter two levels in.
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Its true having 6 arms, an extra move action 1/encounter, and a conpletely untyped grapple bonus is just SO irrelevent on my level 3 skittermander vanguard lol.
It's once per day..wait. You're not feeding your skittermander CHOCHOLATE are you?
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The SF1 "cantina" is massively overblown. Most of the ancestries are shallow and mostly untouched, and the vaunted level 1 unique abilities people talk about are almost all immediately overwritten by technology.
I much, much, much prefer the PF2 system, where you can get really cool stuff throughout your career, not just intro stuff that doesn't matter two levels in.
I think the cantina feel of Starfinder is less about the number of playable species but more about the depth of diversity in them. You could reduce the number of different species to only those that got a deeper writeup and still have the cantina feel if those species are diverse enough. The problem is many of the Starfindr species need all their special abilities up from to even function. A Stellifera without their special abilities is literally a (cuttle)fish out of the water without limbs to even hold any type of object let alone a weapon. It's hard to use technology if you can't hold or touch it.
Another side to the cantina feel is not all of the species are simple variations of bipedal humanoids. The cantina feel benefits from having more design space for ability modifiers. The Stellifera is also the poster child for diverse Ability Modifiers +2 Wis, +2 Cha, -2 Con, -4 Str
How the Stellifera deal with having -2 Con, -4 is what makes the Stellifera such an interesting species to play.
I'm fine with Starfinder 2e species getting ancestry feats as they level up, but they have to have enough to function as intended at first level, that may require more special abilities than Pathfinder would normally give out at first level.
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Sigh.
The cantina is not closing. The sky is not falling.
I didn't think so. I have a suspicion that the cantina is going to get a lot more crowded. Is that a group of demon-hunting orcs whose ancestors were doing the same in the Mwangi expanse? Is that the famed iruxi scientist from one of their worlds? How will the changeling bartender, the kitsune cook, and the staff of anadi, nagaji, shoonies and others keep up?
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Sigh.
The cantina is not closing. The sky is not falling.
How many grub grub grub brand rice cakes would it take to get some hints on how to reconcile pf2s base design of growing into your species with starfinders "woot level 1 i'm an alien check out what I can do" ?
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Not even for holidays? It might be time to start a bartenders union. "Skittermander time to change your protest signs."Sigh.
The cantina is not closing. The sky is not falling.
My hope is that we will see more species/ancestries. Fortunately, there is time for a lot of work on this.
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My hope is that we will see more species/ancestries. Fortunately, there is time for a lot of work on this.Not even for holidays? It might be time to start a bartenders union. "Skittermander time to change your protest signs."Sigh.
The cantina is not closing. The sky is not falling.
As of Interstellar Species, we had 124 playable species. To get there took 16 books and 11 APs, it will take many years to get to that point again. I don't expect to see much more than the core species for the playtest. What will be interesting to see once Starfinder 2e is out is what the mix between old and completely new species is.
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I would not complain about an early 2E Starfinder book, literally titled Starfinder Alien Cantina, that was packed full of updated ancestries.
I didn't think so. I have a suspicion that the cantina is going to get a lot more crowded. Is that a group of demon-hunting orcs whose ancestors were doing the same in the Mwangi expanse? Is that the famed iruxi scientist from one of their worlds? How will the changeling bartender, the kitsune cook, and the staff of anadi, nagaji, shoonies and others keep up?Sigh.
The cantina is not closing. The sky is not falling.
Hmm, just how many playable ancestries are there in PF2 right now? It’s not 124 or near that though, right? But not a tiny number either…So even though they might not have the same wow factor of SF ancestries, they can go a way toward bridging the gap between SF2’s starting number and subsequent releases. Also, conrasu say hi.
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Hmm, just how many playable ancestries are there in PF2 right now? It’s not 124 or near that though, right? But not a tiny number either…So even though they might not have the same wow factor of SF ancestries, they can go a way toward bridging the gap between SF2’s starting number and subsequent releases. Also, conrasu say hi.I didn't think so. I have a suspicion that the cantina is going to get a lot more crowded. Is that a group of demon-hunting orcs whose ancestors were doing the same in the Mwangi expanse? Is that the famed iruxi scientist from one of their worlds? How will the changeling bartender, the kitsune cook, and the staff of anadi, nagaji, shoonies and others keep up?Sigh.
The cantina is not closing. The sky is not falling.
By my count, PF2 has 35 Ancestries, with 12 confirmed to be coming along in the next year or so between Howl of the Wild and the Tian Xia books. That number is also multiplied by stuff like Versatile Heritages (planetouched, dhampirs, etc) on top of it all!
