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Will this count towards Starfinder Society GM tables?

Since Starfinder 2e isn't getting any GM incentive program, it would be nice if the Starfinder 2e tables still counted towards our Starfinder 1e Novas.

I still feel like we don't have such a flood of GMs that the GM Incentive Program needed to be eliminated. But I suppose Paizo has the metrics on their side and must have realized that too many people wanted to be the GMs and nobody really wanted to be the players, so they needed to remove the very small reward for GMing.

Minor request.

The pregen characters that are included, could those Character Sheets be designed like the actual Pregen characters on the website, instead of like the versions in Free RPG Day?

You know, with the descriptions of exactly what the abilities do already included on the card, without having to double over to a different book.

It's a silly little thing, but when it comes to level 1 Pregens, I've found them most frequently used to teach new players. Experienced people who know what those abilities do, they brought their own character most of the time.

And as a regular Convention GM at live cons, having a couple of heavy cardstock versions that actually have the instructions to help you play the character, that is massively valuable when trying to teach a new player without slowing down the table too much for everyone else.

Premaster, Superstition Barbarian. Playing that was a giant middle finger to anyone in the party playing magical support/healer, like a Bard. It was annoying to have one in the group and to have to work around them. The new version is much, much less annoying since now it's "saving your life with Heal makes you Frightened 1 instead of making you either refuse it or leave the group or just let you die."

Anything like that where it's sabotaging someone else in the group to have you along is something I really dislke.

My 2001 is a premaster Superstition Barbarian and I've found that he works great in virtually every group, including alongside casters.

The Superstition Barbarian needs to be self-sufficient. It's that simple. Take Medicine and Battle Medicine (yes, your int suffers so you're a couple levels behind the curve, but it's fine). Take Robust Health. Make sure you take the potions as your Provisions instead of the way everyone wants to grab the scroll and hand it to the caster. Pick up some healing items, like Grub Gloves.

The Superstition Barbarian in no way hinders the rest of the party. If anything, having one is freeing to the rest of the party. Bard wants to cast Courageous Anthem... then do it. I just don't benefit from it. The rest of the party does, and it doesn't hurt you in the slightest.

You're a healing Cleric, and you're mad that I don't want your healing. Well... why? Do you literally feel so useless that healing me is the only thing you can do on your turn? You have nothing else productive to contribute? I'm not sabotaging you; I'm freeing up your turn to do literally any other thing that you might want. I mean, seriously, would you accuse me of "sabotaging" you if the enemies missed me and I didn't take damage? In what world does not needing you to heal me equate to me screwing you over?

The premaster Superstition Barbarian has a great function that too frequently the players ignore. When they rage, they recover Hit Points equal to the Temporary Hit Points gained. Frequently, I do not rage on Round 1. Instead, I charge into position and start wading through with damage, and then, after I take my first significant hit, I rage. I enjoy the higher AC at the start of combat for damage avoidance, and then I take advantage of the heal when I rage (instead of it happening when we're already full right at initiative).

But none of this hurts your action at all.

What would you be doing if the Barbarian wasn't on your team? Do that.

A properly built Superstitious Barbarian should either be self-sufficient, or should have another player they regularly team with whom can be taking care of them via Medicine. As a random Organized Play party, treat a Superstition Barbarian like a pet. Ignore them, let them do their own thing, and don't waste your resources on trying to babysit them.

"I do not think it means what you think it means." Indigo Montoya

I have absolutely observed the same thing that the Paizo developers have observed; high level tables seem to play less often.

I do not believe this means what Paizo has claimed it means: Starfinder players are less interested in high level content.

Rather, although there is a correlation, I do not believe it is a result of a direct causation.

Evidence that I would look to:

- As a regular GM at several live conventions, overwhelmingly I am asked by coordinators to run high level scenarios. These scenarios have always fired. They are often the fastest things to fill up.

- Looking at PaizoCon as an example, the Starfinder content being offered trends substantially more towards the higher end. The 11-14 Final Assessment scenarios offered filled up faster than any other scenario for Starfinder.

It definitely appears as though the interest in high end content is there.

So why then is low level content running more frequently than high level content?

I politely suggest that it has nothing to do with player interest. In fact, I'm positive that if Paizo did an internal metrics analysis, they would find that an overwhelming majority of Replays are being spent on high level scenarios, supporting the idea that players want to play this content more than any other content, even when they have already played it.

