moosher12's page

Very few weapons start with 0 upgrades, so it's safe to say that 90% of the time, a converted weapon would have 1 upgrade.

The aldori dueling sword would automatically gain the analog trait in losing the archaic trait. And it would have 1 upgrade slot by default, and gain successive upgrade slots as normal.

I remember reading the rules for 1E starships, and trying to build even a test starship on pen and paper was a nightmare. I can see why people saw online apps as mandatory for space combat. But that's kind of the issue, too much computing was needed for a tabletop game. Looking forward to seeing what Tech Core figures out.

As many others said, any of us that were keeping tabs on it knew for a long time Starship combat was not gonna be in GM Core or Player Core. And as Arutema said, honestly I'd rather let them cook so that we can have a well thought out starship combat that blends depth and personalization with ease of use.

At this point, I'd save any complaints for the possibility of Paizo releasing the Starship combat and it not even being good. But let's not be pessimistic and hope the cooks are on to something.

moosher12 wrote:

Starfinder Player Core pg. 437

The glitching condition is not clear as to the duration of the effect. Both the failure and critical failure effects impose the penalty without a duration (such as the end of the turn?).

The duration is quite clear.

"The glitching condition always includes a value. If you have glitching equipment and take any action involving that equipment, you must attempt a flat check to see what occurs. If you have the glitching condition, you must attempt this flat check at the beginning of each of your turns. The DC of the flat check equals 5 plus your condition value or the item's condition value.

Critical Success Reduce your glitching value by 1."

So we can see that Glitching is reduced by 1 every time you critically succeed at a flat check either when using glitching equipment or starting your turn while glitching.

I'm not talking about the glitching condition itself, I'm talking about its individual penalties. As its penalties are not throughout the affliction. They are instead triggered within the affliction.

The failure condition should still specify that the penalty is until the beginning of the next turn, or until the end of the current turn, as it leaves it up to GM interpretation as to whether reactions are affected.

There is also the option of saying it's until the next check, but if you're using a glitching item, that penalty would be until your next attempt to use the item, which can be one action (for potentially 3 checks a turn), or 5+ whole turns occuring before a check is attempted depending on how long it takes you to use the item, so as the penalty affects all checks, even ones unrelated to the item, nor does it include a clause that says that dropping the item removes these checks, this would theoretically create a situation where you have to spam uses of the item until it stops glitching, else face an indefinitely long glitching condition. Which raises a further question, are you allowed to spam uses of the item to quickly deal with glitching items like with Sickened? Is that an intended route or is that just the way things fell into place? Are you supposed to attempt once per turn? Or are you supposed to spam uses to diffuse the affliction quicker.

Setting an effect length also tells you whether or not you're allowed to repeatedly address the glitching condition for an item. If it is until the next check, you can attempt to unglitch an item up to 3 times, 4 times if the item can be used with haste. If it is until either the end of your turn, or the beginning of your next turn, then you can only attempt the check once per turn.

As you can see, yes, the glitching condition itself, has a clearly defined time to go away, but its individual penalties have an unspecified time when they come into play.

The problem here is, there are at least three ways to interpret this. You may pick one, but another GM may pick another, and neither is exactly wrong by raw because GMs are simply left to fill in the blanks, which is problematic.

I don't think one book would quite cover it, but I'd like it.

A starter place would be a slow roll out of melding Pathfinder classes into Starfinder and vice versa via society play, in which case, much of those rules would take place in a yearly society manual.

Once a few errata passes have been issued to smooth out Starfinder within its own, and data has been gathered for society play, a inclusion of Starfinder options for Pathfinder classes, and vice versa, would be the next logical step. It is at this point we can see about making a hybrid book. But problematically, Starfinder feels like it lacks a talking point so far.

Pathfinder of course can talk about Numerian and Stasian technology (people really keep forgetting about Earth-imported tech), but the problem with Starfinder is Pathfinder stuff does not even have to be anachronistic. It can just sort of be. Magic is simply so high, especially in Starfinder 2E, that most Pathfinder classes have a place, especially when the Starfinder Spell list is just the Pathfinder spell list but more. So unless Starfinder wants to talk about how Pathfinder's classes reside in the Starfinder scope as scifi classes, there isn't much setting lore to drop as there simply isn't anything special about someone who went to university to become a wizard the same way folks did in the olden days. But I suppose it's an option.

A book though, could take place at the end of this research cycle, congregating all the wisdom of live testing after a few years. Suppose it can be a sort of hybrid Core book, too. Adds flavored feats to most classes to add to the inter-support, goes into more detail on specific conversion rules. If it's a core book, can probably even include a class that applies to both Pathfinder and Starfinder in equal measure. Shifter/Evolutionist idea could be a good target.

Yeah, Starfinder is just sort of doomed to get a portion of what Pathfinder gets, even if they started at the same rate, unless Starfinder really does pick up some traction. The compatibility helps, I mean, it has me winding up to run Guilt of the Graveworld. But really the only reason I'm humoring it is because it's compatible enough, and if it was much more incompatible, I'd have entirely ignored it. But my next plan is Pathfinder, so. If I couldn't allow all Pathfinder classes and most Pathfinder ancestries, I'd have not bothered. A well-oiled conversion system is what it'll take to keep the Pathfinder 2E players coming back to using Starfinder stuff.

