I don't think First Contact is supposed to be out yet. Does the place you got it know that Free RPG Day isn't for another week?Touch AC is far from "just renamed". The level 5 Soldier sheet had 24 EAC, 26 KAC. Most monsters in Starfinder: First Contact have KAC equal to EAC+2, though a few have KAC equal to EAC+1.The new system cuts out at least two of those categories which i am very greatful for. What it leaves us with is still a lot to track.No, the system basically still has those things.
Touch AC is just renamed and Flat Footed instead is always -2 instead of -Dex.
Someone leaked pictures of a physical copy on 4chan.
I don't think First Contact is supposed to be out yet. Does the place you got it know that Free RPG Day isn't for another week?Touch AC is far from "just renamed". The level 5 Soldier sheet had 24 EAC, 26 KAC. Most monsters in Starfinder: First Contact have KAC equal to EAC+2, though a few have KAC equal to EAC+1.The new system cuts out at least two of those categories which i am very greatful for. What it leaves us with is still a lot to track.No, the system basically still has those things.
Touch AC is just renamed and Flat Footed instead is always -2 instead of -Dex.
I don't have First Contact myself. I have, however, seen pictures of leaked material made by unknown to me third parties.
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No components! Yes, that is what I'm most excited about. A lack of 40 year old puns.
Looks good. So... when do you start reverse engineering these fabulous ideas and applying them to creaky and bloated PF?
That comes sometime AFTER Starfinder is released and Paizo DOESN'T see a ring of pitchforks and torches surround their offices...
Great updates to some ancient D20 sacred cows.
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3. No Iterative Attacks. Starfinder characters normally get a single attack every round, and this holds true from level 1 to level 20—a character's number of attacks does not increase as their base attack bonus goes up. Instead, any character (even at first level!) can use a full action to make two attacks in a round, each at a -4 penalty.
stormtrooper academy anyone?
Not necessarily. People who have seen playtests seem to consider ACs to be lower than Pathfinder and that -4 could be fairly easy to reduce or negate. Having an Envoy around could give everybody an effective +2 pretty regularly for example.
All magic arises from mana, which is an energy field inherent in the earth (or in Golarion, or any planet, and probably in the multiverse generally). Certain sentients have an innate ability ("psychic ability") to manipulate this energy, often by converting it to other forms (e.g, heat or gravity). This innate ability appears to varying degrees in an individual, so that the ability to convert mana to heat appears to be a different ability than the ability to convert mana to gravity or electricity or whatever.
this reminds me of a certain online card game called Hearthstone...
Not where I got the idea, but okay. :-)
In the right thread this time...
I am not sure how I feel about the multiple pools of hit points. Resolve as healing surges sounds like it might be good (and with a much better name!), but I hope the meat point part does not increase too dramatically. Otherwise, the indomitable-wall-of-flesh problem with the meat-point interpretation of hit points gets baked into the system.
I like divine magic being its own category, but IIRC there are only three spellcasting classes in Starfinder (for now) so assigning them to three broad categories would be a bit redundant.
Otherwise, sounds pretty good to me.
_
glass.
From my understanding the Solarion is not a caster but rather a kineticist type class, so it's 2 spellcasters right now, not 3.
When I tried the similar rules from Unchained, that is my experience too. Anytime somebody took an actual Wound, they were more worried than if they lost a bunch of hit points. It got too deadly at higher levels since Wounds didn't scale with level, though.
Harnmaster doesn't use hit points, but descriptive wounds and injury points. The injury points are used to determine what's needed to heal the wound. Some results from the HM melee combat table: B1 (or 2, 3, or 4): bleeder. Fix it asap, or bleed to death. A1 (or 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6): amputation roll. The number is the number of six sided dice you roll against one tenth of your weight. If the roll is greater, you lose the limb. Or your head, on a neck strike. K: kill roll. Like an amputation roll, but roll against Condition (condition is a trainable skill). If you fail the roll, you die. E: a shock roll, against Condition. Fail and you're stunned. Fail critically and you pass out, and if you were in the middle of some action, it fails critically. There's also F (fumble) and S (stumble) rolls. In any case, you accrue some number of injury points, which will take time and usually professional care to heal.
Harnmaster players tend to avoid combat if at all possible. :-)
Harnmaster doesn't have levels either, so "scaling with level" is a null concept.
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There is something that I am hoping for after the official release of this game -- a sequel to this article that goes into some of the subtler differences between the two games. I am sure that there are small differences in the rules that will have big effects on gameplay but that would make no sense to the vast majority of us who have not yet seen the actual rules.
We veteran players would undoubtedly appreciate a few statements to the effect of "Did you notice that we never mentioned rule X? That is because we deliberately left rule X out of Starfinder. It was not an oversight or an implicit rule that we took for granted."
Someone was talking about how having SP AND HP actually makes it so there's a point where they are scared. Taking SP damage is fine, but when they run out of that? Then they're scared. It's less about them having so many more Hit Points, because they still panic about it. In addition, it allows them to face many more encounters per day, helping to get rid of the 10 minute adventuring day. In a previous system, maybe you have X-amount of encounters per day. In this system though, you'd have more? Or more enemies per encounter?
