[OOC] The Cantina

[ruffdove]

Welcome to the game and congratulations on being selected! Pull up a chair and introduce yourself to your fellow players if you like. This thread is for Out-of-CharacterOOC communication with the group. Use this space to discuss strategy and tactics, ask questions, notify us of upcoming absences (life happens, we understand)... You may ALSO use this thread for telling jokes, socializing, and bouncing around ideas that might not relate entirely to this game. The only thing I don't want to see discussed here is real world politics. If you want to talk real world talk politics, you can go visit... pretty much every other site on the Internet. Pact World politics is fair game.

Feel free to explore the game forum. I'd like you to familiarize yourself with the house rules at your leisure. I have made two changes to the SF system you'll want to be aware of. The "table rules" are fairly standard stuff, but give those a quick look too.

The Absalom Station Infosphere is my meager attempt to simulate your characters' access to what amounts to a station-wide Internet. There is lots of flavor and some plot exposition that you'll find helpful. You don't need to read it all in one sitting, but definitely check it out.

Now what I need from you to get going:
1) Please post in this thread the following:

• Two colors that you want for your combat icon, the main color and the outline color. Must be unique, first come first serve on color schemes.
• Let me know what SF books you own or have access to, just so I know. The Core Rulebook is the only necessity, but there are internet resources as well.
• Give me an idea of your level of familiarity with the Starfinder rules and the Pathfinder rules. This is just so I can modulate the amount of explaining I do. If someone's new and needs more guidance, I'll provide it as secret so the other players don't have to wade through it.

2) Go to the "Big Damn Heroes" thread and create a character post. Instructions are posted in that thread.

Once these two things are completed by each player, we'll get the first game thread kicked off! Let me know if you need help or have questions.

[ruffdove]

One more thing, guys: when you assign skills, give some thought to starship combat positions. Talk with each other now and discuss this.

Pilots - Piloting skill is paramount
Science Officer - Computer skill is the key
Engineer - Engineering
Captain - Social skills
Gunner - Piloting OR a good BAB and Dex. The party is soldier-heavy, so you're probably set for gunners.

[Khalil]

Woot! Congratulations to all and thanks Ruffdove for this opportunity!

Dibs on blue with Orange border!

[Khalil]

As an envoy, I can be very flexible when it comes to role and skills. Biggest ones character-wise integral to Mendev will be Computers, Survival, Diplomacy, Disguise. Everything else I'm up in the air for.

[Lord99]

Hello everyone!

I hope we can have a fun game together!

For my token, I request a dark green border with a light gray main color!

I have access to the Starfinder core book, Pact Worlds guide, and Armory!

I have never played Starfinder or Pathfinder, although I did play several campaigns with D&D 3rd edition, whose DNA is still pretty apparent in the system. So I'm not totally inexperienced, but a bit rusty and almost certainly unfamiliar with some aspects of the system.

[ruffdove]

No worries, Lord99. In truth, I've only been playing for a couple of months and am not fluent in the rules yet myself. The beauty of PbP is it gives you time to look stuff up and learn.

I would agree that 3.5 is close enough that you'll already know 90% of the jargon and procedures. The rest you'll pick up quick.

[Unko Talok]

Happy to be here. And I'm especially happy to see some relatively new site members as players! Looking forward to gaming with you all.

Books: I've got access to the Core Rulebook, but I'm making it a goal to buy the available Starfinder books over the coming months.

Experience: This is my first Starfinder game, but I've got pretty extensive experience with Pathfinder. Been DMing it for the past 4+ years!

Token Colors: I'm not picky. But I'm fond of both blue and green. Green token with blue border?...

Starship Role: I've been struggling most with this! As I've been putting T'aro together, I'm noticing that their class skills (Mystic) are best suited towards Captain, if I choose to put their skill points into Diplomacy, Bluff, and Intimidate. I could try to do that, if the party likes. However, I see T'aro's personality better suited towards a Chief Medical Officer / Science Officer. The problem there is that Computers are the relevant skill, which Mystics don't get as a class skill-- the only way to get it seems to be to change my Theme to "Themeless" and select Computers for my General Knowledge skill. Not really feeling that.

What does the group think? Does someone else want to take Captain, or prefer T'aro to do it? I'd be happy to play a Science Officer that pumps Computers, despite having a slight disadvantage. It might play well with T'aro's uncertainty about how technology affects lived experience.

[ruffdove]

I was determined to bring in at least one new player to give them a chance like a GM once gave me my first chance here. Then Lord99 and Nevynxxx made that decision really easy.

Don't get too hung up on starship combat role titles. The "Captain" does not tell all the other players what to do in combat and he is not in charge of the ship in general. The Science Officer uses the ship's sensors during combat to help the gunners and keeps the shields angled--it doesn't mean he's the chief scientist on board. So T'aro could fill the Captain role but still be the team's Life Sciences expert.

[Unko Talok]

RE: Role. Whichever works best for the party. Mechanically speaking, because I've got a -1 modifier in Charisma but +2 in intelligence, my Diplomacy/Bluff/Intimidate scores would be a +3 modifier if I put points in them (despite being class skills) and my Computers skill would have a +3 modifier by putting one point into it (despite NOT being a class skill!). I still lean towards Science Officer, but will gladly fill the captain role if no one else wants it.

Also...

