In terms of it working mechanically, I have no worries. As I've mentioned throughout the thread I've done it already. I'm doing it now, and there are tons of third party support to do it. Some of that third party support looks like it'll leak into Starfinder. Besides that I suspect that Iron Gods, The Technology Guide, Pathfinder Unchained and several other things from the last few years was a bit of toe dipping to see what they could get away with.
Beyond that, from running Pathfinder in space for the past few months I have to say, very little really has to change to do it. The technology guide already does half the job and from there all you have to do is slot in new classes and dig for some rules for ships, mech and weird environments and you're almost there.
My excitement is for the fact that there will be material written for Pathfinder & supported in Hero Lab (I already asked) that can be used to run Dragonstar.
RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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Eh, I'm okay with them selecting people for their playtest, for a few reasons. One, the open playtests seem to very often turn into a bunch of theorycrafting with minimal actual playtesting. Then you have the people upset that something they liked in the playtest changed for the final version, and the people upset that something they thought should be changed wasn't.
As long as they pull a decent sample, possibly from board members who have actually submitted playtest reports before, it should be fine. Just because someone likes a game company doesn't mean all their playtest feedback will be all roses. I used to like D&D and WotC and my playtest group submitted 50 pages of (predominantly negative)comments per session on 4e...it was mostly ignored, but we were certainly not "yes men."
The last few Pathfinder playtests have been small sections of a larger book - for this one they'd basically have to release effectively the entire document. I can see why they don't want that kicking around for free.
Hero LabHow does this compare with, say, myth-weavers or Chummer?
Hero Lab is an automated character sheet maker. Similar to Chummer if I recall, but even closer to PCGen. Hero Lab gives you a free demo taste of all systems if you want to try it, but if you want to use the systems and export and save stuff, be prepared to spend some money (the cost of getting up to date in Pathfinder is silly huge at this point, though you will save a lot of time).
Female human gunslinger 6/slayer 6/gestalt 6 (Pathfinder RPG Advanced Class Guide 53, Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Combat 9)
N Medium humanoid (human)
Init +9; Senses Perception +11
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Defense
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Defense 17, flat-footed 12. . (+1 armor enhancement, +1 deflection, +3 Dex, +2 dodge)
Armor DR: 6/magic or Large. . (+5 armor, +1 HD bonus)
Critical Defense: +10. . (+6 DR, +3 Dex, +1 deflection)
hp 66 (6d10+6)
Fort +6, Ref +9, Will +5
Defensive Abilities nimble +2
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Offense
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Speed 30 ft.
Ranged 10 mm pistol (40 range, 10 clip) +10/+5 (1d8+4/×4) or
. . mosin nagant sniper rifle (scope)(300 r)(1d12 base damage, full turn for +2 attack and +1d6 damage) +9/+4 (1d10/×4)
Special Attacks deeds (deadeye, gunslinger initiative, gunslinger's dodge, pistol-whip, quick clear, utility shot), grit (2), gun training +3 (rifle, revolver), sneak attack +2d6, studied target +2 (2nd, move action)
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Statistics
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Str 10, Dex 17, Con 10, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 18
Base Atk +6; CMB +6; CMD 22
Feats Deadly Aim, Far Shot, Gunsmithing[UC], Improved Initiative, Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Quick Draw, Rapid Shot
Traits criminal, ease of faith
Skills Acrobatics +10, Bluff +11, Climb +4, Diplomacy +13, Disable Device +6, Heal +7, Intimidate +9, Knowledge (engineering) +9, Knowledge (local) +6, Perception +11, Profession (engineer) +10, Sense Motive +11, Sleight of Hand +10 (+12 to conceal the ring in a search), Stealth +10, Survival +9, Swim +4
Languages Common, Custom Language, Custom Language
SQ slayer talents (fast stealth, sniper's eye[APG], trap spotter), track +3
Combat Gear potion of cure light wounds (10), fragmentation grenade (2); Other Gear chain underlay, leather covering, military flak vest, vault 41 suit[UC], 10 mm pistol (40 range, 10 clip)[UC], mosin nagant sniper rifle (scope)(300 r)(1d12 base damage, full turn for +2 attack and +1d6 damage)[UC], battery (5), black e-pick, flashlight, goo tube (13), lighter, nuka cola (heals 1d4+1 damage, +3 rad damage) x15 (worth 15 gp), purified water (heals 1d4+1 damage) x2 (worth 30 gp), rad away (30 points of rad damage healed) x1, thieves' ring
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Special Abilities
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Deadly Aim -2/+4 Trade a penalty to ranged attacks for a bonus to ranged damage.
