Field Test #3: That Cantina Feel

Wednesday, January 3, 2024

Happy New Year! Welcome to the exciting reveal of our third Starfinder Second Edition Field Test.

It’s a new year and a new Field Test release! The Field Tests include early, behind-the-scenes previews of rules the Starfinder development team is playtesting internally in preparation for the Starfinder Playtest Rulebook release later this year. Our latest offering includes a preview of two ancestries appearing in the Playtest Rulebook, as chosen by community vote. We’re excited to announce the winners of that vote and the ancestries we’ll be featuring in today’s Field Test: the android and vesk!

Ancestries are the updated version of what were known as species (also called races in older products) in Starfinder First Edition. Ancestries are an important part of Starfinder’s “cantina feel,” a term referring to the sci-fi trope of a spaceport bar packed with all kinds of aliens. In this context, it means players get to create and play as alien characters, and every planet or space station in the setting is teeming with weird and wonderful sapient lifeforms that player characters might interact with. Our goal is to keep the cantina open, so to speak, while we update existing Starfinder ancestries to be compatible with the new edition. 

Starfinder ancestries might look familiar to those of you who play Pathfinder Second Edition. Starfinder First Edition players might notice the new ancestries are a bit of a departure from what you’re used to, but don’t panic! In Starfinder Second Edition, each ancestry entry includes more content than the small sidebar allotted to them in Starfinder First Edition.

In existing Starfinder books, you’ll often see a species boiled down to a list of statistics with a handful of abilities. Presenting species this way allowed the Starfinder team to introduce many playable options right away, but there was little players could do to define their character’s progression—via their species—beyond the initial selection. In some specific cases, a species was so numerically superior that they were the obvious “best” choices (we’re looking at you, SROs!). This was fantastic for certain players but didn’t always reward players interested in exploring different options. In the new edition of Starfinder, we want to create deeper meaning and context for ancestries that you’re going to play or feature in your campaigns. This means including more space for narrative lore related to each ancestry and information on how it fits into the setting, as well as progression-based selections to help further customize a character of that ancestry.

In addition to a set of starting adjustments and abilities, ancestries in Second Edition get access to ancestry feats. A character gains an ancestry feat at 1st level and then another at 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th-level. Ancestry feats explore different paths within each ancestry and grant more powerful abilities as a character progresses—allowing you to customize your character beyond what was possible in Starfinder First Edition. The team’s been experimenting with some interesting new options, like expanding lashunta psychic powers or introducing a type of shirren that grows wings!

A humanoid android with purple lights and viney plants growing around them and on the staff they are holding

Illustration by Sophie Mendev


Today’s Field Test focuses on the constructed androids and the reptilian vesk. Androids and vesk are both staple ancestries in Starfinder, but each represents a very different part of the design spectrum. Androids already exist in Pathfinder Second Edition (see Pathfinder Lost Omens: Ancestry Guide), so the Starfinder team updated the ancestry to be compatible with the “ancient androids” who once walked lost Golarion while creating new options to represent the changes in culture and technology that separate the Starfinder setting from its distant past.

Meanwhile, vesk is an ancestry that’s never appeared in Pathfinder Second Edition, giving us a blank canvas to work with. Our intent was to keep the spirit of the First Edition vesk while exploring new build types, from movement-based shenanigans to different forms of natural melee attacks, and more.

The team is excited to see what you think of our initial foray into ancestry design for the new edition. We also strongly suggest you read the foreword in this document, which may reveal some important news related to what ancestries you can expect to see in the Starfinder Playtest Rulebook releasing this summer!

Stay tuned for our upcoming Paizo Live! where members of the Starfinder team will further discuss the Field Test, as well as give more hints about what we have planned for the new edition of Starfinder.

— The Starfinder Team

-Thurston Hillman, Managing Creative Director (Starfinder)
-Jenny Jarzabski, Senior Developer
-Dustin Knight, Developer
-Jessica Catalan, Starfinder Society Developer
-Mike Kimmel, Developer

More Paizo Blog.
Tags: Starfinder Starfinder Playtest Starfinder Roleplaying Game Starfinder Second Edition
401 to 432 of 432 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | next > last >>
Wayfinders

1 person marked this as a favorite.

In the end, it's up to the developers to figure out the balance. I feel the best we can do is give feedback on the field test and, come up with as many crazy ideas to push/test the limits, and maybe come up with suggestions on how to push something and make it still work.

I feel the Pathfinder players are more focused on the balance part as it pertains to Pathfinder and Starfinder players are trying to maintain as much of the feel of Starinder while moving to PF2e rules. Somewhere there is a compromise between balance and pushing limits and it sounds like some of those limits will not be the same in both games. But we won't know what those limits are unless we push them.

I think some of the frustration of Starfinder players is dealing with people who don't have experience playing Startinder and only see one side of the argument. I appreciate that some of those people are taking the time to learn more about Starfinder. Along these lines, I wonder how people plan to use SF2e in their game affect their point of view. If you just looking for new ancestries for your PF2e game, your point of view is likely very different from some that just want to play Starfinder. Might be helpful if there was a thread just for how you plan to use SF2e, so we know where each other is coming from.

How do you plan to use Starfinder2e for your game?.


5 people marked this as a favorite.
Sanityfaerie wrote:
No. It's not about having it fit the real world. It's about having it show some internal consistency, and having the world behind it make sense.

I began playing Starfinder with my regular players, Trying out Starfinder in a Mini-Campaign, and I have learned that they demand more sense out of Starfinder than they did out of Pathfinder. Science fiction has different themes than fantasy, and one of those science-fiction themes is deducing how things around you work.

