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I also wanna point out that Golarion is hardly grounded in tech level during Pathfinder times, with non-magical clockwork capable of acting as autonomous robots and one lineage of firearm technology dating back thousands of years. There’s two nations with industrial factories, and several with gunpowder-equipped militaries.

I think that would only mean tech advances even faster than normal (Earth equivalent) as those robots and firearms would eventually find their way out of those nations and spread across the realm.

Then magic may counter balance this and slow tech advancement to an Earth equivalent. So I think in 600 to 800 years Golarion would have achieved a “space age” type tech level and then the Gap occurs sometime after that.

No, you trying to map the tech advancement is fruitless, since again Starfinder and Pathfinder are two SEPERATE timelines, one doesn’t lead into the other.

When you say “separate timelines”, do you mean they are alternate realities?

I thought Paizo might have created the Gap so Starfinder didn’t step on the toes of Golarion’s possible future in the Pathfinder setting. If Starfinder presents an alternate reality, I wonder why they didn’t just keep Golarion in the solar system and flesh it out. It would be nice to visit a futuristic Golarion.

Nevertheless, I don’t think the effort to map the tech advancement for a custom game is fruitless. Pondering such gets the creative juices flowing and opens up so many opportunities. Adventures in different eras/genres of Golarion, time-travel opportunities, etc.

Assorted hints and tidbits suggest that discrete outposts of tech development on Golarion were just starting to enter the Space Age (cat 3) when the Gap began.

This is interesting, at least we know then that Golarion got to early Space Age tech level. My task would be to then plot out the tech advancement over the years.

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Oh… I had 2 more questions…

1) I was thinking of picking up the Iron Gods adventure path. Have the alien entities/robots from that adventure been officially mapped back to an origin point in the Starfinder universe?

2) Is time travel possible in Starfinder? With either magic or technology or both?

Thanks so much for the info. That helps a lot. I’m wondering whether to jump on board with Starfinder.

When it originally came out, I wasn’t sure about it mainly because it used slightly different rules to Pathfinder (1E). My attitude was, if it’s in the same universe, it should use the same ruleset. I’m happy with the announcement that the next edition of Starfinder will use the same ruleset as Pathfinder 2E.

Is there anyone out there who has modified the current Starfinder rules to bring it back to the Pathfinder 1E ruleset?

...So we have no idea how far tech on Golarion has advanced.

With my first question, I wasn’t asking what level of tech Golarion would be at if we knew where it had disappeared to. I was asking at what rate would tech reasonably advance on Golarion? Would it advance at the same rate tech has advanced on Earth? Would it advance slower? Or would it advance faster? One could argue it might advance faster as you’re throwing magic into the mix which is really another power source like electricity or nuclear.

GURPS breaks down tech levels based on the real world:

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Tech Level 3 - Medieval (600 AD+)
Stirrups; oceangoing sailing ships (longships, roundships, etc.).
Steel weapons; early firearms; plate armor; castles.
Heavy horses and horse-collars; windmills.
Crude prosthetics; anatomical science.

Tech Level 4 - Age of Sail (1450 AD+)
Stagecoach; three-masted sailing ships; precise navigation.
Muskets and pikes; horse artillery; naval broadsides.
Improved windmills; belt drives; clockwork.
Optical microscope makes cells visible.

Tech Level 5 - Industrial Revolution (1730 AD+)
Steam locomotives; steamboats; early submersibles; balloons and early airships. Early repeating small arms; rifled cannon; ironclads.
Steam engines; direct current; batteries.
Germ theory of disease; safe anesthetics; vaccines.

Tech Level 6 - Mechanized Age (1880 AD+)
Automobiles; continental railways; ocean liners; submarines; aircraft.
Smokeless powder; automatic weapons; tanks; combat aircraft.
Steam turbines; internal combustion; alternating current; hydroelectricity. Antibiotics; blood typing and safe transfusions; heredity; biochemistry.

Tech Level 7 - Nuclear Age (1940 AD+)
Nuclear submarines; jet aircraft; helicopters; manned space flight.
Ballistic body armor; guided munitions; combat jets; nuclear weapons.
Gas turbines; fission; solar power.
Discovery of DNA; organ transplants; pacemakers.

Tech Level 8 - Digital Age (1980 AD+)
Satellite navigation; SSTO ("single stage to orbit") spacecraft.
Smartguns; blinding lasers; unmanned combat vehicles.
Fuel cells; advanced batteries. Genetically modified organisms; gene therapy; cloning.

Tech Level 9 - Microtech Age (2025 AD+)
Robot cars; space elevators; manned interplanetary space flight. Electrolasers; heavy laser weapons; battlesuits; combat robots; designer viruses.
Micro fuel cells; deuterium-hydrogen fusion; high-temperature superconductors. Human genetic engineering; tissue engineering; artificial wombs; cybernetic implants

Tech Level 10 - Robotic Age (2070 AD+)
Fast interplanetary space flight.
Compact laser and heavy particle-beam weapons; Gauss guns; nanotech armor; nanoviruses; antimatter bombs.
Aneutronic fusion; antimatter. Brain transplants; uploading; bioroids; uplifted animals.

