Five Differences Between Starfinder Rules and Pathfinder Rules

Something i may have missed... How does the 1-2 attacks per round limit address dual wielding, triple wielding and quadruple wielding? It looks like damage scaling is intended to be entirely by damage dice of the weapons themselves, what about Kasatha with four SMGs pulling a Spray and Pray? Or the Cyborg Kasatha Solarion named Colonel Grievious?

Not exactly sure how I feel about the removal of Iterative attacks. Suppose I will have to wait and see how it plays.

Not exactly sure how I feel about the removal of Iterative attacks. Suppose I will have to wait and see how it plays.

How can you feel different than "oh, a mobile martial is finally exactly as effective as someone who just stands there"?

Spoodles wrote:

Not exactly sure how I feel about the removal of Iterative attacks. Suppose I will have to wait and see how it plays.

How can you feel different than "oh, a mobile martial is finally exactly as effective as someone who just stands there"?

Well, I am just worried that the final result of said changes will result in martial classes being half as effective as they were in pathfinder (where they were pretty much surpassed by casters in all ways). I also never really factored in mobile vs stationary martial characters, because even my mobile characters had the option to stand next to the enemy and beat face if a single attack per round just wasn't cutting it.

Wow, this is looking more and more like the perfect mashup of Pathfinder rules and refined 4e Essentials rules (4e Essentials largely abandoned the rigid powers structure from the start of the edition). I approve.

Gorbacz wrote:

Spoodles wrote:

Not exactly sure how I feel about the removal of Iterative attacks. Suppose I will have to wait and see how it plays.

How can you feel different than "oh, a mobile martial is finally exactly as effective as someone who just stands there"?

Well, I am just worried that the final result of said changes will result in martial classes being half as effective as they were in pathfinder (where they were pretty much surpassed by casters in all ways). I also never really factored in mobile vs stationary martial characters, because even my mobile characters had the option to stand next to the enemy and beat face if a single attack per round just wasn't cutting it.

From what i have seen it looks like both martials and magic users will follow the same damage scale, standard action damage options scale at X while full round damage options scale at 2x. X being level scaled weapons or level scaled spells. since all damage options are so tightly controled and held to similar levels across options at each level we could assume that enemy stamina/hp have been adjusted to fit this scale.

Axing iterative attacks and 9th level casters makes it look like high level play in Starfinder will be a lot smoother than in Pathfinder.

It would be great to reach the 4th leg of an AP and not feel like combat is bogging down, and the 9th level casters are getting out of control, so we should wrap things up and start something else... :P

i wonder if we will see a lot more bonuses to hit or re-roll abilities to make those few attacks more reliable to land... especially for 3/4 BAB classes.

I thought we were going to be able to use the monsters from the various bestiary books in Starfinder. Now I guess not. None of the monsters in the bestiary books have EAC or KAC. Nor do they have SP and RP.

That's disappointing.

I thought we were going to be able to use the monsters from the various bestiary books in Starfinder. Now I guess not. None of the monsters in the bestiary books have EAC or KAC. Nor do they have SP and RP.

That's disappointing.

So... from the character sheet for the iconic soldier we see that natural attacks (at least some of them) do not have the Archaic weapon quality. i would assume from this that the game will define what it means for weapons and armors to be archaic. i would guess at a big hit penalty against modern armor for weapons and archaic armors dont provide any EAC and only half their value for KAC. natural weapons and natural armor could have a simple +/- adjustment as well. then just slap them into the game with their HP as stamina points and reduced to 1-2 attacks per round at their highest bonus?

what they said as i remember it is that you can use beastiary entries with a little bit of conversion and that there would be a guideline for how to do that, if i can sum up something good enough in a paragraph i would bet they could do even better.

Not going to say much... but my quick start rule sheet from the Starfinder game I was in with Rob also points out they did away with the 5 foot step. You can take a Guarded Step as a move action, which is a 5-foot step, effectively. Makes things a bit more interesting, I think.

