The Unseen Servant forums

Aha!
Okay, that makes sense, then. (The space magic rules are rolled into Revised, p. 267, and balanced to use skills like the other classes. But they leave it generic/adaptable and thus without unique flavor. The Codex is MUCH more flavorful, and I understand now.) Question still stands, then... I was trying to choose between Diplomat and Assassin as focus, and it turns out his magic already duplicates both. Just want to make sure Liaozhai can weigh in before I take either as a focus, since he's primary.

I have starfarer as part of my role as a pilot, its a good perk to have but there are other better ones that might jive with solder, up to you.

Welcome to the game, lordgrimli and Marullus. Your characters look great, they fill the few roles we were lacking perfectly!

Marullus wrote:I can change Diplomat to a different focus (perhaps Starfarer or Henchkeeper). Thoughts?

The biggest problem with Henchkeeper is that our free merchant currently has 6 humans and a car taking up all available living area; we wouldn't have enough life support for the poor bloke to survive. If you feel that a polyglottal envoy is stepping on Wei's toes, perhaps you could double down on being our only warrior; Ironhide and Die Hard are both fantastic foci at lvl 1, or taking the second level of Unarmed Combatant would mean you do almost as much damage on a failed attack roll as you would on a hit (initially at least). That would free up using your Warrior's Luck class ability to negate a sniper's bullet to the head rather than making sure your fist connected.

lordgrimli wrote:I have starfarer as part of my role as a pilot, its a good perk to have but there are other better ones that might jive with solder, up to you.

The second level of Starfarer leads to some hilariously quick drills though. Even in our current Drive-2 ship we can move between adjacent sectors in 24 hours. Love the hair by the way.

Good points! Oh for sure I'm planning on taking starfarer lvl 2 later but don't want to be too specialized to start.

Thanks! Doubling-down on the combatant probably means Ironhide. That's my likely course. I like to split Combatant with another role (like Talker/Diplomat) to stay engaged in the non-combat story, too. I considered Diplomat, Authority, and Assassin, but Liaozhai covered those so artfully! As for Henchkeeper, the beautiful thing is they don't come in the ship. She never fails to ensnare the loyalty of some barfly or eager soul wherever we land. That's purely story, though, so it can wait for a future Focus... We have a big enough party now that Henchmen are color, not requirement. I can focus on Combatant as a role and still engage elsewhere. The role-play here is stellar so far (/pun) and I am looking forward to being part of it.

Looks like we're coming along quite nicely
My only question is, our first job is to retrieve a body (possibly warm) or the tech he's carrying,. But what if we encounter as job or sitch where we need to ferry say 2 or 3 bodies (warm that is)? Should we revisit our ship design?

The ship does have quite a bit of cargo space. I am pretty sure we can transport a handful of people for a few days with them only having mild discomfort.

Hi Marullus! Welcome to the game!

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I think our character concepts are divergent enough that it doesn't matter if we have similar skillsets? The only way my character is killing anyone is if I have the element of surprise and is otherwise completely useless in a fight.

Also, as others mentioned, I'm using the Yama King class from Codex of the Black Sun. The mind control focus is also from that book. (Adepts only get one focus at level 1, but have nice abilities that make up for it). Skillwise, the most interesting thing that happens for me occurs at level 2:

Judicious Understanding: You acquire an innate comprehension of whatever legal jurisdiction you currently physically inhabit or have physically inhabited in the past. You have a professional-grade legal understanding of all local laws or law-equivalent customs. When making Know, Administer, Connect, or Trade skill checks related to legal matters or social customs, roll 3d6 and drop the lowest die.

-and-

Colorless Face: Your Passport of Hell ability is upgraded, allowing you to adopt the appearance and ordinary clothing of a mathematically averaged member of the society you physically occupy. This false face remains static for any given culture, and you can only have one false identity per culture, but it has its own DNA and physical form and cannot be detected by non-magical means. Shifting into and out of this face takes a Main Action, and you can do it whether or not you are currently physically occupying the cultural space from which you originally derived the identity.

After that, most of the class's abilities focus on making and enforcing deals (and then at higher levels, secret murder.)

There are a bunch of very nice foci available as well in the Codex of the Black Sun. Assuming we don't all die on this first mission, let's cooperate as the campaign continues so we both have a niche.

personalpariah wrote:The ship does have quite a bit of cargo space. I am pretty sure we can transport a handful of people for a few days with them only having mild discomfort.

Thanks personalpariah. I went back and reread the Starship Hulls section of the guide to get a better understanding. Looks like we get 2 months of life support for 6 crew members for the Free Merchant class of ship. So I extrapolated that out for a range of crew:

(crew #)/(days life support)

• 3/120
  6/60
  9/40
  12/30
  15/24
  18/20

I'll get the ship stats updated today. I still need to update the power/mass info as well (thanks Faanku)

If it works better since we have some late additions, you can pick a larger hull.

