Up next in 10
It's time to take to the stars in search of interplanetary adventure as Tavern Watch plays Starfinder's newly-released second edition. This system blends the crunchy, high player choice character building of Pathfinder with a wholly original science fantasy setting, and there's really nothing like it. If you've ever wanted your space wizard to cast doom scroll (and yes, it does exactly what you think it does), this is the game for you.
In this exciting finale, our crew of completely licensed and insured adventurers is faced with their foe in the computer core -- and has no choice but to turn up the heat. We also discover that a door, once locked really well, sometimes has to be unlocked equally as hard. Our hard-fighting core technician team includes:
* Liz as Zee, a Skittermander Witchwarper, which means she's about three feet tall, has six arms, is covered in fur, and is just the most adorable reality-warper ever.
* Joe as K'sol, a Shirren Mystic, making him a psychic bug-man from the stars.
* Phil as Sobok, a Vesk Soldier, who is seven feet of scaly lizardman with a two-handed chainsword.
This is the last in our three-part actual play series of Starfinder -- look for new episodes every Monday, and listen to episode 1 to start from the beginning!
This game was played using the second edition of Paizo's Starfinder, which expands their Pathfinder game into space. The core books are all released at this point (and they're starting to release their more compact "pocket editions" of the core books), so if you like the game you hear on this podcast, you can check it out for yourself!
Music from this episode is "Start a Trek," by Edgar Henderson; you can check out more of his music on Soundcloud.
Tavern Watch Plays starts with: Subscribe to Tavern Watch in your podcast player of choice to keep up with our latest actual plays:
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Show More Show Less View Video Transcript
0:14
Hallelujah.
0:22
Heat.
0:36
Heat.
0:58
Hi everybody and welcome back to this hopefully final installment of Blizzard Watch plays Starfinder 2E. Um, when last
1:07
we left our companions in peril, they've managed to temporarily halt the
1:14
destruction of Harmony Station by shutting off the direct computer access.
1:20
Um, in so doing, they interrupted the power flow to the computer core, which is now
1:25
on battery power, and the big monster that was trying to kill them is
1:30
temporarily apparently slowed down or stopped. Um, why doesn't everybody
1:36
introduce themselves and their characters? Starting with Joe. Hi. Uh, I am Joe Perez. I'm playing
1:42
Quesol, a Shiran mystic. Uh, so I am a giant locust. I don't have wings, but
1:48
I'm a giant locust. Uh, I make lots of cheering noises. I, you know, and then speak into people's brains because I'm
1:54
mystical. Yeah, that's me. Uh, also with us besides Joe, who's
2:00
really enough by himself, but we've got two more people. I'm a lot. I really am. Liz Harper. Say hi, Liz.
2:07
Hello. My name is Elizabeth Harper and I am playing Z, a skittermander witcher.
2:15
So, I'm just a little lavender colored ball of fluff with six arms and uh maybe
2:22
a slightly hyperactive, anxious personality because this is this is
2:27
there's a lot there's a lot happening here. So much too much.
2:33
And uh finally, possibly the most happy with the current situation of the three,
2:39
Phil, if you don't mind introducing yourself. Yep. I'm Phil and I'm playing Sobach.
2:44
He's a Vesque soldier. Vesque and the Vesque are giant lizard people. This case, he's a heavily armor-plated one,
2:50
and he'd be happier with the situation if he wasn't also bleeding fairly heavily uh from being shot repeatedly by
2:56
the uh thing that we just powered down. That's fair.
3:03
So yeah, currently you guys are in the darkened computer core which um Casal
3:09
managed to cut off main power to and it's now on battery backups. Um
3:16
so since we were on initiative, I'm going to keep us in initiative because stuff is still going on. Uh, I believe
3:23
that means that since Cassaul went last, we're at the top of the order with Sabic
3:30
right now. Sabic. Oh, I don't trust this thing. Is dead for a single second. I want to attack this uh non-moving monstrosity in front
3:36
of me. Okay, this is a wise call. This is temporary.
3:41
I don't trust it for I don't trust it for a second, Casil. Uh, I'm going to make uh Yeah. So, I'm gonna do the same
3:47
thing I did last round because it's fun. Uh, so here's a question. Mhm. What? It's motionless?
3:54
Yep. So, do you get like a Does it just get a penalty to AC? You know, you guys know
4:02
system slightly better than I do. Like if it's uh I was say, let's see what condition would apply here because
4:08
there's like 48 conditions or whatever. Yeah. Um that's why I'm like asking quite
4:13
frankly. I say is it considered dying? Is it No, it's not dying. No. Uh, I don't know. I don't think it's
4:20
broken. Immobilized. Immobilize would probably be the the
4:27
closest. Yeah, if it's if it's just immobilized, there's no uh penalties or anything.
4:34
You're incapable of movement. Can't use any actions that have the move trait. You There's nothing about it being easy to attack that way.
4:41
Well, if it's prone, is it laying on the ground? No, it is not.
4:46
Okay. I would argue that it would potentially have the offguard uh condition in
4:53
addition because that tenderly goes hand in hand with it which would give a minus two circumstance penalty to AC
5:00
but that's a I'm going with restrained restrained. Okay. In this particular case I'm going with restrained. So it has offguard and a
5:08
conditions. Yeah. So yeah. So it's got a minus two to AC. Yep. And it can't use any attacker. Uh, let
5:15
me check that also affect. Okay, that's fine. So, yeah, I'm going to do the same sequence of things I did at the end of
5:21
the last episode. So, I'm going to do an attack followed by an area attack and the area attack includes a free melee
5:27
attack. So, um, you currently need a 25 or higher to hit it. Cool. Uh, I'll be doing slightly better
5:34
because I did read between episodes and I don't need when I do the free attack that's part of the primary target
5:40
soldier feature. It doesn't count towards my multiple attack penalty. Oo.
5:45
Okay. Uh, so first attack regular melee attack. Uh, 16 + 14 is 30.
