Thrice Great Hermes's page

"You understand that what most people call magic is simply an expression of the innate connection between all things, and you intuitively tap into this unseen power to create strange effects. You may conceptualize the source of your magic as divine grace, a manipulation of fundamental
energy, or an unlocking of psychic potential, but always with the knowledge that you are a conduit channeling forces greater than yourself."

Read the description of how Mystics gain and use their powers, then think about How Force-users gain and use their powers; the parallels should be obvious.

Force-Users are Mystics with a unique or rarely seen Connection in the Starfinder/Pathfinder Galaxy...The Force. The main powers of this Connection are expanded perception, Nature Sympathy, and an access a Psionic themed spell list.

This Connection also requires Force-Users to strive for a positive mentality and practice control over their emotions, least they begin a downward spiral into sociopathy, madness, and evil. Some in attempts to ward of this fall, practice a form of ascetism, which mostly works...

You could get pretty close to Cowboy BeeBop.

Outlaw Star would require some thought, but you may be able to pull it off. Gene would probably have some Technomancer levels and the Empowered Weapon hack.

Ghost in the Shell would have a bit of a problem because their tech is above what Starfinder really gives us, but the exo-cortex Mechanic is a good fit for the major.

The various anime with mechs generally have better ones than currently available in Starfinder, but many are hoping they will fix that.

I would have to think about if TriGun could be done right. You’ve got some of the mystical creatures you would want, and it would be fairly high level if you tried to do it.

Gene is an Operative.

Jim is a Mechanic.

Aisha is an Envoy, multi classed with a Operative.

"Twilight" Suzuka is a an Operative, Multi classed with Soldier archetype QI ADEPT.

"Sanguine Reviews!"

A popular news/entertainment blog operated focused on the distinct "entertainment" services provided by many species of the Pact Worlds and beyond.

The creators and main contributors to the blog are a trio of Starfinders;that moonlight as mercenaries.

A two men a Human(Soldier) and Elven(Operative/Mystic), and an androgynous Aasimar(Mystic) rumored to actually be an incarnate Angel of some type.

Other noteworthy contributors are a Halfling man(operative) and a Catfolk man (Soldier).

Thrice Great Hermes wrote:

It seems like everything I feel should be part of a "Space/Future Monk" has been split across multiple character traits

If you don't want your character plan to call hounds of tindalos to you you can just rename entropy KI play a vanguard and call it a day.

Someone on the Starfinder Reddit has already written up a Monk.

If The Vangaurd is that close, then why isn't the Vanguard just a Monk?

QUOTE="Garretmander"]

Pantshandshake wrote:

It seems like your definition of "What is a monk?" is more broad than most. I'm not surprised you're seeing monk-ness all over the place.

Broad?

It seems quite specific to me.

No my examples are all on point, or more precisely on concept.

They where all examples of superhuman warriors in a higher tech setting; that all had roots in Wuxia and similar genres.

They would all be difrent archetypes of the same class the "Space Monk".

Pathfinder has already done some incrediblely varried things with the Monk.

It seems like your definition of "What is a monk?" is more broad than most. I'm not surprised you're seeing monk-ness all over the place.

Broad?

It seems quite specific to me.

Thrice Great Hermes wrote:

The Tretragramaton Clerics of Equilibrium are Monks, Zen Archers to be specific.

The new adventure path has Pistol Dancers, which are pretty blatantly the Gun Kata clerics in Equilibrium.

It seems like everything I feel should be part of a "Space/Future Monk" has been split across multiple character traits

Thrice Great Hermes wrote:

Mad devices can also be stockpiled.

Oddly enough the best way to emulate that right now is with a gadgeteer operative who can butpull 5,000 + credits worth of random items out of their ...cheekpouch that they either had prepared or you can flavor it as them cobbling it together from spare parts.

Thinking about it.

The Alchemists class works almost like what I'm invesioning

A Monk would fit very easily.

First what is a monk?

A genre transplant from Wuxia and similar genres of eastern myth and folklore.

A quasi religious warrior, specializing in hand to hand combat, that has trained until attaing a power(Ki) that enables them to perform superhuman feats.

The ability to just train a person until the reach a level of performance that most would require extensive cybernetics/bioware to achieve will never be obsolete or out of place.

The principle cast of Dragon Ball Z are all just epic level Monks.

The Envoy's of Altered Carbon are Monks.

