Starfinder Alien Archive 3

So I wonder, if mounts are hitting in this book, are the traditional racial mounts of the Lashunta, the Shotalashu, showing up? I can't remember if they were in any of the other two archives.

So I wonder, if mounts are hitting in this book, are the traditional racial mounts of the Lashunta, the Shotalashu, showing up? I can't remember if they were in any of the other two archives.

They were already in AA2.

Still not sure what I make of this being the GenCon release in lieu of something more substantial like the Character Operations Manual.

Still not sure what I make of this being the GenCon release in lieu of something more substantial like the Character Operations Manual.

I mean... they’ve got a pretty big release scheduled then that might overshadow three new Starfinder classes a bit or be a shipping conflict. But even setting that aside, I think the public playtest was planned for early in COM’s development.

Dark Midian wrote:

Still not sure what I make of this being the GenCon release in lieu of something more substantial like the Character Operations Manual.

I mean... they’ve got a pretty big release scheduled then that might overshadow three new Starfinder classes a bit or be a shipping conflict. But even setting that aside, I think the public playtest was planned for early in COM’s development.

The Starfinder CRB sold out at its GenCon release in less than a day despite Paizo bringing more copies than they'd previously brought of any other book ever. Armory sold out at GenCon in two days, and the main reason it lasted as long as it did was because there were some copies being held in the back for subscribers who grabbed them off the shelf instead. Keeping the COM on a separate release from PF2 means that Paizo will have the best possible chance of having sufficient quantities of those books to meet the demand at their respective release conventions. Trying to release them simultaneously seems like it could be a bad move on multiple fronts.

Ellias Aubec wrote:

Sounds nice. Good to see more weird and wacky playable races coming with that swarm race. Any chance that living hologram gets a PC option?

If so, how do you get around being tethered to a projector?

Know what would be awesome for that? Something akin to The Doctor's Mobile Emitter from Star Trek Voyager >.>

I'm up to Starfinder Alien Archive 3. It sounds neat.

I thought that the cover had updated...

I'm sorry if this sounds obnoxious, but this is the first Starfinder book that I am NOT excited about.

I have 2 alien archives with a ton of playable races and aliens, I am sorry but I have NO NEED for an AA 3 now.

I really wish Paizo would push out almost anything else, instead of this. There's a galaxy of room for expanding: magic, technology, planets, corporations, weird space phenomena, starships, starship combats... like literally ANYTHING would be more useful than a AA 3.

Again, apologies, but I had to say it out loud.

We each all have different valid hopes and wants, like for me for instance the Archives are the reason I stay subscribed, I LOVE seeing new monsters and creatures.

I also love the planet articles in the APs too.

I'm sorry if this sounds obnoxious, but this is the first Starfinder book that I am NOT excited about.

I have 2 alien archives with a ton of playable races and aliens, I am sorry but I have NO NEED for an AA 3 now.

I really wish Paizo would push out almost anything else, instead of this. There's a galaxy of room for expanding: magic, technology, planets, corporations, weird space phenomena, starships, starship combats... like literally ANYTHING would be more useful than a AA 3.

Again, apologies, but I had to say it out loud.

I can understand the desire for more, but disagree that it's too soon for another Alien Archive. (And they said at the Starfinder launch that the plan was always for an Alien Archive every year until further notice.)

While you can convert Pathfinder monsters to Starfinder, many of them are tied to Golarion and require a bit of mental gymanstics to justify putting them on an alien planet with a different evolutionary history and, one hopes, only limited cross pollination from other planets. With exploration of the unknown being such a big campaign space for Starfinder, and with such a wide variety of ecosystems being available given armor environmental abilities, Alien Archives fill a real need.

Personally, I love all the books put out for Starfinder so far.

I'm sorry if this sounds obnoxious, but this is the first Starfinder book that I am NOT excited about.

I have 2 alien archives with a ton of playable races and aliens, I am sorry but I have NO NEED for an AA 3 now.

I really wish Paizo would push out almost anything else, instead of this. There's a galaxy of room for expanding: magic, technology, planets, corporations, weird space phenomena, starships, starship combats... like literally ANYTHING would be more useful than a AA 3.

Again, apologies, but I had to say it out loud.

I agree that i would be more excited for a starship book, planet book or a book with more lore about the SF universe.

I can understand the desire for more, but disagree that it's too soon for another Alien Archive. (And they said at the Starfinder launch that the plan was always for an Alien Archive every year until further notice.)

While you can convert Pathfinder monsters to Starfinder, many of them are tied to Golarion and require a bit of mental gymanstics to justify putting them on an alien planet with a different evolutionary history and, one hopes, only limited cross pollination from other planets. With exploration of the unknown being such a big campaign space for Starfinder, and with such a wide variety of ecosystems being available given armor environmental abilities, Alien Archives fill a real need.

