Ikiry0's page

My issue is mostly that the Solarian's gravity stuff has trouble...doing that it's supposed to do. Black Hole can't pull people over their cover or keep them with you once you've pulled them in, it pulls a shorter distance than it's range so you are not even certain to have them in AoO range by when it is done, you don't have any ability to keep them up close when you do...and that was your entire turn doing so.

Which is why I think the Solarian has issues. It's control side has a lot of holes in it that make it difficult for it to really hold a candle to it's damage side. Doubly so when it's one of the top damage classes in the game if you do go damage...but it's control isn't really fantastic compared to alternatives. Like, 'Has a cyro weapon' puts a Soldier generally as a more reliable control alternative since they can prevent guarded steps and halve movement speed with every attack.

As the many whiners-about-Solarians will tell you, Solarian Revelations are often not as powerful as spells wielded at a comparable level (and often require Resolve Point spends to use), which of course is the tradeoff for being able to use them much more frequently.

That and many Solarian revelations require you to be fully attuned. Which is 3 turns and can only happen in combat. So while they can, theoretically, be used more times per day...it relies on your combats lasting rather a long time to even get 2 uses/encounter.

As an aside, I am utterly against any system where "hp damage" is the only way to win fights. There should always be room for creative and clever play, whether involving magic or not. I have absolutely no problem with spells being able to get around hp, as long as it's not guaranteed and doesn't become repetitive or boring.

While I loathe the idea of things being able to just bypass HP. It trivialises the combat system and also has the issue that if you don't use HP, you don't have something that makes ending the fight a progression rather than a random chance. Colour Spray for example works exactly the same round 1 and round 10 and does not affect your allies but HP damage works WITH your allies, as they are all working towards the same endgame as everyone else. Save or Lose is something I never want to see come back. I mean, right now we have exactly 1 PC save or die in the game and it's the capstone of the Soldier class. Introducing spells that take someone out of a fight in a single roll trivialises that capstone.

I think I've been arguing more 'We shouldn't'. I mean, we've seen it be done with the Starfarer's Companion which was an abomination unto good game design. It's less 'Can it be done' and more 'What does it really add to the game to add those extra spell levels and will it do more harm than good', with me personally believing it would be opening Pandora's box.

I'd wonder what sort of mind control drugs were in the water if Starfinder did please everyone. No RPG has done that.

Also SF combat maneuvers are against KAC+8. PF CMD is often within 1-3 of their normal AC unless the character is specifically built to resist maneuvers.

Yes, as I said, it's effectively +4 because the feat gives a hefty +4 bonus. A melee soldier trained in grappling succeeds on it on a 9+ at most levels against a guy of equal level, that's pretty damn reliable.

PDFs yo.

While they are selling physical books, they are limited by the requirements for physical books. Physical books need to not be so bulky as to be impossible to quickly look through or to be impossible to transfer.

Imagine how gypped people would feel if the PDF guys got extra content the physical book people didn't? I think, overall, they used the space very well. Considering most of those classes have more options than the pathfinder core rulebook ones did.

Off the top of my head, the combat maneuver system was a great update to the grappling system, and I was excited to see how it would get further improved in SF. Turns out they just made grappling physically impossible for nearly all characters.

If I may be blunt? HAHAHAHAHAH. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH. AAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH, GODS NO COMBAT MANEUVERS WERE NOT GREAT. They were one of the weakest things in all of Pathfinder. Size bonuses and limitations and enemy stats scaling so high made grappling anything other than 'Medium humanoid' nearly impossible as you levelled (On top of the 'You literally can't try' against a massive number of foes because they were incorporeal or they were too big or they got wizard spellcasting so they could know freedom of movement).

Starfinder's Combat Maneuvers are at KAC+4 (Since the feat gives a +4 bonus). It's not easy, I'll admit and they could have gone a bit lower for some of them BUT it's a lot, lot more feasible than it was in Pathfinder.

And it drives me insane that I'm supposed to wait for more content to come out, because I shouldn't have to!

