Starfinder weapons don't feel sci-fi enough

I don't get why, in a system where the goal is 100% interoperability between Starfinder 2e and Pathfinder 2e, the advanced high-tech weapons from Starfinder 2e are so much inferior to archaic weapons from Pf2e when used against non-modern armor. An early modern character looking at a futuristic sci-fi weapon should be amazed at how deadly they are (this is even in the pathfinder lore about Numeria!). Instead, a laser pistol has about the range of a thrown javelin, and does less damage than a stone age weapon. A laser gatling gun, which should be a massive force multiplier on an early modern battlefield when used against a charging group of enemies, instead attacks a 15' area(!) for slightly less damage than even the nerfed electric arc cantrip (which has a bigger range and is much more likely to hit 2 targets), and the gatling gun is 3 bulk and burns through 5 silver of ammo per attack.

I understand the Archaic trait will be added to pf2e weapons so that Starfinder characters won't be able to use the higher damage medieval weapons, but this does nothing when working in the other direction. Additionally, I'd worry that Starfinder characters would be almost obligated to carry a pf2e ranged weapon to use against targets without modern armor. Maybe instead of giving modern armor damage resistance against archaic weapons, modern weapons should do +10 damage to targets without modern armor? That way the humble laser pistol becomes a force to be reckoned with in Pathfinder 2e, not a disappointment best sold at the next town.

I'd also really like to see more interesting traits on the guns, and the range of all of them is universally too small. Why is a laser gatling gun or a rifled cannon outranged by a smooth-bore arquebus, or a longbow? And since the weapons aren't going to use the rune system of pathfinder 2e, but a parallel system, there's no need to restrict weapons to only doing a single dice of damage. One could easily make the laser gatling gun do 2d6 damage (doubled to 4d6 at level 4 version), or any other combination, just to make them feel more advanced.

Pathfinder isn't a Medieval game.

My Spirit Instinct Barbarian sees ghost and dragons all the time, your glam disco light slinging "crossbow" doesn't really seem that spectacular in comparison.

Range and damage die are metagame constructs for the game, not an attempt at "realism".

Another important thing to notice is that modern or even sci-fi weapons aren't necessary stronger than an edged weapon like blades and arrows they are just more convenient and easier to use.

For example a single shot with a pistol does less damage than a sword usually does because cut weapon can harm a large amount of veins and can easily cause and infection or poison an opponent while a firearm shot usually smashes and cauterizes the injure.

The real advantage of modern weapons and consequently sci-fi weapons is that they are easier to use requiring less training, less space to carry the weapons and specially the ammo, almost no str (yet big weapons still requires some str to be carried and to resist to its recoil, something that sci-fi weapons usually removes too) than they are really more destructive.

The other point is that usually such weapons ignores archaic armors that was the secondary reason why they substitute the medieval blades and arrows and the introduction of explosives. But in a fantasy world both theoretically are compensated by magic that can make armors more resistants, blades more efficient and the explosions can be magical and alchemical generated.

Thats why I don't see too much problem with they being side-by-side.

The only weapon here close to directly comparable to something in PF2e is the laser pistol and that is still more of an upgrade than anything. Compared to a hand crossbow, it has shorter range but it does fire damage and can be fired 5 times before reloading. Everything else is an area of effect weapon or has an area of effect option and those are always slightly behind on damage to compensate for their ability to target multiple enemies... something no weapon in PF2e has really been able to do.

Additionally, these are still the lower level weapons. Of course they are going to be relatively tame.

Range and damage die are metagame constructs for the game, not an attempt at "realism".

This is the succinct answer to most of this question. It hasn't ever been realistic that a dagger does the same damage as a fist (or even less in case of monks). Or that a direct hit from the fist of a several ton monster doesn't just turn you into mush, no matter what kind of fancy plate armor you are wearing.

And 100% compatible doesn't mean they are fully balanced against each other, as was pointed out several times. They don't have to make full sense when comparing the two, because it isn't a priority. They only have to (mostly) feel right within the respective system. And with that in mind the weapons look decent so far. Everything else will be up to your group to decide.
That said, we will inevitably see a lot of overlap, just from how the math on both PCs and monsters works. For example, that's why that 2d6 base damage gatling won't happen. That's because of how damage is intended to scale in relation to monster health. The rune system just gets you that intended number, it isn't the cause.

