You know why… 
I am going to be a bit late tonight. We went upstate for Thanksgiving and I wanted to come home yesterday, but my aunt talked me into staying until today on the promise that we would leave earlier, which we did not as my aunt conveniently forgot. SO I won’t be getting be on until sometime between 7:30 and 8 I’m guessing. Start without me and I’ll catch up when I can. Now to go give my aunt some shit…
I think I am going Soldier with my next character, not really feeling Vanguard all that much. As I suspected, when I am up in melee range I am often in the way and giving the enemy cover vs the attacks of the rest of the party. I have little ranged ability, leaving me as a one trick pony, run in and melee and hope I hit. As a Soldier, I can hang back and shoo stuff more effectively with big guns and if anything gets too close than I go to town on them with melee. And if I’m closer to you guys than the enemy than y’all might get some cover out of me.
Also, I might go Shobhad instead of Dragonkin. Shobhad has 4 arms plus large size plus the 10 feet of reach. I could wield a 2-hand ranged weapon in one set of arms and a 2-hand melee weapon or even two melee weapons or a melee weapon and a grenade etc etc in the other two arms giving me quite a bit more combat options.
Reminder, we are starting at 8:00 EDT instead of 7:00 EDT henceforth. Play time will still end at 11:00 EDT.
a) the GM is easily confused and running two campaigns with different start times (and durations) is taxing on his wee brain
b) Starfinder modules/APs are a lot smaller/shorter than Pathfinder stuff; we’re rocketing through this one quickly as it is, cutting down the session time will prolong the experience
We’re officially past half-way through the first module.
Get your plans ready for level 3 characters, as well as your tier 3 ship upgrades. This won’t happen next week, but may happen the week after.
A bit about the new Dragonkin guy, Zabraxas.
The armor is not necessarily what he would be wearing, but when I get my hands on a dragonglaive that will be pretty approximate to the weapon I will be wielding. And there you can see some cestus battleglove-looking gauntlets on my hands while I am charging up my Vanguard Special, Entropic Strike. You can’t see my tail but I have one and it is an admirable tail as far as tails go.
He was raised in a military oriented family as his parents were members of the Skyfire Legion mercenary group. Naturally he aspired to join the Legion when he was of age and he was practically raised among the Legionnaires. Shortly before he was old enough to officially join the Skyfire Legion, his parents were killed when the fledgling colony they were helping to defend was bombed. Zabraxas was made a member of the Skyfire Legion after this and vowed to honor his parents memory by serving the Legion as they did and upholding the ideals of the Skyfire Legion. He trained long and hard as an initiate of the Legion and eventually became an Legionnaire himself. His first mission ended in tragedy as the colonists his group was protecting were attacked by the Azlanti and all of his teammates were killed. Zabraxas was taken prisoner along with some colonists until freed by the characters. He agreed to take the place of Gorax the Destroyer in the group when The Destroyer decided to stay and help protect the colonists as they attempt to make a place for themselves on this world. As a fellow Vanguard, Zabraxas is highly regarded by Gorax and is trusted to be a fine replacement for him in the group.
Zabraxas is still on the young side for a dragonking, just barely past maturity around 25 years old. He tries to carry himself as stoic and protective and older than his age. He is reserved at first around new people, but opens up over time to companions. He tends to favor action over diplomacy, but is smart enough to realize when the moment calls for dialogue over destruction. As an evolving Vanguard, he seeks to gain insight in to the mysterious forces of chaos that drive the universe and find the order within to harness and manipulate the chaos. He is also slowly learning to master the ability of flight (Dragonkin can’t sustain flight until lvl 5).
There ya go, that’s the “new Gorax”. I’m not gonna bother with the long arms weapon feat as it doesn’t fit this character. I’ll still be doing a lot of rushing in and bashing. I will have small arms use and will use them when melee isn’t a viable option in an encounter.
And then there is the Dragonkin racial ability Partner Bond.
Partner Bond
A dragonkin can form a permanent bond with one willing non-dragonkin creature. Once this bond is made, a dragonkin cannot form another partner bond unless its current partner dies. A dragonkin and its partner can communicate with each other as if they both had telepathy with a range of 100 feet. In combat, when a dragonkin is within 30 feet of its partner, both creatures roll initiative checks separately and treat the higher result as the result for both of them.
