I don't think it's been pointed out yet that the idea of cybernetics is fanciful to us, and many of us feel we would jump at the chance to have it, when its actually a reality, it could be the sort of thing that many people would never want.
In Star Trek: TNG, there's an episode where a character asks Picard why it isn't standard for every Star Fleet officer to have their eyes replaced by a VISOR device like LaForge has. They have the resources, and by comparison regular eyes are "weak", so why not?
Picard doesn't actually answer, but in the moment the subtext is clear: cutting off a piece of yourself is something most people just don't want to do, even if they could get something "better" that's artificial.
EDIT: That's to say nothing of cultural or religious reasons why people might not feel cybernetics is right for them.
I missed this train back when the campaign was happening. Is it going to be possible to obtain a book we we didn't back it (just, on the store)?
I've looked and looked, and can find nothing about this, and if there isn't already a store page for it somewhere, that by itself might be the answer I'm dreading.
What I would love, and might houserule, is a 4th level or so Monk feat that allows you to treat monk weapons as a shield (requiring you to have taken Monastic Weaponry).
I think something like that would both make Monastic Weaponry a more worthwhile path and also solve the "vulnerable until stance" issue, since you can choose an exploration tactic to have your "shield" raised.
The fact that there there is no magic in the real world (that was a sad statement) makes comparing mage/wizard status to a real-world profession completely subjective.
I could just as easily argue that being a wizard is more like being an illustrator: requires a lot of intelligence and training (both to make successful work as well as navigating the freelance business world), but very few are "powerful" enough to be rich and famous.
Or, if you prefer, a wizard is like a physicist, who while probably making a good living don't exactly populate the powerful elite of the world.
You can go on and on. No real world frame of reference means no concrete real-world analogy.
Well "why" it's needed is because without it, attack accuracy would increase every level while defenses would not, but I don't think that's exactly what the question is.
What would be the point of created a supposedly "universal" proficiency system and leave one of the three most important numbers on the character sheet out of it?
As for the flavor, I've always been of the "Reason to fit rule, not rule to fit reason" school of thought. Armor proficiency is how accustomed a character is to moving around with a certain degree of weight, leveraging an armor type's strongest spots, and so on.
I completely agree, though, that having separate levels of proficiency for each armor type is kind of weird, and does lead to some unfortunate growth situations that other threads have discussed, such as when a human bard gets medium armor prof at 1st level, wears it for a year, and suddenly is better at wearing light armor than medium despite never using it once.
The proficiency scaling only bother me in regard to armor, nothing else.
While my reading of the rules is still fresh compared to 1e, I will admit, it doesn't seem like a big deal to allow all one's armor proficiencies to scale at the same rate. They still have to invest feats to even get those armors, and there are enough other incentives to have high Dex that they would be giving something else up to choose this route.
Alternatively, creating a feat that allows all your cross-class proficiency to scale up would also work for me, although maybe with some other slight tack-on.
I like durable wands, I'm not really a fan of the overcharge mechanic.
I would weirdly prefer for wands to be strictly single-use per day with no overcharge than with. It feels like an option that is so unattractive it will be ignored or forgotten by my group until someone doesn't remember they already used it and I have to remind them/make them destroy their wand.
Like, say, in 1e, when technically you could choose to cast defensively OR provoke an AoO when casting in melee. The former was such a better option, the latter virtually didnt exist except when someone forgot to say "I cast this spell defensively" and I had to choose between either saying "Are you sure you don't want to cast defensively?" and saying "Okay you provoke an attack *roll*"
Is it really worth having a choice if that choice is worthwhile in 1 case every 2 years of play and any other time is just a trap players get caught in when they dont remember a rule.
...see Cassandelee become a demigod at the end of Iron Gods, and we see she's a core-deity in the far future of Starfinder. I want to see the in-between!
She looks taller somehow? Also, her breastplate isn't a full-on "breast" plate and I very much like that. This has to be my favorite of the new designs.
I think her head is a little smaller compared to the rest of her body height than in the original, which is what makes characters look big or small in a vacuum
For my first bit of playtesting, I set my party of 5 PCs against a a biohacker, vanguard, and witchwarper bounty hunter crew, building the enemies as PCs of the same level (11th).
The purpose of this was to show off the new classes and to see how powerful the new classes are and how strong the combos are.
I'll summarize here what I will also submit in my survey (after I've had a chance to test out a few more of the new classes' abilities; one combat is not enough).
