I would personally like to see the return of junk magic Now's my chance to be a Big Shot...
I have to assume you haven't kept up with news for SF2e for very long because most of these aren't news. 1) Starship combat has been constantly and repeatedly said to be still in playtesting. The team want to make it the best it can possibly be, so they're delaying it to such a time that it's actually fun. I haven't heard great things about SF1e's ship combat so I do think this is a very reasonable decision. Additionally, the GM Core releasing not long after launch is advertised as having "cinematic starship combat" which I assume is a more simplified and freeform system for when it suits the narrative, and a gap-filler until full detailed rules come out. 2) I mean, other than the Computers skill which can absolutely be made more engaging than "a single die roll", one of the, again, GM Core's advertised features is a hacking subsystem. 3) The playtest had rules for various gravity levels including low- and zero-G, I would also be disappointed if the full release came with none. There is a chance it's another thing shunted into the GM Core but even I agree that'd be a copout. 4) There is none, nor should there be. That concept is far too broad. You don't want ALL of science to be compacted into one single class. There is currently playtest documents for the Mechanic however which will be fully releasing in a later Core book. You seem to have a slight misunderstanding of what Starfiner is meant to be. It's not Sci-Fi, it's space fantasy. There is a sci-fi component to that but it's not the loadbearing pillar by any means. It seams like the team has made the decision to keep a lot of tech stuff for a later book, including classes like the Mechanic and Technomancer, and probably many other things. You're allowed to be unhappy with that of course, but it's still how things are.
You Either Die A Hero...: Land the killing blow on a character that was formerly your PC.
Non-core iconics haven't been getting pregens until very recently, I'm sure he'll get one when the Magus class is finally remastered
The people complaining that her backstory is too edgy have never heard of Seltyiel frWell, we haven't seen (right?) pf2 take on it. And even if we did, I don't think the problem is edgyness: it would be at least clear. The problem is I don't understand which is the main theme, it's too all over the place and inconsistent. Yes, people can be like that. But no, I don't think that's how iconics' stories should be like. For the record I agree with this criticism, I think Ulka's personality and values as outlined here are very confused and confusing, but I did see some criticism leveled against how (supposedly) needlessly edgy it is, which I don't think is valid criticism especially when compared to some of the earlier Meet the Iconics, most notably Seltyiel. Speaking of whom, it's true that we haven't had a new Meet The Iconics for Seltyiel, but the only returning Iconic we did get one for was Yoon (pretty justified I'd say) which to me implies the old 1e ones stand. And we did get an Iconic Encounter for him leading up to the release of Secrets of Magic, which were originally (and to some extent still are) meant to take the place of an entirely new Meet for returning Iconics. Reading through it... Yeah no nothing has changed, Seltyiel is still as much of an edgelord as before.
The Token Human: Have the only PC in your party with a common ancestry and heritage.
[GM] Ten Years Later...: Run a campaign that chronologically follows one you had just finished with that group.
It's an honor to see my previous suggestions now included in the google doc! Even if And A Fake Mustache has a small typo :P
The people complaining that her backstory is too edgy have never heard of Seltyiel fr
As much as I make it a point to lambast remastered Oracle, my take on an ideal one is actually mostly in line with this iteration; I love the new Cursebound mechanics, and I think it was a good change to decouple the potential benefits from the curses themselves. In the curse management aspect Oracle is basically where I want it to be. Likewise, the ways Mysteries were expanded are great for the class, extra granted spells is something every divine class needs, it's nice to have access to a full deity's worth of domains per mystery now, The dealbreaker for me is the removal of Mystery Benefits, the granted feats they were replaced with by necessity cannot be as impactful which in my opinion is horrible for the class. Battle is particularly instructive here, it used to give you unconditional training with all martial weapons in a chosen weapon group (and actually advanced ones too when you got to expertise), and now... You can give your allies a buff to initiative. Which was their old initial focus spell, actually, the current one attempting (and failing) to fill the same need as the old Benefit, but it's just... Worse. I'm not certain what prompted this change, but it's for the worse, and the class would be better off with reworked benefits instead of granted feats. And also 3 slots, holy hell whey did they choose to give Oracle power by just giving it more slots
I imagine the writing team just wanted to highlight other deities and make things feel less like Patbfinder in SPACE. Seconded, I legitimately find the new inclusions the most fun and inspired of the Starfinder Core 20 and I'm certain the design team can feel this too. Loving the god of internet and memes, loving the god of who the hell knows it just hatched, loving the god of being emo, great work from the Starfriends. Makes me wish they went further, like I understand the space (heh) Urgathoa occupies in a setting where undeath is rather more prevalent and leagues more accepted, but like... It's still just Urgathoa. Especially when a lot of the SF original deities returning from the 1e core 20 do kind of have a vibe of [PF2 deity] in SPACE!