But for example, even if they started at the same pace, Pathfinder simply gets more. The Pathfinder Core Rulebook had 12 classes, with 4 more the following year in the Advanced Player's Guide. Starfinder began with 6 classes with only 2 more planned for next year. (But granted, if Starfinder began with 12 classes, that'd be problematic for coming years, as Starfinder only had 13 classes, reduced to 12 if we combine Precog and Witchwarper, which means if Starfinder began with 12, we'd have the entire 1E roster day 1, with everything the following years having to be entirely new. It's a valid strategy, as it gives Paizo a 3-year buffer before they have to figure out completely new classes)

Starfinder also does sort of make up for it by giving ancestries at a faster rate than Pathfinder, though.

I suppose a controlled rollout makes sense, the more I think on it, the more I realize that this year's season 1 is a good opportunity to get data for errata, so a limited rollout of Pathfinder classes in season 2 would not be bad if that's the idea, with an intention of eventually approaching a generous allowance of the classes that thematically can fit a few years in.

But all this is assuming that's actually the intention.

System bleed is also sort of the point. They are supposed to be compatible. Wouldn't call it compatibility if the systems weren't bleeding into each other. It's a feature, not a bug.

And in the end, it's just healthier for the game. Starfinder uses the Pathfinder system to bring in Pathfinder players. If Pathfinder players cannot do what they love, they'll just go back to Pathfinder and abandon Starfinder.

Do you want Starfinder to have a lot of books like Pathfinder, or do you want Starfinder to have a very small selection of books like it did in 1E? The reason for that is simple, it had to compete with people who played Pathfinder and would not touch Starfinder. They are absolutely right that people would only wanna focus on one game. Because if you make a situation where Pathfinder folk realize it's not actually meant to bleed together, you run into a situation where they are gonna pick one or the other. They'll just revert back to Pathfinder and leave Starfinder trying to gain its own following seperate from that, So better hope the Starfinder 1E players are happy with the state of 2E atm, or that Starfinder 2E is so good it'd have Pathfinder players wanting to jump over, because otherwise you're not gonna be starting with the best long-term numbers.

There are three or four times as many PF2 classes as there are SF2 classes. The result would be that people would go in interested in playing SF2, only to find that it's just PF2 2: Now Electric.

I see zero issue with this. It's not like the majority of the classes cannot exist. What, does the future have no commanders, inventors, investigators, kineticists, monks, psychics, rangers, sorcerers, summoners, and witches? They exist. I mean, the book even includes the Borrow Spell activity, an activity only usable by Magi, Witches, and Wizards. Not even the Technomancer had a mention of using the Borrow a Spell activity.

The systems do have different balance and assumptions. Dropping a reach weapon melee Fighter with a large-size reach ancestry into a fight designed around ranged enemies is just going to be a cakewalk in a way that standard martial progression off-stat melee Soldier won't be. Investigator's relatively inoffensive Studied Strike is a lot more of a menace when you hand them a sniper rifle. Thaumaturge gets weird once you move away from a "two hands" assumption. I don't believe that Paizo has the time to pore over all those PF2 classes and handle all the edge cases that are going to be a problem. People do also play stronger things more, so the broken edge cases would be over-represented.

Let the fighter shine. Besides, the easy fly will mean fliers can more easily just get out of range. As for the sniper rifle? You're saying that as if you cannot already hand an investigator an Arquebus with a scope in Pathfinder, which has a better range increment than a sniper rifle anyway. Not sure what you're on about for the two hands assumption, just grab a good pistol for the thaumaturge.

It's a means a lot of system bleed. Having Swashbuckler means certain skill feats must be in SF2. Having Alchemist means all the alchemy items need to be in the system.

I've examined every skill feat in SF2E, they are for the most part just copy pastes except for cases where an item atypical in Starfinder won't be mentioned in favor of a Starfinder equivalent. As for alchemy, alchemical elixirs are essentially serums. A medpatch literally has the exact same stats as an Elixir of Life, and Serums are essentially Elixirs to the point that I just ended up saying, "Relabel Elixirs as Serums" for personal games If a player has Serum Crafting, I let them craft Alchemical Elixirs as Serum equivalents as a result. Bombs are another matter, but I doubt it'd hurt anything. In the end it's just a less durable grenade. Serum effect logic already proves that Starfinder chemistry is just modern alchemy, so renaming an alchemist to chemist is really all you have to do to get compatibility. Even then, just because one class is troublesome to bring in, does not mean the classes who are not troublesome cannot be.

I expect a lot of GMs wouldn't want to deal with two games at once, even if it's the same underlying engine.

Valid, but see below

Overall, it seems like an experience that would give new folks a poor impression of Starfinder, and I'd expect a lot of posts complaining about how they should be separated again, at least for Society.

Well we're stuck with a a weird case of somewhat compatible but not compatible enough. Paizo really should have either chosen Fully Compatible or Not Compatible at All. Because frankly, trying to mix them together has been a multi-month project that sees no shortage of complaints on its own in this board. Either make it not compatible at all so I can stop caring about it and it can be in the same attention space as Starfinder 1E, or make it fully compatible so my workload can be reduced.

Maybe less GMs would be hesitant to deal with mixing if it was fully compatible. Especially when you realize after a thorough read of the system, the amount of changes you need to exercise for compatibility is simultaneously less than you'd think, but still requires a full front-to-back reading of the system to realize that in the first place.

Because for all the compatibility rules I've made, I've actually had to make much less rules than I expected going in. But it took reading the Player Core front to back and doing a side-by-side reading of the Pathfinder Player Core alongside it to come to that conclusion, currently doing a side-by-side reading of both the Pathfinder and Starfinder GM Cores, and so far, the changes are slim.

