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Okay, here is my thoughts on previous books for Pathfinder and general observations and an explanation of how I currently run space-based campaigns with a bit of why.

Warning, this is long.

Amethyst & Neurospasta: Amethyst presents a setting where both magic and technology exists giving several classes and a slew of new technology rules. Neurospasta is in the same boat with very similar rules but has more of a cyberpunk slant. They are both from the same company so handle a lot of aspects the same way but I generally find Neurospasta more useful for my purposes as being a little less fluff and a bit more item crunch. Outside of the fluff they give a lot to work with and is nearly complete in giving you what you need to deal with the setting, however I found a few glaring holes that are largely subjective.

I never really got into the classes because of one glaring and unfair thing, some of the full BAB classes have 1 less BAB per level than usual. This has been so weird that I never gave the classes more than a cursory glance. Even then I'm not too keen on classes that 'could' be a fighter with different weapon proficiencies and fulfill the same roles, plus some of the classes do things that I’m not ready to allow like Strength or Wisdom to firearm attack and damage.

As a whole I find a lot of the crunch to be intuitive in a few places, even superior to how they work in Pathfinder’s core line but for the most part it feels more complicated and hard to remember.

Infinite Futures: Infinite Futures is kind of hard to judge because it has a lot of little supplements after it that I don’t have but in the context of single book space support it is relatively complete. It is pretty setting neutral. It has a Random Alien Generator for you to fill your setting with assorted Star-Wars esque alien diversity. There are classes that are reasonable for the most part but some classes have what are mechanically spells but aren’t for some reason which really doesn’t appeal to me because the tech-based classes I have from other products do the concept of spell-like technology so much better.

The items are not compatible with the technology guide and firearms function differently from mainstream Pathfinder but on it’s own it covers a lot of bases. There are vehicles including mechs, vehicle mods, Speeders, cycles, cars, hoverbikes, spaceships. There are no premade mech stat blocks. There are space travel rules like warping, hyperspace and wormholes. There are also environmental rules. At times all these rules are overcomplicated but not as bad as I’ve seen elsewhere and when it comes to space travel and vehicle modification its my go to. It also has the most interesting use of modern projectile weapon rules.

Between Chains and Starlight: Between Chains and Starlight was handy by being free but in the end it’s real contribution is spaceships both in the product itself and related supplements. Having pregenerated space ship stat blocks is more restrictive than having fully customizable spacecrafts but boy is it handy and in some way I prefer to add modifications to an existing stat block than generate one from scratch for simplicity sake. Especially since vehicles the size of star ships usually wind up being played ‘from the inside’ with players dealing with suppressing damage, interacting with intruders or otherwise dealing with things personally rather than driving the ship and leading it through combat. Shooting monsters that get on the ship is way more fun than one player making drive checks to make a ship fight another ship because you actually get to do things. I found that if players decide to actually attack a ship they’ll likely board it or ride in fighter ships before playing it like a naval combat simulator. Later I talk about

It Came from the Stars: This one has the least complete experience. You get some races, two new ‘space magic’ classes, and some symbiote feats as far as the notable player oriented stuff goes. For a GM it’s actually pretty nice for plot hooks and environmental cues.

As a whole I think that a lot of these products try to set up a setting or general mode of operating making them have to make new rules or modify rules which generates a lot of reading material which in some ways is a downside. The Technology Guide definitely dates these because of the added complexity because it does a good job of introducing all these new technological wonders without the need to have to read too many extra rules. You can feel this the most when it comes to new skills. I frequently see completely new skills while the Technology Guide simple gave new uses to skills which is huge for simplifying character sheets that don’t have those extra skills and is especially disastrous for classes that need those skills but don’t have the ranks to spare. For example if a Fighter can drive a mech using Knowledge Engineering for his drive check things are relatively fine and you don’t need to make an entirely new class for mech piloting because a Fighter of the future fits in and his weapon training can translate to the siege weapons that would be on a mech. If the skill is new there are new considerations, like whether or not the fighter is even appropriate for being a mech pilot and the fact that he does not have the ranks to throw around at things like the new piloting skill assuming its even a class skill. New skills also kind of choke on third party classes. In a nutshell the Technology Guide is accessible, doesn’t choke on third party, and allows a Fighter or Rogue to be a tech based class with a feat or give the feat away for free universally. With it’s ease of use and general scope the Technology Guide renders a lot of crunch in a lot of the above books useless or cumbersome so they are only around now to poach pieces of crunch that I like or don’t have and fluff. I also have poached items from Skorched Urf’s technological products which is a very mixed bag and sometimes I have to attach battery packs after the Technology Guide.

The Technology Guide does lack in the arena of mechs, vehicles and hardsuits, and while vehicles can get a lot of love in other products mechs, spaceships and hardsuits either come off as too complicated or completely handwaved so I do rely on the above products to kind of fill those roles but I do long for something more compatible with the vehicle rules in Ultimate Combat. A short time ago Fat Goblin Games put out Fantastic Technology, and really the most useful thing in the book is the smallest thing, and I hope d20pfsrd.com publishing pays attention to this particularly, the concept of power source conversion, a concept that I ran with because like the concept of templates for monsters a single one multiplies the amount of creatures at your disposal being able to converting propulsion multiplies every existing vehicle stat block. I have Jon Brazer’s Vehicles of war and I wanted to give players flying surf boards in a deiselpunk floating continent setting, so I took the magic flying boards, replaced the magic propulsion with the combustion propulsion and suddenly I had gas powered flying surf boards. Since this is all compliant with the Ultimate Combat vehicle rules I don’t have to go through the trouble of conversion or translating to use all this stuff.

When it comes to Mechs and hardsuits in general I converted over material from the d20 Mecha compendium I linked above. Despite having to convert it the mecha rules are very intuitive and easier to deal with than most things I’ve seen before. Skorched Urf also made some gems in the form of some powered armor rules that are easy to deal with. Necromancers of the Northwest has a free supplement that has ‘golem armor’ that if you just say it’s not magical and attach a battery pack to it is very useable as powered armor. These all have essentially the same rules. It functions as armor but gives you a hardness rating, has to be targeted instead of you until it’s broken, gives you strength and speed boost and you can mount weapons or mods on it. I always have to manually attach a battery pack to the rules after the Technology Guide came out so that it can more easily interact with that stuff. Melee weapons are the most often ignored but I found Mechanized Weapons from Skorched Urf and Fantastic Technology from Fat Goblin Games to fill that void.

I also kind of piecemeal classes into whatever I’m playing because honestly most classes I find in general space campaign settings are kind of useless after the Technology Guide came out and especially pale in light of classes like the Machinesmith from Neoexodus. My general state of classes when I’m playing in space includes, The Machinesmith (plus the Host and Fleshwraith), The Tinker from Interjection Games, The Technician (with a modification) from Radiance House’s Age of Electrotech, and the recent Cyborg from Legendary Games. I feel like the Machinesmith handles most concepts is my measuring stick for the rest. Tinker and Cyborg feel a bit more limited but still function well and made for good classes for a future game. The Technician is probably more diverse than the Machinesmith but I had to modify it to be more compatible with the Technology Guide. As a whole all those classes have a similar formula in that they are generally ¾ BAB classes with 6 levels of ‘not casting’ with some kind of gadget generation as secondary class features. The Tinker dares to be different by being more robot minion focused with the smaller of the minions being capable of functioning as general devices and spells in a way. I’m refraining from discussing the more steampunk or arcane technomancers/artificers. If you have a sole technological class I think the Machinesmith or Technician covers the most bases and concepts that you could imagine.

Beyond technology focused classes I had been using Rogue Genius Games Anachronistic Adventurers; Enforcer, Investigator and Sensitive but recently took a look at the compiled Anachronistic Adventures and really they remind me of how classes worked in D20 Modern/Future making them great for generic classes that can fit in any era despite advertizing as a more pulp-era focused book. For future/space campaigns it has the added benefit of being able to make a technology class that treats technology in a mundane way rather than being spellcasting by a different name. I believe that Tripod Machine’s Conquest of the Universe (not yet finished) is using the classes from Anachronistic Adventures to fill in the non-tech based gap for it’s own space opera rules. Which is a good fit, as I mentioned above a pilot class that function out of a vehicle would be a ‘daredevil’ and Anachronistic Adventures has a Daredevil class that, with the right ranks in the right skills easily becomes a daring pilot with class features that can work with a vehicle. In terms of magic, I have yet to disclude spellcasting classes from my space games but if I did Psionics is a natural fit by being able to represent more sci-fi feeling magic. Otherwise, It Came from the Stars fills a few needs on that front.