Deeds Use Grit to perform special abilities with your firearms.
Far Shot Halve the range increment penalty for extended range.
Fast Stealth (Ex) Move at full speed while using the Stealth skill at no penalty.
Grit (Ex) Gain a pool of points that are spent to fuel deeds, regained on firearm crit/killing blow.
Gun Training
Gunsmithing You can use a gunsmithing kit to craft/repair firearms and ammo.
Nimble +2 +2 (Ex) +2 AC while wearing light or no armor.
Point-Blank Shot +1 to attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons at up to 30 feet.
Precise Shot You don't get -4 to hit when shooting or throwing into melee.
Quick Draw Draw weapon as a free action (or move if hidden weapon). Throw at full rate of attacks.
Rapid Shot You get an extra attack with ranged weapons. Each attack is at -2.
Sneak Attack +2d6 Attacks deal extra dam if flank foe or if foe is flat-footed.
Sniper's Eye (Ex) Can use ranged sneak attack vs. targets with concealment.
Studied Target +2 (move action, 2 at a time) (Ex) Study foe as a Move action, gain +2 to att/dam & some skills vs. them.
Track +3 Add the listed bonus to survival checks made to track.
Trap Spotter (Ex) Whenever you come within 10' of a trap, the GM secretly rolls for you to find it.
Hero Lab and the Hero Lab logo are Registered Trademarks of LWD Technology, Inc. Free download at http://www.wolflair.com
Pathfinder® and associated marks and logos are trademarks of Paizo Inc.®, and are used under license.
Right but the wider the group, the more feedback you can get. More really is better in a playtest. You need those people that will break the game. You need the people that say that even with all the tech, the wizard exists and magic is just better so who would bother with tech. You need the jerks and everyone that will bash and complain because you need to hear all the complaints, see if they are valid, and compare them to what others are saying. When you keep our testing group small, you get very limited feedback. You say they may just pick the people that file the reports, but you need to look at what people say in the forums as well. You need to see the complaints and the praise and how players compare things with each other, especially since they said you can use all the pathfinder books with this game.
Doing that last bit, I find, is quite a risk as people may look at the new core book, compare it to previous books, and just say that the majority of the new stuff should not even be in there, since X thing in Y book is better. Yes, that is a valid thing to worry about because as it is the core book of the new game, they should put their best foot forward. The other problem of letting people use all the other books in this totally new setting is power creep. They have to go "bigger" so people don't just ignore the new stuff in favour of the old, and that is a serious problem.
It's all somewhat nebulous at the moment, but I think the backwards-compatibility is only "kind of" there. It isn't intended that all the "previous" books will work as written alongside the "new" books. It's intended that you will be able to translate Pathfinder to Starfinder with minimal effort.
I've heard they really want monsters to be easy to port over, for example but are less fussed about the entire suite of player options being translatable.
Also, I heard that Armor Class could well be either be a totally different system or at least heavily tweaked.
Of course, it's all early days and I doubt even the core staff really know where things are going to land - it's more a case of "We're heading in this new direction" rather than "We are heading to this specific place".
Right but the wider the group, the more feedback you can get. More really is better in a playtest. You need those people that will break the game. You need the people that say that even with all the tech, the wizard exists and magic is just better so who would bother with tech. You need the jerks and everyone that will bash and complain because you need to hear all the complaints, see if they are valid, and compare them to what others are saying. When you keep our testing group small, you get very limited feedback. You say they may just pick the people that file the reports, but you need to look at what people say in the forums as well. You need to see the complaints and the praise and how players compare things with each other, especially since they said you can use all the pathfinder books with this game.