The Tretragramaton Clerics of Equilibrium are Monks, Zen Archers to be specific.

Dune's weirding way and Parna-bindu are monk like disciplines.

The Jedi/Sith of Star Wars are Monks with a dose of Psionics.

Alita of the Battle Angel Alita series, is a Monk; epsiceally with how esoteric things got at times in Last Order.

Thrice Great Hermes wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

The mechanic is the computers guy more than a mechanic.

I know and they(Paizo) have been expanding it. But what I'm seeing in my head isn't what the Mechanic is at the moment.

Thematically I see a class built around the Mad Inventor.

The character with a dodgy device for every occasion.

I see this class working almost like a wizard.

They have a certain number of MAD FORMULA known and through expenditure of time and resources things based on them.

However unlike spell anyone can use a mad device...at their peril.

Mad devices can also be stockpiled.

So... Rick. Of Rick & Morty fame.

Rick is the most current example.

Dock Brown, Back to the Future.

Walter Bishop, Fringe.

Every "Spark" from Girl Genius.

"Sanguine Reviews!"

A popular news/entertainment blog operated focused on the distinct "entertainment" services provided by many species of the Pact Worlds, even sometimes beyond them.

The creators and main contributors to the blog are a trio of Starfinders.

A Human and Elven man, and an androgen Aasimar(rumored to actually be an incarnate Angel of some type).

The mechanic is the computers guy more than a mechanic.

I know and they(Paizo) have been expanding it. But what I'm seeing in my head isn't what the Mechanic is at the moment.

Thematically I see a class built around the Mad Inventor.

The character with a dodgy device for every occasion.

I see this class working almost like a wizard.

They have a certain number of MAD FORMULA known and through expenditure of time and resources things based on them.

However unlike spell anyone can use a mad device...at their peril.

Mad devices can also be stockpiled.

A Gadgeteer class: The Mechanic while a "Tech" class they are not the Tinker,Artificer, Inventor, archetype.

An Alchemist.

A Space/Futuristic Monk:Goku,The Tetragrmaton Clerics, Alita the Battle Angel, the Weirding Way and Prana-Bindu of Dune. All do not have a class the represents them.

A Psionic class.

The ships are all built out of materials that are much lighter and stronger for their weight.

Than anything that we have access to now, perhaps with exception of some highly experimental and not yet released to the public material.

Outlaw Star, is the closest thing to Starfinder next to Guardians of the Galaxy.

Gene is an Operative.

Jim is a Mechanic.

Aisha is an Envoy, multi classed with a Operative.

"Twilight" Suzuka is a an Operative, Multi classed with Soldier archetype QI ADEPT.

Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

If you want a brawler we have that option both as Soldier and Solarion.

To say nothing of the Vanguard.

The Vangaurd isn't a...

"A quasi religious warrior, specializing in hand to hand combat, whose esoteric training allows them muster an internal force, and through it attain a superhuman level of performance."

If you want a brawler we have that option both as Soldier and Solarion.

Neither of those are the Monk archetype, adapted to a higher tech setting.

This is a rendition of Starfinder Monk, and it's close to what I mean.

I know why there isn't a Monk and why the Biohacker isn't just a biology/biochemistry focused archetype for the Alchemist.

But I still think it's a little sad they aren't here.

Thrice Great Hermes wrote:

A quasi religious warrior, specializing in hand to hand combat, whose esoteric training allows them muster an internal force, and through it attain a superhuman level of performance.

Sounds a lot like a Solarion to me. *shrug*

I mean, you can quibble about the "internal" aspect of the forces they manipulate, but... Solarions are clearly our space-monks as far as design intent went.

Classes are archetypes.

Wizards,Clerics, and Druids, are all spellcasters, but they are all separate archetypes.

Alita, the Battle Angel is Space Monk.

Binary(Ms.Marvel), is a Solarian.

Fist of the North Star is a great example of a fictional martial arts character. I remember hearing/reading about how they wanted to include a class that has unarmed combat as the main focus, with Fist of the North Star as inspiration, iirc. Idk what happened to that, lol.

Not really important, but John Wick probably just has improved unarmed strike, since he's much more effective with firearms than unarmed attacks. Unless your suggesting he's a gun-monk :p

John Wick fits the trope of a normal human who does extraordinary things just because he trained hard enough.

[https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/core-classes/monk/archetypes/paizo-monk-archetypes/zen-archer/]John Wick is a Zen Archer[/url].