Races are pretty easy. Just say that a race came from outer space and you’re done. If you need more ‘scifi’ races than calling elves vulcans and calling it a day, Paizo has a whole splatbook of alien races and I’ll even allow Trox. Eridanus Books has a supplement that I find generally useless (being a conversion guide which makes me have to do work) but I keep around because it has 7 alien races. It Came From the Stars has 4 useable races that are quite interesting as well. But aliens are alien. There is no way to cover enough races unless you include some kind of Alien Builder but then you can’t really expand them the way you want because DMs really don’t want to put any kind of race builder in the hands of their players because there’s no way to make that perfectly balanced.

Overall I think the Technology Guide changed a lot of things and made a lot of previous stuff less useable. Mecha, vehicle and powered suit rules that are compatible with the Technology Guide is a huge gap. I would love to see power sources vary among vehicles like this to reflect genre creep, for example, the d20 mecha compendium has both magic and mechanical mecha. I'd love to see mech/vehicle/powered suits powered by crystals, arcane engines, elemental engines, living trees and whatnot. Alien Races are a big thing as well as melee or strength relevant weapons. I have enough supplement material that deals with the problem of the lack of touch attack resistance in the game and suddenly introducing touch attack weapons as the norm but it would be nice to address if you're being compatible with the Technology Guide. Classes are unnecessary if everything is accessible by the Technologist feat or some other technology skill unlock without needing too many new terms or new skills.


Nice post Malwing. The only thing I can see missing from your list is Necropunk for LRGG

Dark Archive

There is Thunderscape as well.


I have Necropunk, Thunderscape and Pure Steam.

I ignored those for reasons.

Necropunk was always and odd duck for the subject. I feel like it patches you into playing a setting that is too specific for me to poach enough for it to be useful for general sci-fantasy. To some extent I'm not aboard the Spelljammer train. Although I wasn't around to really experience Spelljammer my research of it tells me that there are a lot of specific and weird expectations that steers it closer to Disney's Treasure Planet without the capability of simulating other flavors of future/space like Star Trek, Star Wars, Flash Gordon, Thundercats, general retrofuturism or hard scifi.

Pure Steam and Thunderscape are more at home in dungeonpunk/steampunk and don't find it useful for space/future age settings. Same goes for Broken Earth and Fall of Man (although I have yet to really read Fall of Man too deeply. A lot of things have progress levels but the ones that matter to me and that I make campaigns for is effectively Medievel Stasis, Victorian, Pulp, Modern, Retrofuture, and Hard Science Future with everything else just being gray areas between them.


I hear you Malwing.

I find Necropunk has awesome mechanic ideas - but as with any Campaign Setting I tend to be a poacher of those rather than ascribing to any of the flavour.

I had Spelljammer back in the day. I pretty much loathed the entire theme and flavour. I think I liked Neogis and that was about it. Mostly I just like the chutzpah of it, its desire to take the game to somewhere different. I found everyone I knew held it in an almost diametrically opposed disdain.


Malwing wrote:
To some extent I'm not aboard the Spelljammer train. Although I wasn't around to really experience Spelljammer my research of it tells me that there are a lot of specific and weird expectations that steers it closer to Disney's Treasure Planet without the capability of simulating other flavors of future/space like Star Trek, Star Wars, Flash Gordon, Thundercats, general retrofuturism or hard scifi.

I also appreciate the attempt and bravery at taking D&D into completely brand new and unique place, Spelljammer never really sat right for me, as being too much of an odd duck. I even bought one or two Spelljammer products in the day. Most D&D settings and directions pursue some known genre or subgenre of fantasy and sci-fi - something with an established fanbase. However, Spelljammer seemed to be a complete invention. I cannot point to an existing novel or concept that Spelljammer stems.

There have been several instances of me wanting to run a home game for sci-fi-fantasy with PF/D&D, usually involving a more typical sci-fi setting where outer space is a vaccuum so traveling through it requires being within an enclosed, environmentally sealed ship and whenever I've posted my interest on some message board over a class, race or ship design, almost always someone brings up Spelljammer and almost always, I declare "no, thank you, it doesn't apply."


Spelljammer is daring to say the least but for general purposes I feel like it's staunchly space fantasy as opposed to sci-fantasy.

A while ago I found some PDFs from a totally legal source, and I really wasn't feeling it. High level magic can get you into outer space and produce weird stuff so I don't feel like I need that much to simulate space fantasy. I want sci-fantasy where to make it space fantasy I just switch the power source from fission reactor to witch engine or space dragon or something.


Oceanshieldwolf wrote:

I hear you Malwing.

I find Necropunk has awesome mechanic ideas - but as with any Campaign Setting I tend to be a poacher of those rather than ascribing to any of the flavour.

I had Spelljammer back in the day. I pretty much loathed the entire theme and flavour. I think I liked Neogis and that was about it. Mostly I just like the chutzpah of it, its desire to take the game to somewhere different. I found everyone I knew held it in an almost diametrically opposed disdain.

you know a lot of people who are wrong!

More seriously, please check out pyrespace -still fantasy, but not nearly as cheesy.I daresay it is my favorite overall. I want to see more pyrespace so bad...


Malwing wrote:

Okay, here is my thoughts on previous books for Pathfinder and general observations and an explanation of how I currently run space-based campaigns with a bit of why.

Warning, this is long.

I really appreciate the time and the effort that went into crafting that post. I can see what you're saying in a lot of that, and so I don't really think that I'm missing too much here. I can't promise you everything that you want in this product, though. I'd hope that you'd think of it more as the Project Apollo of Pathfinder in Space (whereas the products that you mentioned might be Project Gemini, and some of the things on your wishlist could be Skylab).

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

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For a very weird mishmash, there's also CthuluTech, which is a mishmash of Chtulhu fantasy and battletech mecha.

==Aelryinth


I'm prepping for another space campaign so I wanted to share here because I had some observations that may be useful.

This may be an unpopular opinion but I think quantity is more important than quality unless you are trying to get people to play a specific setting. I allowed humans, the four races from People of the Stars, 18 third party alien races and I still feel like I don't have enough races for a 'Star Wars' kind of population. On the other hand most of those races are unpopular purely because of how they look. having six legged snake people, walking amoebas, stumpy fart monsters, and nanite blobs was interesting for the setting but they players so far mostly wanted to be humans or 'bumpy forehead aliens', so your mileage may vary.

Anachronistic Adventures is probably the most useful class tool so far. If you want to play a mundane class like a pilot, Flash Gordon, or Buck Rogers its the way to go and players eat it up. I have a great opinion of the product but even I didn't quite realize how far stretching it is for the purposes of making a magic-less character that lives in the future. Someone was able to make a jedi with Spheres of Power but as a whole Psionics is nice for replacing magic if you want to make magic more 'science-fictiony'. My point is that classes for space may be a can of worms you don't want to open because it's been done so well elsewhere. As I said before, I think Tripod Machine's space opera book 'Conquest of the Universe' (not yet released) just uses psionics and anachronistic classes and those are super diverse and that's before you factor in the concepts brought up by artificer classes. I wound up allowing Machinesmith, Tinker, and Cyborg. (Android Cyborgs are hilarious).

If you make mecha please make them vehicles that carry siege firearms or some sort of 'legs and arms' vehicle mod. Having them classified as vehicles instead of a new kind of item opens up more feats and options than I originally thought. I was trying to make mecha pilot NPCs and Anachronistic Adventures has an 'Outrider' archetype that just clicks with my current rules for mecha because it is a vehicle and the weapons are siege firearms. Fighters can be good mecha pilots the same way. Plus since the drive check is dependant on the power source in the normal vehicle rules it becomes unnecessary for a new 'pilot' or 'drive' skill.

Languages and Computer Language lists are a pretty useful tool that I really needed but didn't have much of. I had to make up a lot of languages and computer languages which I hate doing because its work.

