HolyFlamingo!'s page

I wasn't talking about weird so much as comedic, in that make-your-players-groan-and-roll-their-eyes kind of way. A spider-sheep is weird, but a spider-sheep that rambles about new-agey B.S. like your one kooky aunt who's really into essential oils is the kind of thing that builds up some friendly, playful antagonism between players and GM. Same with Homestuck references and challenging the PCs to a dance-off because they insulted the fire crab's honor. It's a different flavor of silly than, say, skittermamders.

Personally I'm still emotionally processing the fact that Homestuck is both old and popular enough as a cultural entity that it's now being openly referenced in other media. Terrifying to think about.

Anyway, all of the Kazmurg's Absurdity ancestries feel a little s***posty to me. Dancing, fire-breathing crabs? Spider-sheep with a new age "indigo children" joke? I wouldn't be surprised if each were originally designed to help Thurston better troll his players, in that "oh great, these guys again" kind of way. After bearing witness to the sawsoarers in Rotgrind (hoot hoot, b****), this seems on-brand for him.

Heh. Troll.

The Pathfinder 2e chirurgeon alchemist takes this even further: it straight-up substitutes Crafting for Medicine completely, meaning it can forego both WIS investment and skill training.

It's been a while since I looked at the playtest, but I believe the mechanic got some extra skill boosts, so maybe they don't need it, but still I think SF2 could use another healer besides mystics and certain envoys.

Only just started reading it so I can't give any useful critical feedback yet, but I really love how much inspiration you took from both the PF1 shifter and SF1 evolutionist. The biomechanical perk of being able to install tools into yourself is so cool!

God dangit, when will I escape the scourge of Homestuck references?! They look cool, though, I wonder if the extra eyes will be full on All Around Vision or something more limited.

It wouldn't be a Thurston Hillman special if it weren't a cognitohazard on some level. But yeah, All Around Vision would be neat. The goloma from PF2's Mwangi Expanse have a feat tree that starts with a stance that gives you All-Around Vision for a turn and later upgrades to a Deny Advantage clone, so I'd either expect something like that or an even stronger version.

And if it is stronger, I'm buffing my sweet goloma babies to have the same.

I don't know about putting Starfinder into Destiny (I doubt SF has enough cultural relevance for Bungie to bother), but making a Destiny-inspired hack of Starfinder is something anyone with enough time, effort, and system knowledge could do from home. The Warframe adventure even provides a decent example of how to adapt the system to match a videogame's vibes.

I'm looking forward to the entu. They remind me of the symbiotes from Marvel. I hope they are a universal heritage that plays up being slime/ooze-like more than being a fungus. Getting them with a starfinder-ified Awakened Animal sounds like a great combo for the bat-like nelentu.

Good news! Per a comment from Dustin Knight on a Twitch stream earlier this evening, entu are included in Galactic Ancestries. Looks like they'll be a full ancestry rather than a versatile heritage though, with customization options to help define what sort of animal the symbiote merged with.

Not just urogs (my booooooiiiiss!!), but entu colonies/symbiotes (sounds like they're getting rolled into one) and the brand new madrosarai!

For those who haven't read Galaxy Guide, the madrosarai are a Homestuck reference colorful humanoids with extra eyes in the back of their heads.

Honestly? Bad. I can't see this helping sales at all; for every one person willing to eat the cost, two or three have jumped ship.

"Legacy" means the item was printed prior to the mid-edition "remaster" update and might contain some minor rules incompatibilities, such as references to alignment or outdated terminology. 95% of the time, you won't have any issues using it. For Society specifically, you're expected to use the remastered version of any item if it's available. However, since no such version of the Endless Grimoire exists, you should be fine.

Society does expect you to own or at least have regular access to any books you pull material from (excluding Player Core 1 and 2 and a few special cases), so pay attention to which sources you're using and make sure you can bring a copy (physical or digital) to the table with you.

Additional spell slots don't cancel each other out, so you should be fine on that front. Rogue dedication is great. Low level staves are pretty meh, so you're not missing much.

Hoping everything goes well for you, and thanks for giving us a heads up!