I think that Paizo is more focused on the Science Fiction aspects of Starfinder and establishing it as it's own setting. Thus the Fantasy and Pathfinder legacy content has been overshadowed.

I also feel that Starfinder was very concerned with replicating Space Opera archetypes with their classes, and there just enough aren't enough examples of "Space Monks" for them to have built such a class.

Thrice Great Hermes wrote:

Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

?

Why would it be?

This is Starfinder not Pathfinder. Soldier isn’t Fighter with the Soldier Archetype, Operative isn’t Rogue with the Operative Archetype (I don’t think we even have class specific archetypes).

Because Alchemy is a fantastical science and fantastical science is precisely what the Biohacker is a practitioner of. Alchemy could be ddirectly ported to a higher tech setting without having to change or evolve it.

Why would they want to do that when they can evolve it? I don't want P1 classes ported as-is into Starfinder.

The art and science of Alchemy would doubtlessly have evolved over the centuries, but Alchemist would still be recognizably Alchemists.

Thrice Great Hermes wrote:

Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

?

Why would it be?

This is Starfinder not Pathfinder. Soldier isn’t Fighter with the Soldier Archetype, Operative isn’t Rogue with the Operative Archetype (I don’t think we even have class specific archetypes).

Because Alchemy is a fantastical science and fantastical science is precisely what the Biohacker is a practitioner of. Alchemy could be ddirectly ported to a higher tech setting without having to change or evolve it.

Jason Keeley wrote:

There's a fair amount of alchemist DNA (pun intended) in the biohacker, but we definitely wanted it to be a Starfinder class, with its own science-fantasy feel!

I wanted a space Monk.

Any portrayal of qausi mystical martal skill in a higher tech setting could be used as insperation?

Maybe not quite to the right level, but Dune's Bene Gesserit?

Dune's Prana-Bindu.

Equilibrium's Tetragrammaton Cleric.

Battle Angel Alita's Panzer Kunst.

Alterd Carbon's Envoys.

Fist of the North Star.

John Wick and his fellow Continental Assassin's.

All of these hold aspects of what a Monk in a higher tech setting should be.

Thrice Great Hermes wrote:

I wanted a space Monk.

Any portrayal of qausi mystical martal skill in a higher tech setting could be used as insperation?

Solarians are space monks, with a sprinkling of space cleric.

Mechanically maybe, trope wise no.

The Monk is a genre transplant from Eastern myth/folklore to Western fiction.

A quasi religious warrior, specializing in hand to hand combat, who's esoteric training allows them muster an internal force, and through it attain a superhuman level of performance.

?

Why would it be?

This is Starfinder not Pathfinder. Soldier isn’t Fighter with the Soldier Archetype, Operative isn’t Rogue with the Operative Archetype (I don’t think we even have class specific archetypes).

Because Alchemy is a fantastical science and fantastical science is precisely what the Biohacker is a practitioner of. Alchemy could be ddirectly ported to a higher tech setting without having to change or evolve it.

There's a fair amount of alchemist DNA (pun intended) in the biohacker, but we definitely wanted it to be a Starfinder class, with its own science-fantasy feel!

I wanted a space Monk.

Any portrayal of qausi mystical martal skill in a higher tech setting could be used as insperation?

SPACE Alchemist.

I find myself wondering, why wasn't the class just the Alchemist with Biohacker as an Archetype?

Right now, the local PFS/SFS group and locations I play at are working on a rotating schedule. PFS 1 week, SFS the next, PFS2 the next. I basically play SFS because even with the comedy, it beats sitting home bored with nothing to play. They used to run PFS and SFS side by side, but it often led to SFS games not getting enough signups, so the SFS GMs convinced the local officers to rotate games.

Maybe I just need to find a group running an AP on Roll20 or something, see if I can find a group who doesn't treat the game like a running joke.

"Maybe I just need to find a group running an AP on Roll20 or something, see if I can find a group who doesn't treat the game like a running joke."

That is what your gonna have to do and if you run a game, make sure that everyone is on board with you.

Make sure that they understand that you want to take things seriously, that a serious take on the settings what you enjoy and can run both most effectively and enthusiastically.

Alas, I am not the writer of the adventures...I have zero control over the content.

I also feel like certain players around here would turn even the most grimdark campaign into a 3 Stooges episode...which I personally witnessed one do in a horror themed PFS scenario. :(

I think that's a matter of the players and not the game.

