Thurston Hillman's page

The team worked so hard on this book, we don't even remember working on this book!

The team is discussing (and admittedly was before this Field Test was written) adding in a circumstance penalty to Reflex saves on Get'Em, just so it better synergizes with Soldiers / Area Weapons / tons of blasty spells.

This also helps us further differentiate the debuff from Courageous Anthem which stacks with get'em due to one being a buff and one being a debuff. That being said, we're not going to hang the entire class chassis on balancing against the PF Bard.

I think you can all expect to see some shifts in a few major positions :)

Wait... Aucturn... hatches? What about the people living there?

Well, presumably, if they can survive in a vacuum they'll be fine... Otherwise... magic 8-ball is still out on that one.

Hang on, the Playtest adventure...costs money?!? Like I geddit....development costs time, time equals money blah blah blah. But it seems a little off to make people pay to then playtest. First off, you want as many people to play this as possible. So making it free will ensure the most people possible *can* play it. Second of all, I find the whole "playtest" a weird kind of...value-exchange that is unequal. Sure, thousands of people want to make the game as good as possible. But you aren't paying *any* of them to "have fun" or "provide feedback", neither of which are the same in any way shape or form.

In a sense, it seems to me Paizo are asking for people to pay for the *privilege* of then working for free providing feedback for Paizo. Mon dieu!

As people have pointed out (and we'll aim to have a blog to further detail #SOON) the Playtest PDF is going to be free. The modules, however, will have a cost associated with them.

Part of the reason for this, is because these two modules, while branded as part of the playtest, are not "nuts and bolts" style playtests like Doomsday Dawn was. These are full adventures, with the same polish and narrative that you've all come to expect from Paizo over the years. They're major setting events done in the Playtest period, so they have relevance to Starfinder fans old and new alike. These adventures will have all new art and maps and the quality of content that we put into all of our adventures.

There will of course be some free demo content and other content available as we enter the playtest window. So there will be content that is accessible and won't cost a dime to help us playtest.

The cost on these modules is to help offset the production costs that go into making a print product with entirely new swathes of art and writing. It's the team's honest hope that even with the changes we make during the playtest period into the final version of SF2E, that these modules can still work in the final version of the game!

Just as a heads up, we'll have something come out Soon-ish to talk more about this.

However, just to stem the comments, this adventure is structured how a normal Paizo adventure is structured and isn't intended as a stress test of the rules system. The core rules of PF2 mean that we know the math holds, and we can instead focus our testing on how the game plays in the means we intend to regularly deliver it. This is also intended as a chance to try out new characters and advance through different types of encounters from 1st-level, so it works well as an adventure for players new to the setting.

Again, more on all this #Soon!

Thurston Hillman wrote:

Androids and their survival in vacuums is a weird fringe case, because while many people will cite "but my old android could do that" the actual play experience of 90%+ of tables, is that almost every player could do that thanks to built-in armor protections. I think seeing some of the updates to environmental protections, which, admittedly aren't as all-encompassing as before, will give a better view on how PCs can interact in harsh environments or lack of environment.

Okay. Why? I mean, do you have especially awesome stories that you want to tell that require that people not have all-encompassing environmental protection? Why not just make "basically everyone has easy access to strong environmental protections" a system assumption right alongside "by default, combat is at range, and flight is relatively easy"? It seems like it would be a really good way to be able to easily handwave away large swathes of this stuff.

Absolutely, there are a ton of stories that end up getting invalidated by environmental protections. In the same way that an adventure can be completely sidelined by some of the old fashioned "Detect X/Y/Z" spells, and a reason why those types of spells mostly entered Uncommon rarity, which is a tool to give GMs some say in what works for their respective campaigns. We're establishing a baseline here, an then people can adjust as they desire (something we hope to explore in some of the optional GM rules in the final rulebooks).

