So... I'm a total PF2 fan, who prior to this looked over at Starfinder and thought it looked potentially interesting, but was super turned-off by certain aspects the old 3.x chassis. I find myself both very excited by the news about SF2 and newly interested in Starfinder as a game that I might personally play at some point.
So now I suddenly have motivation to want the new Starfinder to be as awesome as it can be... but I have no experience with SF1. I don't really know what all the awesome bits of Starfinder are. At the same time, I do know that the Paizo devs are really good at taking feedback, and I figure that you all do know about what makes Starfinder awesome. So let's start with the percolating on tryign to bring these thigns together, yeah? After all, now is a particularly good time to be giving Paizo feedback on what the awesome parts of SF1 are that you'd like to see again in SF2... and what the maybe not-so-awesome bits are that maybe could use a few changes.
It's even better if you can boil down why a thing is awesome, or what makes it awesome. For an example, they're not going to hand you an SF2 version of a class that functions exactly like the SF1 version. It would be a wasted opportunity if nothing else. If you can help them identify what made it really cool to be or fun to play, though, there's a good chance they can preserve that.
So...?
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Much of this is being discussed and more likely to be seen by developers here:
Why is Starfinder awesome? If Golarion in Pathfinder is a kitchen sink, then Starfinder is a galaxy filled with kitchen sinks. It's a setting where almost everything fits in or is possible somewhere.
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Okay so you know how there are memes about how weird you can make your PC in Pathfinder 2e? That is like, 1/10th of how weird Starfinder PCs get and it's great.
You want to play a time-travelling dinosaur mage? You can!
You want to play a giant frog that has merged with a symbiote to become sapient and now solves crimes? You can!
You want to play a swarm of insects that works together as a colony so well they get magic friendship magic? You can!
Want to play an uplifted bear who is a mighty warrior that fights with an axe made of lightning and can magnetically yeet his enemies around while covered in sparks? You can!
Want to play a human was who isekai'd in from our world, and now has the power to rewrite existance around them like Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite? You can!
One of my PCs was an undead ex-wrestler from the sun who in death has become a priest of Sarenrae and has been blessed with a Stand that allows them to manipulate gravity and also is super good at punching that adventure path's space nazis. Was even able to play that sort of thing completely seriously without it feeling like a joke.
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Okay so you know how there are memes about how weird you can make your PC in Pathfinder 2e? That is like, 1/10th of how weird Starfinder PCs get and it's great.
You want to play a time-travelling dinosaur mage? You can!
You want to play a giant frog that has merged with a symbiote to become sapient and now solves crimes? You can!
You want to play a swarm of insects that works together as a colony so well they get magic friendship magic? You can!
Want to play an uplifted bear who is a mighty warrior that fights with an axe made of lightning and can magnetically yeet his enemies around while covered in sparks? You can!
Want to play a human was who isekai'd in from our world, and now has the power to rewrite existance around them like Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite? You can!One of my PCs was an undead ex-wrestler from the sun who in death has become a priest of Sarenrae and has been blessed with a Stand that allows them to manipulate gravity and also is super good at punching that adventure path's space nazis. Was even able to play that sort of thing completely seriously without it feeling like a joke.
This is the way.
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Ummm ... Skittermander becoming Core?
One of my favorite character building stories was someone knew they wanted to make an android. They google some pictures by Hajime Sorayama and pull up a jet powered velociraptor robot.
Oh. cool. We are DEFINITELY making that.
And we did. easily (Xenomorphic android Solar flare solarion. Though i think we technically droped the xenomorphic for something else...)
My favorite part about starfinder is how completely modular the classes are. An entire party of players who all chose to play a single class can build each PC entirely differently.
-Beta
and they can still succeed at the wacky adventure given enough six packs of calden cayden brand healing serum (drink till you feel better, one way or another!)
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I want it to not use the PF2 engine.
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I want it to not use the PF2 engine.
