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As with many conversations about the game, where and how you play make a big difference. I've only played SF1e and SF2e PbP. My first character is now level 6 after 3 years. The first group I played with only lost one player in 9 months. Playing with the same group made it easy to play the same character up to 5th level. Once that group split up, I had to build a new character to fit in with low-level games. I also started playing in more than one game at the same time, so I ended up with lots of low-level characters, none of which are over 2nd level. I will also frequently make a new character depending on the team's needs or if I don't have a character that fits well with the scenario. With SF1e having so many playable species, I just like making new characters to try more species and classes. After playing 5 8th-level pregens at the same time during Outpost VIII, I'd much rather play multiple low-level characters than high-level ones. It's much easier for me if I learn my character abilities as they level up. The lower level pregens were not hard to play, but 8th level was much harder since I was not familiar with the equipment or abilities at that level or what other PCs could do. I think the new rules letting you build your character at higher levels will help with some of that, since picking your own abilities and gear makes it easier to understand how it works. So, for me, high-level play is more interesting if I'm not playing multiple games at the same time, and am playing with the same group of characters. For me, making lots of characters is more interesting than playing one all the way through. But I get why people would want to keep playing a character they are attached to after it reaches some level limit. I don't care what level that is at, but I think some option to keep playing without gaining levels might help. Maybe a maxed-out character could have some special SFS rank or title, like being an SFS officer instead of an SFS agent. Leveling up goes much faster if you are playing in live games vs PbP, but even in live games, I tend to bring several characters and then play the one that best fits the party's needs, so I level up slower there, too. There's no one right way to play the game. I don't go to conventions, but that does seem like a good time for die-hard players to play their high-level characters.
I agree with not overclocking non-tech items. The thing about defining what overclocking does to different types of tech items in the class is that there isn't enough room to do so, or if you try you are limited to a large general effect on a group of similar items. For items, having upgrades that allow them to be overclocked, makes it so that you don't have to define it in either the class or the item, the original item. For creatures, maybe there could be an overclocked condition that boosts it somehow, or a weakness to being overclocked that stresses it out, causing it to glitch. For hazards, it's easy to define what overclocking would do to it in the hazard stat block. I'm also hoping that hazards are used in starship combat, which would make for some really interesting damage for the crew to deal with. For technomancers, a lot of the way they interact with tech could come from spells we have not seen yet. I'm not sure if we have seen any spells yet that were made with overlock in mind. I don't have time now to look, but wondering if any technomancer feats with jailbreak would work with the DESTRUCTION PROTOCOL spell from the SF2e playtest book, or other spells that deal with tech. Finding those types of combinations is where I think the technomancer will get a lot of class flavor and effect.
In the Starfinder setting, unless you are in the middle of nowhere, almost everything around you is a potential electrical/mechanical hazard.
A Cosmic Birthday has around 20 hazards in it, so I think the SF2 team is aware of how to add tech encounters to the game. Now the question is, how good are the mechanic and technomancer at dealing with hazards? The problem is that classes focus mostly on combat, and dealing with tech is mostly skill checks. Other than being good at a tech skill and getting better at that skill, what makes dealing with tech interesting is the tech itself. One reason I thought why the mechanic and technomancer were held back until the Tech Core book was that for the classes to feel right, there needed to be more tech items for them to use or interact with, but it's likely better to playtest a class with out lots of other verables like new equipment. One thing I'd love to see with the use of overclocking tech is to have some tech items that define their own effect when overclocked. This could be special equipment or an upgrade.
People leaving 5e in droves started with the OGL mess, WotC trying to digitize every aspect of the game to monetize micro transactions, talk about AI GMs, sending the Pinkertons after people, laying off workers right before the holidays, making a new edition that wasen't really a new edition but is, just to sell more books. There are entire YouTube channels like Dungeons & Discourse that do nothing but report on WotC scandals. There are dozens of reasons to stop playing any game WotC makes long before you get to Adventurer's League.
Keeping your equipment overclocked has its own advantages, so I see jailbreaking spells as something you save for the right moment, not as something you keep cycling through casting spells to overclock to jailbreak another spell repeat. As Teridax pointed out, at low levels, using jailbreak will run out your spell slots quickly. Normally in Starfinder, the solution to save spell slots is to "Cast Gun" so having equipment that takes advantage of overclock and or jailbreak that's related to the equipment in addition to your programming language might help. Instead of having to give each piece of equipment some ability for overclocking and jailbreaking, if there were special spell chips or something similar that a technomancer could install to enable using JAILBREAK SPELL to trigger an additional minor effect built into the equipment, perhaps using up extra battery charges, and having a cool down period, instead of discharging the spell that overclocked the gear. This would keep "Cast Gun relevant, and give more to the tech side of technomancer.