Consistency in small details is tactical, too. Fort Nunder in the module Fangs of War is a square with a watchtower at each corner. The party was fighting trolls who had taken over the fort, chronicled at Cirieo Thessadin, Summoner, comment #10. My wife's 5th-level rogue/sorcerer Sam was casting the Produce Flame cantrip on the trolls to stop their regeneration, but it has only a 30-foot range which put him too close to the trolls for safety. He tried hiding, tried retreating to the room at the base of a watchtower, but then (I skipped this in the chronicle) the trolls entered the room. We had the following conversation about details.
WIFE: This is a watchtower, right? The rangers would have a lookout on the roof.
ME: Yes.
WIFE: Where is the ladder to the roof? I don't see it on the map. Sam wants to climb up there.
ME: I guess the mapmaker forgot to draw it. The logical place would be here, where Sam is standing.
WIFE: I thought so. Sam climbs up to the roof.

Details can save the lives of characters.

BigNorseWolf wrote:
I think the PF2 model of a species having one cool defining thing is the roadblock here.

That model required a lot of handwaving. For example, a player played a leshy in my Ironfang Invasion campaign and later all players played leshies in my A Fistful of Flowers mini-campaign. The leshy's special ability is Plant Nourishment by which it does not require daily rations so long as it has daily sunlight. It also has low-light vision, but so do a lot of other ancestries. Anything else special comes from its heritage and ancestry feats, which adds up to three special traits at 1st level. On the other hand, leshies are not immune to bleed, despite having no blood. Thus, for believablilty we claimed that leshies bleed sap and that sap loss does as much damage as blood loss, despite hundreds of real-world maple trees having a history of massive sap donation. We also had a silly discussion about leshies wearing Hats of Disguise despite not necessarily having a head on top of their body.

Thus, PF2's allocation of special abilities to an ancestry is sometimes inadequate for PF2 species. Part of Starfinder's appeal is its exotic species, so Starfinder 2nd Edition's ancestries ought to be more robust about exotic features such as wings, multiple arms, or not breathing air. Pathinder 2nd Edition came out in 2019. We have had 4 and a half years of actual gameplaying to learn additional ways of maintaining balance in the game beyond making every creature close to human.

I had a strix PC in my PF1 Iron Gods campaign with a Fly Speed 60 feet from the beginning of 1st level. High-speed flight was a handy ability but it did not break the balance. In constrast PF2 restricted the flight of strix PCs. The strix ancestry says that wings let a strix Leap 5 feet and Long Jump 10 feet farther than usual. First-level strix ancestry feat Nestling Fall lets the wings prevent falling damage. Fifth-level ancestry feat Fledgling Flight allows half-speed flight provided the strix is back on the ground at end of turn. Ninth-level ancestry feat Juvenile Flight allows full flight once per day for 10 minutes, at your land speed but faster if your have Fledgling Flight. And finally, 13th-level ancestry feat Fully Flighted allows unlimited flying.

In contract, the 2nd-level creature Strix Kinmate has Fly 25 feet with no limits.

The develpoers of PF2 explained the restriction on flight. They wanted to include traditional monsters who could not fly and had no ranged attacks. A flying party could defeat those monsters trivially by taking to the air and making ranged attacks out of the monster's reach. They did not want to alter the low-level monsters to defend against that tactics, so they made flying first available at around 7th-level with the 4th-level Fly spell and other temporary means of flight, such as the strix's 9th-level Juvenile Flight. Victory through flight came at a cost. Permanent flight came later, because the high-level monsters could defend against aerial assault.

In contrast, I would expect that in a science-fiction setting, a low-level party facing a traditional ground-bound monster would set out in a flying aircar and shoot it with rifles. That solution would be common sense, and I remember it being a plot point in The Lion Game by James H. Schmitz (The intelligent telepathic aliens dubbed "lions" did not mind big game hunters killing them on foot in a fair fight where the lions won half the time. But then the scientists showed up using aircars to grab specimens). Flying cars are commonplace in science fiction stories.

Science fiction provides tools. People are currently discussing how SROs (what do those initials stand for?) can walk around in vacuum. The module Skitter Shot began with a space walk to a starship in trouble, so the PCs all wore space armor that protected them from vacuum. And I assumed that the armor was self-sealing so that enemy attacks in vacuum would not be quickly fatal. What is so extraordinary about the SRO not breathing when everyone can gain that ability with standard equipment?

in comment #326 Thurston Hillman provided an example of when multiarmed characters could unbalance the game:

Thurston Hillman wrote:

Say for example, if we wanted powerful one-shot missile launchers in our game (and why wouldn't we), then having multi-armed characters who can fire with no penalty makes balance a more tricky proposition.

Let's assume that we introduce a "mega death missile" into the game that is balanced around being a one-shot weapon with a high-reload time. So that your character has to take actions to reload the weapon or swap out to another weapon in order to help balance the action economy around such a weapon. If the Skittermander PC can triple-wield and fire these launchers without any penalties (and without any investment in feats or other abilities) then the game meta quickly changes to everyone and their dog wanting multiple arms, because clearly the most effective damage dealing is based around getting these one-shot weapons and stacking them. If you can end a fight in 3 rounds, then having three mega-death missile launchers, becomes the best build. Heck, let's just stop upgrading the other PCs and funnel all our credits into the Skitter-Death-Missile Machine™.

