SaffronCR's page

Hi,

I'm creating a retro RPG (imagine the classic CRPGs from the 80s, early 90s) similar to Eye of the Beholder, Might and Magic, Wizardry, etc.

I have created an original adventure, but I would love to actually use Starfinder as the setting and rules, imagine something as "what would it look like if there was a Starfinder game made in the 90s".

I've been told that as long as it's free, the Community Use Policy would apply, but after reading it I've found out that some parts are focused on streaming platforms, so I wanted to check if I can:

-Actually use it to create a free, open source, videogame.

-Use creatures and races art from the Starfinder Roleplaying Game books to show portraits of them ingame.
(License says "You may use artwork and maps from Paizo products listed in Section 1 of our Community Use Approved Product List on Twitch, YouTube, and similar platforms during performances and live streams of adventures, scenarios, and Adventure Paths." but this is a videogame, not a streaming platform, so I suppose I can't?).

-I won't be using Paizo's maps, or content from any adventure path. The adventure in the game is original.

-Since I'm using game mechanics I understand I also have to include and follow the OGL?

I totally understand if something is not possible, you can't comment, or you just don't like the idea of a fan videogame. Specially considering licensing, etc. I want to do this out of respect and love for your game. So if it's not possible, or Paizo doesn't like such use of the CUP I understand.

You can check an early preview of what it would look like, if it helps:

Screenshot1

Screenshot2

Thanks!

So I've been testing my modifications to the system and so far it's been great!

My players love it, and now I'm happy with the combat.

Basically what I tried was:

·Keep changes at minimum, so we can still use the ship building rules, and adapt any new rules or changes.
·Move from the grid to theater of the mind. It was slowing down the combat, my party wasn't good at movements, and being online right now didn't help either.
·Added something to do for all roles, so even if the failed a roll they will still feel useful in each round.

You can check the new system in this cheat sheet: https://tinyurl.com/yb6wwsyz

Ship Combat Roles:

·Captain.
·Engineer.
·Tactical Officer (aka Gunner).
·Sensor Operator (aka Science Officer, I added things from Comms).

Everyone has now a FREE action that can be used as long as the ship's system related to them is not damaged (e.g. ship core, weapons, etc). That way everyone can always try a roll, and even if they fail they can still do something to feel like they're contributing in that round.

Instead of using grid, each pilot roll their dice, then the winner can decide the position and the distance related to other object (usually the other ship). If there's more than two ships, then you go in turns from the highest score to the last one.

Example: the party decides to do an attack maneuver, the enemy tries a defensive one. Party gets a 21 and the enemy gets 19. So the party ship decides: they position it with their forward targeting the enemy's aft at medium distance. Boom, movement done in 10 seconds!

Now the shields have 3 stages to try to repair them, so you can risk a higher DC and try give it everything she's got or be conservative and get lower shield repairs with an easier DC.

This also makes the shields to go out faster, which is the other issue we had (taking forever to do actual damage and finishing a combat).

Sensor officer now has Damage Report as free action, which fixes the eternal RAW discussion about if after scanning the enemy ship it makes sense to know their current damage, leading to players to make their own estimates... now the ship (GM) does it for them. And it means the player will always have something important to do at that post.

Tactical can Ready Weapon (load weapon) so she can create tactics like shooting with a weapon while readying another for the next round, and getting a bonus this way.

All the new actions, bonus and such are just derivatives from the rules that were already in the system, that way I could be sure I won't be breaking the game balance.

Bear in mind that I tailored this system for my group of players. I'm sharing it just in case it can help others that are in a similar position and want to get some ideas, or just try this system.

BTW, I haven't touched the two extra roles, since we're playing core for now (they're new players). But I made the modifications thinking into being still possible to use any extra rules or ship roles, so if you want to use them with this system, they should work just fine.

Sorry!

the correct link to my custom starship combat system

The idea with pilots is that the one that wins (gets bigger pilot roll) can select which side points to the target, and at what distance.

It's theater of mind instead of grid/wargame, so it works a lot better and faster for my party, and in general in this current situation (online playing only).

Ok, so I decided to simplify, merge, and change things to adapt the combat to our needs and tastes.

The biggest changes are:

-Theater of the mind for pilots. Each pilot rolls for their action, then the slower one decides how to position using another ship/object as reference, then the next one, etc.

Example:
Enemy ship rolls 17
Party ship rolls 20

"The enemy ship moves behind you, using an attacking maneuver!"
"I execute an evasive action and get in their port side, facing them forward"

DONE, no more counting tiles in the grid, doing math with turns, discussing for hours, etc...

-Now every role has something cool to do, a free action plus their normal action (so they can do multiple things if they want, to prevent being bored of only rolling a once per turn).

-Instead of having gunners, now ships have a tactical officer (Think Worf). The tactical officer have a more ample range of options for shooting, plus readying weapons (more things to do and not just roll once).