Environmental protections in SF1 were often a hurdle that had to be delicately navigated when designing adventures and creating a reasonable sense of progression and scaling. It worked how you explained, as a default assumption of "well we can survive almost anything" and it became something of a running joke on "Well, obviously I have my environmental protections on" that would just negate large swathes of adventure text because protections in 1E were just that good. See earlier discussions on the complete negation of inhaled effects as a good example of this.

We want environmental challenges to be a challenge in Starfinder. Don't misconstrue this as not letting players adventure in weird and difficult environments early on, or being able to survive in them if they're a species native to that environment. Instead, we want to make sure our game has a logical sense of progression that armor scales up and provides protections that allow for a higher-level party to feel like it's doing higher level things and fighting in higher level locations. Of course, all players will have the ability to explore in a vacuum at 1st-level, that is just a core of our game.

Handwaving environmental protections is something we want to empower GMs to do for their respective tables if that works best for their playstyle. Which I know isn't the best for Org Play people (where we generally act as the arbiter of legality), but one of the elements our team is passionate about is that we're setting a baseline for the game that lets us tell cohesive narratives and present as many challenges as we can. If people want to adjust who can survive in space for their tables, we absolutely encourage it. Heck, I do it ALL THE TIME with my games, and it should be more accepted across the board. But when it comes to us as game designers and devs, we need to create rules as a baseline and then let people make their own decisions on adjusting them.

Well, my plan is to do a mix of GM content, and keep the player content focused on SF tools with some options available from PF. A good example, would be that I'll allow the core PF ancestries for anyone who wants to grab one.

On the GM side, taking Monster Core entries is a no-brainer, and some simple adjustments can allow for us to do things like "ogre with a breaching cannon" or the like, to run for my playtest campaigns. It also means the campaign's official launch will just have way more options available for use than what exists in the core set.

Of course, I'll also homebrew a bunch of content because I'm silly like that. :)

Another hop-in moment.

I've seen a lot of discussion about survival in harsh environments and the narrative around that suddenly changing for some species. I strongly suggest that people wait for us to tackle a wider array of ancestries before jumping to conclusions on how we're handling things in wide swathes. We plan on making sure that if an ancestry has some form of cosmic survival mechanism, that we keep that narrative going forward.

Androids and their survival in vacuums is a weird fringe case, because while many people will cite "but my old android could do that" the actual play experience of 90%+ of tables, is that almost every player could do that thanks to built-in armor protections. I think seeing some of the updates to environmental protections, which, admittedly aren't as all-encompassing as before, will give a better view on how PCs can interact in harsh environments or lack of environment.

But again, this is all stuff we're hoping to see with full feedback in the playtest process :)

I think there's a big difference between a system going wonky because of eye lasers of instant death to anyone with optical sensors and being able to hold six beers at once.

There's some hyperbole going on here that I want to immediately address.

Currently, multi-armed characters can hold as many beer cans as you'd like. The issue that I think this is poking at, is how the team is analyzing is the effectiveness of multi-armed characters and how they impact the overall design space of the game. Please be aware, when we're designing rules, our focus is on how they'll be used mechanically. Realism and verisimilitude are important, but at some point we need to acknowledge how players will use those rules at a table (especially something like OrgPlay, which is generally the space where players will take extreme builds as GMs have more restricted control of the overall game state).

Say for example, if we wanted powerful one-shot missile launchers in our game (and why wouldn't we), then having multi-armed characters who can fire with no penalty makes balance a more tricky proposition.

Let's assume that we introduce a "mega death missile" into the game that is balanced around being a one-shot weapon with a high-reload time. So that your character has to take actions to reload the weapon or swap out to another weapon in order to help balance the action economy around such a weapon. If the Skittermander PC can triple-wield and fire these launchers without any penalties (and without any investment in feats or other abilities) then the game meta quickly changes to everyone and their dog wanting multiple arms, because clearly the most effective damage dealing is based around getting these one-shot weapons and stacking them. If you can end a fight in 3 rounds, then having three mega-death missile launchers, becomes the best build. Heck, let's just stop upgrading the other PCs and funnel all our credits into the Skitter-Death-Missile Machine™.