*guards technomancer character sheet*

I thought we were going to be able to use the monsters from the various bestiary books in Starfinder. Now I guess not. None of the monsters in the bestiary books have EAC or KAC. Nor do they have SP and RP.

That's disappointing.

You can use them, you just have to do a bit of conversion.

I thought we were going to be able to use the monsters from the various bestiary books in Starfinder. Now I guess not. None of the monsters in the bestiary books have EAC or KAC. Nor do they have SP and RP.

That's disappointing.

What they said is that you can use them after some conversion work, which Starfinder will include, and that it should be relatively easy to convert them.

I'm a bit torn about this blog.
Yay for new info, but the info is soo brief :P.

I would have preferred for there to still be some component to casting spells, whether that be words or intense focus or making certain gestures, but that's easily enough houseruled if necesary I guess.

Monster conversion is said to be relative easy, while class conversion is fairly difficult from what I understand.
- Bestiary monsters have no EAC/KAC: Just use the monster AC value for both, problem solved.
- Bestiary monsters have no Stamina/Resolve: There is probably a simple calculation for this, and imho Resolve sounds like a class thing, which non-classed monsters shouldn't need.
- No iteratives ... well, most monsters didn't have those anyway and just had natural attacks, it will be interesting to see how multiarmed combat is written out as that's where it'll be depending on.

Then the attack of opportunities. I like how that's simplified.

Oh my... this blog has me even more excited than I was already about the release of Starfinder in August. I thoroughly approve of all the changes!

If they do Stamina and HP like several older 3e systems did (Spycraft and d20 Starwars), It's easy enough to convert pathfinder monsters. The Stamina would just be their HP and HP would equal constitution. Makes criticals very dangerous if they bypass the Stamina Pool and go straight to HP as well, so long combats at any level can be significantly shortened with a few lucky hits. I've always liked that mechanic, as it makes even powerful characters leery of getting into combat as a first choice.

It has been stated that ranged weapons (i.e guns) are going to be more important in Starfinder than Pathfinder. And in a gunfight hunkering down behind cover is generally the recommended tactic.

Yes it is. However, in SW: SAGA, the Jedi had both the ability to deflect an incoming blaster shot and to kip up from prone and move quickly - and do serious damage to a foe with a lightsabre.

So these combatants had good reason to get into the fight and move around a lot - including at the up close and personal range of melee.

Meanwhile...

Those behind cover throw down ruinous fire on the cover their foes have dived behind, while grenades are tossed in for good measure.

So the combats in SW:SAGA tended to be more fluid, less Hunker Down Waltz. Sure, everybody dove for cover, then blew the hell out of the other guys cover. As the crates and tables fly apart and grenades are thrown -- people move to new cover which is still intact and which is in better grenade range. Add in Jedi being Jedi and the whole thing felt more like an epic SF RPG, and a whole lot less like Squad Leader.

That's all I ask. :)

Spoodles wrote:

Not exactly sure how I feel about the removal of Iterative attacks. Suppose I will have to wait and see how it plays.

How can you feel different than "oh, a mobile martial is finally exactly as effective as someone who just stands there"?

Not necessarily so. From what we know so far, if you're hitting on an 11 or better you're more likely to land a hit and have a chance of landing two. For instance if you're hitting on say, a 5, your DPR will be 50% better if you take two attacks. Haste apparently improves it even further.

Unless there are a lot of viable at-will abilities for martial characters that require a standard action to activate, shuffling 5 feet and full attacking will probably still be the norm, it'll just start at a lower level than before.

Unless there are a lot of viable at-will abilities for martial characters that require a standard action to activate, shuffling 5 feet and full attacking will probably still be the norm, it'll just start at a lower level than before.

Only that, as we've now learned, there is no free 5-ft.-step in Starfinder.

Also, the "norm" will probably be using ranged weapons anyway.

Gorbacz wrote:

Spoodles wrote:

Not exactly sure how I feel about the removal of Iterative attacks. Suppose I will have to wait and see how it plays.

How can you feel different than "oh, a mobile martial is finally exactly as effective as someone who just stands there"?