This seems to be an AoN data entry error! My PDF copy of GM Core lists it (as well as Spined and Spellguard which also are missing the trait on AoN) as Magical.
If the rulesets weren't compatible I honestly don't think I would care about SF2e at all, I don't have the energy or mental capacity to learn a separate-if-similar set of rules, and I definitely couldn't get my group to.
I mean, for one, your group is never forced to incorporate any event that happens in the Pathfinder canon. The ending of the terror in Galt, the death of Gorum, hell, even Earthfall are as true as your GM decides they are. If your group doesn't have a reason or wish to play with the space a disruptive event creates, just... Ignore it.
Despite Everything, It's Still You - Play a character all the way from level 1 to level 20
How broken up are the redemption codes? I'm curious if I could give codes for the Ruby Phoenix AP individuals while keeping the hardcover code for myself. Mostly I'm interested in the various maps, tiles, and society scenarios. If it's anything like previous ones, the codes are broken up by tier, so not super useful for your purposes
The wording is honestly pretty clear for once. Make an Intimidation check against all Undead and Unholy creatures within 30 feat. It cannot affect standard mindless Oozes or Constructs (unless they also have those traits) since you didn't roll an Intimidation check against them to begin with. It's also pretty clearly the RAI reading, an Exorcism is against ghosts and demons, not a funny mold or clay army man.
For real, and I say this as a fan of Inventor, stop trying to make this class more like Inventor
Okay so. This entire, let's be real here, mess of a system is admittedly complicated and hard to grasp at first, but it does exist for important balance reasons. Prepared casters are very versatile since they can decide what spells to take every day, but open themselves up to a lot of risk by needing to call that shot at the start of the day. Spontaneous casters need to commit a lot harder to what they'll be doing in general since they learn a fixed spell repertoire, but have a lot more freedom within the day on which of their spells to use. If they were able to freely up/downcast (i.e. Heighten) their spells, they would be too adaptable compared to prepared casters, so they're restricted to using any spell they learn at the precise spell rank they learned it. To somewhat circumvent how unfun that is, there's multiple ways to deal with it, most notable is Signature Spells. Per each spell rank of spells you have learned, you can designate any one as your signature, which lets you freely heighten that spell to any rank that you have spell slots (or cast at a lower rank if you initially learned it at a higher rank than its base). Alternatively, you can simply learn a spell again at a higher rank, which isn't the worst choice (since every level you also get to freely change out one of your existing spells, in this case the lower rank one), especially if the spell in question only changes at specific breakpoints.
But they've said that while the rules would be compatible, the meta of the games would be very different. Hence easier access to flying has been a huge example they give for SF2e's meta difference. Couldn't this sort of thing fall into that meta difference? A different meta does not necessarily mean a different expected power level. Just, that power is allocated differently. Depending on how hard they want to go for the compatibility angle, the Starfriends need to keep class chassis considerations on par with each other and making up for the differences in more malleable areas like item strength instead, which they basically seem to have. That is, minus the overtuning of basically every class. Guns being effectively by default repeating is a very notable one, and all gear having an extra upgrade slot compared to rune progression is another. This would mean that a Wizard won't fall behind in SF since they get access to the same tools as everyone else, and a Mystic wouldn't pull ahead in PF because they're restricted to the same tools as everyone else. Ancestries, archetypes, feats, and especially items are a different can of worms though and would likely be much harder to truly balance, but classes realistically can just be balanced to be on par with Pathfinders's and still work in the new meta.
