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What is your opinion about 3rd edition, compared to Ad&d 2nd edition? In many regards 3e was a completely new system, a good system but still a new system, even if all new concepts had been tested beforehand in Gamma World and the the Player's Option books.
...I feel like --on a larger scale -- the two significant changes are really proficiency and class feature acquisition/progression rates, ... And these two things are the main problem. The proficiency system completely changes the feel of the game. It removes the flexibility of the old skill system and leads to really weird effects.
And I fear that you are correct.
Throw the whole level-scaling out. The PF 1e skill system is much better and much more flexible that this.
But they are still trying to do it... :( Good new editions were AD&D 2e and Pathfinder 1e, because both editions were not revolutionary but evolutionary. They only changed those things that simply did not work in AD&D and D&D v.3.5. I have played RPGs for a very long time and know many RPGs which still use the original rules through all their editions. Thy only changed those things which simply did not work correctly anymore. And I have also witnessed how revolutionary new rules destroyed an RPG. And I really fear that this will happen to Pathfinder if they continue to adhere to the false believe that a new edition must be completely different than its predecessor.
I think that the main problem with PF2 is that they want to change as much as possible. But sadly that's the wrong way. A good new edition simply removes all the mistakes and weak spots of the previous one but retains the overall feel of it. If this rules stay as they are, Pathfinder will loose a lot of players. It would really have been better if Starfinder had been used as basis for PF2 instead of creating a completely new set of rules with really no connection to the previous edition. What was so bad with the original skill system that it had to be replaced with a level-based one?
Pathfinder - Spiral of Bones has a Starfinder bonus story and in issue 2 a couple of skittermanders are named: Chub-Chub Flunt, Gurv-Gurv Ploss, Dobus-pin-Dovus and Vo. The older a Skittermander is the longer their name gets, because Vo is still very young
What about semi-nudity?You mean Second Skin? No, because Second Skins still covers everything. I mean clothing that covers nothing important or is very transparent. What about semi-nudity?If full nudity is legal and fine, why wouldn't semi-nudity be? That's not what I mean. It could be that instead of running around competey naked or using body paint, piercings and tattoos, people wear clothing that is either transparent, leaves certain parts uncovered or both. Then uniforms, fashion and even protective gear are possible.
What about semi-nudity?
It's fantasy setting, it doesn't have to be "realistic". That reminds me of the original script for the first Star Trek movie (when it was still the pilot episode of a new Star Trek series). Gene Roddenberry had no problems with nudism and he wanted to show that mankind has grown out of the prudism of his time. So he added a small scene with a nudist family.
There are some players whose characters do this all the time. Including a (semi-)permanent buffs they can get...
Aren't carbon skins and kasatha microcords upgraded versions of a seconds skin? -Are you an animal? Judging from the artwork & genre norms (w/ exceptions for some lounges/sports venues), clothing is expected as the mark of being civilized or sentient. The more naked you are the more primitive you come across, perhaps even if from a recognizable species. I have a Vesk hunter going for this primitive look intentionally. If you're sufficiently furry then you might be considered covered and/or too inconvenienced by clothing, but note that Chewbacca was meant to be primitive. Only after having him copilot throughout the story did Lucas accept he couldn't have Wookies be like Ewoks...so he made Ewoks. That depends. According to some SF writers cultural and social nudity may even be a sign of a very advanced civilization. And for most species completely covered in fur nudity seems to be the universal norm. Or have you ever seen a Wookiee wearing clothes? -Variety might bite back. While there may be nudist movements within SF cultures, there might be anti-nudist movements too. While I'd expect it to be rare, that also means it might catch you off guard. (Not that I'd expect either in official material.) You must differentiate between several very different cases. In a culture in which public nudism has only recently become legal it might be a conservative movement against nudism (similiar to all those homophobic movements of today). In a culture in which public nudism is practiced by the majority it might be a form of rebellion (like the punks in the 1980s). -Radiation! If you thought sunburn was bad... Plus all those energy attacks and blades coming your way. Again, PCs need suits. And only because the rules give every armor some protection against radiation. In my campaign there is a planet in which public nudity is law...
Three more:
That's 6 of 41. Other suggestions any one?