Man, you know what would make this go over a lot easier? Making 1e PDFs cheaper. Like, there are two whole games with multi-year lifespans that have already paid for themselves, and nobody's buying the functionally infinite supply of PDFs available for them.

Seriously, if I could get old adventure paths and lore books for a good price, I'd gobble them up. But the back catalog is inaccessible to me because I don't have that kind of money. Meanwhile, there are a ton of people out there who would probably like to play something, even if it runs on an older and more complicated engine. Heck, there are still plenty of 1e loyalists alive and kicking! I'm sure they'd love to be able to pick up Iron Gods or Scoured Stars or any number of legacy products legally.

Although, considering soldiers are able to make singular attacks with area weapons with their Primary Target feature, I don't think it'd be too broken to allow one to use one for Overwatch. It'd be a houserule for sure, but not a bad one.

I wonder if the math will genuinely work out in their favor, here. Will the increased profit per sale really make up for the people jumping ship? Like, I know most regular customers are whales (points to self), but are there really enough of us to justify screwing over everyone else?

(For the record, the only reason I'm able to whale at all is because I spend money on literally zero other hobbies. I picked Path/Starfinder as my sole luxury expense. If prices keep going up--either here or in general--that might have to change.)

I'll always advocate for my personal favorite (shatori) and my wife's favorite (stellifera). As for new guys, I've always wondered why anacites weren't playable, seeing as they've been part of the setting before Starfinder was even a thing (and have played several major roles in Society metaplots besides).

I was going to say the failure state for losing your detached lower half was too harsh, but genetic regeneration is a 4th rank spell, which shouldn't be too hard to get access too at level 9.

Also, huh, regenerate and genetic regeneration are basically the same spell, and both are found in Player Core. What a weird choice on Paizo's part.

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if we eventually got an Azlanti sourcebook or adventure that dropped a lot of ancestries from ASE space, like stellifera, gosclaws, shatori, and the like. Seeing as the Szandite Collective adventure is willing to drop six of them (and Graveworld provided the two most common Eoxian inhabitants as well), it wouldn't surprise me if the pattern continued, with future adventures providing ancestries native to the adventuring region.

As a random aside, I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of the talphi, as I remember being disappointed that an entire society of mole people native to the Veskarium only got a passing mention in the 1e Near Space sourcebook--not even a picture! It's nice to see those guys get a follow-up, even if I'm personally not super-interested in playing a mole.

Looks like Anayctes are a no go for now, though I wonder if there is room for them to be an SRO heritage?

Still clinging to the hope that anacites are one of the yet-to-be-revealed options in Galactic Ancestries. They were my most wanted ancestry that never made it to 1e (which always struck me as odd because they'd been around since OG Pathfinder).

Is Raxilite planned anywhere?

Confirmed for Galactic Ancestries.

"Edge" is used a ton in other TTRPGs, so probably not that one. "Momentum" is already a term for how well each turn builds on the last in meta discussions, so that might be a bit confusing as well, but it does work thematically.

I think the reason you got roasted on Reddit is because Reddit is a collection of strangers. The userbase here is small enough that most active members are familiar with each other.

Like, the vibes of someone in a crowded mall ranting about being naked are completely different from the vibes of your pal Bob doing the same while you all sit around drinking beers.

If it's true that the goo dudes are the Fonqugon, then we now know 14 of the 21 options in Galactic Ancestries.

Absolutely no idea on the other seven, but subscribers will start getting their copies in about 3 weeks. I'm excited to see what's in store! Hope it's more weird stuff and fewer anthropomorphized animals (nothing wrong with furries and furry enjoyers; I just prefer aliens that look and feel like actual aliens). Even so, there's a great variety among what's already been spoiled.

Add to that the other six Szandite Collective members as well as the minotaur-like nuar and garbage-collecting gnarefuroids in Absalom Station, and we've got over 30 ancestries due to drop this year, bringing us to over 50 total, already over a third of the way to SF1's jaw-dropping 143 options a mere year and a half deep. Looks like the cantina's staying open after all!

(As a funny side note, even if you subtract the overlapping options between them, it's possible the combined total between SF2 and PF2 could crest 100 this year, depending on what's in that Feybound book that got accidentally announced earlier. We're guaranteed to be in the 90s for sure.)