To be clear I already love this class. Much more than Mechanic. But it is very clear that they're struggling in multiple areas and I don't want that for them, so I figured I'll toss in some suggestions for what to do about it (I'm no game designer tho so take it with a heap of salt). Technomancer's action economy is bad and multiple subclasses struggle to get mileage out of their gimmicks. I think this would be alleviated if, across the board, their level 1 focus spells were 1-2 action spells that are meant to synergize with their spellshapes and overclocks and jailbreak benefits, instead of Even More Spellshapes. They could also get action compression feats that let them do X action plus spellshape, such as step/stride, shoot/reload, or take out an item like, for example, a spell gem. Paradoxically enough, they also don't really get good one-action tasks to fit into their turns, that aren't spellshapes at least, which means they're much more railroaded into always casting spells. While giving them ways to spellshape alongside other actions could alleviate this, I think the class just needs more to do in general. We've heard of casters that focus on their casting, Wizard and Sorcerer are both more or less no-frills hyper-effective casters, while I think there's definitely space (heh) to explore that even further in Starfinder I definitely don't think a concept as brimming with identity as "Technomancer" should be the place to do it. Which leads into my next point actually, which is that Technomancer doesn't have a ton of techy things to do despite the name. The flavor of the class is on point but the class really needs more ways to interact with ambient tech or carried gear above and beyond their spell list and the fairly narrow Overclock. This could be a perfect space to slot in more one-action feats and features past their spellshapes. More things like the Ammo Infector Virus! Technomancer is a fun idea, they need to do more with it!
Maya Coleman has called it the Tech Core Playtest before so I think it's indirectly confirmed that the book is Tech Core
This is a wonderful promotion and I really hope that future remastered books will get a similar treatment ^^
I don't mean disrespect but I don't super know what that has to do with anything because 2e is not 1e. The experience is only so comparable. That said I'm mostly expecting Paizo to go back on the decision after all like you suggest might happen simply because of the backlash. Only time will tell.
And this I vehemently disagree with. It majorly shifts the expectation to make high level play accessible from the structures set in place to make the rest of the system accessible and onto the community in private games. Many people will only play PFS and it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth to think that they're not even supposed to get the chance to play past the first half of (hopefully) a very well made game, especially when bumping the starting levels might very well alleviate some of the issues with higher level Org play.
I imagine it's a concideration for "skill monkey" classes, same as it is in PF2e. You're not barred from getting to expert at level 2, just... Very few things enable that. Not nothing though and telling the Envoy that they can't take the skill feat even though they have the right proficiency for it just doesn't seem right. On Technomancer though it's a questionable choice to make it a class feat requirement
I am incredibly discouraged to hear that there will be an imposed level cap. Most of the other changes I've heard in regards to the Society structure have been positive, but this completely killed my excitement for it. Paizo needs to do more to promote playing the full breadth of their games!!! Gah, whatever
I was someone that complained about WW and Mystic being 4 slot, so I'm personally really happy to see a 3 slot caster and am hopeful those classes will be toned down at release like they should be. That said, the adjustment doesn't treat Technomancer very nicely and I think they'll struggle quite bad unless we get staves (or equivalent) in SF2
Brought to you by the author of "Akashic Connection Should Be Deleted From The Game", now presenting: Mines Exocortex Needs To Be Reworked Beyond Recognition Or Replaced Outright It's mechanically (heh) poorly supported, has notable action economy problems, potentially has an even worse case of playtest Necromancer's grounded thralls issue, can potentially run out of its main class feature with no recourse (which as of remaster not even Alchemist does), and is just... Strangely narrow as a base concept. But I don't believe it's completely beyond saving. For one, making it a more nonspecific trapper than just mines could do it wonders in increased adaptability, and wouldn't compromise its area denial shtick. For another, it could focus on one mine (or ideally other traps but for now I'll stick to mine lingo to avoid confusion) at a time instead of peppering the battlefield with them, which would make it easier to balance letting you mod it and possibly removing their resource restrictions, though admittedly this would make it less unique. Even barring that, Mines Mechanic should absolutely get a default way to generate more mines mid-combat somehow, either at an action tax or reduced functionality or possibly both, similar to Alchemist.