I'm guessing you meant 1 action heal, the 2 action heal already has a 30 range so using it in a grenade would likely shorten the area of effect. Although I do like the idea of a healing smoke grenade, so you can provide cover for the person you are healing at the same time. What I'm curious about is how a touch spell like the 1 action heal would work in an area of effect against an opponent. Normally, If the target is a willing living creature, it would be healed. If used with a smoke grenade, there's no saving throw for the grenade, so the heal would be if willing, but if you used a shock grenade, if the opponent rolls a saving throw against the damage, then they are not willingly accepting the effects of the grenade. Aoe slow at level 8 instead of 13, but at the cost of having to be already overclocked, need a free action available, and use a consumable grenade. One problem I see is using low-level gerandes for high-level spells to save credits on consumables. So maybe the grenade should be of the same or higher level than the spell used. SF1e already has holy water grenades, I imagine SF2e would too.
Grenade spell sounds really fun, I hope it survives with as few changes as possible, but there is likely some crazy combination that needs to be considered.
Technomancer Real-World References That Don't Quite fit in the layout of a Starfinder book... //DELETE ROOT ACCESS integer actions = 1;
if (You have delete in your spell database.) {
my guess is that its also a matter of timing, the OGL debacle forced the SF crew to get cracking on SF2e and trying to fit everything in one book would have probably taken a lot more time so splitting it up a little and dedicating a book to tech stuff and 2 tech themed classes was probably the best method to keep on schedule and keep the quality high My guess is that it has more to do with SF2e using the same layout design of the PF2e remaster, splitting up the core rule books into Player and GM core, and that the Tech Core will be SF2e's Player Core 2.
At one point during Outpost VIII I ended up playing 6 8th-level pregens at one time in addition to 3 of my own characters. I've played a lot of low-level pregens before with no problem, but at 8th level, I found a lot of issues that being able to make your own high-level character helps solve. At one table, we had 3 8th-level pregens in an underwater scenario. The pregens don't have any underwater gear, many of their spells didn't work underwater, and they didn't have enough credits to buy underwater gear at the start of the scenario. I don't mind the challenge of dealing with new environments, but this was a bit extreme. Being able to start a character at higher levels would have let us gear up properly for this adventure, which would have normally happened had we played the earlier parts of the mini-plot. So happy to see this change. At another table, I played 2 8th-level pregens in a scenario with high gravity, normally not a big deal until I realized none of the pregens had their bulk recorded, and we had to drop equipment to be able to fly. Had I made my own characters, then I would have known the bulk. On the other hand, there is no way I would have had the time to make 6 8th-level characters fast enough for all of those games, but being able to make your own high-level character under normal circumstances would be great. I do have fun playing the pregens just not 6 at a time... Side note I recently bought Angels of the Drift reading it really helped me play the pregens, because its hard to play a character when you don't know ther personality.
TODAY IS THE DAY!!!!! LOOK OUT FOR THE BLOG THIS MORNING!!You'd better not be secretly rolling a bluff check! :) Does that mean you can use bluff in 2e, but must succeed a Deception check to do so. " I swear you can trust me, bluff is on page 78 of the Player Core, not let's get on with the game."
A lot to love in the tech class playtest at first glance. I'm glad to see more ways to deal with overcoming hardness, the programming languages are a great idea, and super flavorful. I'm excited about the little sidebar about hover, this could have an important impact on things outside of the scope tech playtest.
Wasn't this playtest going to have the testing rules for spaceships? Will we have another playtest until the official version or will we only see it in Player Core? The Free RPG day adventure that comes out June 21st, before the SF2e Player Core is even out. Sounds like it takes place entirely on a starship, with combat in the ship, but also having to deal with an enemy ship nearby, maybe a chase. This might be a preview of the starship encounter rules from the MG core, but not sure. Either way, it shows starships are still part of the game even if full rules are out. Also, the RPG day adventure features the new SF2e iconic ship. One of the reasons given for the entire year-long Drift Crisis event was to justify changes to the Drift to allow piracy to function better, so I'd expect more shipboarding-type combats in SF2e, which is something else that can be done without full starship rules.