What we don't want to have happen, ever, is a table state where people are pressured to play in an optimal way that just funnels the fun in one direction or forces a specific means of play. See the above example and the idea that every PC needs to buy multiple arm augmentations to compete. Or, the table peer pressure that happens when the PCs are debating how to spend their money and one player is like "Well, just buy more mega death missiles for the skittermander, because it's the optimal play." As a team, we're doing our best to make sure we aren't creating these kinds of experiences at the table, or at the very least, do our best to be cognizant of them and try to adjust the rules so that the overall state of the game won't be negatively impacted.

So please don't try to sell the intent here as being us opposed to the four-beer-chugging kasatha; that's not the intent at all (in fact, I love that image). Our focus here is on making the game mechanically stable and fun for everyone as the table, and not creating game states that are inherently broken or that are just going to make some ancestries "defacto best choices" (which, to be fair, a meta WILL evolve, and it's part of our intent as a team to keep an eye on).

Of course, as always, this is pre-playtest, and we hope that people will express themselves once they have the full scope of the rules. But even then, try not to attribute specific intent without first asking us why we're making the choices we are :)

if I've seen one thing turn potential players away from organized play its "Oh hey I want to play a ____" and then them being told they can't play that.

That is something I know in our (early) OP discussions that I know the team passionately wants to change. There's a lot of cool content in the game, but most ancestries should just be always accessible.

Hopping in now that I'm back from a weekend of writing/video games (I beat Control, awesome game and am enjoying the DLC).

Alrighty, some good discussion here about the state of androids. It's something that the team is very much eager to see further feedback on, and it's something that we expected to get feedback on :)

A bit of clarification: just because androids have a holdover feat from PF2E that deals with breathing in a location without atmosphere, doesn't mean that Starfinder is suddenly going to "stop having you adventure in a vacuum". (cue the "AH! I'm trapped in a Dyson jokes). We're committed to having adventurers able to go into space at the earliest levels, and to provide different paths of reaching that through equipment.

One approach the team have been very excited about with the design of SF2 is the ability for us to re-evaluate the atmospheric protections that existed in SF1. Specifically, we've been looking at how most tables ended up using atmospheric protections as inherent bypasses to major plot points, or (as I'm sure we've all experienced) being the "oh I have my protections on at all times, why wouldn't I?" type of adventuring tool. Reviewing this led us down some interesting paths of how we want to scale adventures, and allow PCs to adventure in threatening alien environments early on, but also introduce some manner of progression to allow for PCs to feel like their relative power level is increasing as they level and get access to new equipment and abilities.

This is something that is going to propagate through to different ancestries in the game. It won't make sense for us to have a species that naturally survives in a vacuum and NOT allow it to survive in a vacuum. That being said, we might review game balance to check if those creatures still need to breathe and what effects gasses or other airborne effects could have on them—something that can still be further mitigated with equipment as PCs progress.

As a few folks have said, there's some plate spinning here between realism/verisimilitude and overall game balance. We want to make sure we're creating narratively fun choices for players, but we also don't want to include ancestries that are just going to shut off large swathes of the game's mechanics. We're ESPECIALLY keen on not doing this kind of stuff with core ancestries.

Give us some time; we have some pretty out-there plans :)

Driftbourne wrote:

But there is more to Starfinder than just a name change from Path to Star, and those differences matter to some of us.

I'm reserving judgment until I see the playtest, but at the moment I'm not convinced that they matter to the folks writing it either.

Please don't ascribe motive to the people writing this game; you don't know us or our motivations. We care deeply about Starfinder, and several of us were involved in writing for the original launch of SF1E. Our motives are clear in that we want Starfinder to be the strongest game offering it can be and to attract a large number of new players to keep the game viable.

To address the concern more directly, our team is absolutely intent on making Starfinder a game that can stand on its own. However, we're also dedicated to making Starfinder a game that is fully compatible with PF2E, because that will increase the overall viability and interest in the game and setting.