Wait, SFS won't let you use Pathfinder classes?! Like, I forgave the limited class variety in Starfinder because I always figured, "Pathfinder has it covered," especially when a design point of Starfinder classes is not stepping on the toes of Pathfinder classes. With that design decision, it made sense if players were being assumed to bring up Pathfinder classes into Starfinder.

I saw no need for a survival class, for example, because why not just play a Druid or Ranger and give them a gun?

But if you're actively forbidding Pathfinder classes, all that will result in is, well of course, the limited selection, but second, being forbidden from making Starfinder classes that fulfill these niches because Pathfinder has them, effectively locking potential classes out of Starfinder.

SFS really should just allow Pathfinder classes. (And PFS should allow *some* Starfinder classes that fit within the fantasy-steampunk framework).

Having a design philosophy that Starfinder and Pathfinder classes should not step on each others toes is simply not compatible with keeping them entirely separate in organized play.

The interesting thing is they actually are rather intelligent. Back in 1e, their intelligence was only 8 for a -1. Main issue was they fed on Aucturn's, now The Newborn's egg's, ichor, a powerful and addictive narcotic, which held them back so much they never cared for moving on from a more primitive tribal state and creating civilization.

I guess the loss of the ichor might have given them the clarity to try to integrate into society? Though honestly I didn't expect survivors, figured at first they would have gone extinct with Aucturn hatching. I guess there were some survivors, or it could be there were some sober traders who worked off world.

Huh, I was not expecting this. So I'm reading Starfinder GM Core, and there is a line that gives an example,

"For instance, while orocorans are a relatively common foe for adventurers to encounter in the Gelid Edge and are thus a common creature, in most settings they're still far less prevalent than humans or ysoki and would be an uncommon ancestry."

This seems to indicate orocorans, the ancestry of Aucturn, might get an ancestry in either the upcoming Starfinder ancestry book, or perhaps an adventure. I honestly never expected they'd get an ancestry at all, wonder if that's the case.

Ryangwy wrote:

Tridus wrote:

The Raven Black wrote:

A PFS mission would most likely not entail executing civilians.

Definitely not. I picked something egregious deliberately. In normal PFS play anathema isn't much of an issue unless the player is leaning into it or someone is doing something wrong.

Conveniently, all the gods whose anathemas would make it hard to play PFS are banned (you know, the ones that want you to execute civilians)

This is a tangent, but there was some concern about skeleton PCs and clerics of Pharasma.

Arazni's Edict can be a problem, too. Genzaeri's anathema would often be unhelpful. The scattered nature of a series of one-shots makes Zjar-Tovan difficult unless you're passionate about doing whatever the society tells you.

That's just the allowed ones out of the 60 most common gods, let alone hundreds of others, or charity boons that allow semi-evil options like Razmiran Priest.

Starfinder actually had a solution to this, where Pharasmins aren't beholding to killing undead, (especially holding a mass genocide of Eox) if it's more trouble than its worth.

Your edict is to destroy undead, but if an undead is helping to contribute to the greater good, or is too much of a threat that you would not be able to survive the fallout, it's not anathema to leave it alive. In which case, you're encouraged to help them reach their final resting place if they're agreeable. And encouraged to not work with them beyond necessity. But if cutting them down on the spot would result in severe repercussions for you, such as your fellow team wanting to kill you, it's not anathema to let the undead live (for now). Though if the undead becomes unreasonable to deal with, such as if they create undead despite your warnings, it would then start to enter anathemic territory to continue to work with them.

The unfortunate thing is your party could still try to pressure you to put Soothe in your top slots, as it's still very potent healing.

It only has a slightly lower heal average than a 2-action heal spell.

*cough* ...Rahadoum... *cough*

(^_')=b

I guess that's what I get for taking the Dubious Knowledge feat during my last Birthday

Yes, Rahadoum, my bad. ^^;

Starfinder Player Core pg. 437

The glitching condition is not clear as to the duration of the effect. Both the failure and critical failure effects impose the penalty without a duration (such as the end of the turn?).

Starfinder Player Core pg. 431

The Implant Augmentation exploration activity still lists Augmentation Specialist as an optional prerequisite, a skill feat that used to be in the playtest, but was removed in the Player Core.

Starfinder Player Core pg. 431

The Impersonate exploration activity refers to a disguise kit instead of a holoskin. Minor mistake, though.

I don't know, to me it does not sound like Paizo is being unreasonable here. It'd be exclusivity if the only option was cleric, or if the alternative options were bad. But it is neither of those things. All the other options are pretty good. In some ways better than a cleric. An Animist can give someone fast healing once per 11 minutes, and can always bring their party to full health if enough time is given.

But what strikes me odd is, if a player finds the idea of worshiping a god anathema to them themselves, why want to play the class whose name means 'priest' in the dictionary? If anything, the atheist country wouldn't allow divine magic at all, whether or not a god was worshipped. So even if you were an atheist cleric somehow, you'd still be banned from operating in Ravounel. The solution is to be either an Occult caster, a Primal caster, or a science-based healer such as an alchemist.

moosher12 wrote:

And, if someone wants to be a white mage, there are many options.
Just be any other Divine, Primal, or Occult caster that doesn't follow a god. Be an Animist, a Bard, a Druid, a Mystic, an Oracle, a Psychic, a Sorcerer, a Summoner, or a Witch.

Any of these classes is well kitted to be a great healer and white mage.

