Best and worst parts of Starfinder

What do you consider to be the best and worst things about Starfinder and what would you like to see added to the game to improve it?

My worst is space combat. It's just a slog. I also think the mechanics of a lot of the class abilities and feats are very underwhelming.

The best things is the cool classes and aliens and the wildly creative setting. I also love how it connects to Pathfinder and Golarion.

I think expanding even more on spellcasting and crafting would add a lot to the game, and the space combat needs a complete rework IMO.

The best is Stamina. It is the single best executed "Short Rest" mechanic I've played with.

The setting and all the playable species are top of the best list for me.

Haven't played enough to have encountered anything I don't like yet. I haven't played all the classes yet, or encountered spaceship combat.

The best part? The lore.

The worst part? Starship combat.

The ugly part? New product output slowing to a trickle. The Paizo FB account literally referred me to Infinite if I wanted more content than one repurposed PF map set and one Society adventure. Sigh.

Best: Setting. I had a blast exploring the Pact Worlds and the Drift.

Worst: Really hard to pick just one, but nonfunctional multiclassing might take the cake. I feel VERY constrained in my character concepts in Starfinder.

Good : Staminia system means no one is stuck as a healer. The setting and adventures are a blast.

Bad: Starship combat. The pilot has all the choice. The gunners have all of the effect.

A lot of classes have a fair bit of show don't tell for being good at the things they're supposed to be good at. The mechanics mechanics don't let them mechanic particularly well. They have remote hack and.. thats about it. I don't think the operative having a slightly higher bonus in someones area of expertise if other peoples areas of expertise amounted to more than a slow growing skill focus.

There are a LOT of weak lackluster, or overly situational abilities. The vanguard and evolutionist both make a big deal about gathering EP.. but when it comes time to actually USE them theres nothing to spend them on. I just don't CARE about my EP on a vanguard, since doing extra d4s is worse that just taking a full attack. On an evolutionist the drawnbacks are so bad i don't WANT EP.

Tripple attack is almost always worse than trick attacking. The operative is very boring in combat.

The envoy wasn't done past 8th level. Kinda bad at the start, but inexcusable at this point.

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A lot of the problem seems to be trying to evaluate an ability in a vacuum instead of part of a whole or without its opportunity cost.

A number of abilities emulate cheap technological equipment (out of combat healing for example, enhancement bonuses to speed are obviated by cheap cybernetics),

Starship combat abilities don't seem to take "just but someone else on another gun" as the bottom baseline of their usefulness.

The biohacker barely has a reason to level past the level 1 dip. It doesn't have nearly enough functional mad science built into it.

W: Needlessly complicated new classes.

B: Science fiction campaign setting.

W: Needlessly complicated new classes.

I wouldn't mind all the whirly parts if they did something? As it is its the gaming equivalent of a fidget spinner: a lot of complicated interactions for their own sake that don't do that much.

No contest, for me: Starfinder's best quality is the incredible sci fantasy setting, second only to the wide breadth of character species. The games promised "that Cantina Feel," and it delivered - and keeps delivering, book after book, with more crazy species to play! Like, in what other setting can you easily plot - at level one! - an adventure for a psychic bear, a dwarf and their drone, and a four-armed desert giant to investigate a penrose sphere while their Awakened AI pilot keeps the spaceship's engine running!

(I'm not including it because it's not a system-specific thing, but also - love, love, love, the SF Org Play shared world. The living campaign stuff where players get to interact so much with the ongoing stories and canon worlds makes me happy.)

The worst part (imo) isn't even a Starfinder problem - it's that Starfinder lives in the shadow of PF2E. It suffers from the reduced page count and fewer releases of being "the second game" that Paizo supports, and people are so quick to chicken-little and say "lol dead game" or "ooooh [literally any brand decision] is a sign the game is winding down so they can release a second edition!!1!" Even with all of the buzz and attention Paizo is getting from ORC and the dragon game's gaffes, it seems like everyone is just checking out PF2E, and ignoring this bonkers crazy gem with psychic cuttlefish and roly-poly-nosies :D

(Ah, maybe that's not fair; I have noticed a definite uptick in SF interest, albeit not to the extent people are talking about PF2. Maybe a rising tide raises all boats, in this case.)

Best: Setting, stamina mechanic, setting, funky playable alien species

Worst: Spaceship combat and a ruleset that's something of a weird half-step between PF1 and PF2 while having simultaneously the worst parts of PF1 (Ivory Tower game design, skill system, narrow class design) while not having the best parts of PF2 (action economy, auto-scaling cantrips, skill system).

