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Teridax wrote:

I feel grenades would work a lot better if the ones that dealt damage had a delay of 1 round, in exchange for much more damage. Instant bombs should be fine too, but the advantage to a delayed grenade is that it'd be a great tool for flushing enemies out of cover, which I think right now is fairly important given how easy it is for enemies to hide behind it all the time. If the enemy doesn't move, or is made to stay for some reason, then the much higher damage ought to frag them for sure, if they're chaff.

I actually gave this weapon a try during a playtest, and I was really pleased with the results. It was really fun and tactical to have one vesk soldier ready their gun around the corner, and have the other vesk soldier toss the delay grenade (goes off at beginning of user's next turn, 2d8 instead of 1d8 damage) to flush out the PC. It was a fun mental challenge of "do I think it's better to make a basic reflex save against 2d8 or just hope the strike against my AC misses".

I think these are the exact right kind of fun micro-challenges and hazards in a game like SF2E. I hope a weapon like this makes it into the final release.

THIS! I have played with something like this as well. It works great. And its also a good way to add value to a grenade. The enemy has to either move and "waste" an action / give up their position or they get on average a bit of damage. Personally i would add a flat damage value (1d8+4)to the grenade but 2d8 works as well.

Throwing a Grenade and therefore burning money, only to roll a 1 feels super bad.

Engagements constantly starting at 100+ feet away is not viable under the PF2e system. Having playtested fights that start at this range, they’re even more turrety than fights that start at the 30-60 range. It takes so long and so many actions to cross the map to get around your opponent’s cover (during which time you might have no cover) that it simply isn’t worth doing. Unless you’re melee and lose a round or a round and a half having to cross that distance before being allowed to strike.

I think this is only the case with badly designed maps. Large maps need multiple areas where you can get full cover while you run up to your enemy. But there should be small areas where you don't get cover so that an enemy can shoot at you if they have readied an attack.

Look at any good shooter map. A good map has always areas which you can use to flank the enemy without being shot at (to much).

I think an ideal Starfinder 2e map might look something like salvage from CoD MW2 with a bit more standart cover sprinkled throughout the map. (https://callofdutymaps.com/wp-content/uploads/scrapyardcompass.png)
I hope i can post links here. But if you look at the top down view of the map you see long sight lines which allow long range spells and especially readied wepon attacks to be usefully. But you can almost always find a different route to your target where you can move behind full cover to flank a particulary nasty "camper".

Starfinders biggest problem is the fact that the time to kill is very slow (except on Level 1). This means that you need to build maps where you can get multiple ranged shots in before the melee can get to you. Otherwise Melee just deals more damage.
And i think this is the biggest problem with close quarters combat in Starfinder 2e. You really don't have a way of stopping melee from charging you while they are not afraid to do so. Because guns don't hurt like they do in real life. I think blocking enemies from advancing by standing in there face and throwing grenades / area attacks when they bunch up kinda works. But this solution is not perfect.

How do you feel about the price of ammunition? It feels a bit like Paizo doesn't know what to do with it. Im interested in how you guys feel about it.

A Battery has 10 charges and costs 10 credits. If you have a charging station around, you might get free refills. You could also get 10 Projectiles for 1 credit which means it is cheaper per "bullet" but you have no chance of getting free refills.

You can buy some ammunition at the start of the game and depending on the enemies you are fighting you either run out of ammo at some point or you can loot enough ammo from enemies to keep going.

But ammunition doesn't weigh anything and you automatically get rich in SF2e. If we assume you get roughly 100 credits during Level 1 then you can buy 1000 Projectiles. This only gets crazier on higher levels. So rather quickly you are swimming in Bullets.

Grenades on the other hand have a scaling price. I know they are not technically ammunition but they are still a ranged weapon in some sense. If you don't want to throw fire crackers at the enemy you need to spend more and more money on more powerfull grenades. Grenades also have a weight so you can't carry infinite grenades with you.

To me this doesn't make sense. Either the devs want uns to never worry about ammunition or they want us to care about it. The reusable grenade shell could be a baseline feature of how grenades work.

In my perfect world we would all care about ammunition and the cost of ammunition would stay relevant throughout the game. I think bullets and batteries should have a baseline weight like arrows. A "stack" of Bullets (10/20) could count as 1 Light Bulk and a Battery should always weigh at least 1 Light Bulk. Just to prevent you from carrying infinite ammunition.
My next fix would be to have ammunition prices scale with a weapons level or tier. (Just like grenade prices). This way you could still have affordable ammunition for the early levels and the price could scale with the SF2e Credit Economy.

The only problem this would introduce is the fact that enemies now need to carry "leveled" ammunition as well because otherwise you would run dry during a mission. But i think thats a worthwile tradoff. I really like the feeling when you find ammunition for your favorite weapon in a video game. I would love to see this mentality in SF2e.

But i could also see a world were people hate the idea of "buying enough ammunition". There are plenty of games like Mass effect 1 where your guns have infinite Ammunition and you only reload to cool down the weapon. But i think that it would only be fair to make grenades cooldown based if we move in to this direction.

Edit: Can somebody please tell me what the point of the cantrip Recharge Weapon is after a few levels? I think this is a nice idea. But it becomes a pure fluff choice once you have enough money to buy large quantities of ammunition.

Im so confused about Paizos direction here. It feels a bit like they want a ranged meta but they are not willing to enforce it in any way.

Many Spells and cantrips still have 30 foot range. So casters can't get in to proper range combat depending on their spell selection. 30 feet is the range your avery melee can move in one action. This is laughable.
I also think that casters should get a higher proficiency with pistols or a spell like true strike which allows them to use pistols/ simple guns even tho they lack dex. I think its necessary for casters to have acces to something with range increments.

Spaceships, Buildings and most cities favor close quarter combat. But you can easily live getting shot at in starfinder. So unlike the real life, where you still use guns in cqb, melee weapons are the king in starfinder (mostly because they still add the str bonus to damage).

The ranged soldiers area attacks are also pretty short range.

I think we need Starfinder exclusive actions/reactions which allow you to better enforce the ranged meta.
- There could be a reaction which allows you to shoot someone coming in to your range and then move up to (half) your speed.
- There could be a trait which adds forced movement to heavy weapons like the shotgun. Which shoves you 5 feet on a hit and 10 feet on a crit.
- Maybe we could add an action which allows you to shoot with a -2 penalty but then you are allowed to retreat for half your movement.

I think in general you should not be able to run at a gun line to melee them. I feel like Melee needs to be something tactical which is most usefull if you can properly flank the enemy.
I think guns should be able to shoot more but i also think that there should be a tradoff. Maybe everyone with a gun gets an Attack of oportunity but the attack only triggers at the end of the movement so that it is still viable to move from cover to cover.
I think it should be easier to keep enemies at range but i also feel like that you should be incentivized to run away if you get cought in melee. Maybe most weapons need the volley trait.

Yeah i really want to play Kingmaker for that reason. (Or even just read it.) Because in normal play it feels like PF2e wanted to kill every aspect of wildernes survival.

How do you feel about the rocket launcher? Im not talking about the price of the missiles though. Am i the only one who was expecting a AoE weapon and not a single target weapon with a little splash damage?

I would note that googling a decent recipe for an apple pie is a DC 10 check. Where you'd start to see a DC 15 or higher and need training in computers is in hacking, or trying to find a specific useful scientific document, or trying to online stalk someone to get information that is not so readily available.