Instead, I would suggest these as the reasons why low level content fires more frequently than high level content.

- Lack of high level repeatables. When dozens of low level scenarios are able to be replayed, but none of the high level scenarios are able to be replayed, Society Players do not have the choice to play high level content as much as they can play low level content. We exhaust the high level content available and are forcibly funneled into low level scenarios with no other options.

- Lack of society legal characters. Level 1-4 content always has the option to make a new character, or had the option to play a Level 1 or Level 4 Pregen. Level 3-6 could play the Level 4 pregen. 5-8 had the level 8 pregen. Level 9-12 and 11-14 required a character that had been fully leveled to that point by legal society play. That means a bare minimum of 24 tables of level 1-8 content before a player qualifies for a level 9 game. Sometimes players simply do not have a character that high. Sometimes, our characters reach level 13 and we do not have an additional character that high. Lack of a legal character does not equate into lack of desire to play.

- Simple math. In a game with linear progression, the results will exclusively taper. What is the most frequently played character level? Level 1. Because not every level 1 character will be continued at level 2, but every level 2 character had to first play level 1. And so on. If we try to interpret this as meaning the most frequently played level is the favorite level for the players to play, the results would suggest that players love to be Level 1. Talk to basically any player and you're going to overwhelmingly hear the contrary, that most do not truly enjoy a character until at least level 3 when customization and basic game abilities like Weapon Specialization come online. The further the player goes, the more customization is available, and the more fun the player seems to have. But because those lower levels are mandatory, they will always be more frequently played because they are REQUIRED.

It seems as though Paizo saw the problem and proposed a solution for which I've heard an overwhelming amount of positivity from the community: the ability to start characters at higher levels. That option to just make a higher level character is a great solution to problems like players not having a character in the proper level range, or even for players who do not want to play at the lower levels and prefer the higher levels, improving player experience.

Additionally, the stance that all content would be repeatable, a second solution is made available to the high end content. If it's repeatable, then we can actually play it more often. I'm sure it's no secret behind the scenes that repeatable scenarios are the most popular scenarios, because GMs are more apt to purchase a scenario they can run more than once, and players are more apt to play a scenario more than once if they are allowed to get credit for it more than once.

You have all the tools in place to make high end content available to all, to solve the problems and let the players enjoy themselves. Freely repeatable high end scenarios, along with the ability to create characters starting in those higher level ranges (there is no reason why you couldn't extend the Start At levels to include 9 when 9-12 scenarios become available, or 11 when 11-14 scenarios become available).

But instead, a because of what I am certain is a misinterpretation of data, you have become convinced that the players do not want the thing that they have been starved for. Just because we weren't always allowed to play high level doesn't mean that we didn't want it. And so cutting it off forever is a very sad, very disappointing stance to take.

Adventure Paths are not a substitute for this. In fact, in my experience, Adventure Paths frequently showcase character stories that are not connected to the Pathfinder/Starfinder Society. Transferring a character OUT of Society Play and into an AP would largely not make sense for most characters.

Being truthful, there were a number of things about the SF2 playtest that I do not like, changes from SF1 where I felt that the original Starfinder simply did it better. My local players at the shop were similarly disappointed... until we got to Empires Devoured. It wasn't until we were playing the level 10 characters that I finally started to be able to get some of them on board with the idea of the change. To convince them that maybe part of the reason why they weren't enjoying the new game was simply because it was a reset to zero, and they liked their high level characters and didn't enjoy shunting back to level one, independent of the game's rules. I was starting to get them excited to give it a shot.

And then you announced that you had forbidden the one thing that they actually seemed to like. That half of the playtesting we had done did not represent what Organized Play would be like, because we weren't going to be allowed to play at those levels.

And with that one fell swoop, you killed all interest in the game again. "Yay. Instead of working through the low levels like a chore so that we can later enjoy the high levels, we get to be stuck in the low levels forever doing chores and NEVER get to enjoy the high levels."

I really do hope this is a decision that you're willing to table discussion on, because it absolutely is hedged up as a barrier for player interest. One of the biggest appeals I've heard that has differentiated Paizo from D&D is that Paizo was not afraid of high level games. So it is very sad that you are now afraid of high level games.

