How do you guys use the interactive PDFs?

As part of my Paizo sub I got Secrets of the Storm. It came with an interactive PDF that has buttons for turning the grid off/on and for turning the area names on/off. This is neat, but what I am I meant to do with these? What do you guys normally do?

Off the top of my head, I'm guessing that if they don't do a Foundry module for this Adventure, I can zoom in and screenshot the maps to put into Foundry. If I'm playing in person, though...do other GMs generally print out a Letter/A4 page of the map and hand it out to players? I've only been running games for 5 years, so maybe I'm not doing things "right", but usually if a map is a big map (like this sub's Absalom station map) then I use it at the table. If it's printed in the book/PDF, I just use it myself to keep track of what rooms are next to each other and so forth. But maybe it's expected that I would hand it to the players with the names/keying turned off and they use that to navigate? (hopefully without metagaming?)

Thanks!

reddit.com
u/thedjotaku — 20 hours ago

[dnd5e] Help with Automating Subclass, Item, and Monster Creation

I've supported a couple kickstarters that have created subclasses, items, and monsters - some specific ones that come to mind are 1980s Adventures and Obojima. If I wanted to write a program to automate creation (or at least get me 80-90% of the way there and I can fix the last little bit) where might I look to learn how I would format the data and import it as a .... I'm assuming model containing a compendium?

I'm currently thinking I could do something like create a JSON object that would be something like:

{"name":"boogieman",

"class":"barbarian",

"level_3:feats": [ list of feats],

}

And so on and then write a program to convert that into whatever Foundry needs.

This seems to be one of those things in the category of if I'm just adding one or two subclasses it'll be easier to do it manually in foundry. But if I want all of them (plus items and/or monsters), it's worth the time to write the program to automate it.

Thanks!

reddit.com
u/thedjotaku — 4 days ago

If you think Absalom Station book does not have enough plot hooks, listen to The Dark Times EP 49

I've seen a few posts in here saying there aren't enough plot hooks in Absalom Station. Perhaps it is just not explicit enough? Just listening to the most recent episode of The Dark Times - they come up with quite a few plot hooks just based on a bunch of the descriptions. Eg smuggling in Kaiju for the fighting pits

reddit.com
u/thedjotaku — 7 days ago
▲ 9 r/podman

Are you using podman on your local system? If so, for what?

I am (and have been for years) using podman containers on my servers - both for my homelab and on the internet. I am running tons of services like funkwhale as a spotify replacement, Calibre-web to access my books and magazines everywhere, and foundryVTT to play TTRPGs over the net.

But I'm currently not running any containers on my local machine. Today I came across one potential container scenario I might try - using podman (and/or Podman Desktop and the AI Lab) to run local AI models.

If you're using containers on your machine for something that isn't AI - what are you using it for? And, what, if anything did you have to do to get it work with your other programs? Like, if you're using it for programming - how did you get VS Code or Jetbrains or Vim to use the container's install of your dev libraries?

reddit.com
u/thedjotaku — 15 days ago

Critical Hit Deck and FoundryVTT

New to Paizo - running my first Starfinder 2e game tonight!! (MiMC with the official module from Metaphorphic) (Although I've been reading through the core books for both PF2e and SF2e for a few months now)

I mention my newness to the 2e systems only to say that I don't know how this was handled with SF1e or PF1e and Foundry. One of the things I love about Paizo and foundry (compared to D&D, ToV, or Cosmere) is that all the rules and monsters (aliens) are available completely free on foundry (all well as Archives of Nethys).

So once the Critical Hit deck is out officially (not just for the subscribers) - will it be in the Starfinder 2e system for foundry? If yes, where? If no, would it be in a supplemental module? And if that's also a "no" is there a relatively easy way to implement it myself?

Thanks!

reddit.com
u/thedjotaku — 1 month ago

Multi arm benefit made concrete?

I'm new to starfinder and I've been looking through the player core including searching through the digital version, but I'm having a little trouble conceptualizing the benefits that kasathas and Skittermanders get by being able to have all their hands full and using the switch hands action vs a 2 armed creature that has to.... What? To get the weapons ready?

​

Bonus question: it costs 1 action, i think, to unsheathe the weapons. If the players know they are going into a fight can they pre-unsheathe? (To not waste a turn getting weapons out)

​

Thanks

reddit.com
u/thedjotaku — 2 months ago

[Stonewalkers] I finished the campaign using FoundryVTT and made a video about it!

The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCpr-hZyE9Y

I cover:

  • My background as a GM
  • The players we had at the table
  • Scheduling
  • My thoughts on the story aspects of Stonewalkers
  • A small section about how "on rails" I ran the campaign
  • My thoughts on the game mechanics of the Cosmere TTRPG
  • What my players thought about the lore drops and artwork
  • How well Metalworks did with the FoundryVTT port

The story section obviously has spoilers that players might not want to hear. If you pay attention to the video (rather than have it on in the background) there will be some spoilers as I have various combat encounters as run in FoundryVTT while I'm talking over those visuals.

Love to hear your thoughts either here or on YT.

Thanks!

u/thedjotaku — 2 months ago

Galactic Ancestries and Anachronism Module for FoundryVTT

With https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfinder2e/comments/1syvvq6/anachronism_pathfinder_to_starfinder_foundry/ you can put Pathfinder stuff into a Starfinder game.

But the Galactic Ancestries also added some PF ancestries. So is there any conflict between SF2e Dwarves and PF2e dwarves if this module is installed? (or any other ancestries that are in both systems) Any "gotchas" I need to be aware of?

reddit.com
u/thedjotaku — 3 months ago

I know there's a whole book coming out about this some time later this year, but I was thinking about this today and thought I'd ask.

I'm a Paizo newbie who's been reading various things on reddit and in the core rulebooks for Pathfinder 2e and Starfinder 2e since last year as well as listening to 2 different Starfinder actual play podcasts. Haven't run a game yet.

But from what I've absorbed, elves are from (and at least at the time of Starfinder still live or or moved back to) Castrovel - another planet. The other creatures we think of as fey - red caps, pixies, etc come from The First World - another plane, akin to D&D's Feywild(?).

So in the Paizo universe are elves considered fey?

reddit.com
u/thedjotaku — 4 months ago

I'm curious if there's a tie in between the two.

I have MiMC, but my LFGS only does PFS, not SFS. However, reading today's Paizo blog post (https://paizo.com/blog/may-digital-adventures-preview) the current SFS Scenarios are dealing with the Wreck of the Returned. To keep from spoilers, there's a key plot point involving an NPC in MiMC and the Wreck of the Returned.

So if you have access to/have played both - are there any tie-ins? Or any hints as to where they fall in the timeline with each other?

u/thedjotaku — 4 months ago