I know. But this is still weird. Not picking diplomacy feels weird in pathfinder. Now there is another "i kinda want this on every character" skill without getting more increases.

Yeah... I don't think you're convincing the Space Dwarves to give up Dwarven. When in doubt, check out my home rule for extra languages.

Paizo Forums: Additional Language Subsystem

Cool i will definetly look at it :D. But regarding Dwarves. What is the point of dwarvish as a language. I get the idea. They are proud and they like having their language. (Which never changes and everyone speaks even if they were born on the moon). But what now? When you are creating your character you have dwarvish as a language option? Why would you pick this. To speak to the dwarves ofcourse. ... But all of them speak common. I just ran an adventure path where a dwarven banker was a npc. He didn't have a stat block but i assume she spoke dwarven. She obviously used common to communicate because she is talking to her customers from all over absalom. She doesn't even have a reason to use her dwarven language when my dwarven player greets here because it would be unfriendly towards her other customers.

I think the biggest problem is that the world building is not set up for languages to matter. A new Edition Release would be the best way to retcon something like this to make languages matter. Elves and dwarves are a super duper minority anyways. They can have their language which don't matter. But lets do something cool with the pact worlds. The Starfinder Setting is still relatively fresh and i don't think there are many Starfinder Grognards who get mad at change.

Combining Nature and Survival is a valid approach, can't argue with that one. What I would say is, UPBs are not forever. They are a limited supply, and over a long term campaign, there is a threat of running out, same way as with rations. Also. Your adventurers will get sick of generic UPB paste after the first week. While it won't have a static effect, tell me about the last time you've ate the same thing for weeks on end. You are assuming you can always go back to town, that is not always a luxury. And campaigns can be made where that is especially not a guaranteed luxury.

I totally agree. But i think the system should enforce this in some way if they want subsist to matter. Either have rations spoil after a while or add a small line which explains that you can get fatigued after only eating UPB Paste. I don't even need a hard rule. Just some guidance for new GMS.

Its laughable how little focus Paizo puts on anything that isn't combat. We have 2 GM Books now. Not one of them gives you great tips on how to use the System Mechanics outside of combat. Not one of them tells you how to design battle maps which highlight all the skill actions.
They don't even tell you how to use the survival skill to make the exploration mode in to a fun experience.

I would not recommend requiring Crafting Lores, coming from Pathfinder 1E.

1E used a system where you had to invest individually in Craft: Alchemy, Craft: Weapons, Craft: Armor, etc, etc. It was a huge feat tax that added up, on top of already needing feats to enable specific craftings, like Craft Rings, Craft Scrolls, Craft Magic Items, etc.

A single craft training in Pathfinder 2E is also very expensive, in comparison to one in 1E, which felt draining with a free point allocation system.

In 2E, you only get one training every 2 levels. In 1E, you'd get easily several points to allocate per level.

That's why I'm in favor of letting Crafting be a blanket term, and having alternate Crafting Lores as an option, but not a requirement. (Though, letting a Crafting Lore work around a feat is a potential avenue, but I don't have enough information to know the actual feasibility of it).

No comment on alternate Crafting Systems, as those are frankly table's choice. I use a custom Crafting system in my games, for example.

Im not sure if Pathfinder2e improved on PF2e. Wanna craft Magic Items? Invest 1 of your 3 Legendary skills in to crafting and spend 1 of your 10 Skill feats on crafting. Oh and you really don't get any benefits compared to just buying the item. Except for the rare case where you have way to much downtime. But then you could maybe just earn income and buy the item anyways.

Wanna craft Consumables? You could spend way to much downtime on that. Or you pick up the Alchemist / Herbalist Dedication for 1 of your 10 Class Feats in order to quickly craft somthing.
Oh and when you want to craft alchemicals without spending a class feat on it you need to spend 1 of your 10 Skill feats as well.

There is another problem thoug. Level based DCs assume that you get item bonues so you kinda want to buy crafting items which help you craft better in order to get no bonus compared to buying something.

Crafting feels weird in Pathfinder 2e. You can make it cool if you really try. But it feels like it was designed for Society games where downtime is a resource you can spend between missions.

I know that you are talking about thematics here. But im honestly worried that a regular Melee build with a "reach weapon" or a shield build is to strong for starfinder.
Motivating Ring Tone gives you a nice speedboost to get to the enemy. A Mystic can put out a ton of healing and can easily keep you alive.
Ranged Enemies deal less damage than Melee Enemies. The Corpse Fleet Officer (Level 4) deals 2d6+3 (5-15) damage with is ranged weapon and 2d6+7 (9-19) Damage with his melee Weapon. The Aeon Guard (Level 3) only deals 1D8 damage with his laser Rifle. Both of those Ranged Attacks could get completely negated by the hardness of a basic shield. The Mystics vitality network recharges 4 HP per round which are basically free healing. (It costs 1 Action to transfer those HP). This means the enemy team needs to deal at least 5 damage per round to hurt your team.
Once you are in Range you just pummel them to death. You can add Strength to your damage which means you deal more damage then anyone using a gun. You can also easily Flank when you have a buddy in Melee Range. You can reactive Strike the enemy when they shoot. Otherwise they have to step twice in order to get out of your reach (reach weapon).
Because many enemies will be ranged combatants they will probably have a worse Fort save which means you can grapple them.

I really don't want this to be true but 2 Melees + 1 Mystic + Whatever might be the default party.

More on topic. The ranged meta introduces immersion problems for me as well. In a melee world you can always argue that you mostly parry the hit but you might get a small cut. When everyone is shooting guns and rockets and no one dies it feels like we are using nerf guns. Or maybe we just miss all the time xD. I always loved Halos Solution for that problem. You actually die relatively fast but you have a energy shield which helps you tank a lot of attacks. But you need to wait for it to recharge once it gets damaged to much. In Halo, the time to kill is simply slow enough that people can run up to you and melee you.
But this is not that big of a deal breaker for me.

The The Piloting skills were already Lore skills you could get in Pathfinder. if anything, they became cheaper. Computers Lore was also theoretically possible.

Yeah but those two skills are way more important in Starfinder. It feels so bad to not have computers trained. Because you miss out on your level bonus to the skill check, which means you become a grandpa who can't google basic stuff after a few levels. Alternetively the GM needs to artificially keep the DCs low. Like when you scale the Request DC super low, because your player hasn't invested in diplomacy.

This is also a thing i would love to see changed. Diplomacy should be a baseline thing like perception. But we would need a few (skill / general) feats to increase it, for people who want to specialize in it.

Have you not looked at how many languages are in Pathfinder? There are a lot. When in doubt, use the Translate spell. And translater apps are explained to be a thing, but won't be as perfect.

I have. But do they really make sense? You can choose a hand full languages when you make your character. You can't learn languages on the fly (like aquiring formulas or a wizard learning new spells) so you need to know in advance which languages will be usefull. But can you really make that decision beforehand ? Ok your GM could tell you which languages become usefull but then whats the point? And translation apps make them feel even more weird. I kinda want to see a redesign of the whole language concept. Either make the disappear and say that everyone uses a universal translater. Or make fewer languages so that your choices matter. Maybe have 10 Languages. That way all of them could come up during an adventure path.

