Character Creation Q&A

[PigLickJF]

1 hour ago, Paxon said:

The Tank is a creature, technically, so yes can be affected and can count in certain ways as an ally. For the most part it doesn't make its own rolls though, the PCs make their rolls to act through the tank. It would get certain enhancements to damage, ability scores, and I suppose it will make save rolls sometimes. You could technically affect saves with an Aid Another action, so in that instance you could Aid Another the tank (if it also made sense narratively). The Warleader tactic is a good example, I would allow it to affect the tank. I might have to double check, but I'm not sure constructs can benefit from Morale bonuses, which is a chunk of Warleader.

 

On the Crew side, the Crew does not have its own actions. The PCs use all their own actions. However yes, you are considered to posses the Crews talents, feats, and class features when operating the tank. In your example, the member of the party would use their own move action to activate the tactic, and their own actions to maintain it. I'm sure some odd instanced will come up that I need to make a specific ruling on the spot where this stuff is concerned. Another distinction on this would be the Sniper sphere. While firing the main gun or a relevant weapon connected to the tank, you could use the Crew's sniper talents. If you hop up atop the tank and use your own personal firearm, you are no longer operating the tank, and could not use the sniper sphere for your shot unless your character also possesses it.

Thanks, that helps. In terms of The Crew abilities, can anyone use them at any time, or is the kind of thing that if one person uses it, it's off the table for everyone else that round?

[Paxon]

8 hours ago, PigLickJF said:

Thanks, that helps. In terms of The Crew abilities, can anyone use them at any time, or is the kind of thing that if one person uses it, it's off the table for everyone else that round?

Anyone can use them at any time. It's really more like a set of abilities your character is considered to posses while interfacing with the Tank. 

[relekorlagunis]

I've never had the chance to use the Tech sphere before, but I am very excited to finally dig on my character.  Comments on the mechanics are welcome, now it'll be time to figure out the, uh, character part.

 

Is it possible to take a trait to gain the Drive skill as a class skill?  It's one of the few skills I don't have a class skill.

[Demented]

This post is going to be a bit all over, so I apologize in advance.

 

Would you allow axe kick to work in a Brawler's Flurry?  It says it applies to "Attacks... granted by class features".

 

Second, how many machine guns does the tank have?  A strict reading of the "4 facing each direction" could potentially be read as 4 guns per facing, which would make the tank resemble a Crusader-pattern Land Raider.  Even if you go with 4 guns total, split one per side, a reading of the crew positions strongly implies at least two more, one pintle mounted on the cupola and one mounted co-axially to the main gun.

 

Third, how much ammo does the tank carry?  The loader can forge ammo for the MGs, but there's no stated limit to how long they or the main gun can fire, which would make this a waste of actions.

 

Fourth, there's a bit of confusion in the autofire rules.

  

On 5/19/2022 at 6:04 PM, Paxon said:

Automatic burst: This weapon can fire a burst of shots with a single pull of the trigger to attack all creatures in a line as a full-round action that counts as a special attack action. This line starts from any corner of the wielder's space and extends to the limit of the weapon's range or until it strikes a barrier it cannot penetrate. When using an automatic weapon to attack all creatures in a line, the wielder makes a separate attack roll against each creature in the line. Each creature in the line can be attacked with only one shot from each burst. Each attack roll takes a -2 penalty. Effects that grant concealment, such as fog or smoke, or the blur, invisibility, or mirror image spells, do not affect an automatic weapon's line attack. Roll to confirm each attack roll that threatens a critical hit separately. A single burst with an automatic weapon consumes 10 charges or uses of ammunition.

• If the wielder of this weapon possesses the Barrage sphere, they can choose to spend their martial focus to make additional line attacks as if making a barrage attack. The same area can be targeted by the same burst twice, and apply (blitz) talents to every creature in said lines.