My two favorite characters from 1E were a Nanocyte and an Evolutionist. They were fun classes. It'd be great to see them.

That being said, I'm not looking to re-create the same characters I made before, and easily half of what made them so fun was that they were crazy alien species that I spent a bunch of ACP to unlock and basically never saw anybody else playing.

To give real perspective, I played six playtest games since January. I have seen more Human characters in those six games than I have seen in the past four YEARS of playing Starfinder 1E.

I need more Ancestries, and I need for some of them to not just be vague reskins of existing ones. I don't just want "Star Trek diversity", where everybody looks like a human with one cosmetic difference that is barely noteworthy.

I want "Futurama diversity"! I want aliens that are so un-human that they create an immediate distinction.

And an SRO or Anacite Ancestry for people who want to play robots that are like REAL robots, instead of the almost-human Androids. Nothing wrong with Androids, but they do not scratch the same itch.

Seriously, just two weeks ago I cancelled my Starfinder Subscription and Preordered the Special Edition of the Galaxy Guide for exactly this reason. I wanted the classier looking covers where everything thematically matches.

Great to see that I can re-sub and just get what I wanted in the first place.

Honestly, what I want is a generic "Alien" ancestry.

Kind of a do-it-yourself species with access to several generic Ancestry feats. This frees up the chance for players to roughly recreate their favorite species for 2E right at launch, instead of this strange lack of new alien recruits that occurs with us suddenly getting this incredibly less diverse Society as though hundreds of races just got kicked out of the Starfinder Society and no longer get recruited.

Unless there is a Lore reason why hundreds of species are no longer working as Field Agents, it feels highly inappropriate for hundreds of species to become non-playable. A generic package Alien as a placeholder, accompanied with a "You can retrain out of this ancestry once, to accommodate changes should your Ancestry get a more in-depth release", could fix the problem in the meanwhile.

Choose extra limb and climb speed from a list of options, and here is the budget Maraquoi. Choose Large size and natural weapons, and here is your Uplifted Bear. Choose Large size with extra limb, and you've got an Izalguun.

The lack of diversity is the number one off-putting thing of SF2. I have never seen this many humans before in Starfinder games. The world just got a whole lot more generic, and that definitely needs addressed sooner rather than later.

Honestly, it's one of the changes that is most obnoxious. At least in the eyes of myself and my group of players here.

The previous multi-hand race treatment didn't feel particularly unbalanced to me. A Kasatha lawman walking around with a lethal smallarm, a nonlethal smallarm, and a melee weapon (while also keeping a free hand) still felt fine. Because they still only got one attack as a Standard Action, or two-with-penalty as a Full Round Action.

I directly compared it to Weapon Mounts for Armor Upgrades. Two-handed species could effectively wield more than one weapon at a time, and freely swap between them without it requiring some extra action.

Like most racial abilities, it was something that was easily matched by everyone else through simple equipment upgrades. If you want to have your melee weapon and your ranged weapon out at the same time, you mount one (or do the bayonette mounting on the ranged weapon).

Similar to how Jetpacks allow non-fliers to fly. Hydrojets allow non-swimmers to swim. Various eye upgrades allow people to overcome a lack of low light and darkvision. etc.

There was a simple equipment manner to accomplish the exact same mechanical advantage as multi-arms: carry multiple equipments and have them all be useable at once.

Multi-arms was not granting extra attacks.

This new change of an action to swap arms makes multi-arms feel pointless. Your non-dominant arm is basically just a sheathe, and you still effectively have to waste the action readying the weapon before usage.

It wasn't broken. It didn't need fixing.

I actually quite like it. The importance is distinction.

Dubious Knowledge is not designed for the GM to try and present 2 ideas and for the Player to figure out which is truth and which is false.

Dubious Knowledge reflects two pieces of information and that character believes in BOTH.

It doesn't have to be a good lie; the point isn't to trick the player. The point is that this is misinformation that the Character DOES believe. So you can toss out something stupid, and the player roleplays that their character believes.

"Aha! A Skeleton! Skeletons have brittle bones and are vulnerable to bludgeoning damage. The brittle bones are caused by a calcium deficiency during their mortal lives, so if you throw Milk or Cheese on them... they will be destroyed!"

