Starfinder Second Edition is Coming!

Life is meaningless, so you gotta make your own.

But then we look at the feats an OMG too many feats. So much to keep up with. You have skill feats, general feats, class feats ancestry feats.

I'll just note that PF2's class feats are basically the same as Starfinder's improvisations/exploits/revelations/magic hacks: a choice between class abilities.

ThePuppyTurtle wrote:

TOZ wrote:

ThePuppyTurtle wrote:

I'm just trying to help people like you and TOZ understand why the people reacting negatively to this have a reasonable perspective and aren't just a bunch of haters whining because of change.

I don't give a damn about their perspective, I give a damn about how they express it.

You're welcome to your feelings, but you will be accountable for how you act on them.

This response confuses me. What actions are you even talking about? All anyone has done is post their opinion on the forums, and no one in this thread seems to have been especially rude. What is it that anyone needs to be held accountable for?

I don't know, but maybe his alt was the account that offered to share his campaign plans with Paizo so that their SF2 setting didn't go astray and conflict it. Lots of megalomania and delusions of significance running around on the internet these days.

You can view the previous posts made by any given alias by clicking on their name and navigating to "posts." No post matching your description seems to have been made by "TriOmegaZero," "TOZ," or "Starfinder TOZ." While he does have a bunch of other aliases I did not look through, I suspect he did not say such a thing, and you are simply thinking of someone else.

(Also, my impression of TOZ is that he's a basically rational person, despite his status as a very devoted Paizo fan giving him a pro-company bias. I don't think it would be in-character for him to say something ridiculous like that.)

That said, if you can find where someone made a post like that, please share it with me, as that sounds hilarious.

I'm actually insulted by TOZ being presented as the model of unpaid Paizo shill and not me. I demand an apology. How do you contact the moderators around here?

I mentioned him because he was the person I was responding to in the comment that WatersLethe had initially replied to. Rest assured that it is my desire that everyone, shill, contrarian, and in-between (I like to think I'm in-between), be empathetic and engage in healthy perspective-taking when discussing these things.

An increase in sales wouldn't exactly go against the point that frequent edition changes are a sleazy business practice. Sleazy business practices generally persist because they increase sales.

I don't think that change an edition with new rules for any reason is a Sleazy business.

Any TTRPG that receives a lot of expansion books over the time becomes clunky, exploited and lagged and the demand to clear everything see whats was good, what was bad, what was ugly with new ideas to develop a new game comes naturally.

In case of SF1 probably this comes a bit earlier due the OGL crisis made the Paizo review many of their products, how to adapt them to a new license and during this process see if there's nothing deserving to be improved and one of these this was SF where the decided that is better to just update it to use the same rule system of PF2.

IMO this probably made the SF2 happen in about 2 years earlier but it was almost certain that they will do this change soon or later.

The problem of complains that I usually see here comes basically from 2 publics. Those who didn't like how PF2 is and stays in SF1 that uses a similar ruleset of PF1 and still receives updates. And those who don't like changes at all.
These people know that for homebrew games SF1 will still be there and just won't receive new updates but also know that this kind of support abandon will make the game slowly loosing interest and dying. That's why whenever you have a change like this, there's an end of world complain, especially if it goes in a direction that something that already exists and that you know will probably work out very well.

The amount of fussing over cross-compatibility making SF just a subsystem or campaign setting of PF are quite frustrating for me. Paizo is, in fact, NOT the first to experiment with such an endeavor, nor were such endeavors doomed to failure or prioritization of one game over another.

A really good example of this is OSR games, which often use engines similar enough to D&D 2e that one can port content across systems with little effort. The XWN series is a fantastic example of this: Not only is the sci-fi Stars Without Number: Revised compatible with both the fantasy Worlds Without Number and (newly released) cyberpunk Cities Without Number, but they can all borrow monsters and spells from D&D 2e, a handful of features from the same author's post-apocalyptic Other Dust, and any number of other OSR titles by other publishers. Yet, each of these three games have different identities that emerge naturally during play, thanks to specific character features, setting details, and unique mechanics that help craft the right genre and feel.

And these are all written by one guy. And they're really good! Probably not a great fit for the average Paizo fan--as the rules are left light and loose to encourage GM and player freedom--but if one guy can pump out 3+ games all with cross-compatibility that preserves game-specific identity and feel--then surely the second largest company within the industry can do the same.

Furthermore, it's not uncommon for genre-focused games to spawn generic engines that can be adapted to all sorts of other settings. Numenera spawned Cypher, Star Wars spawned Genesys, and while I can't remember where GURPs, Powered by the Apocalypse, and Savage Worlds got their starts, they're all successful in their own right. Both official and unofficial hacks that borrow the mechanics of one game to create another in an adjacent or entirely different genre are also fairly common, as evidenced by the success of Delta Green and a million 5e clones.

PF2 is certainly not for everyone, but it combines deep customization with tactical combat in a satisfying way, imho. It's also notably different from other tactical games with heavy character building, such as LANCER/ICON and D&D 4e. Its modular trait system, clearly defined math, and crisp action economy all work well on their own and need not be restrained to pulp fantasy (although some absurdly heroic power scaling is necessary, unless the table is running PwoL). So... why not expand that engine? Why not experiment with additional genres? Failing to do so would be a profound waste.

