Will there be Killer Legoes? (replicators)
So you're saying that you're thinking about when you might be able to talk about when you can begin talking about the things you're thinking about?
I think I thought I saw him try to say that.
We actually settled on all the classes weeks ago, we just aren't discussing them all yet.If it's interesting enough that you want to bring a fresh mind in on the design team, you know who to message ;DI have a question for you guys: What are the odds of seeing a class similar to spiritualist, or summoner, with a machine for the companion? Or heck, a class with robot companions instead of animal companions? Or an alien companion? Cause it could have a lot of potential. Will we see something like that?We're not revealing any new info about classes right now, but that's certainly an interesting idea.
Fair enough. I suppose I can settle for a playtest invite :D
I can't wait for the classes to be revealed. >w< I can't really conceptualize characters without knowing the classes!
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Sorry if this has already been asked, but do you know yet your plans for playing Starfinder characters in old Pathfinder? Like say a starship captain that is a laser gun wielding scoundrel type fell into a wormhole and found herself stranded on Golarion in the more traditional fantasy past. Would she still be able to be played, or would she have to be converted to say.... a Gunslinger with the Techslinger archetype or something?
There are several basic categories of space travel in fiction. Which one(s) will Starfinder probably favor? or something else?
1. Sublight, with generation-ships or hibernation of crew & passengers (we are assuming that unmanned or android-crewed ships and von Neumann probes are out of scope). Boring but entirely within the known laws of physics.
2. Compression or 'Warp' Drive: Star Wars hyperdrives, Star Trek warp drives, and so on fit into this category. The ship has special technology which can fold space or shrink it along the way, in essence "cheating" at traveling across light-years by compressing the distance into shorter, manageable chunks.
3. Teleportation: i.e., 'jump drives'. In some sense Pathfinder already has this (Interplanetary Teleport spell) but it is limited to individual travelers and a little bit of baggage, not a whole starship unless you can magically shrink it to fit into your pocket. Teleportation simply ignores the distance between points by traveling through a higher dimension.
4. Space Bridges: the ship itself does not fold space, but an external technology or phenomenon (wormhole generators, stargates, 'collapsars', or something else naturally-occurring) acts as a bridge between points forming the shortcut through normal space. Drawbacks are where did the space bridges come from, who built the artificial ones (if any), how were the first artificial bridges transported to the other side, how were they discovered (if we didn't build them ourselves), etc.
5. Astral Travel: On the astral plane (or some other outer plane bordering the material), the speed of light is much greater than C, so astral travelers can use it to bypass the astronomical distances on the material plane by shifting to the astral plane, traveling very quickly to the region of the astral plane which borders their destination on the material plane, then dropping back into normal space. Astral travel may or may not require the use of "jump gates" to cross the barrier between the planes.
6. Dream Travel: Similar to #5, but you can only do it while you're asleep, or maybe in a special trance? borrow a few things from Inception?
There are several basic categories of space travel in fiction. Which one(s) will Starfinder probably favor? or something else?
It has already been said that Starfinder uses a newly-discovered plane called Hyperspace that can only be entered by technological means and is used to traverse vast distances. Hyperspace is naturally empty, but tends to collect planar debris and fragments, so there may be some parts that are 'flavoured' by one of the more magical planes or another. I vaguely recall hearing it compared to random encounters, but I don't remember where that was said.
I'm actually far more interested in what YOU ALL are interested in as your favorite space-magic groove.
In one homebrew D&D campaign I ran, the D&D game itself was part of the campaign. The people who made D&D were aliens and the D&D game was part of their training program for humans. Demons and Devils had been preparing to invade modern-day Earth ever since the 1800s or so, and so various "good monsters" assumed human form and took on the identities of Tolkien, Gygax, Roddenberry and other persons, to prepare humans for the invasion by getting us used to fighting big bad ugly things without screaming and running away or surrendering to terror. Everything in every Monster Manual was supposed to exist in real life, and it had the exact same abilities as the "game version".
Aside from training regular military and national militias, every nation was supposed to train the geeks, nerds, LARPers, SCAdians, and roleplayers in basic military skills, relying on their recreational hobbies as an advantage toward understanding and combating the enemy, who could be expected to bring orc mercenaries, many kinds of monsters for shock troops, and so on.
