Character thoughts for Starfinder

#51

585×942

Tai Ar’tari, who I’ve been working on today. Her custom NovaTech Cybernetics Engineering ® (a subsidiary company owned by her family) armour is in Iomadaean colours of red and white (though the white appears gray in this lighting.) You can barely make out the holy symbol of Iomedae on her breastplate. If you were to look at her right shoulderpad (her gun hand), you would find the symbol of the Starfinders.

Also pictured:

  • Husqvarna Military Industries PP-27 ™ plasma pistol
  • Abadarcorp Personal Jetpack
  • Abadarcorp Optical Targeting Reticle
#52

@Rando, I was just razzin’ya. I have no problem with an elf character with half-drow ancestry however it works in the game mechanics. But the real question is, does your character actually smoke or not?

And interesting to see that Husqvarna graduated from making lawnmowers, chainsaws and motorcycles to making weapons. Guess they stepped up in the universe over the centuries.

#53

Frantically searches for weapon entry “chain axe”.

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#54

What kind of debauchery is going on in here?

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#55

Well I most certainly have not been trying to get Rando to trade GM favors for when I start running Starfinder. I have tried bribing him with a laser sword and also tried threatening to name his part drow part elf flavor race thingee as the Drelf. But Rando is stubborn I’ll give him that, he ain’t goin’ for it.

#56

Oh Em Gee.

So many things I don’t know…

Are the pre-made maps going to be as claustrophobic as your typical Pathfinder maps?
What does that mean for long range weapons?
Will melee then shine?
But what if you bring a knife to a gun fight?
On the flip side, what if you bring a gun to a knife fight?
What if you bring a small arm to any fight?
What happens when you fight the level 3 Mandalorian boss who’s got a jetpack and no one in the party can reach them?
Spells don’t scale anymore and casters only have level 6 spell progression, do they suck?
Why bother casting explosive blast when we have grenades and heavy weapons available?
Now we’ve got two health pools to keep track of, how important is it to have dedicated healers?
Are medkits and the medicine skill enough?
NPCs supposedly have low AC and high attack, while PCs have the opposite, so does the math actually matter?
We’re going to hit each other anyway, right?
Is every plus sacred?
Does light armor suck?
Does heavy?
What about shields?
Where’s the beef?
Can characters afford to always have the best equipment available?
Skills are super important in both combat and non-combat situations, what happens if you pick a dork class with low skill points in non-com situations?
What happens if we don’t have Computers or Engineering?
What happens if we don’t have a party “face” character?
What happens if we don’t have Sciences, Culture, Mysticism?
What happens if we don’t have a pilot, gunner, or engineer in ship combat?
How important are science officer, magic officer, and captain in ship combat?

I’m so confused.

The drow wannabe character has been shelved. There’s an (interesting?) writers exercise where you have to describe a character in one sentence without mentioning their physical appearance. I tried that with this character and failed.

After watching the Dead Suns trailer again…

The PCs are joining the Starfinder Society. Does this happen in the story or are we assumed to be Starfinders at the beginning? The adventure starts on Absalom Station right? I assume we have to come up with a reason for being there if we’re not natives, correct? Castrovel, Eox, the Cult of the Devourer, and the undead Corpse Fleet are all mentioned by name; are ties to said planets or factions in character background things to be embraced or avoided?

I’m so confused.

#57

LEEROYYYY JENKINS!!!

EDIT:

Sorry, that was another one of my stupid jokes which probably didn’t make sense, but was intended to convey a certain sense of… I’m not sure what… despair? anguish? When confronted by the realization that even though I have set out to play a fun, laid back tabletop RPG and have instead found myself in raid land.

So I guess what I meant to say is perhaps we shouldn’t overthink this and just play what we enjoy playing :sweat_smile:.

#58

Ummm whatever happened to 20 questions? I don’t remember it being called 25 Questions or 20+ questions. Let’s see how well I can answer these many confused inquiries.