5:53
That doesn't you hit doesn't crit. Doesn't crit on. Uh, so 6 plus 4 10
5:59
damage. Okay. Okay. Following up with an area attack. The area attack triggers a free strike. So do the free strike first. Uh, same
6:08
thing. 30. Okay. to 30 to hit. Okay. So then it takes another 13
6:13
slashing damage and then it and then it needs to make a 22 reflex save to avoid taking eight
6:21
slashing damage. Okay. I don't think it can 33 reflex. I don't think did it save it. Uh then I am going to
6:27
use the trigger uh pin down. Uh it uh when a creature I'm observing succeeds
6:34
at its saving throw against my area fire attack. Uh, it now needs to make a will save against a 21 DC or become
6:42
suppressed until the start of its next turn, too. Okay. The start of my next turn. Excuse me. Yeah, that's a 30th.
6:47
Ah, okay. That's fine. All right. Um, well, this round, uh, technically it's
6:54
it was on the it would be its round and it does actually get to do this because this is what it was going to do. Uh, it
7:00
suddenly bursts into a cloud of dust. Um, or at least for a second it looks like dust. you realize it's just become
7:08
a swarm of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of nanites. Oh, don't like that. And uh it it doesn't do anything. It it
7:16
Yeah, it doesn't attack you. In fact, you're not sure it can attack you, but it does seem to be able to leave, and
7:23
that's what it's doing. It moves 40 feet away to get away from you, and that's all it does. I believe Z, you're up
7:29
next. So there is like a vest in the middle of all of this
7:35
cabling. Not anymore. Technically, you just You're right in that the vees body was there.
7:41
Yeah. And now the vees body is still there, but there's nothing holding it up anymore.
7:47
Uhhuh. So a big wet veesque body just dropped to the floor. Oh, okay. I don't like that.
7:54
I mean, technically, if you wanted to grab the vees body and throw that telekinetically, you could. Um, I know you like throwing things
8:00
telekinetically, but I like throwing things telekinetically, but I have explicitly avoided throwing
8:06
bodies telekinetically. Well, maybe I should just ask if there's any furniture I could break. That's
8:11
always fun and very soothing. Uh, no, I'm not going to do that. Like, is there a chair I can magic
8:18
missile? There's a chair at the console. Um, it is built in, but you could probably rip it out and throw it in it.
8:24
I guess technically Cassal is probably standing near it or on it. I want to see. So, the computer switched
8:31
over to battery power, which I don't know if that's a good thing. I mean, maybe I'm wondering if I
8:38
could disconnect it from battery power and make sure it's Do we want to turn it off completely or are we trying to hack
8:45
it to get it to do our bidding? The computer? No. the we we want we want to take
8:52
control. If we leave it to run rampant, it will just suck the energy and make
8:57
more bodies. If we kill the core, it will kill the space station and everybody in it. If we can isolate it
9:04
and and cut this and and cut it off, we can just take control and maybe push
9:09
this thing back to a part where we could like, I don't know, jettison a portion of the station and then blow that up.
9:14
Yeah. Tricky. This is all Oh, boy. Um, okay. So, I won't I won't try to do
9:21
that. Uh, I will go back to trying to hack things and pull things back under our control. See what I can do to kick
9:28
these intruders out and uh claw claw control back.
9:33
Okay. You need to roll something. Yeah. I I figured I was going to roll computers. Uh, that is going to be math.
9:41
Uh, 25. 25. Yeah. Okay. Um, you've managed to re you
9:47
basically turned life support back on in this. Okay. Because when when Joe did what he did,
9:54
he turned all the the functions in this room, super cooling, life support, the whole thing. He turned it all off.
10:01
You've now brought life support back up. The computer in that core is now, however, you're now aware of the fact that the computer core is beginning to
10:07
overheat because it is not currently connected to the super cooling, which is not on because its power is not
10:12
currently it's not currently drawing power from it. Okay. Yeah. Um, all three of you make a perception
10:17
check. 12. I noticed that I'm bleeding. Yeah. You're like, "Oh god, I'm getting blood everywhere."
10:23
Uh, what did you get, Liz? 23. 23. Okay. Dirty. Okay. Uh both Liz and Gasol, you notice
10:31
that why you it occurs to you that it is the the warming in the room seems to be
10:37
affecting the creature because why did it abandon the physical host that it was going it was using to absolutely destroy
10:44
Sabic? Oh, and you like wait a minute why it did that just as I shut off the cooling and
10:51
that's everything. I shut the cooling off. I shut the computer core off. The battery power came up automatically, but
10:56
it was you shutting everything off that caused the thing to flop down and then burst off in into a swarm, which it
11:04
currently still is. Like you see it as a swarm. It's not doing anything that you can tell.
11:10
Interesting. Um, with the computer online, can I get access to the other cameras to see if this is happening like
11:16
happening elsewhere potentially? You can try. We're gonna move around to your round now because uh I believe you
11:23
got a 25 on your role and we already covered what you discovered. So, do you have any other actions you want to do before um Casali? Uh no, unless I have
11:32
more. I I don't think so. I think it's just one action to make a
11:38
computer check. So, you technic they still have two. Yeah, it depends on it depends on what what computer actions generally
11:43
in that case. I'm going to say that turn determining that everything is still turned off. uh in this room was just one
11:51
action. Yeah, disabling device disabling devices, two actions if you're trained. Everything else is one action.
11:57
So yeah, in order to if you wanted to try and seize control of something, that might take two. Uh but otherwise, yeah,
12:03
you've got one act. You've got two actions. Uh so this guy is running away.
12:08
You don't know if it's running away. You don't even know if it can run away. But you're definitely thinking that there's
12:14
a problem with they don't seem to be able to control the computer system properly when it is not cool. Like the
12:19
heat that's building up this room and it's warm in here now. Uh it went from a chilly, you know, close to freezing to
12:27
um like it's it's like 354 degrees Celsius. So over 100 degrees Fahrenheit in this.