I'm eager to participate! I've been GMing on Foundry for a few years now, so I'm familiar with the platform.

I made a SFS poster for my FLGS that looks like this. I use LibreOffice instead of MS Word, but I'm pretty sure the program can export .docx files. I'll need to get rid of the custom fonts before turning it into a template for you, though. Is that something you'd be interested in?

Driftbourne, the issue isn't that Boost makes combats too easy (SFS not being tough enough is a separate problem), but that characters with access to Boost tend to flatten out their combat routines while making those who don't have it feel like chumps. So, they make the game worse for themselves by choking out other options, and worse for other people due to the relative power differential. The ideal way to play should not be spamming the same move over and over, especially when this move is available to basically everyone (since simple guns with Boost exist).

I am happy to report a workable homebrew fix, though: limiting Boost to just once per minute allows for players to still experience the unga bunga big dammies that make the trait worthwhile, but adds in the tactical choice of when to use it, keeping it from becoming a locked-in turn element and allowong players to feel better about using more of their kits.

I feel like the odd one out, here: I love my rangers, but can't get into the slayer at all. It's the most boring playtest class I've ever seen. I see no point in having a dedicated "killing monsters" guy in a game where everyone already kills monsters, and none of its unique mechanics grab me as interesting or fun. Rangers, meanwhile, have a very obvious core playstyle in mind, along with options that support multiple different character types. The class identity is weird and based on a bunch of legacy stuff that doesn't really matter outside of gaming/fantasy tradition, but I can still get a guy out of it. Meanwhile, I can't get a guy out of the slayer chassis that wouldn't be more colorful as a different class.

I'd also say the ranger and investigator and such having strong out-of-combat identities isn't so much a flaw on their part so much as it is a problem with everyone else, in that a lot of classes don't have anything to do besides unga bunga hit stuff, so exploration feels like the boring bit you have to muddle through in order to get to the fun part. I can see the appeal of better separating these two parts of the game so that expending a class's power budget on one side doesn't leave it wanting in the other, but at the same time I wish more attention was paid to noncombat elements in general. Why do the two strongest classes during one half of the game (barbarian and fighter) have to twiddle their thumbs during the other half? Shouldn't they have something to contribute other than the occasional athletics check?

Recently, a thread appeared on Reddit where a GM expressed concern over the plasma caster weapon, specifically how everyone in the party seemed to be taking it because it did so much more damage than anything else. SF2's diverse weapon catalog was being entirely ignored, and this GM's players were twisting their builds in knots to make sure they could use boosted weapons. Slotted spells, solarian strikes, and the soldier's primary target + area fire were not keeping up.

I've also noticed in a few Society games I've run that 1) players tend to get caught in a Boost loop, which results in very samey turns, 2) players who DON'T have a boostable weapon feel bad/weak compared to their boosting peers, and 3) enemies with boosted weapons punch waaaay above their weight, to the point that it's really hard to make fights against them feel fair (one enemy in particular was able to oneshot the tankiest member of the team on a regular, non-critical hit).

This has got me wondering if the Boost trait was a mistake. While it certainly solves the early game peashooter problem, it causes heavy melee builds to just win even more, while also causing combats to devolve into just piling on as much damage as possible, eliminating most tactical elements from the game. I don't think this is a healthy or interesting metagame at all. Perhaps some kind of fix is in order, such as limiting Boost usage to once every 10 minutes? I'd like to know what others think.

EDIT: I just remembered, Boost was added later in development, well after the initial public playtest began. Thus, the trait was never adequately playtested and thus not as subject to public feedback.

From Lorespire, the official organized play website:

BLIND CHARACTERS:Characters that are blind from birth or are otherwise permanently sightless cannot detect anything using vision. They automatically critically fail any Perception checks based on vision, are immune to visual effects, and can’t be blinded or dazzled. However, such characters do not have the blinded condition.

Blind characters who either cannot or choose not to remove their blindness hone their other senses. They are not off-guard to creatures that are hidden from them (unless they’re off-guard to them for reasons other than the hidden condition), and they need only a successful DC 5 flat check to target a hidden creature. Normally, such characters cannot remove their blindness later; if they somehow do, they lose these benefits.