Narrative Spaceship Combat has been confirmed to be in the Starfinder GM Core. The GM core listing calls it cinematic starship combat, which is a bit confusing because in a live stream, the developers talked about something called Cinematic starship encounters, which would be in the GM core, that would be similar to complex hazards and not the narrative combat from Starfinder Enhanced. It could be that the term wasn't finalized during the live stream, or the GM core has both cinematic starship combat and Cinematic starship encounters, or one is a subcategory of the other. A Breakdown of Starfinder 2e Paizo Live! 02/12/2025 said
The Free RPG day adventure for this year sounds like fighting pirates to take back control of the ship during a starship encounter with another ship, so that might be a preview of what's in the GM core.
Some thoughts on the magic station. If you put the crew at greater risk of taking damage during starship combat, the crew's healer or medic gets to heal during combat. Also, if you are on a biomachanical starship, healers and medics could help heal the ship. That doesn't eliminate the use of a magic station as an option, especially before any of the crew takes damage. I'm trying to imagine what a starship combat would be like with an all-magic-using crew. How would a mystic, a technomancer, and a witchwarper use a magic station differently? I'd love to see witchwarpers be able to use their quantum field in space to create some space hazard or obstacle to change up the map. Mystics and techonmancer should then also get their own class flavor abilities too. Other uses of a magic station could be available to any casting class.
The topic next week, April 22, is Character Creation. I bet we find out then. I think newly created characters will be a great option to have in addition to pregens. With scenarios only covering 2 levels, I'm wondering what levels the pregens will be.
I didn't play SFS1 so I don't know how complex it was, but I instinctively bawk at "simplicity". I often hear generic and cookie cutter when I hear something is being made simple. Especially because this is being sold as easier for the writers. I don't want writers to suffer, but I also don't want the quality of the product to go down. That said I didn't play SFS1 so I don't know how complex it was. I don't see it that way at all. This isn't about overall game complexity, it's about not having new rules specific to a short scenario that stops the game to explain new rules to the players, that are just used for one scenaro. Writers are not suffering, it just takes longer to write new rules than it does to write the adventure parts. The side effect of the change is that it lets writers write adventures faster. "we’re avoiding unnecessary deviations whenever possible." That still leaves the door open to do so, but only when it really matters. In SF1e, deviations seemed to be added as often as possible.
I'm courious to see how the 2-3 hour-long scenarios play, but some of the best in-person PF2e sessions I've played were 2 quests played back-to-back, so I'm open to seeing how all 2-3 hour-long scenarios go. My big concern is if that's enough time to develop an interesting story, but that's easily fixed by doing more multi-scenario mini-polts.I tried quests and bounties a few times, but found them utterly lacking. One skill challenge, followed by one encounter. There may have been some nice (short) stories in there, but mechanically, there just wasn't enough meat for me. I REALLY hope the SFS2 scenarios will have more mechanical depth than that. Otherwise I can't see myself becoming invested in that part of organized play. Which is a shame. I always liked the Starfinder setting and loved much about the playtest, so I was fully prepared to jump into Starfinder Society more with the release of second edition! I agree bounties are really short even in a slow play by post game they are done as soon as they start. I think they make good extra encounters in a home game. In SFS one GM ran 4 of them back to back with the same group of players which made the overall experience better for me. But compared to PD2e 2-3 hours long is a series 2 quest which is longer than a quest or bounty. I only own 3 of the series 2 quests, one of them has 8 encounters areas with 3 of them being combat. The other has 6 encounters with 2 combats, the last is not structured into encounters so hard to compare. Those are all longer than a bounty or series 1 quest, so I'm cautiously optimistic. There are a lot of changes going on so really need to see how they all work together to really judge the new scenarios, especially without actually seeing one yet.
During the SF2e playtest I played Shards of the Glass Planet 3 times back to back, each time with a different character class, GM, and group of players, it played and felt different each time. Although I played D&D for decades I never played it in organized play, what about repeatable adventures made it bad for D&D? Also how frequently did new organized play adventures come out for D&D?
The longest public playtest in Paizo's history doesn't seem like an afterthought to me... Or having two hardcover books out before the Players Core is even out... Or having a novel and in-lore deck and card game come, and a boxed deluxe adventure all out at release... To me it sounds like they really care about the game and want to have it succeed. I'm courious to see how the 2-3 hour-long scenarios play, but some of the best in-person PF2e sessions I've played were 2 quests played back-to-back, so I'm open to seeing how all 2-3 hour-long scenarios go. My big concern is if that's enough time to develop an interesting story, but that's easily fixed by doing more multi-scenario mini-polts.