My mathematics say that that example is not as bad as it sounds. PF2 Remastered Player Core, page 268, provides the Interact to Swap Items action. A two-armed human with one of those two-handed Megadeath Missile Launchers could have one in his hands and two holstered on his armor. The human shoots the first one, Interacts to swap it with a second one, and shoots the second one. On his next turn, they swap to the third one and shoot it. Then they have to start reloading. The skittermander holding three Megadeath Missile Launchers can take three shots in only one turn, but that third shot would have a -10 multiple attack penalty, so perhaps it ought to wait until the second turn like the human would. Okay, Hillman said, "fire those launchers without any penalties," but perhaps removing the penalties would be the problem rather than skittermanders having six arms. Besides, if we add, "Gripshaker A Strike with a Megadeath Missile Launcher causes your grip on other weapons to slip to one hand, so that you must Interact to Change Your Grip on any two-handed weapons to Strike with them," to the Megadeath Missile Laucher, the skittermander would be as slow as the human.

Thurston Hillman wrote:

Please be aware, when we're designing rules, our focus is on how they'll be used mechanically. Realism and verisimilitude are important, but at some point we need to acknowledge how players will use those rules at a table (especially something like OrgPlay, which is generally the space where players will take extreme builds as GMs have more restricted control of the overall game state).

...
What we don't want to have happen, ever, is a table state where people are pressured to play in an optimal way that just funnels the fun in one direction or forces a specific means of play.

My players learned in PF1 that teamwork is much more powerful than individual character optimization. When PF2 put tight limits on individual optimization, we didn't even notice until other people posted in the Paizo forums about their powergamed characters dropping during Moderate-Threat encounters.

When I dug deep into the mathematics of optimizing for teamwork, I found that the best method is to build interesting characers that are natural to play. Teamwork requires knowing what the other PCs want to do in combat, and that is best communicated by a character played naturally. PF2 hit a sweet spot.

Driftbourne wrote:

I feel the Pathfinder players are more focused on the balance part as it pertains to Pathfinder and Starfinder players are trying to maintain as much of the feel of Starinder while moving to PF2e rules. Somewhere there is a compromise between balance and pushing limits and it sounds like some of those limits will not be the same in both games. But we won't know what those limits are unless we push them.

I think some of the frustration of Starfinder players is dealing with people who don't have experience playing Startinder and only see one side of the argument. I appreciate that some of those people are taking the time to learn more about Starfinder. ,,,

My players who came out of Pathfinder and have played only five sessions of Starfinder so far think that Starfinder's exotic alien species are a lot of fun. They are the teamwork experts who break encounters, so balance is not important to them.

My younger daughter gave a complaint about Pathfinder 2nd Edition is that her characters don't feel special in PF2 like they did in PF1. Special means that they feel extraordinary in a uniquely individual way. In PF2, though high-level characters have amazing abilities, to her they seem ordinary for their level. I see potential in Starfinder ancestries restoring specialness via less human-centric design and more unique design.

Wayfinders

Mathmuse wrote:
(what do those initials stand for?)

SRO: Sentient Robotic Organism.


5 people marked this as a favorite.
Driftbourne wrote:
I feel the Pathfinder players are more focused on the balance part as it pertains to Pathfinder and Starfinder players are trying to maintain as much of the feel of Starinder while moving to PF2e rules. Somewhere there is a compromise between balance and pushing limits and it sounds like some of those limits will not be the same in both games. But we won't know what those limits are unless we push them.

I think part of the problem is that balance is generally a fairly non-negotiable thing. It's certainly possible to push a game's design and still be balanced, but blatantly sacrificing balance in one aspect of an otherwise solidly-balanced game can have huge repercussions on play. This is the issue for instance with letting skittermanders fully use their six arms at 1st level in 2e without restriction, because short of overhauling SF2e's balance so completely that it loses all compatibility with Pathfinder, allowing that means everyone would pick a skittermander and chain-fire missile launchers in combat for massively more damage than anyone else. Breaking the promise of compatibility with PF2e is an option, but it's one that itself carries major consequences and is likely to upset its own crowd of people.

In my opinion, the biggest issue with this particular field test isn't necessarily the mechanics, but the aesthetic: when I think of a cantina, I think of aliens with multiple pairs of eyes or arms, distinctly non-human silhouettes, organs and limbs whose purpose I know nothing about... and the droids can wait outside. However, what we got with this field test wasn't really Star Wars-style aliens with a distinctly non-humanoid vibe, despite their plentiful existence in Starfinder, but rather Star Trek-style humans with a bit of makeup on. Mechanically speaking, the android and vesk can play radically differently from humans, but in terms of appearance, they're both humanoids that we've kind of seen before, particularly as androids already exist as a Pathfinder 2e ancestry and vesk look like bulky lizardfolk, even if their biology and culture differ radically. Had the team cracked out less conventional ancestries like the barathus, kasathas, or shirren, the reaction would likely have been very different.


5 people marked this as a favorite.
Teridax wrote:
Driftbourne wrote:
I feel the Pathfinder players are more focused on the balance part as it pertains to Pathfinder and Starfinder players are trying to maintain as much of the feel of Starinder while moving to PF2e rules. Somewhere there is a compromise between balance and pushing limits and it sounds like some of those limits will not be the same in both games. But we won't know what those limits are unless we push them.

I think part of the problem is that balance is generally a fairly non-negotiable thing. It's certainly possible to push a game's design and still be balanced, but blatantly sacrificing balance in one aspect of an otherwise solidly-balanced game can have huge repercussions on play. This is the issue for instance with letting skittermanders fully use their six arms at 1st level in 2e without restriction, because short of overhauling SF2e's balance so completely that it loses all compatibility with Pathfinder, allowing that means everyone would pick a skittermander and chain-fire missile launchers in combat for massively more damage than anyone else. Breaking the promise of compatibility with PF2e is an option, but it's one that itself carries major consequences and is likely to upset its own crowd of people.