Doing that last bit, I find, is quite a risk as people may look at the new core book, compare it to previous books, and just say that the majority of the new stuff should not even be in there, since X thing in Y book is better. Yes, that is a valid thing to worry about because as it is the core book of the new game, they should put their best foot forward. The other problem of letting people use all the other books in this totally new setting is power creep. They have to go "bigger" so people don't just ignore the new stuff in favour of the old, and that is a serious problem.
If this is an entirely new system (even if 3.5 derived), I doubt you are going to get much in the way of usable feedback in a few months. That just isn't long for most folks to be comfortable in the new. This is something a bit more complicated than dropping in a couple of new classes into an existing familiar system or a new rules subsystem.
Besides, I get a feeling that the Pathfinder devs are increasingly finding playtests less and less useful, for all the reasons outlined above, as well as as the fact it's a lot of time to manage them and organize the data.
Also, the limited playtest isn't necessarily 'handpicked' members of the community. My impression of the announcement was that it would be limited in number of participants (and presumably scope) but that there'd be ways to be selected - a sort of application process, rather than a selection process.
My excitement is for the fact that there will be material written for Pathfinder & supported in Hero Lab (I already asked) that can be used to run Dragonstar.
Are they going to rename it Starlab? :D
Right but the wider the group, the more feedback you can get. More really is better in a playtest. You need those people that will break the game. You need the people that say that even with all the tech, the wizard exists and magic is just better so who would bother with tech. You need the jerks and everyone that will bash and complain because you need to hear all the complaints, see if they are valid, and compare them to what others are saying. When you keep our testing group small, you get very limited feedback. You say they may just pick the people that file the reports, but you need to look at what people say in the forums as well. You need to see the complaints and the praise and how players compare things with each other, especially since they said you can use all the pathfinder books with this game.
They covered this question in a panel which hopefully I remember well enough. Filtering with the noise produced from a public playtest was one of the reasons they gave for not having a public playtest. Another reason they have was of agility, as with a private playtest, they could produce a new rule, hand it to groups to test how that rule works, and get feedback on it in a timeframe that wouldn't be viable using the public playtest.
They indicated that the changes to the system would be significant and that while you might be able to use Pathfinder books with this game, it isn't the goal that it would slot in perfectly.
They indicated that the changes to the system would be significant and that while you might be able to use Pathfinder books with this game, it isn't the goal that it would slot in perfectly.
Yeah the strong impression I got was to make it easy to use the monsters/bestiaries.
For me that would be great. If the character stuff doesn't work without some (a lot) of tinkering but the monsters work then that is so much time saved for the GM, and would allow them to release lots of specific aliens/monsters for the game, and have a huge baseline of other things.
I am now enamored of the idea of a squad of small fighters with enchanted lasers doing strafing runs on the Terrasque, setting it up for the mecha drivers to come in and lay down the final whammy (Rocket Punch!).
There are always pluses and minuses with public or private playtests. There is a lot of work to be done with open playtests where they get a lot of comments from those who may or may not have actually play tested the material. Digging through the arm chair developers can be an issue of lost time, particularly if there are going to be lots of iterations of the rules. And while there are lots of members of the community that diligently played the playtest materials. There were also those that spent their time posting and commenting and not actually playtesting.
Only time will tell if this is a good mover or a bad one. We will have to see. Heres hoping it works out.
That and given how this forum is going everyone has some kind of idea as to what they definitely do not want in the game and there's a huge variety of what people want Starfinder to be. It may be a matter of not wanting to sort through agendas and wanting to make Starfinder less about individual wants and needs and more about laying a foundation for any kind of game to happen.
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I was looking at some of my old RIFTS material yesterday and i was like...