It's interesting that Vesk are +2 Str + 2 Con. Back during the PF2 playtest is was stated (I believe by Mark Seifter but I might be missremembering) that they deliberately avoided creating ancestries with bonuses to two physical or two mental stats because it was felt that would too easily create an "objectively best," ancestry for certain classes.

Given that the blog says this exact same problem happened with SF1 species and they're trying to avoid it now it's worth noting that the former thinking has apparantly changed.

It's also important to note, that while these ancestries are being built for compatibility, they aren't being built to be 100% balanced in the Pathfinder ecosystem.

Strength and melee damage aren't as important in Starfinder, where most threats have viable long-range options. :)

That said, it also opens the opportunity for an entire book based around species that will introduce all of those out-there species like the living swarm and whatnot.

Or several books in that vein... >_>

Honestly, the goal is that we want to include a TON of species in the game, because that is part of what defines Starfinder. The problem we've had in the past, is that a lot of species introduced in 1E just lacked any strong narrative beats or were simplified into numerical bonuses and associated immunities. It made species selection a hyper-focused numbers game for some, and generally left us with so many species that didn't have narrative hooks for people to grok beyond the mechanics.

Our goal going forward is really to present playable species that feel like you can play them. In SF1, we ended off with just over 100 playable species. If one SF2E book could introduce say 24 playable ancestries and give them 6ish pages each, then I'd say we're well in the ballpark of keeping pace with 1E's release schedule :)

That said, was hoping that since Androids are being actually created in Starfinder timeline, was hoping to see an option for them to emulate non-human Ancestries, especially non-Medium ones.

I want to tackle this comment, because it has come up a few times. The team is VERY excited at the possibility of doing more with the "android chasis" but also don't want to complicate the Core Rulebook design too much. That being said, there's been a fair amount of hype for us exploring "Xenometric Android" as a potential versatile heritage in some future products. :)

Just gonna hop in here to say what we told people at PAX-U who did the playtest: don't read too intently into these characters.

This is a taster, and not really indicative of a final product. Heck, it's not even a final product for what is effectively a Beta-Test book that we're currently working on :)

That being said, the Operative is a class that the Starfinder team felt strongly about during our design cycle. In first edition, the class became something of a meme in the community for how overarchingly powerful it was when compared to other classes—it was the definitive damage dealer AND was basically the best at skills. This was a problem. I've been on record as saying that 1E should have bumped other classes to be more on par (something we aimed for in Enhanced) but for a new edition, the Operative needed to have a better defined niche than "great at everything."

So in 2E, the goal is that the Operative is the primary ranged combat class. It is no longer the immediate "skill monkey" as that award goes to the Envoy class. Instead, the Operative is a class that puts out consistent fire in combat, able to take advantage at range or up-close with different guns. The sniper build is based around taking single shots at long range, wanting to benefit from as many buffs/debuffs as it can so it can pop out a ridiculous critical that pops a target for massive damage. It's a playstyle we've found has been incredibly fun in our internal playtests, but it's also one facet of Operatives in the new edition.

I wouldn't worry too much about mapping attack proficiency to other classes or how a pre-playtest class demo stacks up against the Fighter. All will be revealed in the coming months. :)

No stream in the immediate future.

We have some staff at PAX who will be running some in-person SF2 demos at the event. We're planning our next stream though, and will probably attempt it when folks are back in the office.

I should also stress: This is an internal playtest.

The Envoy, as an example, is a class we're still playing around with internally and looking at a variety of builds and options for. Testing out a "free Stride/Step" was part of it, and we'll likely tone it down slightly to be a Stride up to half movement or the like.

All that being said, I'm really glad that folks are enjoying the classes and how they're portrayed. It's going to be awhile before we hit the final builds, but this open playtest is all about making these products the best we can, so Starfinder 2E can be the best game it can be.

Just a reminder that this is happening... TODAY!

Hey folks!