One race that is really interesting and I want to see but no one really does (Neurospasta does a bit) because there is no real way that I've seen to do it in a fair way and take class levels; A.I. Not androids, or some sort of construct or robot race. I'm taking about the kind of A.I. that does not necessarily have a body. Sometimes the only body it has is a hologram. Just a sentient computer program. If there's any way you can make that happen, a PC A.I. race I'd be very happy and impressed with your design skills.


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Malwing wrote:
One race that is really interesting and I want to see but no one really does (Neurospasta does a bit) because there is no real way that I've seen to do it in a fair way and take class levels; A.I. Not androids, or some sort of construct or robot race. I'm taking about the kind of A.I. that does not necessarily have a body. Sometimes the only body it has is a hologram. Just a sentient computer program. If there's any way you can make that happen, a PC A.I. race I'd be very happy and impressed with your design skills.

For a starting place, I'd take a look at Monte Cook's "Book of Eldritch Might 3." Has rules for intelligent items that can advance through class levels (either the "intelligent item" class or I believe any class). Always wanted to use that to make an intelligent item PC since was rather well balanced for that.

Might be a decent chassis to at least see how someone addressed some of the issues that come up with an (N)PC that is an object rather than a living thing.


Malwing wrote:
I'm prepping for another space campaign so I wanted to share here because I had some observations that may be useful.

I appreciate the observations. Thank you.

Malwing wrote:
This may be an unpopular opinion but I think quantity is more important than quality unless you are trying to get people to play a specific setting. I allowed humans, the four races from People of the Stars, 18 third party alien races and I still feel like I don't have enough races for a 'Star Wars' kind of population. On the other hand most of those races are unpopular purely because of how they look. having six legged snake people, walking amoebas, stumpy fart monsters, and nanite blobs was interesting for the setting but they players so far mostly wanted to be humans or 'bumpy forehead aliens', so your mileage may vary.

Okay, so Star Wars has approximately 76 spacefaring species. You've listed 23 here. Paizo has 51 official core, featured and uncommon races. Between Paizo's races and third party races, I think that you could put together a decent set of races for a Star Wars kind of population.

Having said that, if this book were set up to provide you with a Star Wars set of races to play with (at 2 to 6 pages, depending upon how fully developed you expect each race to be), we'd be talking somewhere on the order of 152 to 456 pages of content just for the races. In a product dedicated to getting you up into space so that you can have adventures, do you think that you might feel cheated out of the content that would get you up and into space so that you can have adventures?

Now let's say, for the sake of argument, that d20pfsrd.com was to put out a product that advertised itself as "The Compendium of Races of Starfinder" or something like that... Would that be an interesting separate product that you might like to consider purchasing if the core Starfinder product was something you enjoyed?

Malwing wrote:
Anachronistic Adventures is probably the most useful class tool so far. If you want to play a mundane class like a pilot, Flash Gordon, or Buck Rogers its the way to go and players eat it up. I have a great opinion of the product but even I didn't quite realize how far stretching it is for the purposes of making a magic-less character that lives in the future. Someone was able to make a jedi with Spheres of Power but as a whole Psionics is nice for replacing magic if you want to make magic more 'science-fictiony'. My point is that classes for space may be a can of worms you don't want to open because it's been done so well elsewhere. As I said before, I think Tripod Machine's space opera book 'Conquest of the Universe' (not yet released) just uses psionics and anachronistic classes and those are super diverse and that's before you factor in the concepts brought up by artificer classes. I wound up allowing Machinesmith, Tinker, and Cyborg. (Android Cyborgs are hilarious).

We're shooting for a balance of science fantasy and steampunk, but we're not really hoping to take the product too far in the direction of futuristic science fiction. Besides, Paizo has 36 classes so far, and there are a host of third-party classes. I think you're right that it may be trying to packs more into an already full playing field. That doesn't necessarily mean that we're not going to add something into the mix, though.

Malwing wrote:
If you make mecha please make them vehicles that carry siege firearms or some sort of 'legs and arms' vehicle mod. Having them classified as vehicles instead of a new kind of item opens up more feats and options than I originally thought. I was trying to make mecha pilot NPCs and Anachronistic Adventures has an 'Outrider' archetype that just clicks with my current rules for mecha because it is a vehicle and the weapons are siege firearms. Fighters can be good mecha pilots the same way. Plus since the drive check is dependant on the power source in the normal vehicle rules it becomes unnecessary for a new 'pilot' or 'drive' skill.

You've brought mechas up quite a few times now. Do you feel that mechas are part of the core mechanics involved in getting Pathfinder adventures out into space?

Malwing wrote:
Languages and Computer Language lists are a pretty useful tool that I really needed but didn't have much of. I had to make up a lot of languages and computer languages which I hate doing because its work.

Do you feel that computer skills are useful in a non-futuristic science fantasy setting?

Malwing wrote:
One race that is really interesting and I want to see but no one really does (Neurospasta does a bit) because there is no real way that I've seen to do it in a fair way and take class levels; A.I. Not androids, or some sort of construct or robot race. I'm taking about the kind of A.I. that does not necessarily have a body. Sometimes the only body it has is a hologram. Just a sentient computer program. If there's any way you can make that happen, a PC A.I. race I'd be very happy and impressed with your design skills.

Interesting. How do you think you would implement such a race?

I think that designing such a race is possible, and there are a few ways to do it that I'm already thinking about. I just wanted to know how practical that you feel that this is.


For a slew of alien races I would think that one page each is sufficient but having a wide variety of alien races isn't totally necessary. With that kind of variety you don't really need them to be very varied in themselves. A separate product that just had a bunch of alien races would actually be useful with or without Starfinder so I would like that kind of product.

Mecha and hardsuits aren't really mandatory (see: Star Wars) for space fantasy but its one of the common space tropes that I don't have fully solid mechanics for that I don't have to convert and its something a lot of people wind up wanting to do. If push comes to shove I can use Ultimate Combat's vehicle rules and some new vehicle stats and just file off the serial numbers and say that it's a spaceship and be on my way but mecha and powered suit mechanics I have to go to third party publishers for but it's handled very rarely. Personally mecha and powered suits are a strong enough space trope for me to buy a D20 book and try to convert mostly got it for use in pathfinder specifically because it had fantasy mecha and suits along with 'hard science' versions as I didn't want to outright ignore magic in space.

In a non-futuristic science fantasy setting, if there are no computers then computer skills/languages are not something needed. Language lists are probably needed if there are a variety of aliens in a setting and if they have computers, robots or A.I. of any sort a list of computer languages is very useful because I've found it to be mechanically relevant. Otherwise you run into the 'manipulate alien computers using a Mac in Independence Day' problem that messes up immersion. It also goes a long way in not needed a new 'Computer Use' skill which I see a lot and is always murder implementing on character sheets.

I have no idea how an A.I. race would work. I would presume that you could start off with an artificial body as racial starting equipment but in reality you're just a hard drive, you can transfer to other bodies but it would need a compatible OS (See, computer languages are useful) and sufficient memory for the purposes of balance. This would probably mean it would be restricted to gaining permanent bonuses to mental stats as it does not have physical ones and it's physical stats would be body dependent although it can be argued that it can optimize physical capabilities in it's bodies so it's permanent physical bonuses it gets from HD would transfer based on that logic.


Please pardon me for skipping around a bit.

One of the things that I've discussed with Loki is that I want to avoid "skill bloat". Let's say that you're going to, for the sake of argument, spend 50% of your play time on the surface of a planet, having adventures on Golarion or some other world. I don't want players to have to invest in a small number of skills (let's say 4; a piloting skill, a zero-G skill, and two languages) to have adventures out in space, and then have to invest in the regular set of skills to play out the rest of any adventure.

That problem could be resolved (inelegantly) by saying, "Have more skill ranks per level!", but it's a solution to a manufactured problem. Even if you say, "You can only invest your bonus skill ranks in these special skills," you've got ground-bound characters with a handful of skill ranks per level and spacefaring characters with more - simply because they're special snowflakes that go from planet to planet. There's no thematic reason for them to be "better than", and the only mechanical one would be that we weren't nice enough to incorporate necessary spacefaring tasks into the existing set of 117 skills that Paizo has (not to mention any other third-party skills).