Not necessarily so. From what we know so far, if you're hitting on an 11 or better you're more likely to land a hit and have a chance of landing two. For instance if you're hitting on say, a 5, your DPR will be 50% better if you take two attacks. Haste apparently improves it even further.

Unless there are a lot of viable at-will abilities for martial characters that require a standard action to activate, shuffling 5 feet and full attacking will probably still be the norm, it'll just start at a lower level than before.

5ft step is now a move action, just like in 4e.

TheGoofyGE3K wrote:

Flat-footed is a condition, and I believe it gives you a -2 to your ACs if you're caught unawares.

So if I were to use a rogue sneak attack in Starfinder basically I would be looking for characters with that condition to stabby for my sneak attack?

I believe they've said that the operative's trick attack in Starfinder, unlike the rogue's sneak attack in Pathfinder, doesn't require the target to be flat-footed, flanked, or anything like that. Instead, the operative makes an opposed skill check (normally, bluff, intimidate or stealth) in order to see whether the trick attack works.

So I think the flat-footed condition is substantially less important than before.

I'm a fan of all these changes. The new AC types will probably take a little getting used to, but that's fine. Especially like that Magic is now all one big thing, with the different mainly being different magical traditions/schools.

Love the idea of a 'resolve pool' replacing the half-dozen or so resource pools (like ki, grit, phrenic pool or arcane pool) used by various classes.

Also like the idea of the two-tiered hit point/stamina notion. We used a house ruled version of that way back in 2nd edition AD&D (base hp = Con score, and heals slowly, representing actual injury to the body and include penalties, hp gained per level recover faster and go first), but it never really caught on.

Being a fan of Mutants & Masterminds, which, among other things, got rid of iterative attacks (and attacks of opportunity, for that matter), I'm cool with them going away again. Presumably attack damage will increase with level by some other mechanism, so that a 1st level character with a laser pistol will do less damage with it than a 20th level character with the exact same laser pistol (whose 'single attack' may represent multiple shots hitting anyway and doing cumulative damage), making iterative attacks irrelevant.

The -4 to attacks is new. Iterative attacks are simpler there are none.

We new most of the differences between stamina, hit points, and resolve. Hit points are fewer and slower to heal. Resolve will allow you to heal stamina and hit points. Resolve is also is linked to some abilities and I would guess feats.

I am still on the fence if there are any effects/conditions applied to hit point damage. The simple answer would be no, but no confirmation of that was given. So I guess we will have to wait and see. As I have indicated easy enough thing to add. Bleed condition when you first take hit point damage until removed.

I am curious how crits will work. Unlike some wounds/vitality systems I do not think all critical damage will go to hit points. With damage scaling that would make for allot dead characters. It may be some combination of stamina and some hit point damage.

The starship combat has pretty detailed damage. Critical threshold and that kind of thing. It would not be the first game to have the glob of hit points with no real effect for taking damage until 0 and detailed vehicle damage. Rifts comes to mind. Although later on Rifts (unlimited removed the pain rules found in first Rifts version. Was brought back in the Game Masters Guide)did introduce pain and blood loss rules. There is a little difference with stamina, hit points, and resolve.

Dave2

Love the idea of a 'resolve pool' replacing the half-dozen or so resource pools (like ki, grit, phrenic pool or arcane pool) used by various classes.

This is super helpful, it also makes multi-classing to various resource pool using classes easier.

Spoodles wrote:

Not exactly sure how I feel about the removal of Iterative attacks. Suppose I will have to wait and see how it plays.

How can you feel different than "oh, a mobile martial is finally exactly as effective as someone who just stands there"?

It's still better to full attack, no? It's not as vital as with +0/-5/-10/-15, but you're still missing out if you move.

It's not iterative attacks that discouraged mobility, it's the fact that you have to forgo mobility to take multiple attacks, and that's still there.

It's a step in the right direction, but if the point is to encourage mobility, it'd be even simpler to go all the way in the right direction and just say you get all of your attacks regardless of how far you move.

In my games I think I'll be making full attacks a standard action unless there's some other balancing factor that hasn't been revealed to us yet. The -4 to hit seems enough to incentivise people only attacking once instead of doing full attacks all the time.