As for range and traits, I'm right there with you. Not because of the comparison with existing weapons, but because it will be important for the feel of the game on its own. Especially the longer ranges reinforce the idea that SF2 is favoring ranged combat. Everyone just shooting at each other from like 12 meters away in an open area, just because your weapon range is that low, then that would feel weird even at level 1. And traits are awesome to make weapons more interesting and varied, so we should have more of them.

As a side note (which is why this isn't included in the previous comment), it might be a mistake to completely discount "archaic" weapons like that. Today and even in many scifi settings, old weapon types like swords, bows, crossbows, double-barrel shotguns and single-shot firearms come up quite a bit. They'll be updated in terms of materials, but they are still around. In some cases because they are still quite viable for civilian use, sometimes because they still have a genuine combat niche (e.g. bows are really quiet, crossbows are apparently good against sandbags? and a 6 inch blade never loses reception ;D), because they are really cheap and so on.

So for example if a group wants to use PF2 weapons, but doesn't like the disconnect, you could just reflavor the arquebus as a single-shot home-build laser rifle or slug thrower.

My favorite example of a horribly destructive 'archaic' weapon is the explanation for why you don't see as many battlefield amputations these days as you did as... say... at Waterloo. Compared to modern bullets, musket balls were stupidly high caliber which meant more of the energy was directly transferred into the target. This resulted in much larger cavitation waves hitting soft tissue and, more importantly, bones. If you got hit ANYWHERE near a large bone, it was often reduced to shards in a way that there was simply no healing from. The analogy I've heard is that the difference between getting shot with a 9mm and getting shot with a musket is the difference between getting stabbed with a knife and getting stabbed with a fist.

There isn't much to be gained by trying to intentionally make futuristic weapons overpowered, especially since this is going to be a game where people do still stab each other with swords and where there are still t-rex style aliens to punch.

"Getting stabbed with a fist" Thanks I hate it.

My thoughts are similar to Rysky's. If you take a step back and leave biases about what the modern vs archaic weapon relationship "should" be, you realize we're miles and miles from that being at all worth pursuing verisimilitude about.

You have a gun? Cute. My 500 year old Elven Arcane Archer shoots arrows so laden with magic that they teleport into their targets and explode with death-energy.

You have a laser-rifle? Nice! Can it deal damage to this incorporeal ghost of a T-rex my barbarian friend is currently wrestling to the ground?

I think there's so much whacko nonsense going on that it's best to just let the math take care of itself and campaign for advanced technology to compete on coolness factor.

My ideal balance would be a slightly higher damage ceiling for Starfinder weapons and maybe slightly higher damage overall but focusing more on interesting and useful weapon properties to make them more of a lateral expansion of abilities than just strictly being stronger.

The area of effect attacks we've seen so far are already worlds more useful than their counterparts in 1e.

Maybe instead of giving modern armor damage resistance against archaic weapons, modern weapons should do +10 damage to targets without modern armor? That way the humble laser pistol becomes a force to be reckoned with in Pathfinder 2e, not a disappointment best sold at the next town.

I wanted to address this suggestion specifically. Remember, Starfinder is going to be a science fantasy, not strictly science fiction game. Some of its many sources of inspiration are pulp fiction from the early 1900s, ray gun adventures and sword and planet adventures and so on. You aren't expected to be only fighting enemies who have gear of a similar technological level to yourself. There needs to be room for fighting alien beasts, less techno-savvy aliens, ancient but still-operational golems, etc. If you allow technological weapons to do bonus damage against unarmored targets you wind up with either:

I like the idea of archaic armor providing less of an armor bonus against advanced weapons but giving advanced weapons a damage boost against archaic armor has some knock-on effects that throw off balance.

It also gets Real Weird when you are in Starfinder against targets that don't have any armor at all and/or that are using natural weapons. Like, we don't want the voidwolves to be either utterly ineffectual or insta-mulch.

It also gets Real Weird when you are in Starfinder against targets that don't have any armor at all and/or that are using natural weapons. Like, we don't want the voidwolves to be either utterly ineffectual or insta-mulch.

Did voidwolf prey write this?!

IMO I don't think that we need that tech weapons becoming stronger than magical archaic weapons. Instead of this we could have more interesting and creative weapon types, abilities and traits.