They can only put so much in a core rulebook, printing costs money and raises the price of the book. The classes are better balanced with each other than the Pathfinder core rulebook classes were and each class (Save perhaps the Solarian) has a heap of different build options for it, moreso than Pathfinder did on release.

While there is less classes, I will say there is more viable characters in the corebook than was in Pathfinder.

Which 'revolutions' from Pathfinder are missing from Starfinder?

I was under the impression that this won't actually work. NPCs in Starfinder are designed to have lower AC, better attacks rolls, and better skills than PCs as a "balance" thing against mind control. So if you build one as a PC he won't be able to hit PCs and will be a lot harder to hit as well. Not getting all the free NPC skill bonuses is less of an issue.

I'd build NPC allies as if they were PCs, NPC enemies using the usual rules. Slots them more easily into system.

What cover bonus are you assuming? +4AC?

No attack bonuses or defence bonuses for either side (So melee isn't assuming flanking etc) unless it's built into the class. I mean, numbers can get a lot worse if you sit down and try to reenact WWI trench warfare but that's what moving or grenades is for, trying to pick guys out of hard cover is a rather long process. It's sort what cover is notably good at.

Ikiry0 wrote:

Stormtrooper aim? PCs seem to be decently accurate, especially soldiers.

A disturbingly large percentage of the time, we can go a full round where this happens:

P1: I shoot it with my laser pistol (rolls 12 on die). I miss.
P2: I use my Get 'Em and shoot it with my glock (rolls 13 on die). I miss.
GM: The enemies try to hit you with their (melee or ranged attack, whichever is appropriate). They miss.
P3: I use my combat tracking on one and shoot it (rolls 14 on die). I miss.

That...doesn't seem possible. In fact, that seems impossible and I have numbers to back it up.

Numbers!
Here is my sheets doing damage calculations against equal level monsters (According to the actual monster manual creature creation guidelines). Even a 3/4 BAB guy who put only a secondary focus into his attack stat is hitting very reliably against equal level AC. The worst it ever gets is a level 20 guy trying to attack a level 20 monster's KAC and that's a 13+ (11+ if he's hitting against EAC, generally a good idea if you are lower base accuracy).

Core Rulebook.

You could likely translate any races pretty easily from pathfinder to starfinder with some basic rules:

• Net +2 Stats
• 3-4 shiny things, generally with a +2 to a couple of skills as one of them
• Have any energy resistances scale as the feat does (1/level) so that it both stays useful for all levels and doesn't completely null that given weapon type at early levels.
• Don't make any bonuses they give too huge (+1 to AC is a very nice bonus for example) since the numbers are more finely tuned and keep the immunities rather limited.

With those general rules you are likely alright. My general philosophy is that it's better to get the 'feel' of a race than do a perfect translation of each rule from pathfinder.

I would again urge the I-want-it-to-be-Pathfinder school to just get this. It was made by people who agree with you and it's got clerics and wizards and maguses and 9th level spells and the whole bit.

I'd recommend heavily, heavily against it. It's really got no real clue about how balance works in starfinder (Bonuses too large, energy resistance way too frontloaded, clerics and wizards managing to get BUFFS since Pathfinder) and...well, that's kinda impressive for a book written by one of the guys on the Starfinder team.

Too much of it is 1:1 translated from Pathfinder despite the different backends for the system and the stuff that isn't directly translated isn't really too much better. It's a book I can't recommend against strongly enough.

It seems more to me like a change on the meta level.

While types of undead have been evil in Pathfinder, it's not part of the Undead type itself (As shown by the non-evil types of undead). Eoxians are mostly a specific sort of undead (We don't have rules for yet), so they could easily be non-evil.

All the Vesk did was act as fallible living beings. Undead are by their very existence inimical to all living beings. The divide between them is larger that the divide between angels and demons, between Einstein and a slug on the path.

But the Eoxians are actively trying to be not inimical to life, they are trying to be a member of the pact worlds (And heck, they are basically THE Founding member).

