Ad Astra posts

I've been creating posts that archive the actual rules of AD ASTRA, modified from my older STAR WARS REMIXED game to be... well, less Star Wars specifically, and more "generic" space opera maybe you could say, but really more specific to my AD ASTRA setting.

You saw a good four posts today, and they were all added to the AD ASTRA menu button at the top there, which will be a permanent feature.  I've got at least 5-7 or so more posts before it's complete, depending on how I modify the Star Wars material (or chuck some of it, if it isn't relevant) and how I break it up.

If you just come here to read blog posts (as if!) you'll have to bear with me as I take another day or two to complete this project.  Sorry!

In the meantime, here's a pretty decent image that suggests what I imagine my Knight's psionic weapons would look like.  Imagine a shield of the same ethereal energy on the other arm, and you're good to go!

Ad Astra equipment

In any AD ASTRA game, equipment is going to be an important component of the game. All characters begin with a certain number of credits: 1,000 + 3d4 x 100.  Characters with the Psionic weapons ability receive 3d4 x 100 credits (but start play with the ability to manifest psionic weapons.)  Characters with the Nobility Affinity start the game with 2,000 + 3d4 x 200 credits.

Characters use this starting wealth to purchase starting equipment. During the course of play, additional wealth and equipment will no doubt fall into the character's hands. It's often a fine line to walk between an overly generous Monty Haul GM and an overly stingy Mr. Scrooge one. As the GM, try to use swashbuckling fictional source material to be your guide when it comes to what kind of equipment and wealth a character should be expected to possess and use. You may be surprised to find that it's more generous when viewed that way than you think.

Melee Weapons

Weapon	Damage	Cost	Comments
Knife	1d4	25
Mace	1d6	15
Sword	1d8	60
Staff, spear or pike	1d6	65	Can reach targets that shorter range weapons cannot, at GM's discretion
Radium blade	1d10	250	An electrified weapon that has energy rushing along the blade to do additional damage
Electrostaff	2d8	750	Includes an electric charge at either end that shocks targets hit for more damage.
Radium ax	1d12	500
Psionic weapon	2d8	special	Can only be used by characters with the psionic weapon class ability.

Ranged Weapons
NOTE: Rifles and larger weapons incur a -3 penalty if fired while in melee; they're simply larger weapons that are not meant to be used at close range effectively.

Weapon	Damage	Cost	Comments
Pistol	2d4	250	Fires a solid projectile, i.e. a bullet
Radium Pistol	2d6	500	Fires a short blast of plasma
EMP Pistol	DC 15	250	Does not do normal damage, but cuts power to robots and other electronics
Heavy radium pistol	2d8	750	A more powerful, but larger and bulkier version
Radium carbine	2d8	900	Standard issue military weapon
Rifle	2d8	300	Fires a solid projectile, i.e. a bullet
Radium Rifle	2d10	1000	Fires a short blast of plasma
EMP Rifle	DC 20	800	Does not do normal damage, but cuts power to robots and other electronics
Flamethrower	3d6	1000	Short range only; usually within about 30 ft.
Heavy Radium Rifle	2d12	1500	Quite large and unusual weapon
Radium Cannon	3d10	3000	Usually mounted on a tripod, but can be slung and carried like Jesse Ventura with a minigun
Heavy Repeating Cannon	4d10	4000	Can be used to target up to 3 opponents in one round, but if so, splits the damage dice, i.e. 1d10 to target 1, 1d10 to target 2, 1d10 to target 3. Can also, of course, apply all damage to a single target.
Missile Launcher	6d6	5000	Can be shoulder fired, although it makes for an interesting touch to integrate it to armor and fire it from a backpack.

Grenades
Grenades are thrown via a ranged attack. Because they are somewhat imprecise, a direct hit is not necessary—any attack that misses by less than 5 is considered "close enough." Grenades might also hit more than one opponent if they are bunched closely enough, at the GM's discretion.

Weapon	Damage	Cost	Comments
Frag Grenade	3d6	200
EMP Grenade	DC 20	300	See discussion above on EMP damage

Armor
There are so many types of armor in the AD ASTRA universe, that I will make no effort to categorize all of them. Rather, armor is a customizable commodity; you spend your credits and get the bonuses and advantages that you pay for.

A few other notes about armor:

• Light armor has an armor bonus of +1 to +4.
• Medium armor has an armor bonus of +5 to +7.  Any stealth rolls in medium (or heavier) armor and any psionic power use will have a -5 penalty to the DC when used in armor this heavy. 
• Heavy armor has an armor bonus of +8 or greater. Very few characters in AD ASTRA ever wear heavy armor (except for some robots) as not only does it increase the penalty noted above to -8, it also invalidates the DEX bonus to AC that characters normally get. It's just too big and bulky! If you feel like you need it, you probably need to talk to your GM about why the campaign is so hard and non-swashbucklery.  Either that or you’re playing an unusual character who is not hampered by any of those drawbacks, like a soldier bot.
• Armor is expensive! Only fairly successful characters or ones issued military gear tend to have really complicated armor. That said, for characters who want to have it, GMs should keep that in mind and make it available. Level 1 characters, though—probably not going to start out with Cilindan commando suits anytime soon.
• Weapons can be added to most armors for the cost of the weapon +50 credits to integrate it to the armor. This bonus makes sure that you cannot be disarmed by any means (other than breaking your armor, I suppose.) Cilindarean commando armor would have an integrated radium pistol on one arm, flamethrower on the other arm, and missile launcher on the back, for example. To create the same thing, buy the Cilindarean commando suit armor bonus (+6) below for 5000 credits, pay for the three weapons (500, 1000, and 5000 credits respectively), and pay 50 credits each to integrate the weapon into the armor. The total value of a typical Cilindarean commando suit would therefore be 11,650 credits.

Armor Bonus	Cost	Comments/Examples
+1	500	Ballistic mesh suit
+2	1000	Light helmet thick ballistic mesh suit
+3	1500	Ballistic suit with a few metal or ceramic radium-shielded plates
+4	2000	Combat bot armor
+5	3000	Military grade soldier's armor of metal or ceramic plate
+6	5000	Cilindarean commando suit
+7	8000	Commando bot armor
+8	12,000	Soldier bot armor
+9	20,000	Super heavy soldier bot
+10	30,000	Unreasonably heavy armor

There are a number of other enhancements that can be added to armor besides simply the armor value. Some of these can also be purchased as stand-alone items, rather than built into a suit of armor, but if integrated they incur a cost of +25 additional credits for the integration. This is not meant to be a comprehensive list, and many other items can be invented or used as needs dictate. This list is based on effect rather than item; more than one item could conceivably have the same effect, but mechanically it would be the same.

Effect	Cost	Comments/Examples
+1 to STR	2000	Certain powered armor, including that of soldier bots. Armor must be at least medium to have this bonus.
+2 to STR	5000	Comes with high value powered armor. Armor must be at least Heavy to have this bonus.
+1 to DEX	2000	Certain powered armor, including Cilindan commando suits. Armor cannot be Heavy and grant this bonus.
+2 to DEX	5000	Certain powered armor. Armor must be light armor to grant this bonus.
Perception affinity	2000	Sensor antenna and HUD
Computer affinity	2000	Computer inferface tool used by many mechanics robots or hackers.
Other affinity	2000	Various equipment could grant the effect of an affinity. Unless it's too good for some reason, the price is always 2000.
Individual shield	10,000	Able to be installed only on heavy armor or vehicles, so it is much more likely to appear on robots than organic characters. Energy shields provide Damage Reduction 10 against plasma weapons, meaning that 10 is reduced from the damage caused by any such weapon for each attack.

In addition, the following equipment can be installed into a suit, or used as is, for the price listed. For most of these the use is either obvious, or the GM can dictate what it is. These are meant to be examples, not an exhaustive list.

Item	Cost	Comments
Commlink	50	Necessary for communication when not in face to face conversation distance.
Signal Jammer	2000	Usually installed in vehicles or ships
Datapad	10	Data storage is cheap. Can contain any info the GM needs
Flashlight	5
Breath mask	500	Not suitable for the rigors of full vacuum, but works underwater, or in thin or poisonous atmosphere.
Space suit	2000	For use in space
Medical suite	50,000	Installed in buildings or larger spaceships. Could potentially be used to bring a "dead" character back to life. Really a plot device rather than a mechanical feature.
Jet pack	2000	Allows flight. Built into Cilindan commando suits
Utility belt	250	Some minor tools, as well as a cable and grappling hook. To use the cable requires a DEX + Physical check. If it is integrated into armor, you can a +2 bonus.

Let's see if I can pull all of this together, shall we? Here's an example. To create the classic fully-loaded Cilindan commando suit, you need to start with +6 Medium armor (5,000 credit base.) The commando suit has three integrated weapons, and each has a cost of 50 credits to install above the cost of the weapon itself. The radium pistol is therefore 550 (500 + 50), the flamethrower is 1050 (1000 + 50) and the missile launcher is 5050 (5000 + 50.) That brings the total for the armor so far to 11,650. Cilindan commando suits also grant a +1 to DEX (2000) and come equipped with scanners, which grant the Perception affinity (2000 + 25). This brings the total to 15,675. Adding in a commlink (50 + 25) a breath mask in the helmet (500 + 25) the jetpack (2000 + 25) and the utility cable (250 + 25), we get a grand total of 18,575 credits for a fully loaded Cilindan commando.

