Why? What do you like about it? Why does it seem better than the alternative I presented? How would you handle the problems I mentioned about it?
Seriously. I'm looking for an honest answer, however critical or vague it might be. It'll help in design both for starfinder and my own system.
I like this because it is incredibly well defined and stable enough to be able to create several fleets in an evening of session planning.
One difficulty inherent in defining starship classes for Starfinder is we are looking at a setting in which sentient creatures of all shapes and sizes could be flying around in starships custom built for crews of their size. Imagine a dreadnought built by brownies, twigjacks, and gremlins... hpw would it compare to a gunboat built by rune giants?
In terms of physical bulk, they might be similar in size! But one ship will have passages the other race could not possibly squeeze into. For this purpose we would need to know the compartment size (tiny, gargantuan, etc).
Perhaps ship size should be irrelevant except in terms of length, beam, and draft (to answer the 'will it fit' question), and mass (to answer the 'will it move' question). A fighter built to be flown by an adult dragon just isn't going to be the same size as one built for a gnome pilot.
I like this because it is incredibly well defined and stable enough to be able to create several fleets in an evening of session planning.Why? What do you like about it? Why does it seem better than the alternative I presented? How would you handle the problems I mentioned about it?
Seriously. I'm looking for an honest answer, however critical or vague it might be. It'll help in design both for starfinder and my own system.
There is nothing "well defined" about it, and it certainly isn't stable.
Should a fine ship get a +4 atk/ac vs a diminutive ship one category larger yet a medium ship get only a +1 vs a large ship also only one category larger?
Absolutely not, and unlike creatures on a planet, this problem will creep up constantly.
Also, as brought up by others, size of the race that built the ship will dramatically change the size of the ship.
Further, a ship's crew size and volume are not related. For example a big freighter will have a crew a fraction of the size of equally large military or cruise-liner ships would have.
Because of those two points, crew size means nothing in regards to ship size.
Further, consumables are also unrelated to size or crew. A ship intended for scouting, exploration, or even long distance trade routes, will have massive amounts of consumables compared to ships of similar crew or size intended for short trips.
Personally, I hope the starship combat system is quicker and simpler than the regular combat system. I want space travel to be a real focus of Starfinder, but I want it to be more fast-moving. In my opinion, a combat encounter that takes more than half an hour to play out is too long, except in the most significant and climactic of scenes.
Whatever scheme they have for classifying ships, I hope it's easy-to-remember and fast (small craft/spaceship/capital ship is enough distinction for me).
If starships have to be race and creature-size independent, then ships need to have modules and components that connect together like computer hardware. A one-person hull plus a drive system, power plant, weapons, and life support unit is enough to build a fighter. Components may vary per race and manufacturer; a huge creature needs bigger everything except weapons than a tiny one will. More advanced nations or firms may have better weapons or power plants or faster engines...
With this approach you would have to junk the ship class (even 'fighter', 'corvette', 'capital') and let each ship's capabilities speak for itself.
An advanced Wyrm Empire frigate might be commandeered by a halfling asteroid nation, who converts it into their mightiest battleship, because it can easily crush anything they or their enemies currently have...
Fortunately I believe I heard they were looking at Serenity and Star Trek as inspirations for their design. Toward that end I think we can look forward to a less 'classified' system for ships and a more 'backdrop' style of ship as the starting location for our adventures. While it looks like there IS going to be ship combat I expect it to be more cinematic and less codified as befits the shows it draws inspiration from.
I like this because it is incredibly well defined and stable enough to be able to create several fleets in an evening of session planning.Why? What do you like about it? Why does it seem better than the alternative I presented? How would you handle the problems I mentioned about it?
Seriously. I'm looking for an honest answer, however critical or vague it might be. It'll help in design both for starfinder and my own system.
There is nothing "well defined" about it, and it certainly isn't stable.
Should a fine ship get a +4 atk/ac vs a diminutive ship one category larger yet a medium ship get only a +1 vs a large ship also only one category larger?
Absolutely not, and unlike creatures on a planet, this problem will creep up constantly.
Also, as brought up by others, size of the race that built the ship will dramatically change the size of the ship.
Further, a ship's crew size and volume are not related. For example a big freighter will have a crew a fraction of the size of equally large military or cruise-liner ships would have.
Because of those two points, crew size means nothing in regards to ship size.