In my opinion, the biggest issue with this particular field test isn't necessarily the mechanics, but the aesthetic: when I think of a cantina, I think of aliens with multiple pairs of eyes or arms, distinctly non-human silhouettes, organs and limbs whose purpose I know nothing about... and the droids can wait outside. However, what we got with this field test wasn't really Star Wars-style aliens with a distinctly non-humanoid vibe, despite their plentiful existence in Starfinder, but rather Star Trek-style humans with a bit of makeup on. Mechanically speaking, the android and vesk can play radically differently from humans, but in terms of appearance, they're both humanoids that we've kind of seen before, particularly as androids already exist as a Pathfinder 2e...

I agree; it's a shame that most people wanted the first preview to be ancestries that would be right at home in PF2e as opposed to showing what the more sci-fi possibilities of the core ancestries would look like. A preview of dimorphic psychics and space jellyfish would of had a different tone of discussion


Driftbourne wrote:

In the end, it's up to the developers to figure out the balance. I feel the best we can do is give feedback on the field test and, come up with as many crazy ideas to push/test the limits, and maybe come up with suggestions on how to push something and make it still work.

I feel the Pathfinder players are more focused on the balance part as it pertains to Pathfinder and Starfinder players are trying to maintain as much of the feel of Starinder while moving to PF2e rules. Somewhere there is a compromise between balance and pushing limits and it sounds like some of those limits will not be the same in both games. But we won't know what those limits are unless we push them.

I think some of the frustration of Starfinder players is dealing with people who don't have experience playing Startinder and only see one side of the argument. I appreciate that some of those people are taking the time to learn more about Starfinder. Along these lines, I wonder how people plan to use SF2e in their game affect their point of view. If you just looking for new ancestries for your PF2e game, your point of view is likely very different from some that just want to play Starfinder. Might be helpful if there was a thread just for how you plan to use SF2e, so we know where each other is coming from.

How do you plan to use Starfinder2e for your game?.

In the case of my games,

Firstly, I am running Kingmaker for one group. Because it is near Numeria, I plan, later game, to start introducing NPCs, creatures, and options from Starfinder, especially as my players get near Numeria, and to tie into the Regonger and Octavia arcs as I plan to run some Technic league encounters involving them. In the event of character death, I also want to leave the path open for Starfinder classes, though less likely Starfinder ancestries if players want to play someone out of Numeria, but I reason if a player makes a strong enough case, most any alien species can be justified at the timeframe of 4710, maybe justifying coming out of Absalom or something. Ideally, I want balance so that these options do not become defacto better than the default classes and ancestries for these purposes, as I don't want to have to ban them in that event.

Secondly, I am winding up to do some Starfinder 2E games with my secondary learner's group. I got them in on the plans of playing Starfinder 2E later, but right now we are running Pathfinder 2E to show them the ropes (Starting with Menace Under Otari, and then planning on playing with various Adventures and Society Scenarios)). Here is the opposite. We're planning on using base Starfinder 2E, but I want to be able to make Pathfinder classes and races available without being innately inferior.

Ultimately I am planning on running both versions of the system, and with mixing between the systems. But these plans are contingent on the systems ACTUALLY being intercompatible with minimal need to home rule nerfs, because creating home rule documents is frankly a lot of work.

If the systems end up being so different that they claim to be intercompatible but are not, well, that frankly just dashes those plans.

For example, small changes I'm fine with. For example, I plan to remove the 10 resistance versus archaic weapons under the logic that if a Greater Striking greatsword is good enough for dragon hide, it's good enough for level 0 space armor (and the fact an alien's horn attack is technically an archaic weapon simply makes sense to me that armor should get the same resistance to that if the resistance was allowed to stand). And I am considering letting complex items be enchantable as long as the bonuses do not stack, because a +3 major striking greater flaming rifle would simply be cool. (Though that's a tentative concept, and I wanna investigate how the rule works by default before seeing how feasible it is).


3 people marked this as a favorite.

I don't think it would unbalance things if species had all/most of their first level abilities right out the bat. Free ancestral paragon isn't that uncommon of a thing to hand out.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
BigNorseWolf wrote:
I don't think it would unbalance things if species had all/most of their first level abilities right out the bat. Free ancestral paragon isn't that uncommon of a thing to hand out.

Was giving it some thought, and I think it can work, perhaps by sacrificing some of the ancestry feats in return. Basically all staples, but you don't get your 1st and 5th level feat, or something like that, or if the abilities are on a lower tier, it just denies you your 1st level feat.


Teridax wrote:
Had the team cracked out less conventional ancestries like the barathus, kasathas, or shirren, the reaction would likely have been very different.

The team wanted to, but the community didn't, unfortunately. It was close for the Shirren, though. Oh well, perhaps the devs are really excited to show off and we get a second look at the stranger ones? Perhaps... the true winners, the skittermanders? *hint hint nudge nudge* XD

moosher12 wrote:
BigNorseWolf wrote:
I don't think it would unbalance things if species had all/most of their first level abilities right out the bat. Free ancestral paragon isn't that uncommon of a thing to hand out.
Was giving it some thought, and I think it can work, perhaps by sacrificing some of the ancestry feats in return. Basically all staples, but you don't get your 1st and 5th level feat, or something like that, or if the abilities are on a lower tier, it just denies you your 1st level feat.

I think the simplest solution still is just giving out a second 1st level ancestry feat. That bumps up your starting abilities from the usual 3-4 to 4-5, which should be enough to bring over the vast majority of species. The downside is that some of the more complex ancestries might have features that should be universal as "optional" instead. So you might see like 90% of barathu PCs with one identical 1st level ancestry feat called "Strange Anatomy" for example.