That's pretty pricey, but if you consider that we'd never see anyone in one who's conceivably lower than the mid-levels (and maybe quite a bit higher, for that matter) it can serve as a very rough guide of what a higher level character should be able to afford. I envision someone like an iconic Cilindan bounty hunter, for example, has the armor above, two heavy blaster pistols, his own small corvette or other personal space ship and is probably about a 7th or 8th level Soldier or Gunslinger.

As a very rough guide, a character should have equipment worth about his level x 3,000 or 4,000 credits to him, but that guide is meant to be very rough, and could vary considerably according to style. But keep in mind, that scrounging for equipment doesn't really ever seem to be an issue with any characters we ever see in the type of source material that this game is meant to emulate. This is one occasion where erring on the side of generosity will feel more true to the source material rather than erring on the side of stinginess. And that guideline isn't good for much other than a very rough estimate of how I personally would do it.

The converse consideration is that characters loaded down with tons of stuff doesn't really feature in swashbuckling space opera adventures either. A ship, maybe a grav-bike or grav-car—these are big expenses, and where characters have them (as probably most should after a few levels) that makes loading up on armor or other equipment a bit more tricky. Another "sink" for credits besides ships and/or speeders would be a robot cohort, and robots can be pretty pricey if you load them up with gear and equipment. A standard repair droid can be created (as probably a 1st level expert and a ton of equipment listed here, including several affinity packages will easily be a several thousand credit sink. Depending on the format of your group of PCs, you might want to consider allowing the PCs to have a robot or two as a cohort, probably a couple of levels lower than the PCs, and probably not combat focused bots. An repair bot, for example, is an invaluable resource to the players, and frankly also to the GM, who can allow it to "soak up" all kinds of challenges due to their specialties, so the PCs themselves can just say, "R2, see what you can do with it" and expect R2 to provide some kind of solution.  Robot cohorts should cost 5,000 credits per level, plus whatever equipment they also have.

And finally, expensive gear like battle-suits, ships and robots can get damaged, or even destroyed, requiring the PCs to spend their money all over again. Be careful about how you do this so the players don't feel like it's a punitive gesture, and you can get away with bleeding off accidentally overly generous credit allowances to replace a robot or fighter that got totally scrapped in a major combat.

Ad Astra psionics

Although all characters have a Psionics skill rank (except robots) only characters with the Psionic Abilities class ability can actually use psionic powers. Using any psionic power costs 2 hit points (because it's tiring and wears you out to rely on it too much) and requires a skill check of 1d20 + Psionics + the applicable stat bonus. Sometimes the DC that a character is trying to hit with his psionic check is an opposed psionic check—even for characters who cannot use psionic powers themselves, they still have a psionic skill rank which they can use in opposed psionic checks. Other times, it's a static DC set by the GM.

For simplicity sake, there are only a few listed psionic powers in this basic rules-set There may be other psionic powers available.  There are no rules for them here, if so, but if desired, they can be home-brewed into the game with GM approval and involvement.

When using psionics in combat, you must make your psionics skill check first. If you fail the check, you still lose the hit points—it always costs 2 hp to use psionics, but the opponent would incur no ill effect since the check failed. Some powers can be used against multiple targets. That's OK, but there is a -2 penalty to the psionics skill check for each additional target beyond the first, and it costs 1 extra hit point per each additional target beyond the first. So, for example, attempting to use telekinesis against five combat bots at once would incur a -8 penalty on the check (which must be made separately for each target) and would cost 6 HP regardless of the outcome.

• Telekinesis: Psionics + MND check vs. Physical + STR or DEX (usually whichever is better) of the target, if used as a telekinetic push against an opponent. Telekinetic push inflicts 1d4 damage per attacker character level, and knocks the opponent to the ground. The opponent suffers a -4 to AC until they can use a Move action to stand back up. This can also be used to pick up and hurl objects, or to have objects (such as a dropped weapon) come to you when "called." Hurled objects typically do 1d4 or 1d6 damage (depending on the size) to whomever they hit. It also typically takes both a telekinesis check and a Ranged Attack check to both successfully pick up an object and hit your opponent with it. It's a difficult thing to do, which is why when advanced knights do this, it's pretty impressive. You don't see a lot of Knights trying something that complicated too often.
• Biometric surge: Psionics + MND vs. static DC set by the GM. Useful for the amazing feats of speed and leaping common to Knights. Failure consequences depend on the degree of failure, i.e., if you just miss your check on a Jump, you don't reach your goal and may have to jump again. If you blow it by a larger margin, you may hurt yourself falling in the attempt (see rules for falling in the Combat section.) This one is very situational in terms of what the penalties for failure might be, although a good GM should use swashbuckling fictional source material as a guide and not be overly punitive. This is supposed to be an application of psionics that allows Knights to be superheroic and swashbucklery, and that requires a fairly generous interpretation both of DCs and the consequences of failure or else you'll discourage your Knights from acting like Knights.
• Prescience: Psionics + MND check. For every 10 points on your check, the character gains a +1 to attack, damage and AC for the duration of the combat. For example, if a 7th level Knight with a +2 MND bonus rolls a 10 on a d20 (for a total roll of 19) he would gain +1 to attack, AC and damage, but take 2 points of damage, as normal. If he had rolled an 11, for a total of 20, he would gain a +2 to damage, attack and AC.
• Negate Energy: Psionics + MND check—DC equal amount of damage taken. By taking the standard 2 points of damage, the character can negate the damage from one energy source, including kinetic engergy, by shunting the energy outside of the material universe and into the Outer Darkness. Unlike with other psionic powers, the character can Negate as many attacks per round as he has HP to spend on activating the power without any penalty for multiple targets. It also can be done passively when it is not the character's turn, but it does cost a combat action to use. If used passively in this manner, when the character gets his next turn, he can still move, but is considered to have already spent his other action on this psionic power. Obviously, this is only desirable to do if the damage is higher than the 2 points cost to use the power, and the player does not mind giving up his next action. This can also be used outside of combat to walk through fire, or an irradiated room, or something like that.  
• Dark energy blast: The Knight causes energy directly from Outer Darkness to manifest in regular space and shoot from his hand to blast enemies.  Psionics + MND vs a DEX + Physical to dodge the attack, or a Psionics + MND to oppose, absorb or block the attack (for example, on your psionic shield) The target of a successful check takes 1d6 damage per level of the attacker.
• EMP blast: Psionics + MND vs. Physical + DEX or STR (whichever is better.) Treat this psionic power as if it were an EMP attack; robot and other electrical targets which do not make their save are shut off.
• Psionic suggestion: Psionics + MND vs. Psionics + MND (even characters that cannot use psionic powers have a psionic skill ranking that they can use to oppose suggestions.) A simple opposed check in which the character can make a suggestion seem amazingly reasonable via telepathy. The GM may impose, as with any skill check, situational modifiers that may apply if the target thinks the suggestion is outrageous or over-the-top.
• Clairvoyant sense: Often a Psionics + MND against a static DC set by the GM to see a person or place in the past or present, or even glimpses of possible futures. The GM can also roll checks against this out of combat in secret to give the player clues or hints about things going on around them (such as sensing an old master or enemy nearby.)
• Telepathy: Psionics + MND against a static DC set by the GM to implant a message without speaking (and possibly across great distance—although the speed of thought is not faster than the speed of light). The message is usually short and fairly simple, and comes with no compulsion to act on it. Receptive minds may grant a circumstance bonus to the check while resistant or unwilling minds may cause a penalty, at the GM's discretion.

Using psionic abilities outside of combat is a simple skill check, and since you're outside of combat the hp cost is usually irrelevant and therefore not applied, although NOTE: this does not mean you can use psionics without consequence on something like Prescience right before a combat starts. Don't try to be a rules-lawyer, the GM is the final say, and I can't imagine a GM that would think that's OK. If you're in the midst of a tense scene of some kind, although not combat per se, your GM may rule that you take the hp damage regardless, because it may become very relevant if you are at risk of being involved in combat soon.

Static DCs are meant to reflect d20 standard DCs, in which a DC of 15 is a reasonably "average" task; difficult and requiring some degree of expertise, but should not be beyond even the capabilities of most lower level characters. Anything in the single digits is almost not worth rolling (unless the consequences of failure are suitably dramatic) and anything around 25 or more is a fairly epic task that only higher level characters should feel confident that they can accomplish.

Design notes:  At the bargain price of 2 HP per power use, Knights and other psionic characters start out somewhat weak but become more powerful as levels progress. But, because I cap the game at 10th level, the real runaway psionic prodigies similar to what you may see in some fictional source material may not really be creatable without breaking the rules and going higher level, or perhaps giving them a unique Affinity to using the Force that reduces their HP cost. I don't recommend that for player characters, unless you desire a campaign in which Knights and wizards are much more dominant. The rules as written are meant to maintain a more equal balance between the classes.