That's pretty much what I want STARFINDER to be. When you stick its rules with PATHFINDER... well... that's pretty much RIFTS. And whatever its faults (namely, I can't make heads or tails of the rules, and it makes no sense) RIFTS is pretty bonkers awesome.
So yup. If I ever get a chance to run a STARFINDER game, it's going to be cyborg cowboys fighting hive-mind alien vampire magicians in post-apocalyptic mexico. And Splugorths.
They're walking the same road RIFTS did like three decades ago, for better or worse. I'm not really looking forward to the release. I'm already disappointed by some of the decisions that have been made - especially regarding playtesting. I also think there are too many changes that would need to be made to the core Pathfinder system to transform it into a viable space game while maintaining compatibility with the already published fantasy material.
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They're walking the same road RIFTS did like three decades ago, for better or worse. I'm not really looking forward to the release. I'm already disappointed by some of the decisions that have been made - especially regarding playtesting. I also think there are too many changes that would need to be made to the core Pathfinder system to transform it into a viable space game while maintaining compatibility with the already published fantasy material.
eh, i dunno.
at its heart, pathfinder is kind of a super-hero game anyway. so... it becomes a super-hero game IN SPACE.
the technology stuff released to support IRON GODS was pretty good. it's really just tying the things together. and heck, with the stuff that's been released already you can run a FLASH GORDON campaign.
the only thing that's really missing is rules for spaceships and zero-g combat, i think, although i'm certain there'll be lots of more material for cybernetics, virtual reality, AIs, and other sundries.
They're walking the same road RIFTS did like three decades ago, for better or worse. I'm not really looking forward to the release. I'm already disappointed by some of the decisions that have been made - especially regarding playtesting. I also think there are too many changes that would need to be made to the core Pathfinder system to transform it into a viable space game while maintaining compatibility with the already published fantasy material.eh, i dunno.
at its heart, pathfinder is kind of a super-hero game anyway. so... it becomes a super-hero game IN SPACE.
the technology stuff released to support IRON GODS was pretty good. it's really just tying the things together. and heck, with the stuff that's been released already you can run a FLASH GORDON campaign.
the only thing that's really missing is rules for spaceships and zero-g combat, i think, although i'm certain there'll be lots of more material for cybernetics, virtual reality, AIs, and other sundries.
I disagree. I think there's a lot more that goes into it then just releasing equipment catalogs and tagging "IN SPACE" to the end of things. For example: environmentally sealed armors like HEV suits or Power Armor. The normal assumption of the HP system is that when an attacker bypasses someones AC they strike that person and inflict damage to them directly. In the case of something like Power Armor or an HEV suit, this means penetrating the suit and hitting the wearer which, too me, would compromise the environmental seal. However, that isn't how it works using the PF system which I consider to be a disconnect.
In RIFTS versus Palladium Fantasy they kind of get around the system with Environmental Armors not having an Armor Rating. Starfinder can't do that while being 100% reverse compatible because they already are committed to the rules in the Technology Guide/Iron Gods. Firearms in general are another thing they'll need to tackle since they don't work very well in Pathfinder proper.
They can do it anyways, I'm sure, but I'm not entirely confident that the result will be awesome.
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They're walking the same road RIFTS did like three decades ago, for better or worse. I'm not really looking forward to the release. I'm already disappointed by some of the decisions that have been made - especially regarding playtesting. I also think there are too many changes that would need to be made to the core Pathfinder system to transform it into a viable space game while maintaining compatibility with the already published fantasy material.eh, i dunno.
at its heart, pathfinder is kind of a super-hero game anyway. so... it becomes a super-hero game IN SPACE.
the technology stuff released to support IRON GODS was pretty good. it's really just tying the things together. and heck, with the stuff that's been released already you can run a FLASH GORDON campaign.
the only thing that's really missing is rules for spaceships and zero-g combat, i think, although i'm certain there'll be lots of more material for cybernetics, virtual reality, AIs, and other sundries.