However, imagery does inform expectations.

So maybe it's both, people see a bright colorful, whimsical, space opera, and think I don't have take this seriously.

Ignoring the fact that Bright and colorful, doesn't mean pleasant and light hearted.

I could also attribute the more comical or silly tone, that some of the major Actual plays that served to bring people in to the rpg space.

First impressions are lasting impressions, if your first encounter with Rpgs silly,nothing is too serious, actual plays.

Then you'd balk at somebody trying to run the game deadly serious, you walk in expecting Futurama to Guardians of the Galaxy, but the Gamemaster is giving you FireFly.

I don't know if it's just the local meta, or how the adventures are being written (I've only played SFS, not home games)...but it feels to me like Starfinder comes across as too much comedy, and not enough serious space fantasy.

I was hoping more for Star Wars or Firefly, but it has felt more like Futurama meets Ice Pirates, with a side of Spaceballs every time I have played.

Anyone else feel the same, or is it just me?

It's not too comedic because the best ratio of comedy to drama is dependent personal taste?

That being said...

You hit the nail on the head.

There is intended story,tone, and style invested into every Rpg?

Guardians of the Galaxy, Final Space, and even a Outlaw Star are closer to the intent of Starfinder than what you're reaching for.

You can get what you want out of Starfinder,your just going to have work a little harder.

First make sure that your players are on board.

Set the campaign in a time and place, where people have few resources,and are under semi-constant threAt ,with little ability to just go get More of what they need or escape.

Like a small colony in the Vast or a Space station,City or bigger still a World Ship.

The challenges must be high,the enemies both numorus and strong, with the players having little ability to rest and recover resources.

Throw in a few morally questionable choices to; the lesser of two evils is still evil?

Mark the Wise and Powerful wrote:

I haven't played Starfinder. Getting really interested, though.

1. What do you like about the current edition?

2. What would you change?

3. Is there anything you wouldn't want to change?

1) The Gap. Long story short, up until about 400 years ago, though an unexplained supernatural event, all historical accounts and memories were wiped, "resetting" the galaxy if you will. This is narrative genius for two reasons. The first is that it allows starfinder to ditch any baggage lore-wise from pathfinder (and not spoil any future events). The other is, that it creates a "clean slate" of a galaxy where there are so many unknowns, anything can happen or crop up and more or less seem reasonable. This makes starfinder - dare I say, perfect for homebrew shenanigans and custom settings.

2) The game is too crunchy and constraining with it's rules. Starfinder and by extension pathfinder, feel like a video game where you have to adhere to a rigid set of defined parameters that at times, seem completely arbitrary.

But what really gets me is that because of the very "programmed" nature of the rules, they interact with many other rules at once and and it's very daunting for newer players to try and keep track of making all of those little "pathfinder-ism" cogs to mesh together. There are way too many references to other rules in the book that make players have to flip to one or more other pages to fully understand the nature of an interaction, which is really inconvenient and slows down the game. If not overhauled entirely to minimize inter-dependencies, the rules at least need to be more concise and organized better if they are so important to follow closely.

3) What I wouldn't change is how alignment is handled: That it basically doesn't matter. What makes any argument of morality compelling is the inherently subjective and fuzzy nature of morality. Putting clear labels on morality defeats the point of it....

When Good,Evil,Law,Chaos, and Neutrality, are real tangible forces rather than just opinions on behavior, Alignment(which would be bettered term Allegiance) makes complete since.

And people say magic is pointless in Starfinder.

How close are the game mechanics to what is seen in the story?

She's Bill Ny crossed with Steven Irwin.

A lot of the stuff Magic would accomplish is literally replaced with technology now. Who needs teleporting mages or planeshifting etc when you have gear and ships that can do that for you.

Plus the balance thing as already mentioned.

Someone that values personal ability/power over dependence on artifice and cuts a lot of their overhead by not needing to pay for gear.

Thrice Great Hermes wrote:

CorvusMask wrote:

So I've been playing Shin Megami Tensei games(devil survivor in particular) lately and I came to think about witchwarper and other wacky upcoming classes, so I started to think: "Wait, is it already possible to do this in Starfinder?"

(for reference, common thing in SMT and its spinoffs is that someone made "Demon Summoning Program" which as it says, summons demons. It basically simulates same steps and magical chants as actual demon summoning rituals, but obviously much faster in easy to use form :p)

I'd guess it wouldn't be possible in Starfinder currently because I'm talking about sort of thing you could do even if you weren't caster yourself, you'd just need to use the program instead of casting any magic. I guess you could play technomancer who does this, but that'd be just the flavor wise.