Oh dang, I have some bad news for you :(
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I want it to not use the PF2 engine.Oh dang, I have some bad news for you :(
Oh it's fine, I've been expecting this for awhile now. You can't be disappointed if you aren't surprised, however unfortunate the circumstance.
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The quick return of my beloved Apocalypse Beam and Singularity Cannon
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A new beginners box that gets the same outside-of-the-box support as the Pathfinder 2e beginners box got.
1: A separate one-shot adventure based in the same location.
2: 12 blog post adding additional items and NPCs.
3: A 3-part AP set in its backyard.
4: A bounty adventure starting in the same location
All of that was only possible because the beginner's box adventure included a starter town the PC could use as a base of operations.
I get you can't include all of Absalom in a beginner's box or any adventure, for that matter. But where ever the beginner's box takes place it should have a starter location usable as a home base, even if it's just a tiny portion of a larger station.
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I get you can't include all of Absalom in a beginner's box or any adventure, for that matter. But where ever the beginner's box takes place it should have a starter location usable as a home base, even if it's just a tiny portion of a larger station.
Oh, huh.
Maybe make it a little scrap of Absalom Station that's just important enough that you can throw in call-backs from time to time in other APs and whatnot without feeling awkward or contrived. Make it feel homey and grounded.
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I get you can't include all of Absalom in a beginner's box or any adventure, for that matter. But where ever the beginner's box takes place it should have a starter location usable as a home base, even if it's just a tiny portion of a larger station.Oh, huh.
Maybe make it a little scrap of Absalom Station that's just important enough that you can throw in call-backs from time to time in other APs and whatnot without feeling awkward or contrived. Make it feel homey and grounded.
Exactly ^^ and throw in a few shops and services and a bar (dare I say a cantina). A bar is a great place to have to find adventure leads, and having a few shops and services with familiar NPCs can make buying selling, and upgrading much more interesting.
I don't think it would be a good idea to use starships in the beginner's box adventure but having a tiny ship dock next to the starter area makes for a nice way to transition to other adventures. maybe add this area in the follow-up stand-alone adventure, that adventure could start and end at the station but travel during the middle part.
I like the idea at the end of an adventure being able to park your spaceship and walk to the bar for a much needed drink and have it feel like you're walking a familiar path you can visualize. And be greeted by a familiar face at the bar saying "What happened to you? look like you've been to Eox and back."
Playing SFS I'm sure the society gives us a room between missions but I've never had a good idea what it looks like or knew where it is. A lot of the time your ship is your home. My saying is home is where you park your spaceship, so show me the parking lot. For the beginner's box we at least need a room we can rent to call our own, even if it's just temporary.
So while in many ways I'm not a fan of PF2e(I hate it's lack of modularity, I hate it's tight math restricting me from engaging in power fantasy, can go on), my love for Starfinder has always been in it's setting rather than it's mechanics so I'm certainly open to improvement there.
One issue I have with Starfinder that might be self fixing if 2e and the remaster of PF2e are meant to be actually cross compatible, is that I've always felt that a lot of Starfinder's class design has been in, condensing several fantasies in to more generic classes that have less individual flavor and more shallow mechanics because of it.
The soldier with it's fighting styles is the fighter, the barbarian, the ranger, and the monk of starfinder, and it's hardly the worst offender. Mystics - the actual worst offender, imo - use their connections to be the druid, the cleric, the sorcerer, the psychic, the witch, the oracle, the shaman, and even the paladin of starfinder. I feel that this leaves them spread very thin and unable to truly embody the fantasies that those classes in Pathfinder offered.
This is something that I think the classes get *better* at as the game introduced new and original ones; biohacker, vanguard, witchwarper, nanocyte, precog, and evolutionist all have very distinct fantasies to play as all their own. Variety within those fantasies, but they're still distinctly their own thing. You could argue that biohacker is the alchemist and evolutionist is the shifter, but being a single analogue is, to me, a better position to be in than a catch-all dumping ground.