Further, consumables are also unrelated to size or crew. A ship intended for scouting, exploration, or even long distance trade routes, will have massive amounts of consumables compared to ships of similar crew or size intended for short trips.
I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree. Maybe you'll come up with something that works for others as easily as your system seems to work for you.
Another handwaved afterthought like so many other "space" games that aren't actually space games, in other words?
Let's hope that's not the case. If I wanted more of that I could just play rogue trader or battlelords.
good point. I'm sure the developers are aware of this, though.
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Another handwaved afterthought like so many other "space" games that aren't actually space games, in other words?
Let's hope that's not the case. If I wanted more of that I could just play rogue trader or battlelords.
It doesn't have to be handwaved. But with the primary focus of the game on the individual character ship battles are probably going to be less detailed and built more like skill challenges. I hope that ship battles get a big heap of love in a future supplement but if I had to chose between and lovingly detailed character system with a much simpler ship system vs a mediocre character and ship system I would choose the former. There is only so much space in the one rule book.
@ Freehold DM
"I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree. Maybe you'll come up with something that works for others as easily as your system seems to work for you. "
--First, If only I could figure out what makes people think d20 size system is "well-defined" and "stable." Though makes me wonder if the case is more a factor of being familiar and thus comfortable than any actual aspect of the mechanics.
--Second, a major factor of my system is to be an improvement over d20, though more towards the original philosophy rather than the gamist philosophy that seems to be plaguing it recently.
In this case particularly, I'll post how sizes work in my system, then you can compare it with d20's system.
In particular to note, raw size rarely matters in my system, most of the time when size does come into play, only the size difference matters. This means that an avg strength score of 10 is avg for all sizes. You could play mice using the same stat ranges as playing humans, playing a Redwall or Warrior Cats campaign in my system wouldn't require changes to sizes at all, all you'd need is a mouse (or badger, squirrel, rat, cat, etc) race.
I'll post the actual mechanics, but I'm out of time right now.
Ships should be about as complex as a character build.
You know... this idea has been tickling my head for a couple days now. Why NOT just make ships like characters?
The average character has attack bonuses, weapons, movement, HP, AC... These could all transfer pretty simply to ship combat.
Characters have traits, skills, feats... these could be a translated to the transporters, hyperdrive, tractor beams, sensor etc...
Rathere then try to reinvent the wheel... just use what we have with some 'ship' specific terms and turn Millenium falcon vs. Tie Fighters into the equivelnt of Barbarian vs. Kobalds? or X-wing vs Death star.... into Rogue vs. Tarrasque... >.<
Yeah, I'm hoping for something a bit more crunchy than, say, White Star. It doesn't have to be Battlefleet Gothica or Firestorm Armada. I'd prefer something less binary than skill rolls. I could take the grid or leave it. Gridless might be preferable due to the 3d nature of Space. But yeah, I'd like to see space combat covered well in the core rules. For ship customization, I definitely understand space being a limit, so I'm okay with basic options that can be expanded on in a later product. I'd be okay with premade ships that you can add stuff on for the core, rather than building from scratch like High Guard. At least for now.
Then again, the Pathfinder Core Rules are almost 600 pages. I think we'll be able to fit a lot in there. Especially since I can't imagine the spell chapter being really huge. Most spells are already covered by the core, so I imagine there will be setting specific spells (create black hole maybe :D ) while most spell lists contain the other core spells.
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Then again, the Pathfinder Core Rules are almost 600 pages. I think we'll be able to fit a lot in there. Especially since I can't imagine the spell chapter being really huge. Most spells are already covered by the core, so I imagine there will be setting specific spells (create black hole maybe :D ) while most spell lists contain the other core spells.
I believe the intention is that Starfinder be playable without owning any Pathfinder material, to make it completely standalone.
I believe the intention is that Starfinder be playable without owning any Pathfinder material, to make it completely standalone.
Then again, the Pathfinder Core Rules are almost 600 pages. I think we'll be able to fit a lot in there. Especially since I can't imagine the spell chapter being really huge. Most spells are already covered by the core, so I imagine there will be setting specific spells (create black hole maybe :D ) while most spell lists contain the other core spells.
While true, it wouldn't make sense to reprint all the spells, or make new versions of the same spells. Besides, with the Pathfinder rules as OGL, it's a lot easier to call back to older spells.