Ad Astra combat

All characters have a number of hit points (hp) equal to 10 + their STR score and +2 per level beyond 1st level. Successful attacks against a character, as well as certain other conditions, will remove hit points temporarily. Characters who, for whatever reason, reach 0 hit points or lower, collapse into unconsciousness and shock, and are at risk of dying. Every round, the character must succeed on a check of his STR + character level, DC 20 every round or die, as described in the Hit Points section of Character Generation.

Most NPC antagonists follow these same rules, but certain NPC antagonists are considered "mooks" (also minions, goons, spear-carriers, etc.) and are not meant to keep fighting after being hit. These characters don't have any hit points, and any successful attack in combat will automatically kill or incapacitate them outright. They are, however, assumed to have all of the other stats as any other character. A soldier bot could be a mook who goes down with only one successful hit, but because he has heavy armor and a high STR, he still makes a more formidable opponent than a regular combat bot.

Each round of combat is conducted in initiative order. Roll 1d20 + DEX for each character to determine initiative order; the character with the highest roll goes first, then the character with the next highest, on down until everyone has moved, at which point you return to the first person in order and do it all again until the combat is over. Resolve any ties by comparing the DEX score. Everyone can do two things during a combat round, (1) move and (2) a move equivalent action, which can be another move, an attack, deflect a ranged attack (if a Knight using his psionic shield), use a skill, etc. All checks or attacks target a Difficulty Class (DC); either a skill DC for skill checks, an opposed skill check result for opposed skill checks, or the target's Armor Class (AC) for attack rolls. Although a move is considered 30 feet, I'm not interested in using a battle-mat, or overly tactical combat, so that's more of an abstraction than anything else. Remember how you used to play D&D back in the 80s without mapping out combat unless it got really excessively complicated due to lots of opponents? That's how space opera games should feel—combat is fast and loose and swashbucklery, not static and grid-based and miniatures game like. To facilitate this, unlike in D&D or most other d20 games, it's not assumed that you must Move and then take your move equivalent action (be it an attack, using psionics, or whatever)—rather, you are assumed to do them at the same time during your turn in the combat round. This means that in d20 terms, all characters are automatically assumed to have the equivalent of the Spring Attack feat.

Although most of the time this doesn’t matter, in case it ever does, the assumed length of a combat round is six seconds.

Melee attacks are made as a STR + To Hit (usually equal to your level—see Character Generation section, but for characters with the Combat Bonus class ability it can be higher). Add your STR bonus to damage as well.  Ranged attacks are made as DEX + Attack Bonus. This includes both shooting a gun as well as throwing something, such as a grenade. If a natural 20 is rolled, you do not need to confirm a critical hit, you automatically do double damage (roll damage dice twice, don't just multiply the result of a single roll.)  If a natural 1 is rolled, you automatically miss, no matter what the total of your bonuses may be.

You may also take damage from other things than simply combat attacks. Here's a few examples:

• Falling: A character takes 1d6 damage for every ten feet fallen. You can reduce this damage by trying to land lightly by making a DEX + Physical skill check with a DC equal to the number of feet fallen. This will result in only half of the damage taken (rounded up.) The Force Surge power can be used to negate falling damage altogether, assuming that there is a steady place to land on below and the distance isn't crazy.
• Hazards: When falling into a hazard, such as spikes, or something like that, add +1 point to the falling damage for every ten feet fallen, max +10.
• Poison: Make a STR + Physical skill check to avoid the damage caused or for half, depending on the poison. The effect depends on the specific poison.
• Extreme Heat or Cold: If not wearing suitable protection, make a STR + Physical skill check once every 10 minutes (DC 15 + 1 per previous check), taking 1d6 damage on each failed save.

Healing.  Characters heal, i.e. gain back the number of lost hit points every hour equal to their character level, or twice this with medical care. (I.e., a 3rd level character will regain 3 lost hit points per hour, or 6 with medical attention.)  To gain the benefits of medical care, you must rest for the entire hour; i.e., stop doing action-movie type stuff. Using Heroism Points, a character can automatically heal themselves of 2d6+2 lost hit points as a "second wind."

Chases.  Related to combat is another staple of the action movie (including space operas)—the chase scene. When one character chases another (either on foot, or in a vehicle) the first thing the GM needs to do is decide how far apart they are. Characters make opposed checks of Physical + DEX (or Agility + DEX for a vehicle.) Whoever wins the opposed check improves his positioning vs. the other participant by his movement allowance. So, if he's running away, he would widen the gap by his movement. If he's chasing, he'd close the gap. Movement (in most cases) is 30 feet for characters on foot. In addition to running, characters can attempt to take other actions, such as fire off a shot with a blaster, dodge through a crowd, knock over crates to throw off pursuit, dodge crates that the person you're chasing knocked over, etc. For these types of actions, use GM rulings to adjudicate—but skill + stat checks for most of them will work. Successful attacks will do damage, as in combat, whereas tactics to slow pursuit may throw pursuers off, force them to make a check to see where you're going, or automatically lose their chase check if you knock them down or something like that.

When a chase is successful is also highly situation dependent. In an open plain or in empty space, you can see for miles and can conceivably chase someone for miles. In a crowded street, it may be easy to lose pursuit. Again, as always, the GM rules based on the situation at hand. Usually if a pursuer catches his prey, the scene changes from a chase scene to a combat scene.

If for some reason you have a character who's extraordinarily fast (i.e., a racial ability, or a mount), give them a bonus on Chase check results equal to +1 for every 10 feet of movement they normally have over 30 ft (rounded down to the nearest 10 feet.)

Ad Astra Character Generation

Header.  First off, spell out some of the very basic details of your character at the top of the sheet. What's his name? What does he look like? How old is he? At this early stage of character creation, you probably also want to think about the concept of who your character is, much as an author coming up with a quick and dirty profile of a character he will use in a novel or screenplay. You don't have to come up with a long or detailed backstory (I certainly don't necessarily encourage it, although if you like to do that kind of thing, knock yourself out.  Just don't throw a fit if you spend all that time on a character backstory only to have him killed in the first half hour of play) but these kinds of early thoughts should also lead you towards what the race and class choices you will make are likely to be, as well as getting you to think about how you will assign your stats.

Stats.  "Stats" is a shorthand term for three scores that your character will have. These basic scores give a quick, simple and abstract number that quantifies some of your innate traits and capabilities. The three stats are Strength (abbreviated STR), Dexterity (DEX) and Mind (MND.) Your STR score describes how tough and strong you are physically, while your DEX score describes your reflexes, hand-eye coordination, agility and speed. Your MND score speaks to your intelligence, wisdom, personal magnetism, and other traits that have less to do with your physical body and more to do with your presence or wits.

Stats are, by design, quite generic and abstract, and describe innate traits. Skills, on the other hand, while also fairly generic and abstract, will describe abilities that you have learned, practiced and developed. If the GM decides that there is some inherent risk in a task you have elected to do, he will have you make a "check" to see if you are successful. Most of the time, these checks will consist of rolling a d20, taking the result of that roll, adding to it your Stat bonus and your Skill bonus, and comparing the result to a target number, which by tradition is called a Difficulty Class (DC.) Generating the score of a stat is a little bit convoluted, but the range of numbers is traditional, and I have elected not to buck tradition here very much. Roll a d8 four times. Ignore the lowest roll on the four dice.  Subtract 4 from each of the three remaining numbers, which will turn them into three scores with a range of -3 to +4.  The average should be about +1 or so, although of course it may vary.  If you are quite a bit lower than this your GM may allow you to reroll these scores, if you're not whiny about it. Some GMs, on the other hand, feel that playing with the hand the dice deal you is part of the fun.

For these scores, higher is better. Assign the scores to your stats as you see fit, to best fit the concept of your character (for example, if you envision your character as a scholarly or quick-witted fellow, put your highest score in MND—if you picture instead a big, athletic bruiser, you probably want to put your highest score in STR.) If your STR score ever falls to -5, your character dies. If your DEX score ever falls to -5, your character is completely immobile and cannot move at all. If your MND score ever falls to -5, then your character is brain dead and effectively removed permanently from play.

Derived Stats.  A few stats are not "rolled" but rather are derived from the stats noted above.  Hit points is one such.  Your maximum hit point score for all characters, regardless of class, is generated by using the STR score plus 10 plus 2 for every level (excluding first.) Hit points indicate how much damage a character can take before being too injured to continue. Your maximum hit points, when uninjured, can never be surpassed, except possibly under the influence of a psionic or high-tech effect (which will usually be temporary.) However, when injured, you will lose hit points. If, for example, your character is hit by a pirate against whom he is fighting and takes 7 points of damage, your current hit points will be reduced to 7 below maximum.  It won't stay that way; characters do heal lost hit points, but even so, it never will go above his maximum hit point total.

Characters who, for whatever reason, reach 0 hit points or lower, collapse into unconsciousness and shock, and are at risk of dying. Every round, the character must succeed on a check of his STR + character level, DC 20 every round or die. Naturally, it behooves the rest of the group to "stabilize" the character before he dies, while he is still unconscious and in shock. Another character can attempt to administer quick and dirty first aid by taking a round, while adjacent to wounded character, and making a MND + Knowledge check, DC 15. This represents very minimal bandaging or other first aid, and the character will be stabilized, and will no longer be at risk of near-term death (unless, of course, he takes more damage while unconscious and starts the process over again) but the character will not at this point regain any lost hit points, and he remains unconscious.