12:34
And that's in around in around that sounds pretty bad. I Oh
12:40
boy. So yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. You have to It's also disrupted. It's also disrupted this thing
12:46
seems to be. Yeah. Take control of the environmental. Put everything in the station at 100 degrees or 100 degrees Fahrenheit and hold it
12:52
there or or 35 35 C. That that might that might melt this
12:57
computer. No, that won't like it. Listen, we are in a I'm going to be exceptionally
13:04
surprised if it melts this computer. my my computer at home in real life, my CPU
13:10
at 90C, while it is not it shouldn't be there for a long period of time, is perfectly fine to be there for a little
13:16
while. So like that's at 90C. I'm talking about 30C. Like idle right now,
13:22
my CPU is at like 42C or something like that. Computer should be fine. I'm not
13:27
worried about the computer melting. So logically, I'm thinking I'm thinking about this from a logical standpoint. If
13:34
we can hold it where it's uncomfortable, we can start clawing power away from it and figure out how to
13:39
how to get rid of it or to destroy it. So, if we raise everything in the station to 34 C, 35 C, hell 40 C, we
13:49
might be able to force it out of other places that it has a hold on. People are going to be uncomfortable, but it ain't going to be that bad comparatively.
13:56
People live in Nevada, like they're fine. like it'll it like it's it's a
14:01
it's it's the best it's the best tidbit of information we have. It's going to be hot and stuffy in here for, you know, a little bit, but uh
14:08
Okay, I'll I'll work on uh the environmental controls and warming it
14:14
up. Well, see if we can just see if we can just put them back online and hold everything at that same temperature across the board. Right.
14:20
Okay. Okay. So, that is what I will try to do. bring the environmental controls online and just hold it at this slightly
14:27
uncomfortably warm temperature. Okay. Uh, go ahead and make me a roll on that. I got to say takes your action.
14:34
Uh, that's a 23, which is Man, I'm either rolling 20s or I'm rolling tens.
14:40
That's how this game works. Well, 23 is enough to get the environmental controls
14:45
active and where then they tell you that the room is at 45° C
14:51
and it is not dropping but it is not the computer is now attempting to hold
14:56
it there. Um, keep in mind that the super cooling system is still off. So, the heat sinks are still putting heat into the air in this room. However,
15:03
you're doing this across the station. It should be able to keep the rest of the station. Currently, the rest of the
15:10
station is not at 45 degrees. It's going there now. Mhm. So, it's raising the heat everywhere
15:16
else. However, whether or not you can get this room to stay at this temperature is debatable. Yeah.
15:22
Um, and if I could, I'd like to send a telepathic message to Pira if I can do
15:27
this. Joe. Yeah. She's part of the network now. Uh, heat seems to hurt them. Uh, I'm
15:34
turning the temperature up throughout the station. That's good to know. And she you you hear her like you you feel her yelling
15:41
something to people around her. I don't suppose that I don't suppose that security command sir Kashal survived
15:49
and as you as she asked that Sabic you look down at the wet pile of dead thing. No I don't I don't think so.
15:55
It might require a lot of glue. I don't think you No.
16:03
Oh. How do you feel about your security officer being soup? Uh, no. Just
16:09
what? It's the truth. Let's just puriously fine. It's fine. Later, I'll I can't right
16:15
now. Soup. Oh, god. Uh, we're going to We We're currently uh pushing forward
16:21
into the reactor room, but I don't know if we'll ever be able to get in there. Um, there's just so many defenses. Do
16:26
whatever you can wherever you are. Like the station defenses or they were the station defenses.
16:33
Uh, all right. Yeah. Turn. Yeah, we're turning the heat up. It should uh Don't breathe them in. Uh it kind of drives
16:41
them out into nanite form. So, good to know. I think I want to try
16:46
to corral them somewhere. Are there places of the ship, like the station that we could jettison potentially?
16:53
Do we put them on a ship or an escape pod? Yeah, like that's what I'm kind of thinking. But I'm kind of thinking like I can create a cascading program or
17:00
something that will like give them a path that they'll feel comfortable with following slightly more than this. Uh,
17:08
and kind of get them to corral to a place that we can control and either jettison off into space and then burn
17:14
into an incendiary like pile of rubble uh, and scour it from existence or, you
17:22
know, put them in a ship and then get the ship out of here and then, you know, program the core to ignite. and emulate
17:28
everything since fire seems or heat seems to be the the trigger. I'm I'm just seeing is there is there something like that we can do or does it have to
17:34
be like a ship? In terms of ejectables, the only place I could think of would be um either the
17:40
main or auxiliary docking areas because those can be sealed entirely away from
17:46
the ship, the station, and then opened to the vacuum. uh you could cast them,
17:52
you could just evacuate the entire, you know, landing bay into space, including
17:57
anything not nailed down. Um the other possibility would be to put them on a ship, uh like you said. Um but we'd need
18:05
to basically make sure that we have the ability to fire on it once it's out of the station, uh to effectively do what
18:11
you're suggesting. But yeah, I I guess if you can make a corridor of cooler um
18:18
temperatures, they'd want to naturally go that way, wouldn't they? So they could regain their ability to control
18:24
things. Yeah, that's the idea. Do we know why heat bothers them? Nope. Sure don't.
18:29
This is Vosque comes over the uh the uh regular oldfashioned um intercom system.
18:38
Whoever's controlling the temperatures, you're on the right path. the the disorder you're creating in
18:46
their molecules. They hate it. They hate disorder. All right. Well, then what I'm going to
18:52
do is scrap near me here. I'm going to try and get it free of its clamps. It's the one
18:59
you came in on, unfortunately. Well, I mean, that would that would kind of solve two problems with one uh go. I
19:05
mean, we got that statue we need to get rid of anyway. Yeah. Just so you know, there's one of those statues on the ship. Don't touch
19:10
it. You tell him that. He can't hear your telepathy thing. You'd have to actually put that on the intercom.
19:15
Uh, I'll tell what's her face. Uh, yo, to tell him or to convey it to him.
19:21
All right. Uh, she she talks to him for like on the intercom system for a bit. Um, you don't hear it because she's not
19:28
intercoming everywhere like she was like he was, but you can. She goes, "All right, he's
19:33
going to get on your ship." Um, sorry. Uh, well, beats dying. Once he's on your
19:38
Once you're on the ship, once he's on the ship, he says he can get your engines to overload, but he needs to get
19:43
them on the ship, too. There's really no point to that. All right. Well, we
19:49
Yeah, I was going to say uh my turn then, I guess. I'm going to I'm going to make a programming role.