  1. Looking through the maps in the first two parts for Dead Suns, I would say it is mixed maps, there are some open maps like random traveling encounter maps, but they are specific areas and not random. There are some dungeon-esque maps that are tighter spaces.
  2. Long range weapons are gonan be viable, epsecially if you get off the first shot or stay in the back.
  3. Melee is still melee, if the bad guys/things get in melee range of you then hopefully you have a melee option or can get the hell away.
  4. You better hope you are really good with that knife.
  5. How about bring the knife and the gun? Combat options people, combat options.
    6.What, are you playing a Tyrannosaurus Rex? HA!
    Serious answer: Most classes are only trained in small arms (as opposed to long arms) so you are probably going to bring those small arms (let me hear your T-Rex roar)…unless you are trained in long arm, then maybe bring the small arm and the long arm
  6. Umm, wrong franchise. At any rate, if the jetpack dude is flying away then he has fled like coward and no need to try and shoot him, if he is jtepacking in combat range then you should have a ranged option. Ranged options for everybody!
  7. From what little I have read about spells and casters so far, it seems like most casting classes have ways to boost spells or augment them to achieve higher effects. More info to come as I read about it (if I feel like posting it that is, maybe I’ll just make you sweat with the unknowingness).
  8. If you’s a caster than you’s probably not gonna be trained in explosives or heavy weapons. So explosive blast (fireball) it is. And as far as grenades, explosives tend to have tiered variations from what I see and they don’t get good until you start getting the higher tiers which are expensive. Also, you still need to be able to hit with the explosive/heavy weapon vs usually an automatic hit with a spell that requires a save.
  9. One would figure that a second health bar would require a second dedicated healer. But not really in this case. You have Stamina Points and Health Points. Damage affects Stamina points first and then Health points once the Stamina points are gone. Stamina points typically can’t be healed by any means other than resting. You can spend 1 Resolve point and take 10 minutes or rest to regain Stamina points or they automatically refill after a long rest (without spending the Resolve point) So maybe just one dedicated healer for in-combat.
  10. Medkits and medicine might do it for out of combat, but a healer is still the best option for in-combat healing me thinks.
  11. Math?! Dice don’t need no stinkin’ math. The math doesn’t matter if the dice rolls decide they don’t matter.
  12. By each other", I hope you don’t mean other party members. Don’t make the GM break up an in-party fight or you’re ALL going to time out.
  13. This is the space version of Pathfinder, of course every plus is sacred!
  14. Light armor doesn’t suck, having no armor sucks. Well I suppose a heavy armor user wearing light armor would suck.
  15. Heavy armor sucks less than light armor, that is for sure. Unless you are only trained in light armor…or a Dex based character.
    17. Shouldn’t this be 16a? Physical shields for characters in terms of Pathfinder/5e/RPG shields aren’t much of a thing at all in Starfinder. There are only a couple/few shields listed in the equipment in the core book and they are specialized shields that have the Heavy and/or Powered traits, not many going to be using them. Now if you are talking about starships, that is an entirely different matter altogether; shields are an integral factor for game mechanics dealing with starships. But I’m going to assume you aren’t so confused as to realize this :smirk:
  16. Beef? What is this, the 20th century? Beef is now a synthetically generated protein substitute that tastes like cheef (because everything tastes like chicken when it is synthetically made…right?)
  17. I dunno, can you make enough profit and spend wisely enough to always have the best equipment available? I mean, the best equipment might not always be available to you depending on where you are. That backwater planet that has you delivering a herd of cows to a settlement probably ain’t gonna have laser swords and high quality ranged weapons available.
  18. I think this question answers itself, don’t make a dork character.
  19. You better hope someone else in the party is good at Computers and/or Engineering.
  20. I’ll get Dirk Benedict to join in on the game. Or I’ll get a Dirk Benedict-like NPC to join the group who does all the talking which will be like me talking to myself…which is too weird so somebody is gonna be “the face” Or the npc’s will decide who is “the face” they are talking to by a roll of the dice. You don’t want the dice deciding do you?
  21. Well you’re going to be sorely lacking in anything dealing with Sciences, Culture and/or Mysticism. I’m guessing you probably don’t not want any of that.
    24. What is with this numbering? You certainly are confused. How do you get to 24 without even getting 23 yet? What happens if you don’t have a pilot, gunner or engineer in ship combat? Hell how about just getting the ship going. I think you are going to suck at anything starship-wise without those skills, that’s what I think.
  22. Umm what kind of ship crew has no captain? Officers are negotiable, maybe the captain doesn’t care about titles/rank/what have you and just yells orders at “Hey you!”. Or maybe y’all do want titles/ranks/what have you. That will up to your crew. I have no idea how crucial Magic officer would be.

Re: The Starfinder Society and the beginning of the game. In the start your characters are joining the Starfinder Society and that is why they are going to Absalom Station. So the main character backstory element I’ll be looking for is why your character is looking to join the Starfinder Society.

I have not read about Castrovel or Eox yet, but the Cult of the Devourer and Corpse Fleet are things that you probably won’t have ties to. Maybe you have some kind of personal conflict with either of those factions, but that will have to be worked out with me. No player character will be associated or allied with either of those factions, I’m just gonna close the lid on that now.

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#59

Do you have a time selected already? You’re making me want to read up on SF, but I’ll refrain if I can’t make it anyway.