Which is sorta where the racism (Or bigotry, if you don't concider undead a race) part comes in. Eox is defying expectations of what undead can be. Is it right to say we should automatically assume that they'll be evil because 'All of those sort are' or 'You can't trust rotters'? Or should you treat them based on their actions and what that says about their morality?

Pathfinder liches were sapient beings too. As were wraiths, wights, vampires, etc, etc. And back then they always were evil.

Should we assume they were just people with unpleasant urges? Or
the monsters that they were?

Well, to be a lich you needed to actively go through a ritual that requires some truly horrible things. You were not exactly good BEFORE you became the lich, undeath didn't change that.

Undead don't just destroy the living in order to eat. They destroy the living because that kind of malice is just part of what it means to be undead.

Even assuming that's correct (Pathfinder has always been rather unclear on WHY undead are evil if Negative Energy isn't), Eoxian undead are sapiant beings. Is it moral to treat a group of people with unpleasant urges that they are actively fighting as monsters to be destroyed? Does the existence of the worse nature overrule the attempts to be more than it and embrace their better angels?

To quote Star Trek about humanity itself: "We can admit that we're killers, but we're not going to kill today. That's all it takes."

I mean, it's not really wrong. It's making an assumption about someone's nature based on what they physically are. I'm not sure if undead are a 'Race' per-say but it's at least some level of bigotry.

3. The lack of full casters. If a game doesn't have the kinds of characters I like to play, I'm not likely to want to play it. Of my 8 PFS characters, 5 are full casters and the other 3 are partial casters. I'm willing to wait for the first expansion book with class options to see if they fix this glaring problem.

That seems unlikely to happen and, personally, thank all that's holy for that. We've got 2 classes right now that are primarily focused on being spellcasters without getting into the nonsense that was Pathfinder full casting. I'm really, really hoping we never get 9th level casters (And what would you even do with them? You've already got your two major spellcaster types (Arcane and Divine, thematically) in the existing stuff)

4. The grey moral tone of the world. Sorry, but Eox should not be a Pact World, it should be the main enemy. Undead are evil, except in extraordinary circumstances, and then only for individual undead. Any character worth playing is going to smite undead on sight.

So the ethical response to 'Hey, we don't want to hurt anyone and want to cooexist' is 'Stuff you, we're going to rekill you all!'? Undead have always had a bit of an issue in Pathfinder of not really explaining WHY they are always evil (Since Negative Energy is very much not evil). It was kinda needed to either provide a good explanation of what makes undead evil or to admit neutral undead could exist (Which even in Starfinder are the Minority. Eox is one planet and even then, a lot of it's military left when they were told to not hurt the living and forced the corpse fleet).

I don't know thing one about 4th edition D&D and care still less. If that's really an attempt to goad PF players it's unfortunate, though. I hope that's not true.

Eh, it's not entirely wrong. Though the Envoy is more the 4e 'Lazylord' build than a normal Warlord (Who were very, very competent warriors rather than mostly there for the team support). Honestly, I was hoping the Envoy would be a bit more Warlord than it is.

How in the name of all that's unholy are the NPCs supposed to know this ?

Generally because most NPCs don't really expect to have multiple life or death encounters a day. PCs do and that's an unusual situation.

One unresolved issue is how many racial hit points to give a homebrew race. I thought I saw a pattern in the core + legacy races in the Starfinder Core Rulebook, but Alien Archive races do not follow any pattern that I can see.

My general rule with my own working on it is 'If +Con, Large size or otherwise notably tough, 6. If small size AND -2 con, 2. Otherwise 4'. I'm actually having a lot of fun working on some races that play odd with stuff that is rarely touched on because it Feels powerful, even if the mechanics don't so much back it up as being powerful rules-wise.

The two ways to balance grenades would have been cost, or collateral damage. The design team chose cost likely because it is simpler, and less likely to result in angry or dead PCs.

Option One: Grenades cost a lot, but generally work like a spell anyone can use.

The issue there is that well...spell gems are pretty much a better option even for non-spellcasters (Since you can use a weapon fusion to let you fire spell gems from it). They are cheaper and more potent and come in a lot more options.

