I feel like I'm missing something with this. It lets you swap out the energy damage types of your starship spells between acid, cold, electric, and fire, but starship spells do force damage so there seems to be no interaction?
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I consider it trap. I feel like this was pointed out during the play test.
I have decided that I will be parsing emoji based combat spells as similar to real-world people and governments that have been to incorporate memes into their presentation of military action and assassinations. A sign of how bleak the world is, where death is being treated with such callous and unempathetic regard.
Horror is comedy without a punchline. That's not a joke - the release of building tension from the punchline is what makes like 90% of comedy skits funny rather than spooky. The two genres go together pretty damn well, in my experience, and "navigating really messed-up stuff in a Universe that's fundamentally a bit ridiculous" is a good genre flavouring to work with. I feel like that tension doesn't really work, when the humour and punchline parts is able to be injected by the player at any time because their whole class is a punchline or some of their go to spells of that level are the punchline. That tension is not going to last long enough to actually build into horror at lot of the time because it has less time to build when you're constantly relieving the tension.
That the game has such a drastically clashing between it's two main tones is the issue imo, not a strength. A game that struggles with a silly tone because it keeps trying to be horror in what feels like the majority of it's adventure and monster design, but also a game that fails utterly at horror because it wants you to be going around as cheerleaders wacking people with holographic hammers while people are casting memes to explode people. I feel like if it is the tone the game wants to go, it'd be better if it just gave up on the horror content at a certain point.
So... there's a general/diplomacy skill feat called "Chat, Help!" where as a free-action when you roll initiative you can recall knowledge using performance. I wonder how much use that'd get when you can only use it really on settled worlds. Since it's a setting where stellar communication is only as fast as the drift is, can take ages for your livestream to go out while in space.
I know I already have to resist the urge to reflavour "Healing Ringtone" at my table, so emoji spells might not make the cut for my tables. I feel like my more jokey games I don't tend to run using systems as heavy as starfinder. Some homour is fine, but I'm not big on the current direction of the humour.
Except that doesn't save the group any time or effort. It's the same as if you sent in a full pc because of how HP is shared. The eidolon getting nuked is the summoner getting nuked.
I'm very excited for Luminary and the hologram ancestry! I don't think luminary will be in Tech Core.
I'm a GM who has to tell players to ignore the whole rarity system and explain it to newbies every time they first see a feat that plays around with it how it's going to be irrelevant for this game because we aren't playing in the inner sea. The rarity system doesn't speed the conversation of what is available in my campaign up for me, because I'm not going to spend days coming up with lists of what is available and what isn't and instead need to go through convos for everything and audit everything to the same degree as if everything was equivalent to uncommon (definitely run games where even Humans were unavailable as options). At the very least, if there was some distinction between the options with different rarity because of gameplay impact rather than regional flavour, I could point to that but instead paizo decided to conflate the two.
I feel like if you are barely giving your classes features because of how much budget spell slots take up, that I have no reason to care about your class. I know I was frustrated with animist because it didn't feel like it gave any of it's fantasy to me and was just "Cleric but you can change your 3.5e domain every day".
Yeah that's identical to me. Both are still non-existant / "you can't have this" until you and the gm work to explain why you have access to it. That is a binary thing. You either have access via fiat/agreement or don't.
One point of friction I've seen me players have is "what is the difference between Uncommon and Rare" since the meaning of both is "Ask your gm if you can use it"
As someone who doesn't play in golarion, rarity is useless for me. Whenever my players took at that trait, they have to ignore whatever is there.
I didn't even know this book was a thing until this thread. But yeah, I'd assume they were written concurrently and that this shouldn't be a problem going forward.
Is there a reason why a table would use these mechanics for handling it's fiat-plot-magic over doing conventional fiat? Seems like it'd still need to involve all of the work and fiat decisions that not using the system would involve.
It mainly exists to prevent you from doing stuff like barbarian rage + casting without jumping through hoops. Also can't do concentration actions when fascinated.
I could easily do this class as a grim, nihilistic philosopher who views the roles as the doomed/fleeting aspects of your life and the spotlight a focus of destiny. Not goofy or silly at all. If you remove all of the flavour and replace it with different flavour you have different flavour, but that doesn't change what the flavour of the class is by default. If you kept any of original flavour, but just had what you say as the personality, then is still silly to me.
lmao that'd be so mean to just do to someone. I get some people don't like bard style characters but just announcing someone's character idea is only suitable as a joke as like, a thing you bring up for table discussion is kind of ruthless damn. I think you're adding insult to something that isn't an insult. My group does do less serious campaigns sometimes, not normally something we go to PF/SF for, but is something we often enjoy. Me asking my group if we want to shift from my original idea to more match the tone the player is looking forward to is just good communication. Stuff like pop-stars going into military conflicts & black-ops missions, or rebels fighting against the Aeon Throne by summoning up giant holographic game show wheels just doesn't fit the tone of the majority of my Starfinder campaign pitches. It is best to ensure everyone is on the same vibe and tone. So either we'd have to adjust the character, or adjust the campaign. It probably would fit perfectly fine (or better than the average class) thematically in a Hall of Living game for example. I genuinely don't see why a Luminary is any different from a Bard I DO view Bards as innately silly, though abit less so than luminary. Performance based magic is abit silly when each round is only 6 seconds, so you are barely actually doing any performing by the time most battles finish. It does help at least that the bards tend to not be martials that are heading directly but just performer-tied occult casters. There is stuff for the bard to do that isn't just being a performer all the time. That is not true of this class, as their only magical power is the stuff tied to the things that make it silly in my eyes.