The other derived stat is Armor Class, or AC.  Your AC is calculated by starting with the base number of 10 and adding your DEX score, whatever armor bonus your armor confers, as well as your character level.

Skills.  Characters in AD ASTRA have access to five skills—Communication, Physical, Subterfuge, Knowledge, and Psionics. The skill rank for every character is equal to his level plus any class or race bonuses. A skill check is made by rolling a d20 and adding both your skill rank and the stat bonus applicable as described above.  The GM, again, will tell you what applies, but those are general guidelines. Hacking a computer, to give an example, would probably be MND + Knowledge.

Only characters who take the Psionic Abilities class ability can use psionic powers. But all characters have rankings in the skill anyway, if nothing else, to use in resisting certain psionic powers (which, as in d20 opposed skill checks, require both characters to make a check against each other.)

All of the m20 skills equate to a few skills on the standard d20 skill list, but they are "collapsed" into fewer selections. So, for example, Communication is equivalent to Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, etc. while Subterfuge can be used for such varied tasks as Hide, Move Silently, Disguise, Forgery, etc. For the most part, it should be obvious which of the skills on this simplified list apply to any given situation, but as in all things, defer to the judgment of your GM.

Classes.  There are a number of class abilities available for your character.  There are no pre-fabricated classes, however—you simply pick two class abilities.  I do provide some sample classes, but you are not restricted to using those;  you can mix and match class abilities as desired. There also isn't really a mechanism to multiclass, so pick your concept, pick the class abilities that best suit it, and run with it. Given how rules-lite the system is, the a la carte class ability system is easily flexible enough to accommodate a lot of variety in concept anyway. As always, NPCs don't necessarily always follow all of these rules.

Class special abilities:

• Combat Bonus: +1 to Damage and attack at 1st level.  This increases to +2 at 4th, and +3 at 8th.
• Skill Bonus: +3 to a skill (Communication, Physical, Subterfuge or Knowledge)
• Psionic Abilities: Although all characters have ranks in all skills, correlated to their level, unless you take this ability, you cannot use psionic powers.  You can still use your ranks in Psionics defensively in some situations, such as to resist the effect of a psionic suggestion, for example.  
• Sneak Attack: add Subterfuge modifier to damage roll when sneak attacking.  May require successful subterfuge + Dex check to sneak up on the character in the first place.
• Affinity: an affinity adds the ability to reroll a check if desired if it falls within the spectrum of a specialized area.  This includes (but may not necessarily be limited to): Vehicle Piloting, Vehicle Repair, Robot Repair, Computers, Medicine, Investigation, Nobility, Deception, Stealth, Wilderness Survival, Acrobatics, Psionics, Perception, and Demolitions.
• Psionic Weapons: can use the Combat Bonus to attack and damage (as described above), but only when using psionically generated energy weapons.  The ability grants the ability to manifest psionic weapons.  These weapons, made of energy drawn from outside of the known universe directly from the bulk usually resemble a slightly glowing, translucent sword and shield, or other melee weapon that the character desires.  Any character with this ability can, instead of attacking, deflect missed ranged fire back at anyone shooting at him with a shield-like energy construct (rolls as if making a ranged attack, can only apply to shots that target him but miss; hits still do damage as normal and cannot be deflected.)  If the character doesn’t move or take any other action, he can use his psionic weapon to "fight defensively" by adding +4 to his AC against ranged attacks.  Missed attacks when "fighting defensively" can be deflected.

Some example class configurations:

• Soldier: Combat Bonus and Physical Skill Bonus.
• Scoundrel: Sneak Attack and Subterfuge Skill Bonus.
• Expert: One Affinity and Knowledge Skill Bonus.
• Knight: Psionic Weapons and Psionic Abilities.
• Gunslinger: Combat Bonus and Affinity Demolitions
• Bounty Hunter: Combat Bonus and Sneak Attack
• Agent: Sneak Attack and Affinity Stealth
• Space Wizard: +3 Psionic skill and Psionic Abilities

There isn’t really any way to create any type of Knight other than using the sample Knight class, since the two psionic class abilities use take up the two class abilities, leaving no room for anything else.  Tough.  Knights are supposed to be rare and unusual, not commonplace with a variety of styles. Also; taking the psionic weapons without the rest of the psionic abilities is technically possible, it would be really weird from an in-setting perspective.  The reverse isn't necessarily true, however.

Races.  Pick a race for your character. Because in most space operas, all races tend (mostly) to be just regular people in funny masks, any characteristic can apply to any race if desired (subject to GM approval.) But feel free to try and play your race to type, or at least to construct it to type. Picking a race is an a la carte option in AD ASTRA. Rather than picking a race and applying preset bonuses, you can decide exactly what being a member of a given race means. The system for constructing race bonus is to use two Racial Template Points (RTP) and add them to your character at creation. The same RTP can be taken, if desired, more than once. One RTP is equal to either:

• A +1 Stat bonus. This could also include a +1 to AC as natural armor, even though AC isn't a "stat" per se.
• Two skill points (i.e., +2 to one skill of your choice, or +1 to two skill bonuses of your choice.)
• A special trait or ability (usually an affinity, as described above in the Expert class. If a character has the same affinity for both race and class, allow them to reroll twice! They clearly really want to be good in that area, and are spending character generation capital to do so at the expense of something else.)
• Another special ability, which can be designed to suit, if desired.  Here are a few samples:
• The ability to breath water as well as air.
• Retractable claws which allow you to climb vertical surfaces
• The ability to see in the dark as if you have biological night vision googles.
• The ability to run twice as fast as a regular humanoid creature.

Subject to GM approval, some races may give up the equivalent of a negative RTP to gain an effective third RTP, but I wouldn't do much of this. Otherwise, however, players are strongly encouraged to play around with this race system to create the customized version of their character that they want.  Here's a few samples from the AD ASTRA setting material:

• Human (Earth-extraction): +1 to all skills (except Psionics.)
• Altairan (alien human): +2 to MND
• Ubrai (alien human): +1 to DEX and Pilot affinity
• Arcturan (large, furry aliens): +2 to STR
• Cetians (amphibious aliens): +1 to MND and ability to breath water or air equally
• Sirian reptoids: +1 to STR and +1 to natural AC
• Idacharan (alien human): +1 to DEX, +1 Physical and +1 Knowledge
• Carinan Hulks (physically powerful aliens): +3 to STR, -1 to MND (NOTE: Uses the rule above that I recommended against doing much of. But a few exceptions here and there don't bother me much.)

Sentient robots can also be created using the rules for RTP. Robots cannot be Knights, and have no psionic skill ability. They do not receive stat increases upon leveling as biological characters do, but in return are immune to mind-influencing powers and several physiological conditions which are problematic, if not fatal, to biological creatures (such as no need to breathe, immunity to poison, immunity to pain, etc.) They never age or die as long as they are maintained. Here's a few sample robot types:

• Diplomatic model: +2 Knowledge and +2 Communication
• Combat bot: +1 to DEX and +2 to Physical
• Repair bot: Vehicle Repair affinity and Computers affinity
• Soldier bot: +2 STR

Keep in mind that robots are a combination of their racial traits and the equipment that they're built with, even moreso than other characters, since their equipment is usually integrated directly to their frames and cannot be easily taken from them. Soldier bots would have heavy armor, while regular combat bots would not, but that's a case of their built in equipment, not their racial stats. PC robots should be allowed similar flexibility (as can PCs of other races, of course. Equipment is an important part of modifying stats in any d20-like game.)

Robots must make a STR + Physical check (or DEX + Physical check in the case of an area effect, such as a grenade) when hit with an EMP attack. If they fail, they will be shut down. To be reactivated, they usually just need to be switched back on and then make a STR + Physical check (or have the character switching them on make a MND + Knowledge check DC 15) to quickly bypass the power outage caused by the EMP attack.  Otherwise, the robot is incapacitated for the duration of the combat. A damaged robot with access to the necessary tools (and in some cases, someone else to make the repairs, but usually they can do it themselves) heals like a normal character.

To Hit Scores.  There are three To Hit scores.  These are used mostly in combat situations.  They operate very similar to Skills; they could perhaps be called specialized combat skills.  The first is Melee To Hit, and represents the ability you have to successfully hit (and damage) an opponent with or without a weapon in hand to hand combat.  It is calculated by adding your STR modifier to your character level, plus any class based bonus you may have (such as the Combat Bonus.)  When added to a d20 roll, this is the modifier you will use to attack an opponent in hand to hand combat.  The Ranged To Hit represents your ability to throw or shoot a weapon.  It is calculated the same way, except that instead of using your STR modifier, you will use your DEX modifier.  Do the same for the Psionic To Hit, using MND.  Keep in mind that characters may not always have the means to make a certain kind of attack (this is especially applicable to psionic attacks, where characters most likely do not have any access to psionic attacks.)  But make a note of it anyway; you never know what may happen in the course of the game!

Heroism Points.  Heroism points represent a character's determination and their importance to the  forces of fate, or destiny, or luck... or just a second chance at something critical, sometimes. A character gets three heroism points per session to start with. Heroism points can be used to add a +10 to any d20 roll that the character makes. It can also be used as a "healing surge;" to instantly heal 2d6+2 hit points as needed.