Just wanted to let everyone know that the Starfinder Team is going to be livestreaming our next internal playtest game over at twitch.tv/officialpaizo

The game will take place on Wednesday October 18th at 1pm PST and should be available as a VOD on our Twitch channel sometime after the play. We plan on interacting with chat a fair bit during this playtest, answering some questions and giving some insight into the game state as we're playing. However, it's still a playtest and our focus will be on the game and trying to show how we as a team are approaching some of the gameplay playtests.

A few notes on what to expect:

-This is a playtest. Don't come for "riveting stories" or "deep characters". Expect to see Soldier the character, and likely a barebones story that involves them fighting threats in a Danger Room-esque scenario.

-We'll be showcasing the two classes that we've already had in the Field Tests: Mystic & Soldier. You might see some new mystic tech and some of the changes we've already implemented with Soldier since our first Field Test.

-We'll be showcasing two NEW classes that we've not revealed anything on. Not going to say which classes yet, but they'll be ones we've not previewed. We'll also NOT be doing an in-depth explanation of the classes, but more testing them publicly and letting viewers piece together what they can from our gameplay.

-Some reveals on state of equipment / weapons / ancestries that people are going to take in our game. Again, won't be going in-depth, but you'll get some previews just by seeing what the staff are taking.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Awesome feedback, thanks everyone!

The team is continuing to iterate on the class, and we've already come up with some interesting takes on it since this Field Test went to print. One thing that we're going to experiment more with is the inclusion of some Occult options. Just note, we only have so much space in our books, so shifting the Mystic to touch on Divine/Occult/Primal options means that there won't be as many connections available to explore these options at first—damn word counts and such! ;)

Also, I've just come back from SkalCon in the Twin Cities, where I ran three different tables that tested out 5 of the SF classes in different situations. We're already incorporating a lot of changes to the Soldier based on Field Test #1, and then I've got some strong notes for other classes going forward.

Your feedback in this weird pre-Beta phase is INVALUABLE, so thanks a ton.

Can't wait to get more information out about our Streamed Playtest coming on the 18th.

retrogmray wrote:

Any comments on when we might get to see some more playtest stuff for SF2?

Early October is the current plan. The Operative Field Test, given the previous blog post.

It's not the operative.

I thought archaic weapons like black-powder guns were supposed to take massive penalties against modern armor.

We played the game with the assumption that magically-enhanced equipment would bypass the Resistance. Right now, the team is heavily considering just moving the archaic rules more into an optional thing for groups who want that realism.

To clarify a bit more: the idea here is that we wanted to test the Gunslinger Vs. the Operative in the sense of "do these classes feel different and have different vibes", which we feel like we succeeded at. The gunslinger being very swingy in terms of how it operates in combat is FINE, and in fact one of the Operative goals was to have it be a less swingy class (but one that still benefits if it gets off a headshot or the like). It wasn't to really just see an overall mesh of how PF2 classes operate in SF2, because that's not necessarily part of our overall design goals—we're making these games compatible, but want SF2 to be its own game and not just balanced entirely around existing PF2 options.

Gunslinger Vs. Operative is just a very basic question we knew we'd be asked, and wanted to get some play data to see how they worked in tandem and if there was a different play experience.

"But then, Michael got greedy. He fired again. He misfired. Goodbye, arquebus."

what does this mean? is there some different misfire mechanic being used than in 2e? or was this just referring to the gun being gone for that turn/rnd?

I was being cheeky and joking. It was still an action to unjam it, but it caused some action economy issues that the operative just didn't need to deal with in comparison. In fact, Mike Sayre dropped his gun and swapped to a backup thinking he couldn't possibly do worse... he did worse :D

I have a philosophical question about the ringtone spell.

Why are you going to the effort of reinventing soothe? Wasnt the whole point of using P2s chassis to not need to do double work like that?

Motivating Ringtone is different than soothe. We just used it as "Soothe-Adjacent" here. The current version we're working with since this playtest has evolved... but would still create the same hilarious moment we had in this playtest!

Also, on the actual topic of Mystic traditions... we're exploring different options at the moment. As some people have pointed out, the current slew of SF1 spellcasting classes universally would fall under the Occult banner, and that's not something we're too keen on maintaining in the new edition.