DEAF CHARACTERS: Characters that are deaf from birth or are otherwise permanently without hearing cannot detect anything using hearing. They automatically critically fail any Perception checks that require hearing and are immune to auditory effects. However, such characters do not have the deafened condition.

Deaf characters who either cannot or choose not to remove their deafness gain additional benefits. They have enough practice to cast spells and activate magic items without issue, but if they perform an action they are not accustomed to that involves auditory elements, they must succeed at a DC 5 flat check or the action is lost. They gain the Sign Language feat for free at character creation, and they can take the Read Lips feat even if they do not meet the prerequisites. Normally, such characters cannot remove their deafness later; if they somehow do, they lose these benefits.

In addition, basic assistive devices (such as hearing aids) are given out for free during character creation. Source.

Squiggit, I've played two rangers now and enjoyed both. But you're right; they don't really deliver on the boss killer fantasy. Instead, my two rangers at least felt like all-rounders, capable of doing a handful of things fairly well without really shining in any of them. They remind me of PF2's druids, in a way: solid, flexible, somewhat lacking in pizazz, and topped off with some nature theming.

Now, dressing something up as a single-target specialist only to deliver a reliable generalist instead might be a failure of design. And maybe a ranger that actually did what the slayer is promised to do might be more exciting. But like... I kind of want to come to their defense a little bit? I like all-rounders, and those are hard to get right in PF2's pretty strict proficiency system. My rangers felt good to play, and I liked the Hunt Prey tactical minigame (the action cost tends to even out thanks to the various action compression feats and damage boosters rangers get). A complete overhaul would make it essentially a different class. My all-rounders would be gone. It'd be the oracle scandal 2.0.

Granted, this doesn't justify the slayer as a new class. It still smells like something that could've been an archetype to me, and the lack of support for existing options--requiring you to make an entirely new guy if you want to play with the new toys--is deeply annoying. Like, Paizo knows people can stick with their characters for years, right?

Hm. Reading the Mark Quarry text, I'm having some mixed feelings. On one hand, this is definitely encroaching on the thaumaturge, investigator, and ranger all at once (which stinks because I really like those dudes), but on the other hand it sounds like this guy has some boss-bashing, "let me solo her" energy. This might be good, because one of the most common complaints about the system is that boss fights can be slogs, feeling overwhelming at low levels and boringly routine at high. A guy who provides new ways to interact with solo threats might help make things easier on low-level groups while keeping the excitement up towards the endgame. It's also a path for players to get narratively/mechanically invested in the next big fight, which can lead to more hype moments during play.

I'm skeptical, but I'm open.

Had a thought: What if we're the reason we're not seeing more class archetypes? Like, the vast majority released so far were met with pretty firm negativity for not being strong or cool enough, or being pale imitations of their PF1 versions. Maybe the devs just gave up and decided to go back to building hybrids with full class power budgets because we told them that class archetypes weren't enough?

And by "we," I mostly mean some loudmouths on Reddit. Paizo has got to stop going on Reddit. (I am on Reddit lmao.)

I mean, the problem with Daredevil being the high-mobility, many-light-hits Maneuvers Georg is that now we're just eating the Monk's lunch instead of the Swashie's.

On the bright side, I have a friend who is the exact kind of person the Daredevil is made for. She's been defaulting to monks because she likes to go fast and punch things, but something objectively sillier that encouraged more dumb stunts and "eff it, we ball" would perfectly suit her tastes.

So yeah, re: thread topic, the character concept I have for the Daredevil is recreating this friend's 5e Tomb of Annihilation character with a moveset that better represents his true self: a high-octane doofus with no sense of self-preservation (said with love).

You know, thinking about it, I wouldn't be surprised if Paizo's recently been designing classes backwards from what the community expects. We (the fans) tend to think of new classes as ways to fulfill certain fantasies or plug design holes; we're very top-down. Paizo seems to be bottom-up: they come up with an idea for an interesting mechanical loop, then dress it up in some narrative flavor.