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Hmm, just how many playable ancestries are there in PF2 right now? It’s not 124 or near that though, right? But not a tiny number either…So even though they might not have the same wow factor of SF ancestries, they can go a way toward bridging the gap between SF2’s starting number and subsequent releases. Also, conrasu say hi.I didn't think so. I have a suspicion that the cantina is going to get a lot more crowded. Is that a group of demon-hunting orcs whose ancestors were doing the same in the Mwangi expanse? Is that the famed iruxi scientist from one of their worlds? How will the changeling bartender, the kitsune cook, and the staff of anadi, nagaji, shoonies and others keep up?Sigh.
The cantina is not closing. The sky is not falling.
Assuming that it is the same game engine, which everyone has indicated, then it can be assumed that some of the ancestries/species made if off Golarion before the Gap. Perhaps it might be relatively easy to import them over.
Perhaps there can even be a conversion guide for Starfinder Second Edition to suggest how to convert ancestries. That may be good enough for a while. Also, a Starfinder Alien Cantina book (maybe with another name) is something that I would love to see.
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I would not complain about an early 2E Starfinder book, literally titled Starfinder Alien Cantina, that was packed full of updated ancestries.
This would be an instabuy For me, it’s always been my favourite part of Starfinder, the various species and the Alien Archives. So. Big book of species also going over their cultures and stuff would be an absolute treat.
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By my count, PF2 has 35 Ancestries, with 12 confirmed to be coming along in the next year or so between Howl of the Wild and the Tian Xia books. That number is also multiplied by stuff like Versatile Heritages (planetouched, dhampirs, etc) on top of it all!Hmm, just how many playable ancestries are there in PF2 right now? It’s not 124 or near that though, right? But not a tiny number either…So even though they might not have the same wow factor of SF ancestries, they can go a way toward bridging the gap between SF2’s starting number and subsequent releases. Also, conrasu say hi.I didn't think so. I have a suspicion that the cantina is going to get a lot more crowded. Is that a group of demon-hunting orcs whose ancestors were doing the same in the Mwangi expanse? Is that the famed iruxi scientist from one of their worlds? How will the changeling bartender, the kitsune cook, and the staff of anadi, nagaji, shoonies and others keep up?Sigh.
The cantina is not closing. The sky is not falling.
Yeah the introduction of Versatile Heritages alone would chop down that 124 significantly, you have the 8 or so Planar/Elemental Scions, that one species that is a fungus that mutates the host, etc
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Hmm, just how many playable ancestries are there in PF2 right now? It’s not 124 or near that though, right? But not a tiny number either…So even though they might not have the same wow factor of SF ancestries, they can go a way toward bridging the gap between SF2’s starting number and subsequent releases. Also, conrasu say hi.I didn't think so. I have a suspicion that the cantina is going to get a lot more crowded. Is that a group of demon-hunting orcs whose ancestors were doing the same in the Mwangi expanse? Is that the famed iruxi scientist from one of their worlds? How will the changeling bartender, the kitsune cook, and the staff of anadi, nagaji, shoonies and others keep up?Sigh.
The cantina is not closing. The sky is not falling.
Its true that theres a lot of ancestries but they are largely fantasy-coded not sci-fi coded and that is an important distinction.
But like...we will get there somehow and hell we will probably get there faster not having to waste bookspace on space elves or space dwarves
If having versatile heritages counted then just having Borais in starfinder, planar scions, or those animal symbiotes would already multiply the starfinder count of species. The straight number given from versatile doesn't really address anything IMO. That I can decide for my elf to have vampiric or demonic vibes is neat, but doesn't do anything for making more species options themselves. Being able to say my shirren is a dhampir doesn't let me play a spathinae or SRO, so I imagine wont be enough for many.
The bigger benefit by far is that many legacy species will be able to be easily taken over. Kobold's feat options don't really mesh with starfinder, but it is great that most legacy species should come over fine.
… that one species that is a fungus that mutates the host, etc
Wert? Is that a PF2 player option? I need to see this…
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… that one species that is a fungus that mutates the host, etcWert? Is that a PF2 player option? I need to see this…
It's starfinder character option. Entu Symbiotes.
They wouldn't work as versatile heritages though, because they bond to animals and uplift them, not already sapient species.
… that one species that is a fungus that mutates the host, etcWert? Is that a PF2 player option? I need to see this…It's starfinder character option. Entu Symbiotes.
They wouldn't work as versatile heritages though, because they bond to animals and uplift them, not already sapient species.
Ahhh gotcha… though we are getting uplifted Animals in P2 in that Howl of the Wild book…
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When I reach level 5, I proceed with the following process.
- "Oh! I need a new 1-4 character so I can continue with Society Play!"
- "What's the craziest/coolest/silliest/most fun species I can find for this one? I want to be something awesome. I love how alien this game is, and how every character seems to really feel unique because of all of these options. I pick... this one."
- "Alright. Now what's my -2 in? I'm bad at this ability? Great. I'm going to pick a class that really needs that ability score, and build something that is whacky and unconventional, even for a rare alien type."