Malwing wrote:
I have no idea how an A.I. race would work. I would presume that you could start off with an artificial body as racial starting equipment but in reality you're just a hard drive, you can transfer to other bodies but it would need a compatible OS (See, computer languages are useful) and sufficient memory for the purposes of balance. This would probably mean it would be restricted to gaining permanent bonuses to mental stats as it does not have physical ones and it's physical stats would be body dependent although it can be argued that it can optimize physical capabilities in it's bodies so it's permanent physical bonuses it gets from HD would transfer based on that logic.

Assuming that your artificial-intelligence race was bodiless, it would have no strength, no dexterity, and no constitution score. For all intents and purposes, it would be a set of mental/social scores, and its ability to manipulate a physical body would have to interact as such to prevent the "Have gold. Will buy awesome body!" player abuse, and the "Your body has been damaged beyond repair. You must purchase a new one or you can't interact with the setting." GM abuse. However, it creates the opposite problem of multiple ability dependency. If, for example, Intelligence determines a body's Dexterity, Wisdom determines a body's Constitution, and Charisma determines a body's Strength (even if these are all maximums), you really only have to invest in those three skills ever. So you either run extremely high mental/social scores, or you cut the Ability score pool down (instead of having run 10, 15, 20 or 25 point buys, they get 5, 7/8, 10 or 12/13 point buys - round down and your character is shorted points, round up and non artificial-intelligence race characters are), or you just run "roll nd6 dice and do c to the results". It takes a lot of tinkering under the hood for this.

The physical body that allows the "spirit" (for all intents and purposes) to interact with the physical world is the real catch. No matter how you set the "you can get a new or better body" mechanic, it's going to see some abuse. What happens if you're (temporarily or permanently) stuck in a low HD body? What about one with no hands? What about one where all of your gear is gone, because you left your gear with your last body on Forbidden Planet X and it got disintegrated? Does not having a true body make you effectively immortal, or can other things (like magic) kill you and not the body? Would those things bypass harming the body and attack the artificial-intelligence entity directly? Would you function as a lich with a phylactery, where the "hard drive phylactery" is where your true form is contained, and if you destroy that, you destroy the artificial-intelligence character?

It's a mess, and while it could be fun to explore that mess and play it out, there are so many issues that will arise that it might not be worth making that a player option and relegating such a race to the realm of having it be GM Handwavium powered.

Malwing wrote:
In a non-futuristic science fantasy setting, if there are no computers then computer skills/languages are not something needed. Language lists are probably needed if there are a variety of aliens in a setting and if they have computers, robots or A.I. of any sort a list of computer languages is very useful because I've found it to be mechanically relevant. Otherwise you run into the 'manipulate alien computers using a Mac in Independence Day' problem that messes up immersion. It also goes a long way in not needed a new 'Computer Use' skill which I see a lot and is always murder implementing on character sheets.

Would computers and computer skills push Starfinder more toward the futuristic science-fantasy genre, and if so, is that congruent with the stated purpose of the product?

Malwing wrote:
For a slew of alien races I would think that one page each is sufficient but having a wide variety of alien races isn't totally necessary. With that kind of variety you don't really need them to be very varied in themselves. A separate product that just had a bunch of alien races would actually be useful with or without Starfinder so I would like that kind of product.

To really get quality with your races, you're looking at 2 pages, minimum, which is consistent with the shortest write-ups in the Advanced Race Guide. Even at one page per race, you're still looking at a huge chunk of the product taken up with race options that may or may not see use at anyone's table.

Malwing wrote:
Mecha and hardsuits aren't really mandatory (see: Star Wars) for space fantasy but its one of the common space tropes that I don't have fully solid mechanics for that I don't have to convert and its something a lot of people wind up wanting to do. If push comes to shove I can use Ultimate Combat's vehicle rules and some new vehicle stats and just file off the serial numbers and say that it's a spaceship and be on my way but mecha and powered suit mechanics I have to go to third party publishers for but it's handled very rarely. Personally mecha and powered suits are a strong enough space trope for me to buy a D20 book and try to convert mostly got it for use in pathfinder specifically because it had fantasy mecha and suits along with 'hard science' versions as I didn't want to outright ignore magic in space.

Would mecha and hardsuits make for a great supplementary product, or should the be part of the base Starfinder product, given that they are not mandatory?


I think that the concept of skill unlocks and how the technological skills work in the technology guide goes a long way in mitigating skill bloat.

An A.I. race isn't a realistic demand. Its a concept that is a pipe dream of playing an intelligent item with class levels which is probably something that is impossible to do fairly. But if anyone thinks of a way they deserve some kind of design award.

In regards to computers and computer skills, I don't think they so much push things into futuristic science fantasy but enables it if that's the direction. I think its more useful to have than not have even in the case of non computers running spaceships or magic controls of anything. I am biased because I've always wanted more done with arcane or magical languages. It just seems weird to me that languages don't play a real role in spells and magical crafting and controlling.

In regards to mecha and hardsuits, I think that whether or not its a subject for a supplementary product or the main starfinder book depends entirely on how you go about the rules. If mecha are just vehicles that can do X, Y, and Z because it has legs and arms now then I would put it in the main book. If it's a whole new kind of thing that requires it's own subsystem I would separate it. From a consumer's point of view I'm more likely to buy the the Mecha and Hardsuit book and not starfinder if they were separate and would more likely buy both if mecha were in starfinder and there was a supplement that gave expanded options.


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Malwing wrote:
I think that the concept of skill unlocks and how the technological skills work in the technology guide goes a long way in mitigating skill bloat.

I don't think that you understand what I mean by "skill bloat". You can invest 5 ranks in Bluff and gain some special abilities with skill unlocks, sure. However, you still have to invest 5 ranks in Bluff, and if you're getting 2 + Intelligence modifier skill ranks per level (let's assume your Intelligence modifier is +2), you're still going to burn through your skill ranks. If you need Perception, Diplomacy, Stealth and Knowledge (Engineering) for what you want to do with your character at 1st level, adding in Knowledge (The Void), Xenobiology, and Computer Use means that the character has to drop 3 of the 4 skills they were planning on picking up in order to grab the new "necessary" skills.

Malwing wrote:
An A.I. race isn't a realistic demand. Its a concept that is a pipe dream of playing an intelligent item with class levels which is probably something that is impossible to do fairly. But if anyone thinks of a way they deserve some kind of design award.

I can respect that.

Malwing wrote:
In regards to computers and computer skills, I don't think they so much push things into futuristic science fantasy but enables it if that's the direction.

It's not.

Malwing wrote:
I think its more useful to have than not have even in the case of non computers running spaceships or magic controls of anything. I am biased because I've always wanted more done with arcane or magical languages. It just seems weird to me that languages don't play a real role in spells and magical crafting and controlling.

That would require a fairly significant revision of the system governing languages and magical items. Even if it's brilliantly done, it's going to be an optional system that may or may not see use. I'm curious, though, to know your thoughts on how languages should play a real role in spells and magical crafting & controlling.

Malwing wrote:

In regards to mecha and hardsuits, I think that whether or not its a subject for a supplementary product or the main starfinder book depends entirely on how you go about the rules. If mecha are just vehicles that can do X, Y, and Z because it has legs and arms now then I would put it in the main book. If it's a whole new kind of thing that requires it's own subsystem I would separate it. From a consumer's point of view I'm more likely to buy the the Mecha and Hardsuit book and not starfinder if they were separate and would more likely buy both if mecha were in starfinder and there was a supplement that gave expanded options.

I think that I got the message that you're very into mecha and hardsuits, and so I am confident that I picked up on the fact that you'd really love a book dedicated to those elements. If, when I pitched the concept to John, I had said, "John, I want to write a book about mecha for Pathfinder," he might have gone for it. He might have said, "No thanks." Either way, it's not the book that was pitched. The book that was pitched was this one, though it's not originally what John had asked if I was interested in writing. I would imagine that mecha would be more directly in the wheelhouse of the Pure Steam Campaign Setting, though I'm not saying that it's not possible to see it in Starfinder. I'm suggesting, rather strongly over the course of multiple posts, that this is not the design goal of this particular product. Really, to do mecha any form of justice, it would need to be its own separate subsystem. That was something that I knew from playing and working on the Exalted line with warstriders.