As for people grieving the coming death of the D&D3e-derivative era... I promise you will be fine. Your community is passionate and dedicated enough that you'll inevitably spawn your own OSR equivalent. Good game engines never die. Right now, there are kids and young adults falling in love with systems spawned from the ashes of bygone editions, many of which went out of print before they were even born. Your love will keep your favorite systems alive, even without official publisher support, and you will transform them into something even better.

EDIT: I mean sheesh, Pathfinder was basically produced out of spite for WotC's abandonment of 3.5, so you guys can just do that again. In fact, I think grabbing up SF1 and running away with it to spite Paizo would be very funny. Please, absolutely do that. Pull a Paizo on Paizo itself. Make the gaming industry better for it.

As for people grieving the coming death of the D&D3e-derivative era... I promise you will be fine. Your community is passionate and dedicated enough that you'll inevitably spawn your own OSR equivalent. ...

EDIT: I mean sheesh, Pathfinder was basically produced out of spite for WotC's abandonment of 3.5, so you guys can just do that again. In fact, I think grabbing up SF1 and running away with it to spite Paizo would be very funny. Please, absolutely do that. Pull a Paizo on Paizo itself. Make the gaming industry better for it.

The part you're missing is the Paizo element: The Pathfinder/Starfinder lore is *amazing*. Yes, Golarion is a "Kitchen Sink", but it's a really well-done, lived-in, well-documented, well-written kitchen sink. (In ways Forgotten Realms wishes it were.) Paizo has always excelled in adventure writing. Great adventures.

Paizo abandoning us (for what we perceive as a greatly inferior rule system) adds to that sting. There are already some great games out there. They miss the Paizo element. Their lore/worlds lack, and there isn't the robust support of adventures and community.

The rules system part, while hard, is the far easier half of the equation.

Life is meaningless, so you gotta make your own.

Nuh uh No way. Every time i shout "its alive" I get a mob of peasants at the door with torches and pitchforks.

ThePuppyTurtle wrote:

An increase in sales wouldn't exactly go against the point that frequent edition changes are a sleazy business practice. Sleazy business practices generally persist because they increase sales.

I don't think that change an edition with new rules for any reason is a Sleazy business.

Any TTRPG that receives a lot of expansion books over the time becomes clunky, exploited and lagged and the demand to clear everything see whats was good, what was bad, what was ugly with new ideas to develop a new game comes naturally.

In case of SF1 probably this comes a bit earlier due the OGL crisis made the Paizo review many of their products, how to adapt them to a new license and during this process see if there's nothing deserving to be improved and one of these this was SF where the decided that is better to just update it to use the same rule system of PF2.

IMO this probably made the SF2 happen in about 2 years earlier but it was almost certain that they will do this change soon or later.

The problem of complains that I usually see here comes basically from 2 publics. Those who didn't like how PF2 is and stays in SF1 that uses a similar ruleset of PF1 and still receives updates. And those who don't like changes at all.
These people know that for homebrew games SF1 will still be there and just won't receive new updates but also know that this kind of support abandon will make the game slowly loosing interest and dying. That's why whenever you have a change like this, there's an end of world complain, especially if it goes in a direction that something that already exists and that you know will probably work out very well.

I agree that edition changes are not inherently sleazy. I think most edition changes are annoying cash-grabs and basically the RPG equivalent of manufactured obsolescence, but the OGL crisis is absolutely a unique situation and I agree that we should view this edition change more charitably than that.

However, I still think people are reasonably annoyed by what has turned out to be SF1's relatively short lifespan. 3.0 and its successors represented a unique situation where what was basically a single system was playable and actively worked on by either WotC or Paizo for more than twenty years. A lot of us who came into the hobby during that period aren't used to edition changes being an inescapable reality.

Time will tell whether this edition change is a situational result of the OGL crisis or the start of a new precedent where all our books are now going to be rendered obsolete by edition changes within a decade of buying them, something Paizo used to be above. Hopefully, this combined PF2.5/SF2.0 thing Paizo is creating will last as long or longer, but maybe not, and if not, that's a shame, because for a while there it was possible to have your books continue to be part of a living system for a long time after you buy them.

Paizo abandoning us (for what we perceive as a greatly inferior rule system) adds to that sting. There are already some great games out there. They miss the Paizo element. Their lore/worlds lack, and there isn't the robust support of adventures and community.

On the flip side, I've been feeling that my beloved Starfinder lore has been albatrossed by what I perceive as a greatly inferior SF1 rule system.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Life is meaningless, so you gotta make your own.

Nuh uh No way. Every time i shout "its alive" I get a mob of peasants at the door with torches and pitchforks.

Meaning, not life.

Micheal Smith wrote:

But then we look at the feats an OMG too many feats. So much to keep up with. You have skill feats, general feats, class feats ancestry feats.

I'll just note that PF2's class feats are basically the same as Starfinder's improvisations/exploits/revelations/magic hacks: a choice between class abilities.