And if none of these solutions are quite enough, there's really not much stopping the devs from simply giving SF2 ancestries a slightly bigger "budget". For example, skittermanders would probably have both low-light vision and six-armed as the universal ancestry abilities. In PF2, just six-armed alone would be the limit. But I don't think it would be problematic to give them both, given that ancestries are intended to be a bigger deal in SF. The important bits are that balance is roughly equal between SF2 ancestries and that we avoid abilities that are inherently disruptive or disengaging (if that is the right word).

Wayfinders

My guess is that the developers were looking to field-test ancestries that would end up in the core rule book, the survey we voted on only had 11 species to choose from. It's too bad one of the Versatile Heritage wasn't picked. I think some of us are looking for what ancestries will define the limits of what is possible in SF2e not sure if we will get a play test for that or not but hope so.


Karmagator wrote:

I think the simplest solution still is just giving out a second 1st level ancestry feat. That bumps up your starting abilities from the usual 3-4 to 4-5, which should be enough to bring over the vast majority of species. The downside is that some of the more complex ancestries might have features that should be universal as "optional" instead. So you might see like 90% of barathu PCs with one identical 1st level ancestry feat called "Strange Anatomy" for example.

And if none of these solutions are quite enough, there's really not much stopping the devs from simply giving SF2 ancestries a slightly bigger "budget". For example, skittermanders would probably have both low-light vision and six-armed as the universal ancestry abilities. In PF2, just six-armed alone would be the limit. But I don't think it would be problematic to give them both, given that ancestries are intended to be a bigger deal in SF. The important bits are that balance is roughly equal between SF2 ancestries and that we avoid abilities that are inherently disruptive or disengaging (if that is the right word).

That would require granting the same to PF2E though. Which while I would not mind, feels a bit too late to do. I'm trying to make suggestions that are universal between PF2E and SF2E (as an ancestry feat limiter is something that can be issued as a special case for a specific ancestry, without having to modify all other ancestries cross setting).

Also, I use Ancestry Paragon which seems to be exactly what you are suggesting.

Granted, I'm not opposed to granting SF2E such abilities, but only on the condition that PF2E gets errata'd to those abilities by default.

Wayfinders

2 people marked this as a favorite.
BigNorseWolf wrote:
I don't think it would unbalance things if species had all/most of their first level abilities right out the bat. Free ancestral paragon isn't that uncommon of a thing to hand out.

I mostly agree. I don't like the idea of spreading out first-level abilities just to have something to fill in the higher-level choices. If there really is a power balance issue then I don't mind them getting split up, like a Trox that with 10 abilities is differently overpowered at first level. Although 10 is too many I hope there isn't a limit that all ancestries have to start with the same number of abilities. I think things like movement, senses, and communication shouldn't count against a limit if there is one.

moosher12 wrote:
Was giving it some thought, and I think it can work, perhaps by sacrificing some of the ancestry feats in return. Basically all staples, but you don't get your 1st and 5th level feat, or something like that, or if the abilities are on a lower tier, it just denies you your 1st level feat.

I'm ok with some variation of that. Another option would be the higher-level feats could be more like minor flavor feats to compensate for getting more useful ones all at once at first level.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
moosher12 wrote:
Karmagator wrote:
... stuff...

That would require granting the same to PF2E though. Which while I would not mind, feels a bit too late to do. I'm trying to make suggestions that are universal between PF2E and SF2E (as an ancestry feat limiter is something that can be issued as a special case for a specific ancestry, without having to modify all other ancestries cross setting).

Granted, I'm not opposed to granting SF2E such abilities, but only on the condition that PF2E gets errata'd to those abilities by default.

Ah, gotcha. Yeah, no matter what SF2 goes with, I'm pretty sure the PF2 ancestry design is very settled at this point. I'd love to see it and people probably wouldn't mind, I just highly doubt it would happen. AT most we'll get an optional rule or something.

But given that your ancestry is intentionally quite a bit less important in PF2 than it is SF, I don't think that approach will work well. The priorities are just so different, so working fully within the constraints of PF2 will lead to avoidable problems imo.

moosher12 wrote:
Also, I use Ancestry Paragon which seems to be exactly what you are suggesting.

Not quite. Ancestry Paragon, much like Free Archetype, is a bit too much for many people, so it should not be the default assumption. And in my experience, the biggest benefit is the additional 1st level feat, beyond that ancestries usually lack options or people tend to drift away from "that would fit my character" and into "hey, this option looks powerful".

Wayfinders

1 person marked this as a favorite.

There are some parts of a Starfinder Ancestry that I think shoulder need to be an ancestry feat to have.

We know that flying at the first level is ok for SF2e so in general movement types shouldn't have to be an ancestry feat, and should be fully functional at the first level. That still leaves room for more advanced improvements in ancestry feats.

Species need senses to survive and Starfinder spaces have a much greater variety of senses so senses shouldn't have to be an ancestry feat.

Telepathy is common in Starfinder many species use it as their primary form of communication, so I feel that communication shouldn't have to be an ancestry feat either.

PF2e ancestries get 1 or 2 special rates usually some form of low light or dark vision and something else. Then you get a heritage which might have 1 to 3 abilities, skills or feats. And then you also get your first ancestry feat.

So if Starfinder ancestries could get movement, senses, and communication abilities built in for free. If an ancestry gets another ability built-in pulse 2 to 4 abilities from heritage and ancestry feats that should cover most Starfinder species. At least as far as how many abilities a species gets, how well they function at first level is another issue.

On the cheek pouch issues where something is split up over levels that aren't in Strafinder. Looking closer at cheek pouches in PF2e not having the quick stow feat built in at first level isn't as big of an advantage as it would be in Starfinder because of the 3 action economy in PF2e.