As the title said this is about recreating the Pathfinder iconics as Starfinder characters. We could use the legacy rules and try to convert the Pathfinder class to Starfinder but in most cases it makes more sense to use the existing Starfinder core classes. My suggestions:
After reading the whole thread I come to the conclusion that the main reason for some to hate Starfinder is that it is not Pathfinder but a compeltely new D20 based system.
In my opinion Starfinder is what Pathfinder 2.0 might be. It is streamlined and much more balanced that Pathfinder. And that might be the reason its critics compare it with D&D 4e and D&D 5e. Starfinder is pure science fantasy and it dis away with somethings from Pathfinder which were in my opinion more like a hindrance than a boon. Although some things were added which are unaccustomed for some players like two kinds of hit points (something which for example Star Wars D20 revised edition already had). Having two kinds of AC also needs getting used to, but is neceassary if armor is used to prevent being hit and to reduce the damage.
I do not see why undead being not evil is a problem. If you look into fantasy literature and other RPGs you will find enough instances of not evil undead like the oathbreakers in the Lord of the Rings or the city of Esmoda in the German RPG "Splittermond". Even the force spirits in Star Wars could be seen as some kind of undead. I do also not understand why NPCs must follow the same rules as PCs. Especially if they stay NPCs and do not become PCs later in the campaign. Other RPGs do the same. Sometimes you only have the basic stats and a short description of their abilities, which allows you adjust them to your party.
The whole traditional concepts homosexuality and transgender stops working with non-binary species like the shirren or the maraquoi or the asari from Mass Effect or with species without gender dimorphism.
It seems that some think that the Gap was an event that lasted fpr millenia but the truth is that it was a very sudden and very short event. In just one minute several millenia of history were gone. And with it all the knowledge about what happened to many deities. And this happened nearly everywhere but a different times (but also always before they made contact with other affected worlds). Not all gods not mentioned in the CRB are dead. It might be that they were simply forgotten or are not worshipped in the Pact Worlds anymore.
But others may simply do not care...
The following tables are taken from Béthorm - The Plane of Tékumel and were modified for using a d20 instead of a d100 and queered up a bit. Gender Identity
Gender Expression
Biological Sex
Sexuality
Most characters will still be cisgendered heterosexuals, but the chance to have something else has been increased.
In most cases the PCs will never learn about the gender identity and sexuality of any NPC. In most cases you will never known if the woman you are talking to is trans- or cisgendered or if she is homo- or hetero- or even bisexual. Remember that this whole topic was started by someone who believed that the setting is not queer enough. All I wanted to say that it really does not matter. In most cases cases it is really not important if someone is queer or not. And if the PCs really want to know the GM may decide such things. And nothing forbids your GM to change the gender, sexuality etc. of official Starfinder characters... The RPG Béthorm has a cute table with which you can determine the gender identity, gender expression, biological sex and sexuality of acharacter. So it is possible to have a asexual nonbinary with male gender expression and female biological sex or a straight transgendered man with female gender expression or gay intersex women with neutral gender expression. The setting is still young. We have already a lot of queer NPC in the Pathfinder APs and a least four of the iconic Pathfinder characters are queer (Kyra is a lesbian), Merisiel and Seltyiel are bisexual and Shardra is transgendered). And among the seven starfinder iconics we already have one non-gendered (Iseph) and a lesbian (Navasi) and perhaps even a pan-sexual (Obozaya).
In most cases the PCs will never learn about the gender identity and sexuality of any NPC. In most cases you will never known if the woman you are talking to is trans- or cisgendered or if she is homo- or hetero- or even bisexual.
And that's a problem?!? I know about gay players who can only play straight male characters.I know about female players who can only play male characters. And I, being a straight man myself, have stopped playing male characters years ago and only play female characters.
