Remy P Gilbeau's page

thflame wrote:

PossibleCabbage wrote:

dnoisette wrote:

thflame wrote:

Why weren't Drow an option for a future race? That would have been my number one pick, as my favorite character is a drow.

This, I kept looking for Drow and couldn't even believe it wasn't available when I could not even remember what some of the races on offer actually were.

Isn't the Golarion canon that Drow are inherently evil in that they have been tainted by Rovagug and in case they somehow get over being evil and are cleansed of the aforementioned taint, they cease to be Drow?

Doesn't really seem appropriate for a PC option.

I disagree. ANYTHING should be an appropriate option for a PC. (Maybe with level adjustment.)

Not anything -- being a full deity (at the high end) or a creature with an intelligence score less than 3 or even non-existent (at the low end) probably would not be appropriate. Towards the middle, deep one hybrids are a "player" race with a crippling weakness that would make them unsuitable for nearly all campaigns.

But drow? Why not?

Well, because Drow isn't a race. There's not going to be a Race of Drow, because Drow is a Heritage. Unless Heritage feats get ripped from the game in their entirety (which I don't want to see, because I'm excited to see what Human Heritage feats for the different ethnicities like Ulfen and Varisian look like) then when you want to play a Drow, you'll take the Drow Heritage feat on an Elf.

I'm glad to see this. I've often felt the half-X races should be folded into their full blooded parents. This does so gracefully.

Ha! This is so cool. I love all of this. Primal Evolution may need a bit of a buff, though. The others are more flexible.

Oh man, even the Spinning Blade Pillar seems weird to me... what does this line mean: "Stealth +10 (trained) or DC 24 (expert) to notice the control panel"

I mean, that 'Stealth +10 (trained)' likely refers to the trap's stealth score, which is opposed by the PCs' Perception, right? What about that "DC 24 (expert) to notice the control panel"... that means your own Perception?

Then that Hidden pit has TAC and saves listed, but for some reason it does fixed (10 bludgeoning) damage?

The design goal is lofty, but the formatting and terminology has not become easier to grasp; IMO it's become more obscure and convoluted than it has ever been in D&D.

The "Stealth +10" is relevant because it's a Complex trap. As a Complex trap, when it activates it rolls into Initiative and an Encounter commences. With a +10 Stealth bonus it rolls a 1d20+10 for it's Initiative.

The Party's perception roll needs to beat the passive Stealth DC (24) to notice the hidden controls before the trap is triggered, but only an Expert in perception is allowed to make the roll.

The Trap door does indeed have TAC and Saves, for if the wizard decides to shoot rays at it, and it always does 10 bludgeoning if you fall in it because it's a 20' deep hole, and you take 1/2 the number of feet you fell in damage. The damage type for smashing into the ground is bludgeoning.

TriOmegaZero wrote:

Tallow wrote:

Perhaps Legerdemain?

I want this to be the word, but I know that no one I introduce to it will have a clue what it is.

Early D&D actually hugely expanded my vocabulary and I'm a smarter person today because I was reading D&D books as a kid. It's not like Legerdemain is some absurdly rare archaic word, I see it semi-regularly in other contexts and it would be fine here. That's the one they should go with.

No. No, as a matter of fact. It is pretty much exactly that. It is an absurdly rare and archaic word.Emphasis mine.

Also, what is the point of having Immunity to Critical hits if there is not HP?

Because you need a specific amount of damage to beat their Hardness and Dent them. You can't get lucky and hit a kidney with your dagger when attacking a trap door. If you're only able to swing hard enough to do 1d4+4 vs an 11 Hardness, you're not gonna be able to dent it, so let the Fighter with the Earthbreaker up to smash it to bits.

KingOfAnything wrote:

Link: Mark describing a cleric preparing remove curse in their 10th level slot.

Fair enough, sadly that is a 20th level feat, I still think 10th level slots and spell should be gained automatically

Disagree. Strongly. Miracle, Wish, and similar power level spells should not only be feat locked, but they should be narrative locked to the point where nearly no one qualifies ever. I'd personally prefer them be removed from the game entirely (No one should have, "I call my god up, and he sorts the issue for us." as a class feature) but I'll take locking them to level 20 only as a step in the right direction.

