I don't really have a top 5, but my favorite is Tehialai-Thief-Of-Ships. I'm always fond of big monsters, especially those with artwork that have perspective.
TheGoofyGE3K wrote:
The approach to kaiju is amazing. Kinda wish dragons had gotten a similar treatment
I agree that dragons can use hazards based around them. If you mean building hazards and discarding their statblocks, then no. Not every big impressive monster needs to be statless :)
Pretty odd to assume that PF2 can't do fantasy characters because it can't reliably emulate certain characters 1-to-1 with class levels.
Some of these issues you have mostly stems from GMs not knowing what genre they're even trying to emulate with their game. Concepts like "villains busting out new forms" or a PC suddenly gaining new powers isn't something the game is going to directly shove down your throat. There's nothing stopping the GM leveling up a PC mid encounter, or giving the villain transformation abilities or a one time use power that levels them up.
Other examples you've given seem rather doable if we're strictly limiting it to PC capabilities. Creating a mansion in a demiplane sounds like a reflavored Magnificent Mansion. Running across clouds sounds identically to air walk. Making a fortress "disappear" just sounds like a large AoE that simply deals enough damage (stone structures only have 58 HP and 14 hardness). A PC wearing weighted clothing to hold them back just sounds like a PC artificially lowering their own statistics/bonuses.
The game isn't going to tell you how make your game "anime." However, if you just open your eyes and look in the books, and if you're willing to reskin and reflavor certain aspects, then it honestly does it just fine.
I'm not seeing too much confusion, here exactly. You'd just apply the hardness value against a single source of damage. A flaming sword, which would deal two types of damage, is still a single source of damage. They aren't somehow separate. That's also how it worked in PF1, and I don't see any indication that this changed.
I don't like how they got rid of most monster templates. I get that if I'm a GM I can do whatever anyway, but it gives other GMs less incentive to easily make something beyond what's in the books.
This is something I also greatly appreciated in Starfinder. It has pretty much everything you need to transform your monster into something else entirely. Like, want a colossal cybernetic T-Rex? We got you. Want a giant two-headed direshark from hell? We got you.
Out of the many things that were gutted from PF2, this shouldn't be one of them.
Zombies and skeletons. It's easy to build them with any monster you like while still retaining a low CR/level. You can have large scale encounters with zombie krakens and skeletons the size of buildings while still being under CR/level 10.
What you also can do is simply give vehicle statistics to a starship when it's in atmosphere/landed. They should be statted as objects, as mentioned in the CRB.
For example, your tier 6 small starship can be statted as a level 10+ gargantuan vehicle (statted as a vehicle is presumably higher level). It's weaponry would function as hazards (traps) where you would use values from the chart provided in that section (tier = CR of trap?)
I don't have any of the page numbers, sorry. It's all in the CRB, though, and shouldn't be too difficult to find.
Automatic weapons were also a thing back in PF1. It had both the automatic and semi-automatic properties, which makes either an extra attack similar to rapid shot (semi) or an AoE cone (auto).
The Boogeyman is already sort of a stand in for the whole Freddy Krueger role. Maybe throw a Dream Eater template if it makes it seem closer to him.
The Blob would just be some kind of ooze, maybe slightly reskinned. I'm not seeing Carnivorous Blob, though, unless I just don't remember well enough. The Carnivorous Blob is really massive and can devour buildings, and it takes up a whole city block in the 2E art.
I'm really not seeing Hannibal Lecter as a high level character, like that. There's more to horror movie characters and monsters than just simply how high level they are. Majority of the time they're only interacting with non combatants that aren't even CR1. When I think of Hannibal Lecter, I'm thinking of a creepy super genius, not an MCU character that can easily dodge lightning bolts and can wrestle a rhinoceros to the ground. Just my 2 cents.
Probably Kineticist is what you want, then, since martial focus/cut from the air is a thing. It seems to cover what he does, for the most part.
I'm seeing suggestions for Gestalting, but I think it's unnecessary. Vader doesn't exactly have such a wide variety of powers that he needs two classes to cover it.