Surely a society with the technology for males to have offspring could also select the sex of the offspring and/or ensure that having offspring was an exclusively male privilege, yes? (I see Deadmanwalking beat me to it.) I know that my idea is based on two assumptions: every one is gay and there is no gender discrimination. You believe that it is unrealistic. But I don't believe that. It is just one extreme example. Just to assume that a society which starts with only gay men and in which only homosexual relationships exist wil also mysogynic and therefore will practise pre-natal gender selection is in my opinion wrong. Another example would be a competely bisexual society with gender equality and gender parity in the first generation. Ten generations later the gender parity is completely gone. 81% will be female and 19% will be male. Only a society with a percentage of strict heterosexual people will have a stable gender ratio (but not gender parity). For this reason it is important to know if the Serum of Sex Shift adapts the DNA of its consumer or not. If not, a transwoman will miscarry in a quarter of all her pregnancies if her partner is not a transman. An a transman will also not be able to produce male children if his partner is not a transwoman.
We should really return to the topic! One interesting/disturbing thought:
In my opinion a setting with racial adversity between the player races is much worse.
I doubt that a non-gendered version of Captain Jack is possible, but that's a different story... ;) About Sulu: Who said that Demora is his adopted daughter? She could be the biological daughter of both him and his husband.
Got my second replacement (via Amazon) today. Still faulty... :(
Do you really think that the protagonists in the novels are always the perfect builds you are looking for? Take a look at all those NPCs or even the iconics. None of them is really perfect. Imperfect characters are much more fun. If I create a character I do not want to min/max them to make them perfect for a certain role. No, I try to set their stats so that they reflect the character concept, even if that means that they are far from perfect.
It's a roleplaying game and not a combat game. In an RPG you really should not need to worry about picking what to want to play. It is more fun to play some one who is not a min/max-ed combat machine. I am sure that the classes in Starfinder are balanced but it seems that some players are unable to see this because they might have overlooked something.
After I struggled through this thread I come to the conclusion that some still believe that combat (especially dealing as much damage as possible in combat) is the most important thing in the game. It's a roleplaying game and not a combat game. And all this class A can do this better than the Solarian and class B can do that batter than the Solarian, is pointless, no other class can do what the Solarian can do.
Golarion is a little bit closer to its sun than Earth is to our, because its year is aproximatly 0.256 days shorter. Based on the map of Verces in Distant Worlds the axial tilt might be around 0.01 degrees, like Mercury.
The interesting thing is that the original drow were really mirror images of the original elves. They were evil, because the elves were good. They were strong in divine magic, because elves were strong in arcane magic. They had a matriarchy, because the elves had a patriarchy. They lived in city in the underdark, because the elves lived in nature on the surface. Etc. The original male drow had beards, similiar to the one Spock has in Star Trek's Mirror Universe.
And that makes them so fascinating (in addition of being evil, that also is a reason for the Drow being so fascinating (the so-called "Fascination of Evil")). For some reason we all are fascinated by matriarchalic or even misandristic cultures (like the Amazons) and not so much by patriarchalic and misogynistic cultures.
Ok I was thinking that what defines a normal axis would be Perpendicular to the sun which would define 0 degrees -|- = 0 degrees. so I was thinking -- would = 90 degrees so I apologize if I got that wrong. but you get the idea to be tidally lock, one pole would have to always face the sun because if it didn't then the livable belt would shifting all the time which would make it a normal day and night cycle on the planet which it doesn't have that, if it did wouldn't be defined as tidally locked.Ok I'm going to put my two cents in here: First of all the axial tilt of Verces would at least be close to 90 degrees off from earth's tilt in order to maintain a stable livable band like they describes Verces. Meaning the only way seasons would change in the livable belt is by proximity of the sun. If it had a tilt like earth the livable belt would move constantly and also would not define tidally locked because different sides will face the sun.
About matriarchies: All matriarchalic cultures on Earth are not gender inverted patriarchies in which women have all the power and men are just better slaves. This kind of matriarchy did never exist. Most of the so called matriarchies were in fact only matrilinear societies.
Ok I'm going to put my two cents in here: First of all the axial tilt of Verces would at least be close to 90 degrees off from earth's tilt in order to maintain a stable livable band like they describes Verces. Meaning the only way seasons would change in the livable belt is by proximity of the sun. If it had a tilt like earth the livable belt would move constantly and also would not define tidally locked because different sides will face the sun. You mean 0 degrees and not 90 degrees. A planet with an axial tilt of 90 degrees is never tidal locked and will have weird seasons and day/night cycles.