It wouldn't be that hard to set up.

Starfinder has Summoning rules, i believe that they introduced in the Starfinder ARMORY.

What you need is a hybrid item commuter that casts the summoning spells.

They were introduced in Alien Archive, and what you can summon is pretty limited.

What's the item?

So I've been playing Shin Megami Tensei games(devil survivor in particular) lately and I came to think about witchwarper and other wacky upcoming classes, so I started to think: "Wait, is it already possible to do this in Starfinder?"

(for reference, common thing in SMT and its spinoffs is that someone made "Demon Summoning Program" which as it says, summons demons. It basically simulates same steps and magical chants as actual demon summoning rituals, but obviously much faster in easy to use form :p)

I'd guess it wouldn't be possible in Starfinder currently because I'm talking about sort of thing you could do even if you weren't caster yourself, you'd just need to use the program instead of casting any magic. I guess you could play technomancer who does this, but that'd be just the flavor wise.

It wouldn't be that hard to set up.

Starfinder has Summoning rules, i believe that they introduced in the Starfinder ARMORY.

What you need is a hybrid item commuter that casts the summoning spells.

Ooo, this is a very welcome surprise.

For awhile I'd been afraid that the entire line had folded.

After Starfinder, there was no hype or conversation about Aethera anywhere.

Would a female sex even be identifiable as such if the reproduction bottleneck was instead with the host? *mumbles off into semi coherent biology...*

To other Shirren definitely, to other races debatable, it's going to come down to GM's fiat.

Nova Coke: Lifted directly from Shadowrun.

BLT, Better than Life: Also from Shadowrun, a VR program/device with the ability to feed the user sensations far more intense than reality.

Spice: A drug that produces a euphoric state, it also has a number of mind expanding properties. The exact nature of the effect is determined by which of the several verities the users has imbibed. Heavy usage has the effect of turning the users pupil and scalar a vivid blue.

Eldritch: a drug made through a combination of alchemy and spellcraft.
The synthesis processes Binds magical energies(spell slots) to a physical form. That of a viscus, luminescent liquid it may also be vaporised. Eldritch is a powerful stimulant, the more powerful the magical energies used in its creation the more intense and longer lasting the high. Spellcasters that imbibe Eldritch recover expended magical power(spell slots).

He,She,Xe.

Shirren pronouns solved.

Depending on how it was built a Starfinder game could work.

Something built with Dragon Age II's combat system and the ability to create your own character.

I could really go for a one planet story.

Your character show up on colony world, something goes down and its up to your character to solve it.

Thrice Great Hermes wrote:

Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

Thrice Great Hermes wrote:

The Solarian already represents a melee focused class fueled by the cosmic powers of energy represented by Stars and entropy represented by Blackholes.

The Solarion represents an offense focused class.

With Vanguard we have defense.

The Solarian is already contains what the Vanguard was created to represent. The Solarian has the potential to be a shield as well as sword, abilities that built off Solar Armor could have done that.

And the Solarion can still have abilities that build off solar armor while the Vanguard exists, they’re both distinct and different enough in how they go about their defense options.

The Vanguard will always feel redundant to me, and I really wonder why it's powers weren't just additional features for Solar armor and Graviton Revelations.

A future monk,a dedicated psionic, a future Alchemist, a Inventor/Artificer/Gadgeteer, A doctor/medic, a future paladin.

Would have added more to the game.

Most people saw Elizabeth from Bioshock. However, as the Weeb I am, I instead saw space Haruhi Suzumia. The "reality warping schoolgirl" is such a common character type in anime that its actually something of a trope of the medium, so much in fact that a small part of me hopes the iconic Witchwarper will be some form of schoolgirl. Anime in the fluff aside, from a crunch standpoint the class looked very back-loaded, which I don't consider to be a good design choice.