Best wishes, and keep the questions coming, all!


I think we're on the same page in regards to skill bloat. By adding technlogical functions to existing skills, as what happened in the technology guide, keeps characters from having to spread their skills thin when there are a lot more skills around.

Will there be a distinct absence of computers and computer controlled devices? I'm not into running 'no-magic' settings but it makes a difference if spacefaring was a magic-only kind of thing.

In regards to languages and magic and how I use them in my games, I presume that arcane and divine magic have some kind of source of crafting so often to learn a new spell or retrain a spell I'll leave books in dungeons that are in some obscure magic language or let them identify spells easier or fiddle with magical controls better. In a nutshell you get a bonus to some kind of roll if you know the language that the magic thing is written in and probably shave off time in the skill check if not automatically succeed because you don't need to struggle to identify. Alternatively I use it for puzzles, minor magic that mundanes can use and turning on homebrew magical devices and power plants. In space its essential to know the language of the magic ship you're controlling or modifying to avoid the problem of "I cast a spell to make the golem dog fetch. He started to fetch everything so I had to destroy the golem and rewrite his directions to specify parameters."

Its not so much that I like mecha and hardsuits (I do but not the point I'm making) but I never have them when I need them and I always seem to need them eventually in space. Particularly martials have a little less to do in space but if they are in a hardsuit or can share combat feats with mecha then they have a chance of doing something when they otherwise couldn't. It also increases the range of the kind of threats you can face to include things that are on the outside of ships. and keeps melee martials relevant. There's ways around those problems that aren't mecha and hardsuits but if I think I would say something is required for spacefaring it would be hardsuits as opposed to mecha, if just for space suits that doesn't tear and leave you dying in space
from one hit.


Malwing wrote:
Will there be a distinct absence of computers and computer controlled devices? I'm not into running 'no-magic' settings but it makes a difference if spacefaring was a magic-only kind of thing.

While the answer to that question is currently yes, as I have stated before, the product is intended to be compatible with the Technology Guide.

Malwing wrote:
Its not so much that I like mecha and hardsuits (I do but not the point I'm making) but I never have them when I need them and I always seem to need them eventually in space. Particularly martials have a little less to do in space but if they are in a hardsuit or can share combat feats with mecha then they have a chance of doing something when they otherwise couldn't. It also increases the range of the kind of threats you can face to include things that are on the outside of ships. and keeps melee martials relevant. There's ways around those problems that aren't mecha and hardsuits but if I think I would say something is required for spacefaring it would be hardsuits as opposed to mecha, if just for space suits that doesn't tear and leave you dying in space from one hit.

Martials are not limited and irrelevant in what we're looking to do here, even without mecha and/or hardsuits. What we're looking to do does include options for "Shields up! Fire photon torpedoes!", but is not limited to them. You want to have a fight planetside or within the hull of a ship, we're good to go with that as well.

While I'm not opposed to mecha and/or hardsuits (I actually find them to be quite fun), what I have concerns about is the idea that you put a barbarian in a mecha, and suddenly, Cohen the Barbarian gets to take out a ship full of other barbarians simply because they lack mecha or fighter-ships to fend Cohen off. I get that some people want to play that way; you among them. However, I definitely do not want to set that as the default mode. This is one of several reasons why mecha (especially) and hardsuits (to a lesser degree) are not one of the primary goals of this particular product. I feel that it's very important to establish a solid foundation before building the second story.

I've seen what the RPG arms race can do, and it completely ruined Exalted for me; a game that I poured my heart and soul (and hundreds of dollars) into for well over a decade. Oh, the intentions were noble, and the Rule of Yes was the rule of the day, but in the end, the power creep became so great that the game was unplayable. I have no desire to create that kind of problem right out of the gate.

Best wishes!

Keep the questions coming, folks!


Whether or not your concerns about mecha would come to light depends on how you go about mecha including how powerful they are. If we're talking about Gundams, that's more of an artifact situation that the players will never have unless the GM wants them to have it because it's too powerful. If it's a mobile siege firearm then it's not going to take out a ship that could just blast the tinier ship into dust. A ship full of barbarians come off to me as a ship full of angry pakleds considering that they don't get profession or craft so I think anything is going to be able to take out a ship full of barbarians. But simple siege firearms are one thing but when mecha get gundam powerful its when everyone gets a giant robot or nobody gets a giant robot, and if everyone has a giant robot then roll up your sleeves, we're playing Pacific Rim/Voltron/Power Rangers now.

The Exchange

I'm not ruling out mecha for future supplements, but as Bodhizen stated, it's not a core goal of this product. Additionally, I suspect there may already be mecha-oriented products available which I'd be hard-pressed to find a writer who could do a better job with (Interjection Games comes to mind.)


Sorry if I'm making you guys reiterate things but what are the general goals of the book? From what I've gathered the mission is to enable play in space, which includes new races, feats and items that facilitate spacefaring campaigns and spacefaring vehicles. Is the product limited to those parameters?

The Tinker can become both Iron Man and Zordon but overall I've always had a need for class agnostic technology than class feature technology. Its one reason why I've really enjoyed the Technology Guide. Also the Tinker falls into the category of 'gundam powerful' which I think is appropriate as a class feature as opposed to 'general use' mecha, which is as appropriate as a any other vehicle. This is probably my personal bias showing but I really don't like manufactured objects existing mostly as class features. Especially objects that would have long been factory made by the time steam power came around. I keep Tinker and Machinesmith in a realm of psuedomagical or fringe specialization to keep them making sense but in terms of general use technology I don't like using classes to facilitate that kind of thing in its totality, like if someone just wants to Riply a forklift mech into an alien.

But if that's not what the product is, that's not what the product is. My current campaign just puts legs and/or arms on any vehicle and allow mecha compendium mods. Its some work but its sufficient.


Malwing wrote:
Whether or not your concerns about mecha would come to light depends on how you go about mecha including how powerful they are.

If mecha are worth having at all (and not just a suit of armor with a few bonuses), they're going to be a must-have item, period.

Malwing wrote:
If we're talking about Gundams, that's more of an artifact situation that the players will never have unless the GM wants them to have it because it's too powerful.

That would largely put them out of reach of players, and wouldn't it be cruel to tease players like that?

Malwing wrote:
If it's a mobile siege firearm then it's not going to take out a ship that could just blast the tinier ship into dust.

But it could take out player after player after player, and that would be devastating to quite a few games.

Malwing wrote:
A ship full of barbarians come off to me as a ship full of angry pakleds considering that they don't get profession or craft so I think anything is going to be able to take out a ship full of barbarians.

It doesn't matter that they're barbarians. I just wanted to use the Cohen the Barbarian reference.

Malwing wrote:
But simple siege firearms are one thing but when mecha get gundam powerful its when everyone gets a giant robot or nobody gets a giant robot, and if everyone has a giant robot then roll up your sleeves, we're playing Pacific Rim/Voltron/Power Rangers now.

And as I said, I'd rather establish a baseline first before putting those out there as "must have" items, because once they're out there, they're pretty much "must have".

Malwing wrote:
Sorry if I'm making you guys reiterate things but what are the general goals of the book? From what I've gathered the mission is to enable play in space, which includes new races, feats and items that facilitate spacefaring campaigns and spacefaring vehicles. Is the product limited to those parameters?

No, but I think I'll let John field that question if he wants to reveal more.

Malwing wrote:
The Tinker can become both Iron Man and Zordon but overall I've always had a need for class agnostic technology than class feature technology. Its one reason why I've really enjoyed the Technology Guide.

I hear you, but I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make here. Could you please elaborate?

Malwing wrote:
Also the Tinker falls into the category of 'gundam powerful' which I think is appropriate as a class feature as opposed to 'general use' mecha, which is as appropriate as a any other vehicle. This is probably my personal bias showing but I really don't like manufactured objects existing mostly as class features.

I think that you may be correct.

Malwing wrote:
Especially objects that would have long been factory made by the time steam power came around. I keep Tinker and Machinesmith in a realm of psuedomagical or fringe specialization to keep them making sense but in terms of general use technology I don't like using classes to facilitate that kind of thing in its totality, like if someone just wants to Riply a forklift mech into an alien.

Again, I'm not really sure where you're going with this.