The sole advantage grenades have is letting you throw a lot of them...which isn't a great advantage when they cost such a staggering amount.

I'd really liked to have seen some separation of 'Permanent stuff' and 'Consumable stuff' with pricing so you don't have to rely on the GM handling returning consumable expenses.

Like maybe having you not BUY consumables. You instead buy a licence to fabricate them, which lets you have 3 fabricated at any one time on your ship. Making them more like 3/day items rather than once off.

3/4 BAB, but no inherent weapon proficiency.

Even pathfinder Wizards have Simple Weapons. For starfinder the equivalent is Small Arms and Simple Melee.

And pretty much no other class abilities.

Then what would they give up for Archetypes?

I just...don't see what that brings to the table that Technomancers and Mystics don't. As Technomancers are actually BETTER at blasting spells than that class (Since they can get semi-spec for combat spells) and Mystics are BETTER at mind control spells (Since they get the ability to wipe people's minds that they were used). Both of those classes are already very, very much spellcasting focused.

I want a 9 level caster. I also don't want it gimped. At high levels, they aren't SUPPOSED to be balanced. That's like saying Merlin should be balanced with a Marine. But its the how in getting there. At age 18, 19, 20, etc, that Marine can one shot Merlin perhaps. Eventually that curve does (and should) shift. But the Space-Wizard should still be fragile.

I dunno, Merlin is part demon and the Doom Marine has proven that if it's demon he's very good at beating it. I'd say they should be balanced.

I also disagree with this vehemently, as this is why we have CHARACTER LEVELS. Two PCs of equal level should be equal in power. The weakness of getting punched in the guts by the other guy early game in exchange for punching the other guy in the guts late game only works as a balancing factor in short-term games like DOTA and LoL where you will see someone go through early and late game both in a single session.

The bigger issue with balance than combat (And one you rather ignored) is that of non-combat. We currently have 2 rather non-combat focused classes (Envoy and Operative. Not useless in combat but they are the kings of non-combat). Introducing 9th level casters has the issue of 'So what balancing factors is there, outside of combat, to make the Envoy and Operative not feel miserable about their choice?'. As sessions that are mostly non-combat make even limited spellcasting less of an issue, as not every day is a dungeon crawl.

If "bonus to social skills" is not enough of a reason to take Charisma, maybe what needs to happen is for people to put more emphasis on social skills and encounters? Instead of giving Charisma some artificial added use, just take the existing use and make it more useful. I realize this might take some fiddling to keep from hitting the "just have the one specialist do everything" solution, and also that it involves the dreaded "good GM practices, rather than game mechanics" solution.

The issue there is that Charisma doesn't even have the most skills tied to it. Other skills have more non-combat stuff AND combat uses.

I also don't like 'The GM can fix it, so it's not a problem' stuff. Every RPG is someone's first and you shouldn't rely on such things, which take time for a new GM to learn. Mechanical balance supports GMs, not undermines them.

I liked 4e's system with saves where you took the higher of two stats for the save. Str/Con = Fort (You are big,strong and tough), Int/Dex = Ref (You are good at tactical positioning and fast on your feet), Cha/Wis = Will (You are observant and have a strong sense of self)

Oh yes, Dex is VERY overloaded right now. It controls

>EAC
>KAC
>Ranged Attacks
>Init

And that's not even counting skills.

It's not just resolve though, it's that Charisma is a wasteland of a stat. It's got no non-skill mechanics tied to it (And doesn't even have the highest number of skills)

I'm not much a fan of these houserules...but man, Charisma needs something or we'll end up with the same issue as Pathfinder where it becomes the really 'Safe' stat to tie stuff too so you end up with either 'My mechanics give me ungodly high benefits for charisma so I focus it' and 'There is basically no use for charisma for me'

I'm honestly really liking not having 7-9 spells. It's liberating and really helps deal with the game balance issues that full spellcasting brings to the table.