Nervous from the close call he had, almost accidentally shooting John, Pokey instead timidly steps forward and with the thick leather glove on his left hand, he bonks the Reptoid on the back of the head.

ignurso knuckles vs Red for non-lethal: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (20) + 3 = 23
That was... unexpected.
damage: 2d6 + 16 ⇒ (4, 2) + 16 = 22 nonlethal
Wound Property: 1d20 ⇒ 14
DC14 Fort save versus suffering a -10 Movement Speed penalty from Wound

A 1-4 multi-table really boxes a lot of characters out.

And given the content, it seems very odd that a multi-table would mobilize a large number of society members but bring none of the veterans for leadership.

"We have an important mission. We're going to need dozens, maybe even hundreds of Starfinders. I need a list of our newest, least experienced, least capable agents for this important work."

Honestly, I would have loved to bring my old Attack of the Swarm character out of retirement and have him throw down with the bugs for one last hurray.

If Ghibrani are being made Always Available, Wayfinders need a new Capstone Boon.

If I had one singular request with this AP, it would be this:

Ziggy makes a huge detail in Star Sugar Heartlove about having lost their friends, their old team, in the Scoured Stars.

Ziggy was only spared that fate themself by being horribly injured before the mission and being unable to go.

We head into the Scoured Stars, but we learn ZERO about Ziggy's friends. Not even their names.

I would have liked to see a mission to save them, or identify them as potential rescue Starfinders at one of the missions.

I would settle for just uncovering their final fates, learning that they are dead so that Ziggy can have closure.

It feels horrible that we do not hear word one about them.

Honestly, I am not a fan of the Pathfinder Ancestry system. I prefer the frontloaded effect of species, with a lessening curve down the road.

By having it be frontloaded, the game feels more exotic and "cantina" right out of the gate.

By NOT having those ancestry additions down the road, as we reach high level play, the importance of species matters less and less, which makes us able to choose that initial species able to be made just based on what looks fun instead of having to play out additional ability unlocks that are going to happen 10 levels later.

I've been telling new players for years "Pick whatever looks like fun. Be what you want to be. Do what sounds cool. Even if it's not perfectly optimized, within a few levels, everybody sort of levels out anyways."

With ancestry, that's less the case. It's a decision that seems pinned down as a more major choice throughout the entire life of the character, and right out of the gate at level 1 when we have very few abilities and such, we get less from the race. At the point when we need them most, when the extra options would have the greatest positive impact to gameplay, we get the least.

For me, I prefer the opposite. Give me species abilities frontloaded, and then as characters level, gear gets introduced that can even any of that out. "You could fly at level 1, but I've got a jetpack now, so it all works out before we hit high levels."

While I dislike the Ancestry system as designed, if we're going to talk about specific species that I want to see what they can do...

Spathinae
Entu Colony

I'd like to see the Spathinae eventually pick up some swarm straights, maybe the option of larger size with morphable space occupation like swarms. The idea of those ancestry feats being chooseable means that things like Size could be introduced as an option without being locked in as a mandatory. Who knows, maybe even eventually the ability to separate the swarm into smaller swarms so that they can occupy different spots on a map for acting purposes.

As for the Entu, the once per day action of the merge is something that could definitely be expanded upon until they have an option to build almost like the Venom symbiote. The ability to do a little more with that, or do it more often than once per day, would be a very unique approach to a race that is unlike anything else.

Pokotho swings the big excavator around, jerking on the controls and burying the bucket into the ground on the opposite side of the androids, furrowing through the dirt to shake them in their place and provide harrying fire for his allies.

piloting: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (6) + 14 = 20

"Attacking us was a bad idea. You're digging your own graves here," he calls out to them. Then looking at the furrowed trench behind them, he gets flustered. "Well, I guess, in a literal sense I'm the one digging your graves. But you are still the ones who set the events into motion."

As a mostly Star Finder player with only a little bit of Pathfinder dabbling here and there when my friends insist on playing it, this entire announcement basically constitutes a declaration of " if you didn't like and switch to Pathfinder 2 three years ago, we no longer want your business."

I do understand that as a development company they can take their product in any direction they want and they have every right to chase where the money is going to be most prevalent. I'm sure it'll be really successful.