When your Heroism points are completely spent, they are gone for the rest of game session. A character's Heroism points are restored to their starting amount at the beginning of a game session. However, the GM may (and should!) decide to give extra "reward" Heroism points to characters who do something particularly exciting, interesting, harrowing, or entertaining. These points can be saved to be used later during the session, or spent immediately. Heroism points do not carry over from session to session; they must be used in the session in which they are granted, or they are lost (although the next session will give you a new evening's worth of Heroism points to spend again.)

Heroism points can be noted any way that works for you, but my preference is with counters that are returned to the GM when spent. Any type of counter will work—small paper chits, poker chips, potato chips, pennies, etc. My favorite are toy coins which I bought at a party favor store for a buck or two. They're cheap, utilitarian and yet evocative at the same time.

Level Advancement.  In general, characters advance when the GM says that they do, rather than against some formula of antagonists defeated. I expect in normal play to treat advancement as happening once every 4-5 sessions or so, but that can be sped up or slowed down to taste and depending on the desired length and scope of the campaign overall. I do not anticipate ever having a campaign go higher than 10th level, so it becomes an effective level cap on the game and on characters.

Every time a character levels, he gains the following advantages.

• +2 hit points
• +1 to all attack rolls
• +1 to all skills
• On levels divisible by three (3, 6, and 9) add one point to STR, DEX or MND (except for robot characters.)  If adding a point to STR, this will also cascade to your hit point total.
• On each even numbered level, remember that your AC increases by +1 as well.
• Remember that characters with the Combat Bonus or Psionic Weapons class abilities gain an additional +1 to attack and damage at level 4 and 8.

High fantasy cliche

From The Toast: How to tell if you are in a High Fantasy novel.

• The Elders would like a word with you.
• The Ritual is about to begin.
• Something that has not happened in a thousand years is happening.
• You are going to the City.  There is only one City.  It is only said with a capital C. No one needs to bother saying the name of the City.  It is the City.
• Certain members of the Council are displeased with your family's recent actions.
• A bard is providing occasional comic relief; no one hired or invited him and his method of earning a living is unclear.
• The high Priest is not to be trusted.
• Someone is eating an apple mockingly.
• There is one body of water. It is called the Sea. The Great Sea, if you are feeling fancy.
• You live in a region with no major exports, no centralized government, no banking system, a mysteriously maintained network of roads, and little to no job training for anyone who is not a farmer.
• You have red hair.  You wear it in a braid. Your father was a simple man, and you don't remember much about him—he died when you were so young—but you remember his strong hands, as he fished or carpentered or whatever it was that he used to do with them.
• You're going to have to hurry, or you're going to miss the Fair—and you never miss the Fair.
• There is trouble at the Citadel.
• Your full name has at least one apostrophe in it.
• It is the first page, and you are already late for something. Your mother affectionately chides as you gulp down a few spoonfuls of porridge; she will be dead by page forty-two.
• There are two religions in your entire universe. One is a thinly veiled version if Islam. It is only practiced by villains. The other is "being a Viking." You are a Viking.
• There are new ways in the land that threaten the Old Way. Your grandmother secretly practices the Old Way as do all of the people of the hills.
• The real trouble began the day you arrived at court. Every last nobleman hides a viper in his smile.  How you long for the purity of life in your village, which is currently on fire or something.

With two exceptions, these are laughably fatal cliches.  I've seen very little thinly veiled villainous analogs for Islam—it's usually Christianity that high fantasy authors want to bash in surrogate.  This para-Christianity also is often the "new ways" that conflict with the virtuous grandmotherly "Old Ways."  And, the comment about central government, banking, etc. is pretty historically ignorant.  It's not unusual that that could be true—it is, however, also likely that banking and a federal bureaucracy, even if they do exist, are hardly essential to the plot and play no role in the high fantasy novel.

And the last one I don't really mind so much.  Rural living really is pretty cool compared to urban "sophistication."  

Anyway, if your novel—or your RPG adventure—features any of these very tired tropes, you might want to rethink them.

Pathfinder radio plays and... Starfinder!

While exploring the Paizo website, a necessity due to the last two posts I made (Borrowing from Paizo Part I and Part II) I discovered that they've been very busy with a lot of new projects.  I should reiterate once again, that there are a few things that I don't like about Paizo.  And I don't like those things a lot.  To wit:

• Their adventures are very tedious, cliched, high fantasy "save the world from supernatural dark lord" linked dungeon-crawls. 
• Paizo has been completely infested by SJWs—if not founded by them, frankly—and this has had a tremendously deleterious effect on the development of the "plots" of the adventures, on many details of the setting, and for that matter, on their behavior with regards to their customers overall.  Most of the time this is merely annoying background noise, but it does rise on more than one occasion to the level of being actively insulting and offensive.
• The Pathfinder system is hopelessly bloated, Byzantine, and rigid.  3.5 was already a bad system with regards to those particular traits, but Pathfinder made them all worse.  Meanwhile, I've gone in completely the opposite direction; the OD&D fast and loose swashbuckling paradigm; very rules-lite and dependent on GM rulings rather than a hugely codified rule-set.

On the other hand, the Golarion setting somehow manages to take D&D cliches and make them feel like pulpy classics.  It's been very well done, and I mostly enjoy it when you correct for all of the latent SJWisms.  Paizo is also clearly a fan of old pulp stuff; they've deliberately incorporated elements from such non-D&D sources as Leigh Brackett, for instance, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, and more.  They also put a bunch of old pulp stories back in print as part of their Planet Stories line.

So it's fair to say that I've got mixed feelings about Paizo.  In fact, I think the worst of the SJWisms are actually from freelancers, although no doubt they are allowed to run free at Paizo rather than being given anti-SJW specs to work to.  I think that the real principles at Paizo are probably decent folks.  I'd disagree with them—strenuously—when it comes to a lot of questions, but I think that they don't care as much about that crap as maybe I do, and what can you do?  They're so steeped in it in the environment of Seattle or wherever exactly it is that they're located, that they aren't aware that they're in a social and political bubble.  It's just the ambient environment for them.

So, in spite of the very serious—terminal, even—flaws with Paizo, which eventually made it so that I drifted away from them, they still do a lot of stuff that I enjoy, and I do try to check in every so often and see what's going on.  So, I found some stuff recently that they had done that I quite like.  Some of it isn't even necessarily recent, but I just discovered it.

The first is that they've converted some of their Adventure Paths into radio plays.  They call this series Pathfinder Legends, and it's pretty nifty.  I had earlier said that novels based on the Adventure Paths might have been pretty fun, but we didn't get those, we got these instead.  And what the heck; it's a nice change of pace.  Pathfinder have already put out plenty of novels that are original anyway, and let's face it—novels are better when the plot isn't given to the writer by committee.

So far, two of the adventure paths are completely converted to radio plays: Rise of the Runelords (check out the links in the very first sentence for a quick summary) and Mummy's Mask.  Curse of the Crimson Throne is halfway done.  They are released as CDs and mp3s—one CD per module, so 6 per adventure path.  Now, I'm not such a Paizo fanboy (see complaints above) that I'd spend much money on something like this, no matter how much I think that the idea is pretty cool—but it turns out that they're on Spotify.  So... I don't have to!  While working today, I've listened to most of the first module of Rise of Runelords: Burnt Offerings, and it's a very capably done radio play as far as radio plays go.  I'll keep my eyes on this on Spotify as they continue to come out.  It's a lost form of entertainment in many ways, and it's been (so far) fun to see them.

Secondly, Paizo has announced Starfinder—a space opera version of Pathfinder.  Again; I expect that from a system standpoint it's not going to be what I want, since it's deliberately being developed to be compatible with Pathfinder—but given Paizo's record with space opera in general, and my own surging interest in the genre (which never was really all that low anyway—hazards of being the Star Wars generation, I suppose) I'm very curious to see what they do with it.

I quote, just a small portion, from their early promotional stuff online.  I've pruned a few bullet points that I personally wasn't as interested in, but otherwise this is quoted from Paizo's blog: 

• It's set in Golarion's solar system, far in a possible future in which Golarion is missing—the gods say it's safe, but won't say what happened to it. In its former orbit is a massive space platform called Absalom Station.
• History is obscured in the Starfinder setting, as an unknown amount of time has been mysteriously and completely wiped from everyone's memories and all known records—even those on the Outer Planes. This blank period between ancient and modern history is called the Gap, and while it effects the entire multiverse, the edges aren't all in the same place. For instance, one planet might remember back 300 years, while another remembers back 305—these inconsistencies are the primary references some Starfinders use to piece together the secret history of the universe.
• There's faster than light travel in Starfinder, via a hyperspace dimension gifted by an ascended AI deity.
• All the core Pathfinder races will still exist and be playable with the Core Rulebook, yet Starfinder's core races are different, and include humans, lashunta, ysoki (ratfolk), androids, kasatha, and two races not yet revealed.
• In addition, there's going to be a heavy emphasis on introducing more alien player races. Where possible, you should be able to play the creatures you encounter.
• There's still plenty of magic in the setting, but technology has become a dominant force. For instance, if you're playing an Iomedaean crusader, you might wear holy powered armor and carry a plasma cannon carved with magical runes.
• Will continue Pathfinder's legacy of being as diverse and inclusive as possible.