19:54
Yes, we do. Uh I'm I'm going to try to make a programming role to make a cascading
20:00
like a pulse to make it look like it's just a natural system thing coming up. um that like is like the ventilation
20:08
system or the corridor or something leading directly to our ship. And also
20:13
uh while at the same time I'm just going to play Henry VII on all the intercom systems except for that pathway so that
20:19
it's just a cacophony of sound everywhere except for that one uh like duck system or pathway that leads over
20:25
there. Okay, here's a question. Yeah. What about the cloud of nanates in the room with you?
20:32
uh we're going to have to deal with that in a different way, right? Like I don't know like short of opening an event here
20:38
and having them start going that way. But well, keep it warm in here.
20:43
We're going to keep it warm. Um but I think we have to deal with this cloud or whatever this is cuz it seems to be a
20:48
high concentration, right? So I think uh yeah. So I think for my first action, I'm
20:54
going to do the programming thing which I got a 17 on the That's going to take you That's going to take two actions. That's fine.
21:01
That's going to be a big deal. That's fine. Uh so that's uh 28 for that.
21:06
Okay, that is a success. You've set up your cascading uh temperature corridor and then of
21:12
course the also the the rock songs and screaming throughout the station you've made so that you know it's loud.
21:19
And how far away are these things from me? The the cloud of N. It's 40t in the air.
21:25
Okay, great. Uh, I am going to then use my last action to use mental interference. I'm going to try to
21:33
scramble whatever communication they have between themselves uh with my oultism check. Um,
21:39
okay. Do uh I have to do it against their will DC. So, I need to know what their will
21:45
DC is. Uh, plus 11. Oh, then yeah, as long as I don't roll a one, I'm fine. Uh, 24 on oultism.
21:53
Yeah, that's a critical success. Uh so anything that they do so they got
21:59
a minus2 penalty to attacks a minus one I'm sorry minus yeah minus two penalty
22:05
to attacks minus three penalty to will for one minute um they can try to shake
22:12
it off uh and then or immediately after we attack it it will it will do that so at least buy us a little bit of time
22:18
okay you've done that um you get a report back from PR that the things are it seems like the things are disrupted
22:25
by what you've done. Um, some of them are still maintaining physical cohesion, however. And they're physically
22:31
lumbering away. Uh, you she can't see that many clouds, but she thinks that they are traveling with them. Just it's
22:38
like they're climbing around on them. Okay. Well, I've done my three things, so it's back to you guys.
22:44
Uh, I believe that goes top around to Savic. Uh, say, can I take a few pot
22:49
shots at the uh the the cloud in here to kind of encourage it to leave slash to
22:55
disperse it at all? I mean, you've got the thing that does fire damage. Uh, that's true. I do have a gun. Uh,
23:03
okay. So, I will swap to So, first action will be interact to swap weapons. Second action will be to take a range
23:10
attack at it. Are they still 40 ft away? Yeah. Okay. So, that puts them in my second
23:15
range band. Is that at a minus one? Don't remember exactly how ranges work, unfortunately.
23:21
We'll just go over that right now so we can uh Yes, it is. Uh - two, excuse me.
23:26
So, this will be at a minus two. Um about 16 + 11. Yeah, 16 + 11 27.
23:33
That'll hit. Okay. Uh then that will just do uh four fire damage. Shoo.
23:40
Uh, second one. I'll I'll make a second strike as long as I All right. 13 - 2 11
23:47
+ 8. Uh, just a 19. So, I won't hit. Nope. Okay, that's me.
23:53
Okay. Um, no, they can't do that. You The
23:58
thing you did to them, Joe, they can still act, right? Uh, the Yeah, they can still act. They just have a minus a minus uh two on
24:05
attacks and a minus three on will. Anything to Okay. Um, for one minute. Make a reflex save for me, please. Uh,
24:13
difficulty 27. I'm not good at that. All right. All right. The air shimmers around you
24:19
and then, uh, 24. I fail. The air shimmers around you and telekinetic force goes up into your
24:26
abdomen and it lifts you up off the ground and throws you. Uh, gonna say,
24:32
yeah, it's gonna throw you at Z because Z doesn't like bodies getting thrown around. So, it's gonna try to crush Z
24:39
with you. I'm not I'm not a fan of blood really. Um, what's your armor class, Z?
24:45
21. I forget if I raised a shield at the Yeah, you probably only put it up to 22. Well, it doesn't matter because I rolled
24:52
a five. Um, with with the dice, even with the dice bonus, it's not going to
24:57
make it. It's a 16. Um, so yeah, on the other hand, however, you need to make a
25:02
fort save, Casal, because you've been thrown like a projectile. You're not going to hit Z, but you're still going
25:08
to hit the ground. Uh, where's my 26? Okay, you take one point of damage.
25:14
Okay, I will just take a point of damage. Okay, you're also now over where Z was
25:19
and not where you were, but you know, I'm not going to waste my reaction for Gotcha. So, that's two actions on its
25:26
part. Um, and yeah, it's going to move another 40t away. It's It's heading to
25:32
the vents. Actually, it's pretty obvious that it's what it's doing. It's trying to get out of this super hot room. Well, it's only got one path it can go.
25:38
So, or at least one path we think it can go. We want to let it go. Well, that's kind of what I was trying to do was to get it to leave.
25:45
I start picking myself off the ground while this thing is getting away. That's right. You run away from me in my
25:51
amazing mental power. Ow. Ow.
25:57
I don't think my antenna is supposed to bend that way. If you're letting them it leave the room, then we step out of initiative
26:04
order here. Um, and now basically you're watching on the, you know, as you attempt to bring up more controls, you
26:10
effectively get the computer core has access to the cameras. Now you're
26:15
watching as it the swarms and still animated bodies and so forth make their
26:22
way down to the loading bay. After about a minute, most of them have gotten there. Uh, you then cut to the cameras
26:30
inside the loading bay where your ship is docked and the ship is actually it's
26:37
it's loading clamps are disconnected. So, it's now just floating in the the
26:42
air of the pressurized um, you know, hanger. Uh, and you know, Technofage
26:48
Vosque is now attempting to get their attention with point defense systems. is the the anti-aststeroid and anti- you
26:56
know debris lasers that all ships carry that just keep from getting their hulls you know penetrated while flying through
27:02
space. Um he's using that to try and get their attention. Uh and you see that
27:08
Arvana is like trying desperately to get out of the room and everyone seems to
27:13
have forgotten to like leave a way for her to get out. Can I get her a way out? Well, she currently doesn't have one.