If we're talking FFXIV, Tempest Oracle is a better White Mage than Cleric is in terms of how it feels to play, IMO. You get Waters of Creation (aka Cure 3). You can get Nudge the Scales easily (aka Afflatus Solace). You have tons of Heal. You also have a bunch of solid "blow things up" abilities, and WHM is known as "Glare Mage" for a reason.

If you want something that mimics the lore, Animist is closer than Cleric is as Conjuror is tied to the spirits of the Twelveswood in Gridania, not the gods.

Exactly, core point is that if you want white mage atheist healer, the Pathfinder and Starfinder systems give you no shortage of paths.

Also, I forgot Alchemist. Then there are the Blessed One and Medic archetypes.

To R3st8
I'm an agnostic. Very excited to play a cleric of Pharasma in a Season of Ghosts game this saturday (first time as a player). But if you don't wanna worship a god, don't play a cleric, and don't try to turn a cleric to what it isn't. A cleric is defined as a priest of religious leader. Odd to say, "I wanna be a priest, but I don't wanna worship anything."

R3st8 wrote:

Some players simply played healers in other games, like MMOs, as a white mage or something similar, and wanted to do the same here.

Copying MMOs should not be the goal of a tabletop game. Also, MMO players seem to exclusively view healer as a burdensome job. That's the worst attitude to take to a tabletop game. Give them the DPS job that everybody wants.

And, if someone wants to be a white mage, there are many options.

Any of these classes is well kitted to be a great healer and white mage.

To me it depends on the type of requirement.

If it is a vague thing, like 1E's version of the barbarian or monk, I don't think you should be forced into a certain manor. There were certainly ways to make a character who was an orderly barbarian or a maverick monk. And I am thankful those limits were removed going into 2e

If it is about aligning with a specific character in lore, a deity being the case, I think it's fine to metaphorically sign the contract and be expected to not make them angry with your actions. If you want to be a more vague priest that doesn't align with an existing god, for example, you can probably have your GM tailor a custom god that does match your exact philosophy. But if you wanna be a cleric of pharasma, well it only makes sense you should lose your powers if you decide you wanna practice necromancy.

Then there are the druid orders. They are a bit more dubious, as they approach closer to the vagueness of 1E I just brought up, but their anathema are pretty hard to break, as they are written in a way that if you wanted to break them, you were unlikely to want to be a druid in the first place. So it's at least certainly better than being in the "You're a monk, so you cannot lean toward chaotic mannerisms." deal.

You could interpret it that way, but it conflicts with what I understand about Petitioners/Shades or runs the risk of you calling someone that knows nothing about the thing you want to learn about.

From strictly a setting view, there's nothing wrong with being able to call a spirit once they've become a petitioner with a high likelihood that they simply are useless to you. Honestly, story wise as a GM I love it. Sorry, no shortcuts, find another way. But as a player it would be frustrating since the ritual is Uncommon in the first place meaning the GM had to allow you access to to be even to able attempt it, and then did you dirty by not allowing it to even be really successful in giving you info.

So, I'm just going to ignore the bit in the ritual about "final resting place" because all those pieces just don't really make for a compatible story lore and mechanics.

I also like the idea that after a certain time, things are simply off limits. And much like why resurrection doesn't work, it becomes the purview of the GM. You can give the spell or ritual, while saying you can do this with some people, but some are simply not avaiable.

Well, we already got the answer from James Jacobs that using their name or a part of their past will temporarily jog their memory for the purpose of the ritual, which is an elegant solution.

Oh, to add context, the word petitioner is not specifically used. Nor is Shade. So no worries, Petitioner isn't being used in any Remastered content to be edited out, as far as I've found so far. I just referred to petitioner out of habit (mostly because I had the Bestiary 2 on hand, but not an entry for Shades, as if it was in Monster Core 2, that's not out yet.).

If I was able to change the name of the thread, I'd have renamed it to "Shades and Call Spirit" this morning, but that's besides the point.

Nonetheless, thank you very much for an explanation of the mechanic of calling a Shade.

My take would be similar to SEO's.

A petitioner/shade wouldn't be a valid choice for the ritual, similar to Resurrection. A soul remains a "the soul of the creature skilled" until judgement is passed by Pharasma, if I understand things correctly.

So as long as their still awaiting judgement you have a chance. How long does judgement take? It varies by plot necessity.

That's what I had figured at first, but a soul that is awaiting judgment is not necessarily in its final resting place though. Now granted, the spell might have the power to call a pre-judged soul, but it emphasizes calling souls from their final resting place, which would necessitate a judged soul from that source.

So, I was rereading the Call Spirit ritual when reading over the Starfinder Player Core, and it reminded me of a question. Call Spirit lets you bring someone from the afterlife to answer a question, in a way that sounds like it doesn't mean their echo for a typical ghost, but for the actual original spirit. But the thing is, the Petitioner from Bestiary 2 says that in most cases, spirits lose the memory of the mortal life outside of brief hazy fragments and half-remembered dreams, and I recall reading elsewhere that one of Urgathoa's rewards was that she was one of the few gods that'd let you retain all of your mortal memories in her realm.

So this brings in the question: How does it work to Call a Spirit, if the spirit as a petitioner lost all memory of its mortal life? I am figuring the intent is not that it is supposed to forget and have little capability to answer questions. Is it imbued with memories relevant to the purpose of its summoning? Does it briefly regain its memories in whole or in part?

Starfinder Player Core pg. 385-386

The Forge Drift Beacon ritual should have 2 secondary casters, not 3. The spell says that it requires a multiple of 3 casters to work, but if 3 secondary casters are used, that makes for 4, requiring you to have 5 secondary casters in addition to yourself, minimum, to cast the ritual without it failing. And the note that it requires "at least 3 casters" leaves 3 casters to be an impossible condition without using the Ritualist archetype.