At low levels, you have very few strong abilities and look just flat out worse than a Technomancer or Mystic at the same levels. Most of the low level phase shifts are absolute underpowered jokes, and the one good one is still pretty horrid at low levels (though much like the class itself becomes exponentially stronger at higher levels.) Likewise, while Infinite Worlds is really cool and strong, it has such pitiful uses/day at low levels its not even remotely relevant in that tier of play. However, in start contrast to how weak the class is at low levels, at high levels the tools it gets look far stronger than anything the other casters have access to. Infinite Worlds goes from having too few uses to be relevant to being downright dangerous, and your phase shifts give you *at-will* stuns and debuffs, both of which put you heads and shoulders above even an overlord mystic when it comes to crowd control. So much in fact that the class may be too strong at high levels. I am not sure about that, though, and will have to play with it to see if thats actually the case.

Either way, the class strikes me as very much being the "wizard" of Starfinder, in both the best and worst ways. Like the wizard, it is the strongest crowd control and debuff caster in the game, able to really tilt battles in its party's favor, especially at higher levels when you actually get good control and debuff shifts. This niche' was one that I feel was/is much needed in Starfinder. While Mystics can do some crowd control and even specialize in it with connections like...

Anime fan to, didn't Haruhi or Hitomi(Escaflowne) but I do get the comparison.

Though I'd have a knockoff Haruhi be an actual incarnate deity that is suffering from amnesia.

What do you think about Witchwarper just being a Mystic Connection.

Thrice Great Hermes wrote:

The Solarian already represents a melee focused class fueled by the cosmic powers of energy represented by Stars and entropy represented by Blackholes.

The Solarion represents an offense focused class.

With Vanguard we have defense.

The Solarian is already contains what the Vanguard was created to represent. The Solarian has the potential to be a shield as well as sword, abilities that built off Solar Armor could have done that.

I'm not suited to appraise the mechanics of the Witcharper,but I'll give my thoughts on the flavor/fluff.

The Witchwarper exists so that we can play Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite, there be other inspirations for the class but that's the one that I recognize.

I feel that as it's own class the Witchwarper didn't need to exist, all of it's special abilities could be from a Mystic Connection - Connection Multiverse, Skein, or Conflux.

The Ragi wrote:

Thrice Great Hermes wrote:

I get that they wanted another "pure tech" class, why not go an with Inventor/Gadetteer that's archetype even older than the Mad Biological Engineer.

I'd bet money (if it was legal in my country) that the mechanic gets some expansions to also become an organic (or cyborg) pet class and a gadgeteer of sorts in the Characters Operations Manual.

I agree. I think the gadgeter or tinkerer/inventor is supposed to be the mechanic. For this one they really went for the chemist/farmacist (so yes alchemist) of the future.

Of the three new classes this is the one that I am less excited about, although I may change my mind after I have played it!

However...I can't stop wondering what classes didn't make it, to leave room for this one heheh

The Mechanic is a Technician and or Hacker, but they're not an Artificer/Inventor the guy with a gadget or device for every situation.

An Artificer-Gadgeteer needs to be firmly magitech if not pure tech. In terms of game mechanics they need to work almost like the Wizard class.
Artificer-Gadgeteer knows a number of schematics based on level and Intelligence score.

The schematics represents the gadgets that they can "reliably build".
Based on Intelligence,level, money and perhaps a unique resource like Genius points, an Artificer-Gadgeteer can create a number of devices per-day.

Gadgets unlike spells can be stockpiled for later use, as well as simply given to other character to uses. Using Gadgets requires no skill check or special abilities.

At least once per day, a Artificer-Gadgeteer can quick build something without needing "prep-time".

An Artificer-Gadgeteer, can through sheer power of their Sublime-Madness attempt to improvise a gadget that they do not possess a schematic for. This should be usable about once per-day.

The Gadgets themselves are either single use, have a fixed number of uses, expire quickly for example super-drugs made through mad alchemy.

There must be a class ability, feat, or archetype, that allows some of the Gadgets to be made longer lasting if not permanent.

Gadgets cannot be made or duplicated by anyone but another Artifice-Gadgeteer.

I know nothing about Dune, but I’m not seeing anything involving Gun Kata in the class, or martial arts aside from disciplines giving you the Improved [Combat Maneuver] Feats.

I mistyped.

What I meant to say is this...

The Vanguard as a class in my opinion shouldn't exist, because it's redundant.

The Solarian already represents a melee focused class fueled by the cosmic powers of energy represented by Stars and entropy represented by Blackholes.

The Vanguard's abilities should just be Graviton revelations for the Solarian.

A future Monk that drew inspiration from Dune's Weirding Way, Equilibrium's Gun Kata, Battle Angel Alita's Panzer Kunst and any other portrayal of fantastical martial arts in a modern or futuristic setting would have been better.