I'm thinking probably Magus or Kineticist is a proper fit for Vader. If we're just going based off of the movies, he doesn't really do all that much that can't be covered by a magus. I'm not too familiar with expanded universe stuff, if you had that in mind, too.
That intuitive sense of how unassailable something truly colossal would be, partly due to how effortlessly it would swat anything human-sized, just isn't particularly well supported by the game.
I think it does it fine, for the most part. Maybe they could've done more to make bigger enemies feel truly gigantic, but that's another issue.
Most gargantuan+ monsters are already higher level encounters. This is not an accident. Your everyday soldier, mercenary, adventurer, whatever, isn't going to be able to fight said monster head on because of the level disparity. However, when you tell the game to put a medium sized combatant in the same level bracket as the giant monster, that's exactly what you're going to get. This isn't a flaw of the game, this is the progression system simply doing its job.
If this interaction isn't what you're looking for, the best solution is to not put the game in this position to begin with. Your 15th level character isn't John McClane or Rambo, but closer to somebody like Thor or The Hulk from the MCU.
While I'm totally not against a Colossus graft, what would they do with it exactly? Just asking, because all of the Colossi do completely different things from one another. The only thing that relates to them is the subtype and their useless demolish structure ability (lol).
What I like to do for bigger encounters is to use Predators and Herd Animals and throw templates on them, since they're very vanilla monsters on their own.
So interesting thing to note, low and mid level mechs can do more damage just falling on their opponents. A colossal object falling on you does 10d6 damage, reflex save for half. Do it from 30 feet and with a decent acrobatics check the mech only takes 1d6 damage itself.
At low levels, a mech can reasonably one a shot another mech doing this.
Mechs aren't objects for the purposes of that rule any more than a dragon is.
It literally says on page 112 of Tech Revolution in big, capital letters: "Mechs aren't objects"
No, what it says is "mechs do not count as objects for spells and abilities that affect objects.". Environmental damage rule are neither spells nor abilities.
How else would you determine the damage from a 200 ton mech falling on a person?
Sounds like an oversight, to me. It doesn't make sense for a mech to fall on something and cause damage where as no other creature of similar size can do the same.
I think in most cases, Kaiju in media are usually taken down by either other Kaiju (or creatures of equal or greater strength), or massive/high-tech military might; not a group of 4 adventurers.
But really, PF2 seems to be treating Kaiju as near-apocolyptic or godlike forces of nature, rather than creatures. Also, with the changes to creature size, I think the intended idea is that Kaiju are bigger than even some of the biggest creatures. Even an Ancient Dragon is small compared to King Mogaru. If Collosal was still a size, Kaiju would be bigger than that.
Well yeah, in most cases. You normally don't see a party of 4 where an individual party member is more powerful than a creature that's capable of wiping out entire civilizations singlehandedly.
Apocalyptic godlike encounters sounds exactly like what a party of 20th level characters should be fighting against. It doesn't do the game any favors if we're going to try to find reasons why many end game encounters shouldn't be eligible as a direct encounter, like "it's too big," "it's a force of nature," "it's godlike." Mind you that most encounters like this already exist, but probably wouldn't be if this is the mind frame the designers had when making them.
As far as Kaiju go, let's not forget the point we're at with this game, currently. A lone druid/sorcerer party member can have the power to summon any aforementioned Kaiju as an ally and even transform into a Kaiju themselves. Like I said, I have no problem leaving entities out of the picture like Godzilla (Mogaru) for the sake of maintaining its status. However, if we're also going to say that any Kaiju that walks onto shore from Pacific Rim should spell game over and a TPK to a 20th level party, then I feel like we're not being very fair here and haven't given it much thought.
So Erik stated that Kaiju are also in this book, does that mean we are getting stated Kaiju... hopefully King Mogaru?
Kaiju function like Hazzards because no matter what u can't kill them . king mogaru has a statblock in part 2 of fist of the ruby phenoix ap
Kind of an odd reason to leave them without stats. Kaiju in movies that they're based on die all the time. If they're still intending to leave them as high of a CR as they did in PF1E then that's probably the reason.