- "This is great. I've got another really cool, really different, incredibly alien character. This game is so awesome. I really love it."
In PF2, the character creation approach is:
- "Meh. Pick a species, and they mostly just feel like a mildly reskinned version of human.."
I shall be sorely disappointed is that is the direction Starfinder is taking. I don't want "Pathfinder in Space". I love that cantina feel of thousands of alien species. A big part of what drives me to play every new scenario and Adventure Path is unlocking rare species. Those are the grand prize chronicles.
With that logic, I can only assume you have never really played PF2 then. PF2 is a little more conservative than SF, yes, but that is because of the assumptions the PF2 meta makes, not because the system cannot handle anything else.
With the immediate doomsaying, all you are really doing is insulting the devs based almost purely on guesswork. Give them a little credit and time, would you?
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A little green guy walks into the room and, with a sad face, says.
"Begun, the edition wars have."
Meanwhile, a group of skittermanders that were recently protesting to keep the cantina open celebrate the announcement the cantina is not closing.
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A little green guy walks into the room and, with a sad face, says.
"Begun, the edition wars have."Meanwhile, a group of skittermanders that were recently protesting to keep the cantina open celebrate the announcement the cantina is not closing.
Watches them tack up a sign *you must be this level to have six functioning arms* and eye the light saber.
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The primary cost of "replicating Starfinder's incredible diversity of aliens in the PF2 rules is "the page count a PF2 ancestry requires." A Starfinder species takes about 4 pages, a PF2 ancestry takes about 7 pages.
A thing they should have done for Pathfinder 2e that they didn't is "create a set of universal ancestry feats." Basically every ancestry in Pathfinder 2e has a "[ancestry] lore" feat and a three feat "[ancestry] weapon familiarity" chain- they have printed these four feats over and over and over again. A better way to do this sort of thing would be to identify "every species has something like this" and make universal ancestry feats for "every species has something like this" that refer to like a one line list in the block for the ancestry.
The other thing is that since the rulesets are compatible, it's less necessary to give the full treatment to things like Kobolds and G̶n̶o̶l̶l̶s̶ Kholo. Since the baseline assumptions of Starfinder are "ranged combat" and the baseline assumption of Pathfinder 2e is "melee combat" then you probably won't need to give up on the diversity of body types either. Like we have rules in the playtest for having >2 arms, so that's not something we're giving up.
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I'm confused of notion that starfinder species aren't just variety of cool bonuses and that the species trait somehow lead well to character feeling alien, and I'm saying that as someone who agrees its bit lame when it takes long time for you to reach your species unique abilities that feel like they should be available since level 1
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Watches them tack up a sign *you must be this level to have six functioning arms* and eye the light saber.A little green guy walks into the room and, with a sad face, says.
"Begun, the edition wars have."Meanwhile, a group of skittermanders that were recently protesting to keep the cantina open celebrate the announcement the cantina is not closing.
That's when I make a three-headed Skittermander to get around the rule.
Shortly followed by a new errata stating having to pick an active head.I'd love to have a 4 armed SRO Solarian that can split their mote into 4 swords-like solar weapons. Maybe I could make 3 of the arms as separate characters? To make that legal for organized each arm would have to be played by a different player.
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Even better, this will take 5 players, all Solarians SROs. One player playing the head, body, and legs, using Solar Armor. Then 4 more players, each playing one arm and using solar weapons. With a 3-action economy, that's 3 move actions and 12 attacks. Now that feels like General Grievous!
Maybe the first player should be a mechanic so they can control drones.
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Sigh.
The cantina is not closing. The sky is not falling.
I will say, I find this response quite dismissive and upsetting. It's a legitimate concern that with the change to PF2 style ancestries, there will by neccessity be a lot less ancestries to play with in SF2 compared to SF1, especially given Starfinder's much slower release schedule. Seeing that very reasonable concern responded to with "The sky is not falling" doesn't actually fill me with confidence
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I will say, I find this response quite dismissive and upsetting. It's a legitimate concern that with the change to PF2 style ancestries, there will by neccessity be a lot less ancestries to play with in SF2 compared to SF1, especially given Starfinder's much slower release schedule. Seeing that very reasonable concern responded to with "The sky is not falling" doesn't actually fill me with confidenceSigh.
The cantina is not closing. The sky is not falling.
I can totally understand the reaction, given how more than a few people have chosen to voice their feedback. If you decided to make a project like this and for the next few days people were already burning it at the stake based on essentially nothing, I don't imagine you'd feel great either. Especially when you have already tried to assure them multiple times and they don't even acknowledge that.
Sure, it could have been phrased a bit better, but give the man a break.
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A group of professionally trained Skittermader crisis actors reappears outside the cantina waving United Paizo Workers Union signs and chanting demands for more break time for the Star Chamber. You notice A few of the signs are also demanded paid time off for Veskmass.