|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Just a thought that popped into my head, and realized there are probably more things like this.
So, say you're an Air Kineticist in a space suit, in space. Given you can use basic kinesis to summon air, If you cup one hand into a cylinder, and put the other flat against the back and summon air into it, can you propel yourself with this?
Add in any other weird physics or scifi interactions you can think of.
Also, feel free to answer the questions, but this is mostly in good humor
Just a thought that popped into my head, and realized there are probably more things like this.
So, say you're an Air Kineticist in a space suit, in space. Given you can use basic kinesis to summon air, If you cup one hand into a cylinder, and put the other flat against the back and summon air into it, can you propel yourself with this?
Add in any other weird physics or scifi interactions you can think of.
Also, feel free to answer the questions, but this is mostly in good humor
If Starfinder has rules for moving around in zero-G in a vacuum by throwing stuff, then being a kineticist is an easy way to get stuff to throw in a variety of forms. If it doesn't, then this isn't the fault of the kineticist.
Kineticists are actually super-useful for survival in a spaceship or station in general. Being able to effectively create matter form nothing makes a lot of the problems of hard sci-fi suddenly way less problematic.
At the same time, Starfinder isn't exactly hard sci-fi.
|
Starfinder has rules for moving in zero-g as well as a condition (Off-Kilter) for being disoriented in zero-g
"Off-Kilter You are disoriented and floating in zero gravity. You can’t take move actions to move your speed, crawl, or take a guarded step. You are flat-footed and take a –2 penalty to attack rolls.
You must use a method of propulsion to right yourself or grab a stabilizing object such as a wall or ladder (usually as a move action) in order to end this condition. See Zero Gravity on page 402 for more information."
So the kineticist idea should work. The big question would be at what speed would releasing air from the cylinder be at, because you are going to keep moving in that direction until you hit something, take another action to change your direction. I think it would depend on how much air pressure a kineticist can put into the cylinder. My guess is low pressure would be 5' per round, normal pressure 30' per pound, and high pressure 60' per round to keep in the in-game balance range. theoretically, if the air pressure was high enough it could be MUCH
faster.
Starfinder isn't exactly hard sci-fi but it does acknowledge a self-awareness of science in the setting, it just doesn't need to be 100% accurate, and bending, breaking, or outright throwing out the laws of physics is fine in places, at least that's my view on how science fits in Starfinder.
The easiest option is to use Base Kinesis to move your created element to push you. If I were the GM, I might want at least level 5 to make enough to move yourself, or more likely, make using a light bulk much slower.
Otherwise, I'd take the ratio of bulk, use twenty feet per action as the speed the acceleration achieved, and multiply them. Six bulk for a medium creature, so with one bulk (level 5 kinesis) I'd have them moving ten feet a round.
Yes, Base Kinesis is probably reactionless magic, but it's really handy for giving us a number to work with.
For a game with all the players being people with a college degree in physics, sure. Houserule real-world physics into the game mechanics.
But for general population, most of us don't feel like taking the time to do that much math during a gaming session.
Also, and probably more importantly, having a better knowledge of real-world physics shouldn't give your character an edge in-game above other players at the table who don't have that level of knowledge in that particular field of science.
|
|
Four NASA astronauts playing a zero-g encounter in Starfinder will likely play it very differently from a group that has never been in zero-g before. Not because the astronauts will take time to do the math right but because they know what living and moving in zero-g is really like, so will think of solutions the rest of us wouldn't
I couldn't tell you the math behind it but I know from experience that putting the right mix of vinegar and baking soda in a 2 letter bottle will land it in my neighbor's backyard two houses over. If I can find a creative way to use that knowledge to overcome a challenge in the game I will. How I role-play a Contemplative using that knowledge will look very different than playing a Space Goblin using it.
|
|
Saw this great quote in the comment section of this Youtube video
"That's great in practice, but how does it work in theory?"
Risking My Life To Settle A Physics Debate .
Playing the game is the practice, and the theory is something optional usually best done before or after the game.
|
|
That point about the Kineticist being able to generate matter from the Elemental planes on a space station is kind of interesting. Could a kineticist make a living doing this? or which ones could make the best living?
Also, if we keep this stuff up, someone may want to submit a scenario to Randall Munroe.
That point about the Kineticist being able to generate matter from the Elemental planes on a space station is kind of interesting. Could a kineticist make a living doing this? or which ones could make the best living?
Also, if we keep this stuff up, someone may want to submit a scenario to Randall Munroe.
No*. There's a sidebar saying what you produce isn't valuable.
In practical terms, it's hard for the ability to produce plants, water, or air to be worth nothing at all in all circumstances- at least once a full bulk can be produced at once.
As a GM, it's probably easiest to allow earning income with class modifier (class DC - 10).