The players were in fact completely free to use the MMs as research tools for deciding how their PCs were going to fight whatever they ended up encountering as "humanity's last best hope for victory."
I don't see why you guys couldn't do the same thing here. Make Starfinder the "real" setting, with "Pathfinder" being a hobbyist game based on a fictionalized neo-medieval version of whatever you choose to hold on to for the Starfinder setting. So--dwarves? they exist in real life, so there's dwarves in Pathfinder. Remember that planet someone discovered a few years ago that had a population of tarrasques? Yeah make it a monster in the Pathfinder RPG too. You could have a party of Starfinder characters getting together on weekends to play Pathfinder in-game...
There are several basic categories of space travel in fiction. Which one(s) will Starfinder probably favor? or something else?It has already been said that Starfinder uses a newly-discovered plane called Hyperspace that can only be entered by technological means and is used to traverse vast distances. Hyperspace is naturally empty, but tends to collect planar debris and fragments, so there may be some parts that are 'flavoured' by one of the more magical planes or another. I vaguely recall hearing it compared to random encounters, but I don't remember where that was said.
It was in the Know Direction podcast. The planar debris is basically to enable getting random encounters when you enter hyperspace. The longer the jump, the more dangerous it is, as you may get attacked by the Hyperspaces new denizens such as Demons or Fire Elementals. It's honestly a pretty cool idea and could even lead to entire adventures in Hyperspace if the GM or party is so inclined.
Not sure if it's been covered, but how does Starfinder fit in with Paizo's previous stance on "splitting the fanbase" / multiple gameworlds / etc? Having previously judged that such trends led to TSR's demise, and Starfinder seeming to establish quite a distinct game-world/ruleset, even if tangentially connected to GolarionSpace, curious what has changed in that assessment, or how those pitfalls will be avoided here. On the flipside, is Starfinder going to inform development of GolarionSpace, e.g. "events leading towards Starfinder etc"? BTW, on making Ratfolk core race: Great call.
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In one homebrew D&D campaign I ran, the D&D game itself was part of the campaign. The people who made D&D were aliens and the D&D game was part of their training program for humans....
Greetings, Roleplayer. You have been recruited by the Starfinder League to defend the frontier against Xur and the Fiendish armada.
While Hyperspace is cool and all, it would be interesting to see some more novel takes on space travel as well.
Somebody mentioned shrinking down a ship to fit in your pocket, then teleporting.
Who's to say there isn't a spell that does something similar? Space compression + Teleportation. Shrink Object and Interplanetary Teleport are both spells, after all. Who's to say there can't be spaceships that use a magic item to combine the effects on a large scale?
Developer, Starfinder Team
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The right balance of attacks, damage value, damage types, energy types, and energy resistance are absolutely among the things we are looking at. Indeed, making sure those work in a way that narratively makes sense is one of (though certainly not the only) the reasons we are writing a new game designed to be as compatible as possible with Pathfinder, rather than just releasing "Science-Fantasy Adventures" as a hardback expansion.
And we continue to tweak those answers as the game comes together.
I assume the overlay systems such as Mythic and Corruptions will work with Starfinder?
Also, will there be means for beings or characters to travel through space without a ship? Or will that still be mythic only ability?
Not exactly a question but in regards to attacks, damage and energy types, I have a bit of a problem with my pathfinder in space game in that regard.
Monsters with energy resistance, DR and so on means that I have to ask them to get them to state their damage types and amount of hits way more often than normal games. This was very awkward as this meant that they could not pool their damage and just tell me a number which they were not used to, which slowed things down.
Not exactly a question but in regards to attacks, damage and energy types, I have a bit of a problem with my pathfinder in space game in that regard.
Monsters with energy resistance, DR and so on means that I have to ask them to get them to state their damage types and amount of hits way more often than normal games. This was very awkward as this meant that they could not pool their damage and just tell me a number which they were not used to, which slowed things down.
This is a big part of what i asked back on Thursday and just a few posts above yours Owen K. C. Stephens posted to assure the forum that the team is looking at issues like this for Starfinder.
It could be as simple as blasters dealing force damage instead of laser (fire) or gyrojet/rail guns. We dont actually know how the team is addressing the concern, just that they are very aware of it.
Right on then.
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Too be honest I would have liked a "Science Fantasy Adventures" book.
Too be honest I would have liked a "Science Fantasy Adventures" book.
