So I know this is prolly gonna get locked by someone, but still, I'm wondering when the devs are gonna get back to giving us updates on the game. Like, what are ships like? WHAT ARE THE BASE RACES? How different will combat be now that it is much more range-based? Will it support a hex-grid map? (I love hex grids :3)
So I know this is prolly gonna get locked by someone, but still, I'm wondering when the devs are gonna get back to giving us updates on the game. Like, what are ships like? WHAT ARE THE BASE RACES? How different will combat be now that it is much more range-based? Will it support a hex-grid map? (I love hex grids :3)
Space will have Hex grids and when combat is on the ground it will be in squared grid maps. The devs are constantly replying to posts on the forums and answering questions. I believe they have already stated what the base races were along with the classes.
Combat does have a bit more range in it but melee is still a thing too, from the playtest they broadcasted ground level events look just like Pathfinder, square maps, i dont think there was a straight line more than 60' at any point in the session. The baddies seemed to be about 50% melee and the boss at the end was a frontliner too.
Boss was a pure spellcaster with a big bodyguard.
Ranged attacks were largely terrible wastes of actions (lasers doing 1d4), though the mechanic's droid had a better gun, and the mechanic himself could burn through extra charges to make his shots functional (1d4+1d6)But yes, the adventure design was a fairly standard mini-dungeon that could have been any Pathfinder game. Just swap lasers for hand crossbows.
Space will have Hex grids and when combat is on the ground it will be in squared grid maps. The devs are constantly replying to posts on the forums and answering questions. I believe they have already stated what the base races were along with the classes.
I thought two 'less human' ones were still unannounced.
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
The honest truth is that, with the book shipping next month, the core Starfinder team is *crazy* busy right now, hence the lack of blogs. Once we get a little breathing room, we'll begin posting regular previews—there's still a long time until August, and I promise we'll have a ton of blogs between now and then. :)
Ranged attacks were surprisingly... not good? Not better than Pathfinder at least and i think we were only seeing level 2 3/4 BAB chassis in play. Remember that the aside from overcharghing his pistol (i think the base damage was 1D6 and the overcharge added 1D4 to that) there was a spell that either added 3D6 or 4D6 to a shot, which if it hit would be huge as a level 2 ranged effect.
Base damage seemed consistently d4, except for the droid, which had a better gun [d6, as he exclaims 'Max damage!' upon rolling a 6] (but it was kinetic rather than a laser). I found the damage disconcerting because they mentioned need the need to balance around the assumption that everyone had access good armor (and vacuum suits, etc) and ranged attacks from the get go. And (effectively) repeater handcrossbows... don't fit that assumption, big magazines and fire damage or not.
Goblins with jury rigged pistols doing d4 didn't bother me in the first round of the encounter, but the PCs shot back with the same effect. [yeah, around 22:30 the mechanic shoots his own gun for a d4]. Thats a backup weapon, when everything else is dropped or broken, especially with stamina + hit points. If eAC acts like touch AC (thus making lasers more accurate), I can get behind a lower damage die than kinetic weapons, but I'd expect default basic laser weapons to be at least d6 (pistol)/d8(rifle) and d8/d10 for kinetic weapons, since obviously you can't add strength bonuses like slings or composite bows.
It just doesn't match up with the Q&A statement: "Every character has a good ranged combat option starting at first level." d4+0 means lots of lots of shots (that hit) to drop enemies. A simple 1/2 CR [pathfinder] bandit would soak 5 laser beams. Taking down a grizzly is going to be nearly two solid minutes of fire (18 combat rounds) for a single person, assuming all shots hit.
Now granted this is a single playtest and I look forward to more information, but (specifically) starter guns seem woeful. (I suspect even 3rd or 5th level guns aren't as bad). Apart from dealing with flying vermin, there are zero circumstances where I wouldn't just want a big melee weapon, which is not the default assumption presented.
On the other hand, the classes seemed rather nice and interesting, even the 'melee class' had a range of options.
But the mechanic also was able to take a standard to shoot his D6 and then put his move towards his robot to also move and shoot their rifle. or drop the cone template and empty his mag while also taking a pot shot himself, right?
I wasn't entirely sure. I think he was using a standard action at the beginning of combat to activate his 'rig,' and then he could assign move+action to the droid, and he got a single action. Otherwise the droid defaulted to a single action. But I'm not 100% on the details, it may be activating the rig let them both act fully. He does move and attack when the drone makes the cone attack.