That being said, we'll have more to say on this in the future, I assure you! :)

Paizo can of course run their business any way they please, and I don't think they should be beholden to random a&$~!$* fans like me. (listening to my opinions sounds like a terrible way to run a business, honestly, since I'd argue for dropping PF2 adventure paths in favour of making content that I buy, like Starfinder Adventure paths, given the opportunity) but I do think they would have benefited from actual formal data collection, rather then listening to the squeaky wheels in the fandom.

I can assure you, if we'd been listening to squeaky wheels, our decisions would have been ENTIRELY different. Also, I would recommend not taking wild guesses on what our timetables are like. Enhanced is a product that's been in our back pocket for a pretty long while...

As far as data-driven, there's only so far that goes. Yes, we can poll crowds (and have done so), but doing it in a public way often only gets a specific type of person to respond. We make our choices off a wide variety of data available to us, beyond just polling community members, which has awkward returns at best.

In fact, the whole reason we're doing this "most open playtest ever" concept, is because that does give us the opportunity to get feedback from people. However, as with any business, there are some decisions we have to make on our own for the health of the brand.

We'll be showing more of Solarian in the future, but the current approach is fairly different than the 1E approach. We've had some playtest data with it, and the class is pretty potent and capable of doing a lot with its abilities. There's a bit of tracking that the class currently has, but nothing that we've found to be overbearing (in fact it seemed the player in our last playtest had a lot of fun with it).

Curious to keep hearing folks thoughts, but just know that we're keeping a lot of the core conceptual states of the class in place, but are exploring some pretty radically different ways of managing the class compared to what we've seen with other classes.

I'm more interested in Zo, the starport on Triaxus, than Zo! the media mogul.

Stay tuned.

Seeing a lot of familiar faces here too!

Congrats to all the authors involved in this set of Starfinder Society scenarios. I can't wait to see where the story leads us :D

First off, congrats to all the authors spotlighted here. Y'all are kicking butts and taking names! I've worked with a large number of you, and it's so rad to see you producing yet more content for our Organized Play programs.

Could we get artwork for all the major NPCs in each adventure? It always seems like there’s one missing. For example, in 4-12 there’s images for 3 of the NPCS you’re trying to convince but none for Tekawenda Ulash.

And maybe some more proofreading? In 4-13, on page 14 it says “The scrit fights until reduced to 10 Hit Points or fewer…” but the scrit only has 8 Hit Points to start with so does that mean it just immediately runs away. That page also says the Level 3-4 encounter includes a Troublesome Scrit which is supposed to be a Creature 3. Except that on page 27, it’s level 1 and if you actually compare it to the Level -1 Meddlesome Scrit, it’s actually weaker (the only difference between the two is that the Meddlesome Scrit has a Spell DC of 16 while the “stronger” Troublesome Scrit has a lower Spell DC of 15).

Now to step-in here to address a few things based on this post.

1) Organized Play scenarios have an art budget. It only allows the developer to get so much art. More art, means higher production cost on these scenarios, which is difficult for Organized Play where many scenarios are given out to volunteers for free. It's a situation where we'd need to see massive spike in sales on these products to get us the budgets we'd need to add more art. So if you want to see more NPC art, I'd suggest buying more scenarios (and getting your friends to buy them too!)

2) With regards to editing: mistakes happen. If there's major issues, politely report them through the forums and other venues where you can interact with your developers and they'll take the necessary steps to get them fixed. In some cases, these fixes might be minor (typos or the like) and might not be worth it to have 2-3 staff members involved in spotting/updating/re-uploading the necessary files. That's OK, and it's pretty standard in the RPG industry. Remember, our teams are going through hundreds of thousands of words of content; so some annoyances slip through the cracks. Give us some grace and we'll do our best to reciprocate.

ANYWHO! Back to shameless praise for all these authors (and devs), who absolutely deserve it.

The setting changes and their impact on mechanics are absolutely some of the most exciting elements of discussion for the team. :)

So.... sounds like people like this type of content and would enjoy seeing more of it in the future?