The breathing and immunities issues I'm still trying to understand why it's such an issue if an SRO doesn't need to breathe or is immune to vacuum effects.

Paizo Employee Managing Creative Director (Starfinder)

7 people marked this as a favorite.

Another hop-in moment.

I've seen a lot of discussion about survival in harsh environments and the narrative around that suddenly changing for some species. I strongly suggest that people wait for us to tackle a wider array of ancestries before jumping to conclusions on how we're handling things in wide swathes. We plan on making sure that if an ancestry has some form of cosmic survival mechanism, that we keep that narrative going forward.

Androids and their survival in vacuums is a weird fringe case, because while many people will cite "but my old android could do that" the actual play experience of 90%+ of tables, is that almost every player could do that thanks to built-in armor protections. I think seeing some of the updates to environmental protections, which, admittedly aren't as all-encompassing as before, will give a better view on how PCs can interact in harsh environments or lack of environment.

But again, this is all stuff we're hoping to see with full feedback in the playtest process :)


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Thurston Hillman wrote:
Androids and their survival in vacuums is a weird fringe case, because while many people will cite "but my old android could do that" the actual play experience of 90%+ of tables, is that almost every player could do that thanks to built-in armor protections. I think seeing some of the updates to environmental protections, which, admittedly aren't as all-encompassing as before, will give a better view on how PCs can interact in harsh environments or lack of environment.

Okay. Why? I mean, do you have especially awesome stories that you want to tell that require that people not have all-encompassing environmental protection? Why not just make "basically everyone has easy access to strong environmental protections" a system assumption right alongside "by default, combat is at range, and flight is relatively easy"? It seems like it would be a really good way to be able to easily handwave away large swathes of this stuff.


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Sanityfaerie wrote:
Thurston Hillman wrote:
Androids and their survival in vacuums is a weird fringe case, because while many people will cite "but my old android could do that" the actual play experience of 90%+ of tables, is that almost every player could do that thanks to built-in armor protections. I think seeing some of the updates to environmental protections, which, admittedly aren't as all-encompassing as before, will give a better view on how PCs can interact in harsh environments or lack of environment.
Okay. Why? I mean, do you have especially awesome stories that you want to tell that require that people not have all-encompassing environmental protection? Why not just make "basically everyone has easy access to strong environmental protections" a system assumption right alongside "by default, combat is at range, and flight is relatively easy"? It seems like it would be a really good way to be able to easily handwave away large swathes of this stuff.

An ancestry getting to actually show off their unique ability rather than it being obsoleted by gear is exactly the type of story that I'd like to be able to tell.

Paizo Employee Managing Creative Director (Starfinder)

9 people marked this as a favorite.
Sanityfaerie wrote:
Thurston Hillman wrote:
Androids and their survival in vacuums is a weird fringe case, because while many people will cite "but my old android could do that" the actual play experience of 90%+ of tables, is that almost every player could do that thanks to built-in armor protections. I think seeing some of the updates to environmental protections, which, admittedly aren't as all-encompassing as before, will give a better view on how PCs can interact in harsh environments or lack of environment.
Okay. Why? I mean, do you have especially awesome stories that you want to tell that require that people not have all-encompassing environmental protection? Why not just make "basically everyone has easy access to strong environmental protections" a system assumption right alongside "by default, combat is at range, and flight is relatively easy"? It seems like it would be a really good way to be able to easily handwave away large swathes of this stuff.

Absolutely, there are a ton of stories that end up getting invalidated by environmental protections. In the same way that an adventure can be completely sidelined by some of the old fashioned "Detect X/Y/Z" spells, and a reason why those types of spells mostly entered Uncommon rarity, which is a tool to give GMs some say in what works for their respective campaigns. We're establishing a baseline here, an then people can adjust as they desire (something we hope to explore in some of the optional GM rules in the final rulebooks).

Environmental protections in SF1 were often a hurdle that had to be delicately navigated when designing adventures and creating a reasonable sense of progression and scaling. It worked how you explained, as a default assumption of "well we can survive almost anything" and it became something of a running joke on "Well, obviously I have my environmental protections on" that would just negate large swathes of adventure text because protections in 1E were just that good. See earlier discussions on the complete negation of inhaled effects as a good example of this.

We want environmental challenges to be a challenge in Starfinder. Don't misconstrue this as not letting players adventure in weird and difficult environments early on, or being able to survive in them if they're a species native to that environment. Instead, we want to make sure our game has a logical sense of progression that armor scales up and provides protections that allow for a higher-level party to feel like it's doing higher level things and fighting in higher level locations. Of course, all players will have the ability to explore in a vacuum at 1st-level, that is just a core of our game.

Handwaving environmental protections is something we want to empower GMs to do for their respective tables if that works best for their playstyle. Which I know isn't the best for Org Play people (where we generally act as the arbiter of legality), but one of the elements our team is passionate about is that we're setting a baseline for the game that lets us tell cohesive narratives and present as many challenges as we can. If people want to adjust who can survive in space for their tables, we absolutely encourage it. Heck, I do it ALL THE TIME with my games, and it should be more accepted across the board. But when it comes to us as game designers and devs, we need to create rules as a baseline and then let people make their own decisions on adjusting them.


Some classic science fiction stories deal with the harsh environment as a major part of the story. For example, Robert Heinlein's juvenile novel Have Space Suit—Will Travel has an scene in which the two protagonist's must walk across the surface of the moon from the villain's moonbase to a safe moonbase. Kip has a regular spacesuit, but Peewee has only a tourist spacesuit that used snap-on air cylinders, and the villian's moonbase has spare air cylinders that fit only the regular spacesuits. Kip had to devise a way to refill the tourist cylinders.