PC Summary:
Operative (melee-focus)
Soldier (eldritch assailant*/blitz)
Solarian (solar weapon, photon focused)
Mechanic (exocortex, not optimized for combat)
Techomancer (all spells, has not fired a gun in 4 levels)
Enemy Summary:
Kasatha vanguard (able to wield a shield, polarity gauntlets, and smoke grenade at once)
Genetics Biohacker (with injector pistol and smoke grenade)
Blasty Witchwarper (only carrying grenades)
A Synopsis of Events:
After a brief chase (which served mainly to position PCs on the battlefield based on their speed) the fight broke out in an alley that was conveniently 25ft wide and 60ft deep. The operative engaged the vanguard right away.
The first thing the latter did was drop a smoke grenade right at her feet; with blindsight (heat), and her environmental protections on, she could see him (and the solarian when he closed in) clear as day. By chance, everyone in the smoke made saves against breathing smoke on their first round, after which they could protect themselves from it so concealment was the only issue.
The witchwarper was able to keep anyone from escaping effectively by using Infinite World to lower the battlefield where the vanguard was and make everything difficult terrain (which allies of the Biohacker ignored, thanks Limbering Restorative!). The technomancer was able to significantly reduce the threat of the vanguard with a slow spell, but he still was virtually impossible to harm due to both his very high AC[i] and the concealment. Mitigate was not even necessary during this encounter.
Through a creative combination of supernova, quick teleportation, and wall-walking magic items, the PCs were able to minimize (but not completely eliminate) the obstacle of the smoke. While they tried to deal with this problem, the witchwarper was able to pepper the backline with fireb- excuse me, with explosive blasts, while the biohacker was able to weaken the operative with counteragents to keep herself safe. She was able to hit reliably enough to be a problem, but not well enough to be a deciding factor (she failed, blessedly, to make the bloodied players vulnerable to the witchwarper's spells).
The biohacker was the first to die, lacking any real defensive of mobility skills. The witchwarper was hard to pin down, as she could keep flash teleporting away (with 13 Resolve points, she could afford to) through the incredibly complex battlefield she created. Someone would reach her, hit her once, and she would escape and cast another spell. Eventually, though, she was clear of the smoke, and the soldier and technomancer were able to take her down with a couple attacks.
The vanguard never died.
With level-appropriate armor, personal upgrades, and a shield, she still had well over 200 health by round 7. She did not need to use mitigate or align her shield during the fight. Because the solarian and technomancer with both a hit away fro being down (and, frankly, because they were all getting tired) they decided to flee with one last dimension door spell rather than risk someone going down with the vanguard.
Post Combat Impressions:
Biohacker
-Biohacker is on equal footing with the existing classes, but [i]their support/defense is much worse than their offense. Each attack applies decent damage as well as multiple conditions while support options on apply helpful conditions. In practice, the best thing for her to do was try to hit every enemy at least once, which might be the whole combat.
Vaguard/Shields
-Vanguard survivability is kind of absurd, in no small part thanks to the addition of shields. Even without mitigate OR aligning the shield as a move action, she was tougher than every other character on the field and did comparable damage to them (especially when using entropic strike with polarity gauntlets). Entropy points were not used, and I barely kept track of them after she got the first one.
-It's also worth noting that the addition of sheilds gives a vicarious buff to small arms as well as race with extra hands, like kasatha, as it's a worthwhile trade to have lower damage, but higher AC. Both of those are things I like.
Witchwarper
-Infinite Worlds is good. Making difficult terrain alone is incredibly valuable in practice when you have a strong melee combatant on your side. All of the other changes; gravity, wind conditions, ground level, are icing on the cake. There's also the added shock factor utility of, as this one did, abruptly turning the town square into a mushroom forest in the middle of a crowd as a distraction. Combine this effect with utility grenades to entangle or stagger your foes, and you will own the battlefield.
It definitely takes longer to make a character right now, but doesnt it always for your first time? It really is a different ruleset. Having to right in nukbers for ever variable (as some amount of orof is added to EVERY skill and atttribute) does add timr though, as does huntimg through the spell section for all powers.
To out it another way: fun is a sensation based purely in perception, so decisions that affect perception matter.
people are free to find fun wherever they deem appropriate, however when making statements about game balance and math only true facts count
I still dont agree that the statement is false. If I put in $20 to pay a $30 dining bill and my friend puts in $10, it can be said, factually, that my contribution was more sigificant even we still hit the target of $30.