Seriously; what is the point of that last bullet point?  See what I mean about SJW virtue signaling?  Sigh.  In an interview, SJW in chief James Sutter goes on and on about the androgynous androids and their "importance" because they represent the oppressed tranny movement.  See, if they'd made them androgynous without trying to make that connection, it would have made some sense.  After all, androids are artificial, so them not having a biological sex is reasonable.  But, I read that interview, so now I'll never be able to look at that stupid tranny android without thinking that it's obnoxious.

And that's just the beginning.  Don't think that there won't be vignettes in the coming Adventure Paths where you're expected to protect the poor, oppressed androids from white, male, space hayseeds and their micro-agressions.  Then it will cross over into being actively offensive and insulting.  They've already got tons of that crap in their regular adventure paths as it is.

Anyway, there's a bit more...

• There will be seven core classes on release: the technomancer (magical hacker blending technology and magic), mechanic (engineer with a robot buddy), solarian (mystical melee combatant harnessing the cycles of the stars), soldier (heavy weapons specialist), envoy (diplomat and ally-booster), mystic (caster channeling strange energies to manipulate biological systems), and operative (stealthy skill specialist).
• Star Wars is a decent comparison, tone-wise, but Starfinder will have more magic and moral ambiguity. Other inspirations include Firefly, Shadowrun, the Expanse series, and more—if we could do for space opera what Shadowrun did for 1980s cyberpunk, we'd be ecstatic.

Star Wars actually has a lot more moral ambiguity than many give it credit for.  Of course, to the SJW—and George Lucas is revealed as one—they probably don't really see this, because they have a perverted and corrupted view of morality, where they only believe that whatever the latest SJW cause du jour is is morality, and any action, no matter how immoral, is moral if it's in service to that cause.  Watch Star Wars again and it becomes very clear; even if you just watch the original cut Original Trilogy, but it's worse if you watch the Prequels.  The Jedi are not good guys.  Yoda and Obiwan are not heroes, nor do they encourage Luke to be heroic.  He's heroic in spite of them and because he ignores their advice, not because of it.  (Although he's a kind of forlorn, sad-sack beta-male type of hero.  Sigh.)  The Jedi are liars.  They're disloyal and untrustworthy.  They're easily manipulated, and think nothing of manipulating others.  They don't act in good faith.  They are passive when they should be standing up bravely for virtue, and active and interventionist when they should stand back and respect the freedom of others.  And yet, we're supposed to identify with this organization as the obvious "good guys?"  Uh, ... no.

Of course, it's possible that what Sutter means here is that you aren't forced to play the good guys.  I suspect what it means, though, is that Starfinder will embrace the nihilism that has completely ruined almost all of our entertainment.  The villains are made so sympathetic that they're more likable than the protagonists, and the heroes are made so flawed that they are completely unrelatable and we can't even root for them.  A very little bit of this goes a long way.  Originally, Magneto was an interesting villain, because you kinda thought maybe he had a point sometimes.  But then they went and made Professor X more morally reprehensible than Magneto, and all X-Men fans with healthy, functional psychological profiles were disgusted.

That said; I'd hardly be surprised to find that in the details of the actual adventures is where the SJWisms will really come out.  It's mostly that way with their Pathfinder stuff too.

• Starfinder puts an even greater focus on exploration than Pathfinder, as the setting pushes many adventurers out toward a galaxy full of uncontacted worlds. While you can play whole adventures or campaigns on a single world if you want, the assumption is that the PCs are probably the crew of a starship.
• Starship battles will be a significant element in the game, with their own combat system utilizing miniatures, but not as common as ordinary character-scale combat.
• The plan is to produce a Starfinder Reference Document (like the PRD) and make it available for free online.
• Starfinder will have an OGL-like compatibility license allowing for third-party products.

So, there you have it.  Because of my slowness, AD ASTRA has been scooped!  Well, whatever.  It's not like semi-magic fantasy space opera is a unique concept, of course (anyone remember DragonStar?), so I can keep doing what I planned to do all along with the setting.  But now I've got another potential source of inspiration to look to.  I admit to being quite curious as to exactly how they develop it.  It is, after all, basically an evolution of what is possibly my favorite Pathfinder book, Distant Worlds, so they'd have to really drop the ball to lose me right up front.

Borrowing from Paizo, part II

Let's have a quick look at the rest of the Adventure Paths and see if any of the rest of them sound like something I might want to remix.  By now, I have to admit full on that we're wandering into territory that's uncharted for me, because I stopped paying very much attention to Paizo at some point close to the break point between the material covered in my last post and the material covered in this one.  I'll have to comment much less on any familiarity with the actual modules and their details and much more so on just the summaries posted on their webpage.

Reign of Winter.  Baba Yaga was supposed to show up as she always does, but she didn't, and now winter is spreading from the eternal (supernatural) winter beyond the borders of Irrisen.  Has someone made a power play for Baba Yaga's throne and set in motion a wintry catastrophe?  Gates from Irrisen to other parts of the world seem to be spreading winter.  The PCs, looking for a missing damsel in distress find one.  Turns out Baba Yaga is missing and her hut is on display in Irrisen's capital.  PCs go on a bunch of linked quests to try and find her, exploring first the capital city Whitethrone, then teleporting to another continent (Casmaron) where they fight winter centaurs and frost giants, then to another planet in the solar system where winter lasts for decades where they are expected to take sides in some war or other, and then they... and I wish I were making this one up, but I'm actually not... go to Russia in 1918 where they have to fight Bolsheviks and find Baba Yaga, imprisoned by her estranged son Rasputin.  Then finally Baba Yaga's hut itself is a giant, mystical puzzle dungeon that they have to go through fighting all kinds of characters and whatnot.  Not only is the weird geographical hopping (including to historical Earth) not really my cup of tea, but making Baba Yaga a damsel in distress just seems incredibly odd to me.  That said—there's surely something that can be made with crazy winter witches trying to lock the world in another ice age.

Wrath of the Righteous.  For this, the PCs get to be crusaders fighting against the Worldwound; a permanent portal to the Abyss that turned the former nation of Sarkoris into a beachhead for demons.  In fact, right off the bat, the city that the PCs is in has fallen; the magical Wardstone that protects it has failed, or something.  The city is occupied and crazy, and the PCs have to get out, join with some other refugees (who supposedly need protecting or something) then start being the elite strike team that goes on missions to the Worldwound.  Looking for McGuffins.  Then they make an incursion to the Abyss itself, where they have to be railroaded into making deals with the demons, rescue the herald of some goddess, and maybe even close the Worldwound completely.  I dislike how "save the world" quests have become de rigueur for Paizo.  This one is also clearly a "superhero" AP.  Although I could potentially utilize some of its most basic ideas. the execution is in most respects the complete opposite of the direction I've gone with my gaming.

Mummy's Mask.  Some tyrant pharaoh of the ancients is pissed off that his tomb was robbed and wants to be reborn or reanimated or something and take over the world.  Sigh.  This one starts off with a dungeon crawl with a rival party of adventurers (a purely D&D convention that resembles nothing else anywhere) and eventually end up having to deal with an incursion of undead.  Racing cultists this time.  Then they have to wander around in the desert to find a pyramid (i.e. another big dungeon) with yet more cultists who don't want them poking around.  They finally defeat the cult, but realize that they've been chumps because in so doing, they've managed to reanimate the pharaoh in another part of the country, who's now awake and attacking Osirion with his flying pyramid (?! Echoes of "we wuz kangz" crap here, I guess.) After the PCs bring down the flying pyramid, they have to explore it and face the pharaoh.  Crap, doesn't the cliche ever get tiring to Pathfinder players?  I mean, seriously—every AP sounds exactly the same to me, except with changes in character names, scenery and specific monsters.  And every one of them requires the PCs to be a bunch of sheep going to market in a rail car.

Iron Gods.  Just like every other AP except this is the "Barrier Peaks" rip-off.  Numeria is where a space-ship crashed a long time ago, and there's apparently still robots and lasers to be claimed.  Bandits looking to scavenge alien tech feature prominently, except then they find that an "Iron Lord" is awake and on the move—an AI that somehow can grant worshipers access to divine spells.  More dungeons.  Mi-go brain collectors.  Then they go fight the king of Numeria (the Black Sovereign) so that they can access a major "Barrier Peaks" style robot and laser dungeon complete with a virtual reality.  Sigh.  This one, despite it's high tech veneer seems like among the most hum-drum collection of dungeon-crawls that we've seen in some time.

Giantslayer.  A storm giant has a flying castle and some other cool stuff that he wants to get out of some dungeon or other.  He starts off by wanting to conquer the orc nation and then wants the rest of the world...  which the PCs will, I presume, see fit to save from such a horrible fate.  This AP starts off with some orc raiders attacking their town, but they quickly have to take a riverboat into orc country to defeat a hill giant fortress.  Then they investigate a giant tomb, and graduate to more impressive types of giants in the mountains, finding that all are pointing towards some big giant recruitment drive.  For some reason, they ally with a red dragon and attack some undead, frozen giant guys.  They then graduate to a fire giant dungeon in a volcano, over which the storm giant head honcho himself is hanging out in a flying castle with an enslaved dragon pet (we wuz kangz again!)  This seems to be a reworking of the Against the Giants classic module series in a way, except with more dungeons, it's way too long, and the cliche scenario is almost exactly the same as every other AP that Paizo has done.