PF2 uses feats the way a smurf uses smurf.

Or D&D does level...

The part you're missing is the Paizo element: The Pathfinder/Starfinder lore is *amazing*. Yes, Golarion is a "Kitchen Sink", but it's a really well-done, lived-in, well-documented, well-written kitchen sink. (In ways Forgotten Realms wishes it were.) Paizo has always excelled in adventure writing. Great adventures.

Paizo abandoning us (for what we perceive as a greatly inferior rule system) adds to that sting. There are already some great games out there. They miss the Paizo element. Their lore/worlds lack, and there isn't the robust support of adventures and community.

The rules system part, while hard, is the far easier half of the equation.

Are your PDFs getting deleted? Are your hardbacks being repossessed? I think not. I also don't think the lore train is stopping anytime soon; delightful adventures and captivating fluff will still come out with the new edition, and you can do the "easier half of the equation" and backwards-convert anything that catches your eye.

One of my friends actually ran Rise of the Runelords in Worlds Without Number. It was a pretty significant undertaking, but the campaign was nonetheless successful. The WWN ruleset actually enhanced the more sandboxy elements of the initial Sandpoint chapters, and allowed for more non-combat solutions to various conflicts. He got to take advantage of all the cool flavor and beats without having to put up with a system he disliked. Another guy I know ports PF2 adventures to PF1 and vice versa. A third guy (actually my best friend) rolled up a bunch of Spelljammer stuff into Stars Without Number because he wanted to stress test the game's optional magic system.

As for me, I yank stuff out of 5e's published modules and use adventure generation tables from other systems all the time. I'll even repurpose my own homebrew for unfamiliar systems, because intimate familiarity with a scenario allows me to focus on new mechanics.

Outside of the content-rich Paizosphere, reckless theft of ideas and setpieces is a time-honored tradition. Paizo itself steals constantly from folklore and public domain, which is one reason why Golarion and the Pact Worlds feel so rich, yet familiar.

So, what are you waiting for? Become a horrible little gremlin like the rest of us and steal, steal, steal!!! (not literally lol pls no ban)

However, I still think people are reasonably annoyed by what has turned out to be SF1's relatively short lifespan. 3.0 and its successors represented a unique situation where what was basically a single system was playable and actively worked on by either WotC or Paizo for more than twenty years. A lot of us who came into the hobby during that period aren't used to edition changes being an inescapable reality.

I agree but you know this was an exception and that normally a TTRPG system doesn't survive for so long time without a new edition.

The case of D20 System era, including 3.0, 3.5 and PF1 was due the failures, mistakes and some greed of WotC with D&D 4ed that made something that will probably would follow a natural migration to becoming stagnant in D&D 3rd edition rule set.

But once the D&D 5e was released without many of 4e mistakes the market changed and most of the people migrated to 5e and that was made Paizo to follow to a new version in PF creating PF2 as response to a new demand. But this also made the SF becoming stagnant in the older base rule set and was a matter of time to it changes too but Paizo could made it sooner because the game still relative new and do a change in so short time would hurt its own PF customers and receive too much hate.

And in fact I believe that Paizo wasn't planing to do SF2 now since he just released Starfinder Enhanced (probably was 2-5 years from now) but as I said the OGL crisis and need of a new license have quickened the plans and the PF2 remaster was the perfect point to use it as basis to a SF2 system.

... Hopefully, this combined PF2.5/SF2.0 thing Paizo is creating will last as long or longer, but maybe not, and if not, that's a shame, because for a while there it was possible to have your books continue to be part of a living system for a long time after you buy them.

Probably will endure for more 5-10 years. Because the main pressure of do a system change that is a D&D new edition was weakened. With the intention of WotC in to do a retro-compatible system instead of a new edition it's unlikely that Paizo would need to respond a new demand for a new renewed edition sooner.

Staffan Johansson wrote:

Micheal Smith wrote:

But then we look at the feats an OMG too many feats. So much to keep up with. You have skill feats, general feats, class feats ancestry feats.

I'll just note that PF2's class feats are basically the same as Starfinder's improvisations/exploits/revelations/magic hacks: a choice between class abilities.

PF2 uses feats the way a smurf uses smurf.

Or D&D does level...

If you ask me, it's a feature and not a bug. Each class having different names for abilities you collect as you level up felt really clunky.

The amount of fussing over cross-compatibility making SF just a subsystem or campaign setting of PF are quite frustrating for me. Paizo is, in fact, NOT the first to experiment with such an endeavor, nor were such endeavors doomed to failure or prioritization of one game over another.

Cross-compatibility is something of a sliding scale, though. I think using the PF2 engine in SF2 is probably a good idea. But I do not necessarily think that shackling SF2 to various balance/design choices in PF2 is. It's OK if the Operative and the Rogue step on one another's toes, because they're not meant to co-exist. It's OK if Starfinder 2 abandons the four magical traditions and instead gives each caster class its own spell list (and tops out at rank 6). It's OK if Starfinder high-tech weapons deal more damage but that's balanced out by easier access to healing.