We're exploring a lot of different options with combat types in our playtests. We recently had a really solid encounter, where the PCs ended up battling some foes at close range, with some PCs engaged in a back/forth firefight over a downed log. With 5 feet between them, the two groups exchanged fire and then took cover, which led to a really interesting dynamic.

As for long-range combat, while our short-ranged firefight was happening, one PC was engaging enemy snipers with their own sniper rifle in shots that were on average about 200 feet away from one another.

The whole thing _felt_ really cool. It's also the type of game we're going to look at overall. While Flip-Mats and table mats are something we have to keep in mind, we're going to look at ways to expand on how all varieties of groups can try out different combats. Perhaps even the dreaded 1 Square = 30 Feet will return! :D

"This is a different game" is not justification enough, because giving everyone free darkvision while keeping the exact same underlying gameplay of vision and stealth is going to imbalance things.

It's these sorts of things that we're looking at in the play experience. Darkvision isn't something that everyone gets in our game, though they may spend resources to get access to it (hello tech visors!).

We need to acknowledge certain elements of the game, like say the rigors of wilderness survival, might be trivialized in a setting that is more adjacent to technical innovations. We also can recognize that a lot of things can be trivialized in Pathfinder 2Es current rules with specific resource expenditure. This is part of the pre-public playtest phase that we're in, and it's something we are taking very seriously.

Thank you for the update! For clarification, is Bravado the Fearsome Bulwark feature listed in the PDF?

OOPS! Silliness of referencing some of our internal documents (which apparently are even more up to date than the playtest documents)

Bravado was an ability we had for improving the Will save to Expert.

Also, for those asking, we'll NOT be updating the Field Tests. The time it takes to make these is already a diversion from getting the product done, upkeeping them isn't really in the cards as we aren't even at the official playtest stage yet! :)

*Personal Hat*

As someone who ran _a lot_ of Starfinder back in the day, I found the EAC/KAC split was something that felt like it was in the background of the game itself. Most PCs I would play with, would be using an EAC-targeting weapon because it was generally more efficient. If I saw someone targeting KAC, it was likely a flavorful choice or someone who made some monstrous KAC-targeting combat maneuver machine. Otherwise, it was generally just safe to assume that EAC was the common element.

From a design perspective, there was a constant check necessary on whether something targeted EAC/KAC, and even if we had supporting text about what referencing just AC meant, it always led to someone questioning "what did they really mean".

I suspect there's potential for more optional rules for folks who want a bit more realism in the vein of "laser pistol should be better than crossbow", because Gamemastery Guide type books are great for that. However, in the main game, it is my personal experience that most modern TTRPG players are more interested in an experience that gets them into the game faster and with less technical hurdles.

Suggested homebrew rules for the Starfinder team at work so you get more time off. Make haste a cantrip.

Perfectly balanced. As all things should be.

*waits to hear Michael Sayre and his team rush into the room like a tactical SWAT team*

HEY! I ran 3-98... once.

ANYWAYS, the Perplexity is near and dear to my heart, and I'd love to bring it back in some form. Turns out, becoming a Managing Creative Director and GM for a pretty large Actual Play takes up a lot of my time now :'(

Yeah, I think it needs to be re-iterated, that the current multi-armed rules are a baseline. Obviously we're looking at ways to modify it with general feats and specific ancestry feats.

Quote:

Someone said Vesk-6 was confirmed in the keynote address as the planet joining the pact worlds. (I haven't relistened to that again to confirm it.)

Neutering the Veskarium by creating an enclave within the Vesk system seems like the kind of implausible situation that the writers would go with. I wish I could say I was surprised but my expectations for the 'setting' writing are through the basement. I really wish they would not use the Vesk as a punching bag for their whiggish impulses but that's the kind of carebear writing I've come to expect the past couple years.

rip Veskarium, you didn't deserve to get Worfed like this.