I think main reason is that kaiju operate on different scale than Pathfinder player characters.
Like the ridiculous thing about Pathfinder 1e kaijus was that they are essentially larger than maps, but character is able to kill them by hitting them really hard with sword to toe.
Like when you get into something on kaiju scale, even spells should stop affecting them same way <_<
Even they don't get stats, we've already crossed the line for Kaiju sized monsters. Some examples are the Animated Colossus (100'), Canopy Elder (up to 200'+), Desecrated Guardian (houses multiple temples), and the Mu Spore which easily outsizes all of them.
The sword to toe doesn't have to be described that way. The combat is an abstraction, after all. The GM can easily say that they're jumping around on it, briefly climbing it etc.
Yeah, but like... Wouldn't it be lame if Godzilla is killed by guy stabbing him in the eye? It would make them rather underwhelming kaiju
It doesn't have to be everyone's favorite Kaiju that gets killed off. You could use another Kaiju, like say from Pacific rim. It would probably have to be a group effort anyway since it's level would be a bit higher than 20.
It can be a group where the Druid transforms into a giant monster of their own to battle the monster, while an arcane caster is calling down meteors upon the Kaiju, and the Barbarian attacking it with his hammer so fiercely that it creates shockwaves each blow.
It's a matter of preference at that point. It's only underwhelming if you perceive your 20th level group/party members as underwhelming, along with the GM not making the fight particularly enjoyable.
Thanks for the response. You pretty much said everything I needed to read. Yeah, the athletics section is a little messy.
I also find it odd that they mention that you can't break sturdy walls with out tools and downtime, yet provide HP, hardness, and BT anyway. It's like they had no idea how they wanted players to interact with walls and the section just ended up being a bunch of mumbo jumbo.
While I love mixing scifi and fantasy together, I don't like it when it's only a few weapons, armor, and other equipment. Having stats for technological vehicles, like a tank, aircraft, and maybe a sample space ship would be cool instead of having to homebrew it or convert it from somewhere else.
There is a feat in D&D 3.5's Complete Warrior that allowed you to pull stuff off like this, called
Giantbane:
You are trained in fighting foes larger than you are.
Prerequisite
Tumble 5 ranks, base attack bonus +6, Medium or smaller size,
Benefit
The Giantbane feat enables the use of three tactical maneuvers.
Duck Underneath: To use this maneuver, you must have taken a total defense action, then have been attacked by a foe at least two size categories larger than you. You gain a +4 dodge bonus to your Armor Class, which stacks with the bonus for total defense. If that foe misses you, on your next turn, as a free action, you may make a DC 15 Tumble check. If the check succeeds, you move immediately to any unoccupied square on the opposite side of the foe (having successfully ducked underneath your foe). If there is no unoccupied square on the opposite side of the foe or you fail the Tumble check, you remain in the square you are in and have failed to duck underneath your foe.
Death from Below: To use this maneuver, you must have successfully used the duck underneath maneuver. You may make an immediate single attack against the foe you ducked underneath. That foe is treated as flat-footed, and you gain a +4 bonus on your attack roll.
Climb Aboard: To use this maneuver, you must move adjacent to a foe at least two size categories larger than you. In the following round, you may make a DC 10 Climb check as a free action to clamber onto the creature's back or limbs (you move into one of the squares the creature occupies). The creature you're standing on takes a -4 penalty on attack rolls against you, because it can strike at you only awkwardly. If the creature moves during its action, you move along with it. The creature can try to shake you off by making a grapple check opposed by your Climb check. If the creature succeeds, you wind up in a random adjacent square.
Special
A fighter may select Giantbane as one of his fighter bonus feats.
Shame that something like this never cameback around in Pathfinder, as far as I know.
TL;DR: Starfinder's mechanics and the real world don't exactly mix.