For example we could get Transformation weapons in SF2 that can turn itself in a different kind of weapon. It's basically a Combination weapon but with a better justification to use an action to change the mode (the you are not just changing your grip mode but you weapon is completely changing to another mode). Different from Combination I think that this weapon change could interact better with Draw and Swap modification feats in order to benefit from them.
This weapons are based in weapons like Crescent Rose from RWBY or God Arcs from God Eater.

Another cool weapon feature is weapons addons similar to Siege Kits from RF Online that could be deployed increasing the damage or reducing the reload at cost of one action to deploy and become immobilized until you use another action to undeploy.

Othe cool thing that could be implemented is weapon merging like Power Rangers Weapon mergin (don't need to be in so in this exaggerated motion but the concept of merge different high tech weapons from different characters in order to make a stronger one (usually cannon) that does a stronger blast could be very fun).

We we talk about sci-fi hightech and fantasy we could get a enormous ammount of interesting and fantastic versions and abilities to the weapons instead of just "make the weapon stronger because the technology level is higher".

I don't get why, in a system where the goal is 100% interoperability between Starfinder 2e and Pathfinder 2e, the advanced high-tech weapons from Starfinder 2e are so much inferior to archaic weapons from Pf2e when used against non-modern armor. An early modern character looking at a futuristic sci-fi weapon should be amazed at how deadly they are (this is even in the pathfinder lore about Numeria!). Instead, a laser pistol has about the range of a thrown javelin, and does less damage than a stone age weapon. A laser gatling gun, which should be a massive force multiplier on an early modern battlefield when used against a charging group of enemies, instead attacks a 15' area(!) for slightly less damage than even the nerfed electric arc cantrip (which has a bigger range and is much more likely to hit 2 targets), and the gatling gun is 3 bulk and burns through 5 silver of ammo per attack.

I understand the Archaic trait will be added to pf2e weapons so that Starfinder characters won't be able to use the higher damage medieval weapons, but this does nothing when working in the other direction. Additionally, I'd worry that Starfinder characters would be almost obligated to carry a pf2e ranged weapon to use against targets without modern armor. Maybe instead of giving modern armor damage resistance against archaic weapons, modern weapons should do +10 damage to targets without modern armor? That way the humble laser pistol becomes a force to be reckoned with in Pathfinder 2e, not a disappointment best sold at the next town.

I'd also really like to see more interesting traits on the guns, and the range of all of them is universally too small. Why is a laser gatling gun or a rifled cannon outranged by a smooth-bore arquebus, or a longbow? And since the weapons aren't going to use the rune system of pathfinder 2e, but a parallel system, there's no need to restrict weapons to only doing a single dice of damage. One could easily make the laser gatling gun do 2d6 damage (doubled to 4d6 at level 4 version),...

Bc game + game balance = game that runs well = more GMs = more tables being played = healthier gaming ecosystem for the edition

I don't think it's that much of a problem that laser pistols for instance have a shortish range. Does range still work as an increment system for weapons like that? Pistols in general aren't designed for use against foes that are a long way away. When people design something for that, they design it to be stabilized with two hands. But I think all one-handed range weapons ought to have range less than or equal to a laser pistol, because laser pistols are recoilless and perfectly line of sight. The only thing that might make them less easy to use would be if they took time to actuate. A semi-auto pistol or a revolver has recoil, and that makes it harder to put the shot where you wanted it, and the error is angular so it scales with range.

Modern military rifles and their sci-fantasy successors should work best at intermediate and long distances (when you're targeting a single enemy). In SF1, they can do more damage per shot, which is appropriate.

Again, laser rifles ought to have the best ranges (when there's no optical interference) because they're recoilless and perfectly line of sight. If you can see your target you can put the shot on them. Advanced rifles should be very good choices, but not have specific types of energy and penetration that might be situationally called for. Indirect fire weapons need to exist for overcoming cover.

There should be a class, possibly a Mechanic build, that specializes in using drones for surveillance, attack, decoys, and possibly defense. Possibly skilled in using the drones as spotters for indirect fire (grenade launchers and such), as well as armed mini-drones and the like.

I don't think it's that much of a problem that laser pistols for instance have a shortish range. Does range still work as an increment system for weapons like that? Pistols in general aren't designed for use against foes that are a long way away. When people design something for that, they design it to be stabilized with two hands. But I think all one-handed range weapons ought to have range less than or equal to a laser pistol, because laser pistols are recoilless and perfectly line of sight. The only thing that might make them less easy to use would be if they took time to actuate. A semi-auto pistol or a revolver has recoil, and that makes it harder to put the shot where you wanted it, and the error is angular so it scales with range.