Remy P Gilbeau wrote:

As a fun anecdote, for a bit of fun, my party of level 18 PF1 characters (Fighter, Swashbuckler, Shaman, Mesmerist, Alchemist) that have been playing for 2 years, and routinely fight things at APL+5 or 6 without breaking a sweat, decided to run an encounter versus this guy. He uses these stats, and the PF2 action + crit system. We had unlimited time to buff, but used PF1 action + crit system. Long story short, he slaughtered us all in 4 rounds. My Swashbuckler lasted the longest through lucky parries and fortification rolls against his crits, but the Grim Reaper was utterly unstoppable.

Given how crazy of numbers or combos it's possible to have at level 18, I wouldn't be shocked if some group could win a challenge set up the way you did (particularly with a GM willing to make friendly rulings on potential auto-win combos), but the numbers alone are really against a normal level 18 group. It has an AC that's standard for a CR 27 monster in PF1 and high attack for a CR 26, but attack and AC are the parts where the numbers scale more in line with PF1. Its saves are all higher than a CR 30's good save, and the save DC is much higher than the primary ability DC of a CR 30.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'm not salty. I wasn't expecting the systems to play nice when you take a PF1 character using PF1 numbers and put it against a PF2 "We've annoyed the DM" level monster using PF2's numbers and systems. I can't wait to have a rematch one day with a level 18+ second edition party.

GentleGiant wrote:

GRIM REAPER - Creature 21

Evil, Medium, Undead
Perception +38, darkvision, see invisibility, status sight, true seeing
Languages Common, Necril
Skills +26, Acrobatics +38, Athletics +36, Deception +38, Intimidation +38, Religion +36, Society +36, Stealth +40
Str +8, Dex +10, Con +8, Int +5, Wis +6, Cha +8
Items Legendary scythe
Aura of Misfortune (aura, divination, divine, misfortune) 20 feet. Living creatures in the aura must roll twice and take the lower result on all d20 rolls.
Death's Grace A grim reaper can choose not to count as undead for effects that affect undead differently. Even if it does, it still never counts as a living creature.
Status Sight A grim reaper automatically knows the Hit Points and emotions of all creatures it can see, as well as all conditions and afflictions affecting those creatures.

AC 45, TAC 44; Fort +34, Ref +35, Will +36, +1 conditional to all vs. magic
HP 350, Immunities Asleep, death effects, disease, paralysis, poison; Resistances all damage 10
[[R]] Lurking Death (attack, teleportation)
Trigger A creature within 100 feet uses a concentrate, manipulate, or move action or makes a ranged attack.
Effect The grim reaper teleports to a square adjacent to the triggering creature and makes a melee Strike against it with a -2 penalty. If the Strike hits, the grim reaper disrupts the triggering action.

Speed 50 feet, fly 75 feet
[[A]] Melee +5 keen scythe, +37 (agile, deadly 3d10, magical, reach 10 feet, trip) Damage 6d10+8 slashing plus death strike and energy drain
Innate Divine Spells DC 42, attack +37; Constant haste, true seeing (6th); 10th finger of death (x4);

This seems to confirm, incidentally, that spell resistance doesn't exist anymore in PF2. If it existed, this creature would have it. And eliminating it works given PF2s switch to levels of success rather than a binary fail/succeed outcome, as well as eliminating boring "must have" feats like Spell Penetration.

Aside from the fact that the Grim Reaper literally has the "*teleports behind you* Nothing Personal kid." maneuver, thereby proving he is the edgiest of all bosses, has anyone noticed that he's and Undead with a +8 Con mod?