You're doing a really good job of convincing me to go play either GURPS (which does "mix" with the real world just fine while retaining the versatility to do just about any setting/genre) or Savage Worlds (which handwaves realism in favor of cinematics, is just as versatile and easier to play).
So, you want to sell me on sticking with Starfinder? I was willing to give it a chance while I waited for the SOM book to come out, much as I did with Star Frontiers and Knight Hawks decades ago. Now that I've seen it I'm starting to think its time to walk away. What's the appeal of it to you?
Setting, feel of actual play, streamlined 3.5 rules but with more built in customization.
Closely approximating reality with the rules has never been a thing I want from any system.
Pretty much this. Any game that has rules for giant mechs fighting dragons or high powered adventures where PCs face off apocalyptic threats with relatively simple rules is a game for me, lol.
As far as realism goes, I'm not sure what problem you have with it, specifically, since you didn't go into it much. However, the amount of realism depends on what part of the game you're focusing on the most. This is of course going to vary from game to game, which is sort of the beauty of this system. It is kinda challenging to hold on to realism when the game is as high powered as this, which is something that has to be carefully done. There is a point in this game where "nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure" actually ends up flying out the window.
As far as scaling and comparisons go, as far as the real world is concerned, there's always ways of explaining it in a reasonable way.
Like a car can only go 50mph, but maybe that's just it's speed when engaged in combat, otherwise it goes much faster.
A Hovertank's main cannon only does 6d10 and has no chance to punch through a concrete wall. Well, it probably does, but that's just the listed damage when used against your PCs, maybe they aren't modeled as direct hits.
A Super Nuclear Silo only has a blast radius of 2,500 feet, but maybe that's just the radius of the blast that leaves a crater in the ground. Otherwise, the air blast demolishes way more than the listed radius. It's just merely handwaved because it's not concerning PCs or relevant threats.
Maybe my examples are a little weird, but it's just how I look at things, as far as this game is concerned.
Probably not the answer you're looking for, and there's nothing wrong with trying out other games. They all have their strong points, just like this game. It completely depends on what kind of game you want and the ruleset that closely matches it the most.
Note that even a 3-mile radius (for a spinal mount hitting a full "megahex") is fairly tiny if you're trying to scrub a whole planet clean. To give a real world example you'd have to shoot Manhatten at least two-three times to wreck the whole borough, even allowing for the massive secondary damage the orbital bombing of a dense urban area would produce. Starfinder's rules for orbital strikes are really, really tame, although they'll certainly do the job for small outposts and isolated colony worlds.
Still not a good argument for Array hitting the whole hemisphere though. :)
To be fair, nearly everything in Starfinder is shrunken down and rescaled for the setting. Manhattan has a population of around 1.6 million people, while Absalom Station has a population of 2.1 million while only being 5-miles in diameter. A 3-mile radius attack would easily cover it in its entirety. I guess you can argue that their both structured differently, but setting game mechanics aside, story wise, an orbital attack like that would probably cover Manhattan several times over. Not to mention that the game doesn't bother to have rules like shockwaves/airblasts, which would devastate much more than the primary radius of the attack. Hopefully I'm making sense to whomever is reading this.
TL;DR: Starfinder's mechanics and the real world don't exactly mix.
Rather than meticulously track every arms dealer, contact, guild, and license a character has access to, the game assumes that in typical settlements you can find and purchase anything with an item level no greater than your character level + 1, and at major settlements items up to your character level + 2. The GM can restrict access to some items (even those of an appropriate level) or make items of a higher level available for purchase (possibly at a greatly increased price or in return for a favor done for the seller).
PCs/NPCs can buy higher level items than recommended at the GMs discretion. So yeah, NPCs can buy trucks and shop keepers can own and sell items much higher level than themselves.
Restricting higher level items is just a guideline for PCs, not a strict mechanic for your entire game.
Kaiju are level 28 to level 30 creatures. They're pretty much equally capable of destroying a 20th level PC in one shot as they are a 1st level. A Kaiju-themed adventure (or adventure path) would not feature an actual fight against a kaiju.