Also, a lot of science fiction scenes occur in shirt-sleeve environments where no-one will be wearing space armor. The heroes could be in a conference room in a space station and suddenly a meteroid holes the room. Air is rushing out into space. They have to find the emergency sealant patches stored in every room and seal the hole before they suffocate. Everyone wearing space armor would totally spoil the tension. Having an SRO in the party who can survive in vaccuum or a party member who has a portable breather mask in their pocket still leaves the tension of saving everyone else.

A time limit on air storage in low-level space armor would give an opportunity for dramatic tension that is classic in some space stories. We don't want to handwave it away. Having air in space is like having water and rations while traveling in barren wilderness. Usually it does not matter, but in some circumstances managing the resources is the challenge in the story.

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

1 person marked this as a favorite.
Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber
Mathmuse wrote:
A time limit on air storage in low-level space armor would give an opportunity for dramatic tension that is classic in some space stories. We don't want to handwave it away. Having air in space is like having water and rations while traveling in barren wilderness. Usually it does not matter, but in some circumstances managing the resources is the challenge in the story.

Stuff like this already exists, though, which is, I think, why the SF1-Enjoyers are tearing their hair out with a lot of the discourse. All armour in SF1 gives you environmental protections for a number of days equal to its item level, and there's any number of low-level options (gear, augmentations, spells) that can provide that same, with varying levels of additional (or subtracted) benefits, at different price points.

But, it's very much still possible to have environmental tension at low levels; there's tons of Society scenarios that do just that. "You're in tier 1-4, so you're likely to have, at best, 5 days of environmental protections, and most of you will have less than that. Oh, but your ship crash-landed 8 days away from town. Well, good luck!" Having an android or SRO or whatever in the party helps, but unless the whole party is constructed, there's still tension. As Mathmuse points out, though, one party member being breathless doesn't remove the tension, though. Hell, maybe having a constructed party member actually increases the engagement: once the human's armour is out of batteries, the android gets to choose between keeping their own armour, or giving their armour and its seals to the human and being more vulnerable! Unless you really built your character around the idea of "I can survive any environment" and, I dunno, spend all your credits on extra environmental collars or something (in which case your preparedness should be rewarded by obviating the challenge) then there's still risk and challenge there.

This is another case of Starfinder 1e already having an excellent set of narrative tools and items to tell these stories, which brings us back to the wailing and gnashing of teeth about why we're fixing something that isn't broken, and the default answer of "because that's the way it is in PF2" just doesn't satisfy.

We can already tell those stories - and androids or SRO or whatever else lacking lungs doesn't kill the tension. (Unless you're some kind of specialist party that lacks lungs entirely, in which case - that's awesome, and you should be walking through air-based challenges, and your GM should be throwing you into EMP-rooms instead of poison gas rooms :D)


Robot General: [in movie] : Funny, isn't it? The human was impervious to our most powerful magnetic fields, yet in the end he succumbed to a harmless sharpened stick!


Isn't a potential solution to simply put environmental effects into categories or a hierarchy, and simply give different levels of protection to different things (ancestries, armor, etc.)

Like there are a number of heritages in PF2 that grant the ability to treat environmental cold (or heat) effects as one step lower. You could do the same thing for vacuum or radiation or anything else. That makes it easier to budget in the ancestry.

After all, one of the arguments for PF2 making a lot of abilities tied to ancestries opt-in is "what if I want to play a [this] that doesn't have [ability]?" Like I should be able to non-organic ancestry that is comfortable with cold and radiation and poison, but really doesn't want to get wet or hot.

Wayfinders

1 person marked this as a favorite.

I wouldn't mind seeing environmental protection be measured in hours not days. If you crash land on a frozen planet and you have 5 days to find a new heat source surviving mostly just becomes a downtime activity. If you crash and only have an hour to search the ship for supplies find or make a shelter and make a fire or salvage parts from the ship to make a heat generator, it's exploration or even encounter mode situation.

I think survival shouldn't be a one-solution-fits-all situation, there's lots of room to play where here when it comes to equipment.

I don't mind some species having environmental immunities or resistances, sure it's an advantage for them but if they are the only ones in the party with it, it could be a burden too.


Kishmo wrote:
This is another case of Starfinder 1e already having an excellent set of narrative tools and items to tell these stories, which brings us back to the wailing and gnashing of teeth about why we're fixing something that isn't broken, and the default answer of "because that's the way it is in PF2" just doesn't satisfy.

The idea is that you shouldn't have to jump through hurdles to get to that point.

Lets face the fact the people complaining and I mean this in a nice way are turbo nerds. You know how the game works. You know its quirks. You know its narrative issues. Which is great but you know whose not going to get that? Someone who plays the game for the very first time. Someone playing this game is potentially going to end up fighting it. They may get frustrated and just bounce off the game entirely because they don't have the same system mastery that someone like myself or you have.

And before you say I'm wrong I know people who freelanced for this game and at times it almost sounds like they were engaging in rocket tag antics dealing with this topic.


Kishmo wrote:
This is another case of Starfinder 1e already having an excellent set of narrative tools and items to tell these stories, which brings us back to the wailing and gnashing of teeth about why we're fixing something that isn't broken, and the default answer of "because that's the way it is in PF2" just doesn't satisfy.
BigNorseWolf wrote:
if I've seen one thing turn potential players away from organized play its "Oh hey I want to play a ____" and then them being told they can't play that.
Driftbourne wrote:

It's 2 separate issues.

In Starfinder organized play there are 25 species that are not allowed in organized play, there are another 53 species that require spending achievement points to get access to play them. Organized play doesn't allow GMs to override what species can be played.

The ancestry feat issue some people have affects all types of play not just organized play.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but not being allowed to play 78 species out the gate does not quite ring "isn't broken" to me.