But judging based on the way that Pathfinder one was treated after Pathfinder 2 was released, I anticipate I am probably in store for a transition closer to the change from 3.5 D&D to 4th edition D&D. Basically when Infinity or somebody else continues to make open gaming content for the game that I enjoy and we no longer support the game that I enjoy here my business probably moves elsewhere.

Considering that a company abandoning support for a product and trying to insist that customers move to something they didn't want is basically what made Paizo into the successful game developers they are today, it feels really odd to find myself in the other camp now. Being told we made a game that you love and now we're going to require you to move to one that you consciously decided you didn't want years ago and if you don't move then we don't want your business anymore.

I don't like losing hundreds of playable species and that unique Cantina feel and everything that makes starfinder special, to convert it to a campaign setting for Pathfinder players, because the current position is that Pathfinder players find it to confusing to flip between two sets of rules. I preferred starfinder as its own game and it didn't need to be pathfinder. If I wanted to play Pathfinder I probably would be playing pathfinder.

When I reach level 5, I proceed with the following process.

- "Oh! I need a new 1-4 character so I can continue with Society Play!"

- "What's the craziest/coolest/silliest/most fun species I can find for this one? I want to be something awesome. I love how alien this game is, and how every character seems to really feel unique because of all of these options. I pick... this one."

- "Alright. Now what's my -2 in? I'm bad at this ability? Great. I'm going to pick a class that really needs that ability score, and build something that is whacky and unconventional, even for a rare alien type."

- "This is great. I've got another really cool, really different, incredibly alien character. This game is so awesome. I really love it."

In PF2, the character creation approach is:

- "Meh. Pick a species, and they mostly just feel like a mildly reskinned version of human.."

I shall be sorely disappointed is that is the direction Starfinder is taking. I don't want "Pathfinder in Space". I love that cantina feel of thousands of alien species. A big part of what drives me to play every new scenario and Adventure Path is unlocking rare species. Those are the grand prize chronicles.

/shrug.

I tried PF2, but honestly I didn't care for it nearly as much as I like Starfinder. That's why I'm still here.

I'm sure this will bring PF2 players into Starfinder, so I'm sure it's a good move for Paizo financially.

I'm also sure it'll push out the players like me who actually liked the product as is. I was way more excited for Enhanced and getting just some minor tweaks, instead of throwing it away and converting to PF2.

I'll give it a shot; that's what I always do. Sometimes they surprise me, like 3E and 3.5 D&D both being purely upgrades. But more often than not, when I'm playing a system I already like, the new edition ends up being less fun and I ditch it within 6 months. (4E D&D, 5E D&D, PF2, M&M3)

I would like a Boon that opens up "Homeworld" to worlds beyond Pact Worlds/Near Space/Veskarium.

It's a small thing, I know, but if you were to unlock Ghibrani, for example, as a species, but SFS rules your Ghibrani cannot actually be from Elytrio, because homeworlds in the Vast cannot be chosen. You are an exotic, rarely seen species... but you are from a commonly traveled part of the Galaxy where you are not remotely hidden.

<-=O=->

I would also like to see an alternative or adjustment to the Manifold Host capstone boon. ALL of the other Capstone Boons allow you to apply them to a 0 XP character, so that the thing you put so much effort into using can instead be fully used.

Except for Manifold Host. It only applies to the existing character. So if you faction Manifold Host with any species that doesn't require an Admittance Boon, you get nothing. And if you do earn it on a character that gets to use it, they don't get to use it until roughly level 9, when the character barely has any Society Play options left before they're hanging high and dry.

I would like a version of that Boon which allows us to do it, but for a new 0XP character, so we can actually use personal boons for the first 9 levels of the character.

@T'sorkel.

Yup. Pokotho has Mindlink. And I figured the quick synopsis would be better for moving things forward than going into an extended detail of my experiences in the first two books when it's bound to come across as fairly similar to your own. What with the Gray's simulation and everything, it seems easy enough that they were running this experiment with more than one group, and the Chimera is just the setting they had programmed for it.

We've got a great big convoy...

With the Priest theme, my level 6 benefit is:

Mantle of the Clergy
You have reached a rank of authority in your religion. Typical lay followers of your religion have a starting attitude of helpful toward you and will often provide you with simple assistance on request due to some combination of adoration, respect, or fear (depending on your religion), and even other clergy must give your opinions due consideration in matters of disagreement. You gain a +2 bonus to Diplomacy and Intimidate checks against lay followers and lower-ranking clergy.