Well, technically they're on par but I don't buy that. Wizard is trained in their tradition skill (Arcana) and 2+int free skills. Techno gets their tradition skill (Arcana), Computers, and 1+int free skills. That's guaranteed 3 for both of them, and yes, realistically a good amount more since they're int classes, but like... Why does Technomancer have a marginally worse version of Wizard's most notable weakness? I legitimately cannot think of another class, PF2 or SF2, that has 1+int free skills. So yeah, I think Technomancer should get a small bump up to 2+int free skills, as a treat.
Strange take IMO. Partly because we have heard the design team specifically talk about not wanting the SF2e classes to be too close to the PF2e ones. I agree there's room for overlap, there has to be some just by virtue of the systems needing to enable the same playstyles to the same degrees, but I do believe that striving for variation is good for both systems. And I think the current Mechanic mostly sits in the sweet-spot of being kind of Inventor-like but not being the same class again. Even if it could benefit from a bit more oomph. Seems to be a running trend of SF2 so far...
I for one love the Inventor, sure it still needs more power but it is a concept that works well enough. Which is why I don't want Mechanic to end up being "that but again but space" and neither does the design team as they've said before. Mechanic should get more sauce but it shouldn't be by becoming more like Inventor.
I just realized today that I won't be home when the playtest drops and now I'm sad because yeah it's great spending time with family and stuff BUT STARFINDER
Hacking is small-fry stuff.Spoken like a true lover of meat-space who's never seen what a master Decker can do to their hardware, weapons, and gear. Decrypt these fists, ya keyboard masher! (This threat and argument are for comedic purposes only, I have no true quarrel with this opinion nor the person making it, I repeat do not shoot me)
Great series of posts, looking forward for the next! And I can pretty confidently say no obvious spelling mistakes this time :P Assuming they get the buff they so badly need, I'm hoping to make a Striker operative. I wanna lean into Operative's high mobility options (if those survive the playtest) and have like a parkour street brawler type character. I imagine they're like, a graffiti artist who's bringing color and shape to the ad-filled concrete(?) hellscape they hail from, I don't know the pact worlds setting well enough to figure out where that'd be.
I mean I hope the thing Paizo took away from the way Mythic launched isn't that major rules like that shouldn't be playtested but like, I agree. Spaceship rules are the thing we should be hopefully looking out for. Hacking is small-fry stuff.
Except now there are no forces of law and chaos. Not true actually. To our knowledge Axiomites and Proteans haven't ceased their conflict and their ideals haven't changed either. They just don't deal damage types powered by their ideologies anymore because Paizo technically doesn't have the rights to do that (without using the OGL which is the thing they don't want to do)
Yeah I dunno Marge strikes me as an Infosphere Director Envoy. It's kinda funny how much trouble we're collectively having coming up with actual new class ideas lol
One way is the "invoke a pop culture fantasy I want to play". I'd love a shapeshifting focused class, one that can alter its body on the fly and take absurd forms in order to overcome challenges. Metamorpho comics, John Carpenter's The Thing, or the old Animorphs novels are big inspirations. Ben 10, anyone? Also I think your analysis of the Solarian class in specific is missing crucial context. They are a pretty direct stand-in for a rather specific pop culture thing. They're Jedi knights! Not one-to-one, but think about it. Drawing power from a philosophy of cosmic one-ness (The Cycle), they summon personal energy weapons, and their totality includes agents of literal light and dark, with them ultimately striving to keep the cosmic balance. They're also given the cool solar gimmick because stars and black holes are, indeed, awesome. And lumping Technomancer and Mechanic in this pile I fully don't get, to me they seem as standard sci-fi/space fantasy ideas as Operative, Soldier, or Envoy.