Level 30? Why are Kaiju stronger than Tarrasque and Tree Razer?
Lol, I actually sort of took issue with them being so high level, too. Not only because you'll pretty much never use them, but it cheapens the feeling of being 20th level and the encounters you face at that point.
You know those gigantic divine spawn from that deific monstrosity that other deities fear? All completely fodder compared to any Toho inspired kaiju you can blindly point at.
You know that awesome 20th level druid that can literally transform into a kaiju? Just gets one shotted like they don't matter.
If there has to be a rule about penetrating armor, you could have a quality called "penetrating." It could be something like gaining a bonus against targets wearing manufactured non-magical armor equal to their armor bonus (or more simply non-magical armor doesn't count towards their AC). Though this quality the way I have it would be completely worthless against magical armor or anything else that doesn't wear armor, regardless if your weapon is magical or not. So in this way it's kinda like targeting flat-footed armor in PF1, but very watered down.
I also remember in d20 modern that armor piercing rounds gains you a +2 bonus against armored targets, such as a target wearing Kevlar.
This is just a first draft idea. I'm sure it can be greatly improved upon, if that's the direction they want to take firearms.
Too bad I didn't notice this discussion until now.
But yeah, going by Starfinder's standards and putting game mechanics aside, the Mythic Wizard in question is powerful enough to clobber encounters that are capable of annihilating entire technologically advanced spacefaring civilizations, single handedly.
Trying to fight off the Wizard in this case isn't the answer, because it won't be a "fight" to begin with.
Yes it is treated as an object, but I don't think it's treated in sections. Much like how vehicles, regardless of how massive, are never treated in sections. I'm pretty sure the GM has to make up one on the fly, as there is no actual system for doing so.
Rather than meticulously track every arms dealer, contact, guild, and license a character has access to, the game assumes that in typical settlements you can find and purchase anything with an item level no greater than your character level + 1, and at major settlements items up to your character level + 2. The GM can restrict access to some items (even those of an appropriate level) or make items of a higher level available for purchase (possibly at a greatly increased price or in return for a favor done for the seller).
Too bad item levels also apply to mundane or civilian items.
So better do a favor to Amazon when buying a new gadget. Even abstracted this item level concept does not really work economic systems you would expect in SciFi settings (mass production and retail).
The point of that quote was to show that civilians can buy items above their level and even higher than the recommended item level above their own at the GM's discretion. It's not as cut and dry as you're making it out to be.
Other examples of NPCs below one are Maraquoi hunters, Damais, Orc Technicians, and I'm sure there are others. If we're talking about average civilians you'll find on the street, 1/3 or 1/2 seems appropriate, as most civilians never see actual combat their entire life, where as the security guards are expected to engage in some form of combat. Not exactly the security you'll see at Walmart, but it works just fine either way. It's probably a matter of preference.
Which means they would technically not allowed to posses many items because of item levels, just in case they come into contact with PCs.
But is this really how you think the Pact World looks like? By the rules you are right. Guess the rules are not that well thought out.
Quote:
Rather than meticulously track every arms dealer, contact, guild, and license a character has access to, the game assumes that in typical settlements you can find and purchase anything with an item level no greater than your character level + 1, and at major settlements items up to your character level + 2. The GM can restrict access to some items (even those of an appropriate level) or make items of a higher level available for purchase (possibly at a greatly increased price or in return for a favor done for the seller).
Yes, but what does a CR 1/3 NPC expert really represent? The mooch, the bum, the teenager trying to make a buck and pay for college? Or the average citizen? Probably the former.
A CR 1 NPC would represent an average threat to a party of 4 level 1 PCs armed to the teeth with 1000 credits worth of gear each. I assume most unnamed NPCs in the universe are CR 1/3.
We have a bunch of NPCs in the Pact Worlds book, here are the lowest CR ones:
CR 1/2: Gang Tough
CR 1: Space Pirate, Security Guard
CR 2: Gang Pusher
security guard sounds like your average blue collar worker to me.