I just think it'd be weird reprinting Suggestion or reskin it as Jedi Mind Trick.
I believe the intention is that Starfinder be playable without owning any Pathfinder material, to make it completely standalone.
Then again, the Pathfinder Core Rules are almost 600 pages. I think we'll be able to fit a lot in there. Especially since I can't imagine the spell chapter being really huge. Most spells are already covered by the core, so I imagine there will be setting specific spells (create black hole maybe :D ) while most spell lists contain the other core spells.
While true, it wouldn't make sense to reprint all the spells, or make new versions of the same spells. Besides, with the Pathfinder rules as OGL, it's a lot easier to call back to older spells.
I just think it'd be weird reprinting Suggestion or reskin it as Jedi Mind Trick.
Or maybe it will have spells that are appropriate to the milieu. Arrow Shield sounds kind of archiac for a space setting, with everyone shooting lasers, plasma cannons and stuff.
I just realized I never got around to posting my size rules, so since I said I would, here they are.
Size.
Each object and character has a size and sometimes a shape.
While the math in calculating the volume of different sizes is fairly simple, although it uses the square root of 2, players should rarely ever need to use the formula as tables would be printed just like in d20, though for those players who like delving into it the formula is quite simple. Each size is based on a cube. The edge of the cube for one size is the next smallest size cube edge times the square root of 2 (1.414213...), the face of a cube is twice the area of the next smallest cube face, and the volume/weight is three times the square root of 2 (4.242640...) times the volume/weight of the next smallest cube.
The cube just simplifies comparing different sizes regardless of shape. If you cut a cube in half on one axis then double another axis, the volume remains the same, so you can have various shapes all be considered the same size based on the volume of the object. A human for example is size 0, a 3'3" cube made tall, 3'3" wide, 1'7.5" deep and 6'6" tall. The next smallest size is -1, 2'3.5" wide, 1'1.7" deep, and 4'7" tall, suitable for a really small old lady, a child, or a halfling.
In any case, defining the sizes as a set progression means the sizes can equally apply to everything from ants to planets. In a sci-fi setting you can just simply use this size category to describe the size of planets if you wanted. Planet Earth is around size 47.
Therefore, obviously, this covers creatures and ships. Elephants are size 4-5, the Millenium Falcon is size 9, an F-22 is size 7 (if I recall correctly that it's length is 17m), an Imperial class star destroyer is size 20, borg cube size 24, Death Star size 35, The Executor super star destroyer size 29, etc.
The nice thing here for ships is that you aren't limited to particular sizes like in the d20 star wars rules where anything over 1km was treated as the same size (or 100km for space stations) meaning the Death Star and The Executor super-star destroyer were treated as the same size category.
All interactions between sizes are based on the size difference (i.e. death star vs the executor have a size difference of 35-29=6). Note however, that self-powered weapons use the size of the weapon vs the size of the target, thus small point defense weapons are good against fighters because they are smaller and faster than larger artillery weapons which hit harder and farther but only gave a decent chance of hitting larger and easier to hit targets.
The combat bonuses and penalties apply to the smaller of the two participants but apply to both what they do to the larger and what the larger does to them.
The smaller participant gets a +2 to attack and ac for each size category of difference (i.e. a 6' human gets a +6 vs an 18' giant).
When shooting into melee, you take a -4 to your attack roll, this is reduced by 1 per size category the target is larger than the allied creatures in melee with it, to a minimum of 0.
Damage dealt is doubled/halved per size category difference
A creature can move through a space occupied by a creature 3 size categories, and when tumbling through an opponant's space using acrobatics, they gain a +3 per size category smaller they are than their opponant whose space they are moving through.
When two participants of different sizes are competing with strength, then the larger participant adds their strength +100% for each size category larger they are.
Called shots. Called shots use the size category of the part being specifically targeted, thus smaller targets are harder to hit. A creature with a head gets a +2 against called shots to the head, or parts on their head such as eyes, if they are aware of the attacker's presence.
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So, if weapons are made to follow a general trend of larger = more damage but is slower, than anti-personnal, anti-fighter, and anti-[particular ship size] weapons will be emergent as smaller weapons will hit easier but hurt less, which is perfectly fine and a good thing to achieve especially without making explicit rules about anti-fighter vs anti-capital weapons.
I would have to playtest these rules AlicornSage to decide whether I really like them, but they are interesting enough to me to consider trying out.