27:19
I was gonna say actually can uh I'm I'm been thrown. Can Z do it out of the loading bay?
27:24
She's in the loading bay. That's She She was hiding in the loading bay because she told you I'm going to hide near. Uh that's where she currently
27:30
is. And Yeah. As the thing And the room is sealed. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Except, of course, for the one pathway that was left that's
27:37
currently full of, you know, horrible nanites and and animated corpses driven
27:42
by nanites, which are all trying to clamber over to and climb onto the ship. Um she's got no way out unless she wants
27:49
to try to walk through that. Um, so are there other entrances or exits to the room that I could open up?
27:55
Yeah, the main door, the one that's locked because she gave you her security codes so she can't get out.
28:01
Um, so I will open that door. Okay. Uh, make a roll, I guess. How how
28:07
good was your role? Um, Cassaul, 28. Okay. You need to beat that 28 cuz he
28:13
locked it down real good. I did not beat that 28. Okay. Um, can I keep trying? Uh it's
28:20
technically isn't it two rolls to the two actions to do a kind of hacking thing
28:25
to to disable a device is to a like for instance this doorway that's currently sealed.
28:31
Yeah, that's all I got. Then I guess I'll hobble over and try. Is it all you've got? That's all I've got.
28:37
Do you perhaps have something you could do to roll if you fail to roll? Oh, I will use one of my hero points.
28:43
I'm going to make people use hero points if it kills me. some kind of points for heroes.
28:49
So now you succeed, right? Because you spent the hero points. It doesn't cuz I I didn't roll worse, but I rolled
28:57
uh a three. Going to put this dice away somewhere. Okay. Well, you do have two more rounds
29:04
before she goes into space. So go ahead and each of you at this point cuz Casal
29:09
has now gotten up and gone over to a console. Both of you go ahead and try and get that door open. Cassal, you're you're rolling against your own success.
29:17
27. 27. Yeah. Okay. Well, use one of my hero points, I guess. 28 meets it.
29:23
Yep. You successfully unlock that door. Um, Arvana is very surprised, but very
29:28
happy and is crawling out the door. Um, now you're probably going to want to receal it. So, go ahead and try and do
29:35
that, Liz. Oh, we're back to me. Okay. Well, he just used two actions and I
29:40
guess three actions total because you had to use a hero point. Uh, so yeah, it's you. Uh, that is a 29.
29:47
Okay, now it's really sealed again. So if we So we have to unlock it before.
29:53
We are so screwed. If we have to lock this door again, I should just start heading that way at
29:58
this point cuz we need to let anybody else out. I'm going to need to actually use a key on the damn door.
30:04
Okay. Did any of us look for other people in there before we did this there? We I don't think anyone looked,
30:09
but there wasn't anyone. Oh, okay. Okay, there's Vos, but he ain't getting out. He He knows He knows what he's doing.
30:16
Yeah. At this point, sign up for this. We will now cut to a description. Although, I will point out somebody's
30:22
got to get control of the [ __ ] the station's weapon systems for this to work. Is there somewhere I can go to do that
30:28
besides this computer core? Like a weapon section. Dang it. The computer core is what you need to
30:33
control the weapon systems at the moment. You could theoretically climb up to the weapon systems manually, but then
30:39
you'd have to go from room to room across the entire big station to get more than one weapon to fire at the
30:45
thing. I will I will try to put in a hack or a
30:50
program that will transfer control the weapon systems here to the station and bring them online.
30:57
All right. Uh I'm not going to make you guys roll for that because at this point it's all Daniel Mo. I I I made a really good role. Okay.
31:04
Well, congratulations. You get a hero point back.
31:12
Yeah. From here, you basically watch as the ship is drifting out of the hangar
31:19
bay. The hanger bay doors are opened. The ship drifts out. It is not powered. Um, however, while he can he can make it
31:27
explode, he he's too close to the station to make it explode and not [ __ ] the station. Uh so he instead
31:34
just fires the engines and forces the ship out into the void of space where
31:40
the three of you can basically be in firing on. After several hits, Sabic has
31:45
has set the ship on fire in multiple places. Um the fuel the fuel is now catch caught on fire as well. And the
31:52
shift collapses towards where Abselum and uh not Abselum sorry Galarion once
31:58
was uh to fall through the void until such time as it is burned into a crisp.
32:04
Thus hopefully saving you guys from any more of those things. Although you did lose a ship and your statue that was
32:11
worth a lot of money. Statue was worth a lot of money that was full of deadly orderes.
32:17
There's that too. Sure. You know, you want to be critical about it. Yeah. Technically, there's bad things, too.
32:22
That that sort of cuts into its value just a little bit. Yeah. A little bit. If you if you take
32:27
it into the pawn shop, they're like, "Uh, well, it is fully evil." Uh, but regardless, we now cut to downtime
32:35
where you guys briefly talk about what you do on the station while it is attempting to rebuild and recover from
32:40
all this horrible thing. And then we wrap it up. We'll start. I assume uh Z, what do you do during your your
32:46
downtime? Frankly, I'm gonna try to do anything I can to help to bring station systems
32:52
back online. I have programming and computer skills, so looking for any rogue code that may have been left in
32:58
the systems and trying to bring it back and, you know, maybe maybe improve a
33:04
little of it. You know, where I see some code that's just not, man, that could be better. What What were you thinking when
33:11
you did this? I can I can do some better things than this. Just trying to get everything up and running.
33:17
Uh Casal, I don't know. Just spends his time drinking daquiries
33:23
uh in the rebuilt confectionary construction zone. Uh well, you're going to have to you're
33:28
going to have to put the fires out in the bars before you could Yeah. I mean, honestly, like I mean cuz
33:34
a healer, right? So Cassal's legit like realistically is going to be going taking care of the injured. uh making
33:40
sure that we don't add to the number of dead. Um and then uh like work my way
33:47
through like recovering any of the bodies that were left behind. Uh like generally just helping out cuz
33:54
like he's he's roughly insensitive, but he's not that insensitive. He
33:59
understands that. You're not actually cruel. You're just kind of like clueless. Social social nicities is not a thing.