Wouldn't it be better if the languages would look like this:
- Azlanti (Language of the enemy. Have them infiltrate everything so that they always show up in any campaign. Like the Romulans.)
- Vesk (Language of your Frenemy)
- Pact Worlds Common (Language of your Frenemy if you start in Vesk Space)
- Pirate Tongue(Secret Language among space pirates and smugglers.)
- Short Wave (Language of intelligent Machines and Technophiles)
- Necril (Language of the Dead)
- Ancient (Dead Language of a Civilisation which died during the Gap. Old Secrets)
- Akklo (Magic language for arcane and occult secrets and Mysteries.
- Nuspeak (Mixture of Vesk and Pact Worlds Common with heavy slang. Some love it others hate it. Use at your own risk)
- Telepathy (Not as a seperate language but as a technique which takes up a language "slot")

I came up with this on the fly so there is definetly room for improvement. But if those where the Starfinder languages i would instantly know how to use them as a GM and a Player would be able to pick languages based on description alone. You could of course still add campaign specific languages for your backwater planet of choice.
But they are way better than "Ysoki" and "Shirren". (If you ask me)

So, making it even less useful by moving Maneuver in Flight checks to another check is making this better?

No. Acrobatics needs to either go or get a redesign. Maybe you can make a acrobatics check to run in a zig zag pattern to dodge bullets. Or maybe you could use Acrobatics to dive in to cover. Maybe you could have a baseline reaction where maneuvering thrusters in your armor throw you to the side to avoid a hit. (Basically nimble dodge) Maybe acrobatics could allow you to draw weapons and equipment faster. Without tumble through this feels stupid. Getting use out of balance is super rare and i never saw anyone using the squeeze action. And Flying feels clunky at best.

Removing Survival would remove the ability to have those scenarios.

You could use nature for those scenarios without a problem. Subsist has little use because food doesn't weigh anything and costs next to nothing. This is even worse in Starfinder. You could grab an explorers canteen and a few upbs and survive forever. Building a shelter uses crafting. Bandaging your wounds to survive uses Medicine. You don't even use survival to craft makeshift traps. Cantrips like Know the way invalidate sense direction almost entirely.

Frankly, isn't the problem behind this the fact that ALL CRAFTING EVER is somehow governed by the same skill? The feats are there to effectively allow you to express what you specialize in, but it's only a problem because for some reason crafting magical staves is governed by the same skill as building apps for OS/2 Drift?

It kinda worked out when there was only really Alchemical Crafting, Magical Crafting, and Trap/Snarecrafting, but now that we're getting Pharmaceuticals and Programming and everything...

Why aren't we just allowing Crafting using the thing-to-be-crafted's relevant skill instead? It nixes the need for "specialization gating" and instead you could just take, like, a first-level skill feat that allows you to Craft these items with this relevant skill, like Computers for apps, Engineering Lore for robots and starship components, Medicine for Pharmaceuticals, etc.

Items should be categorized in to groups. Maybe we keep them broad like Armor, Consumables, Weapons.

Or we seperate them thematically: Talismans, Wands, Melee Weapons, Healing Items, ...

Then there should be Lore Skill for every category which locks the crafting of that category. Something like Armor Crarfter. Not sure how to deal with Untrained Improv. Additional Lore would work as normal.

Crafting should also use the victory point system. Lets say you need 5 VPs to finish the item. Crit Success gives you 2 VPs. Crit Fails take 1 VP away.
The DC is determined by the items level. Every Crafting attempt costs money and time. The Interval / Time you need to spend per crafting check is determined by the category of the item. Consumeables and amunition should only take an hour or a few per check while Armors and Weapons should take maybe 12-24 hours per check.

This system would get rid of crafting as a skill and it would make creating lower level items faster and cheaper while it would be a long and costly process to create something you are not ready for.

Sry im stupid xD.

There are more issues like this. The flying rules where written for character using wings. It makes no sense for a Barathu to spend an action to stay in the air.

We got 2 additional Skills but not more skill increases. Untrained improvisation feels even better now and playing a low int Soldier feels even worse now.

PF2e Languages don't make sense in a setting where there will be over 190 Ancestries.

Acrobatics is even more niche after tumble through became less usefull due to the ranged meta.

Things like jet packs (should) use Piloting for flying which makes acrobatics even more useless.

Survival feels pointless unless you play very specific scenarios.

Nature feels almost useless next to medicine and society because animals are not that important in a sci fi setting.

While i understand that you can't "lean out of cover" while wielding a bow, you should be able to it, when using a Rifle / Pistol.

Why is lying prone detremental to my sniper attack?
Why do i need to spend an action to drop prone?

Medicine should not be a wisdom skill in the future.

We need better rules for damaging terrain. I want to blow up a door with a grenade or rocket launcher. I want to destroy cover the same way.

...

While you could change the name of this Pathfinder 2 ancestry it seems like a weird exclusion. Maybe I want to play R2-D2 or IG-11 like characters. I imagine there will be many many new ancestories released over time but this one feels kind of core to a Sci-Fi experience.

While most androids look humanoid they can basically look however you want them to look. They are a constructed body posessed by a soul (and most of the time created by some ancestry). Just keep in mind that they always have 2 arms (or grasping implements). If you want to play IG-11 you can be a regular android. You are just not trying to come across as a human. But those androids exist within Starfinder.

So, when questioned on why the Mystic, a 4-slot caster, also had 8 HP per level and light armor proficiency, a Paizo developer answered that this was to let them survive ranged firefights. If they're right, and this is the minimum amount of HP and AC you need to survive raged combat, then you're correct that any 6 HP/level cloth caster from Pathfinder is going to be a liability in Starfinder, and that this is going to be a major compatibility problem.

My theory, however, is that it is not in fact correct: the Mystic doesn't need more HP and more AC than a cloth caster because Starfinder combat is deadlier, because damage in Starfinder is actually a fair bit lower due to it being primarily ranged. Rather, Mystics currently need more HP and AC because it's otherwise very easy for them to get focus-fired by the enemy, and the enemy can focus-fire the party caster very easily not just because they're ranged, but because the tanky classes aren't tanking properly right now.

Currently, there are two tanks in Starfinder: the Solarian and the Soldier. The Solarian struggles heavily with reaching opponents in melee, the range where they want to fight, which means it's easy for opponents out of the Solarian's reach to ignore them and focus-fire a party member that's actually doing something. The Soldier, on the other hand, struggles to apply the large amounts of AoE and crowd control the class is meant to deliver, and while their single-target damage can actually get quite high, it's still not enough to make them a more desirable target than the far squishier party member who's also casting incredibly powerful spells.

So in this respect, if those classes were made to function as they ought to, the Mystic could likely work perfectly fine as a 6 HP/level cloth caster (and given how strong their class features are, they probably should be). It also means that if you were to bring in Pathfinder tanks, and made them work in Starfinder combat, then your Pathfinder casters might probably have better chances of survival...

You are right. But you also forget cover. I know this is a map design issue but hear me out. You get quite tanky if you use Take Cover to increase your Standard Cover to Greater Cover (+4 AC) after casting a spell for 2 actions. The soldier is the "Tank" of the group because he is most likely standing out in the open. Because he is probably trying to get within Area Attack or Automatic range. He is simply the easiest target to hit.

I also think the "low" range of most Starfinder weapons is intentional. I think the devs want us to move across the battlefield to flank enemies and to deny their cover by walking around. A Solarian and Soldier would be your first line of defense against an enemy who is trying to get behind you cover because they excel in close combat.

