Should Starfinder have levels at all?


General Discussion


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Levels like in classic Pathfinder or better a point buy system where you can buy different abilities, skills, feats, etc with the experience you earned?


2 people marked this as a favorite.

I'm all for free-form point buy systems. But then, it wouldn't be Starfinder, it would be GURPS Space or Star Hero.


Better yet, should Starfinder have rules of any kind at all? Maybe it should just be the Art of WAR vol. 2 "Space WARs".

Liberty's Edge

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Yes. To aid in backwards compatibility, if nothing else.

Scarab Sages

5 people marked this as a favorite.

In think people should stop assuming this is a complete redesign, given that its supposed to be backwards compatible.


Yes.


It even says on the main page that it uses the SAME BASE SYSTEM. that being said, it is safe to assume that there WILL be levels in Starfinder.

President, Jon Brazer Enterprises

1 person marked this as a favorite.

Not just levels, I'm assuming there will be 20 levels, there will be vanician magic, and BAB, Fort/Reflex/Will saves, etc will still be things.


At its heart this is still a D20 system that is supposed to have at least some "plug and play" with other D20 systems. Levels are hard to pull out of that system. CR is also highly tied to levels which, sure, its not the most accurate system but it works well enough that i would be surprised if it was done away with. Also the design team has weighed in that after briefly considering a 10 or 15 level set up they have instead hard locked in a 20 level progression already.


I'm going to say yes for a few reasons.

1) To preserve some semblance of backwards compatibility this is pretty much mandatory.

2) If you've played GURPS or even had trouble figuring out what feats or spells you want in Pathfinder you may know that treasure hunting for options can be a real pain so some form of compartmentalization in the form of classes is actually a boon for games where there's a lot of fiddly bits.

3) And I want this game to have a lot of fiddly bits. I have a long history of playing games without them and while it floats some people's boats I always feel like I'm playing with my legs tied together and I have to rely on GM fiat to move or no choice is mechanically relevant enough for me to say that I really made a choice.


There are systems that have broken the level based mechanic into modular bits and let you "buy" them with XP, so it's not beyond the pale to say you *could* have a system with no levels and still keep the game backward compatible.

I actually think something like that could be a lot of fun, if for nothing else than just as a way to run your home game. I think the lack of a level-by-level system could give the game a more modern do everything kind of "jack of all trades" feel rather than the more medieval "apprentice to be a blacksmith your whole life" feel levels give. I don't think there's a thing wrong with that.

Personally though I think Paizo is banking on folks being able to slide right into a streamlined version of the Pathfinder mechanics. I think too big a shake up with freak people out. I think folks are expecting to see a book that still feels like Pathfinder at the end of the day.

That said, I think it's the sort of thing that I'd totally play in if you decided to run it.


Grimcleaver wrote:

There are systems that have broken the level based mechanic into modular bits and let you "buy" them with XP, so it's not beyond the pale to say you *could* have a system with no levels and still keep the game backward compatible.

I actually think something like that could be a lot of fun, if for nothing else than just as a way to run your home game. I think the lack of a level-by-level system could give the game a more modern do everything kind of "jack of all trades" feel rather than the more medieval "apprentice to be a blacksmith your whole life" feel levels give. I don't think there's a thing wrong with that.

Personally though I think Paizo is banking on folks being able to slide right into a streamlined version of the Pathfinder mechanics. I think too big a shake up with freak people out. I think folks are expecting to see a book that still feels like Pathfinder at the end of the day.

That said, I think it's the sort of thing that I'd totally play in if you decided to run it.

I know it works in some games but when picturing Pathfinder taking such an approach i can not help but shudder at what that level of cherry picking will do to the optimizer builds.


I guess, assuming you couldn't just fine tune things by adding an extra XP cost to the most optimal abilities as a balancing mechanic. Interestingly this really isn't something you can do with feats or class options in the base game but is pretty easy to control when you buy upgrades with XP.

Not that I have a strong preference for one way of running character progression or the other. I'm not Captain Pointbuy here. It's just fun to toss ideas around.


This question if you think about it, is rather moot. Given how close it is to GenCon, does anyone seriously believe that Paizo is going to yank the product NOW, scrap it and start over? Which is pretty much what you'd have to do with a proposed change like this.


Nope. I think if people want to run it point-buy they buy Starfinder (which will totally be level based) and then either figure the point-buy mechanics out on their own or buy one of the great systems out there that have already cracked it.

Then, if they dig that sort of thing, they run a point buy version of the game for their friends because they like how it works better for their sci-fi games. Which is totally fine and doable.

Community / Forums / Starfinder / Starfinder General Discussion / Should Starfinder have levels at all? All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Starfinder General Discussion