sewergolem's page

As far as class mechanics are concerned, IMO the classes are fine as they are. Most likely the only people b~$$*ing are the munchkins who are frantically looking for a way to break the game with their preferred class.

Here is my biggest concern for the game. Although damage scales up very, very quickly as characters level, at the early game damage is way too low vs the hps everything has.

I'm drawing from the lessons learned from 4E D&D (yes, a game I played for many years). One of the biggest lessons learned from that game is everything just had too many damn HPs. It caused combats to drag on longer than needed. A correction I eventually applied was to drop monster hps down 25-33%. In return, there was a corresponding boost in monster damage. It made combat much, much smoother.

Looking at the conversion guide for converting Pathfinder monsters to Starfinder, it suggests bumping monster HPs up 25%. No! No! No! No! No! Especially not in the early game when you're doing d6-d8 ranged damage with no ability mod damage increases.

Anyways, my point is, early level Starfinder is like slogging through mud. It's tempting to just start everybody off at level 5, just when things start to get interesting.

Steel_Wind wrote:

Short answer: Yes.

Longer Answer: Yes, but if you try to outright strip away all Undead, you will probably seriously undermine the utility of many adventures and expansions. Better to come to some pseudo-biological explanation you can make youself comfortable with on that score and downplay it.

There is a point where the benefits to using a current system can be undermined by varying the default assumptions too much.

nothing wrong with robo-zombies.

Also, when you look at zombie genres such as Walking Dead, Resident Evil, Night of the Living Dead, 28 Days Later, HP Lovecraft's Reanimator, etc there's nothing magical about those undead. They're the result of a virus, radiation, chemical concoction, etc.

I'm sure you could strip out all the "magic and mysticism" if you wanted to. Another option is just to re-skin it all. Instead of magic, it's instead psionics and ancient alien technology that you just don't really understand.

However, if you really can't live with that option either. Well, perhaps Traveler is the system you're truly looking for.

IMO, making a melee character is one of the most frustrating aspects of Pathfinder. Traditionally, the fighter or "weaponmaster" is one of my favorite classes in fantasy RPGs. Though, at this point, the fighter has fallen so far behind the other Full BAB classes that it's laughable.

This forum seems to have a love affair with rangers, but... meh. I've attempted to make one for various games on several occasions, but never came up with a build I was happy with. They have a lot going on for them, but that's also their weakness. They're just spread too thing amongst all their various features.

Barbarians are very solid mechanically, and most likely the standard for melees in Pathfinder. Unfortunately, I HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE, HATE the flavor of barbarians. Their rage powers have gotten so out of hand that there is no way I can justify it in an RP sense. They're far more supernatural than martial at this point.

Paladins... not going to lock myself into a LG character, pass.

All in all, I would have to say my favorite melee class is the Summoner. I've found through experience the synergy between a well built summoner and eidolon can flat out be scary. In addition, the summoner winds up being a solid buffer for his eidolon and the party as a whole. Not to mention the battlefield control one brings to the table as well.