If you ask me, it's a feature and not a bug. Each class having different names for abilities you collect as you level up felt really clunky.

If it had stayed with the class it would have been fine. But its also the race and the general and skill thing.

If you need help picking a feat, or sorting a list, people have no idea what kind of feat you mean.

HolyFlamingo! wrote:

The amount of fussing over cross-compatibility making SF just a subsystem or campaign setting of PF are quite frustrating for me. Paizo is, in fact, NOT the first to experiment with such an endeavor, nor were such endeavors doomed to failure or prioritization of one game over another.

Cross-compatibility is something of a sliding scale, though. I think using the PF2 engine in SF2 is probably a good idea. But I do not necessarily think that shackling SF2 to various balance/design choices in PF2 is. It's OK if the Operative and the Rogue step on one another's toes, because they're not meant to co-exist. It's OK if Starfinder 2 abandons the four magical traditions and instead gives each caster class its own spell list (and tops out at rank 6). It's OK if Starfinder high-tech weapons deal more damage but that's balanced out by easier access to healing.

I don't like this class based spell list. It's a terrible design when new spells are added.

Another guy I know ports PF2 adventures to PF1 and vice versa.

Would love to know how he does it, just in case a party I'm having try out 2e doesn't enjoy it.

SP3CT3R wrote:

If you ask me, it's a feature and not a bug. Each class having different names for abilities you collect as you level up felt really clunky.

If it had stayed with the class it would have been fine. But its also the race and the general and skill thing.

If you need help picking a feat, or sorting a list, people have no idea what kind of feat you mean.

My experience with PF2 is not as exhaustive as some: I've been a player in two campaigns that so far has gotten to level 12 and 4, and a GM in one that's gone to 9. But given the way feats are siloed, I've never felt overwhelmed by choice. Both for class and ancestry feats, the choice usually boils down to "Take one of these 2-5 options, or if you really want to you can take one you didn't take at an earlier stage." Skill feats are somewhat more challenging, but usually you want to take one related to one of your few actually good skills, and that narrows the scope significantly.

It does smack a little of the discussion about the use of the word "level" from the AD&D 1e PHB (paraphrased: "You might think it's confusing that the word 'level' is used for both character power, spell power, monster power, and dungeon depth. We could have used different words for those things. But we didn't, so deal with it."). Had I been in charge of PF2 design, I might have gone with "skill trick" and "ancestral legacy" instead of "skill feat" and "ancestry feat". But it's a minor thing in the scheme of things.

Also, mandatory reference to the overuse of the word level.

I don't like this class based spell list. It's a terrible design when new spells are added.

The trick is to be restrictive about adding new spellcasting classes. That way you don't get things like "alchemist 1, arcanist 1, cleric 1, druid 1, hunter 1, investigator 1, medium 1, occultist 1, oracle 1, psychic 1, ranger 1, redmantisassassin 1, sorcerer 1, summoner 1, summoner (unchained) 1, warpriest 1, wizard 1"

Or as we like to call that 'Yes 1'.

Cross-compatibility is something of a sliding scale, though. I think using the PF2 engine in SF2 is probably a good idea. But I do not necessarily think that shackling SF2 to various balance/design choices in PF2 is. It's OK if the Operative and the Rogue step on one another's toes, because they're not meant to co-exist. It's OK if Starfinder 2 abandons the four magical traditions and instead gives each caster class its own spell list (and tops out at rank 6). It's OK if Starfinder high-tech weapons deal more damage but that's balanced out by easier access to healing.

Oh yeah, I agree. The point of cross-compatibility is twofold: 1) enable the stealing of various bits and pieces with minimal fuss, and 2) reduce cognitive load for players and developers who want to use both systems.

It should absolutely NOT be treated as an expansion to Pathfinder, but as its own complete, independent thing that just happens to be written in the same development language. If you have to look to one system to complete the other, that sucks as both a consumer rip-off and a huge "screw you" to people who prefer to keep their campaign theming neat and tidy. So, a little design overlap should be expected and welcomed, as that means nobody with specific tastes needs to buy a whole 'nother book in a genre they dislike.

Again, I point to XWN as an example of doing this right: Stars and Worlds have pretty similar core classes, to the point that they can poach foci (i.e. feats) from one another. And they do! Some skills, backgrounds, and foci are straight-up reprints! But what makes them distinct is that vanilla Stars has a very small collection of generalist classes--warrior, expert, and psychic--while Worlds hones in on well-known fantasy archetypes with narrower, yet more flavorful roles. So, SWN's warrior is technically stepping on every single combat-focused, non-magical WWN class's toes, but who cares? The more specific stuff is way cooler and fits the genre trappings much better.

Also, you don't need to buy SWN to get the full WWN experience, and vice versa. The two use the same core rules, but don't really care what their sibling game does to expand upon them.

Would love to know how he does it, just in case a party I'm having try out 2e doesn't enjoy it.

I think it's mostly a case of using the adventure-as-written as an outline, and then dropping in PF1 enemies/items/mechanics to fill in the blanks??? Does PF1 have trap- and NPC-building rules? That's the only place where I can see things getting messy: when there's no easy PF1 equivalent and you have to either homebrew it or just make a best-fit replacement.