• When taking a full-attack action with an automatic weapon, the wielder can fire as many bursts in a round as he has attacks, provided his gun can hold enough ammo to make all of the attacks, otherwise it only fires what the current box contains (30 box can only have 3 attacks). When using automatic fire, creatures count their perception checks to hear the sound as if they had rolled a 20, even with suppressed firearms. You may not reload during Automatic Fire.

 

You can't take full attack actions with a weapon that takes a full round action to shoot. 

 

Fifth, I'd like to request for the addition of underbarrel grenade launchers/shotguns, as well as HEAT and HEDP grenades, to give an emergency punch against big nasty beasties when out on foot.  And hand grenades.

 

Proposed stats:

HEAT grenade:  4d6 B/P/S damage, no burst, ignores 5 points of DR/hardness

High-explosive dual-purpose grenade:  3d6 B/P/S, 15' burst, ignores 5 points of DR/hardness of anything hit directly, Reflex DC ?

 

Also, what's the reflex DC for explosive grenades and rockets?

 

The multiple grenade launcher is misspelled "Grendade" launcher on the table.

 

Sixth, can characters with the Gunsmithing feat create their own starting weapons and claim the price break?

 

Seventh, by RAW the Rapid Reload feat has no effect on advanced or modern firearms.  Can we get a hour rule that makes it effective?

 

Eighth, if we're taking feats by weapon groups, would Firearms include heavy weapons?  What about siege (tank) weapons?  Or do we need to take separate feats for those?

[Paxon]

On 5/21/2022 at 2:15 PM, Demented said:

Would you allow axe kick to work in a Brawler's Flurry?  It says it applies to "Attacks... granted by class features".

It appears that Brawler's Flurry doesn't actually grant an extra attack, simply gives a two-weapon-fighting feat making the penalty for making an extra attack less. So I'm inclined to say no.

 

On 5/21/2022 at 2:15 PM, Demented said:

Second, how many machine guns does the tank have?  A strict reading of the "4 facing each direction" could potentially be read as 4 guns per facing, which would make the tank resemble a Crusader-pattern Land Raider.  Even if you go with 4 guns total, split one per side, a reading of the crew positions strongly implies at least two more, one pintle mounted on the cupola and one mounted co-axially to the main gun.

I was being a little bit vague, in a sense I'm kind of allowing a MG where needed within reason. But I think to better specify, there will be one pointing each direction (4), plus the coaxial to main gun one (5), and then there is a cupola mount which basically includes the launcher, the hook&pully, and a place for an additional weapon I was leaving open. This will be determined by the PCs as we begin, either using one of their weapons, chipping in for a MG up there, or building something during play. So that is 5 MGs built in, and an additional slot for one more likely heavy weapon version. I'll correct to make that more clear.

On 5/21/2022 at 2:15 PM, Demented said:

Third, how much ammo does the tank carry?  The loader can forge ammo for the MGs, but there's no stated limit to how long they or the main gun can fire, which would make this a waste of actions.

I need to add some stuff around main cannon rounds. I also wanted to integrate some different ammunition types there that can be purchased/scavenged. Dumdum ammunition for the main cannon can also be forged, and the tank will have capacity for 30 stored rounds. For the built in machine guns, I purposely kept it abstract, using the "uses per day" designation from the technician versions of these. You have 12 uses per day across all these built in MGs, firing however many rounds narratively makes sense in a long burst. After that, you're out of ammo for these specialty guns. So the loader being able to make more ammo replenishes uses per day. 

On 5/21/2022 at 2:15 PM, Demented said:

You can't take full attack actions with a weapon that takes a full round action to shoot.

Good point. I tried to fuse together rules here serving two slightly different systems (Paizo and Sphers) and it didn't quite mesh. I need to think just a little on how best to resolve, I'll come back to this.

On 5/21/2022 at 2:15 PM, Demented said:

Fifth, I'd like to request for the addition of underbarrel grenade launchers/shotguns, as well as HEAT and HEDP grenades, to give an emergency punch against big nasty beasties when out on foot.  And hand grenades.