34:05
He generally understands manner. Yeah. Uh, but I mean like he understands star doctors.
34:10
Yeah. I like I'm the doctor from deep from Voyager essentially. Like you're
34:15
going to sit down and shut up and do what I want you to do. Are you only a hologram? No. I'm a bug. Get in the get in the box. Um, but yeah.
34:24
So like he he'll spend his time doing that and making sure that people are okay. And uh he also understands that if
34:30
everybody's dead, they can't give him a reward. So, this is definitely something he would like to make sure that, you know, him and his group get a reward
34:36
because that'd be great. Uh, and then he removes what's her name from, uh, the internal network. Yeah. Pier from the network. Uh, so it's just
34:43
us again. Uh, because I can literally cancel that cell phone contract. Um,
34:48
Gotcha. Yeah, that that's what I do with this with this downtime. All right, Sabic, anything for you?
34:55
Uh, Sabic's on the horn with the insurance company trying to convince them that our ship got stolen and blown up.
35:01
The Absilon technically true. Technically true. The Absilon uh adventuring society, the
35:08
Pathfinder society is like, well, I mean, you know, you come into thus ends
35:14
uh the session that would have gone a little bit longer if quite frankly Joe hadn't completely jumparted the Sorry.
35:21
No, great. Don't apologize for finding the adventure. No, that was great. I was sitting there going, I don't know how exactly I'm
35:27
going to do this. I'll I'll have Voss come out and be unpleasant so that they'll be suspicious and investigate him. And 10 seconds later,
35:36
he was unpleasant and ominous. And Joe found the plot hook and tugged with both hands. I I I am an agent of chaos and it was an
35:44
option to cause chaos. So, I didn't I didn't expect that. I just expected him to be like, you know, some cranky old
35:49
like lunatic that would like pick a fight. And I was like, great. We'll get our first encounter out of the way. This will be fantastic.
35:55
He was just some jerk. You did definitely get your first encounter out, which is not what I expected. Not even close.
36:01
So, yes, thank you everybody for listening to us as we as we gambled through uh Starfinder 2e. Um I I I
36:10
really had fun running this and and Joe did Joe gave me my Doom moment much faster than I thought I was going to get
36:17
it. Uh so, honestly, I wasn't upset at all. I was going to start this off like
36:22
a shopping episode. Actually, you guys think you had a shopping episode and then you let all the madness happen, but
36:30
Joe just said, "Nope. I hate shopping episodes." And by God, I I
36:35
Well, I'm mad now. I wanted a shopping episode. Uh, you know, I I will say since we got a few minutes to like maybe
36:42
kind of like coales this down here, uh, maybe like a postmortem uh type thing or
36:47
or whatever. Um, I and I don't know if this is a function because I don't physically own the books. Uh everything
36:53
I have is through Starfinder Nexus. Uh what's available there right now and what was available
36:59
through creation. Very interesting things that I'm noticing with the second edition. Uh and I don't know if this is where you
37:06
have to like go pick up Pathfinder and then import it into it. Yeah. Because the there there are some things
37:11
that are almost like missing. Um and we talked about this on the regular show that like
37:17
the two systems are made to be interchangeable essentially. Uh, you can put your Pathfinder in space, you can put your space in Pathfinder. Um, but
37:24
like simple things like quarter staffs do not exist in the Starfinder base book. At least not that I can see. Like
37:30
if you want you want something like that looks like a staff or a stick, you're getting yourself a pointy weapon.
37:37
There are some things. Yeah, it does feel that way. There are some things that are literally not in this book. They're only in the
37:43
Pathfinder book. Like I have a spell called shield, which is, you know, I raise a magical shield.
37:49
Yeah. And but that uses the raise a shield action which is not in the Starfinder book. It is only in the
37:55
Pathfinder book. So I feel like that's maybe a little tricky because you kind of need you kind of need Pathfinder as a
38:02
supplement to this book. This book has this is almost like an expansion book to Pathfinder and you still need
38:08
Pathfinder. Yeah, you still need Pathfinder for the core rules. So, it does feel like the
38:14
book is missing some things. And I did have a little trouble figuring some things out because I kept having to go,
38:21
okay, here's Starfinder, here's Pathfinder, and yeah, and having trouble going back and forth.
38:26
I do want to raise race shield is on page 411. Okay.
38:31
See, it's on page 411. And that's the I mean, the other problem is is that they have all the conditions and stuff at the
38:37
back of the book. Yeah. Which is it's a big book, guys. kind of maybe should put those up the front.
38:44
Yeah, I mean I do appreciate them having them in one place. I a lot, you know, other systems do do this.
38:50
It's just not where I would expect it to be. It's it's literally an appendix. Yeah. Um that said, um I really did like I
38:59
really did like some of the stuff about this. Like all the ancestries are really cool. I I like how the classes are not
39:06
heritages, too. Yeah, I looked I looked at some of like I briefly considered one of the versatile heritages which is one
39:12
of the heritages is where the Borai is where you're undead and there's different ways to be undead and there's
39:19
one where you're just too stubborn to die. I briefly considered that one.
39:24
Yeah, headstrong. When you died, you refused to accept your death and clung to your corpse. Like I briefly
39:30
considered that um instead of just going with armor. But I also like the classes like the they're not just like oh here's
39:37
X but in space like the salarian. It's easy to look at the Salarian and go oh you're a conduit for the stellar forces
39:42
of the universe gravity and solar power. You're you're a space paladin. They are way more than a space paladin. They are
39:48
they're not very palatiny at all. Yeah they're complex and funky and cool. Yeah I I I like a lot of what they did.
39:54
I do think this book is not extremely well organized and that is probably a virtue of it being 462
40:01
pages long. Um, and it's just the player core, which means GM core.