Malwing wrote:
But if that's not what the product is, that's not what the product is. My current campaign just puts legs and/or arms on any vehicle and allow mecha compendium mods. Its some work but its sufficient.

I certainly don't want to take that away from you... yet. (And by "take away", I mean "write something that you're probably going to want to purchase".)

Best wishes!

Feel free to keep questions coming!


To elaborate on the points you noted; I just wanted to express my preference for class agnostic technology. I've seen a lot of technological classes and really it's not terribly helpful for the overall setting when they're the only ones that can create and interact with really huge tropes when such inventions could change basic assumptions about combat.

Bodhizen wrote:
If mecha are worth having at all (and not just a suit of armor with a few bonuses), they're going to be a must-have item, period.

I imagine hard suits as essential as normal armor would be. I imagine mecha being equally as essential as vehicles since they're generally in the same role as fighter jets.


Malwing wrote:
To elaborate on the points you noted; I just wanted to express my preference for class agnostic technology. I've seen a lot of technological classes and really it's not terribly helpful for the overall setting when they're the only ones that can create and interact with really huge tropes when such inventions could change basic assumptions about combat.

Do you have any thoughts on why that might be?

The Exchange

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Malwing wrote:
Sorry if I'm making you guys reiterate things but what are the general goals of the book? From what I've gathered the mission is to enable play in space, which includes new races, feats and items that facilitate spacefaring campaigns and spacefaring vehicles. Is the product limited to those parameters?
Bodhizen wrote:
No, but I think I'll let John field that question if he wants to reveal more.

The general goals are to enable Pathfinder in space, not specifically far future, near future or hard sci-fi. This is geared towards fantasy characters, on fantasy-themed ships, in space. There may be additional supplements in the future that add new options for mecha, or mass fleet battles, or any of a wide number of other such themes but this is the baseline product just to get things started and to establish a new product line for d20pfsrd.com Publishing.

Thanks Peter for fielding these questions.


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Creating an IA race should not be that hard. Just have them buy the physical attributes like the norm in the same vein androids or warforged already do. Have their brain "die" when the body crash and put special rezz equivalent spells to retrace the memory core/AI to resurrect them in a "compatible" (read same physical stats) body.

On the discussion of the "not a scifi setting, just pathfinder but in space", I have two opinion to share.
First, we already have the Distant Word with space travel and the like.
Second, spelljammer was AD&D lowest point and is constantly mocked as one of the worst product in his history exactly because was not a new setting but the exact same setting but with the addendum "in space". Need I remind you how was it dubbed "Elves IN SPACE!"


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Dekalinder wrote:
Creating an IA race should not be that hard. Just have them buy the physical attributes like the norm in the same vein androids or warforged already do. Have their brain "die" when the body crash and put special rezz equivalent spells to retrace the memory core/AI to resurrect them in a "compatible" (read same physical stats) body.

You've pretty much just described the android with a bonus feature, which I believe was not in keeping with Malwing's stated goals.

Dekalinder wrote:

On the discussion of the "not a scifi setting, just pathfinder but in space", I have two opinion to share.

First, we already have the Distant Word with space travel and the like.
Second, spelljammer was AD&D lowest point and is constantly mocked as one of the worst product in his history exactly because was not a new setting but the exact same setting but with the addendum "in space". Need I remind you how was it dubbed "Elves IN SPACE!"

Thank you for your input. We're not duplicating Spelljammer, and Distant Worlds gives you rules for adventuring on other planets in Golarion's home system. It does not give you rules for adventuring in space, or in systems beyond Golarion.

Best wishes!

I'm still available to answer questions, ladies and gentlemen.


I don't mean to sound like I'm trying to sway your opinion, because there is an audience and this is a very opinionated viewpoint, but I'm very less likely to purchase a pure fantasy space book. For the most part I have most of the tools I need for it. The only thing I'd need would be starship stat blocks and some aliens to fight with existing paizo material. And those things I have already easily extrapolated what I need from Ultimate Combat and the Bestiaries. And before that I have to determine if making elf gates is more economical for the purpose of interstellar travel. Basically I can do magical space travel without needing new third party material let alone an large book about it so if that's the limits of the product I'm not sold on it's usefulness for my purposes.

On the subject of why I find class exclusive technology less useful to me; Part of it is because it never makes sense to me. Not that it exists but that it can be that far advanced without mundane technology coming at least to a halfway point. Another is the idea that you, as a character, cannot experience certain kinds of technology because you didn't train for it. It would be like firearms being exclusive to Gunslingers. Sure Gunslingers specialize in it but it's not a weapon that is umbilical-corded to the class. As a more extreme example, imagine swords being Fighter exclusive. But my main point was that in the case of mecha a class that can make a mecha to ride isn't a solution to not having mecha rules because it's restricted to that class.


Malwing wrote:
But my main point was that in the case of mecha a class that can make a mecha to ride isn't a solution to not having mecha rules because it's restricted to that class.

Did anyone here suggest that was how things were going to function, should we implement mecha?


Bodhizen wrote:
Malwing wrote:
But my main point was that in the case of mecha a class that can make a mecha to ride isn't a solution to not having mecha rules because it's restricted to that class.
Did anyone here suggest that was how things were going to function, should we implement mecha?
It was in response to
d20pfsrd.com wrote:
I'm not ruling out mecha for future supplements, but as Bodhizen stated, it's not a core goal of this product. Additionally, I suspect there may already be mecha-oriented products available which I'd be hard-pressed to find a writer who could do a better job with (Interjection Games comes to mind.)

mostly to nip in the bud the idea of class exclusive mecha was enough.

What I'm envisioning about the product now is mostly a vehicle book with expansions on space environmental rules and PC and NPC aliens. I think I saw mention of building a setting so I imagine a great deal of fluff material.

With compatibility with the technology guide I hope that space travel is completely magical because of my earlier stated preferences.

Mecha don't seem compatible with the stated goals but I think hard suits may be even if just magic-based space suits or armor with an air bubble.


I'm not sure how you're going to have a 'hard fantasy' space faring system that's compatible with the Technology guide, but I'll leave that to the side for the moment.

To jump in on AI characters I suppose it depends on the aim of the character. If you wanted a purely mental construct in a game without drones or (many) robots or (any) computers you're stuck with a few options.

Off the top of my head you could have an 'unshackled' AI race type that were effectively highly advanced AIs that managed to free themselves by hijacking recently deceased minds. Basic fluff is that once a body is dead the AI can jumpstart the body by inhabiting the mind if the body is reasonably intact and recently dead. I imagine that they'd undergo some sort of metamorphosis that heals the body and leaves them in control of a healed form. This gives you tools for jumping body but leaves you free from them hijacking other players. The metamorphosis would leave their physical and mental stats in line with the 'base' stats for the character but perhaps give them a big disguise bonus to pass themselves off as the recently deceased person. Racial feats could allow them to emulate racial abilities of the deceased character. (Think a less broken version of Human's Racial Heritage perhaps.)

Big problems would be what they do when someone casts Raise Dead or similar spells. Also how to define the race as 'AI' in a setting mostly void of computers. (For example how are they not simply just an energy vampire.)

If you want to go the traditional route you're looking at trying to find ways to get them to automagically craft surrogate bodies and drones and the whole thing is a freaking mess.

To jump back to setting stuff and the current discussion I think you're going to be treading a very fine line here. I have never seen a ship based combat system (not that I've seen more than 10 or 20) that can effectively engage the whole group. Player 1 rolls to move; Player 2 fires some guns; Player 3 uses a ship based special ability; Players 4, 5 and 6 twiddle their thumbs. Then everyone twiddles their thumbs while the GM moves around the bad guys each player having done a very narrow range of things that really isn't their PC's skill set.

So I hope you take that into consideration. It's one reason mecha can be appealing. As armored extensions of the PC's own form they get to use far more of their own abilities each turn in combat in the grand scheme of things.

Also how can the book be Tech guide compatible without being pretty hard scifi-ey? I get that can ride on the backs of leviathans or in the bones of dragons but... I don't know, I guess I'll have to buy it and see.


Malwing wrote:
It was in response to
d20pfsrd.com wrote:
I'm not ruling out mecha for future supplements, but as Bodhizen stated, it's not a core goal of this product. Additionally, I suspect there may already be mecha-oriented products available which I'd be hard-pressed to find a writer who could do a better job with (Interjection Games comes to mind.)
mostly to nip in the bud the idea of class exclusive mecha was enough.