Hell's Rebels. The evil, right-wing devil-Nazi nation of Cheliax will no longer tolerate its Greenwich Village "artists", "freethinkers", and micro-aggressed and declares martial law!  The PC's must don black hoodies and join the righteous antifa by attacking innocent old ladies, setting fire to cars, and chanting, "Not my president!"  Sigh.  Maybe I should have quit while I was ahead yesterday.  But that does, actually describe the first module in this adventure path.  Sadly.  Then, the PCs get serious and find Bill Ayers' group, except that instead of a bunch of pathetic idiots, for some reason they're perfectly poised to be effective—as soon as the PCs find them, of course.  Then in a glorious revolution not seen since the Bolsheviks murdered millions in Russia and the Jacobins in France, they take the city of Kintargo from the oppressive Lord-Mayor who threatened the people with the prospect of needing to get a job if they wanted to have access to money.  Shocking!  Then, the PCs must undertake a thrilling adventure of lawfare against the federal government of Cheliax to accommodate their Kintargexit strategy.  But they have to go into a dungeon in Hell to defeat some leftover bad right-wing plots or something on their way to securing their place permanently as the heroes of a glorious, socialist utopia.  This is—needless to say—literally the very last adventure path that I could ever consider doing anything with whatsoever.

Hell's Vengeance.  In a move that is admittedly kind of clever, in a kitschy kind of way, the sequel or perhaps parallel story to the trainwreck above is the story of the Glorious Revolution... I mean, Reclamation, and how the basket of deplorables PCs must thwart it, in the first "evil" campaign Paizo ever did.  Putting down a local uprising of violent and dangerous rioters and looters, the PCs are clearly now so evil that they are made official agents of the infernal House of Thrune and must defeat more terrorist cells across Cheliax.  But first, there's this odd portal to Hell that needs to be closed, or maybe taken control of instead.  They go to Erdogan, the capital, but the Queen exercises her feminist privilege and refuses to be impressed, or even see the heroes who have been saving her Empire for her until they thwart an underground railroad and complete a sacrifice that is really her responsibility, I'd think, since it ensures her continued presence on the throne.  This entitled brat... I mean, self-styled feminist "queen" then gives the PCs "permission" to continue saving her empire by going on and defeating the October Revolution once and for all.  Sigh.  Paizo really went full SJW.  Maybe I was wrong earlier, and this one is the last one that I could possibly consider running.  Maybe.

Strange Aeons.  I might be able to do something with this adventure path—the first and only I think from this half.  As you might guess from the title, this is the adventure path of Lovecraftian horror.  The PCs wake up in an asylum, without their recent memories.  They find that the asylum is under attack by cosmic horrors and must deal with that first.  Escaping to the nearby town of Thrushmoor, they find that some cult is trying to sacrifice the inhabitants, and they have to stop that too. Once the threat of cultists of Hastur are resolved, the PCs take a river boat to para-Constantinople to find their last employer in their quest to recover their memories.  This is where it goes a little weird and the PCs voyage to the Dreamlands. They then travel to exotic Qadira to find Count Lowls, who's revealed once their memories are returned, as the mastermind behind all this madness.  They travel into the Parchlands (an admittedly kinda cool name) where they find a hybrid between 'Ib' and 'The Nameless City', making two more Lovecraft in-jokes, and then perform some ritual to follow Lowls to Carcosa.  Here, they have to sever the ties between Carcosa and Golarion, the Pathfinder setting, to keep Thrushmoor from being stolen and drawn to Carcosa and to keep the King in Yellow from coming to Golarion.

I'm going to stop there without doing the next two, both because I'm just weary of Paizo after this review, and because although the next two are announced, they really haven't come out yet, except for the very first chapter of the next one.  I don't know that there's anything I'm likely to get out of the next two anyway—one is a hobgoblin invasion story, and one is exploration of para-Atlantis, including a Roanoke colony kind of story or something.

Of all that I listed here, the Strange Aeons path is the only one that I'm really very interested in, and it just finished up last month.

Borrowing from Paizo, part I

I like to borrow a good idea when I see one, and they're around all over.  Of course, few stories or games or what-have-you are truly original—and that's actually a good thing.  Originality is nice, but often over-rated.  Execution beats innovation.  Every time.

So, in trawling through some published ideas looking for adventure seeds that can be adapted, spindled and mutilated beyond recognition, yet still providing the seed from which something new can grow, I found my way to Paizo's website, a place I haven't visited in some time, and read through the summaries of their adventure paths.  I dislike the execution of most modules, and Paizo does very stereotypical modules.  Lots of dungeon-crawling, every problem resolved by a strike team of PCs, McGuffin quests, and plenty of SJW preaching abound—but all of those (except the latter) should be expected from a D&D game product, really.  Sure, it's contrived, but that's the nature of the game.  There are, however, some great seeds out there in the adventure paths.  I'm summarizing in my own words each of the adventure paths below, which make great fodder for you to use.  Maybe even better as fodder than as the original modules that they are, because for the most part there's a pretty contrived scenario and the PCs have to be passive enough to just do what they're told and allow themselves to be railroaded into the adventure.

If you look at my CULT OF UNDEATH tab, you can see how I took one of the adventure paths and kind of "remixed" it to be more compatible with the way I'd run a game.  In many respects, I hewed fairly close to the original, and I could have gone further afield with the concept and still been happy about it, but it's at least one example of what can be done.  I never got down to the real brass tacks on this project, since I didn't have any immediate plans to use it and lost interest in the details after I came down from high level to a nice executive summary level—but I could turn around and convert it into something gameable on almost a moment's notice given what I've prepared so far.  It was also, as it happens, the vector by which my FANTASY HACK game came to be; I expanded the CULT OF UNDEATH stuff just a little bit and then I had my very own D&D Mine ready to go with very little work.  I had long thought it would be fun to do the same thing in at least as much detail for another one of the adventure paths too, but that's a project that I never actually kicked off.  Maybe this summary will help motivate me to try it, though.

Anyhoo, without further ado, let's start summarizing the adventure paths and see which others of them might look like something I'd be interested in.  Because there are now so many, I'm going to split this up into two posts.  I put a small star graphic following the description of the ones I'd be most likely to actually try and do this to.  There are 21 Adventure Paths so far identified (although the last two are still in the process of being released, or upcoming) and I've already done one, so that means I can split this 10/10.

Rise of the Runelords. This is the original Paizo adventure path; starting off in a sleepy coastal town in rural Varisia, the PCs help fight off a goblin invasion, explore a haunted mansion, investigate a cult of serial killers, rescue a platoon of rangers from backwoods inbred ogres, fight stone giants, a dragon, and finally find out that much of this was put into motion by the resurrection of an ancient wizard-king of a past empire who wants to reclaim what was once his.  Honestly, I thought that in play, it dragged on interminably (see some of my early comments on CULT OF UNDEATH) and presented a bizarre, scatter-shot approach where ties between the various modules were either contrived or even non-existent.  This is OK for a game, but the pacing and focus is death for any other venue, and even as a gaming element, we got tired of it about halfway through and dropped out.  I think thematically, this one just suffers from trying to do too much.  If it were trimmed by... a lot (at least 50%) of its content and refocused, it might be workable still.  But the tropes and conventions it lays out are so old—classic, if I want to be more charitable—that they are better described as cliche and tired.

Curse of the Crimson Throne.  This time we start off with some urban intrigue—the king of a powerful city-state (also in Varisia, but Chelaxian by culture) has been assassinated!  First chaos fills the streets, but then some kind of biological weapon releases a plague, then organized crime rushes in to fill the power vacuum that the ineffectual and depleted government leaves, and then... it gets a little cliche here as the PCs must go on a quest to find the McGuffin that will end the tyranny of Queen Ileosa.  Exploring the backcountry of the Cinderlands, doing an ethnologue on the Storval barbarians, they have to explore the "haunted castle of a draconic warlord" (sigh) and then rush back with the McGuffin to end the Queen's tyranny.  This one might yet be workable, primarily by using the 5x5 method to break up the episodic nature of the various threats, minimizing the time spent out of the city, and maybe changing the nature of the McGuffin somewhat to make it less overtly Standard Fantasy Quest™ in nature.

Second Darkness.  Starting out for a third time in a Varisian city-state, this time the kinda sorta pirate themed Riddleport, the PCs encounter strange portents in the skies.  A meteor falls and while rival groups rush to claim the starmetal, they find instead strange Lovecraftian horrors have come to Varisia (echoes of a more action oriented "The Colour Out of Space" and maybe Mordheim about here.)  Turns out that the meteor was part of a dark elf plot to bring an even bigger, catastrophic meteor crashing to the world.  The PCs go to the forest of the elves to learn about the drow, which are unaccountably secret here, even though every player will know exactly what one is, of course.  In disguise, they infiltrate the underground city of the drow to find clues, and discover that a forest elf has turned traitor and given them information that will lead to this catastrophe.  On returning to the elfin forest, they find themselves embroiled in intrigue, and have to explore a tainted section of the forest to end the squabbling in the elf court, then finally venture to a tiny, deep pocket of the Underdark, or whatever it is that they call the Underdark in Paizo-land again, and disrupt the magical ritual thus sparing the world from an extinction event level meteoric impact.  As always, this is a little bit too all over, lacks focus, is too long, and focuses on McGuffin's and other things that a small strike team is best able to handle, rather than a lone hero, or an army, etc.  Again; makes sense given the venue in which this story happens, but it's in desperate need of some pruning and refocus.