Let me go hit him up real quick. There might be some important factors I'm missing. I will edit this post when I have a reply.

EDIT: Okay, got it.

Generally speaking when I've converted monsters from 2e to 1e I've gone something like this:

One action = swift action
Two action = move or standard
Three action = full round action
Status bonus to saves vs magic = 11 + level SR
Natural attacks and iterative attacks based on how they'd work in 1e and the amount of attacks listed + a bit of logic. Like, if something has two front limbs with pointy bits on the end I presume it'd have 2 claw attacks in a full attack routine.

I usually keep all the math the same and just eyeball it based on what my party can handle, adjust down if the party isn't trying to optimize, bump up if they are, but that's standard procedure across all TTRPGs in my opinion so no surprise there. Magic can get a little awkward since in 1e sucess and failure are the only states vs saves and such. Generally I take the crit fail from 2e and apply it on a fail and success = success unless the crit fail state would just obliterate the party somehow. If a spell or effect doesn't have an equivalent to point to I tend to just improv it out, but I'm biased there because I think my improv skills are my strongest selling point as a GM. If someone was more on the side of needed a strict understanding of something before they ran it then I'd suggest a bit more prep time, but I feel like I'm preaching to the choir on that one.

Generally though almost everything in 2e at least resembles in part a mechanic in 1e so someone who knows the old edition well enough can almost certainly point to something in 2e and see what it's an evolution from and thus walk it back

Tommy (@BlackDragonGaming on Youtube and @BlackDragonRPGs on Twitter) is a pretty stand-up guy and professional GM who runs paid PF1 campaigns of PF1&2 adventure paths, plus homebrew. He's good enough at his job to have a stable audience and fairly packed week, so I trust his judgment.

Are we gonna get all of 1st edition starfinder classes added to the core starfinder 2e book? Theres not that many and it would probably be fairly easy to include them all.

Again, I point to XWN as an example of doing this right: Stars and Worlds have pretty similar core classes, to the point that they can poach foci (i.e. feats) from one another.

FFG's Star Wars does a similar thing, but moreso.

Their Star Wars version is released as three semi-separate games: Edge of the Empire for playing freelance adventurers (think Firefly), Age of Rebellion for playing rebels, and Force & Destiny for playing force users. The games use the same mechanics and are completely cross-compatible. However, each game has a distinct set of classes that covers that type of campaign, and each class has a set of specializations with different talent trees. But in some cases, the same specialization can show up in different classes in different games (e.g. both the Ace class from Age of Rebellion and the Explorer class from Edge of the Empire can have the Driver specialization). There's no issue of these stepping on one another's toes though, because they're not expected to be in the same game (even if they could be).

Gonna be interesting to see how they handle Ancestries of the Pact Worlds and beyond. Isn't there like 100+ playable species?

Perhaps an Ancestral Archive book?

Are we gonna get all of 1st edition starfinder classes added to the core starfinder 2e book? Theres not that many and it would probably be fairly easy to include them all.

The playtest says six classes.

ThePuppyTurtle wrote:

However, I still think people are reasonably annoyed by what has turned out to be SF1's relatively short lifespan. 3.0 and its successors represented a unique situation where what was basically a single system was playable and actively worked on by either WotC or Paizo for more than twenty years. A lot of us who came into the hobby during that period aren't used to edition changes being an inescapable reality.

I agree but you know this was an exception and that normally a TTRPG system doesn't survive for so long time without a new edition.

Right, but the reason this situation is so uncommon is corporate sleaze. All your TTRPG books become outdated after five years for the same reason your phone is deliberately designed to break after two years. No product can ever be allowed to endure in its usefulness because that would eliminate the need to buy another one.

Your analysis of Paizo's motives later in your comment gives them a lot of benefit of the doubt. It's entirely possible they've simply realized that the edition treadmill is a way to maximize profits at the expense of the consumer, and have decided they'll switch to it now because it will make them more money. That's why everyone else does it. How likely is it, really, that Paizo is a special exception?

YuriP wrote:

ThePuppyTurtle wrote:

However, I still think people are reasonably annoyed by what has turned out to be SF1's relatively short lifespan. 3.0 and its successors represented a unique situation where what was basically a single system was playable and actively worked on by either WotC or Paizo for more than twenty years. A lot of us who came into the hobby during that period aren't used to edition changes being an inescapable reality.

I agree but you know this was an exception and that normally a TTRPG system doesn't survive for so long time without a new edition.

Right, but the reason this situation is so uncommon is corporate sleaze. All your TTRPG books become outdated after five years for the same reason your phone is deliberately designed to break after two years. No product can ever be allowed to endure in its usefulness because that would eliminate the need to buy another one.

Your analysis of Paizo's motives later in your comment gives them a lot of benefit of the doubt. It's entirely possible they've simply realized that the edition treadmill is a way to maximize profits at the expense of the consumer, and have decided they'll switch to it now because it will make them more money. That's why everyone else does it. How likely is it, really, that Paizo is a special exception?