Nope. Because being an edgey melodrama character isn't the pitch of the class. Being a magic performer/entertainer who has spotlight powers Is the pitch of the class. This is regardless of the personality of the character themselves, they could be completely serious individuals emotionally and what not. I will reiterate though that I do not think my views on this are useful playtest information. Changing the class to align with my views would be completely unreasonable.
people that don't vibe with it might just not engage with the playtest I know I haven't commented as much because I don't feel like "The fundamental concept is something I would never use outside of a joke campaign" is particularly useful playtest information for the devs. In 95% of the games I run if a player said they wanted to play it, I'd either have to tell them no or ask everyone at the table if they want to change to the tone of the game into a joke campaign for this one. But idk how they'd act on that without reworking the concept entirely, which simply isn't reasonable.
Witchwarper that changes the world around them into a performance or entertainment media sounds neat
I would have to see it in play but I suspect the spotlight should be moving around a lot turning on the roles of those it is currently on. Unless you use the classes low level feats or focus spells, in which case it stays on one person for most of the fight. The minus save ones I think should be pretty strong if you have people in the party capable of using it. I definitely think they're going to be useful, even if it will still take an action to put the role on the enemies. I think this is one of those classes though where people are going to need to play it a bit to get a better feel of how its combats flow. I do hope I'll have a chance to do some playtesting.
The support angle of the class seems to have a lot of focus but basically no juice. The low level feats and focus spells seem to want you to also just mainly ignore the spotlight mechanic and have you leave it on yourself forever which feels odd? Being able to do no savedebuffs that last a turn is useful but I don't see much to attract people to the class outside of the wacky fantasy (which doesn't work for me personally since it's a very niche pitch and this is a game with 6 second combat turns
In Galactic Ancestries there is an Entu feat called Techentu that allows Entu without a host body to permanently merge with a willing or destroyed creature that has the tech trait. It is unclear to me whether or not this merging is meant to apply the benefits of merging would normally give the character. Or if merging with another creature... doesn't actually merge you at all but just gives you construct-y traits at the cost of never getting to use your heritage power? If it isn't meant to actually merge and just "give powers with nothing actually happening with the host that isn't your host" then why bother having it involve a willing or destroyed creature, to the point that even mindless creatures get given sentience so that they can consent to it? If it is meant to merge, then wouldn't you be unable to move if you performed this on a destroyed creature because tactical symbosis prevents your movement? Or is it meant to merge but with none of the standard effects of merging, but the other creature is just deleted from existence?
I am surprised to hear they decided to go severely specific for the heritages. Reducing the playable concepts for the ancestry from hundreds of potential hosts to just a handful.
I do think it is fair to "feel" like starfinder isn't complete when there isn't any sci fi classes yet. If you want to play a techy character or a science character in flavour currently, you'll probably need to go to pathfinder classes like Alchemist and Inventor to try and get that vibe across at present. It's definitely a reality that it takes time for stuff to be written, tested, edited, layouts, art, etc. that goes into making a book. But I know I won't be running a full campaign of Starfinder 2e any time soon when a lot of the basic sci fi pitches simply aren't supported currently. I don't feel like they need to replicate the 1e classes though. Archetypes are higher priority than something like Vanguard or Precog.
I feel like cinematic is the closest it's been, but has suffered from not giving players enough agency in the examples for me to want to use the system over just replacing the whole encounter with one or two skill rolls and just not having a system for starship combat in my games. I really hope that whatever system they come to gives reasons to be doing different things each turn and have actual decisions get made.
It being an archetype means it is no longer a viable character concept for any game that starts at level 1, and yeah it does sound like the capabilities you get will be minor because archetypes tend to not have any budget. I worry for another oozemorph situation.
Not sure how you play, but in general, I think there's a huge difference in opinions online based on how someone plays the game. As context, my groups are both home groups who play lots of different games so generally will provide a description of the pitch for an adventure we'll be playing if we are going to play something. Battle for Nova Rush is just one session long. If you wanted to try running Battle for Nova Rush, you could Just tell your players that they start as prisoners on a ship and have to get out. I played only knowing that, and came out thinking this is a great way to run starship encounters. When I read it after the game, I was shocked that it was only 5 pages long of game text. If it's not something that fits your group that's fine too. For me it's a matter of "this isn't a 'starship combat encounter', it's 'encounters that happen on a starship'". It can be entertaining, but feels like I'd be setting false expectations to claim it's about a thing that isn't (in my eyes at least) a major part of the adventure. If you tell people that an adventure is a great way to run heists, but the adventure is actually just the various complications that happened prior to the heist and some of the heist prep, while the heist itself is just a single abstracted roll... that isn't going to be seen an heist adventure to me and struggle to see how it'd work as a foundation for future heist adventures.