40:07
Yeah. And there actually, and I will say there actually are things that are straight up missing that it tells you to
40:12
go to Pathfinder for one. The the vest ancestry I was playing um is the plated
40:18
vest where your ar your scales are treated as medium armor. You can't apply upgrades, which is all that's in this
40:24
book, but you can apply armor runes. And then it straight up says uh to get to
40:29
look in the Pathfinder GM core for that. And I'm very glad this kind of stuff is online because we realized day of game
40:36
that none of us had to play finder GM core. Yeah. And I and I think that's I think that's it's an interesting choice,
40:42
right? Like and obviously the the books out, right? Like the the the second
40:48
edition book is is released. Both the player core and the GM. Yeah. And it seems like
40:53
the alien one's coming soon. Yes. If it's not already out. Um yeah, Space Monsters. It's an
40:59
interesting choice because like I personally would have expected all that to be in the base book like they like
41:06
you don't need anything outside of Pathfinder to run Pathfinder, right? And so Liz's Liz's point of this feeling
41:12
almost like an expansion to Pathfinder I think is is a uh an interesting point.
41:18
It contains most of the stuff, but you find you find a few things missing. And
41:23
also um the two tech classes they were play testing recently are not in this book.
41:28
Yeah. Yeah. Which is a shame because that's the that's the direction I would usually gravitate is to to one of the tech tech
41:35
classes. I I missed the first the when we did the play test, but I seem to remember you playing some kind of techie
41:40
skittermander. Oh no. I played a I played a salarian. Yeah, she was a last time. Yeah,
41:46
I was a I was a salarian. I had the hug master feet and I had really high
41:52
strength. So, I was super good at grappling things. I hate that I know what that is. Hug
41:58
master. Also, I had a jetpack. So, that was actually pretty great. I feel
42:04
like the the witcher is an interesting class. And like you were saying earlier, it's a class that is not just a space
42:12
wizard. Yeah. Um Yeah. Yeah. Like the the whole thing with the with the with the uh the area
42:18
that you can then use as almost like an additional targeting vector. like you put up your quant you put up your
42:24
quantum field at the start of the fight and you can you can put it anywhere within a 100 feet and as long as you're
42:29
third as long as you're third level or higher you can actually use that as your spell target which is just like
42:35
if I if I had any spells that that would have worked like that yeah I don't I
42:41
don't feel like I had as good a grasp of this as I had the salarian and maybe I chose something a little too complicated
42:48
especially considering we're doing a oneshot. So, I think I I think I had more with Skittermander number one or
42:56
this would be a class that would be more fun to play if we were playing a longer campaign and I could see more of how it
43:01
developed and learn these pages and pages of abilities better. Yeah, I do I will say that straight up
43:08
that one of the things about Pathfinder 2 and its its various subsets including this that I love but also can be
43:15
overwhelmed by is the sheer volume of stuff you can pick. Yeah. like um just just the mention
43:21
right now of the Borai and you know that's just so complicated because anybody can be a Borai.
43:27
Yeah. Well, like I didn't figure out until the second episode that like when I make an area attack because I'm a
43:34
soldier, I'm also supposed to be doing a free strike along with that because it's not it it's just it's it gets lost in
43:41
the array of stuff. It is one of uh 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 class features I
43:50
have. And that's not counting feats. Yeah. And that's and these these are we did also start at level five.
43:56
And some of these you wouldn't get at level one, but by level five, level five
44:02
is still not considered very far into the game. I I might have missed it at that point because I still have eight features at
44:08
level one. Yeah. See, that's it's still a fair amount of stuff from the get.
44:13
Yeah. So, I I don't want to discourage people from trying this if they're interested in it, but what you were getting is this is
44:20
this is very it's a very crunchy system and you can get very flexible characters, but you really got to be
44:27
like on point with knowing your stuff. This is this is one of the systems where if I was GMing it, if I was in Matt's shoes, I would straight up tell people,
44:33
you got to be aware of what you can do because there's no way I'm going to hold
44:39
a whole three to six characters worth of stuff. That's why a lot of times I just ask people, "What does that say?" Because
44:45
yeah, comparing it to games we run, we ran Rebel Scum fairly or Oh, and that was that was such a
44:51
straightforward system. Bolder opposite. Yeah. Yeah. This is this is very much a we, you know, you can do anything, but the
44:59
cost of that is you have to know exactly what you want to do. And there's a lot
45:04
to it. Like I just looked at the Prismani. Um, if if someone had rolled one of these, I would have had no idea
45:09
what to do with them. I would not have been And you know, uh, the other problem
45:15
is is that the the good thing and the bad thing about this is all the monsters in this were out of the Pathfinder Beastier.
45:21
Um, they were the if you want to look up what they were, uh, they're the AON from the Pathfinder
45:26
Beastiary. If you've played Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, you can play as an AON. These are the AON is bad guys.
45:32
Uh, I wanted to do one of the things that Joe and I often go back and forth on is horror
45:38
in in uh tabletop. I wanted to do a horror This is a horror game. This is
45:44
literally a group of adventurers against horrible body morphing nightmare monster. And that's what I wanted to do.
45:51
So, it did it just fine. But I do think it's weird that I had to reach over to yet. I had to go back to Pathfinder even
45:58
for the monster. Yeah, it feels like to a certain degree that's what Starfinder 2 is doing. To be fair, that'll be alleviated when
46:04
the Aliens book comes out. Uh I I will say I did almost roll a Prismani at one point. I had a character who is a who is
46:11
using the Prismeni the Prismani heritages with God, which alien race is it that's basically a gas bag.
46:18
Oh yeah, I know the one. Yeah, they're cool. Is it Is it the Patra maybe? Yeah,
46:23
they're basically the No, those are the cats. Um yeah, Barther it's or whatever. It's the ones that were basically like
46:29
the uh the squid people from Mass Effect. And I was looking at building these things and I had like this character built and I went, you know, I
46:34
really just want to make a character who hits things. So, I made a Vesque soldier instead and
46:40
I really enjoyed it. Yeah. I mean, your vees was pretty cool. I was actually really glad to see one. But yeah, the Barathu, the floating
46:45
beings with bizarre body shapes. Yeah, they're they're basically giant floating
46:50
sacks. Yeah, they're like weird. They're like, yeah, they're beings with body shapes that evolved on a gas giant and like
46:56
they can they have an option where they can just reshape themselves into stuff. Y they all look like horrifying
47:03
monstrosities on this. And it's it's one of the things about Starfinder that that's cool um that
47:08
there are a lot just in this book uh there are a lot of playable options that are just wild and and bizarre. Uh it's
47:16
an attempt to do alien that's actually somewhat alien. Yeah. Like some some of these are just like humanoid thing like humanoid human
47:25
with four arms. So just grab one of them. Cat person, mouse person. Uh Liz's ball
47:30
of fur with six arms. But then the broth was like here is a floating gas sack
47:35
that has armor plating on what you think might be a head and like 83 tentacles.