Honestly to an extent I'll be wondering, if the games are truly cross-compatible & you can just port a sorcerer, psychic, witch, cleric, ect over to starfinder with some minimal tweaking, I'm honestly wondering if the mystic class will have any reason to exist anymore.
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Being cross-compatible and having those options available are very different things. It's up to the GM or group to decide for home games. For organized play mixing stuff between games will likely be very rare and in small amounts, like a monster here or an item there. It looks like Paizo what's to make their classes different from each other, even between both games, but at the same time, each game needs to cover the base classes on its own. But overall, since Paizo has a chance to rethink all the classes while working on Pathfinder remastered and Strafinder 2e so close together, it will be interesting to see how they balance out. That could lead to classes having more narrow focuses, at least in the core books. Classes keep getting new options all the time as more books come out. I still hope we get at least one or two more generalized skill monkey type classes. Those tend to be good and make odd characters that are not covered by other classes. But the need for that may be less if we have access to classes from both games. Combined, that will be more class options than any game I've ever played.
Power armor to have that expanded unique mini mech suit feel that had numerous unique and flavorful designs
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I get you can't include all of Absalom in a beginner's box or any adventure, for that matter. But where ever the beginner's box takes place it should have a starter location usable as a home base, even if it's just a tiny portion of a larger station.Oh, huh.
Maybe make it a little scrap of Absalom Station that's just important enough that you can throw in call-backs from time to time in other APs and whatnot without feeling awkward or contrived. Make it feel homey and grounded.
Exactly ^^ and throw in a few shops and services and a bar (dare I say a cantina). A bar is a great place to have to find adventure leads, and having a few shops and services with familiar NPCs can make buying selling, and upgrading much more interesting.
I like the idea at the end of an adventure being able to park your spaceship and walk to the bar for a much needed drink and have it feel like you're walking a familiar path you can visualize. And be greeted by a familiar face at the bar saying "What happened to you? look like you've been to Eox and back."
A bar/inn/cantina is a good idea but a bit overdone. This is the future. Let's have a fast food restaurant near the starport frequented by adventurers. The manager can stay the same but the teenaged workers can change frequently. A chain restaurant can also make multiple return appearances in other cities on multiple planets.
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A bar/inn/cantina is a good idea but a bit overdone. This is the future. Let's have a fast food restaurant near the starport frequented by adventurers. The manager can stay the same but the teenaged workers can change frequently. A chain restaurant can also make multiple return appearances in other cities on multiple planets.
The use dare I say cantina comes from this:
Is the Cantina Closed? .
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A bar/inn/cantina is a good idea but a bit overdone. This is the future. Let's have a fast food restaurant near the starport frequented by adventurers. The manager can stay the same but the teenaged workers can change frequently. A chain restaurant can also make multiple return appearances in other cities on multiple planets.I get you can't include all of Absalom in a beginner's box or any adventure, for that matter. But where ever the beginner's box takes place it should have a starter location usable as a home base, even if it's just a tiny portion of a larger station.Oh, huh.
Maybe make it a little scrap of Absalom Station that's just important enough that you can throw in call-backs from time to time in other APs and whatnot without feeling awkward or contrived. Make it feel homey and grounded.
Exactly ^^ and throw in a few shops and services and a bar (dare I say a cantina). A bar is a great place to have to find adventure leads, and having a few shops and services with familiar NPCs can make buying selling, and upgrading much more interesting.
I like the idea at the end of an adventure being able to park your spaceship and walk to the bar for a much needed drink and have it feel like you're walking a familiar path you can visualize. And be greeted by a familiar face at the bar saying "What happened to you? look like you've been to Eox and back."
I'd be down for a sci-fi version of Saved by the Bell's The Max XD Heck, lean into the weirdness and have every restaurant have the same waiter/cook/manager, like Pokemon with Nurse Joy, but it's literally the same entity.