I’m mixed on this, having shield arcs adds a lot to the tactics but I think there is a way around that. Having guns in different arcs keeps a tactical element, especially if you can take out the guns in an arc, but if you have a turret that eliminates that. Not having any weapons facing aft leaves a soft spot to target, but again turret fixes that. Having one shield that only covers forward, port, and starboard leaving the aft vulnerable would make moving really important, it also makes just running away risky, and it also helps enable the whole space private narrative. Having one Shield that only cover the front half of the ship could be another option. This lets you have only one shield but still have shield arc matter. Some turret or gun options to keep things interesting might be a turret that covers everything but aft. or guns with only one arc but require a round to recover after firing making maneuvering more important. Having aft only facing guns that are the weakest on the ship, keeps the PCs from not having an attack if outmaneuvered but still has a cost to being out piloted.
Something else that is an option for critical hits is using the hazard system for starship system critical damage and repairs.
I just tried it again seems to be working could have just been the internet acting up Homebrew Starship Rules for Pathfinder 2e by DisturbedCanon
It's an interesting idea, and would certainly help unify Starship combat with the core rules.
I think the advantage of only being able to use a newly made character you haven't played before encourages making more characters. I'm courious to see what the exact definition of a "newly made character" is, and if there is any other limits other than having not played them before.
If we ever get bounties in SF2e that would make a good mix to play with a scenario that runs closer to 3 hours. Also, especially with all the SF2e scenarios being repeatable taking advantage of the newer relaxed or clarified "run as written rules and guidelines, will be more important to making repeat games more interesting. Having shorter scenarios could give GMs some time to get creative to make games run longer. Might not be something everyone wants to do but it's a nice option to have. Here are 2 threads talking about the "run as written" update.
They've talked about this vaguely, Driftbourne. I think they plan to at least make them easier to access if not outright all playable. Looking at PF2e it looks like it's doable. I wonder if that's because PF2e considers that while designing an ancestry not after? PF2e also has a rarity system so that helps too. I'm ok with SF2e getting fewer overall ancestries since ancestries take up a lot more page space and design time, but with fewer, it's even more important they are playable in organized play.
Since it didn't get a carve out in the timeline, is 1e continuing as a legacy program similar to PF1?Yes. We will not be publishing any new content for SFS1 after May and will likely release one final version of the SFS1 guide. Players and GMs are free to continue running and playing games in perpetuity, as we have no intention of shutting down reporting for our legacy systems. Any chance of the final version of the SFS1 guide letting a few more playable species into the SFS1 Cantina?
A storied, proud and sometime successful history of civil disobedience would beg to differ. The "sometimes successful" part tends to almost only happen when combined with longer-term actions. The civil rights movment would have never lasted as long if people like John Lewis hadn't also run for Congress and got in. Not saying it's not a good thing to try but it's only a start. As for contacting your senators and representatives, that only works if your senators and representatives don't believe space lasers are used to start forest fires. Hard to know what will work when you are living in an Earth-wide live play of an AP that is a mix of Signal of Screams and twelvefold conspiracy.
As far as I can tell there has yet to be any price increase at the Paizo store due to the current tariffs. That could mean nothing has reached a port in the US since the tariffs started, but it also could mean that Roll For Combat was right that books are only at a 7% tariff. So keeping an eye on not books products might be the best way to tell. Also, the tariffs change daily already some of the China tariffs have been removed or delayed again. From the recent tech update blog we already know the new store website is getting closer to being ready, and that Paizo likely wouldn't even be in a position to even consider expanding until that's done. By then the trade war could be over, or it could be much worse if the US leaves NATO or invades Greenland, the EU could even stop trading with the US over that. That's the whole problem with the current situation no one can predict what will happen. I don't think Paizo is going to be willing to make such a big business commitment with that level of uncertainty. Worst case scenario can Paizo survive just selling PDFs and will players be willing to give up physical books until this settles down? I live in the US I'm boycotting the entire US economy except for food and necessities. I sold all my 401k weeks before the big crash. Paizo is the only company I still buy things from, because I need something to keep me sane during this madness, and boycotting Paizo does nothing to influence the person causing all of this. If you look at the tariffs Canada has put on the US they are targeted for maximum impact to hurt areas and industries that can influence change. It's up to us to influence change, if Paizo tries to they will become a target.
looking back at my first thread about tariffs from November 8th Unless cooler heads prevail, it’s definitely going to get really bad … looking back really bad seems optimistic now...
I got a message from my FLG one of the things they talk about is how they will be handing preorders that get hit by this
I'm hoping we get some statement like this from Piazo soon, especially on preorders. This is really bad timing with Starfinder 2e about to launch in a few months. Sounds like the tariffs might not affect books as much but the new adventure box set and Infinity Deck could get hit hard.