Agreed. I like the idea that more mundane things like scopes, bayonets, flashlights, and muzzle attachments and the like, can be added to a weapon, with more moderate effects. The idea that your typical gun has no picatinny rail- or MLOK-equivalent attachment points by Starfinder is stunning to me.

But let the weapons have, if not runes, then special tech or magic upgrades that give the firearm rune-like powers well beyond what's expected of a scope or a flashlight. Something like Animated Intelligence makes sense to be a rune slot, or the Fear Projector, but not a Uniclamp. or a Sniper's Scope.

The uniclamp exists. It allows you to attach anything to your weapon. Do you mean something like this? I mean you don't get a bayonett but you could uniclamp a sword to your weapon ^^.

I mean, a Mystic with the Primal spell list can take battle form spells, the spell lists are the same, with just new additions from SF2E.

Currently only Spells from Player Core 1 are allowed for the playtest.

Quote ( https://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo6vlnl?Starfinder-Playtesting-Overv iew ):
"Spells should be selected from the Playtest Rulebook and Pathfinder Player Core. While these options are available, we encourage players to try the new feats and spells from the Starfinder Playtest Core Rulebook to provide us with new data."

I think the final product will have a curated selection of reprints but i doubt they will grant access to all PF2e Spells for regular play.

But i steered us off topic here. Sorry about that.

I really don't want to see Wall of Steel in this game. Im not conviced that the razing trait is enough to stop a player from locking up multiple enemies with a single wall spell. When you use wall of stone to put an enemy in singular confinement they are stuck until all of their friends are dead.

Im not sure about that (but i haven't done the Math!). It feels like Operative excels at single target damage while soldier and Solarian excell at AOE Damage.

But seriously. The idea of balancing Starfinder and Pathfinder seems wild to me. Have you seen the earthquake spell? It either doesn't work inside of space stations and space ships or you cause an explosive decompression with a single spell.

Your animal Companions will die the moment you enter any area without atmosphere and please refrain from using a battle form, because your space suit (starfinder armor) gets absorbed in to the battle form and you die, because you can't breath.

If we balance SF2e for Starfinder we also need to errata every problematic thing from Pathfinder 2e. All Battleforms, Animal Companions, the Animal Barb and the Wildshape Druid would need the cosmic trait. We would need to have a design pass on any Pathfinder 2e item, Spell and whatever to make sure that there are no weird interactions with the core assumptions of the Starfinder Setting.

I think Paizo really needs to clarify their stance on how far the compatibility goes.

I mean, one of the things about the four "magic skills" is that they're not *just* magic. Religion is also about "various cultural practices relating to religion" (like "identify a holy symbol"), Nature is also related to actual nature (like "identify a mushroom"), and Occultism is related to actual esoterica (like "make sense of the ramblings of this seemingly mad person".) Arcana is sort of the outlier since it's kind of just about magic, but each of the four skills are used for identifying different sorts of things.

So one skill for all of this is way too strong.

Well, if you look at the playtest adventures you see that Arcana can most often be used as a stand in for Computer/Crafting. Because magic has become integrated in to most tech. (Just a fun observation)

I don't see how this is more messy then computers and piloting. I mean Piloting is a Lore in PF2e and a Skill in SF2e. We are already having the problem that SF2e has the same amount of skill increases as PF2e while having more skills. And lets be honest you will always have to convert something when you want to pull content from one game and implant it to the other game. The Druids animal companion dies the moment a space suit is needed. Sylvan is almost useless on a space station. Polymorph Spells kill you because they absorb your space suit and don't protect you from space and earthquake is either useless or absolutely broken depending on if it can rupture the hull of a spaceship. So i think having to switch Nature to Mysticism is the last of your problems ^^". (I totally understand your point. I just want to offer a counter point.)

As for recall knowledge: You could just rearange the recall knowledge Categories.

Computer:
- Constructs

Crafting:
- Constructs

Society:
- Dragons (Dragons are just Aliens (see Triaxus))
- Undead (Undead are just Aliens (see Eox))
- Celestials (They are basically Aliens now. Abadar is a business man.)
- Fiends (They are basically Aliens now. Hell Drives are outdated tech.)
- Monitors
- Humanoids

Mysticism:
- Aberrations (Some of them could fall under Society now because many of them would just be aliens now.)
- Astral (this is a really small category)
- Dreams (this is a really small category)
- Ethereals (this is a really small category)
- Time (this is a really small category)
- Shade (there is only 1)
- Beasts
- Elementals
- Fey
- Spirits

Survival:
- Animals
- Beasts
- Fungus
- Plants
- Oozes (I understand when you want to put them in Mysticism)

I think you can basically throw everything you can talk to in to society. And Religion is basically just an aspect of society anyways. I never liked the fact that survival couldn't be used to indentify animals because nature needed a reason to exist. If we remove Nature we could finally give Survival a purpose outside of Tracking and Subsisting.
My list could obviously be improved. But Society and Survival could function as counter balances for Mysticism.

Ok im not sure how this works with the whole pathfinder 2e compatibility and im obviously not a professional dev so please take this as a rough idea.

I really like the idea of caring about amunition. I also like the feeling of finding ammunition for your best gun in every shooter. But you will be drowning in ammunition in the later stages of a pathfinder game because you are guaranteed to get rich in any game based on PF2e.
And i also saw some comments about ammunition being to expensive in the early game. (And it is indeed a bit pricy).

What if we would determine the damage die base on the Tier of the ammunition? I think this would solve a few issues.

- We could have cheap early game ammunition and expensive lategame ammunition which would mean ammunition would keep its relative value throughout the game.

- We could design cooler special Ammunition because you could decrease weapon damage if the ammunition gives a cool effect.

- This could also bring back the old weapon categories (small arms, long arms, sniper rifles, heavy weapons) while also having matial and simple weapons. Just make the old categories in to ammunition categories. I think it would be a cool way to differentiate between the different weapons.

- This would also result in cool situations where you could loot your enemies powerful ammunition. It would create a different experience when you fight enemies who can drop ammunition compared to enemies like the swarm. You could also develop different strategies on how to conserve ammo because ammo wouldn't be worthless after a certain point.

- I think it feels better when you upgrade your ammunition to deal more damage compared to your weapon.

What do you think? Is this to micro managy?

Im really interested in what you guys think about going back to Arcana, Nature, Ocultism and Religion.

I really liked the fact that Starfinder 1 said that people started to realize that magic is one giant research field. It felt like a cool continuation from the Feat Unified Theory.
I also have a few problems with the fact that Religion and Ocultism overlap in some campaigns. Mysticism was a cool catch all solution for the old problem of "damn i don't have any enemies / plot elements in this adventure path which require nature / religion / ocultism.

I have read throug almost all of the playtest adventures by now and they mostly found good uses for the "new" skills from pathfinder 2e. But im not sure if they fit the setting entirely. I really liked the fact that the gods of Starfinder 1 had a bigger impact on society. You could neatly attribute some plot elements to mysticism or culture but you could also not involve them in your plot. Now, if you don't want religion to be a dead skil, you have to include them in your plot.
The birth of the newborn adds a lot of potential for weird cults so including ocultism in your games should be easy. But i think some of the old SF1 Plots might have not enough occult themese to make ocultism useful.