So, for me, it's a bit weird. I'm utterly unfamiliar with almost everything SF, and I've been waiting specifically until a 2e (which I assumed would be using PF 2e Remaster's ORC license mechanics) before learning about it. I didn't want to waste time re-learning OGL 3.5 rules when a change was inevitably going to be happening soon.
That said, I'm looking for something that can reignite the magic I felt waaaaaay back in the late 80s with Star Frontiers. It was my first TTRPG experience (I was... 8? 9? years old and played it with my older brothers). I'm not sure how to accurately describe that magic. We played the game 'wrong'. Instead of budget Star Wars, we played it like The A Team in space (like I said, it was the 80s XD).
Nu-Star Frontiers is a no-go for... obvious reasons. But a sci-fi kitchen sink setting where I could potentially remake a character like my old Yazarian melee weapon expert (or something adjacent to them) would be amazing. Bonus points if it can have flying squirrel-esque 'wings'.
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A way to streamline ancestries, because they cannot port over 100 alien races and then have 20+ feats each. That would be way too much work :S
It's like they would need to give each playable alien abilities and traits and then have feats that require those abilities and traits.
They would need to emphasize on the requirements, such as:
- You have a Natural Weapon.
- You have a Fly speed.
- You originate from this planet.
- You have more than 2 arms.
With this, many aliens could access several feats.
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Or shift things around and make SF2 the game where ancestry matters more than the class, as opposed to PF2.
Or shift things around and make SF2 the game where ancestry matters more than the class, as opposed to PF2.
It's an interesting idea... but it doesn't work with their already-indicated intent that you be able to mix and match. If SF2 ancestries are the big deal, and PF2 classes are the big deal, then taking one from each simply doesn't function.
It also has a potential for unfortunate implications, but I'm pretty sure the idea's dead in the water even before we get there.
Now... it would technically be possible for SF2 classes to have a different distribution of feats than PF2 classes. Like, "what feats do you get when" in PF2 is driven by your class level-up chart. All of the classes are the same in this, for the most part... but they don't have to be. "This class gets twice as many ancestry feats, and maybe not so many skill feats" is totally a thing they could do, if they really wanted to.
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Ancestry Paragon is one way to play ore in your species in 2e, but not available in organized play. Having more general feats that let you take more ancestry feats would be another way. Some ancestry feats and abilities that are sharable between species could be made as general ancestry feats and only have to be referenced once with the bool and just listed in the species description would save more room for other ancestry feats and abilities. Because 2e is built to go wide, not high more ancestry feats for a Starfinder species shouldn't break the math so could fall under the meta and can be different than Pathfinder.
Also what's in the core rule book is not the end of a species getting more options and variations this is where Starfinder can put more effort into species vs classes.
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If anything, the multiarmed trait should be reworked entirely...
At least give me something positive if I want to shoot someone with 4 pistols.
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You'll have something positive, you will be able choose which of four different damage types you can use, which will likely be a much more significant advantage in SF2 due to the greater importance of energy vulnerabilities in the PF2 ruleset.
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You don't get it...
There shouldn't be a difference between getting shot by one guy with 4 pistols and by 4 guys with one pistol each.
Make it extra damage dice
Make it to spend additional charges per weapon, emptying the clips faster
Make it more difficult with a penalty
Make it 3 actions
I do not care...
Just make it so if a Kasatha shoots 4 bullets at you, you take the equivalent of 4 attacks directly in the chest under 6 seconds.
Basically Double Slice with more than 2 hands...
"B-b-b-but too powerful!"
"Then make it balanced with a higher risk!"
How hard can THAT be? If you can shoot 15 Magic Missiles as a 9th-level spell, SURELY you can fire one bullet per weapon wielded.
“How hard can THAT be?”
You do it then.