Originally Posted by ruffdove

Pact World politics is fair game

Whoo, boy, let me tell you-- the Augmented might have techno-doodads, and the God-Vessels might have mystic might, but the social status of the Pure Ones in mate selection really gives them all the social power. Gives them way more control over religion and the augmentation industry than anyone acknowledges.

Originally Posted by ruffdove

Fantasy-world profanity ("frak!") and mild profanity ("crap!") is fine.

 

[Lord99]

Unko Talok - maybe our envoy might have some opinions either way? It seems like the Ace Pilot is probably going to be the pilot - not to typecast. But effectiveness versus RP is a classic conflict, and not one three soldiers (one space pirate and two mercenaries) are liable to intrude into in this case.

I've been wondering something similar with my fellow soldiers - obviously everyone should play and build their character as appropriate, but also a lot of people (including myself) have some flexibility, so that we don't all pick the same specialization or skills or whatnot.

My leaning right now is to push Kursk towards Dex a bit, take the Armor Storm spec, and operate in the sort of midrange - since from the descriptions it sounds like Vette will be a melee'er, and Matsu will use a heavy weapon. Although I could push him up a bit further into close support. But there's a couple of other specs that would possibly make some sense, so I'm happy to exchange ideas so we all have our own 'space' to excel in.

And I was thinking to maybe take Engineering and play Engineer, but Kursk will be at a deficit due to the vesk intelligence penalty, so if anyone else had that thought, we could certainly talk it over!

[Runetide]

Halloo! I'm extremely excited to be in a new starfinder game!

Oh yeah, you're 150% right. Vette is all up-in-your-grille melee combat.

Books: I have them all. No, really!

Experience: I'm a 3pp developer and had access to the starfinder core rules since before its public release! I run a game in starfinder saturdays IRL and I've even done some development work on SF content, so you really shouldn't have to explain anything to me unless I heavily brain fart (which could happen, I'm currently working on PF2 stuff and the rules are JUST similar enough that I'm likely to transpose them!).

Token Colors: Vette would love Pink and Black!

Starship Role: Okay, so there's two ways I could go with this. She'd actually make an okay captain, since she can use her intimidate to make skill checks to captain, BUT that's not very friendly to the team and I'd probably only use it to debuff any enemy captains (by using the intimidate options against them during captain phase). Otherwise I'd be only okay as a gunner (+2 with BAB and dex bonus) or as Engineer (+4 Engineering). I'm okay with taking on a 'duct tape' role, as in I jump in and patch a seat that's currently empty for some reason.

[Blackfyre]

Hey everyone! Glad to be aboard and looking forward to game with you!

First thing's first:

Color: dark-yellow with red border
SF books: I've only got the core book.
SF/PF experience: I've been playing PF for years now and would consider myself pretty experienced. SF I've played in one PbP game, but we heavily house-ruled starship combat, so my experience there may be a bit wanting. Then again, in a PbP it's no problem to check the rules without holding up game flow.

Roles: Apart from the Captain role, Grix could do well in all of them (yay for a boat-load of skillpoints, high INT and DEX), however, she's definitely meant to be a pilot. Her backup occupation (while the ship's on autopilot for instance) will very likely be as engineer.

While not on a ship/in a vehicle she makes a pretty good scout.

[Nevynxxx]

Hello! Thanks for the invite Ruffdove.

Books: I have access to the Core rules, and the first alien archive as well as some Society stuff.
Experience: Rules wise, I've been on the Paizo boards since a few months before the announcement of PF1, and I have the hard copy beta rules from in the day. I've been playing PF over DND exclusively since. I've run Pathfinder and Starfinder (specifically the Society Quest "Into the unknown"). That makes me sound really experienced.... I'll make poor optimization choices, and get rules wrong. Please always point out when I do!
Roles: I see Matsu as a solid gunner, he's going to be heavily invested in Dex, but probably with some decent engineering skill too.
Colours: I'll go with the inverse of Unko, Blue with a green border.

[Khalil]

Two Colors: Blue Field, Orange Border

SF Book Access: Bought Core Rulebook and Pdf.

We ALL have access to the Archives of Nethys: Starfinder which is Paizo's official site for Starfinder and Pathfinder resources. It's a little odd to navigate at first compared to the old Pathfinder site, but once you get use to it, it will get you by.

Starfinder Experience: First Starfinder game, but I've been scrounging through the rules on and off for about a year. Really excited to be here and to test this baby out!

Roles: I'd be honored to take the Captain role. However wasn't sure if others had aspirations towards it. With my skill points I believe I can provide a solid amount of bonuses.

Also I can be fired.

Changing Roles
Source Starfinder Core Rulebook pg. 322
You can switch between roles (or assume a role if you don’t already have one), but this change must occur at the start of a round before the engineering phase. You can switch to the captain or pilot role only if that role would otherwise be vacant (or if the character in that role is unable to take actions).

So if something isn't working out we can switch out. I can definitely see myself building into the engineering as well if needed.

@Unko - While Scholar fits T'aro just fine with his inquisitive nature. The Roboticist also seems to fit when it comes to tinkering with augmentations. The Biotechnician is really cool as well for Medics, but not sure how T'aro would feel about augmentations. But scholar is good for knowledge checks which will get us more Lore tidbits, which is excellent as well. Tough choice. Up to you and Ruff.

[Khalil]