In my games I think I'll be making full attacks a standard action unless there's some other balancing factor that hasn't been revealed to us yet. The -4 to hit seems enough to incentivise people only attacking once instead of doing full attacks all the time.

Likewise. It's probably going to be our first house rule, unless there's something really critical about making full attacks that hasn't been described yet.

if someone shoots at you with a gun in melee and they provoke an attack, can you shoot back as your AoO? And then they get one on your for using a gun on them? Can i take Grammaton Cleric as my theme and avoid the AoOs for using small arms in melee?

Gorbacz wrote:

Spoodles wrote:

Not exactly sure how I feel about the removal of Iterative attacks. Suppose I will have to wait and see how it plays.

How can you feel different than "oh, a mobile martial is finally exactly as effective as someone who just stands there"?

It's still better to full attack, no? It's not as vital as with +0/-5/-10/-15, but you're still missing out if you move.

It's not iterative attacks that discouraged mobility, it's the fact that you have to forgo mobility to take multiple attacks, and that's still there.

It's a step in the right direction, but if the point is to encourage mobility, it'd be even simpler to go all the way in the right direction and just say you get all of your attacks regardless of how far you move.

*does some math*

The break even point is 40% hit chance (ignoring criticals, since I don't think we know the full rules there yet). Below that, and the better accuracy of a single attack is important to hit at all. Above, and the chance of scoring two hits starts to drive you damage up on a double-attack.

Taking a 75% chance to hit, though, at 11th, and you're looking at full attack giving about 50% extra damage in Starfinder, as opposed to 100% extra in Pathfinder- without Haste up. But since Haste is always up for important fights, that's going to be 200%. Dropping two-thirds of your damage so you can move up is an awful deal. Dropping one-third is better.

But, there's another aspect. We've seen that some bulky weapons can't do multiple attacks in a round. Presumably, they get extra damage in exchange. That means that if you're willing to commit to a mobile, single attack lifestyle, you lose out on less.

Finally, for melee, the five-foot-step being made into a special move action means that a single-attack fighter can prevent an opponent from getting to double attack.

Tammy doesn't get why people are always sharpening their pitchfork. The rust and tetanus only add to the fun.

This is both eminently logical and utterly horrifying...

Looks like the rules are being simplified a bit. This is good, not that I have any problem with the PF rules, but I don't have the free time to learn new rules like I did when I was younger.

*does some math*

The break even point is 40% hit chance (ignoring criticals, since I don't think we know the full rules there yet). Below that, and the better accuracy of a single attack is important to hit at all. Above, and the chance of scoring two hits starts to drive you damage up on a double-attack.

Taking a 75% chance to hit, though, at 11th, and you're looking at full attack giving about 50% extra damage in Starfinder, as opposed to 100% extra in Pathfinder- without Haste up. But since Haste is always up for important fights, that's going to be 200%. Dropping two-thirds of your damage so you can move up is an awful deal. Dropping one-third is better.

As I've said, it's a step in the right direction, a significant one, I should have added.

But it's trivial to solve the issue completely for mobility (always all of your attacks, 5E style), so I'm wondering if maybe the designers weren't prioritising mobility as highly as we seem to be.

But, there's another aspect. We've seen that some bulky weapons can't do multiple attacks in a round. Presumably, they get extra damage in exchange. That means that if you're willing to commit to a mobile, single attack lifestyle, you lose out on less.

That's... odd. So someone with a light pistol or vibroknife is probably better off standing fast and full attacking, while someone with a huge autocannon or a heavy chain axe is better off flitting about? That seems about opposite of how it should be.

Still lots we don't know, so that might not be how it all works out, but it seems odd at first blush.

Finally, for melee, the five-foot-step being made into a special move action means that a single-attack fighter can prevent an opponent from getting to double attack.

That's true!

Wzrd wrote:

What increases when a character goes up in level?

A) Hit Points only.
B) Stamina Points only.
C) Both, Hit Points and Stamina Points.
D) Neither.