As a fun anecdote, for a bit of fun, my party of level 18 PF1 characters (Fighter, Swashbuckler, Shaman, Mesmerist, Alchemist) that have been playing for 2 years, and routinely fight things at APL+5 or 6 without breaking a sweat, decided to run an encounter versus this guy. He uses these stats, and the PF2 action + crit system. We had unlimited time to buff, but used PF1 action + crit system. Long story short, he slaughtered us all in 4 rounds. My Swashbuckler lasted the longest through lucky parries and fortification rolls against his crits, but the Grim Reaper was utterly unstoppable.

graystone wrote:

GentleGiant wrote:

Student of the Canon

I want a 'Student of the Cannon' feat. ;)

The Students of the Canon are at constant war with the Cult of the Headcanon. Just last week, the Students of the Canon had to embark on a journey through the ruins of The Great Shipping War just to stop the Cultists from performing the Ritual that would summon the dreaded “Highschool AU” onto Golarion!

Just imagine if they had failed . . .

“Seoni is running down the sidewalk with toast in her mouth. Dragon, her kawaii familiar, didn’t wake her up this morning and now she is late for her first day at Pathfinder Society High!

She bumps into someone and falls onto the ground, her toast nowhere to be seen. Who did she bump into? It’s . . . Valeros-sempai!”

. . . *shudders*

I didn't know I wanted this in my life till just this moment. Bye guys! I'm joining a Cult to usher in the end of all things!

I think we should all wait to propose "fixes" to the system till we see the system in total. Counterspelling as a Reaction is a feat. We have been given one feat and told there are many, many more. There's no reason that all the suggestions people are making and more aren't also feats that build off the original Counterspell feat that you can opt into if you want your character to be the ultimate spell breaker.

Wait till you know what the situation is, try it in it's default state, then propose changes after you've had table time with it.

I have no idea why people are getting bent out of shape over the shape of the orc. If they're gorilla like, cool. If they're pig like, cool. If they're anything more interesting than grey/green humans with bad teeth, seems like an upgrade to me. People banging on about racial profiling or some such like that's actually a thing. An orc is an orc. It's a bestial, murderous monster for killing at lowish adventuring levels. It's not a human, and is not a commentary on humans. No need for connections where there are none.

You have three actions in a round (and a reaction sometimes). Regardless of how many arms you have, you have three actions, so there you go. You can now play a race with more than two arms, because the new system doesn't care about how many appendages you have.

Finally, we get some basic information on Backgrounds. Background information, if you will.

Rangers really shouldn't have magic in the first place. It would be better if they just stripped the feature off them entirely rather than let them have whatever it would be called that you're proposing (the thing you're asking for is the exact opposite of what a spontaneous caster is). I'd prefer they not ever have access to spells through any means; feat, archetype, etc. It's always felt tacked on and is frankly a waste of design space. Rather than pushing the things that make a Ranger, like Traps, terrain use, Tactics, they instead burn page space writing Druid-lite spells that do the opposite.

When I play a PC or NPC dressed for combat, the character isn't dressed to emphasize or exaggerate their physical sexual characteristics. They are dressed to be competent and well-protected. They don't eschew their sexuality, but they damn well know that it's difficult to be sexy when you're maimed, dying, or a friggin' corpse. Dress appropriately for the job at hand seems a reasonable sound strategy.

That may be your approach, but my character, who's a front-line fighter (Swashbuckler, technically) and my definition of "the sexy male" fought through literal Hell wearing nothing but an albino Crocodile skin pimp coat, breeches, and some exceptionally fashionable boots, just so the devils could admire his awesome abs while he stabbed them, and it was glorious.

I'm sorry, but the majority of this thread has me confused.

There seems to be a lot of posts to the effect of, "Half Orcs are (typically) a product of rape, and that makes me uncomfortable, so we should get rid of them in favor of full orcs."

So, if I'm understanding correctly, the child of rape (who, like any other child, has no say in the circumstance of it's conception or upbringing) is objectionable, so you'd rather play as the rapist himself?

I wish for a cheap item that negates light sensitivity. There's already Smoked Goggles, which cost just 10gp and are non-magical gear. They make it so you get a +8 to saves versus Vision based attacks, and always count as averting your gaze. They impart a -4 to Perception and give everything a 20% miss chance. They are essentially sun glasses so dark you can barely see through them.