Likewise, even if it only "matters" that we hit a DC of 30 with a skill check, if the dice adds 10.5 and my character adds +20, it is factual that my character contributed more than the d20.
If the average result of 1d20 is 10.5 and my modifier is +4, the roll is mostly luck. If my modifier is +15, more of my result comes from my character's skill.
This is just a perceptual bias.
In reality the only thing that matters is the difference between your bonus and the target DC.
Is... isnt everything in this pretend game dependant on what we percieve the numbers as meaning? We arent just doing math for fun.
Bards have been historically, in various editions of the game, percieved as being weak and passive when, mathematically, they are reaponsible for the most damage in the party (turning near misses into hit, and adding +X damage to every hit including their own).
Perception doesnt just matter, its where the game actually is for most. Otherwise, why describe a sneak attack as being a sneaky? Doesnt just the damage matter?
"Bloated" may not necessarily decrease the influence if the d20 roll, but they do decrease its significance compared to character ability.
If the average result of 1d20 is 10.5 and my modifier is +4, the roll is mostly luck. If my modifier is +15, more of my result comes from my character's skill. Its less about luck, ewpecialy when it comes to many skill checks that dont scale dcs, like trying to jump or perform for a crowd.
You could never multi class at level 1 before. Why all the sudden are you saying it should start now? You all say you want it at level 1, but never explain a logical reason why someone should start with two classes.
Personally I don't care when it starts, I do think you are all barking up the wrong tree. There will be supplement material with classes. Those books will have other classes that essentially do what you are asking for, hybrid classes, like Magus, Inquisitor, Arcane Trickster, ad infinitum. It just looks like you guys are seeking more power creep.
You could never multiclass at 1st level in pathfinder before... but you could play as a magus, warpriest, swashbuckler, hunter, shaman, skald, investigator... see where I'm going?
I much prefer legendary being expressed through skill use as opposed to skill numbers. For one, it keeps DCs from being impossible for some and auto-success for others (something SF struggles with) when you have the margin of difference being so smaller. Being able to say I have +30 in acrobatics is kind of cool, but being able to say my character can fall 1000ft and walk away (Cat Fall feat)? That's more legendary.
One of my players runs a melee Vesk upgrading to Level 7 by our next session on 8/3. They’re hoping the Armory releasing on 8/2 adds some melee-focused feats. Especially something that helps with their attack roll -they’re already doing pretty good damage.
Plan B: I recommended we could work together and invent a feat that’s mathematically in-line with RAW and narratively justified for the character.
Thanks for any new feat info!
I was wandering if there were any feats in this book. I haven't seen any mention of feats in the book. I to am looking for things to beef up my Nuar Blitz soldier.
Previous commentor teased at least 2 new soldier gear boosts that are melee focused (one specifically for unarmed, one for TWF, and another that sounded like it is for melee energy weapons)
"Superheated or electromagnetically charged gas becomes ionized plasma, which plasma weapons emit in a controlled blast"
Just saying: Nothing in there about how thick it is, just that it is powerful enough to penetrate multiple objects.
Sorry, I didn't mean the fluff on Plasma Weapons in general, I meant the fluff on Plasma Pistols and Plasma Rifles specifically, which fire lines of plasma, as opposed to something like the Plasma Caster, which fires bolts like the Plasma Guns in Fallout or the Blasters in Star Wars.
And it doesn't actually say anything about plasma being able to penetrate multiple objects under the fluff for Plasma Weapons in general.
Well, perhaps you're right. Multiple targets are not *explicitly" called out in the general plasma flavor text, so there's no reason why a single target plasma gun can't or shouldn't exist.
One of your complaints, correct me if I'm wrong, is that plasma guns in SF function like irl flamethrowers, yes? If that's true, then I bring you back to the fact that there'as no description for how wide the beam of plasma is. It can very well be a tiny, narrow beam that penetrates all targets in a line, or an incredibly wide, flamethrower-like shot that engulfs all targets in a line. It's all theater of the mind. You can imagine it whichever ways suits you best
If you were actually getting at something else, then my mistake.
Always bugged me that barbarian was the only martial with a d12 hit die (dont they get enough extra hp from rage?) but everything else looks really good. It's true that no barbarian or bard runs out of rage/performance rounds past level 5; by then, other party resources have already run out.
Wait... are you saying people on Reddit think Conn. Inkling is a BAD feat? With the way ability increases work, its super easy to get and super useful (although i guess that depends on your spell choice).