2 people marked this as a favorite.
moosher12 wrote:
Kishmo wrote:
This is another case of Starfinder 1e already having an excellent set of narrative tools and items to tell these stories, which brings us back to the wailing and gnashing of teeth about why we're fixing something that isn't broken, and the default answer of "because that's the way it is in PF2" just doesn't satisfy.
BigNorseWolf wrote:
if I've seen one thing turn potential players away from organized play its "Oh hey I want to play a ____" and then them being told they can't play that.
Driftbourne wrote:

It's 2 separate issues.

In Starfinder organized play there are 25 species that are not allowed in organized play, there are another 53 species that require spending achievement points to get access to play them. Organized play doesn't allow GMs to override what species can be played.

The ancestry feat issue some people have affects all types of play not just organized play.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but not being allowed to play 78 species out the gate does not quite ring "isn't broken" to me.

In fairness P2E pfs has plenty of ancestries that need to be bought with boons as well


1 person marked this as a favorite.
WWHsmackdown wrote:
In fairness P2E pfs has plenty of ancestries that need to be bought with boons as well

Whether I'm okay with that is gonna depend on this: Is this only referring to uncommon and rarer ancestries? Or do any common ancestries become limited or restricted? Also are there any restricted ancestries no one can take?

Edit: to answer my question: I just checked the Archives of Nethys. I don't see any Restricted ancestries, and the only limited ancestry is the Shoony (which seems an odd choice because the ancestry is already rare and sounds like it'd need a boon anyway).

Wayfinders

1 person marked this as a favorite.
moosher12 wrote:


Driftbourne wrote:

It's 2 separate issues.

In Starfinder organized play there are 25 species that are not allowed in organized play, there are another 53 species that require spending achievement points to get access to play them. Organized play doesn't allow GMs to override what species can be played.

The ancestry feat issue some people have affects all types of play not just organized play.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but not being allowed to play 78 species out the gate does not quite ring "isn't broken" to me.

The 53 that require spending boons or achievement points are because they are rare to the Pact Worlds, not because they are broken.

Pathfinder2e has around 34 ancestries or heritages that require spending achievement points to play in organized play, android being one of them. Note Orc used to require spending achievement points to play until the ORC license was announced. When I first made my Tengu character I had to pay for that too but Tengu has been moved to the free-to-play list now too. So it's a list that changes over time that has nothing to do with power level.

As for the 25 not allowed at all in Starfinder Socity not sure if there is any one reason each is on the list.


Driftbourne wrote:

The 53 that require spending boons or achievement points are because they are rare to the Pact Worlds, not because they are broken.

Pathfinder2e has around 34 ancestries or heritages that require spending achievement points to play in organized play, android being one of them. Note Orc used to require spending achievement points to play until the ORC license was announced. When I first made my Tengu character I had to pay for that too but Tengu has been moved to the free-to-play list now too. So it's a list that changes over time that has nothing to do with power level.

As for the 25 not allowed at all in Starfinder Socity not sure if there is any one reason each is on the list.

Yeah, that's my bad, I didn't know that was the reason for the 53. I appreciate the correction

Wayfinders

1 person marked this as a favorite.
moosher12 wrote:
WWHsmackdown wrote:
In fairness P2E pfs has plenty of ancestries that need to be bought with boons as well

Whether I'm okay with that is gonna depend on this: Is this only referring to uncommon and rarer ancestries? Or do any common ancestries become limited or restricted? Also are there any restricted ancestries no one can take?

Edit: to answer my question: I just checked the Archives of Nethys. I don't see any Restricted ancestries, and the only limited ancestry is the Shoony (which seems an odd choice because the ancestry is already rare and sounds like it'd need a boon anyway).

Under your My Account page of the Paizo forums,

in the Organized Play section, there is a tab for Boons,

under the Pathfinder Society (second edition) section. click on

"Rewards purchaseable with Achievement Points - PFS(2ed) (click to expand)" to see all the ancestries that need to be bought with Achievement Pointsto play.


Driftbourne wrote:

Under your My Account page of the Paizo forums,

in the Organized Play section, there is a tab for Boons,

under the Pathfinder Society (second edition) section. click on

"Rewards purchaseable with Achievement Points - PFS(2ed) (click to expand)" to see all the ancestries that need to be bought with Achievement Pointsto play.

Don't think I'm able to access it. Ended up on a page to join Organized Play. I don't see a Boons tab.

Think it might be locked to Society members.

Second Seekers (Luwazi Elsebo)

Pathfinder Starfinder Society Subscriber
Driftbourne wrote:
The 53 that require spending boons or achievement points are because they are rare to the Pact Worlds, not because they are broken.

That's not, strictly speaking, true.

Now, I honestly don't believe that any of the species in SF1 are just straight up broken. Yes, true, some are perhaps a bit overtuned and some are, perhaps, a bit undertuned, but I don't think there's anything that's just plain Broken, in the "best-in-class, MinMaxer and Power Gamer's insta-pick" sense of the term.

But - there are some powerful species available in the boon store, that are, I think, locked behind 120 Spacey-Ps because they're good, or perhaps mechanically complicated, and not because they're rare. Barathu, contemplatives, and trox spring to mind as powerful options that are, relatively, common species in the Pact Worlds.
(And just to be clear, this is in no way a complaint :D I offer a thousand and one thanks to the AR and Org Play folks responsible! <3)

401 to 432 of 432 << first < prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | next > last >>
Community / Forums / Archive / Starfinder / Playtest / Field Test Discussion / Paizo Blog: Field Test #3: That Cantina Feel All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.
Recent threads in Field Test Discussion