A thing I'd note about PF1E characters being considered unplayable is it's a sliding scale depending on how overtuned your fellow players are.

A character that's perfectly playable in one game can become unplayable in another game where all of your fellow players are minmaxing everything. Which is why concerns about overtuned ancestries in Starfinder are here. It makes an otherwise fine ancestry start to feel weak.

Which leads you back into the 1E conundrum. Because the 1E fix for this problem was: "Learn how to tell your players, 'no, just because it's in a book does not mean you can have it,' and then ban everything that was strong."

For example, I had a player lamenting to me: "Why can't a vampire archetype have all the powers?" to which I had to answer, "Because most GMs would ban it outright if it did." Gave another version of that answer to another player lamenting why fly speed couldn't be a base thing in Pathfinder.

Now, it's one thing to ban an uncommon or rare ancestry, as players already know they are not expected to have it until they are granted it. But the problem is. What if the banned ancestry is a common ancestry. Dragonkin is common, after all. Imagine a player walking to a Starfinder table, excited to bring in their dragonkin, to which the GM says, "Nope, it's banned. Too powerful an ancestry." Arguments can be made on whether the GM is right to make that call, but the more you overtune an ancestry, the more likely this is to happen.

I have to partially disagree, as because Starfinder does not have jump flight as a stopgap, Pathfinder flying ancestries should be entitled to, depending on the ancestries methods of flight, either a level 1 fly speed, or a fly speed available with a greatly reduced heritage or feat cost. (A strix could fly right away, a tengu could fly with the proper heritage, and the dragonblood and nephilim can fly as soon as they get their first feats). Then lies the question of what speeds to issue, as 20 appears to be the standard for Starfinder, which won't be as easy a slot in for the 25-35 speed ancestries. Even with my attempts to consoladate this, I still recognize Starfinder's current ancestry pool as a bit lacking to make a call on which ancestries could get what speeds as a single "closest approach to intent" Because until Starfinder releases jump-flight ancestries, it looks like Starfinder would not intend for flying ancestries to have a jump flight delay (This would have applied if the Shirren stayed as it was in the playtest, as its original draft had jump flight, but the buff going into the remaster gives a strong indication to my point above. And frustratingly made me scrap that very same original assumption on my part as yours.)

But in agreement to Teridax, there are cases where a two-way conversion is simply not needed. Some battle form spells, for example, have different options, Starfinder would get the Pathfinder options, but Pathfinder would not get the Starfinder options (except maybe Moonflower for Monstrous Form). Spells like Wild Bond simply need to be nerfed going into Pathfinder. Conversely, Gunslinger might want a redefinition of proficiency going into Starfinder, while Operative would want a redefinition of proficiency going into Pathfinder (Though luckily this last one is actually explained as recommending "Just give ranged weapon proficiency")

So I do say that yes, there should be a conversion guide, and the conversion guide should cover both Pathfinder ancestries and classes in Starfinder, and Starfinder ancestries and classes in Pathfinder.

Then you have ancestries like the Android, Human, and Ysoki that are just straight up their Pathfinder equivalent with some additional Starfinder themed feats.

(Android did lose it's emotional debuff, but something gives me the feeling if they ever remaster the Android, it'd have that debuff removed too).

The problem I see is that people are trying to force all races to be equal. All races are not equal. That is why you have the uncommon and rare traits. Make Flyers uncommon or Rare and let flyers fly.

Give dragonborn glide at 1st level and flight at 5th level simple fix. Give them the feats from the 3rd party author that used to work for pPazio.He knows game balance.

I ported a flying race from another game they get 40' gly at first level
they are small and have a penalty to strength and hate melees they hate bright lights and have a penatly to their fort save from flash or orther light effects.

Dont't try to shoehorn all races into one cataory PFS while fun is far to restrictive and should not be used as a normal set for all races.

Okay, Awakened Animals, Sprites and Strix are Rare, so they should get a full fly speed then.

And 40-foot fly at first level? You definitely overtuned. Already exceeding max land speed of 30 feet for swift ancestries like elves. That's not at all a balanced allowance. All you did is make one player character that's gonna vastly outpace all your non flyer player characters on top of getting the flying benefits of being able to ascend out of melee range, unless you buffed all their land speeds to compensate. Fly Speeds that equal speed are reserved for a level 9/level 17 feat chain. A 1, 5, 9 chain grants 25 feet (add a 4th at level 13 for 35 for the Strix), and a 5, 9 chain grants 20 feet. Max speed in Starfinder is also 20 feet. So you are way over sane bounds. And no, giving a penalty to a dump stat is not gonna help to rebalance a buff that is that far ahead in the least. Additionally, flash and light effects? That's gonna come up so rarely, especially for a protagonist, it's barely even a weakness. If you wanna balance that out, you need an ACTUAL tradeoff. Like an additional penalty to Con instead of Str, or to buff the light weakness to being dazzled in Bright Light conditions, and only facing no penalties in Dim Light and Darkness.

Look, I don't mean to harp on you specifically. To be frank, I've been there. I've made a lot of overtuned calls in my earlier years of GMing. You should have seen how broken my players were in Rise of the Runelords, well beyond the usual breakage of 1E. It's just a thing newer GMs do. You'd allow things because, yeah, it makes sense they have the speed. But, you also eventually learn many of the balance points exist for a reason, because they either save you a headache, or your fellow players a headache. The art of homebrew is not just making, but making and actually making it balanced. And sometimes we GMs think, "That's a fair tradeoff," when it really isn't. And it isn't until we have a more thorough understanding of the actual implications of the decision that we can effectively make these decisions. And it can take a lot of GMing hours and system mastery to start to learn to think that far ahead.