In one episode of Avatar: Legend of Korra the firebender Mako got a job at the Republic City power plant. A team of lightningbenders, which is an advanced form of firebending, provided the electrical power for the city.
In a primitive rocket ship, a kineticist would be especially valuable. The rocket needs reaction mass to push against. Instead of bringing multi-ton tanks of fuel, the rocket could be built around a hydrokineticist who fills a small water tank. A fusion reactor could heat the water into steam for propulsion. I suspect that the hineticists of other elements could find a way to provide reaction mass, too, such as a metal kineticist conjuring iron to be accelerated magnetically.
The Starfinder starships don't have gigantic fuel tanks, so they must have another kind of propulsion than rockets. Unless they learned how to technologically duplicate the kineticist gates and pull their fuel from another dimension.
|
|
Now the interesting idea would be in a Space stations/ship/colony setting.
Air, breathable air, would be valuable all on it's own. or usable soil, or plant matter (even deadd as it can become soil) Water, metals for repairing. The only ones who can't is a fire kineticist.
Season 1 of The 100 that's not a space station you want to be living on.
Disclaimer: I am looking up exactly nothing for this post; I'm not even scrolling upthread to confirm exactly what people wrote.
For the "you don't produce anything valuable", there's a couple of ways to look at it. The intended purpose behind that line, I believe, is so that characters can't sell things they get "for free" from their class choices; or, if they want to exchange "things from class choices" for currency, they have to engage with a part of the rules other than "buying and selling goods" (like, Earn Income using skills, taking adventuring contracts, negotiating with a specific NPC to convince them that it's worth something, etc). It's not like there's a rule of the universe (or the planes, or magic) that it's "worth nothing", it's specifically about desired gameplay and balance.
The thing is, ANYTHING can be worth SOMETHING to SOMEONE. There can be an NPC who's willing to pay for autographs of the PCs; I'm positive there have been multiple games where the players have run cons CONVINCING an NPC that their autographs are worth something. But "a piece of paper upon which you've written your signature" doesn't have an inherent rulebook monetary value, which is as it should be. Look at real life. *I* wouldn't pay for David Tennant's signature, because I don't collect that kind of thing, and the amount of time and effort it would take for me to sell it to somebody who DOES value it, is more than I'd be willing to do. Other people would ABSOLUTELY pay for David Tennant's signature, because they want it, or they can sell it (for a higher price) to someone else who'd want it. Conversely, I'm willing to pay for a chocolate bar; and judging by what gets sold in stores, a LOT of people are willing to pay for chocolate bars, enough that it isn't some "only if [you think] you can find a buyer" product.
So. In the right circumstances, it would ABSOLUTELY make sense for a kineticist to be able to "sell" the stuff they can produce; but FINDING those "right circumstances" would have to be a thing of its own. So it's not "you can get money for existing while a member of this character class", but rather "if you put the time and dice rolls into finding something, THEN you can get paid for standing around, just like you could if you put the time and dice rolls into finding someone who was looking for a life model of your particular build for a painting they're working on".
(Side note, but "being a life model", while TECHNICALLY "standing around doing nothing", isn't a super-easy job; the human body isn't meant to be THAT still for any length of time, so it can become actively painful to maintain even a relaxed pose where you don't need to support your own weight. And even if you're allowed to stretch, it still hurts once you go back to the same pose you'd been in for half an hour.)
There's also the option that whatever kineticist PRODUCES air, also CONSUMES air; the same principle behind the logistics of baggage trains that weren't on water, before the combustion engine. Under that model, sure you can create breathable air; but YOU breathe it in, and thus it's not available for further use. And I believe there's a kineticist feat at higher levels which means you don't need to breathe any more, but at THAT level, you're essentially losing money (via opportunity cost) whenever you take on a job that could be done by a first-level character.
For my personal perspective, I think that if you're in a situation in a game where you're seriously looking into how character-class abilities can do mundane jobs, then you shouldn't be using the rules for this system. Like, if you're having fun thinking and talking about how it could work, then go ahead with that, and put the dice and rulebooks down; same way you'd go with a mostly roleplaying session. If you WANT dice and rules to be involved with it, then you should look into a different system, one that was built for such things, as like a minigame for that particular aspect. And if neither of those applies, but your character desperately needs money and this is the only way you can think of to get it... something has gone horribly wrong in the adventure structure.
So... a water/plant kineticist can pretty trivially provide the water and food resources for a significant number of people by just summoning it out of nothing... and can plant medium-sized trees at a shocking rate alongside, without even needing to start with the trees they want to plant. This issue is a core kineticist issue. you don't need to actually have a spaceship in the picture at all. They can't make it especially valuable metals or something, though, and it's not something that they can really store up in large quantity and then sell in bulk... so it's effectively something they could be hired to do, but not something that they could efficiently sell by the each.