I can agree about the general need for a lot of new aliens to fill the Starfinder world. But we already have:

While we still haven't got a book dedicated to starships and starship combat/exploration, magic and all the rest that I have already listed.

I am firmly convinced that AA3 is not a priority (for the customers) at this moment. Or at least it certainly isn't for me.

I don’t really play Starfinder, so at the moment I have no interest in Starship rules, let alone the tech (I skipped over Armory).

But more monsters and creatures from all over the universe? Yes please :3

We do play Starfinder and we want more of everything.

I don’t really play Starfinder, so at the moment I have no interest in Starship rules, let alone the tech (I skipped over Armory).

But more monsters and creatures from all over the universe? Yes please :3

You should play Starfinder then, It's a terrific game!

I don’t really play Starfinder, so at the moment I have no interest in Starship rules, let alone the tech (I skipped over Armory).

But more monsters and creatures from all over the universe? Yes please :3

Armory is really great! And it has a surprising amount of lore hidden in them pages.

Lashunta child to parental lashunta: But mom, why do we have to eat the giant insect!"

Parental lashunta: Out of spite, dear!

Also, the augmentations and armor upgrades alone justify buying Armory.

Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

I don’t really play Starfinder, so at the moment I have no interest in Starship rules, let alone the tech (I skipped over Armory).

But more monsters and creatures from all over the universe? Yes please :3

You should play Starfinder then, It's a terrific game!

:3

I tried, there are parts I love and parts I hate. I'm not completely opposed to playing it again, though, and Dawn of Flame looks promising.

Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

I don’t really play Starfinder, so at the moment I have no interest in Starship rules, let alone the tech (I skipped over Armory).

But more monsters and creatures from all over the universe? Yes please :3

Armory is really great!

I would also endorse the Armory book. It was really well done, imo.

I probably wouldn't suggest buying it if you are only looking for lore rather than options for a game - the Pact Worlds book is the place to go for that. Nonetheless, as someone who doesn't generally like equipment books, I found this one to be great.

I like the fact these books include Player subsystems - the ever-growing plethora of PC races, but also including stuff like rules for pets/companions in the Alien Archives. Personally, I don't enjoy reading monster books. Having "extra stuff" in them makes them that much more palatable, even though it costs a dozen or so monsters.

I'm curious if this will include Vital Statistics for some of the adventure path races that weren't covered in AA2.

I'm curious if this will include Vital Statistics for some of the adventure path races that weren't covered in AA2.

Living Holograms are from the Dead Suns AP, so I would expect so. Wouldn’t surprise me to see more Elementals, Robots, and Genies make an appearance from their APs. Possibly Atrocites as well, considering their importance in Starfinder lore (one of the few artifact items we have right now are named after them, and the Devourer has no representing monster as of yet in rulebooks).

Also, want to reiterate my hopes for disembodied AI stats! :p

Lashunta child to parental lashunta: But mom, why do we have to eat the giant insect!"

Parental lashunta: Out of spite, dear!

That right there was worth the entire price of the Armory book. The knowledge that the Lashunta are both really pretty and also REALLY PETTY to the point of eating bugs just because they fight a lot of bug people.

I tried, there are parts I love and parts I hate. I'm not completely opposed to playing it again, though, and Dawn of Flame looks promising.

I'm three books into Dawn of Flame and it's so good that it frustrates me that they didn't start with an AP this good.

I mean, Dead Suns' concept wasn't bad, but they decided to execute it like it were a scifi movie <_< Aka the earlier parts build up to climax at the final two books.

Anyway, yeah, definitely not too many bestiaries considering we still don't have cr 21-25 examples in starfinder

captain yesterday wrote:

Lashunta child to parental lashunta: But mom, why do we have to eat the giant insect!"

Parental lashunta: Out of spite, dear!

That right there was worth the entire price of the Armory book. The knowledge that the Lashunta are both really pretty and also REALLY PETTY to the point of eating bugs just because they fight a lot of bug people.

This resonates with me on many levels.

Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

I tried, there are parts I love and parts I hate. I'm not completely opposed to playing it again, though, and Dawn of Flame looks promising.

I'm three books into Dawn of Flame and it's so good that it frustrates me that they didn't start with an AP this good.

Yay!

I love all the Starfinder Adventure Paths so far.

From Paizocon reveal:

August: Alien Archive 3. New playable races. Giant Space Tardigrade. Giant space monster takes on starships.

Stridermander from Vesk 3(?), they are the predators of the skittermanders. Damn that’s a good picture.

Spathinae - playable alien swarm?
Morlamaw - walrus space race?
Creature companion - Yasakaja - 4 eyed bug weasel that you can ride into combat.

Thanks to Painlord!

Huh, morlamaw is getting to bestiary from PFS scenario. I wonder if more PFS material will show up in rule books and such

From Paizocon reveal:

August: Alien Archive 3. New playable races. Giant Space Tardigrade. Giant space monster takes on starships.