“ If you can shoot 15 Magic Missiles as a 9th-level spell, SURELY you can fire one bullet per weapon wielded.”
Did you ever stop to think the damages for these levels were balanced with each other and the amount of bullets fired was irrelevant?
You’re asking to go out of the bounds of the math with extra damage for certain species, that’s a nonstarter.
You don't get it...
There shouldn't be a difference between getting shot by one guy with 4 pistols and by 4 guys with one pistol each.
Make it extra damage dice
Make it to spend additional charges per weapon, emptying the clips faster
Make it more difficult with a penalty
Make it 3 actions
I do not care...Just make it so if a Kasatha shoots 4 bullets at you, you take the equivalent of 4 attacks directly in the chest under 6 seconds.
Basically Double Slice with more than 2 hands...
"B-b-b-but too powerful!"
"Then make it balanced with a higher risk!"How hard can THAT be? If you can shoot 15 Magic Missiles as a 9th-level spell, SURELY you can fire one bullet per weapon wielded.
It, actually, can be hard enough, since Paizo designers concluded that they're not interested in this, as PF2 doesn't have any "you do more DPS the more arms you have" mechanic.
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You don't get it...
There shouldn't be a difference between getting shot by one guy with 4 pistols and by 4 guys with one pistol each.
So why doesn't everyone use two pistols to be twice as effective? We have 2 arms and two hands.
So why doesn't everyone use two pistols to be twice as effective? We have 2 rms and two hands.You don't get it...
There shouldn't be a difference between getting shot by one guy with 4 pistols and by 4 guys with one pistol each.
Obviously, they don't read this forum, duuuuh!
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I think it is reasonable to say "I have four arms. I think that having a pistol in each hand and firing every single one of them would be cool, and I want some sort of rules support that would make it worth building a character where that was their Cool Thing."
That's not an unreasonable thing to want, and not an unreasonable thing to ask for. It's an immediately obvious fantasy to have as soon as you see that you can play a creature with four limbs, and that means that if we *can* support it without undue cost or hardship, we *should*. It's almost always worthwhile to stack up easy feelsgood hits when you can do that while maintaining balance.
The problem is that it's a tricky thing to provide. "I have four arms" isn't super-expensive. Call it... somewhere between one and three ancestry feats worth of value. So you want something awesome, but not *too* awesome.
I'm thinking...
All Guns Blazing: You have four arms. That means four guns! When you put your mind to it, you can send a lot of pain downrange. You can't really *aim* it all that well, but quantity has a quality all its own, right?
...and then you give them some way to treat four hands full of pistols like an area effect weapon, in a way that's cool, but not *too* cool, and probably chugs ammo like a dehydrated camel. Possibly make it a three-action activity. Maybe give it a ten-minute cooldown or have it cost a focus point or something because it's kind of intense and you need to take a bit of a breather before you can do it again. The basic advantage is that if the enemy is all nice and clustered (like, say, at the very beginning of the fight) you can just unload into the mass of them and probably do pretty well for yourself, and then as soon as they start to split up and get in between people and area-effect is not so much your friend anymore, you can go back to using your pistols as pistols. It gives you your little moment of "I have four hands worth of awesome" in a limited enough way that it won't break the budget.
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Usable chainsaw sword is the main thing I want from SF2.
What? Don't judge me.
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I'm thinking...
All Guns Blazing: You have four arms. That means four guns! When you put your mind to it, you can send a lot of pain downrange. You can't really *aim* it all that well, but quantity has a quality all its own, right?
...and then you give them some way to treat four hands full of pistols like an area effect weapon, in a way that's cool, but not *too* cool, and probably chugs ammo like a dehydrated camel. Possibly make it a three-action activity. Maybe give it a ten-minute cooldown or have it cost a focus point or something because it's kind of intense and you need to take a bit of a breather before you can do it again. The basic advantage is that if the enemy is all nice and clustered (like, say, at the very beginning of the fight) you can just unload into the mass of them and probably do pretty well for yourself, and then as soon as they start to split up and get in between people and area-effect is not so much your friend anymore, you can go back to using your pistols as pistols. It gives you your little moment of "I have four hands worth of awesome" in a limited enough way that it...