-Science officer is now Sensor Operations (Science officer + Comms).

-Engineer: shield regeneration requires more work now, so ships can't just regenerate shields all day.

-Captain: The new actions require teamwork and roleplaying. So the captain will feel more like an actual captain.

If someone wants to take a look I've put all the changes into a google sheet:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZTaAp_UfgsAsga5aY1aQ44fdJcD_vhSQn4m 8YydMv1U/edit#gid=1952816740

The original author of the sheet I used is here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/starfinder_rpg/comments/dy64on/starship_combat_cal culatorcheat_sheet/

I'm GMing for a group who previously has played Pathfinder 1 and 2. I introduced them to both games and they love them.

We started playing Starfinder and even if they miss things like the three action economy of 2E, so far they like the game.

Then... we started doing ship combat. We're playing the Dead Suns campaign and for the first encounter I just told them about the ship roles and heavily roleplayed that encounter.

I used the second encounter (when you get the sunrise maiden) for the tutorial time, and we did the actual ship combat. I sent them a ship cheat sheet so all the math was automatically handled and they could check the available actions easily.

It was a disaster.

I was kind of expecting that, because they're not very experienced in tactical games and even after playing pathfinder for some time they still struggle during fights. I just play the enemies a bit more dumb/easy so they can still win and they have great fun.

But during this combat I felt like everyone was angry. The guy who likes tactical games was angry of the "poor" decisions of the other party members, the guy who doesn't really like scifi but is ok as long as it reminds him of Fantasy Action was bored of rolling dice turn after turn, unable to imagine anything, and the lack of real team work or cooperation that can be usually avoided in the standard combat was hitting real hard in ship combat. Having long rants and discussions about what to do, only to fail in the gunner phase.

I feel like the ship combat can really work if people really, really, really love scifi movies/shows and can imagine the clasic Star Trek combat in their heads while rolling dice, and if the party is really good at teamwork/coop.

So right now I'm unsure about what to do, I'm probably going to run one or two more combats, and see that once they learn the system and can play faster, it alleviates enough the current issues.

But I feel like that what they really want is for each one of them to have an independent ship that they can control, just like their characters during a standard fight.

I was wondering if others have been in a similar situation and I'm open to any ideas or suggestions to make the ship combat more fun for this group.

Thanks!

One thing to remember is how nat 1 and nat 20 works now. Remember your players to tell you when they roll 1 or 20, and not just give you the result, because a 23 (20+3) is not the same as a 23 (19+4).

We missed some of those at first.

I would like to know what was the inspiration/origin behind the shields being an active part of the gameplay.
Are you not scared that it's something players are gonna either love or hate?

I think I found an error in the rulebook, basically now we have this system in place:

You critically succeed at a check when a check’s result meets or exceeds the DC by 10 or more. If the check is an attack roll, this is sometimes called a critical hit.

If you rolled a 20 on the die (a “natural 20”), your result is one degree of success better than it would be by numbers alone. If you roll a 1 on the d20 (a “natural 1”), your result is one degree worse. This means that a natural 20 usually results in a critical success and natural 1 usually results in a critical failure. However, if you were going up against a very high DC, you might get only a success with a natural 20, or even a failure if 20 plus your total modifier is 10 or more below the DC.

So it seems to say that no longer nat 20 are instant-hit, but then on page 278 you can read:

Critical Hits

When you make an attack and roll a natural 20 (the
number on the die is 20), or if the result of your attack
exceeds the target’s AC by 10, you achieve a critical
success (also known as a critical hit).

It feels like this second text is not correctly updated, so for now I'm playing as if the nat 20 just gets you one level up the 10-scale (from a failure to a success, from a success to a critical success, etc), but I would love to get some official confirmation.

Thanks!

5E has an accurate formula for how many encounters, and what difficulties to use to accomplish this. Pathfinder 2E evidently does not, or the devs don't want to tell us what it is.

5E doesn't have an accurate formula, they just give an overall idea on how to balance the encounters, but in the end it depends on party size, player experience, if they prefer combat over roleplaying (or not)... if you look online the 6-8 encounters/day rule doesn't apply to a lot of D&D players, so in the end it's only an estimate to give new players an idea on where to start, and it's already broken because it assumes you're playing only in dungeons, because it makes no sense to have 6-8 encounters per day if you actual story is the players traveling around a well guarded road in a secure part of the country.

So as you can see, in 5E they just gave a tip to new players, that doesn't really mean anything, because in the end, it depends on how you are playing, or want to play, the game.

Experiment, and have fun!

The concept of fixed "number of encounters per day" sounds really stupid to me.

That breaks all the narrative, realism, makes the game predictable and dull.

Why would anyone use a fixed number? As a GM I would use as many encounters I feel are necessary to keep the game entertaining.

A GM is not a computer, it's cool to have tables and things, but in the end the rhythm of the game is something that the GM themselves should handle.