I mean, look at the runesmith and necromancer, right? What was the number one necromancer critique? That the thralls didn't feel like actual undead minions and could have flavor-wise been literally anything (like a weird druid planting and then weaponizing various bushes and trees). So it's possible the mechanical concept for placing and spending tokens came first, and the zombie-spawning theming came later.

I'm wondering if it's the same case with these two new dudes. Like, it may be that they didn't set out to make stuff that reads like Ranger 2.0 or Monkbuckler, but rather thought of a cool gameplay loop and just picked the fictional framing that made the most sense.

Or I could be completely off-base, I dunno. I still don't really like either one in theory (won't know what to think in practice until Tuesday), but I'm willing to change my mind.

Pathfinder players will never escape the "Why play X class and not fighter?" discourse.

Unironically, I prefer big tent classes with lots of modularity and customization to 92084 instances of Nichey McNicheface. Even down for no classes at all. But you can't sell four books a year on that model, and Paizo needs to keep the content treadmill going to survive. Sucks to be a developer in that environment, I'll bet.

Started stream. Heard "new classes" instead of "much needed support for existing classes." Closed stream.

It's especially frustrating because these aren't even new thematic/mechanical niches. iPhone behavior.

Like, if they're better than Swash and Ranger, then that's two obsolete classes. But if they're not better, then what's the point? Very lose-lose for Paizo.

Not to bring up that other elfgame or anything, but they might've had the right idea with their pretty robust and modular subclass system.

It was nice to hear from Shan again. He's written some really excellent scenarios. Always look forward to seeing their name in the credits.

I don't think the overall number of classes is a problem (original D&D launched with just three and still did its thing just fine), but each member of the current selection still feels a little awkward, and the lineup doesn't really cover all the essential fantasies one might have about being a space adventurer (cough couch techie classes).

I think, if I had the same time/resource restrictions as the SF2 team, I would have launched with just four classes: envoy, soldier, mystic, and mechanic. I would have been sure to really flesh these options out to be adaptable to multiple character fantasies each, so that you could feasibly have duplicate classes within the party occupying different roles. For example, a soldier could be either a stealth specialist or melee bruiser (only somewhat possible now). All future supplements could build up from this all-purpose core.

Yeah, 1e books were much prettier, albeit more difficult to navigate. I do really enjoy the legibility of stat blocks in PF2, but sometimes they give off a bit of a high school textbook vibe. Reading can feel more like studying than playing a game.

A bigger design miss for me is the 2e character sheet. The remaster dramatically improved it, but the legacy version was a downright eyesore, both unpleasant to behold and difficult to navigate. I miss the crisp and utilitarian 1e sheet, despite it being so intimidatingly dense.

The problem with ban lists is that they require additional game knowledge that isn't present in official materials. Thus, the people who need it most--brand new GMs--are least likely to have it.

Circling back to what I said earlier about over/underpowered options, I'd like to acknowledge that, yes, stronger and weirder options are part of Starfinder's appeal. Furthermore, a lot of PF2's ancestries (especially the earlier ones) are far too conservatively tuned, to the point that they undermine their own point for existing (see: strix). So there's a balance to be struck here: we want to see the core fantasy of each ancestry fulfilled, but we don't want any of them to have clear supremacy over any other. Erring towards safety and stability may result in a boring, disappointing game, but erring towards making things fun and genuinely different can introduce the kind of toxic powercreep I mentioned yesterday. It's difficult to thread that needle.

I'll probably make a seperate thread about elebrians at some point, as I believe there's a lot more wrong with the ancestry than just being way too strong. I think they'd make a good case study in bad ancestry design. Thing is, most people don't have access to Guilt of the Grave World yet, and I'd feel bad dunking on something that isn't even officially out yet.

After giving it some thought, I came to a couple conclusions re: badly balanced ancestries.

1. When it comes to core character functionality, your ancestry does not matter all that much. You could give yourself a generic 8HP/2ft movement/2 boosts with zero extra senses, heritage perks, or ancestry feats and still do mostly fine (hell, some builds can even get away with 6HP/20ft). This is because the bulk of your power comes from your class, with ancestries mostly providing some fun little bells and whistles. You can also just buy flight or darkvision if you want it, so at worst a bad ancestry amounts to a few extra expenses here and there. So, a fairly small, manageable nerf in the name of flavor. No big deal.