Modern military rifles and their sci-fantasy successors should work best at intermediate and long distances (when you're targeting a single enemy). In SF1, they can do more damage per shot, which is appropriate.

Again, laser rifles ought to have the best ranges (when there's no optical interference) because they're recoilless and perfectly line of sight. If you can see your target you can put the shot on them. Advanced rifles should be very good choices, but not have specific types of energy and penetration that might be situationally called for. Indirect fire weapons need to exist for overcoming cover.

For laser weapons, range increments would represent the user's ability to aim more than anything else.

And for the normal pistols I'd agree that 40ft increments are not totally unbelievable. 12 meters for accurate fire are pretty low, especially for such a high-tech weapon, but it gets the point across well enough. With range being generally more important in this system, I'd prefer 60ft, though.

It's the longarms I'm personally concerned about. The rotolaser effectively has a range of 15 or 20ft, which is terrible even by PF standards. It's nominal range increments of 30/40ft aren't much better. Even the stellar cannon at 50/60ft is pretty bad. Granted, it's basically a fancy handheld cannon (or possibly grenade launcher), but even the stuff we have today is much, much more accurate than that. Hell, the stuff we had 100 years ago was better than that. So if these weapons are any indication, then I'm going to have a rough time buying into the idea that SF places an emphasis on ranged combat.

This was a huge issue with me from first edition. As a Starfinder you are given a mission for example, go to the lava fields and find out why the magma wyrms are enraged. Then, I google the world using the computer knowledge bonus from using a web connection. +10 to my recall check. Now I know for a fact, that magma wyrms are weak against cold damage.

If I am low level, or the 'incorrect' level. I have 0 options to by a ray gun that shoots cold bullets. I can't turn a knob on my gun to change the damage type. I can't even make my laser pistol transform into a knife, or have some cool laser throwing sword.

The items in a future game, should be futuristic. If you have a 3d printer it should be able to 3d print bullets with a variety of elemental effect. And before anyone starts saying nonsense about the scientific issues of making variable bullet, this isn't science, this is a game. If you bust out your electron microscope and zoom in, you get d20's not atoms.

Honestly, every game I ran of Starfinder, I used my items. I threw out the terrible starting cash and the way too expensive guns. Nothing like telling a player 80% of their starting cash goes toward their one sword to put a damper on the science fiction fantasy of being awesome.

Want a great example of awful weapons. Check Cyberpunk Red. Nothing kills the cool like picking up a heavy pistol. Not an Ares Roomsweeper or a Veskarium Scattergun, just some default generic gun. I remember when dirty harry pulled out his 'very heavy pistol' and how impactful it was being called, 'very heavy pistol.'

I'd personally, give them all names and sources then put, *feel free to change the style/appearance/manufacturer of your weapons, the universe is a big place* as a side bar.

Seriously, Skittertech Scattergun sounds cool, but a scattergun is a category, not an weapon name. It also does nothing for world building, or context. Who makes scatterguns? Why are the all the same? There is a game called Crying suns, it has robots that make everything. People can't make stuff. That would then make sense. Every scattergun is just a 'scattergun' as they are all made by the same 3D printer. I doubt this is the same situation in Starfinder. Unless I missed a chapter where Triune took over manufacturing.

I'd personally, give them all names and sources then put, *feel free to change the style/appearance/manufacturer of your weapons, the universe is a big place* as a side bar.

Seriously, Skittertech Scattergun sounds cool, but a scattergun is a category, not an weapon name.

Kinda sounds like what you're asking for it all in First Edition, already. The problems you're describing was maybe true of the first year of Starfinder, when it was a new game with only one or two books published, but all the things you're asking for are here, now, at the end of First Edition's life-cycle.

I know the magma wyrm is just a made-up example, but, it's not hard to find a Cryo weapon in nearly every weapon category (even solarian crystals!), and for those without (like, say, sniper rifles) there's the Frost fusion, available as early as lvl 4. There are really big handcannons. There are weapon manufacturers. There are doodads and gizmos to staple onto your guns. There are wild and crazy science-fantasy guns that exist at the intersection of "super science" and "mad magic" - I wrote a post about it, just the other day. Nearly every weapon has at least a little descriptive blurb anchoring it into the setting, already, too: for example, did you know the plasma conqueror is considered by many vesk to be the ranged 'spiritual' equivalent to the doshko, or that kin-killer sniper rifles are based on 'haunted' relics found in ancient ruins?

