Welcome to Outpost Zed

Thursday, September 13, 2018

No one said traveling to the Azlanti Star Empire would be easy. In fact, most everyone says the exact opposite. Imperialist and xenophobic, the Azlanti aren't going to take kindly to a handful of Pact Worlders showing up in their space to cause trouble and interfere with their grand plans. Luckily, as with any large empire, there are spaces on the fringes where the eyes of the conquerors don't always peer too closely.

Illustration by Mirco Paganessi

Illustration by David Franco

In Starfinder Adventure Path #8: Escape from the Prison Moon, the PCs begin their sojourn into Azlanti space at a former mining platform and space station known as Outpost Zed, home to a wide array of smugglers and outlaws who want to avoid the gaze of Azlanti officials. The heroes will need to trade for goods and information there if they want any chance of being able to rescue their android friend from her cruel captors. But will they be able to prove themselves worthy of trust by Outpost Zed's inhabitants, whose ways and languages are extremely alien to those from the Pact Worlds?

In addition to a rollicking adventure by the always awesome Eleanor Ferron where the PCs will meet several new beings and perform a daring prison break, this volume also includes a ton of information about the Azlanti Star Empire. From its storied history and current state of affairs (by Starfinder Creative Director and Azlanti enthusiast Robert G. McCreary) to a detailed look at the Star Empire's 17 officially designated "sentient alien species" (by the wildly imaginative Saif Ansari), you'll soon find the Azlanti Star Empire as the newest villains you'll love to hate!

Jason Keeley
Developer

Starfinder Wins Origins Award!

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

Illustration by Mirco Paganessi

The Origins Game Fair took place this past weekend, and we are happy to announce that Starfinder won the Fan Favorite Best Roleplaying Game award at the 2018 Origins Awards on Saturday, presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design.

We are honored, and humbled, to be chosen as the best RPG of the year by our fans. As game designers, winning any award is always gratifying, but fan-voted awards are especially meaningful. Fans are the people who play our games, and without players, the games themselves don't serve much purpose. We want to thank everyone who voted for Starfinder, as well as every fan who plays Starfinder, talks about the game with friends, and helps make Starfinder's player base a vibrant community.

We also want to thank everyone involved in the creation of the game. This was very much a team effort on a massive scale, and involved some of the most involved collaborative work we've ever done. The Starfinder design team, creative directors, developers, editors, authors, artists, art directors, and graphic designers all did an amazing amount of work to make this game happen. And even beyond that, everyone at Paizo took on some of the herculean workload needed to put the physical book in the hands of players.

Looking forward to the future, we plan to continue creating more exciting content for Starfinder in the months and years to come, and we can't wait for you to see what we have planned. Keep aiming for the stars!

Robert G. McCreary and Owen K.C. Stephens
Starfinder Design Leads

Dead Suns Dead Ahead!

Monday, July 31, 2017

We're fast approaching the release of the Starfinder Core Rulebook and the first Starfinder Adventure Path, Dead Suns! So, what do you have to look forward to? Keep reading, but beware—there might be a few spoilers ahead!

One of our goals with the Starfinder Adventure Path was to feature material that would be useful to both GMs and players. Of course, every volume of the Starfinder Adventure Path includes an exciting adventure for GMs to run for their players, but we've also worked really hard to include new rules and mechanics for players, such as new equipment, new character options, and new feats and spells. We'll also be presenting new alien creatures (both to fight and to play), new starships, and new planets to visit.

Illustrations by Victor Manuel Leza Moreno, Allison Theus, and Mirco Paganessi

For Dead Suns specifically, we wanted to show off the scope of the Starfinder setting. As a result, the Adventure Path starts off on Absalom Station, but the PCs soon leave the station to visit some other locations in the Pact Worlds, including Castrovel, Eox, and the Diaspora. But there's a whole galaxy to explore in Starfinder, so the PCs will also head into the Vast to visit some new, unexplored alien worlds. Before the campaign is finished, the heroes of Dead Suns will have visited space stations, asteroids, jungle planets, dead worlds, gas giants, derelict ships and not-so-derelict ships, and even vast megastructures.

What else can you expect in Dead Suns? The Starfinder Society is a major faction in the Starfinder setting, and it plays a central role in the Adventure Path as the PCs are working for the Society during the campaign. Two groups who make their debut in the Starfinder Core Rulebook—the Corpse Fleet and the Cult of the Devourer—are the main antagonists of Dead Suns, and the Adventure Path will feature expanded descriptions of both factions, as well as new rules elements thematically tied to these groups. In addition, there will be some ancient alien technology to examine, horrors from outer space to contend with, and of course, starship combat against a host of enemy vessels!

The first Dead Suns adventure, Incident at Absalom Station, hits store shelves and paizo.com in August, followed by a new volume every other month, so get ready. Adventure among the stars awaits!