For the necromancer at least, if it was Sanctified, it'd be able to benefit from applying its sanctifications to Sanctified spells. Additionally, it can potentially sanctify the strikes of their summoned thralls and minions.

The main thing is, while it makes sense for a wizard or a fighter to be too wide to tend toward sanctification, necromancers are sort of a unique case where the grand majority of what they will typically summon when they use a Summon Undead spell will have the unholy trait. Your non-unholy non-unique options are slim to the point you won't be able to use Summon Undead to summon such a creature until level 7 with a Floodslain Orc. (As for Evil creatures without the Unholy trait? All Remastered Undead creatures were Evil creatures with the Unholy trait when they gained the trait, which means trends would indicate the grant majority of them gain the Unholy trait as well, with the exception of some spirits and other niche standout).

Now granted, they have a special ability to Summon Thralls which conveniently lack a sanctification trait. But part of the appeal of being a Necromancer is using the full Necromancer spells. Because if you're summoning skeletons and zombies? If you summon a Skeleton Guard or a Zombie Shambler, you don't get a choice whether it is Unholy or not. It is simply Unholy.

The only real way to be a non Unholy-themed necromancer is to be a Spirit Monger as a thematic alternative to the Animist. Because if you're anything but, you're going to be very much Unholy by vibe at minimum. Certainly doubt any holy gods will be taking you.

Player mileage will vary depending on whether the GM uses Nephilim advancement, Dragonblood advancement, Tengu advancement, or Strix advancement.

Dragonblood advancement is the closest to a dragonkin, but it does not get minimum flight until level 5.

Strix advancement is the only style that grants level 1 flight, but it produces speeds higher than a dragonkin in Starfinder.

So then further mileage will vary depending on how the GM chooses to reconcile these two different approaches.

Might use Strix approach, but might then choose to nerf the speeds, making normal Strix advancement innately stronger as it's still a 3-feat investment to get the full rate

Might use Dragonblood approach, but might then choose to add a level 1 feat to get innitial access, but then you're spending 3 feats for a normally 2-feat investment.

Might use Tengu approach, but then you have to add a new heritage, blocking off other available heritages.

Nocticula is only mentioned in Starfinder 1E, and has yet to be mentioned in Starfinder 2E (so she won't appear in the SF2E AoN until she is mentioned)

Until then, we can assume she's still her 1E version, but there is a very significant chance she'll be retconned into being redeemed. So I'd brace yourself for that potential as a possibility.

As for what I can find on Nocticula, she's mentioned in Pact Worlds pg. 26 as having pleasure cults. Granted, I've only read up to Near Space, so don't know if she gets further elaboration.

Like if you want to include the Starfinder Dragonkin ancestry in your PF2 game, is it because you want the character to be from this far off distant planet? Or is it just because you like the aesthetics and wanted a more "dragon-like" PF2 ancestry? If it is the latter, I would really recommend waiting a couple of months, as the Draconic Codex is soon to release and going to offer these options more directly into PF2. If it is the former, and it is about the lore and bringing sci-fi elements into your pathfinder game, then the table really should get together and talk these things through. It would be just as fine to just let flying characters fly from level 1 as using ancestry feats from a different flying ancestry, depending on what your group wants.

Well, there is the simplest answer which is all the answer that is needed. Dragonkin are simply present. Rare, but present. They even appear in Pathfinder Bestiary 5. Pathfinder characters in lore have met dragonkin, and the means for a dragonkin to visit and settle in Golarion is well established to be quite feasible. Dragonkin know dragons well on Triaxus, and many Triaxian dragons are very powerful to boot. More than powerful enough to go hopping about imposing their influence within the solar system, yet alone the galaxy.

Dragonkin are simply available, and won't be any more rare than a Shisk.

This is a setting where Zo! himself would recruit and transfer a group of heroes to join his game show on Eox just because he found them interesting.

Castrovelian, Akitonian, and Aucturnite merchants have set up shop in Druma.

Shotolashus are an UNCOMMON animal companion. They are native to Castrovel.

Interplanetary trade is already a thing in Pathfinder. That's the long and short of it.

A dragonkin is about as weird as a geniekin. That's a result of interplanar trade, yet alone interplanetary.

As Lia Wynn said. I don't think it should be mandatory, but I want an option. I like the idea of being a necromancer that's such a loyal follower of Urgathoa or, say, Nin, that they bestow unholy power on you.

Another thing is, if you don't want to be dipping into the sanctified spells, just don't learn and prep those spells.

The fact of the matter is, gods of undeath give unholy sanctification, it simply makes sense that members of the class that deals the closest with undeath would tend to follow these gods more often, and should have an eligibility for the sanctification.

An example in play, is Starfinder's Mystic. The Mystic does not need to follow a god, but there is a level 1 feat that lets it follow a god and gain sanctification if it picked a divine connection.

To give a homebrew example, my plan for Barathu was giving them a land speed of 20 feet with the Hover trait. Which would let them ignore difficult terrain and any floor-based hazards.

Then letting them earn their flight with feats.