And your average group of level 1 PCs armed to the teeth sounds like your average group of punks that hassle security, so I don't see the problem with the average NPC being CR1.
Other examples of NPCs below one are Maraquoi hunters, Damais, Orc Technicians, and I'm sure there are others. If we're talking about average civilians you'll find on the street, 1/3 or 1/2 seems appropriate, as most civilians never see actual combat their entire life, where as the security guards are expected to engage in some form of combat. Not exactly the security you'll see at Walmart, but it works just fine either way. It's probably a matter of preference.
I agree that it's not much of an issue. The vehicle section itself states that the amount of passengers listed is the typical amount, meaning it's not concrete and is open for variation; not necessitating separate statblocks.
I'd hardly even call it homebrew, at that point, since it's blatantly stated and would otherwise have no meaning. If a GM insists on enforcing the supposed hard limit of the passenger count and forces a party member to be left on their own, then that's bad GM'ing. The game wants you to have fun, not to put everything on hold every time you find something that's not written up exactly how you want it.
I'm surprised that I'm still seeing the fireball with unintended objects issue. If you're seriously worried that the fireball may damage the "letter on the desk" or the magic wand that you want to give to your players, then you really need to plan your games better because this won't be your only issue as a GM. I promise. When your players start wandering off to other areas and deviate from the plot, your head will really start spinning.
Was this even a problem in PF1? Did anyone run into this "my plot device might burn" issue? Or rather, the more sensible solution, relocating the item/plot device, instead of entering video game land where your AoEs affect nothing but your enemies and leaving the room perfectly fine as if nothing happened.
Just allow the chairs/tables or whatever take damage. Do they even have health totals? Is there even a point in calculating their damage received? Some of you really have to stop letting game mechanics affect how you fluff your encounters and your ability to enjoy the game.
What a novel concept! ヽ(ಠ_ಠ)ノ
Obviously this is sarcasm, but I really feel like it is for a lot of people.
Sure you can nitpick certain scenarios where damaging a seemingly useless unintended object is important, but I've seen the opposite much more.
It's not with only objects, but also how players and monsters are described and what they are doing. Like sliding down a stair case with a fallen enemy's shield, a hill giant tearing down a column in a room and tossing it at your players, a red dragon causing a forest fire with a single breath weapon, or even a giant monster knocking down buildings by walking through them. It's refreshing to have a GM that's comfortable with these levels of description by not limiting themselves by getting too neck deep into the rules and determining if it's mechanically sound or not. It tends to make the game not only more fun for yourself, but it makes it more fun for your players.
Just allow the chairs/tables or whatever take damage. Do they even have health totals? Is there even a point in calculating their damage received? Some of you really have to stop letting game mechanics affect how you fluff your encounters and your ability to enjoy the game.
The Swarm ecology article in Attack of the Swarm!'s first volume makes a strong case for mandatory gun possession in every system that fears attack by the Swarm or has experienced it in the past.
A small landing force can immediately start converting biomass (including killed humanoids) into new Swarm components, some of which reach full maturity 60 hours after starting. Nuking the swarm from orbit (it's the only way to be sure) or quickly mustering overwhelming land forces to eliminate beachheads seem to be the only practical methods to win once they've landed and started growing reinforcements in situ at an exponential growth rate.
If everyone in your 1,000,000 citizen city is armed, maybe 50,000 Swarm components all mind linked to instantly know the tactical disposition of every opponent one of them sees won't quickly overrun the entire city and convert their biomass into 250,000 new Swarm components. If they can hold out for a while you can nuke all of your rural areas where the Swarm is growing unhindered and hope to win the battle of attrition in your population centers. If not, you need to nuke your cities under attack to deprive the Swarm of biomass and further growth.
I'm new here so not familiar with the swarm but full scale nukes? What about a fuel air bomb? Or maybe napalm to burn out biomass sources? Could toxins be developed that were swarm specific?