Robert G. McCreary
Senior Developer

Now Taking Applications for an Expedition to Azlant

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Today on the blog I want to talk about Starfinder. Just kidding, I'm here to talk about a Golarion that's still around and some of the things that shaped it thousands of years in its past. I'm here to talk about Azlanti long before they had a star empire. More specifically, I'm here to talk about the Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path that drops this August at GenCon.

The Ruins of Azlant Adventure Path takes place in the Arcadian Ocean in a small cluster of islands hundreds of miles west of the Inner Sea region where the continent of Azlant once stood over 10,000 years ago—before the alghollthu drew meteors from the vacuum of space in an attempt to wipe humanity from the face of Golarion. While most of what was Azlant was shattered and sunk beneath the waves, scattered islands poke above the surface, and some ruins of the ancient civilization remain nearly as they were thousands of years ago. Some islands host an abundance of life that has reclaimed the surviving pieces of the broken continent.

In this Adventure Path, the PCs are part of an expedition to establish a colony called Talmandor's Bounty on an island named Ancorato. This endeavor is a partnership between the nation of Andoran and the Bountiful Venture Company, an Andoren finance company based out of Almas. The company spread the word of the expedition far and wide looking for the best of what the Inner Sea could offer to take part in this groundbreaking venture. Those who answered the call sat for interviews where they explained what they could bring to a fledgling colony to help it not only survive but thrive. Among these hopefuls are the heroes of this tale—your characters. Leadership in the Bountiful Venture Company found something special about the skills and talents of each of the PCs in their vetting process, and selected them to join the second wave of colonists headed for Talmandor's Bounty to bring more supplies and double the population of the colony.

Illustrations by Valeria Lutfullina, Mirco Paganessi, David Franco, and Roberto Pitturru

The campaign begins with the PCs, and other eager colonists, standing on the deck of the Peregrine, the ship that brought them from the port in Almas to their new home. As the ship enters a wide bay and tacks toward the nascent Talmandor's Bounty, something doesn't seem right. The chimneys of the buildings tucked behind a partially built palisade give off no smoke. Peering through a spyglass reveals that no one walks among the wood and stone houses, and as the ship draws closer, the settlement is utterly silent. Something has happened to the first group of colonists.

If you want to find out what happened to the colonists and explore the lore of ancient Azlant, apply now* to the Bountiful Venture Company and see the wonders of a new world reclaimed from cataclysm!

During the course of this Adventure Path you get a glimpse into how some people dealt with the final days of the Azlanti Empire and a chance to see how some parts of Azlanti society worked. Just some of the articles in this Adventure Path include an ecology of the Azlanti's greatest enemy, a look at the gods that the Azlanti worshiped, a gazetteer of the region as it stands today, information on the Mordant Spire, other secrets of Azlant, and much more. The Adventure Path bestiary includes monsters native to the region, weird animals and plants you could find there, and a few newly discovered additions to the alghollthu family.

*Applications available** by pre-ordering, subscribing, hitting up paizo.com on August 17, or swinging by your local game and hobby store.
**Applications are totally fictional. Books are real. Reading is good for you.

Adam Daigle
Managing Developer

Starfinder Archetypes

Monday, June 12, 2017

Archetypes are a fascinating example of how a game system can evolve over the course of time. The Pathfinder Core Rulebook doesn't mention archetypes at all—they weren't introduced until the Advanced Player's Guide. Once players discovered how useful they were to represent characters that weren't a perfect match for any character class, but were close enough that only a few changes were necessary to represent them, archetypes quickly became an extremely popular and common element of many Pathfinder RPG releases from that point forward. They allowed characters to examine new character concepts without needing to release whole new classes. A ranger who's an expert in tactics and odd tricks but doesn't cast spells isn't a big enough conceptual step to need a new character class, but it's difficult to represent without something like the skirmisher or trapper archetypes.

One of the advantages we had when designing Starfinder was that we could see what had worked well for Pathfinder and use that as a starting place in design, rather than having to create everything conceptually from scratch. It was clear early on that archetypes made sense in Starfinder—after all, the game can have adventures set anywhere in an entire galaxy, so there are bound to be cultures, traditions, organizations, and training methods which adjust how characters do things beyond the influence of their class, race, and theme. That let us look at how we wanted themes, classes, archetypes, and feat selections to interact. So what sets archetypes apart from those other character variables? Let's look at what the Starfinder Core Rulebook says about archetypes.

An archetype is a character concept more specific and involved than a theme, but not as comprehensive or broad as a class. Each archetype represents a significant divergence from the abilities of a typical member of the core classes. Archetypes provide an additional layer of control for players who want to fine-tune their character's advancement. An archetype generally grants abilities that aren't otherwise available to characters through a class, or it may grant easier access to a specific set of appropriate abilities. In general, these abilities aren't tied to the background of any one core class or theme and aren't available to characters via other sources.