Im super curious if you like the "new" skills or if we maybe should advocated for a return of mysticism. I mean we got Piloting and Computers. If we delete Arcana, Nature, Ocultism and Religion in favor of Mysticism we would be very close to the amout of Skills PF2e has. We could maybe Keep Arcana as an oposition to mysticism or we could bring back life science. (But i never liked the overlap betwen life science and medicine.)

What are your thoughts on this topic?

Not sure if anyone else has read the "shards of the glass planet" scenario yet but im even more confused now. It seems a bit random when Life / Physical Science works and when it doesn't. Im at the point where i would advocate towards removing it. It feels like a "remember Starfinder 1"-Thing

Compatible doesn't mean balanced. I don't think we should cripple SF2e in order to fit within PF2e. And SF2e should be allowd to have a different feel and balance/gameplay. Lets say the devs come to the conclussion that fights should be faster / shorter than in PF2e or lets say they want to restrict the amout of healing options available to SF2e Players. I think we should let them and embrace the fact that this is a new game.

If you watch the initial interviews from a year ago, then you can see that the devs keep mentioning that Starfinder and Pathfinder will still be 2 seperate games and that they will give *guidance* on how to move content from one game to another. Meaning that they will allow you to plug elements from one game to another but you will still have to keep a few things in mind. Like the fact that laser guns are (hopefully) better guns than PF2e Guns.

Pathfinder releases a new book every few months. I would argue that PF2e is already getting to big for its own good. If we are now expecting them to balance each Piece of Starfinder Content with Pathfinder Content then we are risking the same problems PF1 was facing. Simply to much content to remember and consider everything when designing new stuff.

TLDR: I think Starfinder should not consider PF2e Content when designing new content (while still being compatible.) I think this will needlessly restrict creativity.

I disagree. PF2e's Inventor and Alchemist work as a classes without monopolizing their specialties to the point that other characters can't interact. I do recognize the obvious differences, tech items and computers are far more pervasive here than, say, alchemical items in PF, but it's not impossible for that to coexist with Mechanic, it just needs to be handled carefully. And I definitely don't think we should pass those judgements until wee actually see the Mechanic playtest for 2e. If the team can't make it work then, we can call to axe it. Simple as.

Do you really thinkt this way? The DCs of alchemical Items and Poisons don't scale because the Alchemist has a feature which grants you that ability. This could be baseline without the alchemist needing it to feel special.

The same thing goes for infused reagents. If the alchemist wouldn't have a need for a resource like infused reagents we could get feats which allow us to use nature or survival to find herbs which we can then turn in to alchemicals. But you can't make any feats which allow you easy access to potions whithout harming the alchemist.

Same thing goes for snares and poisons. Having a class interact with something limits the design space of what those things can do. This is because you need to give the class extra abilities to make them shine. But you can't make them broken. This usually leads to things with class support being underwhelming without the class support.

Ok but you can make up any Lore skill. Having herbalism Lore printed in PF2e doesn't mean anything for Starfinder as long as it isn't specifically granted anywhere. I could decide to pick Pizza Lore and it wouldn't mean anything for the system as a whole.
That is my biggest problem with lore skills. You can only pick them on level up. Which means you need to know in advance if they are usefull. But there are pretty much infinte lore skills which makes it impossible for any GM to make sure that all of them are useful.
My workaround is to make sure that the lore skills, which are specifically mentioned by Backgrounds, have a use case. And then i will suggest a few good ones based on the adventure. But this is a lot of work and sometimes feels pointles.
So in general i appreciate a smaller selection of lore skills. I mean what are you really doing with accountig lore (besides earning income)? If you are lucky you can use this skill a couple of times. But you could also just level society.

This is what i liked about the SF1 Professions. They were more a collection of different skills. It allowed you to say: Im a bounty hunter and im good at bounty hunter stuff. It doesn't matter that im not trained in every skill.

But im getting off topic here.

Please hear me out. I love the idea of a mechanic. But i think the mechanic should be split up in to different ideas and implemented not as a class.

Almost any hacking, crafting and repairing ability from the mechanic could become a cool skill feat. And it makes sense in a setting like starfinder to allow any class to specialize in tech.

The drone which is arguably the coolest part of the mechanic could become something like an animal companion which could be taken by anyone. If you really need to have players spend class feats for something like this, you could make it a dedication like the beast master. But think it would be better to have a tech item called the rigging kit or drone control unit which takes up one of your hands which allows you to use the command an animal action to grant actions to your minion drones.
Drones could just be sold as tech items. And depending on the devs whishes drones could either share or not share your MAP. But the action economy balances itself.
This would also solve the weird SF1 problem where a spy drone was either a cheap tech item or a custom build class feature from your mechanic. It felt really bad to see that a cheap drone could to the same things your mechanics custom drone could do. And you always had to justify why the mechanics drone wa better. Im not talking about combat here. Im talking about the fact that it was a major choice for the mechanic to install a camera module on his drone while the cheap spy drone came with a fully functional camera.

TLDR: I think making the mechanic is own class misses out on cool skill feats and will result in artifical restrictions on normal tech interactions to make the mechanic feel special.

Trashloot wrote:

Oh damn. Im playing PF2e since release but i never realised we had Vehicle Rules xD. Thank you for the clarification. (I still think this could be explained better in the playtest.)

Is it really worth it to use the 2 Action Drive Action to save a check when tradeoff is that the action becomes more risky and you can't turn? This seems not clever to me. But i haven't played around with it.

Yeah, I agree that it should be explained better in the playtest, at the very least, it should be explained thoroughly in the Starfinder Player Copre. I also agree the justification for that rule has confused me some too. I think the idea behind it is you're trading off less checks for simpler movement, and complicated maneuvers need the 3 individual actions.

For example cases, I think the three action version can work on very simple driving situations, like going down a road and drifting around barriers, which would probably have easy DC's, even with a -5 penalty once you reach a certain level.

In terms you're likely familiar with. Think of single action driving as city driving. Lot of turns, and the like. But think of 2- and 3-action driving as freeway driving. You don't need to turn to change lanes. you just shift slightly this way and that.

I really like your example. But is freeway driving really more reckless and warants a -1 penalty to the driving check? I think the 2 Action and 3 Action version would make more sense if they either grant you additional speed or if they made you slower but also made the check easier.

Herbalism already lets you identify a plant with Int. As I said above, Life Science can do everything Herbalism can do, which renders it null.

Also, Lore skills do not auto-scale. They only scale when you use the Additional Lore feat.

On a personal tangent, frankly I let Lore skills perform any appropriate action that encompasses the Lore. Cooking lets you make Crafting checks to create food items, for example. Also, I borrowed from Starfinder 1E and let Lore skills change their Mental stat appropriately, for example, letting a PC use Charisma for Lore Artistry, or Wisdom for Lore Labor or Lore Hunting.

True. But Lore skills are designed in a way that allows broader Lore skills to encompass more specialized ones. PF2e has both the undead lore and the vampire lore as a suggested lore. The more narrow your lore skill is the lower your Recall knowledge DC gets. (Because the skill becomes less usefull.)

But correct me if im wrong. Herbalism Lore is not part of Starfinder? Or have i missed a background which grants Herbalism Lore?

Maybe this is a me thing but i really don't like languages in SF1 or PF2e. And starfinder has a an even bigger problem. There are tons of languages but you can only learn languages during level up. This means that you need to know in advance which language will be useful. But you can't because there are to many of them. And if you aquire a new language you are instantly a master of the language. Maybe it would make more sense to learn languages like a wizard learns new spells.