Nothing military or weapon related in Starfinder makes any sense, don't even try to think about it. Just accept that people walk around downtown with rocket launchers, that armies do not have standardized equipment but instead change it constantly according to the skill level of a soldier to conform to item levels, tanks having the same weapons as foot soldiers, that an entire planet can't fight off a small army of melee combatants or that somehow a untrained and uncoordinated force of armed civilians have any military value while everyone having access to guns...
Idk, this kinda seems like a mish mosh of misconceptions. I'm pretty sure almost none of this is the narrative they are going for.
I'm very curious how they are going to do atmospheric dogfighting with starships. I would imagine that it's a way to convert them from starship scale to creature scale so other creatures and vehicles can interact. If not, then I don't know how else they'll do it that'll add anything to the game.
I really hope they include some variant rules for giving starships and vehicles some room to interact. Apart from that, I mostly expect this to feature rules for environmental effects, like cloud cover, storms, gravitational effects, anti-air defence hazards, etc.
If it's basically just hazards, like you mentioned, I'm going to be soooo disappointed, haha.
The principle problem is one that West End addressed decades ago - the matter of scale. Think about that WW2 strafing run by a fighter, and how a single person can react to it. The one Vehicle/Starship combat I've seen felt right being done using modified chase rules. The ship (a fighter size creature) was basically too big for the vehicle to do any real damage, but they were able to affect it's ability to hit them. Realistically, Han can fire his blaster at a Lambda class shuttle all he wants, and he'll probably hit every time, but the shuttle pilot will ignore him. Or fire back, with a lower chance of hitting, but if he does, Han's vicinity is going to be pretty unpleasant.
While I get what you're saying, these examples only work in a vacuum. If scale is going to be the argument here, then we should consider the vehicles we currently have statted for creature scale combat. If you check, they can range anywhere from the size of cars, space shuttles (in your example), to huge sized spaceships. Your examples are more of a narrative display of level disparity, as opposed to scenarios that require a mechanical separation of scales. To use Han Solo as a baseline of what should be considered "realistic" is ignoring the existence of a progression system and its purpose.
I don't mind lower level mooks remaining threatening to people higher level than they are, but eventually a line has to be made. Can't say I'd enjoy my character that can battle a Godzilla sized creature head on, trade blows, and possibly even overpower it, only for that character to get mobbed and killed by a group of mooks next week or something.
In my game I have house ruled that Grenades do get the damage bonus from Weapon Specialization.
Makes grenades a bit more viable.
If I had to choose, I probably would have greatly reduced the price of them. Maybe they'll feel less like you're throwing money bags at your enemies :p
There's a lot of hand wringing about it being too soon for a rules update/change, but personally I would buy a Starfinder Unchained in a nanosecond.
I love Starfinder. Their setting is great, the art, the adventures, the stories, and everything are top notch. I've been having an absolute blast playing a Solarian Android for a couple years now.
However, the rules have never been *that* great.
Here are just a few of the things that irk me:
1. Small arms are over-nerfed because of Operatives
2. Archetypes are absolutely useless
3. Theme ability score boost is nearly inconsequential
4. There are too many races and not enough meat on each one.
5. Weapon and armor lists are huge and difficult to skim through for no good reason. Armor will always wind up in nearly the same place, and there are *still* many levels where you can't find a weapon you truly want.
6. Cantrips don't scale.
7. Action economy is weird, and multiple attacks are unsatisfying flurry of misses.
8. Grenades are useless.
9. You can't wear enough magic items.
10. The skill system is frustrating and too swingy.
I could go on...
I think the issue with grenades is that they are too expensive. Otherwise, having an AoE that you can full attack with isn't too bad.
But, I guess while where at it, maybe they could've explained what happens when an AoE weapon crits.
And maybe, as wild and crazy as it sounds, maybe they'll have the gonads to properly explain what happens when a starship fires at a creature on ground and provide an actual example of it xD
I don't think so. I don't have the book on hand, so I looked it up on the starjammer website and found this.
