Romidar
March 7th, 2019, 17:11
Just ran a 3 hour test session with 4 players last night - all combat just so we could all learn the system. I've been doing practice sessions for a few weeks by running 2 instances at once on my machine, but there are a few things we really got a little stuck on.
I know some of these are bugs or are being worked on - mainly curious what work-arounds other GMs have used. Here's the stuff that we ended up having to track on paper or could not figure out the approach in FG. (I also have been watching FG College for a Starfinder session but no luck yet.)
Grenades.
My understanding of the grenade tactical rules is that the thrower targets a grid and if it hits, everything in the grenade's radius takes damage (no roll to hit against the target, just the grid), but those in the radius get a saving throw for half damage. The grenades in FG seem to work differently - roll to hit for everything selected, no saving throw forced. Am I misunderstanding the rules or are we doing something wrong in FG?
Our workaround was:
Player rolls to hit against 5 AC,
Player rolls damage one time (not separately for each NPC),
GM rolls save for each NPC in radius
GM manually adds wounds to each NPC based on success or failure of save (halving wounds for save).
Am I missing an easier way to do this?
Serums of Healing (but really any serum).
We spent 10 minutes trying to figure this out before I googled and seemed to find that the game has a "template" for serums, but not the item itself. I tried to use the forge to create an actual item, but didn't know what to use as the "base" item on the left of the window.
We ended up tracking this completely outside of FG - just have the player reduce wounds based on their role.
Status effects
Dazed, Flatfooted, Cover, etc. - no idea how to apply these. (Even after google & youtube - I saw that some rulesets have a "mods" window but didn't see how to have that show up in Starfinder - even with that, it seems like you have to remember to apply the mods randomly for each person's role and keep track of the effect on paper. (On the other hand, every one of us was delighted when a crit from a laser rifle did cause an NPC to burn and FG kept track in subsequent rounds.)
Anyway to do handle status effects in a better way in FG?
Movement
Is movement tracked at all in the game if a grid is turned on? Not a huge deal, but did have to keep explaining how to count diagonal movement.
I'm sure there are some things I'm forgetting at the moment.
One of the players had used FG a tiny bit in the past, and 4/5 of us are IT people (developers and designers). We were playing from different locations (only 2 of the 5 were sitting together) and using video conferencing. The interface could use some help - I'm glad I spent a few weeks learning it AND scheduled a mechanics practice session before jumping in so I could explain how to do most things - that being said, we all came away have SUCH a great time even tho we didn't do any real RP in that session. :)
I know some of these are bugs or are being worked on - mainly curious what work-arounds other GMs have used. Here's the stuff that we ended up having to track on paper or could not figure out the approach in FG. (I also have been watching FG College for a Starfinder session but no luck yet.)
Grenades.
My understanding of the grenade tactical rules is that the thrower targets a grid and if it hits, everything in the grenade's radius takes damage (no roll to hit against the target, just the grid), but those in the radius get a saving throw for half damage. The grenades in FG seem to work differently - roll to hit for everything selected, no saving throw forced. Am I misunderstanding the rules or are we doing something wrong in FG?
Our workaround was:
Player rolls to hit against 5 AC,
Player rolls damage one time (not separately for each NPC),
GM rolls save for each NPC in radius
GM manually adds wounds to each NPC based on success or failure of save (halving wounds for save).
Am I missing an easier way to do this?
Serums of Healing (but really any serum).
We spent 10 minutes trying to figure this out before I googled and seemed to find that the game has a "template" for serums, but not the item itself. I tried to use the forge to create an actual item, but didn't know what to use as the "base" item on the left of the window.
We ended up tracking this completely outside of FG - just have the player reduce wounds based on their role.
Status effects
Dazed, Flatfooted, Cover, etc. - no idea how to apply these. (Even after google & youtube - I saw that some rulesets have a "mods" window but didn't see how to have that show up in Starfinder - even with that, it seems like you have to remember to apply the mods randomly for each person's role and keep track of the effect on paper. (On the other hand, every one of us was delighted when a crit from a laser rifle did cause an NPC to burn and FG kept track in subsequent rounds.)
Anyway to do handle status effects in a better way in FG?
Movement
Is movement tracked at all in the game if a grid is turned on? Not a huge deal, but did have to keep explaining how to count diagonal movement.
I'm sure there are some things I'm forgetting at the moment.
One of the players had used FG a tiny bit in the past, and 4/5 of us are IT people (developers and designers). We were playing from different locations (only 2 of the 5 were sitting together) and using video conferencing. The interface could use some help - I'm glad I spent a few weeks learning it AND scheduled a mechanics practice session before jumping in so I could explain how to do most things - that being said, we all came away have SUCH a great time even tho we didn't do any real RP in that session. :)