You're telling me they can make super dark glasses, but they can't make some much-less dark sun glasses? The only options for removing light sensitivity is through expensive magical eyewear, which I find to be ridiculous.

Just make some sun glasses, around the same price point as Smoked Goggles, that grant a bonus against light based hazards and attacks for races without light sensitivity, and get rid of the sensitivity for races that do, at the expense of while you're wearing them make it so you can't use either Dark or Low-light Vision. That seems reasonable for removing what is essentially an inherent -1 to Perception and Atk Rolls for certain races.

I happen to like my fantasy pulpy, tropey, and over the top. Chain mail bikini, "boob-plates", what-ever; they're all fine. Right along with the male armor that consists of loincloth, colossal shoulder pads, and sheer manliness (gigantically oversized compensatory weapon option).

If you don't personally go for that, you are certainly welcome to ban it at your own table. By all means, and more power to you, but lets not pretend censorship is ever a good thing. More facets receiving representation, rather than fewer, is always better. Lets have sensible, historically accurate chestguards, absolutely, but there's no reason there's not space for impractical nonsense beside it.

Yeah, no. Those are both awful suggestions. Missing is a bad enough punishment in and of itself without turning the Martial PC's into incompetent losers every time they encounter something dangerous.

I think alignment is important. As a DM tool. There should not be a line on character sheets for Alignment. The players should never know their alignment, or anyone else's. It's best used as an ear-mark for the DM to present monsters and peoples in broad strokes of "X values Y, and will typically do Z to accomplish it."

The class seems much more spread out, rather than front loaded like it was in 1e. Then again, all the classes shown so far seem a bit more stretched along their length, rather than everything jammed into the first few levels and then upgrading numbers from there as you level.

I'm good with Static HP per level. My table has been moving more and more that way as the years progress.

We started with the basic "roll, take what you get." years ago. Moved on to, "Half+1" and currently are using "Get half, roll half" where if you're a d10 class you get d5+5 so you're getting at least half+1. Might as well just take that last step at this point and toss rolling entirely.

Desna's Avatar wrote:

Interesting to note that the term "ancestry" has not completely supplanted "race". The term "race" is still used multiple times:

"You get 10 Hit Points from your race—more than the other races and MUCH more than the elves!"

This could also simply reflect that even the designers themselves have trouble remembering to replace the term "race" with "ancestry" every single time.

That might be an ovesight.

That's my thought too. After using "Race" for years, I'll allow a bit of cross-over during the transition period.

I can already see a scene with my PC's trying to chase a squad of Nimble Elves through wooded terrain. With such a large gap in movement capability, it really will feel like the Elves are ghosts. Hitting, running, and fading back through terrain while the Humans and Dwarves flail through the brush. I look forward to seeing how they deal with the situation.

Ya know, it's really annoying. I just get through telling my friends, "If it were Goblins, or no new Core races at all, I'd personally have picked no new Core races" but then of course my stupid brain has to start poking at me, "Hey. Hey. I know you juuuust finished saying a thing... but wouldn't this idea here be a fun character to play?" God damn it brain.

Vidmaster7 wrote:

^^that is what I keep saying. simply not enough information out their yet.

And we get that. To be honest, we are still hard at work wrapping up the current draft and getting it ready to print. We knew we had to give you an idea of the direction of the game, but we just do not have the time needed to absorb all of the feedback that a full release would invite.

It's a price we have to pay. An incomplete picture is better for most than total silence until release.

While I happen to be largely positive as to what's been shown so far, I almost wish you did keep it under wraps till release.

Having so many people clamoring about, "My napkin math/gut feeling (having been given only half of one single variable in the equation) show conclusively that old is better than new and new can never work." basically turns my forum reading experience into, "Is the post written by Paizo staff? No? Avert gaze to avoid no-save sanity damage."

Ya seem to be forgetting the purpose of the game. It's not to as accurately as possible simulate the real world in all matters. We don't get up from the table, pat each other on the back and say, "Man, we sure captured realism for a good four hours there."