And its really not easy to find a use for a language. Almost everyone speaks Common and there are even translation apps. Sure you can have the odd encounter where there is a language barrier between you and some random npc but in most cases languages are only relevant when you stumble upon some civilisation which is very primitive or not connected to the wider galaxy.

And the pact worlds languages don't make to me. You may find a kasatha enclave which is to proud to speak common. But why would any Lashunta not use Common or a translation app? In Pathfinder you can maybe argue that they want to seperate themselves from outsiders and that they use their own language to be secretive. But translation Apps make this impossible.
The Playtest book shows that you can use languages to further define your characters identity. We could do this way better if we merged languages with lore skills. Lets say you get a Lore Skill which represents your upbringing, the local customs and the local slang and language. This skill can not be used for social skill checks but its absence or presence might give you a bonus or penalty. You start your Local Lore (for example Castrovel Lore) with master / legendary proficiency and you can use it to decipher writing or recall knowledge about your home planet and its culture. Another advantage of this aproach is the fact that you can have different levels of proficiency with languages which you are learning.

And i realy don't like ancestral languages on a galactic scale. While it is already unbelievable that all goblins on golarion speak the same language, because they are somehow immune to developing dialects or changing their language, it gets even weirder on a galactic scale. When the shirren escaped from the swarm they traveled for a long time. Are you really telling me that my modern day Shirren speaks the same language as some shirren enclave, which was built by a refugee who got lost in some random solar system 300 years ago?
And its even weirder when we consider the fact that languages didn't change or evolve during the 300 years of the gap or during the many years between pathfinder and starfinder.

I know we are handicapped by the Pathfinder 2e compatibility thing. But it would be great to see a design pass (or lore update) for languages. Having over 100 Languages where no language has a purpose is not that fun. Maybe this can only be fixed in the Starfinder GM Core by changing the way adventures are written. But i really hope something happens on this front.

Have you actually played a few playtest rounds ? Area weapons are great. They ignore concealment entirely (because they don't target), they don't care for MAP (but increase it), so you can use a normal attack and then follow up with an area attack and they still deal damage when you "fail") because they use a basic reflex save.

And Soldier is an absolute Monster. Using an Area Attack with a soldier allows you to hurt multiple enemies and then you attack your primary target again without any penalty. This is basically Power Attack++.

The only bad thing about Area attack is its limited range and lack of range increments. And while it makes sense to keep grenades simple and not have them use range increments it feels really bad to use a machine gun with a tiny range.

Oh damn. Im playing PF2e since release but i never realised we had Vehicle Rules xD. Thank you for the clarification. (I still think this could be explained better in the playtest.)

Is it really worth it to use the 2 Action Drive Action to save a check when tradeoff is that the action becomes more risky and you can't turn? This seems not clever to me. But i haven't played around with it.

Another weird thing is that you can technically only recall knowledge (and earn income) with lore skills. So your electrician couldn't use Physical Science Lore to repair anything.

The way i currently intepret this is that the lore is there to give you the option to use Intelligence to indetify a plant because nature would use wisdom which doesn't make much sense in a modern world. I think its also a way to show that your character has a certain general knowledge about a broad topic. Lets say you want to be knowledgeable about all things tech but you play a soldier and you don't have enough skill increases to train Computer, Crafting, Thievery and Piloting. You loose out on being proficent in using the skill actions but you are at least informed about those topics.
But this is still weird because this means that Lore Skills are now broader versions of normals skills while they technically should be the oposite.

But i never really like lore skills anyway. So im hoping that the Starfinder Devs do something clever with them. Its cool to be able to use intelligence instead of other attributes but because lore skills auto scale you always have to be cautious on what you allow them to be use for. So they are either to usefull or never come up at all.

I think they really need to take a look at how flying works in PF2e for the Barathu to make sense. I think its criminal that we still got no good clarification on when to use maneuver in flight and when to use the regular fly action. Most groups i play in simply ignore Acrobatics when flying and one group makes you roll for everything.
With flying playing a bigger role in Starfinder we need a clear ruling on this.

Its also wild to me that you use Dex to maneuver in flight while the Barathu (a natural flyer) gets a Dex penalty.

The maneuver in flight action says hovering in Midair is a Expert Task. (Meaning a DC 20). A level 1 Barathu who is trained in acrobatics but doesn't invest in Dex has a 15 % success chance when attempting to hover.

Or we allow the usage of the fly action to fly 0 Speed to hover as well.
Which is a regular use of the fly action but we never learned when to use fly and when to use Maneuver in Flight.

But its also wild that you can see Barathus hover in every artwork i have ever seen. But RAW you need to waste 1 action to do this. If you don't want to do this, your Barathu needs to land on his tentacles every time.

I think we need a special exception for Barathus, entirely new flying rules or simply allow Barathus to use Air Walk instead of flying. (Rules wise. It needs to be reflavoured.)

Hi,
Im trying to understand Piloting and i have a few things which don't make sense to me.

Does the Stop Action imply that your vehicle moves on its own if you don't do anything?

If thats the case then i don't understand the Drive Action. 1 Action Drive makes sense. You make a check and you can move your Vehicle just lik you would move any other token. (at least thats how im reading it).
The two and three action version confuse me. You spend twice or thrice the actions and get double / tripple the speed but you can't turn your vehicle. (And it becomes reckless.) This would make sense if it gave you twice/thrice the speed to move per action spend. But the way it is written now im just as fast when i use 3 1 Action Drive Actions.
And if the Stop action implies that my vehicle doesn't stop on its own, then why would i ever waste actions to move in a straigth line.

The next thing which confuses me are the stunts. One Stunt allows you to move at half speed and then turn. But this give you a penalty for your piloting check. Is the gain that you can turn? Because the 1 Action Drive Action allows me to turn as well, right? Or is the gain that i can move at half speed and that the drive action forces me to use up my entire movement?

How do you guys read this skill?

Starfinder 1 give you more Lore for this. There is an insectile enemy faction called the swarm. Think of any all devouring swarm species. (Zerg, Bugs from Starship troopers, Tyranids, Aliens from Alien,...)
The swarm launched a major attack on the galaxy which lead to the pact worlds and the veskarium to ally with each other to survive.
The Shirren were part of that group and remind people of those terrifying monsters looks wise. (Think how some people still carry resentment for Germans or how the Krogans (Mass Effect) are still punished for their war on the galaxy.)

The next thing is that shirren mostly use their telepathy to communicate and it is written that people find this creepy. Imagine working in an office space where no one talks. Your shirren colleagues move in unison and are obviously communicating but you can't sense any of this and you are probably bad at reading their facial expressions.
When they talk to you, they sometimes transmit their thoughts directly in to your brain and you can't do anythign against it. You also don't 100% know if they can't read your thoughts.

The last big thing is the fact that shirrens make chittering and clicking sounds when they use normal language. SF1 says that most people find the way chirrens speak a bit spooky.

To quote SF1:
https://www.aonsrd.com/Races.aspx?ItemName=Shirren

Other Races Probably...
- Find your physiology and use of telepathy disconcerting.
- Appreciate your bravery, logic, and diplomacy, even if your conclusions are not always convenient.
- Don’t understand your definition of freedom or your seemingly disproportionate delight over small choices.
- Worry that you might return to predatory, Swarm-dominated ways at any time.