Sounds like he is known enough that you might have heard of him. Not like Space-Pope style or anything, but enough that his name has floated around and his robes are recognizeable.

The general buzz about him these days based on his backstory and set-up for the adventure is that he's kind of had a bit of a crisis of faith, and so he left his congregation to travel, but then he disappeared (was abducted by Grays).

A difference like from D&D 3E to 3.5E, that is great. Just publishing the errata in a formal place, and including some of the later options into the core book.

But a fully new edition is a hard pass for me. I came to Starfinder from D&D because so many of the changes made the game feel like it was being simplified to make it more new player friendly, which if you're not a new player, just makes me feel like they're treating me like I'm dumb.

First off, I hope that we do not have to deal with a Starfinder 2E.

I don't think any major mechanical changes are needed, and with certain other games, I've watched as later editions actually significantly decrease enjoyment. I'm happy with Starfinder mechanics where they are, and I want to see them continue building, instead of restarting or streamlining.

I would like to see Season 6 be longer. Calendar-wise, I do not care if it takes multiple years. It doesn't have to be more content coming faster. Current pace is fine. I just feel like rolling Season 6 longer will allow us to have a larger, more meaningful Metaplot, like Scoured Stars. It also allows the Season to be more self-contained, so that players don't have to bounce between multiple seasons in a time-travel routine in order to earn appropriate XP. A 20 episode season is capable of running a character from 1-7, which allows the players to play 1-4, 3-6, 5-8, and 7-10 content without having to dip into other outside sources. For me, that would be more ideal.

I would like to see more of a return to the Chronicles of old. More recent Chronicles just recapping the story and not including Boons listed feels like a step backwards. I do enjoy the multi-scenario boons that require play of an entire arc, but I also think that I greatly enjoyed some of the small, silly boons that came earlier on, where earlier actions came up in later scenarios. Failing to include the small boons makes the stories feel less connected when we run several with the same character.

Beyond that, maybe some sort of increased reward for GMs running APs clear through. It is very disappointing the number of APs that I've started where the GM leaves around book 2-3. It really is disappointing as a player to have dozens of half-finished APs on characters that get abandoned forever. At times, it feels as though I'll just never get to finish ones like Threefold Conspiracy, because it will always fizzle halfway through.

MAYBE the solution is to swap more to the 3 book APs, but honestly I do love the longer ones where we can get truly into a character longterm. It's just so hard to play them all the way through without a group falling apart.

Sounds like good news for anyone that hasn't played it.

I found it a little disappointing when I ran it for our group that Treading History's Folly and Heart of the Foe were in the 3-6 range AFTER Honorbound Emissary was in the 7-10 range. It literally made it impossible for a single group to play through it in order (without being stuck running in a leveled down, less credit manner).

We took our saved Scoured Stars Veterans we saved and sent them on part 7 and 8 so that we could follow the level range. Still, making it designed for a single party will improve the experience.

I'm old and computer-stupid. Assume that common sense stuff for everyone else is critically challenging for me.

I've been playing D&D since 2E, and just finished a 12 year 3.5E campaign. We wanted to do something different, and we all collectively hate the 5E stuff. At Gamehole Con last year, we played 2 adventures of Starfinder and collectively we liked it. Now that we're free, we've decided to go this direction.

Already bought all resource books, but we wanted to actually do Organized Play, basically just so that we can bring our own personal characters to Gamehole instead of using pregens.

I bought the Swarm series. We've started to run it, but I'm afraid that I'm totally ignorant to the way this works. Not actually playing the game, but, you know, making it count.

When we finish an adventure and go to fill out the campaign sheet, where do I get the numbers from that I'm supposed to put on there?

XP is simple enough (seems like it's just 1 point per adventure). Credits are self-explanatory. How much Reputation do the players get though? And now that it's these Achievement Points instead of Fame, how much do they get of those?

How do we actually go about entering the information so that the code thinger for the session goes into the internets and makes the character be more good?

I know this is probably all common sense, but assume I'm an idiot and I need it explained like you would to either an 80 year old man or a 4 year old child.