The game's about creating exciting, awesome, and memorable moments. The dagger circle in the Glass Cannon Podcast was exactly that. It was funny, exciting, and most importantly, memorable. Yes, it's a bit cheesy, but it's great, and the game's better for the inclusion of oddities like this that allow players to come up with creative solutions to an impossible encounter.

Hey, look, more personal insults. Isn't it great how we can have opinions and be individuals?

You are in fact being hostile and childish. You know next to nothing about the new system, and yet are tossing around condemnations. Spewing hate is not an acceptable expression of opinion or individuality. Have a nice night.

Can anyone with the book tell me what the archery swashbuckler archetype trades out?

Lord Mhoram wrote:

Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

While I had made it as an offhanded comment, the "Adventurer who is funded through Patreon and live streams their adventures and escapades" character idea is becoming more and more crystallized :3

Stealing this idea.

Steal away ^w^

Also stealing, because that idea is too fun.

Porridge wrote:

Mashallah wrote:

This is the Rogue I always wanted, but never had. I dislike that Daredevil and Thief are screwed over with trick attacks for no apparent reason, though.

Wait, where does it say Daredevil and Thief are different with respect to trick attacks? I have the pdf, but can't find where it says that...

I think I'm missing something... :P

Every other Specialisation says you get +4 to the skill on Trick Attacks.

Thief and Daredevil don't have that clause.

Looks like a very easy case for a house rule to me.

Is it normal for people to walk around in public with weapons as it is was on Golarion? Or the Old West? Or modern day Texas?

They mentioned that it's perfectly normal to wear your armor anywhere on Absalom Station, since your armor is also your environmental suit. That said, it's probably considered a tad gauche to carry a heavy railgun into the mayoral mansion.

It's been mentioned that Weapon Focus helps out 3/4 BaB more than it used to. Can you tell us how it's changed since PF?

Garbage-Tier Waifu wrote:

Ouachitonian wrote:

Torbyne wrote:

there are rules to allow any race from Pathfinder to be played in Starfinder and in the setting there is a clear precedence that no race is unique to just one planet either so if there is one from Golarian that you really want to see it could be a specimen from another world that found their way to the mega beacon that is Absalom Station. as far as default assumptions go, there are representatives from all species from Golarian still in the system but we dont have anything on most of their population numbers as of yet.

How so? I'm struggling to see how there could be such a precedent.

Elves. Literally all elves are aliens. And their gates are the major method of cross-planet exploration, which has definitely occurred a few times (notably are the ratfolk, who exist on Akiton and Golarion and are the same race). Hell, humans may even be aliens to Golarion as well.

I mean, that's a precedent for *a* race. But it's not precedent for *all* races, which was what I was asking. There's no reason to assume, from the fact that elves also live on Castrovel, that Strix, Nagaji, Kitsunes, etc are all also spread over multiple worlds.

You seem to be misunderstanding the history of the elf gates. Yes, they were made by the elves, but they made a LOT of these things. Hundreds, scattered all over every planet in the solar system, and they were absolutely awful at keeping track of them. For every one they still knew about and kept under proper guard, there were dozens of "lost" elf gates, just hanging out in random forests, deserts, caves, jungles, ruins; still functional and just waiting for someone to trip through.

Most elf gates weren't used by elves anymore even in Pathfinder times. They were in the hands of whatever race happened to have found them.

And that aside from the mentioned spaceship age before the Gap and the loss of Golarion.

Because of the Elf-gates, there was a lot of cross-pollination of Golarion species across the Pact worlds. You could already find lizardfolk adapted to Akiton, Drakes on Triaxus, Anhegs on the moons Liavara, even a population of Golarions on Aballon. Anything that could stumble through an unassuming looking archway could conceivably have made a foothold off planet.

Go nuts. They're all out there somewhere.

I primarily play PFS. As a result, I tend to leave sexuality out because I prefer avoiding the awkward, especially when children are within a table or two of me. I've had one explicitly straight married character that regularly offered to perform marriages with no concern for sexuality. He was Erastilian and focused very much on strengthening community bonds and social stability. While he had several children, procreation was not a central thing to him when it came to marriage ceremonies. The only other remotely sexual character was my cleric of Lamashtu, who is mostly retired at this point. Again, that got toned down a lot.