47:42
And that that's just you now. You're one of those. Yeah. Starfinder has a lot of great
47:48
flavor. And if you want to do something that really digs into all of these
47:53
options that you've got so many options, I almost think it would be better to do
47:59
this starting level one or two because there is even at level five, even at level five, you've got so much going on.
48:06
And I was having trouble keeping track of it. Quite frankly, even at level one, you've got a ton of stuff going on. Yeah, you've got a ton of stuff. And at
48:12
level five, you've got a ton more stuff. So, I I love Pathfinder for its
48:18
complexity and also it can be, you know, it can really sty you. It can really
48:23
make it difficult to understand what's going on. It's interesting because it's like the other fork of the D20 ideal. Like it's
48:30
like you look at D20 like as it started in 3.5 of D&D 3.0 3.5. It's like you one
48:37
one fork went this way to the the hyper complexity. The other fork went towards
48:42
5e with that weird bump for 4E that doesn't really which then became you know second cousin
48:49
twice removed draw steel. Yeah, exactly. And also to a certain degree like if you look at Starfinder
48:56
you can see both in Pathfinder 2E and Starfinder stuff that's from 4E. Yep. Um it's in you know fifth edition
49:03
preserved fore uh you know basically the thing without useabilities
49:09
stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, making sure making sure nobody had their the useless wizard after one
49:14
spell. Well, yeah, like talking about I'm tired now. Well, like I was just talking about with like the the way that mystics have been
49:20
updated to do the transfer of vitality. Like the first time we played, I didn't have that option,
49:25
right? Like and then it's been updated uh to, you know, essentially do that, which is it makes it more useful longer
49:32
term. So like again, if I burn through all of my spells, I can still keep
49:38
people alive. I can still contribute. So yeah, and like those and like you and that that ability scales well too when
49:45
you're when you're higher level, it goes up to six per round and then eight per round and then when you refocus your
49:50
vitality network gains all its hit points. So like you can you can refill and that's that's a it's a really cool
49:56
way to do a healer that's not just cast healing spells. Yeah, for real. I honestly wish we the one downside of
50:03
us having fewer players than usual this time was uh we didn't get a chance to see weird class combinations. We had a
50:10
Salarian that was gonna be playing with us. Uh, unfortunately, we didn't get to see one of them in action. Uh, that's
50:15
the only thing that really I liked, you know, quite frankly, I liked having a smaller group. Sometimes as a GM, it's it's more fun for me to focus on people.
50:23
Um, it's it's easier to keep track of people. Sometimes players, there just so
50:28
many of them. Yeah. If you got like eight people in a group, then sometimes you're like, I forgot. I'm sorry, person. I didn't let
50:34
you do things. I It's the I forgot it was your turn. I forgotten your name. my
50:39
I forgot you haven't talked in 20 minutes and so now I'm going to call you out so you uh get spotlighted which is what I had to do with Triangle Agency
50:45
where we had six agents. Uh yeah speak all my D4s have wandered
50:50
away weird and as a player too like it's one of those things where like and we we've talked about this on like the the
50:55
podcast show and this will probably be a topic we we bring on the next Tavern Watch podcast. Smaller groups are
51:02
sometimes just better in general which is like we've talked about ideal size. We've had questions about it, you know,
51:08
and most games tell you between three and five players at like most um some
51:14
some games are better at larger groups. I've I've run convention tables with like 20 people. It is a miserable
51:22
experience for me. Um but like you know it's a completely different environment than an everyday
51:28
play group. Um I've had large groups, I've had small groups. I almost always prefer, you know, like that that three,
51:35
four players is generally my sweet spot because you can you can give everybody
51:41
like attention and you can give everybody the room to breathe and you can like because for us like
51:47
storytelling is an element of that we care about. Like giving the story room to breathe as
51:52
opposed to making sure everybody has something to do, right? And the more players you add, the harder that gets. So it makes perfect sense. I was at a
51:59
convention once uh running of all things um the uh original uh in nominee the the
52:07
inomnis one the French one and I would not have guessed that at any inund years
52:12
and they it had an we had a like a like a seven player group and the way that
52:18
that worked was the another there was another GM they actually had two GMs to run that
52:23
that many people so yeah we've we've I've we've also had like we had a mechon uh group that was
52:30
like I think it was 12 players that we literally split into two days so that
52:35
they were like two different parties operating on two different missions like we had very similar to like what critical roles was was doing where like
52:42
the first you know session was everybody together and then you split into your specialized groups or your specialized
52:48
mission so like there's there's ways to do it and then bringing people together like I wanted to um one of the things that I
52:56
wanted to do and I never got a chance to do it is we left the other wield game at a point where you guys were going to go
53:03
essentially kill a god and the older party that you had interacted with one
53:09
of the NPCs uh that was a player character, they had expressed interest in wanting to play again but wanting to
53:15
play their characters again. And so what I wanted to do is I wanted to run both groups in parallel, like operating as
53:22
different cells in the same world and then when it came to the big crescendo, have everybody in one group for like one
53:30
big finale. Um, so like I've wanted to do stuff like that because I I and that
53:35
we're talking years ago at this point. Um, but like it just it's fun and like so I like I like ideas like that too
53:42
where like you know you get you get these two different groups together that that co that like crash into each other for the
53:47
the the apex moment of the uh of the campaign and then you know it makes
53:53
everything worthwhile. But then again as always scheduling is the monster that we ultimately have to fight more often.
53:59
Yes indeed. But at this point guys I think think I'm gonna say that we're done. Uh, thank you
54:04
so much to Joe and Liz and Phil for playing in this little thing with me. Uh, thank you to you guys for listening
54:11
to it and thank you to me for running it. Thanks, Matt. It was fun, Matt.
54:17
I was I was very I was very excited to get to make this one because I I was I was excited about the play test and I had to miss that one. So, I was really
54:23
happy to get to do this one. So, thanks for running, Matt. All right. Uh, bye bye everyone. Bye.
54:30
Bye.
54:54
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