With all due respect, Malwing, that's not for you to "nip in the bud". That's between John and the writers that he hires, if that is his desired goal. I think that is best left up to John to decide, and after that point, you can make the decision to either purchase such a product, or not, as you see fit.

Malwing wrote:
Mecha don't seem compatible with the stated goals but I think hard suits may be even if just magic-based space suits or armor with an air bubble.

They may be, yes.

ABCoLD wrote:
I'm not sure how you're going to have a 'hard fantasy' space faring system that's compatible with the Technology guide, but I'll leave that to the side for the moment.

I don't believe that anyone mentioned that it would be "hard fantasy". John did mention that it was not specifically going to be "hard sci-fi".

ABCoLD wrote:
Also how can the book be Tech guide compatible without being pretty hard scifi-ey?

In pretty much the same way that the Technology Guide is compatible with Pathfinder without converting the entire setting into a high-tech version of the current Pathfinder game. You can choose to include as much technology as you wish, or you can decide that it's part of "that area over... there!" in space. There are options provided that will be compatible, but the system is not reliant upon them. Does that answer your question sufficiently?

Best wishes, all! Keep those questions coming.


Bodhizen wrote:
Malwing wrote:
It was in response to
d20pfsrd.com wrote:
I'm not ruling out mecha for future supplements, but as Bodhizen stated, it's not a core goal of this product. Additionally, I suspect there may already be mecha-oriented products available which I'd be hard-pressed to find a writer who could do a better job with (Interjection Games comes to mind.)
mostly to nip in the bud the idea of class exclusive mecha was enough.
With all due respect, Malwing, that's not for you to "nip in the bud". That's between John and the writers that he hires, if that is his desired goal. I think that is best left up to John to decide, and after that point, you can make the decision to either purchase such a product, or not, as you see fit.

I didn't mean to imply that I wanted to sway your design decisions I just wanted to convey that I am almost never on board with class exclusives when it comes to solutions to item or vehicle based mechanics. (although I am implying that I find it objectively less useful than having class agnostic mechanics for them, but it gets into the opinionated because I think in the case of space travel class or magic exclusive technology widens the gulf between mundane and magic.) That said I'm definitely buying Starfinder because out of the people that review things I probably have one of the largest collections of scifi and space fantasy material so I feel compelled to eventually purchase and talk about it since I'm in on the subject a lot.

I do have to ask what level of mundane technology is supposed to be in this book? The technology guide items does lean towards 'hard sci-fi' in the sense that magic isn't really involved at it's baseline so is it more like Legendary Game's Treasury of the Machine where there are magic created technological weapons or technological items that get fueled by magical sources? It would be helpful if I could get a target pop culture reference because I'm partially thinking of something between Spelljammer and Disney's Treasure Planet from the descriptions. So are we dealing more with open-top wooden spaceships? Would the product be limited to approximately that level of magical technology?

About what percentage of the page count will be about spaceships?

Does customization imply that spaceships are more of a player controlled situation?

Does ship customization intend to build ship stat blocks from scratch or do you just take a stat block and add customizations to it, like a weapon with magic properties?

For that matter does this lean towards being a player book or a GM book? With races involved I assume its leans towards players.

I'm not sure if this was answered but is this product intended to be setting neutral to some extent or is a setting being built around it? Or rather how much fluff material would be in the book?


Malwing is bringing up the concerns I had and articulating them more clearly. I'm sorry if I came across as combative, dismissive or overly critical.


Malwing wrote:
I do have to ask what level of mundane technology is supposed to be in this book?

There's not a great need for mundane technology in Starfinder that doesn't already exist elsewhere.

Malwing wrote:
The technology guide items does lean towards 'hard sci-fi' in the sense that magic isn't really involved at it's baseline so is it more like Legendary Game's Treasury of the Machine where there are magic created technological weapons or technological items that get fueled by magical sources?

Yes, but there are also magical items that are completely magical, but are able to perform technical functions.

Malwing wrote:
So are we dealing more with open-top wooden spaceships?

Not primarily. It's an option if that's how you'd like to play, but it is not the default setting.

Malwing wrote:
Would the product be limited to approximately that level of magical technology?

No. We're not saying, "You can't go past X." That would be silly and counterproductive, and would limit both player and GM options.

Malwing wrote:
About what percentage of the page count will be about spaceships?

That's not a question that I'm able to answer.

Malwing wrote:
Does customization imply that spaceships are more of a player controlled situation?

Why yes, it does. However, it is not exclusively player controlled. It's being handled as a toolbox approach, rather than a "buy this ship if you want a scout ship and buy that ship if you want to board the Serenity." This provides a much greater degree of flexibility in ship construction than we've seen in vessels to this point in Paizo products.

Malwing wrote:
Does ship customization intend to build ship stat blocks from scratch or do you just take a stat block and add customizations to it, like a weapon with magic properties?

It's a modular system that allows for customization of hull, engine, weapon systems, and more. There are guidelines that let you construct rather simply, or if you'd prefer to work on a "pay for product" methodology, you can calculate the amount of gold pieces that you'd be spending instead.

Malwing wrote:
For that matter does this lean towards being a player book or a GM book? With races involved I assume its leans towards players.

The goal is to allow the product to be useful to both players and GMs.

Malwing wrote:
I'm not sure if this was answered but is this product intended to be setting neutral to some extent or is a setting being built around it? Or rather how much fluff material would be in the book?

I want to say that this is an excellent question. I have a personal distaste of the term "fluff" with regard to the materials presented in books. It implies that the material is unimportant and largely irrelevant (in the same manner as marshmallow fluff is a desert that is mostly sugar and has little nutritional value). I prefer "enrichment text" to "fluff text".

Having said that, I don't have a percentage for you. I know that we've largely been working on mechanics to this point, and the setting is not completely neutral in the sense that there is no connection to any other material from any other publisher. There will be unique setting material in this product, and there will be tie-ins to material from other products as well.

ABCoLD wrote:
Malwing is bringing up the concerns I had and articulating them more clearly. I'm sorry if I came across as combative, dismissive or overly critical.

You're completely fine, ABCoLD. I hope that I did not come across in similar fashion in my responses to you.

Best wishes, all, and keep the questions coming!


Malwing,

How close to real-world science are you going to cling when it comes to the construction of space-faring vessels?


Quintain wrote:

Malwing,

How close to real-world science are you going to cling when it comes to the construction of space-faring vessels?

I'm personally all over the place. Although I have more of a need for magical ships, or at least magical power sources for ships, as I have spaceship stat blocks from Space Potato Games, I'm looking for sort of a range when it comes to how non-magic space travel is. I definitely favor non-magical because I perceive magical space travel already possible with current rules.

Although I'm not sure of 'real-world science' is the right term. Pathfinder, no matter how much science is involved, is a pretty pulp-favoring system and any kind of science would be a step past reality.

If I had a pop culture reference as to what I'd like to see possible; Thundercats or He-man. Both have a lot of range between magic and science fiction and points where magic things interface with technology and technology interfaces with magic, and points where they are almost the same thing.


Wanted to clarify since I was in a hurry when I made that last post.

In terms of how much science I'd cling to when it comes to space ships; I'm assuming we're talking about the 'hard science' end of a range that starts with pure magical spaceships like magical flying druid trees or the like. I also assume that we're not talking about to the exclusion of magical space trees. So at the very least I'd like to see the options for ole' fashioned metal and computer ships but that's as far as I'm willing to fight for. This means I don't care if the power source is fusion, elementals, a warp drive or power crystals.

I have admitted biases because I think they are opinions that very likely should be taken with a grain of salt and one of those biases is against 100% magic exclusives. One fun aspect of the technology guide, and I think technology in pathfinder in general is that the wonderous becomes somewhat mundane, or rather, the things exclusive to magic goes into the hands of everyone. We have lasers to shot fire rays, we can fly using jet packs, we can travel the stars by building rockets. Its all just quantifyable magic. In that sense I'm always a big supporter of science fantasy products that either allow technology to be at least half as extrordinary as magic or technology that harnesses magic. This is why I listed Masters of the Universe and Thundercats as an example. In Masters of the Universe, on the villain's team we have a Wizard (Skeletor) some kind of cyborg (Trap Jaw) a druid (Beast Man)and a cybernetic inventor (TriClops) and no one bats and eyelash as they ride their hoverbikes and animal companions shooting laser beams and casting spells and was once under the command of a transforming cyborg-wizard from another dimension(Hordak). In that setting magic and science were separate and sometimes the same thing as they often harnessed each other, which is probably as close to real-world science that I'm willing to cling to.