I disagree. I think there's a lot more that goes into it then just releasing equipment catalogs and tagging "IN SPACE" to the end of things. For example: environmentally sealed armors like HEV suits or Power Armor. The normal assumption of the HP system is that when an attacker bypasses someones AC they strike that person and inflict damage to them directly. In the case of something like Power Armor or an HEV suit, this means penetrating the suit and hitting the wearer which, too me, would compromise the environmental seal. However, that isn't how it works using the PF system which I consider to be a disconnect.
In RIFTS versus Palladium Fantasy they kind of get around the system with Environmental Armors not having an Armor Rating. Starfinder can't do that while being 100% reverse compatible because they already are committed to the rules in the Technology Guide/Iron Gods. Firearms in general are another thing they'll need to tackle since they don't work very well in Pathfinder...
As Luthorne mentioned, they did the pressure suit. the rules are pretty simple.
Firearms are tricky in DnD, Pathfinder, Fantasy, b/c so many fans do not like them. I think Paizo made a good effort to put them in the game w/o imbalancing it too much if a DM wants to allow them. That being said, in Starfinder, guys probably aren't running around with blunderbusses, but laser pistols, and there are already rules for laser pistols.
Right, but the rules aren't very good. That's all I'm saying. Like the semi-automatic quality which apparently doesn't stack with a users number of attacks from BAB (at least from a quick glance). The rules and structure exist, I'm not arguing that. I'm merely stating that everything put out so far feels clunky and weird (specifically the Technology Guide). I think that Starfinder could have a lot more potential if one of its selling points wasn't perfect compatibility.
Also I'm mad mech pilot wasn't an announced class. Hopefully there will be an archetype that doesn't suck at least.
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Right, but the rules aren't very good. That's all I'm saying. Like the semi-automatic quality which apparently doesn't stack with a users number of attacks from BAB (at least from a quick glance). The rules and structure exist, I'm not arguing that. I'm merely stating that everything put out so far feels clunky and weird (specifically the Technology Guide). I think that Starfinder could have a lot more potential if one of its selling points wasn't perfect compatibility.
Also I'm mad mech pilot wasn't an announced class. Hopefully there will be an archetype that doesn't suck at least.
Point taken.
Hopefully, Starfinder's rules can "supersede" or update the Technology Guide's rule, which, ultimately, is about sticking sci-fi stuff in a Fantasy setting, and not detailing sci-fi stuff in a sci-fi setting. the problem is that lots of people want to play melee characters, even in a sci-fantasy setting, and handing out accurate, efficiently firing automatic laser rifles that can shoot down space ships is a bit tricky in terms of balance.
It's a challenge. Is your sci-future Deathstalker, where laser guns can shoot and then need to cool down for a time, making them a supplement to swords? Or is it Star Wars, where the lasers just aren't accurate (unless you are Han Solo)? Or is it Star Trek, where it's all just hand waved and you can have Klingons fighting hand-to-hand combat against phaser-rifle wielding Starfleeters w/o being mowed down? Or even Barsoom, where the guns are great, but unfashionable, so guys use swords due to rule of cool?
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My thoughts... I'm with the Doctor....
Dinosaurs! ... On a Spaceship!
Bring it on.
Right, but the rules aren't very good. That's all I'm saying. Like the semi-automatic quality which apparently doesn't stack with a users number of attacks from BAB (at least from a quick glance). The rules and structure exist, I'm not arguing that. I'm merely stating that everything put out so far feels clunky and weird (specifically the Technology Guide). I think that Starfinder could have a lot more potential if one of its selling points wasn't perfect compatibility.
Also I'm mad mech pilot wasn't an announced class. Hopefully there will be an archetype that doesn't suck at least.
From what I heard for starship combat - Pilot is role on ship (like engineer, captain etc). Any class can do it, it uses a skill roll, and then has a "template" that anyone in the pilot's char can do such as "5th level pilot can do this...".
With that in place, I expect we would have feats or maybe a template that makes once character a much better pilot than another with more than the appropriate skill.