Lost Omens: Divine Mysteries pg. 69 Iomedae's Divine Intercessions Iomedae's Major Boon grants the effects of the holy and axiomatic runes to longswords you wield, but as per the Remaster the latter rune doesn't exist, has no replacement, and has no possible mechanical effect.
I feel like there's an unspoken assumption in the initial question that I'm betting has already been answered more clearly somewhere else but asking here seems more productive than trying to find it myself; Is the 6 part 1-20 Adventure Path format effectively retired and if so, why? Do they not sell well? Are they unpopular? I can definitely see potential pitfalls with the model as someone who could barely wrangle a game of Beginner Box to completion, I for sure see that making more shorter ones is a more sound business tactic, but I don't know that phasing them out entirely would be a good call. The mere existence of those APs left me feeling assured that yes, this system truly does work at all levels, continuously. I especially think Mythic rules could use a 1-20 AP to prove the ruleset is more functional than us naysayers give it credit for. I'll stop rambling and answer the actual question though. Non-sequels seem like the most preferable format for someone of my situation who has sporadic games that fizzle out easily. It gives me the ability to start games at the high levels my players don't otherwise get to actually reach more easily. Indirect sequels work for this purpose as well but ironically the mere implication that this is supposed to be the conclusion of Some Other Adventure that I wouldn't be able to run gives me more work. Direct sequels are the least useful for me and frankly at face value I don't see the point of doing that over a good old-fashioned 1-20 AP
You're in luck! The core class Iconics (and more and more of the non-core ones too) have full pregenerated sheets for some of the earlier levels. You can download the pack here, or if your group uses the legacy (non-remastered) PF2e rules, here. I would advise simply using these while you feel out the system, especially with a class as complicated as Alchemist.
I also hope that SROs and Anacites become playable. Possibly as separate ancestries, possibly within a single versatile robot ancestry (not sure how versatile ancestries work). I can help with that! Versatile Heritages (versatile ancestries aren't a thing to my knowledge) are Heritages that (theoretically) any ancestry can take, most commonly used for Planar Scions or other "half" ancestries, but more generally to encompass concepts that are roughly on the ancestry level but don't make sense as a full standalone ancestry. They give some benefits as any other Heritage would, as well as access to their own feat trees and usually their own "sub-heritages" known as lineage feats. Things such as Nephilim (Tiefling and Aasimar (and other similar) rolled into one, lineages corresponding to the specific planar being you have a relation to), Changeling (child of a Hag, lineages corresponding to the specific type of hag), or Prismeni (I'm confident SF veterans don't need me to explain this one, lineages corresponding to the nature of your connection to the Drift). I don't know enough about Starfinder to be able to say whether SROs or Anacites would be appropriate for this arrangement but at least for SROs my gut feeling says no.