#60

@Cortillaen I don’t have a time set it’s gonna be a bit, I’m at least a month or two out before I start running Starfinder. I’m still educating myself on how to run Fantasy Grounds as a GM and I’m doing lots of reading up in Starfinder to be as familiar with it as I can be before stating it. Also, I need another couple months to get the resources I want like the rest of the Alien Archives and probably the Armory and Pact Worlds materials. This is not the time of year when I work extra and make phat extra money, this is the time of year when I scrape by check to check so luxury purchases like games and RPG materials have to be spaced out.

When I do finally get around to starting the game up, I will try and find the best time for everyone interested.

#61

All good; I’ll just keep an eye on things and focus more on Pf2e in the meantime.

Incidentally, I’ve been debating whether to continue running my Saturday game, put it on a temporary hiatus, kill it entirely, or maybe just start it fresh with a different crew. Just kinda feeling minimal involvement from most of the current players. =/

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#62

Best quote in this forum ever!!!

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#63

@Cortillaen If you start it over with different people I’m always down for a Saturday game. Or if you need an extra body for it currently.

#64

I’ll keep you in the loop if I decide to reboot it. Probably won’t be making any decisions for a couple weeks, though.

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#65

What kind of campaign are you running @Cortillaen? Do you have a high level description or introductory doc to give a sense of the theme of it?

#66

Let’s see, if I were to do a Paizo-style blurb for it, it would go something like this:

The world of Erinith has three constants: rulers scheme and fight, monsters and worse threaten the people, and adventurers put troubles to the sword for the right price. From your humble beginnings as fledgling members of Erinith’s adventurer population, you and your companions will explore the world, uncover ancient mysteries, and find yourselves drawn into a millennia-old conflict that has been forgotten by the world… but not by its enemies.

There are a lot of places with a lot of things going on, though, so what events the party gets involved in along the way (and which ones happen without you) is left up to the players to decide. The most important thing is to realize what your characters “know” may not be true, and pursuing why things are happening is just as important as dealing with the immediate threats. Note-taking is highly advised. I try to run things about half-and-half between RP and combat, though a given session generally leans heavily one way or the other, depending on whether you are exploring hostile areas, in a settlement, etc. Also, I have a thoroughly ridiculous amount of stuff written about the world as a whole (several dozen pages of fairly dense notes), but I usually build out what’s happening in a specific place based on a combination of my own ideas and the goals/interests players provide. I’d also been working on getting everything moved over to WorldAnvil to help organize stuff for everyone, but I haven’t really had much motivation for that lately.

The player world doc is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19slYhMbHlvv34ISRNGLqf1anHQdNFTK3G9djpZngIXc/edit?usp=sharing

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#67

Well, I for one would definitely be interested in playing a homebrew campaign like this, assuming I’m able to keep my gaming commitments balanced with my real life commitments.

I would still love a chance to play a dual wielding fighter or ranger with sawtooth sabres or a dhampir sorcerer. (APG can’t come out soon enough :cowboy_hat_face:)

#68

Hello.
Usually just lurk about but I stumbled across this thread and thought I might chime in.

@ocelot Given the reference to 40k and Harlequins, have you tried any of the 40k RPG systems like Dark Heresy?
Some friends and I played a few sessions of Dark Heresy many moons ago - I quite liked the system and there’s enough expansions / player created content to allow for Xenos/weird stuff - I believe there is a statted-out Harlequin’s Kiss somewhere for example.

@Rando The drow-in-space character concept seems fine to me, even with penalties in bright light. Very cinematic, ala Riddick in the movie Pitch Black - walk around with a signature pair of darkened goggles.

I’m very familiar with Pathfinder, but have not seen much about Starfinder - interested to learn more about it. Would be cool to have a sci-fi RPG system that could be adapted to the “Endless Space” universe - huge fan of that game series.

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#69

@Wrex, I haven’t tried Dark Heresy or any of the 40k systems that FFG published. I wasn’t playing TTRPGs when they came out, but they do look really interesting. There was also a new 40k RPG published a year or two ago called Wrath & Glory but it looks like it wasn’t supported very well. I haven’t tried it either. Makes me wonder how much effort would be involved in reskinning the starfinder rules for 40k. Probably much more than I am willing to take on!

#70

@Wrex I already tried to offer Rando some cool nanotech shades that collapse down when not in use for when I DM Starfinder, but I guess he didn’t believe me :smirk:

I’m sure there will be room in Starfinder campaings coming up this year, so if you’re interested keep an eye out on the Virtual Table tops forums here when we announce when we are starting them up.