C

Would it be correct to say that if you added the Stamina Points and Hit Points of a 10th level Starfinder Soldier together, that total would roughly be the same as a 10th level Fighter from Pathfinder?

What I'm thinking is that to keep Starfinder compatible with Pathfinder, a design decision was made to keep the 'hit point pool total' about the same.

Do monsters have Stamina Points?

Okay..mmmm

1) Looks interesting...

2)Makes sense in a modern type game.

3 & 4) Meh I liked them...but can live without them. Though concern for a general dumming down the system now exists.

5) and this is to me a mistake....could be a very big one.

Okay..mmmm

1) Looks interesting...

2)Makes sense in a modern type game.

3 & 4) Meh I liked them...but can live without them. Though concern for a general dumming down the system now exists.

5) and this is to me a mistake....could be a very big one.

Mind if I ask you why do you consider #5 a mistake?

To me, that ship sailed when they started giving bards and witches Cure Light Wounds.

Personally, I'm still waiting to see if everyone gets a towel. :-)

Given how many Cleric players complain about the healbot thing, and how many posters on various gaming forums refer to healing as the least optimal thing a character can be doing in combat anyway, and how many games I've played that don't gate healing off to a single class or magic type (such as GURPS, Vampire, M&M etc.), I'm not convinced that the loss of the arcane/divine/psychic sub-divisions is all that important (or beloved) a sacred cow.

It seems like few gamers really *like* healing, even Cleric players and theorycrafters, and yet the game designers are hesitant to let Wizards do it because? IMO, adding cure spells to Wizards would just result in *Wizard* theorycrafters complaining about how sub-optimal a choice it is, and how it's a waste to expect a Wizard, who should be making reality roll over and play fetch, to prepare a cure spell.

I mean, spell lists are still spell lists, while the distinction between arcane and divine was pretty arbitrary always.

Would it be correct to say that if you added the Stamina Points and Hit Points of a 10th level Starfinder Soldier together, that total would roughly be the same as a 10th level Fighter from Pathfinder?

Doesn't seem so, a level 5 Obozaya has way more "health" in total than any 5th level Pathfinder will ever seen.

I was totally expecting the iterative attack change to be a simplified version like "gain an additional standard action in a full attack round." Then have the addition granted less often at BAB 7 and 14.

So the news of them going away was disappointing at first. But with scaling damage (if that's real, haven't seen it on a blog yet but people seem to speak of it confidently) this is making sense as a way to fix broken high level combat. High level rounds might not take hours anymore and the encounters could be fair and threatening like at lower levels but without the squishiness.

After letting it soak in I'm really warming up to it! If the balance does maintain up to 20, mmaaaayybe we could see an "epic" rule book up to 30 down the line...

To me, that ship sailed when they started giving bards and witches Cure Light Wounds.

Personally, I'm still waiting to see if everyone gets a towel. :-)

Bards always had cure light wounds. In first edition bards cast druid spells, and cure light wounds was a 2nd level druid spell.

I thought they didn't in second edition, but it's been a couple decades, so.

My point still stands, it isn't a big deal to me. :-)

Given how many Cleric players complain about the healbot thing, and how many posters on various gaming forums refer to healing as the least optimal thing a character can be doing in combat anyway, and how many games I've played that don't gate healing off to a single class or magic type (such as GURPS, Vampire, M&M etc.), I'm not convinced that the loss of the arcane/divine/psychic sub-divisions is all that important (or beloved) a sacred cow.

It seems like few gamers really *like* healing, even Cleric players and theorycrafters, and yet the game designers are hesitant to let Wizards do it because? IMO, adding cure spells to Wizards would just result in *Wizard* theorycrafters complaining about how sub-optimal a choice it is, and how it's a waste to expect a Wizard, who should be making reality roll over and play fetch, to prepare a cure spell.

Even on healilng classes, using healing spells is an emergency thing. in normal play your "healer" has a few wands of cure light wounds and a wand of lesser restoration and doesnt have to roll to use them. without a healer you find the PC with the best UMD and give them the same load out.