Thanks Gerrin. I'm good with what we have. I kind of like being constrained a little bit. Makes things funner.
But I'll let everyone weigh in.

@Everyone
I updated the "Known Campaign Info & Stats" page. Keep me honest folks

I'm also happier starting with the slightly upgraded free merchant we have (it fits the crew a lot better too), though we could lose the fuel scoops and 20 tons of cargo space for an extra fuel bunker and Extended Life Support. That would open up passenger transport jobs if nothing else.

I am very much opposed to losing the Fuel Scoops. They afford us a level of independence and open a way to explore less civilized systems where purchasing fuel might not be an option.

Aye, I understand that. Is it possible to get more info on the sector, Gerrin?
Knowing where the big players are based, and where the TL4 worlds and other nearby systems we can hope to find refuelling stations in would be a big help.

Thanks Liaozhai! Those upgrades are awesome! I was looking enviously at the holoskin emitter cyberware to let her change appearance sci-fi style; we are thinking similarly. I've shifted Dax from Diplomat to Ironhide and shifting her to focus more fully within the "action" role. She still has connect/talk and CHA +1, so she can assist you as the proficient dillentante she is, but the focus-role is yours. (I want her to be able to talk her way into trouble and when it falters, fight her way out.) We'll see how they each grow.

A smaller ship has less capability and smaller upkeep. A bigger ship has more capability and bigger upkeep. For my vote, I like going with the bigger ship - our challenge isn't "doing more on a job with less" but instead becomes "do bigger things on the job to pay for the upkeep on this beast." I like moving towards the equipment / arms lockers and workshop on the ship, personally. I saw our Fixer's post about wanting a workshop and that's great. (A cruiser-sized is required for the workshop to be able to do mods on vehicles, which is important to our VI PC...)

Questions:
- How are we handling starting credits? I see some people didn't pick stock-packages, but I don't see anyone else did the 2d6x100 roll. It looks like everyone adds up to about 1000? My roll was abysmal (500) - is it okay if I ignore that and use 1000?
- Also, I'm leaning Dax into being a hoverbike enthusiast. I intend to add that she likes racing with our VI friend as background relationship. (She also dislikes riding in a car that can't be driven.) I was planning to have crashed/ruined her bike recently (as it is an unaffordable starting expense) but if she can have a beloved bike, that increases our tactical options when we go planetside (rather than trying to figure out how we fit everyone into the VI car, which ends up seating like a mini-bus...).

Thoughts?

The problem with making the Persephone a larger ship is that the maintenance cost is not just bigger, it is MUCH bigger. Using the example ships, we would be going from somewhere around 38,750 maintenance for the Free Trader, to 298K maintenance for the example Corvette. That is HUGE.

For a group of level 1 characters, just getting started in the game, and not being part of a larger institution that is handling maintenance costs, I don't think it is feasible.

The other option (and this is my preferred one) is that we get a little GM hand-waving, and the Persephone becomes a custom Free Trader with slightly more Mass than the average ship of its class. This would allow us to expand our crew size to fit the current party setup, without putting us into too deep of a hole.

Also, let's be clear here: the current maintenance costs are no joke. With our current pay rate of 5k-10k per job, we will need to be VERY busy just to stay afloat.

Marullus wrote: - How are we handling starting credits? I see some people didn't pick stock-packages, but I don't see anyone else did the 2d6x100 roll. It looks like everyone adds up to about 1000? My roll was abysmal (500) - is it okay if I ignore that and use 1000?

I picked the Civilian package which came with two items and 700 credits with no roll involved.

personalpariah wrote:The other option (and this is my preferred one) is that we get a little GM hand-waving, and the Persephone becomes a custom Free Trader with slightly more Mass than the average ship of its class. This would allow us to expand our crew size to fit the current party setup, without putting us into too deep of a hole.

This seems like an elegant solution to me.

Marullus wrote: Questions:
- How are we handling starting credits? I see some people didn't pick stock-packages, but I don't see anyone else did the 2d6x100 roll. It looks like everyone adds up to about 1000? My roll was abysmal (500) - is it okay if I ignore that and use 1000?

Yep , thanks fine

Cool. Done.

Faanku wrote:Aye, I understand that. Is it possible to get more info on the sector, Gerrin?
Knowing where the big players are based, and where the TL4 worlds and other nearby systems we can hope to find refuelling stations in would be a big help.

you know the system adjacent to you has a T4 planet (Husadiq)
The Teus system which is also adjacent has an official refueling station (Hunten 1)