2. Problems emerge, however, when one ancestry does everything another ancestry does, except either better or with more goodies on the side (as is the case with vesk versus dragonkin, pointed out in the OP by Squiggit). This means that you are actively missing out if you choose the weaker version. That can lead to some sour feelings, especially when both the stronger and weaker option are present at the same table. The weaker player might feel like their ancestry is dead weight, or like they're being punished for choosing flavor over function. In a game that includes dozens of wacky alien species as part of its sales pitch, making a player feel bad for choosing the wrong one is unacceptable.

This leads me to conclude that undertuned ancestries are safer than overtuned ones. An undertuned option is a mild inconvenience at worst, only ever rendering itself undesirable. But an overtuned option is actively poison, as it has the potential to ruin multiple ancestries around it. This could get really bad for Society play in particular, as (excluding core rulebook options) players need to purchase specific books in order to gain access to the ancestries within. Not only is this pay-to-win (and *steep* pay-to-win at that, given how costly these books are), but it can lead to a lot of resentment if the thing someone spent $20-$90 for is powercrept by something else a year later.

All that said, vesk are still a little more popular than dragonkin at the tables I've seen so far, likely because they're free and come with a lot of fun lore and flavor (people find the ornery warmongers endearing). Flight and darkvision are also not exactly gamebreaking thanks to flashlights and pistols being dirt cheap. So while I sounded very doom and gloom above, the reality isn't so dire... yet. I nonetheless encourage the Starfriends to be careful, and am especially on guard after reading Guilt of the Grave World.

Just wait until you see what Guilt of the Grave World brought to the table: one level 9 elebrian ancestry feat gives them a better than 50% chance to negate a crit as a reaction.

It's kind of annoying as a GM because I prefer to be able to trust Paizo to do the balancing for me, but with SF2 I find myself doing a lot of buffing and nerfing. I don't like this extra work, but the game feels fragile and unhealthy without it.

The Abomination Arsenal is still my favorite campaign write-up of all time, so getting to revisit it with this reflection blog was a nice treat.

Alright, so trying to summarize everyone's gripes so far: damage is a little too low, weapon traits are a little too stingy, and special moves (locked behind class feats) are spread a bit too thinly to make up for either shortcoming. So we're left with a kit that could be great if at least one of those things were better, but all aspects being just slightly undertuned makes for an underwhelming package. Does that sound right?

This is for the people complaining, mind you; it looks like plenty of folk are satisfied with the kit as-is.

I think this is definitely a side-effect of discord discussions vs play experience.

Not to hurl dueling anecdotes at you or anything, but the only reason I checked the math is because I noticed a handful of solarian players struggling. I wanted to confirm that I wasn't imagining things.

Again, I don't think it's so undertuned that it's unplayable--and the playstyle it enables is legitimately fun and flashy and cool--but there is a problem, enough that I want to experiment with some homebrew tune-ups to see if I can nail the feel.

It's awesome that you're having fun with the class as-is. I've personally had some great times with "bad" classes myself (to the point that I legitimately had no idea what the community's problem was), but I still think solarians could use a little boost, preferably an official one for my SFS players' sakes.

Yep, it's a little undertuned. Not to the point of unusability, but enough that the class feels... off. Even at level one, solarians seem to lag behind the other martials despite allegedly being melee specialists. I've noticed a couple of my SFS players (but not all!) walking away from the table feeling a bit disappointed in their characters.

I was the one who checked the math in that one Discord server, so there are numbers to back up my feelings: the class comes close, but it's not quite enough. An extra starting power and slightly more damage would likely close the gap.

Welcome aboard! And yep, Paizo store's the only place to buy scenarios. The subscription just automatically buys the modules for you. There's no extra cost or savings since the product line is entirely digital; you're fine just buying stuff a la carte. You can get them for free if you're subscribed to multiple rulebook lines or are an official venture agent, but the former's a lot of money, while the latter's a time commitment. That said, if you're thinking of running your games as a Starfinder Society gig, those local orgplay friends you mentioned might be able to hook you up.