Though seeing default fly speeds of 20 feet has been giving me cause to reevaluate my general fly speed arrangement. My next pass of fly rules is probably gonna accomodate clumsy fliers (Shirren and Tengu), Normal Fliers (Automatons, Barathu, Dragonblood, Dragonkin, Nephilim, Geniekin) and Swift Fliers (Strix, Flying Awakened Animals, and Sprites) with a 15/20/25 speed rate, as opposed to the land equivalents of 20/25/30.

GM Still has to write up the feats that Dragonkin would use and then reduce their fly speed to 15 feet, using that optional rule. Even then, they then have to apply that optional rule to all flying ancestries. But what if a GM does not want to give default fly speeds? What if they want it to be earned?

I mean, I already did that work and built a method, allocating feats and congregating the flight rules. I did those even before Dragonkin was released as home rules, and my rules already apply to dragonkin, so it was as simple as dropping them in.

But, you don't have my method, and you'll use your own method. If my player joins their game, if they're used to my method, is gonna chafe against your method unless it's better than my method. In which case, they'll chafe against my method when they play my game

Because there is no standard, there is no vanilla method to call the player's default. So a player's default will be the GM method they like the best, to the detriment of GM's whose methods they like less, as pressure tends to be applied to use the more popular home rule. And if a GM holds fast that their method is the best but the player disagrees, it's to the detriment of the player.

Having a standard conversion is a defense for both GMs and players, because it sets the vanilla baseline. A GM does not have to worry about pressure to use someone else's home rule, when the official conversion rule already exists.

Harm of course

I think Necromancer should have an avenue to become sanctified unholy, and should get access to Divine spells with the Sanctified trait.

That's the point of what we've been saying? A conversion has to be made. Would be good if we had some standardized conversions.

But the typical answer will be converting what is outside the system to be within the system, not converting the system to accommodate what is outside the system.

Otherwise, why aren't we just using Starfinder instead?

And to add, if it's balanced for a dragonkin to have a 20-foot fly speed, it's balanced for Awakened Flying Animals, Sprites, and Strix having level 1 full flight.

The case falls apart when the player with one of these ancestries starts asking why they aren't getting the full fly unlock of at least 20 feet.

You simply can't justify granting an unedited dragonkin in Pathfinder without granting the appropriate buffs to these ancestries, or for additional example full flight at level 5 for dragonbloods.

It's an understandable sentiment. In playtesting, we definitely ran into the lack of a physics skill once or twice. If it's something you feel strongly about, it might be a good thing to write up as some homebrew- a solid set of skill feats for Natural Science, Physical Science, and Mysticism (mostly the shared caster stat ones), would make it a lot easier for GMs to incorporate if they like the old SF1 feel.

Another option is doing a reshuffling of skills as a whole. All of our skills are pretty modular in a sense. You can always write up a new skill array that takes existing skill actions and reorganizes them into something more scifi.

Not suitable as a base change, but it could certainly be an optional rule. For example, in Pathfinder 1E, there was a Consolidated skills optional rule that reorganized the skill arrays.

Battlecry! playtest was April 29, 2024, and Impossible playtest was December, 9 2024

Maybe I want to mash up the two games differently than you. Why does there have to be one and only one canon way to mash them up?

As someone who regularly homebrews Pathfinder, just do what the rest of us do. Declare "I'm gonna deviate from this rule and make a home rule."

As a regular homebrewer, I just see this as a time saving measure. It's less work I have to do, and it means people that don't want to have to homebrew, but want to mix the systems, don't have to homebrew. it means people that are used to homebrewing, don't have to homebrew nearly as much, as they can always use 50%+ of the material, and then choose where to deviate for their own games.

Because as far as I see it, I have to do everything. And you also have to do everything. Our standards are also gonna be different, so if we swapped players, there'd be an unpredictable amount of common ground between both of our approaches, which is just gonna make it harder for players. Imagine bringing in players, and because there's no standard, you're using whatever you figured out for yourself. New player 1 will say, "GM B did this rule better." New Player 2 will say, "GM C did this rule better." You can of course just say, "Well I'm not them, we're doing mine." But you better hope yours is actually better. And it's not like there's gonna be a standard to use as a baseline, so your only comparison point will be against other GMs who might have a better or worse system than yours.

We homebrew all the time, but there is one official way to play the game. That's called every single book Paizo officially published. We as GMs venture off of that safety net all the time, and that's the brilliant part of it. I've modded Pathfinder so much it's basically a different system, but I still acknowledge that the official Pathfinder is still the official Pathfinder, and I see zero difference if there was an official conversion guideline. I'd use much of it, then scrap what I didn't like because I know I can if I want to. But I'd still call it the "Official way to play," and respect it as such if I was a player. And the best part is. If it's the official way to play, that means it does not have to be something for home tables only. Society players would be able to use it.

Kasathas, Lashuntas, Shobhads, Contemplatives, Ikeshtis, Ryphorians, Elebrians, Dragonkin. There are examples of these species walking around on Golarion or being met by Golarionites within Pathfinder. A rare option to bring one home and become a potential Pathfinder is not an impossibility with the Starfinder system out. The idea of a Dragonkin Pathfinder is not a bad or impossible idea, but it certainly will not be sustainable long-term without an official conversion guide.

Ectar wrote:

Squiggit wrote:

I 100% prefer crafting to engineering. Genuinely surprised to see something so trivial being used as evidence of the system being diluted or weakened.

Crafting vs Engineering is a flavor fail, but not a load bearing one.

The removal of Physical Science without an adequate replacement is more symptomatic of SF2E being diluted, imo.