Honestly, every time I've seen sexuality portrayed at public venues, it's gone a little past what I'm comfortable with. I've found that it tends to be best handled with one or two jokes, then left alone.

That said, I had a LOT of fun as GM with a particular NPC in Hell's Rebels who explicitly seduces a PC and is also explicitly bi. It wasn't a forced thing, though, and it was definitely a "fade to black" sort of scene whenever something of that nature came up.

I think I know the exact npc you're speaking of. As it happened, when we got to that part of the game, the second she came on the scene my whole party basically all turned and looked at me like, "So, you're going to seduce our way through this one, right?"

It's become an on-going tradition with my group that I'm always the one pushed forward whenever there's an npc who's open to bedroom negotiations. I'm such a team player, I end up playing for both teams.

I still wonder if the emergence of the drift has affected the ease of access to other dimensions, such as making the drift a new transition boundary or barrier between the prime material and other planes. It would help explain why previous magical means for long range travel or communications are no longer as viable as they used to be.

I don't think anything changed, honestly. We're still pretty unclear on whether Triune made or simply discovered the means by which to access the Drift. There's a good possibility that it was there all along, an empty void that existed since the dawn of time. If so, the boundaries wouldn't change any when the Drift drives were gifted.

The other methods of travel (shadow drives, extra planar short cuts, and generation ships) that were used before the Drift drives are still possible, but they require a lot of things your average person isn't willing to put up with.

Shadow drives, which let you dip into the plane of Shadow and cover vast stretches of space quickly are still slower than Drift drives at getting around. They also pack all the unpleasant side effects of being in the plane of Shadows.

Jumping into the Ethereal plane, and zipping along using the power of your mind requires a few things that make it impractical for mass use as well; your speed is determined by your Intelligence and you also need to be able to get into the Ethereal plane in the first place. In other words, you need to be a powerful spell caster, preferably with an Int focus. Sure you don't age while you're in there, so travel time means nothing to you, but it's still passing outside. It's a trip that basically means you're leaving behind everyone you knew and loved forever, because they'll be dust by the time you get to your destination.

Generation ships are typically a last resort in any setting. Who really wants to spend the rest of your life in confined spaces with grandma?

There are things like Interplanetary teleport, but those have requirements that aren't always feasible eaither. You, again, need to be a high level spell caster, and you need to know where you're going. Not exactly ideal when you're just trying to go new places you've never been, nor is it terribly expedient when trying to set up a colony, when you're essentially limited to what you and a few people can carry in your arms at a time. It also means you're building a colony that will be highly isolated, with their fate resting on the mage capable of teleportation not getting eaten by strange alien fauna, or flora even.

Then enter the Drift drive; cheap, reliable, user friendly. Doesn't require years of training, can get anywhere quickly, can be hooked up to any size of ship you like, so you can haul massive amounts of cargo, no nasty shadow side effects, quick enough that you can always be home in time for Christmas-analog.

It's not a matter of the other methods no longer existing, or not working, it comes down to simple humanoid laziness. Drifting is fast, cheap, easy, and its side effects don't effect the primary user directly. Sure, once in a while, you tear off a chunk of Hell and have some angry imps gumming on the windshield, but your ship got attacked by weird stuff in the Shadow plane, and the Ethereal plane too, so you can't really even complain about it. Random encounters are just a part of travel.

I'd make misslegrams the way most people communicate long distances.

Ooh, can we do that thing where you text people who are just in the other room, but with missile-grams?

Don Hastily wrote:

So, no full casters in Starfinder?

The lack of spells 7th level and above is one of my favorite things about Starfinder

Though seemingly, you can throw two 6th level spell slots and Resolve points together to get a 9th level spell.

The gang's all here.

That ability looks like it's a way to grab some of the really big weapons you wouldn't be properly proficient with. I hope you can make some entertaining things, like a mounted gun emplacement for instance.

IonutRO wrote:

Uret Jet wrote:

Michael Monn wrote:

I want to know how FTL communications work. =(

Magic.