There aren't any VTT modules for the post-release scenarios... yet. However, the playtest module includes all four playtest scenarios and two multi-session adventures, and I can confirm that the production value is pretty solid. I've personally been playing on Foundry, which doesn't have a full SF2e system yet, but does have an add-on for Pathfinder 2e that works just as well in the meantime (the two games use the same core rules, so it's easy to mix and match). Even without a module, though, it's pretty easy to rip maps from scenario PDFs and upload them into your VTT of choice. They're a little low-res, but they work (although you can always buy higher res versions separately if you want; I just never do).

Right now, I think the best character manager is Hephaistos 2e (sf2e.hephaistos.online). It's still in development, but it's the most approachable of the small pool of current options. Eventually, there will be a Starbuilder app that works a lot like Pathbuilder (pathbuilder2e.com), but that likely won't come out for another month or two (both Hephaistos and Pathbuilder are solo projects maintained by dedicated fans). Hero Lab is probably fine--some of my Society players use it--but I've never touched it myself.

As for registering and reporting your sessions as part of Starfinder Society, you don't have to do that... unless you think it'd be neat to have your players bring their home-made characters to official convention tables. The whole process is pretty easy to set up (albeit a little archaic). But yeah, all you need is a Paizo account ID number from everybody to get started; the whole point of organized play is to be accessible to everyone. The only extra step I had to take as an in-person organized play GM was ask a few senior members to help me get set up at a local venue. You can read about specific rules and expectations at lorespire.paizo.com, but for a closed table like yours, all you really need to know is how credit and XP awards work.

Things like a subclass or an entire grouping of weapons seem to me to be a space issue. The SF2e Player Core page count is the same as the PF2e Player Core, so I'm guessing the page count was set from the start of development.

Yes. That's what I meant by "wrestling with the page count." Getting everything to fit and deciding what had to go was likely very difficult.

Wait, wait, it does? I noticed that happening in the Galaxy Guide, but in the GM Core too?

Yep: Hotshot envoy subclass, Fabricator feat, injection weapons. It's likely just a byproduct of having a very tight, very messy production schedule. I wouldn't be surprised if the authors were wrestling with Player Core's page count up until the very last second, well after its sister books had already gone to the printer.

The GM Core references subclasses, feats, and weapons that were cut from the final release of Player Core. It definitely went to print much earlier, so it wouldn't surprise me if plans have changed since then.

Ooh, loved that bit of micro-fiction, Quid! Figuring out how radically different biologies and cultures would use technology and coexist with each other is one of my favorite parts of science fiction.

Something I haven't seen mentioned yet: haptic suits. Smell has poor temporal resolution because it lingers in the air, but touch is immediate. A haptic feedback device could deliver environmental information rapidly, even within vacuum.

For example, let's say a deafblind vlaka is repairing a satellite: their haptic suit could--through vibration location, strength, and pattern--coordinate with suit-mounted cameras and lidar scans to tell them the size, shape, position, and velocity of nearby debris.

I knew the reptoid removal was coming (Dustin Knight talked about it over Discord quite a few months ago), but the loss of grays is new to me. It really sucks that bad actors at public tables and the increasing violence and mainstream power of conspiracy theorists IRL has made these two iconic pop culture aliens unsalvageable in Paizo's eyes (although TBH reptoids should have probably never been included in the first place, as the antisemitic association was still plenty obvious in 2017). It's probably healthier for the game to not include elements so easily abused or associated with ugly real-life stuff, but as someone who has a soft spot for ufology, it's still a bummer.

At least Pazio was smart enough to never include Pleiadeans/Nordics or the Annunaki. Those guys make the jump from plausibly deniable antisemitism to full-on white supremacy! I was actually kind of shocked to see the munavri included in PF2, as they reference a similar conspiracy BS milieau.

Funny aside about David Icke: As disastrously stupid and wrong as he is, he's since backpedaled on the antisemitism and has been trying to divorce his "theory" from its unfortunate associations, going so far as to take public swings at other prominent conspiracy theorists for their even more blatant antisemitism! I'm not expecting an IRL redemption arc from the dude or anything, but it's interesting (and kind of scary?) to see one of the world's top antisemites basically admit that things have gone too far.