I can assure you this isn't the case. Also this is absolute hyperbole and coming from a place with no background on the full breadth of the changes and inserting personal beliefs into wider decisions. I am OK with disagreeing on or questioning directions we're taking, in fact I expect it. What I won't stand for is overwrought hyperbole and veiled attacks on my staff.

Be a better person.

The current rules for multi-armed characters are part of our test. The inherent balance of having multiple arms in the system is a MAJOR factor in how we're wanting to balance things. Inherently, having multiple available arms that can all take actions independently without some kind of investment makes it incredibly difficult to balance class and weapon design. It creates weird "isms" where when we design a weapon that is predicated on being one "big shot" that assumes a reload happens (like a missile launcher or a hand cannon) that it might now be 2-3x as many shots before any action economy is necessary. Given the average length of many combats, this starts skewing the math heavily. It also greats weird disparity between the meaning of two-handed weapons, since a kasatha could effectively wield two 2-handed weapons (a ranged and a melee) and get all the benefits, which if you see how the Soldier is currently structured, would just negate some feats entirely.

Again, we're experimenting here, but we also want to make it so that kasatha, skittermanders, or other multi-armed creatures don't have this mechanical collar weighing them down. This is different than flying, where our game assumes everyone has a ranged weapon capable of firing and hitting them—our game does not assume everyone has multiple sets or arms, nor do we want to create a game state where it's the "optimal play" to be a kasatha/skittermander or spend augmentation slots on picking up extra sets of arms.

This is all stuff we're working on. We just wanted to include the reference to where our thoughts were on multi-armed characters right now, since we figured questions would pop-up. :)

One element of how I think the team wants to approach a system like this, is that we want it to feel natural and not like you're playing an entirely different game when you go into Starship Combat. IF we were to do a different game, then I think we should market it as a different game and it should be akin to how something like Battletech/Mechwarrior can crossover when they want to.

I think there's room for a really mechanically crunchy starship combat game, with lots of intricacies and details. I also think there's a lot of room for a system that has the players still controlling their PCs during a starship combat, and having them influence what's going on in that encounter directly.

We're still a ways off from discussing this in any formal capacity, but know that the team has been talking on a lot of different approaches for how we can do this.

Invemians. Basically anything to do with Kazmurg's Absurdity, TBH.

FWIW, I know there's a lot of concern about the changes. We knew there would be going in. However, I'll also dissuade that "everyone who is a 'Real' Starfinder fan is upset." My Gen Con was full of people who came up to me explaining how the edition has them re-invigorated to get back into SF1E and get a campaign or two in before the edition change, which I only had one negative comment about my whole time at the convention (and I was dealing with a LOT of people). There's a lot of excitement about what this means for the brand, and how we can use it to springboard more content. As mentioned, SF sales were really promising at Gen Con, despite us announcing a whole new edition (which is normally a death knell for many games).

I also think that SF1E has a mountain of content, not to mention the upcoming SF Enhanced, Scoured Stars, and Mechageddon! release (let alone all the OP offerings). I'm STILL running off/on PF1E games with people I know, so it's safe to say that SF1 is going to be around for a good long while.

Really glad to see changes being implemented this early on the process! Makes me all the more excited for the future of Starfinder! By chance though, are there any plans on making the item system more closely match that of PF2e? I know it’s a popular sentiment in Starfinder to keep the weapon you started with and upgrade it over time, but in the Field Test it seems like you might not be able to do that with every weapon.

We kind of address it in the text of the Field Test, but there will be options for people to upgrade "Granny's pistol" throughout the whole of a campaign. That's super important to us. If anything, the scaling system we have (and the fact that we use a standardized naming convention for that scaling) makes it way easier for us to accomplish that!

That helps! Any plan for reconciling field test "usage" with pathfinder "usage"?

That is one we're still discussing! A few options present themselves... we'll be investigating it. The biggest thing here is coming up with a term that people will immediately grok and get "Oh this is what expends ammo" and also is table-friendly. (Magazine is cool because we can abbreviate it to Mag for tables).

I'd asked to have it added now, so it was done and we could post here once we get preview content underway :D