Edition changes come with unacceptable financial risk due to higher investment costs if the goal is just to ensure people repurchase books. Especially when players can still play with old books and the material is freely available online.

The financial incentive is instead to gather a new audience. The PF2e playerbase is massive relative to the SF playerbase and thus can provide an influx of new players.

ThePuppyTurtle wrote:

YuriP wrote:

ThePuppyTurtle wrote:

However, I still think people are reasonably annoyed by what has turned out to be SF1's relatively short lifespan. 3.0 and its successors represented a unique situation where what was basically a single system was playable and actively worked on by either WotC or Paizo for more than twenty years. A lot of us who came into the hobby during that period aren't used to edition changes being an inescapable reality.

I agree but you know this was an exception and that normally a TTRPG system doesn't survive for so long time without a new edition.

Right, but the reason this situation is so uncommon is corporate sleaze. All your TTRPG books become outdated after five years for the same reason your phone is deliberately designed to break after two years. No product can ever be allowed to endure in its usefulness because that would eliminate the need to buy another one.

Your analysis of Paizo's motives later in your comment gives them a lot of benefit of the doubt. It's entirely possible they've simply realized that the edition treadmill is a way to maximize profits at the expense of the consumer, and have decided they'll switch to it now because it will make them more money. That's why everyone else does it. How likely is it, really, that Paizo is a special exception?

Edition changes come with unacceptable financial risk due to higher investment costs if the goal is just to ensure people repurchase books. Especially when players can still play with old books and the material is freely available online.

The financial incentive is instead to gather a new audience. The PF2e playerbase is massive relative to the SF playerbase and thus can provide an influx of new players.

You're probably right that PF2 being more popular than SF1 is a significant influence on this decision (to say nothing of the OGL crisis which I think it's fair to say is the cause of it here), but, regarding the industry more broadly, do you really expect me to believe every TTRPG publisher just happens to have non-cynical reasons to massively inconvenience their entire consumer-base every 5 years in a way that just happens to make them more money?

Golurkcanfly wrote:

ThePuppyTurtle wrote:

YuriP wrote:

ThePuppyTurtle wrote:

However, I still think people are reasonably annoyed by what has turned out to be SF1's relatively short lifespan. 3.0 and its successors represented a unique situation where what was basically a single system was playable and actively worked on by either WotC or Paizo for more than twenty years. A lot of us who came into the hobby during that period aren't used to edition changes being an inescapable reality.

I agree but you know this was an exception and that normally a TTRPG system doesn't survive for so long time without a new edition.

Right, but the reason this situation is so uncommon is corporate sleaze. All your TTRPG books become outdated after five years for the same reason your phone is deliberately designed to break after two years. No product can ever be allowed to endure in its usefulness because that would eliminate the need to buy another one.

Your analysis of Paizo's motives later in your comment gives them a lot of benefit of the doubt. It's entirely possible they've simply realized that the edition treadmill is a way to maximize profits at the expense of the consumer, and have decided they'll switch to it now because it will make them more money. That's why everyone else does it. How likely is it, really, that Paizo is a special exception?

Edition changes come with unacceptable financial risk due to higher investment costs if the goal is just to ensure people repurchase books. Especially when players can still play with old books and the material is freely available online.

The financial incentive is instead to gather a new audience. The PF2e playerbase is massive relative to the SF playerbase and thus can provide an influx of new players.

You're probably right that PF2 being more popular than SF1 is a significant influence on this decision (to say nothing of the OGL crisis which I think it's fair to say is the cause of it here), but, regarding the...

Depends on what you define as "cynical". Companies exist to produce product and profit off of it, and I would say that is inherently a cynical thing, but your definition seems to be specifically that new editions only exist to make people rebuy books and...largely, no, I don't think that's true. I think the more common reason is the simple hard fact that times change. Markets change. The audience changes. I don't think, for example, D&D 4e being such a radical departure from 3.5 was just to get people to rebuy books - if that was the case the system would not have been so different and ultimately divisive. It was designed to tap into a new, wider audience that would be put off by some of the more clunky and archaic bits of the 3.5 system and would be interested in something more streamlined and less on the simulation side of things. We could argue all day if that had worked or if it was a good idea, but I think that's the clear intent. I would say the intent behind PF2e and now SF2e is along the same lines, and I can think of several other games that feel like developers with more experience under the belt going "oh we could probably do this really differently knowing what we do now".

I'm delighted by this, I've said for years now that Starfinder with PF2e action economy and willingness to Let Martials Be Cool would be phenomenal. My hope is that one of SF2e's contributions is vehicles getting better integrated into the game because mechas/chases/fights involving vehicles are tropes in fantasy & scifi genres and its something PF2e is a bit weak on right now.

Not really interested in the whinging ITT, grognards gonna grognard and there's not a damn thing to be done about it.

I don't know that's fully accurate. Like, we have already seen they're fine with the guns getting to shoot multiple times without devouring your action economy or being left with terrible damage dice.

Where are you seeing this? It appears to be the same MAP as PF2.

Also, the weapon ranges are decreased so badly I'm struggling to work out whether the range on firearms is 'thrown' or 'fired'...