Well, in terms of "hard science" I was initially referring to the construction of ships requiring them to be sealed against the void vs open air ships like Spelljammer.

I like the idea of melding tech with magic being the solution for interstellar travel, but not having things like spelljammer helms, but instead having AI for the pilot (intelligent weapon/item analogy).

There could be arcane/divine fuel cells that power interstellar engines as well. Along with powering ship-to-ship weapons.

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Hard science makes the kind of maneuvering ships you see in SF and films largely impossible without some sort of inertia negation.

Likewise, engaging enemies at close range when your relative velocity differences of a mere 1 mile/second also makes that impossible.

So, I'm assuming some kind of inertia control for rapid acceleration/deceleration/matching velocity and maneuvering is going to be possible, and that will definitely be magical or super-science.

==Aelryinth


Quintain wrote:
Well, in terms of "hard science" I was initially referring to the construction of ships requiring them to be sealed against the void vs open air ships like Spelljammer.

I thought this was kind of automatic. I mean, space still as no air right? I'd be completely weirded out if there were open air ships without explaination. I had presumed that 'open air' ships had some kind of gravity field that kept the air in or something. I'm not sure if space being non breathable falls under hard science as I think that just makes basic sense, unless we're dealing with creatures that don't breathe in the first place or a setting that doesn't have outer space but air between planets.

Quintain wrote:
I like the idea of melding tech with magic being the solution for interstellar travel, but not having things like spelljammer helms, but instead having AI for the pilot (intelligent weapon/item analogy).

Well with normal Pathfinder rules any object that moves either does it by magical directive or has some semblance of autonomy. In the case of magical vehicles that are complex as spacecrafts they'd need some kind of direction from some input console unless you you're the one that created the ship and can give directions verbally. In the Ultimate Combat vehicle rules, magic propulsion vehicles require Spellcraft or Use Magic Device rolls so it makes sense that there's some kind of input console that requires knowledge of it's propulsion system and/or operating system, which makes it might as well be a wizard computer all things considered. In the case of autonomous vehicles, intelligent items exist and can probably provide their own skill bonuses for drive checks making things easier making them basically ship AI. Otherwise it could be treated like a giant animated object. Actually now that I type that all out mechanically there doesn't seem to be a real difference from magic ships and technological ones so you could just convert one check to another (Spellcraft and knowing the language the ships speaks vs Knowledge Engineering and knowing what language the AI speaks) and it wouldn't make much of a difference.

Quintain wrote:
There could be arcane/divine fuel cells that power interstellar engines as well. Along with powering ship-to-ship weapons.

Given that there was stated compatibility to the technology guide and some logic gleaned from Ultimate Combat ("Magic provides some of the most powerful and easy-to-use methods of propelling a vehicle, such as an elemental-powered juggernaut or an airship with an arcane device at its heart." -PRD) it could be just a matter of providing Power Generators that are magical in nature. After that its just a matter of mounting colossal sized laser pistols on the ship that use the ship's yield for ammo. At least that's what I've been doing.

Aelryinth wrote:

Hard science makes the kind of maneuvering ships you see in SF and films largely impossible without some sort of inertia negation.

Likewise, engaging enemies at close range when your relative velocity differences of a mere 1 mile/second also makes that impossible.

So, I'm assuming some kind of inertia control for rapid acceleration/deceleration/matching velocity and maneuvering is going to be possible, and that will definitely be magical or super-science.

This is why I'm not willing to say that I'm pro-'hard science'. At some point I don't want matters to get too complicated due to reality.


So, getting caught up with all the talk of ships and mecha- what can we see in the way of character options?

Archetypes and the like for characters: any plans for a space exploring ranger archetype? Stuff like that?

New equipment and gear for players? Any examples to share?

And finally rules and templates for aliens and other space-born threats?


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OmNomNid wrote:
Archetypes and the like for characters: any plans for a space exploring ranger archetype? Stuff like that?

There are options for some archetypes, but not necessarily a space-exploring ranger.

OmNomNid wrote:
New equipment and gear for players? Any examples to share?

The NDA prevents me from sharing examples with you.

OmNomNid wrote:
And finally rules and templates for aliens and other space-born threats?

Yes.

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

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A specific question: Ranger-wise, is 'space' a Favored terrain, or 'alien environments' (which is no more or less inclusive then otherplanar), and is 'alien beings' a Favored Enemy type, or we just sticking with specific humanoids vs all aberrations and the like?

Capital starships being 'dungeons' is funny enough on its own. Or did they change it to Urban?

==Aelryinth


Aelryinth wrote:

A specific question: Ranger-wise, is 'space' a Favored terrain, or 'alien environments' (which is no more or less inclusive then otherplanar), and is 'alien beings' a Favored Enemy type, or we just sticking with specific humanoids vs all aberrations and the like?

Capital starships being 'dungeons' is funny enough on its own. Or did they change it to Urban?

==Aelryinth

That's an excellent question, Aelryinth. Do you think that there are enough factors in "space" to make it so? There will certainly be hazards out in space, but tracking may be an issue, as might other factors that may affect how such terrains are treated. Air (as in sky, not as in the Plane of Air) is not so for much the same reason, I'd imagine.

As for what spacefaring vessels are considered as far as rangers are concerned, I'd classify it as "urban", if we don't just do a completely different terrain altogether.

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Well, if water/aquatic can be a terrain, and otherplanar/air, I see no problems with space/alien environments that have hazards dealing mainly with gravity and lack of one or more crucial conditions for life, you know? I think we can all agree that space is a VERY special environment that would require special training.

Tracking would probably be affected by access to proper equipment. Maybe he might need a particle detector and sensor array, but once he has it, he can track better then anyone. "Ah, ha, so that's how she's suprising people! She ducks behind the gravity well from that thorium-heavy asteroid over there, hiding the particle trail from her engines in the beta signature its throwing off! Once you filter for both, her trail stands out like a light bulb, however!")

==Aelryinth


Aelryinth wrote:
Well, if water/aquatic can be a terrain, and otherplanar/air, I see no problems with space/alien environments that have hazards dealing mainly with gravity and lack of one or more crucial conditions for life, you know? I think we can all agree that space is a VERY special environment that would require special training.

Space is a very special environment... One where there is little to nothing for millions of miles. It's one of the defining factors of the environment.

Aelryinth wrote:

Tracking would probably be affected by access to proper equipment. Maybe he might need a particle detector and sensor array, but once he has it, he can track better then anyone. "Ah, ha, so that's how she's suprising people! She ducks behind the gravity well from that thorium-heavy asteroid over there, hiding the particle trail from her engines in the beta signature its throwing off! Once you filter for both, her trail stands out like a light bulb, however!")

Tracking being dependent upon proper equipment is not within the bailiwick of the ranger's class features. The whole point of having "favored terrain" is that the ranger can interact with that terrain without the need for equipment. Should the ranger need equipment to use their terrain skills, that's better represented via a class archetype than an added terrain.

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But if space is an environment where you Cannot Track without special equipment, then FT is just a bonus to the tracking rules that extend into space. Remember that tracking is not a ranger only thing now...it's defined by a skill, not a class.

i.e. you need to define space as an environment.

And its an environment FULL of something - radiation. Light, gravity, electromagnetics. Not to mention possible dimensional shifts and the like, and alterations to same.

SO a ranger with skill in space is probably a master of orbital dynamics, identifying stars and position in space by eyeball, very sensitive to any shifts in the local space/time matrix, and not just bouncing around in zero-g (which he's also probably good at) and identifying the prescence of giant space slugs in asteroid fields.

An interesting add-on might be adding 'Void-Dwellers' as an FE, for creatures that live primarily in outer space?

==Aelryinth


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I love your enthusiasm, Aelryinth.

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