Of all the things present in PF and not in SF, what I think we need is a charisma-based spellcaster.
Taking queues from sorcer but updating it to SF's setting, the class could be more of a "magic mutant" that, like the sorcerer, casts spells by natural ability, but its framed as being the result of evolution
They could choose from "mutant origins" that grant unique abilities. Technomagical cybernetics? Genetic experimentation? Cursed by an alien god? There are quite a few avenues to explore.
Starfinder is bad for the same type of scifi campaigns that Pathfinder is for fantasy: ones where combat is rare or only a last resort.
You certainly *can* play a SF game where you have combat once in a blue moon and talk your way throigh most things, but in a game where 75% of your character's crunch is devoted to combat or combat-related (such as healing), theres a lot of wasted design space.
In-universe it is not some great mystery, but as an artist myself who might want to make a kasatha zombie, or a kasatha NPC that eschews tradition (as much of a cultural outlier as that would be), I would like to have a canonical source to base it on.
The fact that healing hitpoints doesn't spill over into restoring stamina pretty much means that you want to cast Mystic Cure only when someone is dying or both you and an ally have hitpoint damage (since any excess healing can be directed toward yourself, which is a great addition).
We also have to consider whether or not a "fresh" (newly born with no skills or memories) android can legally consent to anything. With no skills, no memories, and no beliefs, a freshly-manufactured android would be a tabula rasa on which their creator could and would write anything they wished.
If Brock walked out of his stasis chamber and I told him he could choose to either work in my factory and be safe or walk away and be hungry and homeless, he would choose to work. He would have no idea that there was a homeless shelter down the street, or that there were humanitarian outreach programs aimed at helping fresh androids get on their feet. Not if I didn't tell him. Like a child, Brock has no prior knowledge or experiences on which to make an informed decision about his own freedom, or even to know what freedom means.
There is some precedent for this in Pathfinder, when...
Iron Gods Spoilers:
...in The Divinity Drive (part 6), the nascent Iron God Unity had a little village of androids that spent their entire lives living and working in a little re-purposed promenade. They had no desire to leave because they had no knowledge of life outside or that any god was any kinder than Unity. Without the intervention of the PCs, they would have happily gone on working for and worshiping their LE god, but not because they chose to follow evil, when they were not really aware of what evil was.
Does a child legally owe anything to their parents? Wouldn't humans be up in arms if their parents required them to pay off the expenses of their upbringing? Obviously there may be gratitude from a child, or a sense of obligation, but I doubt anyone would feel comfortable with a legal imperative.
I remember reading a setting (could have been Discworld) where dwarven parents keep careful ledgers of any expenses related to their offspring, and before the young dwarf can marry they or their prospective spouse has to pay those off. It was then customary for the parents to give a gift to the young couple of approximately equal value.
A key difference is that every party involved is choosing to participate in this custom, and has grown up aware of it and with ample time to prepare or to fulfill it, to to simply decide they don't want to be married or don't want to stay in dwarf society.
An android in the scenario that's been proposed does not ask to be there, has no time to prepare, and no option besides "Be my servant or starve tonight", which is not really a choice.
This weapon fires a projectile in a straight line that pierces
through multiple creatures or obstacles. When attacking with such a weapon, make a single attack roll and compare it to the relevant Armor Class of all creatures and objects in a line extending to the weapon’s listed range increment. Roll damage only once. The weapon hits all targets with an AC equal to or lower than the attack roll. However, if an attack fails to damage a creature or obstacle hit in the line (typically due to damage reduction or hardness), the path is stopped and the attack doesn’t damage creatures farther away. A line weapon can’t damage targets beyond its listed range. If you score a critical hit, that effect applies only to the first target hit in the line, and you roll the critical damage separately. If multiple creatures are equally close, you choose which one takes the effects of the critical hit. A line weapon doesn’t benefit from feats or abilities that increase the damage of a single attack (such as the operative’s trick attack).
emphasis mine.
I think the last line is what is important. A line weapon doesn't benefit from abilities, like a spell.
It specifically says "feats or abilities that increase the damage of a single attack", not "feats or abilities" period.
If that provision meant line didn't benefit from ANY abilities, it would also mean they don't gain any benefit from Weapon Focus, soldier gear boosts, or the like.
You go on ahead and tell me if you think that is broken or not.