Quote:
Weapons-See Weapon Proficiency in Tactical Rules for more information on how proficiency affects you. When you reach 3rd level in that class, you also gain Weapon Specialization (as per the feat) in those weapons, which allows you to add your class level to your damage rolls with those weapons (see Weapon Specialization for more information). Grenades, missiles, and other consumable weapons never add specialization damage, even when you’re using weapons like a cyberbow or grenade launcher.
This is in the class description section, but if you really need a page number on the CRB, I can provide that later if no one else does.
Dungeons & Dragons and all it's iterations from it's humble beginnings (including Pathfinder and Starfinder) have always been a simulation. The rules are a abstract way to simulate what happens. So to try to make a D20 roll "realistic" you'll rip your hair out and look like me, a bald middle aged man.
Because of the abstract simulation nature of the game, you need to have some creativity.
For example, many high level character could survive a jump of a 15 story building, that of course is not realistic buy because of the abstract simulated nature of the rules of falling the could.
So what do you do? Well it depends on the character and style of game you want to play.
Lets say they did in the in a Call of Cthulhu game? They would be dead
Let's say they did this in a high fantasy super heroic Pathfinder game? Well it might be allowed, the character had done a few things to prevent his out right dead (ex used some acrobatics to parkour down the building, slowing themselves a bit and landing in a hay stack, they got hurt, but are not dead
If it were Call of Cthulhu, they wouldn't be high level in the first place to survive that fall.
I mean I'm all for realism, but people seem to forget that all this should be relative to your level.
A lower level character is probably closer to an action hero like Rambo or John McClane. A 20th level group, however, makes planetary threats, like a Dhalocar or a Living Apocalypse, into average challenges. So I think it's important to keep scale in mind and not to shoehorn high level beings into situations that ordinarily wouldn't be threatening.
Starship weapons and regular PC-level weapons work on different
scales and aren’t meant to interact with each other. If characters
choose to shoot at a starship with their laser rifles (or cast a spell
on it) while it is on the ground, the GM should treat the starship as
an object (a particularly massive one, at that). At the GM’s discretion,
if starship weapons are ever brought to bear against buildings or
people, they deal Hit Point damage equal to 10 × their listed amount
of damage. However, starship weapons are never precise enough to
target a single individual (or even small group) and can, if the GM
decides, be simulated as deadly hazards instead of weapon attacks.
You can't accurately target PCs or person-sized monsters, but big vehicles and kaiju are fair game.
Creature size is not a consideration. It says you can't target them, but you may instead simulate them as hazards. The only reference to hazards in Starfinder's core book is found in the Vehicle chase section of the book. How you handle it is up to you, afterwards.
I really wish the devs took the time to make this more intuitive. The fact that this question gets asked millions of times out of confusion is a failure on the devs end.
I strongly feel like people forget that there are already existing vehicles/items that are already mech "scale" and larger. Like the 800' foot long Ultimatum Hover Carrier, the gargantuan sized power armor, and giant creatures like the Endbringer and Kyokor. All of these use standard rules.
I don't know how long it's going to take for people to realize that your higher level characters aren't just average joes wielding "normal weapons" at all levels. At this rate, seeing as many people couldn't just simply grasp this in the entirety of PF1, probably never.
I honestly don't think it's a big deal if they go through a wall of any thickness. I think people are forgetting that line weapons are really, really bad. They are all unwieldy and have nearly the shortest range. They can't damage anything beyond their listed range, and they barely pass 40' until the teens. I think they're a neat gimmick.
It's kinda sad to see that after playing Pathfinder for nearly a decade, they still couldn't make something as simple as attacking a wall without turning it into a freaking science project. I don't even want to imagine what attacking a vehicle is going to be like if this is the route we're taking.
Sorta going back to my original post and seeing everyone else's take on it. I'm not too fond of the idea that outer planes (abyss, heaven, hell etc.) are somehow perceived as underdeveloped medieval-esque civilizations, rather than being relatively abstract entities that are beyond mortal conceptions. The material plane constantly advancing on their own while the outer planes depend on mortal minds for their "advancement" doesn't really do it, for me.