The Solarion was the only melee PC and he seemed to be hitting regularly with 1D8+ability mod. He at one point seemed to make two attacks at level 2 which is very surprising, if you can land 2D8+2x Str than why take a pistol along at all? eat the 3.5 damage to move into melee and then stomp them with your uber-sword.
I wasn't sure if it d6 or d8 [checked, he was rolling d6+3, or 2d6+6 for the crit]. But either way, yeah, it vastly outclassed the guns. The double attack was definitely a full action thing, similar to flurry, but I wasn't sure if it was a class feature or just a default thing people could do, since the technomancer did something very similar with magic missile, which was both surprising and really intriguing. Though that magic missile made the guns look bad made me very sad indeed.
But apart from the guns, it was looking good, and the DM was quite good at making things lively.
|
The honest truth is that, , the core Starfinder team is *crazy* busy right now, hence the lack of blogs. Once we get a little breathing room, we'll begin posting regular previews—there's still a long time until August, and I promise we'll have a ton of blogs between now and then. :)
What do you mean, the book ships next month? Am I the only one still in the dark, or am I getting my book next month?
James is referring to the book bring shipped to our printer, not customers :)
wow, it wasnt even that long ago that i saw the playtest but already i was fudging up the details.
I was totally cheating. I saw it for the first time two days ago, and after I wrote what I remembered, I went back to the video to verify numbers.
Your summary really makes me curious about how the AC/HP/damage scales work...
Well, they seemed to be level 2 (and that may have been confirmed in the comments, but not 100% sure). AC struck me as being what I expected. Not optimized, but for a publicly recorded dev playtest, I don't expect significant optimization, as that skews results pretty badly. Average heroes (as bizarre as that sounds) are reasonable.
I'm not sure on the split between stamina and HP, but I think the solarian soaked roughly 10-12 points before going to HP, which, again, seems expected. So maybe first level is HP, and stamina every level after, or something more complex (50/50 split?).
The only specific thing on the PC side that jumped at me was that the dwarf was essentially immune to bull rush/trip thanks to CMD being replaced by Kinetic AC +8 and +4 for being a dwarf). Not that I object to replacing CMD, but 'off the RNG already' struck me as a bit much. The pincer attack (which I presume had some sort of Grab ability) by the big bot also got abandoned really quick, failing on a 17 (total)
The first room's goblins, though... AC, HP and damage wise, they looked like they were right out of Pathfinder. kAC of 16, eAC slightly lower, 6 hp, doing 1d4 damage, but with lasers rather than dogslicers. Which is in-line with the idea that things out the bestiaries can be dropped in and be fairly compatible.
It raises a question about monsters and stamina, but that could have several answers, for example that the first hit die is HP, rest is stamina or just a handwave that it doesn't matter for monsters. Or again, something more complicated. But yeah, on average, goblins can soak three laser blasts and... that feels really bad. 'Drive me closer so I can hit it with my sword' territory there. The feel of a space fantasy game probably shouldn't be 'we all pull longswords and charge!,' even if it is only the first few levels.
I mean, i dont mind if the gobbos are plunking down the D4+0 but the big darn heroes should be doing a wee bit more than "wizard with a dagger"
Yeah, that's my concern. The 'diode lasers' probably get replaced fast (the 'all equipment has levels' suggests replacements are bought), but I'm uncomfortable with something that bad being anything but a backup weapon stashed in a boot. Not a main attack for at least two of seven classes, but fine for the signature rubbish monster.
The honest truth is that, with the book shipping next month, the core Starfinder team is *crazy* busy right now, hence the lack of blogs. Once we get a little breathing room, we'll begin posting regular previews—there's still a long time until August, and I promise we'll have a ton of blogs between now and then. :)
Even though I would love some more Starfinder info, I think I may be able to survive a month or so without any. Especially if it means my suffering enables the Starfinder team to spend that extra time improving and tweaking the system.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So you are saying the book will be done and complete and copies will exist outside of Paizo HQ in some form... and if we just happened to get a team together with specific skills we might be able to intercept a copy from some publishing house out in... uh, where are your books printed at these days? Just curious, cause, you know, language skills might be important here. This reminds me, i need to pick up all my slightly darker black turtle necks from the dry cleaners... Thanks!
Speaking of, my balaclavas just came in yesterday, and my friend Jeff (who is a linguist :3) lives a few miles down. We're meeting for lunch tomorrow to discuss the armored truck, right?