Honestly that is probably more of a selling point for the race than a detraction. You can make some super fast moving nose wheel thing if you really spend a lot of skills/abilities focused on gaining speed. Hell I can picture this thing zooming around with its lil arms waving like kermit the frog as it frantically zooms about.
You can do the exact same thing with a Shohbad or Nuar, though. And even a goblin would only be 5ft slower if you had the same build. Frankly, if you're pushing your speed up above 100 or whatever, even the 10ft loss from being a normal human isn't any less broken.
If you want to get real freaky, a Solarian bantrid with Stellar Rush and Blazing Orbit. He can charge a total of 120ft and leave a trail of flames for the first 40 (blazing orbit as a move action, charge as a standard via stellar rush).
2.0 is being framed as a direct, chronological sequel to 1.0, as opposed to just a revision of rules. This is evident from announcement that the last 1.0 AP will set up the world backdrop for the 2.0 core book, and that 2.0 will incorporate a number of post-AP into the setting (Cheliax being a site of political upheavel as a result of Hell's Rebels and Hell's Vengeance, for example).
So is it really to hard to imagine goblin society evolving as the world evolves? While I'm less invested in 2.0 because I run Starfinder now, I'm 110% ready to throw down with some punny goblins by my side.
The average citizen in the Starfinder universe is more educated (consider how many more languages every speaks by default) and has easier access to knowledge, and is as a result more aware of the LE efreet's tendancy to twist wishes into undesireable outcomes. I imagine it's a similar situation to loan sharks: everyone knows the outcome is not going to be good, so only the truly desperate or foolish go that route.
Whether or not an ability is good enough to give up is one thing, but regardless, with the exception of the Mystic (I'll get to that in a second), I would not call any of the things sacrificed "core class features" or fundamental in any way, for the soul reason they are all that class's "talent" feature. No single magic hack, mechanic trick, etc. are a fundamental part of the class, that's how they're designed.
Now, as far as whether or not archetypes are worth it, that's going to come down to how highly one values options in the game, as opposed to concrete things like numbers, which is going to vary for everyone.
What I mean by that is this: most of the talent features archetypes replace cannot be used at the same time as other features ("As a standard action you may ____", "You may spend 1 Resolve point to ____", etc.), and so they only grant as much benefit as they are used in lieu of your other options. This is not true of every talent/trick/revelation/etc, but it is true of many. Because I can only benefit from so many in a round, having fewer options only makes a character situationally weaker, because I may not have the one talent that's best in the current situation, but I still have the ones I use on 80% of my turns.
Many of the archetypes grant small, passive benefits that are "always on". The Steward Officer saving you a skill point or two and granting two delayed feats for the price of one talent. So often times you are sacrificing big activated abilities for small passive ones. Again, not in every case, but in many of them.
Is it worth it to do that? I don't think anyone can say so except for themselves. If your solarian's playstyle is to full attack or use Blazing Orbit every round, then you don't need all those revelations that require move or standard actions to use. Unlike hard numbers, like average damage or skill bonuses, access to options can't be quantified as better or worse for all players.
On a slight tangent: how do you approach a newly "born" android? The CRB lists their age of maturity as 0 years, but since this parallel to 18 years for humans, I think it's fair to say they still have a degree of learning and maturity left to do.
I imagine newly born "androids" as having a very narrow, robot-like approach to their world that quickly (by human maturation standards) expands to cover complex concepts like justice and love over the course of a year or so, to the point that they become human in all but body and name.
A lot of the things we're talking about with newly made androids are just as unsettling if we imagine them happening with a human that just turned 18 and left highschool for the first time.
One of the Pathfinder supplements goes into this... People of the Stars maybe? I don't have it on hand but remember it to be something like, Androids innately know many things to help them immediately get started in their lives. Motor skills, I think languages, basic social skills too. A big thing about Androids is that while they may be different, they aren't really robot like by default. Having difficulty processing emotions is a common trait in humans too.
Certainly, but when we look at humans, 18yr olds and 30yr olds generally have very different dispositions, energy levels, and decision-making strategies, despite both possessing language, motor skills, etc. I feel that fresh androids and androids that have been around the block ought to have some comparable difference as well in terms of how they'd be roleplayed.
A fresh android might possess basic skills and language, but they don't have any detailed memories or personal experiences to inform their decisions. What would a person like that look like? What would they act like, and how prone to suggestion would they be?
I imagined that the hand-like bundle of tentacles on their heads could stretch into long, thin prehensile tentacles, one with about the strength of a finger, and a bundle with the strength of a hand.