I'll consider it. These were included in the modern firearm rules I took a lot of this from, but I had a few concerns. It may be reasonable, given everything else already in there.

On 5/21/2022 at 2:15 PM, Demented said:

Also, what's the reflex DC for explosive grenades and rockets?

I'm going to use 15. I'll make a note of that too.

 

On 5/21/2022 at 2:15 PM, Demented said:

The multiple grenade launcher is misspelled "Grendade" launcher on the table.

Thanks!

 

On 5/21/2022 at 2:15 PM, Demented said:

Seventh, by RAW the Rapid Reload feat has no effect on advanced or modern firearms.  Can we get a hour rule that makes it effective?

Yeah, makes sense to do. It will essentially reduce reload to free for most weapons. I think I may need to specify reload on some of the heavy weapons like RPGs if I didn't already. Look out for that in the firearms rules soon.

On 5/21/2022 at 2:15 PM, Demented said:

Sixth, can characters with the Gunsmithing feat create their own starting weapons and claim the price break?

I'm not going to have pre-game crafting, so no on this one. There should be time within the game to do some crafting.

On 5/21/2022 at 2:15 PM, Demented said:

Eighth, if we're taking feats by weapon groups, would Firearms include heavy weapons?  What about siege (tank) weapons?  Or do we need to take separate feats for those?

Use Martial Firearms as a weapon group, and Heavy Weapons as a weapon group. Siege weapons will also be separate, but do know that the Crew is automatically proficient with any weapon added to the Tank as an invention or improvement (but not necessarily a firearm someone adds separately). So you'll be able to fire the tanks main weapons without worrying about proficiency. You'll need to take siege weapon proficiencies if you want to fire other tank guns.

Edited May 24, 2022 by Paxon (see edit history)

[PigLickJF]

4 hours ago, Paxon said:

I'm not going to have pre-game crafting, so no on this one. There should be time within the game to do some crafting.

Sort of related question. Is the Craft Permanent Gadget feat a thing (or the alternative, more complex system at the bottom of the Tech sphere page)? If it is, I know we won't be able to have used it for pre-game crafting of our own, but would it be possible to use some of our starting funds to purchase permanent gadgets (at "full market value," i.e. double the creation cost)?

Edited May 22, 2022 by PigLickJF (see edit history)

[Demented]

Most of that's fair, so if I don't comment, assume it's fine, but...

 

  

1 hour ago, Paxon said:

I need to add some stuff around main cannon rounds. I also wanted to integrate some different ammunition types there that can be purchased/scavenged. Dumdum ammunition for the main cannon can also be forged, and the tank will have capacity for 30 stored rounds. For the built in machine guns, I purposely kept it abstract, using the "uses per day" designation from the technician versions of these. You have 12 uses per day across all these built in MGs, firing however many rounds narratively makes sense in a long burst. After that, you're out of ammo for these specialty guns. So the loader being able to make more ammo replenishes uses per day. 

I was going to ask about cannon rounds too, but I didn't because I didn't figure out what the damage should be.  Assuming the listed round is the AP shell, I'd have wanted to see an HE round (burst radius), and a canister round (scatter quality).

 

12 shots for the MGs is extremely light.  For reference, the base M1 Abrams carries 900 rounds of .50-caliber and 10,400 rounds of .30-caliber ammo.  Even at full cyclic with no breaks for reloading or cooling, that's about 90 seconds of fire for the .50 and 5-7 minutes for the .30s.  Two auto bursts a turn, expected for a 6th-level crew, can put out 200 rounds per gun per minute, that's still a lot more ammo than you can use in the space of a typical Pathfinder encounter.

 

EDIT:  Bonus question!

 

Since masterwork weapons now provide circumstance instead of enhancement bonuses, will those circumstance bonuses get transferred from guns to unarmed strike via the Gun Kata talent?

Edited May 22, 2022 by Demented (see edit history)

[PigLickJF]

Oops, forgot to include a question in my last post...

 

Can an "animal" companion take the Martial Beast archetype?