I mean, spell lists are still spell lists, while the distinction between arcane and divine was pretty arbitrary always.

Yeah. And to be honest, I can't stop seeing Technomancers as Arcane and Mystics as divine. Then racial, feat, and archetype magic as Psychic.

Technomancers studying for their powers and shaping the world to their whim. The in universe fact that most Mystics get their spells from deities. And then at least 1 feat and the archetype both have Psychic names.

And the way the Mystic and Technomancer spell lists are described seems to imply similar. Just because you now CAN flavor them however you want, it's easy to draw some lines to Arcane/Divine/Psychic if you really want to.

When you say there are no components does that mean the 'spell manifestions' that got FAQ'd into Pathfinder are gone too?

Liking everything I've seen so far for Pathfinder 2.0 Starfinder so far. Especially the artwork. Still kind of sad there's no option for non-humanoid bodied races though. Seriously, where's the Flumph?

When you say there are no components does that mean the 'spell manifestions' that got FAQ'd into Pathfinder are gone too?

Does that mean it isn't possible to identify what someone's casting? Or even that they are casting.

When you say there are no components does that mean the 'spell manifestions' that got FAQ'd into Pathfinder are gone too?

Liking everything I've seen so far for Pathfinder 2.0 Starfinder so far. Especially the artwork. Still kind of sad there's no option for non-humanoid bodied races though. Seriously, where's the Flumph?

i doubt they will completely remove them but they might also just make it specific to the spell school on how it manifest (or if it manifests) or add a tag to some spells that those ones in particular dont give themselves away.

Still kind of sad there's no option for non-humanoid bodied races though. Seriously, where's the Flumph?

Probably in the Alien Archive, which has lots more playable races than the CRB.

My reactions:

1) So we're bringing back Wound and Vitality points, and baking in Action Points as well. I'm kind of "meh" about this; (the typical version of) hit points worked well enough for my group. Splitting them up between fatigue/exhaustion/stress/etc. and actual physical wounds seems unnecessary to me, and given that both will apparently increase with levels seems like it won't solve the underlying issues that some people had with bog-standard hit points.

2) I think this was a missed opportunity. "Armor Class" has always been an amalgamation of two distinct concepts: avoiding a blow entirely, and having armor/shields/parries render a landed blow completely non-damaging. Splitting Armor Class into two numbers would have been better served by making one of them a dodge and the other one a parry. Making a distinction between energy and kinetic attacks seems less worthwhile.

3) This is a good idea. Iterative attacks - at least insofar as the third and fourth attack went - were never quite as good as they wanted to be, at least outside of extreme situations (i.e. where you either could only hit on a natural 20 or only miss on a natural 1). I still prefer the Trailblazer version, where BAB +1 through +5 meant you could only make one attack as a standard action, BAB +6 through +10 meant that you could make two attacks with a -2 penalty each as a full attack action, BAB +11 through +15 reduced that to a -1 penalty, and BAB +16 through +20 removed the penalty entirely. Still, this seems of a similar vein, and hopefully we'll find out more specifics that make it even better.

4) I'm of two minds about this, but overall I'm cautiously optimistic. Martial characters were the ones who most benefited from making AoO's (certainly full-progression spellcasters seemed to have little enough use for them), but on the other hand a lot of martial maneuvers were written off by players who didn't want to provoke. That, and there was a lot of maneuvering-related silliness to trying to avoid provoking. So it seems like there's more that's good here than not.

5) This is the natural conclusion to how magic has worked since Third Edition came out, to my mind. Prior to that, there were real differences in how arcane and divine magic worked. But since then, they've been more similar than different, so eliminating the distinction altogether seems like a natural step to take. That said, I wonder about the Law of Unintended Consequences kicking in here. Given how gamist the d20 System treats its magic, I wonder if eliminating any distinction between different types of magic will raise questions about why all spell lists don't have healing magic, for example, given that it's universal in its practical applicability. You can chalk that up to differences of style and tradition, I suppose, but those strike me as being poor excuses for why adventurers wouldn't want life-saving magic at their fingertips.