So, wonder who that will end up being. I can picture the mouse on my shoulder in the image above being a goblin perhaps…
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@Rando, I was playing around in my Starfinder test game in Fantasy Grounds and making up the custom stuff for Vanguard abilities. I realized one important feature of the Entropic Strike that I forgot about, which probably isn’t setup in your campaign; Entropic Strike targets the EAC and not the KAC. Setting up Entropic Strike as a weapon it is set as a melee seapon, but this makes it target the KAC and I don’t see any way to change this for a melee weapon. I suppose I could set it up as a ranged weapon although it is technically a melee attack.
I set it up as a spell-type attack under Vanguard class action in the actions tab. I was able to set it as a Melee attack vs. EAC, I was also able to set up the different damage types of Entropic Strike this way as three different damage rolls for the one Entropic Strike ability, rather than three separate melee attacks as we hayd it set up. The downfall to this setup is that I don’t see any way to add traits to it like magical and operative as well as additional weapon traits I can give it later. I guess I’ll have to go over this with you with the game is up, to explain it better.
A partner bond with Syggy could also be an interesting choice. She has the dragon blood theme and in terms of backstory/RP, she was created (or at least modified) by a Dragon and has a great reverence for these creatures.
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Wow, you just made a really good case for Syggy to get the partner bond. But I gotta tell ya, I think you might be a bit too big to ride me into battle 
I’m on a diet!
LOL!
Look, I’m only 8 and 1/2 feet tall so I feel like if I can’t fly with you mounted then probably shouldn’t be mounted
Reminder: we’re starting tonight at 8:00 EDT.
~assuming of course we’re not all playing Cyberpunk~
Man, I ain’t been able to download it yet. I might get to start playing it Monday if my new PC is finally up and ready by then.
Reminder for the following dates.
Game day, Dec 19th 
Game day, Dec 26th 
Game day, Jan 2nd
OK all, the nice DM is letting me retcon my 2nd lvl Vanguard Discipline. I had picked Antagonize (which gives me the Antagonize feat as a bonus feat without needing to meet the prerequisites. I think I could make better use of my first Discipline choice by going with one of the unique Disciplines as I could just pick up Antagonize as a feat later. I’m also not too keen on the standard action cost of Antagonize, it’s ok at lower levels, but at higher levels it’s becomes a standard action cost for a very minor short debuff.
I am looking at picking either Dampen or Intervene. Dampen let’s me take a reaction and spend an Entropy Point to halve the AoE damage to anyone in the AoE if I am in the AoE ,and Intervene let’s me take a reaction to to split the damage that an adjacent ally takes by an attack. I will end up with both Discplines by lvl 4, have to decide which one to take first and replace Antagonize with.
So in addition to the whole Entropic Strike thingee which I will augment with feats like Cleave, I will be investiing heavily in Vanguard stuff to protect party members.
@Rando, just to give you an advance heads up at lvl 6 or 8 I will be getting a Vanguard Discipline called Shimmer Guard, which lets me turn the air around me into soft cover for allies for a number of rounds equal to my Con mod, “As part of any move action, you can cause the air around you to shimmer with heat. Squares adjacent to your space provide soft cover to allies for a number of rounds equal to your Constitution modifier.” I’ll leave the fun of figuring out how to do that one ingame up to you
So I have been reading up on character shields in Starfinder and they work a bit differently than shields in Pathfinder. It appears that there is no need to use an action to raise the shield as needs to be done in Pathfinder. I believe that having a shield equipped gives you the AC bonuses passively. There is a Shield Block feat that lets you use a shield to reduce damage done to you, again this does not require you to have used an action to raise the shield, but rather spend a resolve point as a reaction if the damaging effect requires you to make a Reflex save.
Shields do require one hand to equip. Some shields have upgrade slots. If you find yourself with a free hand in combat and looking for a bit of extra AC it might be worth your while to pick up Shield proficiency and get a shield.
DM, if my natural reach is 10 feet and my Entropic Strike gains the reach property at lvl 10, does this mean my Entropic Strike will reach up to 15 feet?
I was reading over my class stuff some more, familiarizing myself with it more and I have been ignoring a distinct feature of Entropic Strike; “You can make this attack with nearly any body part and do not need a hand free to use this ability”. Definitely going to be picking up some hefty two hand weapons and doing Entropic Strikes with my tail and wings.
OOOOOoooo it gets better (well not for the enemies ) at lvl 7 the Vanguard becomes immune to the flat-footed condition, enemies get no attack bonuses from flanking me or if I’m prone and covering-fire and harrying fire provide no advantage against me.
what does Vash need a shield for, he has you.
Good luck trying to wield me in your hand.