Best:
Wide availability of races/species/ancestries for the game. People have mentioned the Cantina feel, which Starfinder definitely delivered. I think the familiarity with P1 and the ease of making races contributed well to this wonderful flavor for the game. These races could range from ones that are mostly just flavored humanoids, to truly alien species, with true mechanical differences, and so many of them could easily be made into playable choices.

People mention Stamina, and I liked it for quick refresh healing. What I didn't necessarily care for was the degree to which things that could heal couldn't do 'anything' to help stamina. That seemed unnecessary prohibition. (either making extra healing allow stamina restoration as long as HP was healed, or have extra HP healing provide 1/2 the extra restore stamina, so using HP healing to boost stamina would be inefficient, but not prohibited) There is some concern about resolve points needing to be kept to keep alive, as well as drive class abilities. But overall Stamina was a nice concept.

Love the entwining of magic and technology.

Also, having the somewhat loose tie into the past world of Golarion was a bonus as well. Easy to image it as an extension of the Pathfinder universe those of us familiar with it know.

I appreciated that they tried to give everyone in the party something to do in Space Combat was a definite plus. Actual result in the end was not delivering as balanced a distribution of fun from what exactly it seemed they they were intending however. (but I did want to point out the attempt as a plus)

I actually liked that character level impacted damage for weapons you were good at. It seemed a viable part of contributing extra damage at higher levels.

Worst:
Archetype rules: an interesting attempt, and I loved and appreciated that they tried to make universal archetypes, but what they made had way too many issues, and seems like it needs to have some rules to allow lost class abilities to be bought back with feats as many abilities are really way too weak, and never capable of being able to replace some core abilities that your core class allowed to be swapped out was too damaging. In the end I think it could easily simply be replace with something akin to the Second Edition Pathfinder archetypes system.

Spaceship combat being a bit clunky. I read through it several times and realized several pieces didn't play the way I thought they did. I don't know how much of that was my fault, and how much of it was the rules fault. But even if it was my fault a part of it falls on the rules. I know I'm not the only person who found the starship rules frustrating. Starship building rules seemed to stretch acceptable disbelief with implied sense that expansion bays don't change in size in larger vessels. For instance the # of bays for a vessel don't seem to increase enough between size category changes to believe they are intended to be the same size as implied, for me. Which impacted the feel for the spacecraft rules for me a bit.

The Economy aspects where you only get 10% return on sold/upgrading items was/is frustrating. It makes being able to use what has specifically arbitrarily dropped becoming a key factor in character efficiency. If you need, or want to use something specific you have to sell what you got and buy what you want and doing so you take a significant hit to power.

While I _loved_ the _variety_ weapons that Starfinder had, especially including the variety of damage types, dice arrays, and various critical effects tied to them. I also understand peoples concern of the treadmill feel, or concern over gaps in some specific families in weapons potentially making one feel inefficient at doing damage (again compounded by potential issue with sellback/trade-in values of equipment needing upgrades)

Best: The kitchen sink science fantasy setting. The stamina system for short rests.

Worst: Low-level starship combat encourages overly-defensive play (restore shields, evasive maneuvers every turn) that can easily leave combatants stalemated. I would have preferred some system of automatic damage and AC scaling to buying new stuff every few levels.

The 'Good' Stuff:
Stamina: Pretty much a universal opinion.
Personal Upgrade system: Might be my favorite 'stat boost item' system yet.
Skill Synergy Feat: Simple, but very nice...

The 'Not-So-Good' Stuff:
Starship combat: Yeah, this rarely works well in a RPG
Economy: The '10% resale value' makes you highly dependent on useful equipment dropping from your foes, and I'm not a fan of the 'replace your weapons/armor every 4 levels or so' model. Also, not an actual game issue, but the season 1 SFS boons that 'reward' you for not spending all your funds earlier (get a discount on future purchases, buy an item right now you can resell later for a good profit) annoyed me as well as I had always just emptied my wallet...
Skills: Perception is annoying as ever (it sucks when your technomancer is great at disabling traps but can't actually find them), and two characters with the same 'good stat' are probably going to have a lot of overlap on their skills. It's nice that there is a reason to have high-intelligence characters, though...
Operatives?: Didn't actually have one in our group, but they kinda seem 'too good' at skills when compared to other classes, to the point that they are almost 'must haves' for a decent group...