When you play the scenario, you FEEL like you're on a starship in the middle of combat. You're frantically doing things to affect that combat The only elements of the adventure that are "doing things to affect that combat" seems to be Spoiler:
did you repair 2 things during your dungeon crawl. It might not be you cup of tea but if the opportunity presents itself I'd try and play in it. You might be pleasantly surprised by how much fun it is and how much it feels like you're in a Star Wars or Star Trek battle I think if I tried to sell my players on a Starship fight adventure, but I'm the end included only one minute of interacting with anything outside of your own ship they'd feel disappointed by the end of it. They might still enjoy their time because starfinder is a fun game and we enjoy our fellows company, but the adventure itself will probably not be remembered as living up to the pitch.
Having given it a read now I cannot grasp why people would see this adventure as relevant when the only actual connection to Starship combat is the last rolls to see if you escape.
Fair enough.
My issue is the CSS in GM Core would be whole scenes that my group would find it very repetitive and unengaging, since you don't really have any agency or decisions in those. So if that's design philosophy was expanded to a whole session I think my players would stay away from SF2e in the same way the PF2e playtest caused them to be apprehensive of PF2e for a good while.
Does Battle for Nova Rush use the gm core rules or something else? I found the gm core rules examples pretty agency-less and repetitive.
what do you think biohacking is Milo? In the case of fantastical sci-fi of Starfinder, I see it as more "this chemical can give you claws" type stuff rather than 1es more internal style.
Perhaps a 2e biohacker could increase its focus on biohacking rather than pharmaceuticals
It feels unintended because they give them mechanics that at a glance only make sense for if they work like normal weapons. There is very little reason for them to be advanced when they don't use normal proficiency to begin with (I imagine the only thing would be for mechanics that can pick weapons to start with like investor) and something like Professional trait is non functional 90% of the time on them because that trait only affects attack rolls so only comes up with the soldier specific way of making attack rolls with area weapons. It isn't particularly intuitive.
I know I was disappointed when I saw that one of the envoy subclasses in Starfinder gave Assurance (stealth) as it's associated benefit because of how useless I find Assurance outside of Athletics.
I feel like there is going to be a lot of potenital with the Awakened Animal ancestry in Starfinder, given how I imagine custom alien animals are going to be a lot more readily accepted in this game compared to PF where earth animals would be the assumption. "Ah yes, I am playing an awakened Scaled-Gorrila from the planet Mordex."
Ah I see the issue. It says the minimum in one section where it puts forward the limit but not the other. Thankfully they're close but feels weird they doubled up saying that and forgot the minimum in one of them.
There's also the issue with things like environmental protections still being based on armour level, despite being given to androids without armour and when armour is level 0 for a quarter of the game.
What paizo has actually said was that a simple subsystem for Starship combat would be in the GM Core, and that full complex Starship building stuff would be in a layer supplement that would likely have it's own separate playtest.
They had a seperate playtest this spring. They'll be in Tech Core, which comes out sometime next year. It's a weird split, but tech and mech proved to be difficult to design, and thus needed more time in the oven. Though neither playtest class tied into any such stuff.
I am not saying I want it every encounter to be ranged combat. I'm saying it's bad at being a ranged meta game when 95% of the opposition isn't ranged and that if I'm playing a game with a decent focus on ranged PCs, I want those PCs to actually be able to have shoot outs and using things like cover, rather than spending most of their time in melee. That's harder to do if I have to homebrew most of the enemies just to have some ranged options.
It isn't a ranged meta if every enemy is 5 ft. away from you. Even if the whole party is using ranged weapons, the enemy & encounter design matters.
While it is a bummer to hear Alien Core isn't going to be as big as Monster Core, and hopefully we get a big book of NPCs relatively soon, I wouldn't say building monsters is all that difficult. I found it a tonne slower than the starfinder 1e set up.
I disagree. The main game has barely any ranged enemies, which doesn't work well if you're trying to make a starfinder game with ranged meta, large battlefields, and cover that matters.
I think the main lack in the launch is npc/monster support, so I'm abit disappointed to hear people in this thread saying the monster book will be smaller then most when the monster building system of PF2e seems a lot slower and less GM friendly then the alive archives system and that we are going to need to be using it a lot given how melee focused the existing monster pool is.
I know I'm currently unsure whether to playtest currently because I feel the data I provide won't be especially useful or representative.
The jailbreak might need to be broken to deal with the fact the base effect is mainly a self-debuff, so you're spending a whole class feat specifically on just a jailbreak that you wont be able to use very often.
Oh, so this book isn't meant to be a primer on the setting but more focused on adventure hooks?
Double deployment takes 3 actions if you use the 2 action version of deploy mines, and 2 actions if you use the 1 action version. Two actions to do the 1 action deploy twice can already be done without the feat from my understanding? So would only exist as a three action if they followed that suggestion. Dalgrim, son of Dalgror has not created a profile. |