That's kind've odd, considering that from what we've seen it's far easier to heal HP damage than Stamina damage. The only Stamina heals we've seen can only be fired right after damage is taken, but HP healing doesn't have that limitation (and the 1st level pregen Mystic can heal HP damage without spending any resources at all). It's reasonable to be concerned about running low on total health, but that's exactly the same as in Pathfinder- specifically being terrified of losing HP doesn't make any sense if it's easier to replace than stamina, which seems to cost a daily resource to recharge.
Side note, but if you're expected to take dings to your Stamina and refill it with Resolve, and then also spend Resolve on other effects, and retain a buffer so that you don't immediately die if you get brought to 0 hitpoints, characters are going to be able to handle a lot less encounters (especially at low to mid levels) than in Pathfinder.
Someone was talking about how having SP AND HP actually makes it so there's a point where they are scared. Taking SP damage is fine, but when they run out of that? Then they're scared. It's less about them having so many more Hit Points, because they still panic about it. In addition, it allows them to face many more encounters per day, helping to get rid of the 10 minute adventuring day. In a previous system, maybe you have X-amount of encounters per day. In this system though, you'd have more? Or more enemies per encounter?That's kind've odd, considering that from what we've seen it's far easier to heal HP damage than Stamina damage. The only Stamina heals we've seen can only be fired right after damage is taken, but HP healing doesn't have that limitation (and the 1st level pregen Mystic can heal HP damage without spending any resources at all). It's reasonable to be concerned about running low on total health, but that's exactly the same as in Pathfinder- specifically being terrified of losing HP doesn't make any sense if it's easier to replace than stamina, which seems to cost a daily resource to recharge.
Side note, but if you're expected to take dings to your Stamina and refill it with Resolve, and then also spend Resolve on other effects, and retain a buffer so that you don't immediately die if you get brought to 0 hitpoints, characters are going to be able to handle a lot less encounters (especially at low to mid levels) than in Pathfinder.
I don't think you're expected to spend resolve on other things regularly. That's for important dramatic situations where you need to try to save another party member- gambling on being able to remove the boss's turn altogether, for instance. Retaining a buffer is your cutoff point. Once you run out of spare resolve, then it's a good idea to stop for the day. You don't need to stop for the day because you only have your buffer left because you can use that in combat as a buffer to not die, and then use that after the fight to recover your full stamina pool.
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I don't think you're expected to spend resolve on other things regularly. That's for important dramatic situations where you need to try to save another party member- gambling on being able to remove the boss's turn altogether, for instance. Retaining a buffer is your cutoff point. Once you run out of spare resolve, then it's a good idea to stop for the day. You don't need to stop for the day because you only have your buffer left because you can use that in combat as a buffer to not die, and then use that after the fight to recover your full stamina pool.From the previews so far i feel very confident that Resolve points are the main and universal pool from which all limited use (outside of spells) abilities are powered and players are expected to be tapping into it often.
Look at what we've seen already:
from cybernetics: When you run, charge, or take a move action to move, you can spend 1 Resolve Point to increase your speed (in the relevant mode of movement) by 20 feet for that action. This extra movement is treated as an enhancement bonus.
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.
from the Envoy: At 6th level, you can spend 1 Resolve Point to treat a failed Bluff check for clever feint as if it were a success.
From these three data points i would say resolve is meant to be spent on nice to haves and little perks, something you can reasonably expect to tap into in just about every combat.
From those three data points, I would say that resolve is meant to be spent in situations where a small boost is important in a life-or-death situation. Twenty feet of movement isn't something I normally tack on to things, but if it lets my Solarian get between the boss and somebody low on health, thus preventing an unimpeded shot, then it's a good deal. A failed will save is supposed to be less of a "now you murder your allies or they murder you" deal in Starfinder, but there are plenty of cases where you really don't want to be fighting for the other side. And why would I spend a point to have everybody feint unless we need everybody to hit this round?
All those abilities are generally worth less than healing a ton of space-hitpoints after a fight for a longer adventuring day. But all of them are sometimes worth more than that extra heal, because in certain cirumstances they can save another character from getting shot down.
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Yes, I'd heard if you take damage you lose the spell, no roll... which is the main reason I worried about some form of casting defensively, if obviously looking radically different (while reluctantly admitting that making it so spellcasters *cannot* cast a spell while threatened without being more likely than not to lose the spell does help in some ways).[Edit]Three things make this not an issue.
First, reactions resolve directly after the triggering action. So if you cast a spell and someone readied to shoot you if you cast, if the spell has a casting time of 1 standard action you get the spell off before the AoO gets made.
Hey, Owen, I know you probably won't answer this until after street date, but....
Magic & Spells: Concentration and Interrupted Spells, p. 331 of the CRB, seems explicitly to call out readying an action to attack someone if they begin to cast a spell as an instance where you can get damaged while casting and lose the spell. So does that tactic work or not?
So if I ready an action to shoot a spellcaster who begins casting a spell with a 10-minute casting time, my readied action goes off 10 minutes later? WTF?