Thoughts?

The Vanguard in it's current form shouldn't exist, a Future Monk that drew inspiration from Dune's Weirding Way/Prana-Bindu along with Equilibrium's Gun Kata, and every other portrayal of fantastical Martial Arts in modern or futuristic setting.

The Vanguard's powers should just be Solairan graviton revelations.

I'm not really qualified to judge the Biohacker on a mechanical level.

But as I was reading over the lore and the classes abilities I just kept asking myself...why isn't the Biohacker the Alchemist but in future?

Thematically and mechanically the class is clearly inspired by Pathfinder's Alchemist.

I get that they wanted another "pure tech" class, why not go an with Inventor/Gadetteer that's archetype even older than the Mad Biological Engineer.

Why would the power level of PCs ( or anyone ) *not* be literal? What, exactly, would it even be otherwise? Them not *actually* being that skilled or capable, everyone just pretending they are?

If we take the game mechanics literally rather than as a some vague,abstract, representation of what is taking place with in the setting then things get weird...

Take Hit Points for instance, if they are literal then a high level character should be able to jump off a multi-story building in the nude,with no enchantments effecting them, and survive with no significant.

Because their Hit Points exceed the damage inflicted by the fall.

Ah, I prefer the AA's approach of 'here's some target numbers and a guideline on how to fiddle with them'.

I enjoyed NPC classes existing as a thought exercise, you know: what can the average commoner do? the average warrior, the average mage? I prefer the freedom to stat out an NPC's combat statistics and leave their out of combat abilities more nebulous.

It also helps with situations at the table. For example: the PCs started shooting at someone I didn't expect them to shoot and didn't stat out.

In the old system, I could find a typical stat block with some digging, maybe I have stack of them ready to go, or try and build a character that might be as high as lvl 5 on the fly.

In the new system I can find a CR_ NPC's AC and hit points on a table and play by the seat of my pants. I've had to do that already, it works really well.

I've never enjoyed building monsters like PCs.

I think that building monsters as a PCs could work, if everything just used the same mechanics,creature powers and abilities scaled by level like a lot of spells.

Do and to simplify things further you really only need five Nps/monsters.

The Warrior,The Talker,The Thinker,The Caster,and the Sneak.

I'm still left wondering what any of this really has to do with "Are PCs actually as powerful as they seem to be?"

Are they that powerful? Yes.

Is everyone that powerful? No.

Are there other people that powerful? Sure.

Does any of this require the actual practicality of building NPCs with the same mechanics as PCs? Nope.

It's a slight tangent but still in the same realm.

I wonder how literally we are supposed to take game mechanics, and in-universe what does being high level represent.

I've always found CR/CL a little annoying and feel that if PCs and NPs were built using similar rules it would make encounter building faster and easier.

You pick the monster's class, then set the level to point that is a threat to PCs. One level 4 monster is roughly as strong as four level one PCs. The Monsters abilities will scale with level like some abilities do.

Thrice great Hermes

"Lately I've been questioning if magic users even in universe actually need material components, magi in so many settings is describe as channeling energy.

Material components are seeing more like an mechanical-artifact rather than an in setting requisite."

I looked up in all the books for spells that have a material element. this is a really rough list of all of them.
Other than those listed below no spell needs any material component. My reason for this post is because I was curious if spells Did need components or not.
A couple of these are a bit of a stretch when it comes to material components but I wanted to list them for sake of completion... I do not own any Adventure path.

Junk sword, junk armor, fabricate scrap, reanimate, animate dead, animated armor, dismissal, explosive blast, raise dead,reincarnate, terraform, transfer charge.. I hope this helps clear things up.

What I meant by "mechanical artifact", was that material components were a holdover from earlier D&D editions in game mechanics and setting lore in characters really did need material components for spells.

However as time and pop culture marched on, magic as channeled energy came to the for front. Material components outside of rituals faded out of public consciousness, magic was just a matter of Energy,Will,and Word.

I read a lot of the 3.5 supplements, the way that magic was described as working made material-components feel superfluous. Almost like the writers were trying hard to justify holding on to something that the setting had grown beyond.

Spells that transform or manipulate something,clearly need that object or force to be present for it to work.

Thrice Great Hermes wrote:

The common diplomat,lawyer,negotiator,conman isn't an Envoy.

The common magic-user that the citizens of the Pact Worlds encounter is not a Technomancer or Mystic, they're something closer to a Magewright.