EDIT: Elaborating on the 'Economy' issue a bit, getting heavy armor or Solarian weapon 'drops' was really annoying in our party because no one could use them and they would vendor for pocket change...

I feel like the 10% resale value shouldn't really be making you dependant on useful equipment dropping from your foes, you still are meant to be getting your WBL with things you are likely to sell being assumed to be only worth that 10% when gms do their adventure planning. Are gms for some reason ignoring the WBL section and assuming most dropped gear is worth full price towards WBL or 0 if players are unlikely to pick it up to begin with?

From what I've seen it just does what it says in the book. Discourages players from trying to loot everything enemies have, because that's sort of weird in a sci-fi or modern setting.

If your gm is considering gear people aren't going to be using as big parts of their rewards.... then that's them screwing up, not the game.

From what I've seen it just does what it says in the book. Discourages players from trying to loot everything enemies have, because that's sort of weird in a sci-fi or modern setting.

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I believe the intent was so that you could have bad guys with gear without the risk of dramatically overpaying the party or fighting the absolom station zoo every week.

It doesn't matter if its 50% 5% or .05%. If there are credits to be had bad guys are going to wind up in tighty whities, or less if the PCs are from a species without a nudity taboo. (We MIGHT leave the kasathan their veil)

I feel like the 10% resale value shouldn't really be making you dependant on useful equipment dropping from your foes, you still are meant to be getting your WBL with things you are likely to sell being assumed to be only worth that 10% when gms do their adventure planning. Are gms for some reason ignoring the WBL section and assuming most dropped gear is worth full price towards WBL or 0 if players are unlikely to pick it up to begin with?

From what I've seen it just does what it says in the book. Discourages players from trying to loot everything enemies have, because that's sort of weird in a sci-fi or modern setting.

If your gm is considering gear people aren't going to be using as big parts of their rewards.... then that's them screwing up, not the game.

For my first AP run, instead of selling stuff, I just told people to get their WBL when there were shopping opportunities.

The guys were balanced, but they griped a bit, so for our 2nd AP run, we are doing the more traditional "loot and sell" model.

I'm going to check in on them for WBL every 2 levels or so, but Starfinder is a super-loot dependent game, and DMs should be well aware of that, as monsters will quickly become virtually unkillable without the damage that higher level weapons can put out.

I'm going to be a contrarian. I like the starship combat system.

- It's easy to learn;
- it includes all players equally;
- it lets all character types participate;
- it encourages (requires) teamwork more than even regular combat;
- it raises the stakes of the game.

I don't think it's perfect and is most fun in relatively small doses, but people generally seem to have fun with it in my games.

My favorite part (like many of you) is the setting. Least favorite... honestly, the supernova of weapon and armor types is a little too much to keep track of. But then again, too many options is a pretty good problem for a game system to have.

My favourite parts of the system are probably the diversity of character concepts and locales while still letting me do dumb deck-building character creation.

My least favourite parts are Starship combat and the gaps in competencey between levels being abit too severe for my preference for sci fi, leading to the wbl and cr oddities that are common for DnD and pf to feel more noticeable.

I feel like the 10% resale value shouldn't really be making you dependant on useful equipment dropping from your foes, you still are meant to be getting your WBL with things you are likely to sell being assumed to be only worth that 10% when gms do their adventure planning. Are gms for some reason ignoring the WBL section and assuming most dropped gear is worth full price towards WBL or 0 if players are unlikely to pick it up to begin with?

From what I've seen it just does what it says in the book. Discourages players from trying to loot everything enemies have, because that's sort of weird in a sci-fi or modern setting.

If your gm is considering gear people aren't going to be using as big parts of their rewards.... then that's them screwing up, not the game.

This. I am fairly certain that most of the problems people have encountered with the "economy" are actually from GMs ( or adventure writers! ) ignoring how WBL and loot assignment is supposed to work. You simply can't treat all loot drops as full value, you *have* to adjust based on your specific group of PCs. If there is no Solarian in the party than any Solarian crystals are only worth 10% value. . . and if the adventure mostly drops Solarian crystals, then the GM needs to make up the difference elsewhere, or change the loot drops.

( Which, btw, is something adventure writers *should* take into account- as a matter of good practice, they *should* include specific points flagged as "Here is where to add optional treasure or pay if the players are lagging behind in loot, here are suggested ways to do it." A writer can't know what the classes and current gear and future desires of your specific party are, but they can recognize that this will be an issue. )