I think this is backwards, tbh. Having "pretty much all the sciences" crammed into one addon skill helped contribute to SF feeling like a weird hack of Pathfinder.

Like... astronomy, geography, geology, meteorology, oceanography, all forms of physics and chemistry, and also a catch all for all forms of potion and medicine crafting mashed together was just kind of a disaster of a skill.

On this note, I do kind of feel that having Physical Science and Life Science as Lore skills was not the best idea. I'd have rather seen individual sciences left to have Lore skills. For example, Chemistry Lore would be a subtype of Physical Science Lore. Therefore, Physical Science would probably be cursed with having a lower DC reduction than Chemistry, a -2 for Chemistry versus a -1 for a physical science, for example. Life Science and Physical Science just feel too broad to even benefit from the typical -2 reduction, and feel they merit a -1 at best.

To me, these Lore skills just feel shoehorned in to keep a semblance of tradition, when they don't actually work within the established framework of what a Lore skill is supposed to be. They can't really be allowed to represent the full scope of what subjects their original SF1E skill covered without having their DC reduction reduced to -1 or -0 (for example, what's the point of Animal and Plant Lore if Life Science Lore covers both plus more? Therefore, it has to have a lower reduction than Animal or Plant Lore would grant.). The 2E Lore system is designed for a playscape where the Science Lores would have been divided into more specific subcategories.

Pharasma is a god of fate, so her staff would organize your eligibility to be resurrected. If she chooses to keep you, the spell would actually fail. And your buddies would not even have the power to bring you back. So it's by her blessing you are revived. I've always interpreted it as being something like this:

You awake in a grim, gothic queuing room, the light of a mysterious, faced moon shining through the stained glass. As you peer around, you see multiple skeletal wisps, forming a cue in in a seemingly everlasting line. As you are getting your bearings, you hear a shrill voice, calling your name, only to find it coming from a masked raven, perched on the ceiling above, "Hello, adventurer. Hello, adventurer, you must be 98413354135135321. Welcome to queuing room number 42123 of the Boneyard. I must send my deepest condolences to say that you have perished, but, the good news is your friends are currently speeding their way home with your body lovingly in tow. And you are predicted with a 97.12 per-cent probability of being revived. You are cleared for return to your home plane, actually. So, while we have a lovely spot in Elysium for you to spend an eternity basking on the beaches, should your trial go as planned, you are free to opt in to the resurrection program. If so, follow me, we've got a secondary waiting room in tow. Your resurrection is expected in about four days, five hours, 31 minutes, and 3 seconds, so it should not be a big wait. My dossier here says you like books, perhaps you'd like a library room to bide your time?"

I mean, up to you if fey interaction is considered a life science.

But Life Science covers these

Aberrations (Occultism), Animals (Nature), Humanoids (Society), Monstrous Humanoids (Society), Oozes (Occultism), Plant Creatures (Nature), and Vermin (Nature)

You're only gonna get half of these in the skill.

You can try to rename it for vibes, but you're never gonna get the performance of the old skill.

Yeah why wouldn't they be?

Because Life Science in 2E by that definition would be doing everything Nature does. Only Mysticism could cover primal magical beings. Life Science was not capable of covering that. Therefore Life Science is gaining non-science capabilities in that definition.

Lore = Profession

Crafting = DIY Crafting
Nature = Natural Sciences

So, out of curiosity, are fey and fey magic considered natural science?

Is a Xenowarden Druid in Starfinder's primal magic part of natural science teaching?

One thing I found interesting is that there is no engineering lore in the Player Core looks like it might have been replaced with Technology Lore.

But it also looks like Paizo doesn't expect you to limit yourself to just the listed lores. In The Great Absalom Relay, there are 4 lore skills listed that you can use for skill challenges that don't appear to be published in SF2e, although one of them is in PF2e.

They really don't. If you check Pathfinder AoN's Background section, and filter by skill, you'll find so many unlisted Lore skills. All the listed Lore skills are are examples. You can make anything a Lore skill as long as it is sufficiently more specific than a full skill, or even another Lore skill. But some Lore skills simply overlap. Market Lore and Corporate Lore would have a lot of overlap with Mercantile Lore, but there are some spaces where they are different. And I was not kidding when in an early thread I suggested a Sandwich Lore.

Life Science, for example, is allowed to exist as a Lore skill, because it covers flora and fauna, but likely would not allow you to identify fey, give you information on the First World and Elemental Planes, or learn or identify Primal magic.

When we say community guide, we mean a guide built by members of the community, but not officially so. 3rd party and fan productions, basically.

While I agree with Ectar that it makes Starfinder 2e a slightly worse game I think using a very slight superset of the Pathfinder 2e ruleset was absolutely the right thing to do both from a marketing point of view but also to leverage much more of the Pathfinder 2e base.

It's definitely healthier. Making them two seperate systems just meant Paizo was competing with itself. And in that self competition, only one system will win. Want to see the example? Well, just look how much Pathfinder books there are versus Starfinder books. Problematic fact of the matter is for most people, it's hard to give two systems simultaneous attention, especially when both systems can be quite expensive. And if Starfinder was sufficiently different, well I'd just be focusing on Pathfinder. Lot of people will be willing to share the mental capacity (and wallet capacity) when 95%+ of your wisdom in one game applies to the second game.

And as I said back during the playtests. Starfinder 2E is already too different from Starfinder 1E that they will lose people in the process. Starfinder 2E's book release shows its hurting for attention, so if you lose a good amount of your player base, you'll have to fill it in with another group. Pathfinder 2E is just the group to try to bring in.