Illustration by Mirco Paganessi

So Starfinder is using archetypes as sets of class features that represent a concept that isn't tied to any one class, but shouldn't be available to every character simply by taking a set of feats. Unlike Pathfinder archetypes, which must be designed for a single specific character class it can be added to, Starfinder archetypes are designed to be applicable to any character class. Each class has specific class features it gives up at set levels (2nd, 4th, 6th, 9th, 12th, and 18th) if the archetype provides an alternative class feature at that level (though not every archetype will need to have alternate class features at all those levels). An archetype thus becomes part of the class you attach it to, and that class loses a pre-determined ability at the levels the archetype grants you an alternative. For example, the Starfinder Core Rulebook has two archetypes—the phrenic adept and the Starfinder forerunner. The phrenic adept has alternate class features at every level it can—2nd, 4th, 6th, 9th, 12th, and 18th—while the Starfinder forerunner only provides alternate class features at 2nd, 4th, and 6th.

You must decide to add an archetype to a class when you gain the first class level at which the archetype has an alternate class feature. For example, the Starfinder forerunner archetype grants its first alternate class feature (trained for trouble) at 2nd level. So if you take a second level of a class, and decide to add the Starfinder forerunner archetype, you gain trained for trouble as a class feature. What you give up depends on what class you took—a mechanic that gains the archetype would not receive the mechanic trick normally available at 2nd level, while a mystic would gain 1 fewer spells known for the highest level of spell it can cast, and so on. Every class outlines what class feature it forgoes if it has an archetype added that has an alternate class feature at that level. Each class you take can have at most one archetype attached to it, and you cannot attach the same archetype to more than one class if you multiclass.

Archetypes are designed to represent sets of abilities you could reasonably gain regardless of your class or theme, but that involve some sort of special circumstance or training that makes them bad choices as feats. The phrenic adept assumes you have gained some innate psychic powers, as a result of natural mutation, specialized training, exposure to an ill-understood force such as an alien artifact, and so on. The Starfinder forerunner represents the result of special training given to members of the Starfinder Society who do advanced work to prepare for Starfinder expeditions, and often serve as guides on such expeditions. Neither is designed to be as all-encompassing as a full character class, but both represent more new abilities than should be contained in 1 or 2 feats. As the Starfinder RPG grows, we'll be looking for places it makes sense for a new option to be more than a feat or theme but less than a class, and then using archetypes to make those available to characters of any class.

As a preview of what archetype features look like, here is the ability gained by the phrenic adept at 4th level.

Phrenic Defense (Ex): Your psychic powers give you additional defenses against mental attacks. The first time you fail a saving throw against a spell or effect with the emotion, fear, mind-affecting, or pain descriptor (see page 269), you can spend 1 Resolve Point as a reaction to immediately reroll the failed saving throw.

Even if the second saving throw fails, your stronger defenses might reduce the effect of the spell or ability. If the spell or ability deals damage, reduce the damage done by an amount equal to your class level. If the spell or ability has a duration of 2 rounds or longer, reduce its duration by half.

Owen KC Stephens
Developer

Come to the Phaendar Market Festival!

Wednesday, March 22, 2017

The friendly local faces of Phaendar.
Illustrations by Dario Jelusic

Once a season we transform our town into the greatest celebration of trade and community in Golarion! Come meet hundreds of other Nirmathi for music, food, and trade! Join us all for a week of fun and community, and stock up for the coming season.

This season's festival will include:

• Traders from Tamran and Exotic Druma!
• The Varisian Musical Stylings of Jet!
• Archery Demonstrations by our Local Legend, Aubrin the Green!
• Fireworks!
• And Wee Patterson, the Tiniest Aurochs!

Anything and everything you want will be at the festival: fruits and vegetables, fine cured meats, furs and pelts, seeds and tools, and all manner of woodwork! Space at our very own Taproot Inn is limited, but ample spaces is available for pitching tents in the surrounding fields, so reserve early or bring your own camping supplies. Whatever you choose, everyone loves the festival!

Normally, celebrations are reserved for the tail end of the Adventure Path, but the Ironfang Invasion treats players to dessert first by starting everything off at a festival. The biggest social event of western Nirmathas is in swing as the adventure begins, bringing over a thousand attendees ranging from local farmers to trappers, to even the occasional adventurer! The PCs can spend their starting wealth on rare treasures, from fried squirrel to paper bullettes, all before raiding a single dungeon!

Sure nothing bad will happen at this delightful, local tradition. The PCs are free to let their guard down, if only for a moment. Death and destruction surely won't appear without warning...

Illustration by Mirco Paganessi

Oh... oh dear.

If you'd like to capture some of the feel of this Adventure Path in music, here are just a few soundtrack suggestions to get you started, lifted from a few of my favorite video games. In fact, I listened to many of these while developing the adventures you're about to play!

• Bastion
• Dragon Age: Inquisition
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
• Final Fantasy 9
• Journey
• The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
• Ni No Kuni
• Never Alone
• Unravel
• World of Warcraft: Legion

Crystal Frasier
Developer