[Paxon]

3 hours ago, Demented said:

12 shots for the MGs is extremely light.  For reference, the base M1 Abrams carries 900 rounds of .50-caliber and 10,400 rounds of .30-caliber ammo.  Even at full cyclic with no breaks for reloading or cooling, that's about 90 seconds of fire for the .50 and 5-7 minutes for the .30s.  Two auto bursts a turn, expected for a 6th-level crew, can put out 200 rounds per gun per minute, that's still a lot more ammo than you can use in the space of a typical Pathfinder encounter.

I'm okay with it feeling like a bit of a strain. You definitely have me on any tank facts, I presume to be no expert there, and I'm going to be extracting certain things for this game rather than play too much in the way of tank simulator. 

But the main thing is this is a post-apocalyptic world, and in this tank you certainly don't have the resources of the US Army and the military industrial complex behind you. Every single round you fire is one you'll have needed to personally purchase, assemble, or scavenge. There is ammo out there to be had, and there are folks producing it, but 10k rounds would be a real treasure trove. It's probably a small miracle a rag-tag group of adventurers have been keeping a tank running at all for generations 🙂  Your particular tank, for better or worse, comes equipped with it's own auto-ammo-generator. You'll have to keep it supplied with raw materials, but I'm going to generally assume you all are able to do that enough for the daily amount, unless in circumstances where you are truly surrounded by nothing for days at a time (a possibility, but not the usual occurrence). So I'm rolling with that amount, open to adjustments later if it feels way off.

3 hours ago, Demented said:

Since masterwork weapons now provide circumstance instead of enhancement bonuses, will those circumstance bonuses get transferred from guns to unarmed strike via the Gun Kata talent?

Yup, and assume as much for any similar circumstances.

 

3 hours ago, PigLickJF said:

Can an "animal" companion take the Martial Beast archetype?

Yeah that would be fine

[PigLickJF]

I have some equipment questions.

 

Is there a list somewhere of standard modern-ish equipment we can purchase?

 

I know we can't purchase magical items to start, does that include items crafted with the Craft Permanent Gadget (item creation) feat? It's basically tech sphere versions of magic items so I'm not sure how that counts (or if you're even using/allowing that feat, or the alternative, slightly more complex crafting rules in the tech section).

[PigLickJF]

Ok, one more question... (Sorry for all the questions, I just have a lot of time on my hands right, I normally won't be this much of a pest, lol).

 

For Knowledge skills, are there some sort of conversions/equivalencies for what Knowledge skills exist and which are used to know about certain creature types? This interacts a bit with the Scout sphere which is part of my build, so just want to know how to go about it.

[Demented]

4 hours ago, PigLickJF said:

I have some equipment questions.

 

Is there a list somewhere of standard modern-ish equipment we can purchase?

+1 to this.  I'm taking a stab at my equipment list and with advanced tech, I'd like to see at least flashlights, radios, night-vision gear, and binoculars that aren't ludicrously overcosted.

 

Since Knowledge Engineering has become sort of a craft skill after a fashion, could we get masterwork tools for the skill that at least apply to the physical tasks, like making repairs?

Edited May 22, 2022 by Demented (see edit history)

[Niblooey]

How do mutations look like? Wondering if it's like, supposed to be closer to reality with a bit of wiggle room for coolness, or if it's like, all out, completely wild about things. Is it like, mostly limited to weird but relatively normal traits like a person with a third arm, weird resistances to Radiation, or 'enhanced' vocal cords that lets them boom their voice out like a loudspeaker (at the cost of sounding like a freakazoid 24/7), or can it go to more extreme lengths like having a lady born with an insect-head, giant land-bound woodpeckers with beaks hard enough to penetrate an inch of steel, or dogs with fast-acting acidic jowls?

Edited May 23, 2022 by Niblooey (see edit history)

[Paxon]

On 5/22/2022 at 10:50 AM, PigLickJF said:

I have some equipment questions.

 

Is there a list somewhere of standard modern-ish equipment we can purchase?