You mean Fusillade?
You mean Fusillade?
Something like that, yes. I'd imagined it as something a bit higher level, with corresponding higher cost and awesomeness, but I suppose it wouldn't have to be.
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All Guns Blazing: You have four arms. That means four guns! When you put your mind to it, you can send a lot of pain downrange. You can't really *aim* it all that well, but quantity has a quality all its own, right?
Maybe could reduce the AC for covering fire or harrying fire? That gives an advantage without really throwing off combat math.
So why doesn't everyone use two pistols to be twice as effective? We have 2 arms and two hands.You don't get it...
There shouldn't be a difference between getting shot by one guy with 4 pistols and by 4 guys with one pistol each.
In P2E, they spun Two-Weapon Fighting into a series of feats that gives special attacks using 2 weapons, such as Double Slice and the Dual-Weapon Warrior archetype.
I would like something similar for multi-armed characters in S2E.
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I get you can't include all of Absalom in a beginner's box or any adventure, for that matter. But where ever the beginner's box takes place it should have a starter location usable as a home base, even if it's just a tiny portion of a larger station.
It's from many years back, but one of the Dragon Magazine articles supporting Age of Worms was a small neighborhood in Greyhawk called the Midnight Muddle. It was the perfectly sized home base, with a number of shops and locations, and plenty of personalities and inter-NPC drama. No quest hooks, just flavor.
That's exactly the scale of "adventure setting" I've been wanting ever since.
As for my desires in SF2, I'm actually very on board with it being PF2-compatible, but I have a very specific flavor of Pathfinder i like.
I love the inherent bonuses and no level bonus options and use those exclusively in the games I run. I'm not great at "encounter balance" or "wealth by level," and these options give us more leeway in playing our games.
So I'd want the pieces of Starfinder to support that, such as by having single die weapon damages that can be multiplied by inherent bonuses, or keeping the easy math to subtract the built-in level bonuses if we don't want them.
As for my desires in SF2, I'm actually very on board with it being PF2-compatible, but I have a very specific flavor of Pathfinder i like.
I love the inherent bonuses and no level bonus options and use those exclusively in the games I run. I'm not great at "encounter balance" or "wealth by level," and these options give us more leeway in playing our games.
So I'd want the pieces of Starfinder to support that, such as by having single die weapon damages that can be multiplied by inherent bonuses, or keeping the easy math to subtract the built-in level bonuses if we don't want them.
Well, it looks like the weapons and armor are getting their appropriate upgrades at the same time the PF2 gear was getting rune bumps. So even if there isn't an explicit optional autoupgrade rule in SF2 (and there probably should be) it's easy enough to say "here's the weapon type you're using, and you're now at level 12, so you get the level 12+ version of that weapon type"
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Well, it looks like the weapons and armor are getting their appropriate upgrades at the same time the PF2 gear was getting rune bumps. So even if there isn't an explicit optional autoupgrade rule in SF2 (and there probably should be) it's easy enough to say "here's the weapon type you're using, and you're now at level 12, so you get the level 12+ version of that weapon type"As for my desires in SF2, I'm actually very on board with it being PF2-compatible, but I have a very specific flavor of Pathfinder i like.
I love the inherent bonuses and no level bonus options and use those exclusively in the games I run. I'm not great at "encounter balance" or "wealth by level," and these options give us more leeway in playing our games.
So I'd want the pieces of Starfinder to support that, such as by having single die weapon damages that can be multiplied by inherent bonuses, or keeping the easy math to subtract the built-in level bonuses if we don't want them.
Were getting weapons scaling when Starfinder Enhanced comes out that might be a preview of what could be in 2e