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So… if the current year of Golarion in the Pathfinder setting is 4723, could we say that its tech level is about the equivalent of very late middle ages Earth, say 1500 AD? And, then, would it be reasonable to say tech advances at a similar rate as Earth from there? So, in 200 years on Golarion, we will have steam power across the globe (Industrial Revolution)? In 400 years will Golarion have railways and automatic weapons (Mechanized Age)? In 500 years will Golarion have nuclear weapons (Nuclear Age)?

Normally, we don’t think about this as most fantasy settings seem locked into their tech level (usually medieval/Renaisance). And, even if the heroes go into the future or the past by thousands of years, it’s still usually at roughly the same tech level as it always is - and we except this as it’s fantasy. But with Golarion, we know it advances in tech via the Starfinder line of books, so I thought it a reasonable question to consider.

1) We know that technology will advance on Golarion because we have the result of that advancement in the Starfinder setting. The “Gap” doesn’t let us know how far into the future the Starfinder setting is but can we assume the Golarion tech level advances at the same rate as it did/does on Earth? So, in a couple hundred years we’ll have an “industrial revolution” on Golarion and then, from there, tech blasts off at an exponential rate?

In most fantasy settings we don’t have to think about this as it doesn’t have a companion setting that’s set in the far future with advanced tech. We can just assume the setting pretty much stays at medieval/Renaisance tech level as that’s what we know and love from fiction - the setting might stay like that for thousands of years and we can hand wave it as it’s fantasy. With Golarion, however, it is confirmed it does advance to a high tech level. So I find the question of how fast tech advances on Golarion needs to be asked.

2) Are elves, dwarves, gnomes, half-elves, half-orcs and halflings as prolific as they were when they lived on Golarion? I just ask the question as they’re not core PC races in Starfinder.

3) Where do the core Starfinder PC races (lashuntas, kasathas, androids, vesk, ysoki, shirrens) come from? Are they from planets within the Golarion solar system or are they from external solar systems?

4) What examples of a fusion of magic and technology are there? Can you just get a +1 enchanted blaster, etc? A starship nuclear reactor of endless power? Has magic crafting been industrialised with magic-using factory workers pumping out magitech?

5) The Pathfinder setting is called Golarion. Does the Starfinder setting have a name? It would be nice to refer to it as something other than the “Starfinder setting”.

Thank you

Will this be released as Starfinder Player Core, GM Core and Alien Core?

Or, will it be as some have suggested and be more of a campaign setting book and PF2 core rulebooks will be required to play?

Thanks folks. I didn't realise the placement of a city near a river was more about transportation. That makes sense. And because Absalom is a port city on an island it doesn't need a river - all its trade comes from the sea.

I probably need to study up on medieval life to truly appreciate how people got water from wells and the like.

Maybe Absalom does have an aqueduct system but it would have to be below ground as it doesn't seem to be on the maps. And this is kept apart from the sewer system. Maybe if Absalom is so high-magic sewer waste isn't really a problem either. Maybe they deal with it with strategically placed spheres of annihilation or planar gates.

I'm on the look out for a good port city and was thinking of picking up Pathfinder Chronicles: Guide to Absalom. Upon looking at the map, however, I notice that the city doesn't seem to sit next to a river. So, I was just wondering where such a city would get its drinking water from?

Are there underground springs feeding wells?

Thanks

Since Falcon's Hollow is a river town, heavily centered on river traffic, I just made the "well" a spring that feeds into the River Foam. I actually placed it a good ways out of town on the northern end, because I wanted there to be the chance of the spring actually being purposely tainted by Syntira's agents without being seen (that's my own subplot though, and not part of the official adventure).

I was planning to do a similar subplot. I was going to combine the ideas in Hallow's Last Hope (with the blackscour tainted spring) and the kobold warrens of Crown on the Kobold King. Then I was going to ditch the kidnapped children hook. The hook would be the PCs investigating who poisoned the well - which they'd find out are the kobolds.

So, for this reason, I wanted to place the well on the map so the PCs could travel there and investigate it. Perhaps picking up clues or tracks.

Placing the spring out of town a bit and running off into the River Foam makes sense. How many miles out of town did you place it?

Also, just out of curiosity... How would villagers transport the water from the spring back to town? Would they just load up a cart with lots of wooden buckets full of water? Or, carry the buckets by hand if they didn't have transport?

Cheers

Hi folks,

I'm looking at the map of Falcon's Hallow in "Crown of the Kobold King" and trying to figure out where Brookman's Well would be placed.

Brookman's Well is said to be "a small spring on the edge of town" in the "Hallow's Last Hope" module.

I was just wondering where others have placed it. Would it be outside the town wall?

Thank you