So yeah, you are significantly better off with a shortbow than a laser pistol in a tech universe.

This makes 0 sense.

Where are you seeing this? It appears to be the same MAP as PF2.

I wasn't commenting on MAP, but how in PF2e guns were balanced around having very low ammo capacity, while SF2e guns can fire multiple shots fine. They don't decimate your action economy by requiring constant reloading, with the reloading only seeming to be common if you're doing area attacks.

Also, the weapon ranges are decreased so badly I'm struggling to work out whether the range on firearms is 'thrown' or 'fired'...

Smaller ranges primarily just means the ranges are designed taking the actual battlemap size for PF/SF style games into account tbh.

So yeah, you are significantly better off with a shortbow than a laser pistol in a tech universe.

This makes 0 sense.

I mean, the shortbow is dealing 1d6-10 damage as a martial weapon, and a level 0 laser pistol is dealing 1d6 damage as a simple weapon so that doesn't seem accurate.

I'm delighted by this, I've said for years now that Starfinder with PF2e action economy and willingness to Let Martials Be Cool would be phenomenal.

Martials actually having some more diverse options than "I attack" will be good, yeah.

I mean, the shortbow is dealing 1d6-10 damage as a martial weapon, and a level 0 laser pistol is dealing 1d6 damage as a simple weapon so that doesn't seem accurate.

Where are you getting 1d6-10 from?

I don't think, for example, D&D 4e being such a radical departure from 3.5 was just to get people to rebuy books - if that was the case the system would not have been so different and ultimately divisive. It was designed to tap into a new, wider audience that would be put off by some of the more clunky and archaic bits of the 3.5 system and would be interested in something more streamlined and less on the simulation side of things.

It should also be noted that 4e had been preceded by a number of products that individually moved the game in the direction 4e would be going and had been well received. For example, you had "martials get to do cool stuff" from Tome of Battle, Reserve feats in Complete Mage and Complete Champion giving worthwhile at-will spells, effectively encounter powers (cooldown 5 rounds) on the Binder in Tome of Magic, and "delve-style" encounter design in adventures like Eyes of the Lich Queen. So they probably thought "let's do more of that" but combined with other decisions the end result didn't spark joy.

Milo v3 wrote:

I mean, the shortbow is dealing 1d6-10 damage as a martial weapon, and a level 0 laser pistol is dealing 1d6 damage as a simple weapon so that doesn't seem accurate.

Where are you getting 1d6-10 from?

All PF2 weapons when used in Starfinder have the Archaic trait, and anyone wearing modern armor gets resistance 10 versus Archaic attacks.

Key words - modern armour.

The weapons are trash, the armour is good (against archaic weapons). When you are roaming around and you both encounter a Boglin in a swamp, you are better off with a shortbow or hand-crossbow.

You are better off with a black-powder dueling pistol.

Unless they are wearing sci-fi armour and getting the DR against you, then you are better off with a range of Pathfinder weapons. A hand crossbow does the same damage as your laser pistol and fires twice as far.

I hope you all realise that "Range" in PF2 and almost certainly in SF2 is range increment, not the total range of the weapon.

A hand crossbow needs to be reloaded with 1 action after every shot, the laser pistol after 5 shots, which is a massive action economy advantage for the pistol. You can kill three boglins in one round with the pistol, you can't do that with the crossbow.

Alynia wrote:

Does this mean we will also lose the Apostae-Setting or have it replaced with Snek-People also? I really would be sad, because "evil weapontrader-mercenery-elves in space" were cool. In my opinion way cooler than the same trope with Lizard- or Snakepeople could be.

The drow part will probably have to go no matter what, because of OGL reasons. Paizo weren't happy about this in PF either, but they don't really have a choice.

We can work around that. Dark Elves or Black Elves also known as svartálfar (Norse mythology) or Dökkálfar. Even Gary didn't invent the concept of drow entirely. Only the particular narrative and story which we wouldn't even need to use in PF/SF canon.

We can borrow from the canon of Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson and take it from there. That's what Gary did. This is public domain mythology story that we can draw from.

I'll help with that so we need can work around using any terms coined by D&D and use this public domain canon to tie it into PF/SF story canon and just have to check the existing canon over. So we won't have major canon breaking issue and of course our mechanics. Update our illustrations as needed.

Karmagator wrote:

Alynia wrote:

Does this mean we will also lose the Apostae-Setting or have it replaced with Snek-People also? I really would be sad, because "evil weapontrader-mercenery-elves in space" were cool. In my opinion way cooler than the same trope with Lizard- or Snakepeople could be.

The drow part will probably have to go no matter what, because of OGL reasons. Paizo weren't happy about this in PF either, but they don't really have a choice.

We can work around that. Dark Elves or Black Elves or Dökkálfar perhaps loosely related to svartálfar (or not). Even Gary didn't invent the concept of drow entirely. Only the particular narrative and story which we wouldn't even need to use in PF/SF canon.

We can borrow from the canon of Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson and take it from there. That's what Gary did. This is public domain mythology story that we can draw from.