I kinda like this. Spraying with your weapon is way easer than actually trying to hit something (auto fire). A flamethrower, Grenade Launcer and Missile Launcher is not exactly a precision instrument (Area Attack). And a shotgun is arguable the best self defense weapon because you just point in the general direction of the enemy and fire (area fire). I think it makes sense that those things are effective for people who are not properly trained (proficient).

Can we please get the stun trait back? I loved the option to set my weapon to stun. It always felt a bit like playing star trek ^^.
https://www.aonsrd.com/WeaponProperties.aspx?ItemName=Stun

I think that take em alive only exists because the stun trait is missing.

True. But i have seen the livestreams where they weren't to keen on mixing both systems without thinking. I don't want to sound to conspiratorial but infront of every dev sits an editor and some kind of marketing team who wants to sell starfinder to the pathfinder crowd. (Assuming they don't have 100% overlap.)

Source:
https://www.youtube.com/live/hb7jgE0jisg?si=zRlprSZyzkzg0pYq&t=794

The Main Quote comes at 15:00 but i have shared an earlier time stamp for more context.

"Because those game do exist independently. And then your gm, if they wanna do the excelent mishmash campagin, they get the fun of bringing that together. And you know part of our goal is to provide guidelines for people on what to do and how to handle certain things. as they bring them over."

If you watch the video you get the feeling that they want to encourage you to mix things but they are also stress that SF stands independently from PF2e (while being compatible).

I don't want to die on this hill. All im saying is that we should try to give this a fresh look and that we should try to play to the systems strenghts. I mean you could "break" all of PF2es casters by playing an entire campaign in 24 hours (ingame time) because none of them would get their spell slots back. But you wouldn't do that would you? And if you have a player who loves the idea of speaking with animals you wouldn't design a campaign where no animals live. You obiously would make sure that there are enough animals for your player to interact with.
Thats what i mean with designing proper Starfinder playtests scenarios for your players.

I don't know why thinking differently will help, instead of all is melee, it's all is ranged. I don't see a huge difference between Sf-2E and PF-2E, they both operate the same just the core weapon group is switched so we can see what an mostly gunslinger (like) party can do and so far it seems more free-form when ti comes to shooting/attacking things. Which makes casters at 6 hit points more of a liability then before but that is the nature of giving everyone a boom stick that shoot far! Expecting Dex to be king over Str instead is the only major change I feel.

I think differently. Just look at the Field Test Map with the datacenter. This is just a super open map without much cover. Its super boring to play there. But You could easily make this map more interesting if you added a bit of cover and a few places to break line of sight.

Feats like Hair Trigger Punish you for running up without a plan and anyone can now hide behind a corner with a readied gun. You can be the worst shooter in history and your shotgun / framthrower still hurts. You have to get creative in your approach.

In PF2e my players and i usually just flank the enemy. This game has a ton of options to get clumsy or other penalties on to the enemy. So you want to find different ways to set up your kills without just circling every enemy.

Grenades don't have a fixed DC but scale with your class dc. This means that every class can use cheap grenades, area and automatic attacks to gun down hordes of smaller enemies. But i think it will be hard to judge if it is worth to leave the safety of your cover in order to deal bige AOE Damage.

I think this will play totally different if you can stop yourself from falling in to PF2e patterns.

So, I can get behind the idea that we shouldn't be losing our minds just because our Starfinder games don't play like Pathfinder, which thankfully nobody seems to be doing. I similarly agree that if we're going to be playtesting, it would be more interesting for the purpose of useful data collection to use a variety of battle maps and make use of the full range of tools given to us. While PF2e and SF2e are meant to be compatible with one another (more so than Pathfinder and that other wizard game), Starfinder definitely ought to feel like a game that's fresh and different where it counts, so we should definitely lean into that gun-based combat and those flying ancestries.

However, a large part of the above post also reads as "please contrive your scenarios and have your players bend over backwards to paper over the glaring problems of some of the playtest classes", which to me sounds like the exact opposite of what a playtest should entail.

Specifically, the OP talks about the Solarian and the Soldier, which as more people have been sharing their playtest experiences are standing out as the two least functional classes in the crop. It's not difficult to read the between the lines and see the issues the OP is trying to redirect us away from: when I read "make sure to build maps with lots of cramped spaces and side routes so the Solarian can sneak up on the enemy", I see "the Solarian can't adequately close gaps by themselves, and will need help from the GM, perhaps even specially-drawn battle maps, just to function in that respect". This is the kind of problem I want to highlight through playtesting, not hide, and any QA tester worth their salt will tell you that one of the most important aspects of making sure a product is fit for purpose is to specifically test out edge cases and see how the product holds up to scrutiny.

So please, do in fact place your Solarian in a field 100 feet away from a sniper and see how they fare. Have your Solarian face up to some of the level 1 ranged flying enemies...

What do you mean with contrived scenarios? (not really a spoiler but be warnde) There is a flying enemy in the playtest Adventure "A cosmic Birthday" in a room with a ceiling height of 40 feet. Assuming your Solarian is at least 5 feet tall and the enemey is at least 5 feet tall as well we have a maximum distance of 30 Feet which is exactly the range of your ranged option (and all short range spells) thats what i mean when i say we need to think about this game when we design our maps. If the Designers had chosen 50 feet ceilings the enemy would easily outrange 30 feet cantrips and the solarion. But a 40 Feet Ceiling is fine.

Trashloot wrote:

This is not a solarian issue. Many Witchwarper cantrips cap at 30 feet range.

And many Witchwarper cantrips have twice as much range (e.g. daze, frostbite, needle darts, and slashing gust), so if range is your concern, I don't see why you would deliberately go for the worse ones in that regard.

Trashloot wrote:

A witchwarper can't use many of his features against flyers as well.

Warp Reality can target a burst in the air, and has a range of 100 feet. The class can also use a variety of effects within that quantum field that damage enemies.

Trashloot wrote:

I think thats why we can cast gun.

Casters are certainly encouraged to "cast gun" in this game, and can do so capably because they'll want to increase their Dex anyway. The same I don't think should be expected of the Strength-based class that is specifically designed to fight in melee range.

Trashloot wrote:

We can also always run away. Run through the next door and wait on the other side. Attack with AoO when the enemy passes through the door. Or get in to a space with low ceilings. And we should be fighting in places with low ceilings a lot. I imagine most fights will take place in starship corridors and buildings. If you are outside you should have access to flying cars, hover bikes and other cool stuff (or you run to the next building, cave, whatever to force the enemies down.)

I think there are a number of issues to this:

Running away and waiting behind a door with a big mallet like it's Looney Tunes is not going to work very well when the enemy is ranged, very much does not want to enter melee range, and circumstances may force you to approach them and not the reverse. Also, AoOs don't exist by default in this game, you have to take a feat for it at 4th level as a Solarian.

Even in the ideal scenario of the extremely boring featureless corridor with a 10-foot ceiling, the Solarian is still going to need to cover a lot of...

This is a Starfinder playtest. You can bring in Pathfinder 2e cantrips but you have to assume that there will be player who only own the SF Core Rulebook. And i think we shouldn't focus to much on "third party content" like Pathfinder2e. All cantrips and spells have a hard range cap. So a flying enemy with a ranged weapon can always outrange them.

Warp terrain can target the air but its still capped at 100 feet. Get em from the envoy is caped at 60 feet. At some point class Features will stop working and only long range guns work.