Stridermander from Vesk 3(?), they are the predators of the skittermanders. Damn that’s a good picture.

Spathinae - playable alien swarm?
Morlamaw - walrus space race?
Creature companion - Yasakaja - 4 eyed bug weasel that you can ride into combat.

Thanks to Painlord!

I think Rob said there were 19 playable races in AA3. Which I am stoked to learn more about.

Giant Space Tardigrade.

I see they've been reading my home campaign notes again.

From Paizocon reveal:

August: Alien Archive 3. New playable races. Giant Space Tardigrade. Giant space monster takes on starships.

Stridermander from Vesk 3(?), they are the predators of the skittermanders. Damn that’s a good picture.

Spathinae - playable alien swarm?
Morlamaw - walrus space race?
Creature companion - Yasakaja - 4 eyed bug weasel that you can ride into combat.

Thanks to Painlord!

There was also mention of playable mushroom people from the Azlanti Star Empire.

Ooh, playable swarm! I wonder how armor works there. I wonder if I can cast polymorph to pretend to be humanoid? Surprise people by letting the spell expire?

Technically we already had a playable swarm race with the shirren.

That depends on whether you mean swarm or Swarm....

That's a pretty sweet cover!

There was also mention of playable mushroom people from the Azlanti Star Empire.

OH OH OH! I wrote those! :D

ALIEN VALKYRIE! GIMMEGIMMEGIMME!

Wow, zero Starfinder titles opening at Gencon. Yikes.

Presumably, they want to focus on the launch of PF2 this time.

Presumably, they want to focus on the launch of PF2 this time.

No, they screwed up. AA3 and Dawn of Flame 6 got bumped at the same time the PF2 Lost Omens book got bumped.

Was Alien Archive 3 ever supposed to be a Gen Con release? I caught the slippage of Dawn of Flame 6, but I didn't notice any recent change for Alien Archive 3.

Edit: Never mind, I should have just looked at the rest of this thread. I guess I didn't notice it because they handled this shift so much more smoothly than they did the other two slipped items.

Look at the posts toward the top of this page.

ericthecleric wrote:

Presumably, they want to focus on the launch of PF2 this time.

No, they screwed up. AA3 and Dawn of Flame 6 got bumped at the same time the PF2 Lost Omens book got bumped.

Ah, OK. Thanks!

At the moment Starfinder is pretty much dead with the people i know.

As it turns out, Pathfinder Second Edition IS indeed canibalizing the interest for Starfinder.

Also the genre isn't as beloved as fantasy.

We are going to play "The Fall of Plaguestone" & probably "Hellknight Hill" asap & don't plan another Starfinder campaign after "Dead Suns" atm.

Alien Archive 3 doesn't change that, we didn't even use AA 2.

Maybe the "Character Operations Manual" will change that in november, but i doubt it.

At the moment Starfinder is pretty much dead with the people i know.

As it turns out, Pathfinder Second Edition IS indeed canibalizing the interest for Starfinder.

Also the genre isn't as beloved as fantasy.

We are going to play "The Fall of Plaguestone" & probably "Hellknight Hill" asap & don't plan another Starfinder campaign after "Dead Suns" atm.

Alien Archive 3 doesn't change that, we didn't even use AA 2.

Maybe the "Character Operations Manual" will change that in november, but i doubt it.

I mean, there are groups who exclusively play fantasy, groups who exclusively play scifi, groups who play both and groups that play multiple different systems at same time :p

I find it very hard to get excited for a new AA. The only time I get to play Starfinder is in Society and so far if you want to play one of the new races either need to get a boon that takes 24 games to unlock, gm boon (something not all of us are skilled at doing), or charity boon(don't mind this one as much but still).

In other words SFS players are asked to buy books that Paizo specifically will not allow us to use, unless we jump through hoops to do it.

What's my incentive to buy them? They don't include many new items and what ones they do they end up putting on the ban list. The new and interesting races are either locked or never offered. I don't mind working for things by playing games, it's what I am going to do. But saying you can't have it for almost a year's worth of playing, step up and ruin others fun by trying to do something you are not good at, or pay more money to get more value out of something you already paid more money for is kinda crap. AA2 has been sitting in my Starfinder folder unused, I look at it and then close it when I realize most of it is useless. I buy digital copies, my wife buys the books but she has not seen a need to buy AA2 because there is no point.

Over all I am going to buy it when it comes out in hope we will not have a repeat of the past two AA's but I feel my hopes are a bit higher than Paizo likes to operate.

Sorry to complain a bit but I just wish I could feel the hype ever one else does.

You actually unlock lot of races just by playing specific scenarios <_< Its interesting change from Pathfinder Society Scenarios, but unlockable races are much more common in Starfinder Society Scenarios