I'll help with that so we need can work around using any terms coined by D&D and use this public domain canon to tie it into PF/SF story canon and just have to check the existing canon over. So we won't have major canon breaking issue and of course our mechanics. Update our illustrations as needed.

Dökkálfar literally translates to Dark Elf (Elves). The Norse counterpart Ljósálfar (which directly translate to Light elf referencing their dark and light skin and such. ) I plan to incorporate these dark elves in my project so we may still have dark elves even if we just don't call them drow and avoid some OGL issues with WotC.

I hope you all realise that "Range" in PF2 and almost certainly in SF2 is range increment, not the total range of the weapon.

Yes we do.

You can get off 5 shots in two rounds with the Las Pistol
You can get off 3 shots in two rounds with the Hand crossbow.

Las attack penalties are 0/-5/-10 & 0/-5/R
Hand Crossbow is 0/R/-5 & R/0/R

You could start firing from significantly further away with the handcrossbow as well - lets start combat at 120' and start doing the maths.

When you factor in range penalty differences and MAP you aren't getting a very good deal with the laser. You might be getting more shots, but they are going to be significantly harder to land.

You are better off with the hand crossbow.

The ability to fight at 120 feet (with -2 penalty) as opposed to -4 penalty for the pistol is a situational advantage of the hand crossbow.

The ability to more reliably (or in some cases, reliably at all) drop somebody dead in one round before they get to you because you're at 4 HP and won't survive their attack is a situational advantage of the pistol.

Sorry, I'm not seeing the "better off with the crossbow", both weapons have their pros and cons.

Dragon Nexus Games wrote:

Karmagator wrote:

Alynia wrote:

Does this mean we will also lose the Apostae-Setting or have it replaced with Snek-People also? I really would be sad, because "evil weapontrader-mercenery-elves in space" were cool. In my opinion way cooler than the same trope with Lizard- or Snakepeople could be.

The drow part will probably have to go no matter what, because of OGL reasons. Paizo weren't happy about this in PF either, but they don't really have a choice.

We can work around that. Dark Elves or Black Elves also known as svartálfar (Norse mythology [Edit: and Icelandic]) or Dökkálfar. Even Gary didn't invent the concept of drow entirely. Only the particular narrative and story which we wouldn't even need to use in PF/SF canon.

We can borrow from the canon of Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson and take it from there. That's what Gary did. This is public domain mythology story that we can draw from.

I'll help with that so we need can work around using any terms coined by D&D and use this public domain canon to tie it into PF/SF story canon and just have to check the existing canon over. So we won't have major canon breaking issue and of course our mechanics. Update our illustrations as needed.

Dökkálfar literally translates to Dark Elf (Elves). The Norse/Icelandic counterpart Ljósálfar (which directly translate to Light elf referencing their dark and light skin and such. ) I plan to incorporate these dark elves in my project so we may still have dark elves even if we just don't call them drow and avoid some OGL issues with WotC.

If there is a problem with "Drow", we can relabel it to "Dökkálfar" and keep them in the SF 2nd Edition world. The Dökkálfar would have the common translation "Dark Elves" and we can call the language "Dökk álfur" which would directly translate to "Dark Elven" as Elven being a language family and "Dökk álfur" being a specific tongue of that language.

For the rest of us... that basically means 'drow' but a public domain way to just get around WotC if there were to be any issue. Providing a way around WotC for Paizo not depending on OGL stuff and something under ORC.

Paizo has been very clear about not wanting “basically Drow” going forward.

Wow! I’ll have to come back and read more of folks reactions to the SF2e news, but I for one am VERY excited (as I have wanted to craft a Pathfinder/Starfinder crossover game for a while now). Seems it’ll be much easier in a couple years.

Ha! Or maybe (just maybe) Paizo will DO a crossover AP (3 parts in PF & 3 parts in SF). That would be fun to see!

Anyway I’m very excited about this announcement. Oh and what the what?!? (RE: Zon-Shelyn)!?!

Are your PDFs getting deleted? Are your hardbacks being repossessed? I think not. I also don't think the lore train is stopping anytime soon; delightful adventures and captivating fluff will still come out with the new edition, and you can do the "easier half of the equation" and backwards-convert anything that catches your eye.

Thank you for not reading my post before reply. I was responding to people flippantly saying how basically it will be easy for someone else to swoop in and capture the 3e-PF1-SF1 rule set market.

But, in response to your specific bit: no, it's actually really hard to upgrade content from PF2 to PF1. I'm running Kingmaker from the PF2 redo and, even with the PF statblocks book they released (that covers only 3/4 of the statblocks at that), I'm spending toooooooooooooooons of time converting things. I'm basically writing my own nearly-everything-except-the-plot.

As for Paizo continuing... No, I'm not going to keep buying PF2/SF2 materials. Why should I reward them for moving to a [for me and many] crap system? I did for a bit. But it's a total waste of money. It's too hard to use them. And it's a waste of money to do it just for whatever lore they are adding -- no matter how good it is.

That said, if you can find where someone made a post like that, please share it with me, as that sounds hilarious.

Since no one else replied to this I will - without naming any names - say that you should look around the middle of the third page of this thread for someone who posted twice in a row.