Drift beacons, actually.

Close enough.

Not exactly. In the reveal stream, they mentioned that the nearest thing they had to mechanical FTL communication, was essentially strapping a message to a guided missile with a Drift drive and launching that in the direction of wherever it was you want the message to go. They receive it, and send a message back the same way. Hardly instant communication between planets, especially across the Vast when you'd be looking at 10d6 days roundtrip.

The spell Sending, if it hasn't been given a planetary range in Starfinder, is still probably your best way of getting communication across the Galaxy.

Do creatures still have immunity to energy types? It sucks playing a fire kineticist fighting devils for example. The holy fusion on a laser cannon isn't going to help at all when fighting devils if they still have immunity.

They've mentioned that the Holy fusion is nothing like the Pathfinder enchantment, so it's entirely possible that it turns off their immunity and/or DR, this time around.

To expand on it, yes, this is a new game. Built upon a previous game. A couple of previous games.

And familiar terms that mean a certain thing in the previous game keep being mentioned and with no knowledge of how they work in this new game we default to what we do know until and if you tell us otherwise.

Alignment is in this game, except it doesn't work in all ways like Alignmnet we know.

Bane and Holy are in this game, except it doesn't work like previous versions.

So without knowing how they do work we default to what we do know.

"You assume they work the same." Yes, until we are told otherwise. And we aren't told otherwise until we bring it up.

"You assume they work the same, even after being repeatedly told, over and over, on a wide variety of broad and narrow subjects, 'No, that doesn't work the same as it did.'"

At this point, it seems a safer bet to believe, "If I recognize a name, it probably doesn't work the same way it used to."

Well, guess I have a new reading list.

102. DM - *rolls* What's your AC again? Ah, I was right. Yeah, he hits you on a 2.

Reckless wrote:

I'm extremely happy to see abilities that will be useful some of the time, leading to more variety of tactics. I'M always most pleased when something can be used with cleverness by my players.

It's pretty important when designing an at-will ability. An at-will ability that's too overwhelming can just turn a character into a one-note spammer of that ability, whereas a situationally powerful suite of abilities gives you a wider variety of play experience.

Ah, Hey there, Slumber Hex. Yeah, did you hear? Mark Seifter was talking about you.

Now this is exciting. They pull so many interesting ideas. Each time a new preview comes out, I end up thinking, "This is my class." only for the next one to be just as good.

Torbyne wrote:

I wonder if that is a heavy or light armor he is wearing...

Light.

Is Heavy Armor proficiency something a Solarian can take? Or does it mess with their cosmic connection to the universe, like druids wearing too much metal?

I haven't been reading much of the blogs, so I don't know how things will be, but based on my PF experiences, I plan to make the following changes:

If feat trees exist, I'll be removing those by having any feat in a tree be automatically gained as you go up levels. I hate feat trees. PCs will get a lot more feats as a result.

If the Big 6 are going to be required, I'll be removing that and using an automatic power increase to compensate. I want magic items, cybernetics, whatever to be something special for the PC, not a mandatory power increase to keep up with the CR, nor a requirement for a build.

If spells automatically increase in power as they level, I'll be removing that and require the actual higher level spell slot to be used to gain the increased power.

If those don't exist in Starfinder, then all the better. For everything else, I'll be waiting for my copy to arrive.

You'll be happy to hear that a lot of your concerns have been addressed.

While feats with other feats as prerequisites still exist, they trees are much shorter, with a lot of the feat-taxes removed.

There is no Big 6 anymore. They've specifically pulled away from items and feats that give flat +X to stats, and while you can enchant, upgrade, cybernetically enhance, and tweak your gear, body, and armor all day long, you can only wear two magic items (things like Ring of Freedom of Movement, or Cloak of the Gargoyle. You can carry as many potions, spell gems, or wands as you like, though.)

Mark was pretty vague on automatic power-scaling of low level spells, but he mentioned that they'd specifically tried to not let low level spells scale into the ridiculousness that Pathfinder ones did quite often. Instead mentioning that spells are at their most powerful when you first get them.