I don't think there is or can ever be a definite rules-based answer to at least the first half of this question. I can only provide my own insights. 1, This is an incomplete question. Are those wall segments connected or do they form two sides of a corridor/choke point? How thin or thick? PF2e isn't an ascii graphics dungeon crawler (unless you actively make it one I suppose) where walls are delineated as a binary yes/no per tile with unshakable laws governing them, it depends on the actual properties of the wall(s) we're discussing in the fictional space the tokens are inhabiting. If the walls are connected I would obviously disallow diagonal movement through them as presented in the image. In any other scenario I might do anything from only allowing smaller PCs/minions to requiring a Squeeze check to just straight up allowing movement from S to F. 2, Similarly incomplete question, is it a pillar that takes up most but not all of the space of the tile or a hard corner that precisely lines up with the tile's boundary? The nuances of an (imaginary) physical space can't be captured by one-size-fits-all laws and I don't think they should. Still, in a single wall scenario I would personally by and large allow a PC to make a diagonal movement from S to F. 3 & 4, I think easier to handle, there's nothing stating that you can't move around/between creatures like that, I would not require a Tumble Through check to get from S to F in either case and allow direct diagonal movement. If anyone does have rules citations to back up or debunk these rulings do post them
I think we're missing the forest for the trees here; Sometimes weapon descriptions do contain important mechanical information, and even if in the boomerang's case it's just flavor text it shouldn't distract from the mechanical function of the weapon. The text should receive minor errata to clear up the confusion.
I just noticed something. The print versions of the Starfinder 2e core books is 10 dollars more than the Pathfinder 2e Core books. I guess Paizo's done holding the line on the Core for this new system? I'm not gonna say it's not understandable but it is disappointing. It won't affect me personally because I intend to purchase PDFs but keeping the prices low on the entry level books always struck me as a really great move for letting people get into the system easier, something I'd argue Starfinder needs more than Pathfinder did.
I have to hard disagree to this suggestion (though not sentiment). Working on balancing a satisfying Build-An-Ancestry would take immense effort and a lot of time, everything fro heritages to feats to probably additional types of trait choosing would need to be incredibly more expansive than we've seen from these systems, at least I'd argue even more than Awakened Animal. This would divert attention from other important areas such as, say, delivering all the fan-favorite alien species people want back from 1e. We're seemingly already getting a greater flow of them than Pathfinder. Six more from Galaxy Guide, one more from Murder in Metal City, an unknown but probably non-zero amount from the recently confirmed Tech Core, and god only knows how much more they have in the oven already. Starfinder won't be barren for that much longer, and build-an-ancestry would only delay that further.
Considering we already have a product listing for Starfinder GM Core I don't think it'll be merged like PF2e launch, and we'll probably just get it slightly later. Which admittedly does irk me a little. Even the PF2e Remaster made sure that the Player and GM Cores came out together, what is supposedly a new and separate (even if compatible) system not launching with important things like GM advice or a bestiary rubs me the wrong way, but it's too late to do anything about it now.
I've only been following peripherally basically coming here to the Paizo Starfinder front page and forums monthly to see if a new playtest packet is out. Have they confirmed a second packet with the missing classes/ancestries/etc? I'm glad as I was really looking forward to seeing the changes to the mechanic. In another forum thread, Maya Coleman confirmed that the Technomancer/Mechanic playtest (fromally known as the Tech playtest according to the Playtest site) will begin on April 21, barring unexpected delays I suppose.
I just tried clicking the download link to see if it'd send me to a page to buy it, but it's free! I really want to thank you and the entire team at Paizo for making such an awesome game available to us all regardless of our financial situation and I'm looking forward to the day where I can buy a full collection of all the 2e books! The Player's Guides to APs are always free PDFs! The APs themselves, not so much, but hey, they need to pay their employees somehow
As a big Barathu fan I completely disagree that they need increased land speed; With Merfolk there's precedent for 5 foot land speed ancestries with worse primary movement speed types than flight, with the introduction of the Traversal trait as detailed in the wrap-up blog post relying on exclusively flight will be more viable, and in general I would argue having to deal with the weaknesses of flight (no step, action tax when hovering, etc.) is a fair tradeoff for its strengths (and can be circumvented with Adaptable Limbs anyways). I don't want the strength of Barathu's flight to be diluted by making their ground speed stronger.
As far as new products go I want
That said overall I second Tridus's sentiment about wanting better options more than new ones. I don't care too much precisely how it manifests, I just want something that rethinks PF2e's menagerie of botched and underused systems/options more than I want brand new botched and underused systems and options.
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