You already have the ability to 3D print whatever weapon you need on-demand, via Crafting. Same idea goes for printing Fusions on demand, to change some of the damage type of your weapon on the fly. They're not free, but that's not a fault of the gear selection; that's just the Starfinder game economy. Your other point about wanting to add more flavour via manufacturers or custom names or whatever else - I mean, what's stopping you? Especially if you're the GM, who's going to say "no" :D People adding their own flavouring or re-skinning items is absolutely allowed and encouraged in Paizo TTRPGs. If you want to say your scattergun is named Ol' Whistler because that one time you used it to perform percussive maintenance on your engine to escape the carnivorous plant-asteroids of the Diaspora it dented the barrel and it makes a whistling sound when you shoot it now - go ahead! Starting tomorrow when Enhanced comes out, there'll even be rules to keep one specific weapon, and upgrade it to still be relevant at higher levels, so you can go from level 1 to 20 all using "Granny's Lucky Laser Pistol!"

In addition to Kishmo's points:

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the advent of item levels means that raw wealth is no longer a major balancing factor. Additional equipment limited to close to character level will provide only a minor vertical bump in power initially but tend more towards horizontal improvements. There is nothing to stop you from showering your PCs in cool gear and extra cash and I'd argue that this is a much more fun way to play.

That still wraps me back to the basic question. Do you want the game to be all about the cool tech or do you want what characters can do to be mostly about the character's amazing skills?

Can a 12th level gunfighter, or whatever you want to call them, wreak havoc with a basic pistol, or do they need a 10th to 14th level weapon to even be in the fight? And how do you balance that against the 10th level Witchwarper that doesn't need any equipment all besides some decent armor to wreak havoc?

That still wraps me back to the basic question. Do you want the game to be all about the cool tech or do you want what characters can do to be mostly about the character's amazing skills?

Can a 12th level gunfighter, or whatever you want to call them, wreak havoc with a basic pistol, or do they need a 10th to 14th level weapon to even be in the fight? And how do you balance that against the 10th level Witchwarper that doesn't need any equipment all besides some decent armor to wreak havoc?

I want stuff to be mostly up to the character's skills, at least as far as your main thing goes. Playing with ABP for years has convinced me that it is just plain better than runes or built-in math enhancers.

Gear is fine as far as enabling some mechanics is concerned - consumables, jetpacks, vision devices,... etc. - and to enhance your gameplay with cool abilities you can use occasionally use. But tying basic usability of your character to paying vast quantities of money has always been a terrible idea. It causes so many completely avoidable problems and for what?

I want stuff to be mostly up to the character's skills, at least as far as your main thing goes. Playing with ABP for years has convinced me that it is just plain better than runes or built-in math enhancers.

Gear is fine as far as enabling some mechanics is concerned - consumables, jetpacks, vision devices,... etc. - and to enhance your gameplay with cool abilities you can use occasionally use. But tying basic usability of your character to paying vast quantities of money has always been a terrible idea. It causes so many completely avoidable problems and for what?

I'm in agreement with this. In an ideal tabletop game, I feel even special gear could be rolled into the feat system instead of relying on a separate economy -- what's cool about your gear isn't necessarily the base stats of a generic gun or armored vest, but the special and unique things you get to do with either of those things. In 2e, though, and specifically Starfinder 2e, I do agree that there's an opportunity to make gear do more standout things in perhaps more limited amounts. I will say that casters do need gear in 2e as well, and a caster without scrolls, staves, and wands in PF2e is going to be severely weakened due to their lack of options (this is perhaps the one major flaw with ABP), but that gear also tends to be the exact kind that gives cool stuff in limited amounts as well.

Rolling them into the feat system wouldn't be a good idea. It just isn't suitable for that and already pretty loaded. If you were to actually do this, you'd have to make another silo of feats for this entire thing and then you are just exchanging one economy for another.

Players also like rewards and finding cool stuff. And if players would actually find cool stuff and not "math fixer 1" that becomes obsolete a few levels later, I think that would be enough of a change.