I'd give them a +1 EAC bonus rather than the actual damage resistance. It fits the broad array of resistances better without nulling weapons, as well as scaling better as you level.

Can we please just agree to disagree and move on to something else? I'm tired of feeling like this is the only active thread on the Starfinder forums. Surely there are better things we could all be doing, like giving advice, coming up with cool character concepts, making character art...something!

Eh, as long as people want to talk about a topic it will be talked about. Telling people to move onto something else before they want to finish won't really do much good.

The thing is, maining a pistol is thematic, but unless you're an Operative you are basically shooting yourself in the foot if you do so.

On the plus side, shooting yourself in the foot with a pistol won't hurt much at least.

In some kind of abstract, theoretical sense, sure. In the real world, where such things are often strongly one way it doesn't make sense to treat them as equal.

Yes it does, by treating both of them as utterly intolerable. As to do less than that is to undersell the effects it can have on people and to trivialise one person's suffering because it's not considered 'As important' as someone else's.

Yes, sexism is more common of an issue for women than men. That does not, however, make it morally worse as it's morally appalling in both cases.

And I imagine there is some sexism against women in drow society, depending on what they want to do. The wizarding part of it was generally seen as men's work (In the old D&D novels I've read at least) because it's less prestigious than being a cleric. So any woman who'd rather learn arcane magic rather than divine is likely seen as degrading herself or lowering herself to the work of lessers.

I wonder how that works in Starfinder when the arcane/divine split doesn't exist any more. It's likely been discarded.

Some exasperation, some mocking for claiming that sexism against men is remotely equivalent to sexism against women - or, since the original "swap the subject" argument is common for things other than sexism, that any kind of prejudice is just as bad reversed.

...that's a bit of a slippery slope, to treat abuse to one gender as 'More alright' than the other. I'd go more with the statement 'Sexism against either gender is intolerable' than trying to quantify if one sexism is worse than another when that is something that is very hard to measure in a quantifiable manner (As it exists on both personal and societal levels and needs to be examined on both.)

And even more creepily, it suggests they're right. From the suggestions above, most of these "transwomen Drow", wouldn't actually be trans, but would be men using the serum to pose as women for the social advantages. The presence of which completely screws any actual transDrow, btw.

Not an approach I'm really comfortable taking.

Well, there is very little that people won't do to stop being oppressed.

Nah, you can have chaotic groups with laws. Otherwise you'd never have a chaotic government ever and there are plenty of chaotic countries.

But yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a lot of back and forward politics about 'Trying to hide useful women that used to be men in your own house' and 'Trying to find out which women in an enemy house used to be men to get rid of them'.

And that's my problem with the drow. Are you seriously telling me that it wouldn't be a thing? Yeah, there's going to be body disphoria. That doesn't matter. Pop a pill, be an in-control female.

...do we have anything yet talking about how the Drow feel about that? As that feels like it could be something VERY interesting to examine if they continue with the 'Drow are Matriarchal' thing. Both in the concept of how it reflects their opinions on transgender people and in how they respond to people who would happily be a body they don't feel they line up with for the social advantages.

Heh...though I suppose it would literally make them Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists. That might not be something Paizo wants to take a bite of, issue-wise.

Actually there are precedence in Golarion of instilled patriarchy in Taldor. Taldor has never had a ruling queen, due to patriarchal rules and that is part of the plot in the upcoming AP line, where the party is trying to place Stavin's daughter on the throne.

Mind you, Taldor also doesn't worship Erastil. In fact the very first god mentioned is his more progressive opposition, Abadar. I imagine Erastil prefers 'Elders' to 'Decadent Bureaucracy'.

But yeah, I was talking more about the setting in general rather than specific nations. It's a much more egalitarian setting, which makes me very hesitant to link 'Traditional' with 'Patriarchal'.

Wait that's the problem? That they don't have as good saves as Soliders and use charisma (and as far as I can see still do a good job at melee)?

That's the core of my complaints, yes. Though as I've said: My issue is with Charisma as a stat, specifically. It's also a complaint I can level at the Envoy, that Charisma feels like half a stat compared to the others.