The Legacy of Fire. When a small desert village is invaded by gnolls, the PCs must rescue it, and then take the fight to the hive of the hyena-men themselves and put an end to their would-be local conquering ways.  They find that the gnolls have been unwittingly guarding a magical map, though—when they take that to cosmopolitan wretched hive of scum and villainy Katapesh to find out more about it, various other interested parties want to steal it from them.  Eventually they discover that the map is a portal to a mysterious world—a combination pleasaunce and prison.  On their way out, after finally escaping, they pass through the City of Brass, a D&D element that's been around for a long time and which comes from 1,001 Arabian Nights originally.  This has a strange Odyssey like feel to it as they wander around trying to get home, and inadvertently bring with them a conquering army of efreet, which must be stopped.

Council of Thieves.  Westcrown is the run-down, former capital of Cheliax, a harsh country of fantasy devil-worshipping Nazis.  This is an adventure of urban intrigue and ancient curses—in some ways not unlike an even darker take on Crimson Throne above.  Some kind of sinister shadow beasts are stalking the city, and the head of the thieves guild seems to be off his rocker.  The PCs have to "infiltrate" a play as actors (strange echoes of "The King in Yellow" here), raid an abandoned Pathfinder lodge, find out that some old wizard had shackled a demon (devil, to be specific) and the shackles are now wearing thin, the leadership of the city is supplanted, eventually devils openly walk the streets, the PCs must make a deal with a hag, and then take sides in a war between the deposed leaders, the insurgents trying to take over, or maybe just do away with them all and take over the city themselves.  This is pretty atmospheric and has some good elements, but as normal, they need to be pruned and rearranged to really work.  Given the many thematic similarities to Crimson Throne maybe they should be remixed together as a mash-up.


Kingmaker. An exploration of the idea of carving a new fiefdom out of the wilderness.  While this could have had some of the excitement of founding the Crusader States or something like that, it reality it ended up being more of, of course, strike team exploration, i.e. classic hexcrawling.  They manage to found a small border kingdom, but the task of running it (a bureaucratic exercise not well suited for the genre, I'd wager) comes down to going out and fighting bandits and monsters in their lairs.  There's a magic McGuffin that needs to be found, frog-people that are thrown in as fan-service, as near as I can tell, a classic Medieval tournament of sorts, and an invasion by a Faery-like otherworld known as the First World.  All in all, I think the point was to try and make a hexcrawl, but they simply couldn't divorce themselves from the story-structure for which they're known.  I don't know how well it really worked.  Although it seems to have gotten good word of mouth, they haven't done anything like it again, as near as I can tell (although I freely admit that I kinda lost track of what Paizo was doing quite some time ago.)

Serpent's Skull. In an adventure path that takes its cues from H. Rider Haggard and Tarzan and Lovecraft and whatnot, the PCs start off shipwrecked on a strange island, and discover a map that will lead them to a lost city in the para-African jungles to the west.  Rushing off to discover it before a cult of assassins or a predatory mercantile organization gets there, they reach the city in the third installment after an entire module of jungle travel adventure, only to discover that "lost" doesn't mean "uninhabited."  There's daemonic apes and monkeys, the Gorilla King (a great idea if ever there was one) and underground serpent people (sigh.  There's always some vast underground society in D&D.  Doesn't that get tiring to anyone else besides me?) who are trying to resurrect their serpent god and conquer the surface world. (Deja vu.)  The PCs decide the fate of the world (not really a sword & sorcery goal, but I digress) by going to battle as an elite strike team against the half-resurrected serpent god.


Carrion Crown. see CULT OF UNDEATH material, linked above.  The D&D horror campaign.

Jade Regent.  This is the "exotic" chinoiserie adventure path, made to highlight specifically a totally different para-Asian continent that's part of the Pathfinder setting.  An NPC character from way back in Rise of the Runelords discovers that she is the last heir to the Minkai Empire, a para-shogunate Japan, which is of course in the iron grip of a tyrannical regent at the moment.  This secret is, of course, discovered when a band of raiding goblins leads the PCs to a dungeon to explore.  Sigh.  Having to pass through the para-Norse lands on their way over the North Pole to reach this continent, they discover more clues and have to get the heir's McGuffin, left behind when her parents brought her this way many years before.  They get distracted in their journey across the ice cap by some strange plot to unleash a new ice age on the world, and finally arrive on the new continent.  Agents of the Jade Regent harrass them, they have to explore a haunted forest compound of some kind, the PCs and the heir, a ride-along NPC which will probably irk many players with her passiveness, since they're pretty much propping up her entire claim, have to earn the trust of the locals by taking on a bunch of side quests like defeating bandits, rescuing imprisoned geishas, and get the blessing of the ghosts of past emperors or something.  Sigh.  All very cliche.  It could maybe be manageable if you get rid of the idea that the PCs are just altruistically trying to put their friend on the throne of a country she'd never even heard of before, and instead was the story of an adventurer and his close friends taking their rightful place.  Better yet, what if the heir is just a puppet to some other attempt of the PCs to set up their own fiefdoms?  This doesn't have to be "bad"—nobody says that they want to set themselves up as despotic tyrants, after all.  Anyway, there's some potential here, but the structure of it, especially making the real pivotal character an NPC, is just begging for some rework.  Also, I'm not an Asiaphile, so I don't see any reason that this has to be feudal Japan and Warring States era China, like the setting is here.


Skull & Shackles.  This pirate-themed adventure path highlights some of the really glaring weaknesses of the whole default module writing paradigm—what if the PCs don't go along with the premise and do what they're "supposed" to do?  In any case, this one can be salvaged (no pun intended) with some work.  I like the pirate theme, but the pirate-themed area of the setting probably needs a lot of work, because it's just a small scale patchwork of all of the rest of the setting, in many ways, with it's little mini-feudal Japan pirates, mini-Byzantium, the mini-dragon kingdom, the mini-dinosaur island, the mini-undead kingdom, etc.  Much of this doesn't necessarily feel very piratey anymore.  Anyway, the PCs start out press-ganged, but when they get put on as the skeleton crew of a prize ship, they're expected to mutiny and take over.  Then they're expected to want to become respected peers of the rest of the pirate captains (instead of just sail back home, or whatever) so they go follow a treasure map tattooed on the back of a hot pirate chick that they captured earlier (echoes of Waterworld except with a hotter chick.)  Then they participate in a race, at some self-styled pirate king's whim (instead of just going plundering and either ignoring or overthrowing this chump), explore some ruins to claim their prize for wining the race (as opposed to just ignoring the race and going directly after the prize, if it's really so great) all so that they can be accepted into the pirate clique (is it just me, or are adventure writers still compensating for not having felt popular enough in high school?) and then recruit a navy of pirates to defend their newly granted island from attack by some rival.  Again; all in all, this adventure path depends way too much on compliant players that lack imagination or ambition.  But if you get rid of the structure of the adventure and just raid it for its elements, there's probably a good deal of good stuff in here yet.


Shattered Star.  This last one is among the most cliche of all of the adventure paths I've described so far; the search for a McGuffin that's been broken up into multiple parts and scattered across the nation of Varisia.  Echoes of pretty much every CRPG I've ever played come to mind.  It's also a sequel of sorts to Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne and Second Darkness because it utilizes the geography, some of the same characters, and some of the same concepts introduced in those paths—although it also supposedly stands alone.  Recruited to find and/or rescue a rookie Pathfinder, the PCs discover the sundered artifact and of course are expected to drop whatever else they may have been wanting to do to go chase all of the pieces down. There's a tower-dungeon in a swamp with lizard and frog people, there's the ridiculous bohemian freak paradise, which any normal healthy person will instantly dislike but which the writers at Paizo seem to be inordinately fond of (with, of course, dungeons underneath.  And a headless horseman.)  There's a "multifaith monastery" (who comes up with this stuff?!) that's been taken over by weird fey and giants, and they have to go close to Leng to another dungeon, where they race against rivals from Leng itself, as well as from the Darklands. Finally, as the Pathfinders try to put on some kind of cute little festival or party or whatever, some ancient evil awakens and disrupts it and the PCs must fight it.  Sigh.

Anyway, like I said, the cliches and poor story structure that is rife throughout these is a problem, but not an insurmountable one if you do like I did with CULT OF UNDEATH and remix the elements into something that works better.  Of the ten that I reviewed, I starred four of them as sounding intriguing enough for me to look into them and see if I want to do the same exercise again or not.  If I get the same amount out of the second half of the adventure paths, I'll have eight starred APs, which is too many.  I doubt I'll do more than two or three of these (in addition to the one I've already done) but we'll see.