At least in a matriarchy the "opressed" half of the population still has certain rights and they are needed (and not as genitors). In a patriarchy the opressed half has often no rights and are often not more than incubators. Thus a patriarchy is always more evil.
It is quite simple. Our Moon has approximatly a mass of 1.23% of Earth's mass. Thus our asteroid belt has only a mass of ca. 0.0615% of Earth's mass.
For my home game all I did was bring back the Drugar (the Dwarven version of the Drow) but I made them a male dominated version of the Drow because I felt the game needed a mirror of the same. ]Eh, I always felt that the "evil patriarchy" counterpart to the drows "evil matriarchy" was the orcs. I mean, if you look at the orc pantheon, only one of their 10 gods is a woman, and that's Dretha, who's pretty much the goddess of being "barefoot and pregnant" (or whatever you call the more barbaric orcish equivalent to that idea). Sure, she doesn't seem happy about it, but she still is. I doubt many drow men like being treated as second class either And if you think that this is not patriarchalic enough: In the German RPG "The Dark Eye" orcs do not recognize their female brethen as orcs but as animals bearing orcs...
Remember that the Gap happen only one Elven or Drow generation ago. That's not so long ago. So both cultures did not change much. For most Elves the Gap led to isolationism, for the Drow males nothing changed, they forgot the reasons for their low status, but that's all. For the Drow matriarchs hoewever it was an opportunity... And we should also not forget that most Golarian cultures had already achieved gender equality long before the Gap.
As if women are bad CEOs...
The funny thing is, that the ability adjustments lost their importance, because you cannot use them to reach ability scores above 18 and higher ability scores are not so expensive as in Pathfinder. So only the racial traits are really important.
Yup, that is why I called them out as making decent Solarians. but not good melee Solarians, because those need Str and Con. I dunno, I guess I just get a little frustrated with fiction at times, and I don't want this taken the wrong way, but it seems that it is okay to have matriarchal societies, but you really aren't allowed to have patriarchal societies. I wouldn't mind seeing the other side get some representation, but I guess it can be a hot button issue. That's quite simple. We all live in still patriarchal societies, even if we try to change this. Matriarchal societies are seen as something exotic, while patriarchal societies are seen as backwards and evil. And we should not forget that the original Drow society was some kind of mirror image that patriarchal society in which Gygax and all the other creaters of the original D&D (and the original Drow) grew up. It is interesting that many RPGs created in the 1970s and 1980s do have patriarchal cultures (mostly based on oriental cultures or trying to simulate mediveal cultures), but that was also a time in which most players and most player characters were male. Modern RPGs however are very big on gender equality, allowing maximal freedom at character creation so that no character is too exotic for the game. As it stands though I like the drow as they are, the art looks really cool for them. Yes, the art is great. I like the female noble. That's how my Solarian will look.
The huge difference is that the Drow were never gender dimorphic as the pre-Gap Lashuntas were. And you should not forget, that most Golarian cultures had gender euqality, something that did not change during the Gap. So it is only natural that the Drow in the Pact Worlds are still matriarchal (but there could be a patriarchal Drow society outside the Pact Worlds). Wouldn't the boni on Dex and Cha make them good ranged Solarians?
I've got the idea of a crossover campaign in which a problem in the past on Golarion and in the present in ther pact worlds must be solved. It does not involve time travel but spiritual ancestors/decendants who are linked (and should be similiar). The outcome of one adventure affects the next one in the campaign, even if it takes place in the past.
182. Your cybernetic implants needs a very high blood alcohol level to function properly. If you are sber they will not work, but if you are nearly completely wasted they work far beyond any expectations.
There can still be an axial tilt, perhaps not a very great one, but it still can be. The effect would be greatest in the polar regions which will know hot bright summer days and cold dark winter nights. Those living in both equatorial regions will only notice minimal fluctuations in the sunlight intensity.
I've noticed one very big problem: the Diaspora. According to the core rules the mass of all objects in this asteroid belt equals two times the mass of a standard planet. The asteroid belt in our solar system has only a complete mass of 5% of the mass of Earth's moon and covers a much larger space.
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