Well “traditional” in the form of the patriarchy hasn’t been good so it’s actually not a double standard.

It rather is still. That and this is Pathfinder, not real life. Pathfinder doesn't have any record of being patriarchal as the 'Traditional' situation. When it talks about tradition in the context of Erastil, it talks about how he was the first hunter.

It seems to be more 'Small town/rural' rather than 'Patriarchal' and I think people are jumping at shadows with him. Shadows that DO exist in other places, yes but that doesn't mean they are everywhere.

Another point is, if you decrease the cost of weapons, the WBL needs to go down to account for it for judging CR.

I'm not honestly sure that's true. WBL was important in pathfinder because you could buy any item with enough dosh. In Starfinder, you can only get level +2 at most so unlimited money wouldn't help there too much.

We can stop right there, because everything past this is missing my point.

And my point is that having only one of them be good-compatible would be incredibly sexist. Either neither of them are able to be so, or both of them can be so. Otherwise it would be a double standard.

Yes, there very much are real life concerns about gender equality but it would also be sending rather a nasty message to go 'If you are traditional, you can't actually be good'. As Erastil doesn't 'Expouse hardcore gender roles' unless you really put a spin on his religion that isn't in the text.

Erastil teaches his followers to embrace traditional and simpler ways of life, free of the constraints of modern civilization, a trait that often results in disagreements with more progressive deities such as Abadar; this difference in opinion leads to increasing conflict between these deities' respective clergies

Do you really think that the protagonists in the novels are always the perfect builds you are looking for?

Take a look at all those NPCs or even the iconics. None of them is really perfect.

Imperfect characters are much more fun. If I create a character I do not want to min/max them to make them perfect for a certain role. No, I try to set their stats so that they reflect the character concept, even if that means that they are far from perfect.

...you keep missing the point. That's why game balance is very important, to ALLOW such choices without compromising the characters effectiveness.

In an RPG you really should not need to worry about picking what to want to play. It is more fun to play some one who is not a min/max-ed combat machine.

I am sure that the classes in Starfinder are balanced but it seems that some players are unable to see this because they might have overlooked something.

No, you shouldn't need to worry about it which is WHY balance is very important. A system where people don't need to worry about balance means that people can pick whatever they want.

And while I'm liking Starfinder and it's a vast step up from Pathfinder and 3.5 on that front, I'm not sure I'd say it's balanced. It's got some issues to work out (And support will hopefully help them).

Charisma is a core example of it not really being balanced. Charisma, as a stat, does nothing outside of skills. Other stats get skills AND a secondary effect. Pathfinder also has that issue, which is why stuff like a Paladin's Divine Grace often turn up. An ability powerful enough you'd not give it to any other stat but Charisma's innate weakness makes it alright.

Sure they can. So can the Envoy or the Operative and I think the Envoy calls dibs.

Because it's not right?

When you are attuned or fully attuned, your attacks with plasma sheath deal additional fire damage equal to half your level.

You just need to be attuned (Aka: In Solar mode), Not fully attuned (3 turns)

I am also curious as to why Cha is complained about as the weakest stat?

In terms of abilities to completely negate encounters, there are very few available to non spell casters.
The two that stand out are Perception and Diplomacy.
Diplomacy is a Cha skill, and can completely negate an encounter.

If you doubt this there are plenty of anecdotes in the PFS threads about diplomancers taking scenarios and negating most if not all of the combats.

Because Charisma offers nothing BUT skills. To repost what I put before:

Strength How much Stuff you can carry, melee damage, melee attack rolls.
Dexterity AC, Ranged Attack Rolls, Ref Saves
Constitution Damage you can take, fort saves.
Intelligence Skill Points
Wisdom Will Saves
Charisma You get... NOTHING!!! YOU LOSE!! GOOD DAY, SIR!!!

Every single stat offers something other than 'Just skills'. Skills are nice but most other stats offer skills AND something else. I mean, Stealth can negate an encounter just as much as Diplomacy but Dexterity still offers plenty else.