Rolling them into the feat system wouldn't be a good idea. It just isn't suitable for that and already pretty loaded. If you were to actually do this, you'd have to make another silo of feats for this entire thing and then you are just exchanging one economy for another.

Players also like rewards and finding cool stuff. And if players would actually find cool stuff and not "math fixer 1" that becomes obsolete a few levels later, I think that would be enough of a change.

I certainly agree that implementing gear as feats in 2e wouldn't be a good idea, because item is already its own system, and building a fleshed-out set of feats to replace gear from scratch would be a lot of effort for a largely redundant payoff. In a different tabletop system or edition, however, implementing gear as feats from the ground up would not only be perfectly feasible, but arguably easier than having to implement a side economy. "Here's this cool new thing you get to do" is what feats are, so there is nothing conceptually preventing the implementation of gear as feats.

I would also not begrudge Paizo for implementing "math fixer" items, because fundamental runes in Pathfinder were added by player demand. Paizo's designers wanted character progression to be as purely horizontal as possible, but players didn't like that change from Pathfinder 1e, so they implemented a neat compromise by implementing fundamental runes and balancing monster math around it. One cancels out the other, and the end result adds a few bumps and complications to the game's balance, but I don't think PF2e would have been nearly as successful if it hadn't added those number boosters at the time.

Calgon-3 wrote:

That still wraps me back to the basic question. Do you want the game to be all about the cool tech or do you want what characters can do to be mostly about the character's amazing skills?

Can a 12th level gunfighter, or whatever you want to call them, wreak havoc with a basic pistol, or do they need a 10th to 14th level weapon to even be in the fight? And how do you balance that against the 10th level Witchwarper that doesn't need any equipment all besides some decent armor to wreak havoc?

I want stuff to be mostly up to the character's skills, at least as far as your main thing goes. Playing with ABP for years has convinced me that it is just plain better than runes or built-in math enhancers.

Gear is fine as far as enabling some mechanics is concerned - consumables, jetpacks, vision devices,... etc. - and to enhance your gameplay with cool abilities you can use occasionally use. But tying basic usability of your character to paying vast quantities of money has always been a terrible idea. It causes so many completely avoidable problems and for what?

Same here, and that goes for armor too. Look at how the prices, EAC's and KAC's of armor scale with level. Your ability to avoid getting hit every round by anybody that wants to hit you depends primarily on the equipment and very little on skill. (Taking character level as a proxy for skill.)

Seriously, Skittertech Scattergun sounds cool, but a scattergun is a category, not an weapon name. It also does nothing for world building, or context. Who makes scatterguns? Why are the all the same? There is a game called Crying suns, it has robots that make everything. People can't make stuff. That would then make sense. Every scattergun is just a 'scattergun' as they are all made by the same 3D printer. I doubt this is the same situation in Starfinder. Unless I missed a chapter where Triune took over manufacturing.

The thing here is, at least as I understand SF1e (having mostly interacted early in the lifecycle, maybe things changed over time), is you actually pretty much answered your own questions with the latter half of that first sentence. "...scattergun is a category, not an weapon name."

You have your weapon, which is a weapon of x category, and then the details are up to you and the GM. Take your basic Utility Scattergun. Maybe it's a Human Shotgun, Maybe it's a Vesk Scaleburster, maybe it's an Abadar Corp Pellet-hurler 9000, heck maybe it's a Skittertech Skitterscatterer. Each of which has their own unique design aesthetic, unique firing mechanisms, unique sights and stocks and what have you. But ultimately, they all will roughly hold 4 shells, and deal an approximate 1d4 damage in a 15 foot cone. That spec is what gets it added to the general category of Utility Scattergun, so you know what you're dealing with when you're considering weapons. So why do all of these manufacturers, from various different cultures, all produce very different guns that ultimately have the same basic stats? Because book space is at a premium, and "here's the basic stats, you and your GM can come up with the aesthetics yourself" takes up a lot less book space than a dozen/hundred/thousand guns that are only minor variations on the same theme.

Ningasak wrote:

Seriously, Skittertech Scattergun sounds cool, but a scattergun is a category, not an weapon name. It also does nothing for world building, or context. Who makes scatterguns? Why are the all the same? There is a game called Crying suns, it has robots that make everything. People can't make stuff. That would then make sense. Every scattergun is just a 'scattergun' as they are all made by the same 3D printer. I doubt this is the same situation in Starfinder. Unless I missed a chapter where Triune took over manufacturing.