To give real perspective, I played six playtest games since January. I have seen more Human characters in those six games than I have seen in the past four YEARS of playing Starfinder 1E. The playtest only had 10 ancestries and 2 of the 6 pregens are humans which likely contributed to more people playing humans. Judging the playtest vs the full 140 species of Sf1e isn't fair, it's best to compare it to what Startfinder 1e started with just the Core Rule book.
Between Galaxy Guide and Player Core, we are starting with, astrazoan, contemplative, dragonkin, kalo, sarcesian, vlaka, android, barathu, human, kasatha, lashunta, pahtra, shirren, skittermander, vesk, and ysoki. That's a fairly diverse list. Add to that khizars from Murder in Metal City which will also be out when the Player Core releases. We know that contemplatives will be playable in PFS2e so likely there will be some Pathfinder ancestries playable in Starfinder. No idea if they will be included in the SF2e Player Core like they were in SF1e since they are all already printed in PF2e And an SRO or Anacite Ancestry for people who want to play robots that are like REAL robots, instead of the almost-human Androids. Nothing wrong with Androids, but they do not scratch the same itch. I'd love to see SROs playable in organized play in SF2e I think there's a lot that can be done with SROs and heritage to make them more playable and cover a wider range of shapes and functions of SROs, but it seems like a good ancestry to have in a tech-oriented book like the Tech Core. We will likely find out on April 21 if there will be ancestries in the tech playtest.
Love the idea of android or SRO wanting to become biological as a niche. Along the same line of thought augmentation that gives an android or SRO wanting to have more biological features. A hologram evolving to have a permanent body either mechanical or biological would be interesting too. Although precog got moved into the witchwarper their focus of time manipulation is mostly focused on their quantum field. A time evolutionist niche could focus on time-related to themself or centered on themself. Maybe paradoxes could be tied to building up mutation points and spending them. Niches could also be used to evolve into more powerful species that would be too unbalanced to be playable as a stating ancestry. One of my evolutionist concepts I've been building is a Novan mechanized nich evolutionist whose goal is to become a tiny Dyson sphere.
Something else to keep in mind "Cast Gun" isn't just about saving spells it's also a way to diversity damage types, and in SF2e with the 3-action economy, many spells cost 2 actions so having a gun gives you an option for a 1 action attack. I used a gun in the play test when I needed to use 2 move actions to get into position and then cast gun, then the next round was able to cast gun and a spell.
I'm imagining the reaction of the chef in Acts of Association to making the perfect meal for an Otyugh...
I've checked the listing several times in the last year it's always been available that I have seen. Although it was done as an April Fools' something, not sure what to call it, I don't think of it as a joke or a prank because it's a real book and is 100% accurate to the lore, but that in itself is hilarious.
An Alchemist who drinks too much of their own creations can't remove their own liver and replace it with an upgrade, a Biohacker could. An alchemist likely has no clue of the molecular structure of something they mix up, a Biohacker would. Inventors and Mechanics are similarly different. Would you want an Inventor fixing a starship reactor core with a chance it explodes? (Great option for a space goblin crew.) Inventors somehow make something new, it just works even if it defies logic and physics. Mechanics know why something works and how to fix it, if they make something new it follows the laws of physics and engineering. Biohacker also kind of ties into Evolunist, at least as a way to explain why someone is evolving faster or as a way to control or guide that evolution, but the 2 classes function very differently that they wouldn't combine well, but using class archetypes to add one to the other could work well. Nanocite I could easily see becoming a niche for the Evolunist.
Is that the only option? I thought they used to read some of the subforums but I don't know which ones. There is a whole set of sub-forums set up for the playtest. I would think that would be the best place to leave late playtest comments. Second Edition Playtest. If you were not able to keep up with the Play Test comments, reading this blog post might help you catch up to the latest state of the Play Test we know about when it ended.
Because the Cantina feel is so important to Starfinder I believe the Galaxy Guide is being released ahead of the rule books to give us more ancestries at the official release of SF2e. It also lets people new to Starfinder learn about the setting or SF1e players read about the changes in the setting. We don't have dates for all the SF2e core books yet but we know they are, Players Core, GM Core, Alien Core, and Tech Core.
I like the idea of the Mechanic being a powerful SUPPORT. In a tech-heavy game having Tech Support makes sense to have. Complex hazards with a combat element or mixed with an encounter make a mechanic able to be tech support during combat, like how a healer gets to heal during combat. With the 3-action economy a mechanic should be able to be tech support and still make an attack most rounds.
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