 

I know we can't purchase magical items to start, does that include items crafted with the Craft Permanent Gadget (item creation) feat? It's basically tech sphere versions of magic items so I'm not sure how that counts (or if you're even using/allowing that feat, or the alternative, slightly more complex crafting rules in the tech section).

 

22 hours ago, Demented said:

+1 to this.  I'm taking a stab at my equipment list and with advanced tech, I'd like to see at least flashlights, radios, night-vision gear, and binoculars that aren't ludicrously overcosted.

 

Since Knowledge Engineering has become sort of a craft skill after a fashion, could we get masterwork tools for the skill that at least apply to the physical tasks, like making repairs?

I've been looking a bit for a good list to use today, and so far am not satisfied. One thing I'll say is technology has tended to regress, thus battery-powered technology is a lot more sparse than would easily be found today. The tech sphere covers some of these kinds of items that could be made, but I realize that's a lot of investment (char creation resource-wise) to potentially get some pretty simple tools. I'll keep looking, and perhaps cobble together a list of some simple and reasonable items. For some things, like a flashlight for instance, feel free to simply re-fluff existing equipment. A bullseye lantern, for instance, would be a perfectly acceptable flashlight. I'm going to get back to you on some of those other items for a good solution. 

Craft Permanent Gadget: Yeah I'm open to you using this and having it cost double to reflect purchasing the item, as per your earlier comment.

For Knowledge Engineering, I'll go ahead and say a set of Artisan Tools that applies to craft (mechanical) (or something similar) may also apply its bonus to knowledge engineering when it comes to the repair action on the tank. 

On 5/22/2022 at 12:49 PM, PigLickJF said:

Ok, one more question... (Sorry for all the questions, I just have a lot of time on my hands right, I normally won't be this much of a pest, lol).

 

For Knowledge skills, are there some sort of conversions/equivalencies for what Knowledge skills exist and which are used to know about certain creature types? This interacts a bit with the Scout sphere which is part of my build, so just want to know how to go about it.

I have a section in a spoiler (which are, to me, easier to miss on Baldr than the old site, so I don't know if you've seen it) where I detail which knowledge skills I've gotten rid of, and which monster lore rolls I've wrapped into which other knowledge skills. Maybe it will help to spell this out a little more clearly somewhere.

 

20 hours ago, Niblooey said:

How do mutations look like? Wondering if it's like, supposed to be closer to reality with a bit of wiggle room for coolness, or if it's like, all out, completely wild about things. Is it like, mostly limited to weird but relatively normal traits like a person with a third arm, weird resistances to Radiation, or 'enhanced' vocal cords that lets them boom their voice out like a loudspeaker (at the cost of sounding like a freakazoid 24/7), or can it go to more extreme lengths like having a lady born with an insect-head, giant land-bound woodpeckers with beaks hard enough to penetrate an inch of steel, or dogs with fast-acting acidic jowls?

I'm going to say the primary setting inspirations in my head are probably Mad Max and Fallout, though neither account for the addition of giant monsters and kaiju (use your own favorite inspiration here).

So mutations tend, especially in humans, toward the "reality" end of the spectrum. Many are just plain wired things like extra thumbs, vestigal eyes on the chest etc. Some are cool or helpful, like examples you gave. There is room for super out-there mutations, but the more extreme they are the less common, most don't survive long, and those that do are often ostracized to the extent you don't come across them often. More extreme mutations like your later examples will certainly be found in monsters out the in the wilds and wastes.

[PigLickJF]

12 minutes ago, Paxon said:

I have a section in a spoiler (which are, to me, easier to miss on Baldr than the old site, so I don't know if you've seen it) where I detail which knowledge skills I've gotten rid of, and which monster lore rolls I've wrapped into which other knowledge skills. Maybe it will help to spell this out a little more clearly somewhere.

Oh, I think I did miss that! I thought I caught all the spoiler/ooc tags, but apparently not. I'll check it out, thanks.