The thing here is, at least as I understand SF1e (having mostly interacted early in the lifecycle, maybe things changed over time), is you actually pretty much answered your own questions with the latter half of that first sentence. "...scattergun is a category, not an weapon name."

You have your weapon, which is a weapon of x category, and then the details are up to you and the GM. Take your basic Utility Scattergun. Maybe it's a Human Shotgun, Maybe it's a Vesk Scaleburster, maybe it's an Abadar Corp Pellet-hurler 9000, heck maybe it's a Skittertech Skitterscatterer. Each of which has their own unique design aesthetic, unique firing mechanisms, unique sights and stocks and what have you. But ultimately, they all will roughly hold 4 shells, and deal an approximate 1d4 damage in a 15 foot cone. That spec is what gets it added to the general category of Utility Scattergun, so you know what you're dealing with when you're considering weapons. So why do all of these manufacturers, from various different cultures, all produce very different guns that ultimately have the same basic stats? Because book space is at a premium, and "here's the basic stats, you and your GM can come up with the aesthetics yourself" takes up a lot less book space than a dozen/hundred/thousand guns that are only minor variations on the same theme.

...and then sometimes later they come out with manufacturer effects that talk about how standard-issue Vesk Military weapons are all like this, and Abadar Corp weapons are all like that, and Skittertech does this other thing with theirs and you'll be able to apply that manufacturer template to the standard Utility Scattergun and your fellow party member on the left side can pick a different company and apply the appropriate template to their Utility Scattergun, and the two of you can have fun arguing over which of the two is marginally better because there will actually be a bit of difference to argue about.

Hit points in general are an abstraction- the number of spears a high level person can be stabbed with without suffering overmuch is frankly astonishing. So "weapon damage" is similarly an abstraction.

But just like the sorts of stories Pathfinder is supposed to evoke don't normally involve things like "Conan has been shot with just so many arrows" the sorts of stories Starfinder is supposed to evoke generally are things like Star Trek/Wars where the efficacy of ranged weapons is supposed to be something like phasers/blasters.

The only weirdness I can see is if you wanted to take your space soldier with their gatling laser canon back to Golarion (assuming you can find it) and you find out that they're not really more effective than other people with less advanced technology, to which I respond- well, just don't do that then. The point of compatibility isn't really "you can take characters back and forth".

Shinigami02 wrote:

Ningasak wrote:

Seriously, Skittertech Scattergun sounds cool, but a scattergun is a category, not an weapon name. It also does nothing for world building, or context. Who makes scatterguns? Why are the all the same? There is a game called Crying suns, it has robots that make everything. People can't make stuff. That would then make sense. Every scattergun is just a 'scattergun' as they are all made by the same 3D printer. I doubt this is the same situation in Starfinder. Unless I missed a chapter where Triune took over manufacturing.

The thing here is, at least as I understand SF1e (having mostly interacted early in the lifecycle, maybe things changed over time), is you actually pretty much answered your own questions with the latter half of that first sentence. "...scattergun is a category, not an weapon name."

You have your weapon, which is a weapon of x category, and then the details are up to you and the GM. Take your basic Utility Scattergun. Maybe it's a Human Shotgun, Maybe it's a Vesk Scaleburster, maybe it's an Abadar Corp Pellet-hurler 9000, heck maybe it's a Skittertech Skitterscatterer. Each of which has their own unique design aesthetic, unique firing mechanisms, unique sights and stocks and what have you. But ultimately, they all will roughly hold 4 shells, and deal an approximate 1d4 damage in a 15 foot cone. That spec is what gets it added to the general category of Utility Scattergun, so you know what you're dealing with when you're considering weapons. So why do all of these manufacturers, from various different cultures, all produce very different guns that ultimately have the same basic stats? Because book space is at a premium, and "here's the basic stats, you and your GM can come up with the aesthetics yourself" takes up a lot less book space than a dozen/hundred/thousand guns that are only minor variations on the same theme.

...and then sometimes later they come out with manufacturer effects that talk about how standard-issue Vesk Military...

A method which is infinitely preferable for those of us who enjoy some weapon granularity but have difficulty wading through massive tables of nearly ientical weapons, for sure.