The common trooper or mercenary, isn't a Soldier.

The common Engineer isn't a Mechanic.

The common, spy,thief,tracker, isn't an Operative.

And that's representing the AA's rules for building NPCs. Those common troopers are CR3 combatants, the engineer is a CR4 expert, the crack commando team is a group of CR12 combatants, etc. The PCs are extraordinary in the variety of skills they've picked up, an NPC will know a trick or two that they know, but a PC will know them all.

Those with PC classes being the ones that know all the tricks is exactly what I had in mind.

From a stand point of game mechanics If I was going to represent the exceptional/mundane divide I'd do something like D&D 3.5s NPC classes.

Pcs,Npcs, and monsters really all should be built using the same rules, cr or cl has always seemed like a hassle.

Skill makes you more resilent a lot of ways:

1. "I dodge better than before"

2. "I overcome pain better than before"

3. "I have stronger willpower"

4. "I make better use of my protective equipment"

5. "I am more proficient with use of defensive powers"

All of these are handled with the same abstraction of "higher stamina/hit points", because it would be dumb to use a dozen different defensive mechanics for different special effects.

Starfinder has to forms of Armor Class,three saves Reflex/Fortitude/Will.

Which amount to five defenses.

Hit-points and Stamina are two layers of resliance.

Two things are influencing my thoughts on level,classes and their power.

1. is a D&D article from the old official site, it's in the archive somewhere. The article said that no one on earth has ever posed the level of ability that hitting level 20 is meant to represent.

2. is Eberron which takes the stance that the PC classes are meant to represent extraordinary individuals.

A stance that I share.

The common diplomat,lawyer,negotiator,conman isn't an Envoy.

The common magic-user that the citizens of the Pact Worlds encounter is not a Technomancer or Mystic, they're something closer to a Magewright.

The common trooper or mercenary, isn't a Soldier.

The common Engineer isn't a Mechanic.

The common, spy,thief,tracker, isn't an Operative.

Even at first level someone with a PC class is beyond the average person in terms of ability and likely accomplishments as well.

How much time passes over the course of the Dead Suns adventure path? I'd say maybe six months.

In that time from you go from above average to superheroic, level 1 at the start of the AP to at least 11 by the end.

That's the speed at which Shonen battle/adventure manga can develop.

To me it makes the most since if level represents how epic/heroic a character is rather than skill.

Thrice Great Hermes wrote:

Metaphysician wrote:

I see no reason not to take them literally, with the proviso that everyone understand that Stamina and Health do not necessarily represent literal slabs of flesh. A level 20 PC really is that powerful, they aren't only that powerful because the plot says so.

What does being higher level represent in-universe.

Is Level skill, or a quantification of that X-factor that sets the extraordinary apart from the mundane?

Yes. ;)

I don't see those things as being different, or at least necessarily different. Talent without Skill ( ie, Training ) is useless, after all. I mean, some characters might rely more on natural ability, and some more on hard work and discipline, but by the time you've hit Level 20, the difference is long since irrelevant.

So, once again, a Level 20 character really is that powerful and able to shake the world. Whatever the origin of their "super powers" is unimportant, because one power source is as good as another. Starfinder is a setting where you can learn or buy "super powers", but its the skill and dedication that make the difference.

I see Level as the "X-Factor" or how heroic,epic,larger than life a character is quantified.

To me level just being a measure of skill doesn't make since, especially when hit points are factored in;How do people just get more resilient?

How much of the setting's physics/metaphysics do the rules approximate?

Is Starfinder by default an Rpg-mechanics verse.

Lately I've been questioning if magic users even in universe actually need material components, magi in so many settings is describe as channeling energy.

Material components are seeing more like an mechanical-artifact rather than an in setting requisite.

The Gods went to war and it spilled over and their mortal followers began to fight as well.

Golarian and every other world was ravaged by crusades,inquisitions and jihads, the fighting was nothing short of apocalyptic.

But when all was said and done, entire pantheons had been
destroyed,reformed or come into existence as a result of dozens of gods dying,changing sides,and mortals ascending to divinity.

The New Gods wiped the cosmos clean of most of the damage that the war inflicted,Golarian a site of several crucial battles and had been "damaged" or changed beyond even the Gods power to restore and was simply sealed the planet away.

Finnaly the New Gods wiped all knowledge of the war causing the Gap.