I think casters are just as much encouraged to invest in their dex as solarians. A caster needs only one general feat to get armor training which he can get at level 1 as a human. A vesk can get the armor ancestry thing. All Casters can easily get by with little dex just like the solarian. But in the lore solarians try to achieve a balance. This is why i think it makes sense that they want both dex and strength. I would honestly build my Solarioan with 16 Str and 16 Dex.

Well sometimes you are stuck in a s@*#y situation. But when you are waiting for the enemy to approach and the enemy waits on you, the party which gets impatient first, usually looses. (Or the party with the most rations wins.)

The Solarian might need to take cover but the flyer needs to spend actions on staying in the air.

Trashloot wrote:

I think its fine that Solarian needs a jetpack or fly spell in order to catch up with flyers. They could also just use a gun. (Or Solar Flare gets propper range increments.) Not everyone needs a solution for every problem. You have a party of 4+ after all.

I think the issue right now is that "flying enemies" are an extremely common problem, and even just the playtest scenarios are full of flying enemies who can also shoot. If the Solarian is not equipped to address this basic problem at all, short of firing a gun worse than pretty much any other Starfinder class, then the solution to the problem is to just not play a Solarian at low level.

This is not a solarian issue. Many Witchwarper cantrips cap at 30 feet range. A witchwarper can't use many of his features against flyers as well. I think thats why we can cast gun. A laser Rifle is a simple weapon with a 100 feet range increment.

We can also always run away. Run through the next door and wait on the other side. Attack with AoO when the enemy passes through the door. Or get in to a space with low ceilings. And we should be fighting in places with low ceilings a lot. I imagine most fights will take place in starship corridors and buildings. If you are outside you should have access to flying cars, hover bikes and other cool stuff (or you run to the next building, cave, whatever to force the enemies down.)

Please don't be annoyed by me saying that this is not PF2e. I mean that this is entirely new game and that we should look at the playtest like a game which is seperated from PF2e as much as possible.
The devs said that this game will be compatible with pfe and for some reason they are talking about PF Classes fighting alongside SF classes. But i think this should be viewed in the same light as Pathfinder 1 being compatible with DND 3.5 / 3.

More importantly we should focus on the fact that we need to build our playtest encounters around the intended meta of SF2e. This means that we need maps which have enough cover and line of sight blockers to allow solarions to sneak up on enemy soldiers. I think we should look at XCOM maps (newer games) and take inspiration from them to facilitate flanking and tactical aproaches.
The weapons in SF2e seem to have relatively short ranges. But considering that we are less likely to fight in an open field it might not be a problem. Many SF Fights will take place in cramped star ship corridors or busy urban enviroments. I think we should get inspiration from real life and video game close quarter combat szenarios. (Video from the game Door Kickers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxD1BxkAZ3k)

I think we should forget PF2e Classes for a hot second and focus on potential Starfinder Parties. Mystic has really nice healing abilities which should be considered when talking about the durability of the other SF Classes. The fact that the witchwarper gets access to a mighty heal spell (motivating ringtone) tells me that we should expect our casters to supply at least a bit of healing for the front line. Mystic was described as a healer (not a supporter).
When we talk about solarians movement and gap closing abilities we should consider the fact that we have 2 casters which can easily provide a +10 Feet speed boost with motivating ringtone and a ton of other options like the envoys second level feat get in there.

We should also be creative in how we approach our groups tactics. This is not PF2e melee mode. We can have a Solarian or Soldier carry a Riot shield while a teammate throws a 10 credit smoke grenade in the enemies face to provide concealment. If you delay your turn correctly the operative could shoot at an enemy before the smoke goes up and then lie in wait with hair trigger to shoot at everything that comes through the smoke. Area Attacks and Automatic weapons don't care for concealment and some area attacks can easily circumvent cover. You could use a smoke grenade to generate concealment and follow up with a nice round of frag grenates, flame throwers and rocket launchers. When the enemy starts its turn they either have to move out of the smoke or deal with concealment.

TLDR: Don't force this game in to a PF2e mindset. Be open and creative. Play the same encounter multiple times and try to figure out other approaches. And most importantly: HAVE FUN :D.

While i think that Missiles and Grenades (and their launchers should have the are traitd) they still use Area Attacks which is often enough for your soldier abilities to work.
(I think they just forgot to add the traits.)

They described the Mystic as a healer. I really think they are trying the classing Trinity. Both Witchwarper (motivating Ringtone) and Mystic have good heal options. I think the Solarian has just enough hit points to Survive a few hits and he needs to be healed after the fact (which is easy with Vitality Network). I also think its a good idea to pick up a Carbon or Phase shield because you have 1 hand free per default (or 2 with free hand weapon). You don't get shield Block baseline for some reason but the extra AC is nice. And it only costs 20 Credits.

You can use Solar Rush to gap close or to create a "wall of concealment".

The playtest adventures have a bunch of melee enemies as well. You could use Solar shot to poke the enemy and kite them until they are weak enough to go in for the kill. If they get close to you use nimbus.

I also think Solar Shot exists to play around corners and to weave in and out of line of sight. I think map design is esential for SF2e and should follow different principles than PF2e Maps. There needs to be enough cover and alternate routes for the Solarion to slowly flank around the enemy.

And i think the solarion should pick up smoke grenades and a reusable grenade shell or grenade launcher to cover his approach. You can smoke the enemies and force them to move out of position or to make everything they see concealed. You have free hands after all.

Can't we just allow the Solarian to use Strength for Thrown Weapons to hit and make the Solar flare something you throw at the enemy ? Solar Flare already adds Full Strength to damage. Also allow Solar Flare to profit of of handwraps and we are gucci. This would negate the inherent need for dex and give the solar flare proper range increments.

I think defy gravity is meant to glide over difficult terrain and stuff. It is not your default flying option. But i see your point.

I think its fine that Solarian needs a jetpack or fly spell in order to catch up with flyers. They could also just use a gun. (Or Solar Flare gets propper range increments.) Not everyone needs a solution for every problem. You have a party of 4+ after all.

This is obviously "too good to be true".

I don't agree. But i do agree that the armor only applies the Item Bonus when being engulfed. Because paizo did the same weird formating in the polymorph trait.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=127
Everything after: "If you take on a battle form with a polymorph spell" only applies to battle forms. I wish they would make this much clearer by saying something like. "Apply the following changes if you are engulfed: "

Back on topic:

This happens exactly once or maybe twice per fight if at all. The enemy graps you, gets stung by the armor and it will probably not grapple you again. We also need to remember that Full Plate wearing Martials are rarely the target of grapples. You mostly want to grapple lightly armored mages who can't easily escape. The warpriest would be a good candidate for this rune because they get medium armor and are still priority targets. Everything else has just to high of an Attack / Athletics / Acrobatics stat to easily escape your grabs.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Equipment.aspx?ID=1838
It also applies MAP. And the action, when you actively attack the enemy, doesn't let you escape the grab. So you would perform your escape with an map of -5.

It is a really good item but it is extremely niche in its use case. You also need to constantly upgrade the rune for it being useful. Sure on level 6 it is really good but you would probably not be able to buy it "on curve". If your are following the Treasure per Level table then you would get ~ 125 in raw gold on level 6. You are just coming off of buying your armor potency rune on Level 5. Its more likely that you will buy this rune when it is a few level behind. And then its Attack bonus is not that special anymore. And lets not forget that you might never get grappled or engulfed after buying the rune.