That would have made the entirety of Pathfinder "backwards compatible." It sounds like that is not what is planned.
Will there be Alternity-d20 Modern style technology levels / progress levels ?
How will hazardous environments be modeled in the system? Will it take a similar form as planar traits do?
-- gravity: none, minimal (dwarf planet), low (Akiton), normal (Castrovel), high (super-earth), severe (gas giant), crushing (neutron star)...
-- radiation: none, minimal, low, moderate, high, severe, lethal...
-- atmosphere toxicity: none, minimal, low, moderate, high, severe (variety of possible inhaled poison effects)...
-- pressure: none (vacuum), minimal (Eox), low (highest mountain in solar system), normal, high (deep ocean), severe (Liavaran/Brethedan atmosphere), crushing (inside the Sun)...
-- heat: extremely cold (near absolute zero), very cold (Apostae surface), cold (Akiton), normal (Castrovel-polar region), hot (Aballon surface), very hot (gas giant deep atmosphere), scorching (Solar corona)
Plus of course magic traits, alignment traits, time traits, the usual.
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Will there be Alternity-d20 Modern style technology levels / progress levels ?
How will hazardous environments be modeled in the system? Will it take a similar form as planar traits do?
-- radiation: none, minimal, low, moderate, high, severe, lethal...
This is dealt with in the Iron Gods material.
I liked the Dark Space setting for SpaceMaster/Rolemaster
Always got a very great 'things men were not meant to know' vibe from Darkspace. Always made me think it was ripe for space horror/Cthulian space adventures.
Was a perfect setting for 'Illithid space' and other far realm style stuff.
As for me what I would really like to see is a really comprehensive and balanced set of personal augmentation rules that can cover both cybernetic and magical personal modifications and reasons why each tupe might be used over the other, why they might be used at all given the existence of Regeneration magic, and why they might not want to be used.
Cyberyes, sub/dermal plating, reaction boosters, Cyberlimbs, and such and magical versions of the same (Hand and Eye of Vecna are precedents for example).
I think that cybernetic/magitech/arcanonetics whatever should be something anyone could do but there should be balancing factors of why it might not be something EVERYONE would automatically do (for optimizing purposes lets say).
Note that planetary surface gravity is as much influenced by the planet's density as its mass.
Note that planetary surface gravity is as much influenced by the planet's density as its mass.
And how it's magic interferes with all of that.
Anyone remember Hollow World? If there was only physics in that world it never would have existed. And even if we assumed it somehow could be brought into being it would have collapsed in on itself were it ruled solely by the laws of science and physics.
Will Starfinder open up Apostae to the rest of the star system? If so, how are you going to do the stats for the Ilee since they are so varied in their anatomy and capabilities? Will the Ilee be a playable race? (perhaps under a different name... Celerians?)
But another point I've made elsewhere that links in, almost-compatibility is bad (for me) in another way. There are still differences from 3.0 to 3.5 to Pathfinder that the elders in my group occasionally stumble on. I almost never think of non-lethal as subdual damage anymore (a 3.0-ism), but we still struggle to remember that silence is now a one-round casting.
I often forget rules that exist just because someone wrote them and serve no purpose other than existing so people can forget about them here and there. Tiny sized plate Armor giving you half Armor Bonus, for example. Two handed improvised throwm weapons being full round action. Etc.
Those are the rules that *I* want to be streamlined. Rules that serve no narrative purpose other than cluttering the book, and exist just because someone in WotC twenty years ago thought it was a good idea to make an exception for tiny sized armors for realism, but not for gargantuan sized armor for the same thing.
I still think d20 is the most robust game system I've played, and that's why I'm in this forum and not in Vampire the Masquerade or FATE or Marvel RPG or whatever. However, there are a LOT of rules that could be stresmlined without losing anything.
I'm a huge fan of Unchained, for example, and I hope it becones the default action economy and unified skill system in SF
A question for the Starfinder Team; are you all giving consideration too, and if so can share your thoughts on, what damage types weapons will deal and how those interact with touch AC, Hardness, energy resistances and DR?
For example a 1D8 laser pistol may be the iconic personal weapon of so many Sci-Fis out there but in the Pathfinder continuity it is common to run across something with fire resist 5 at very low levels. Pathfinder also established Hardness as a common defense on technological creatures which can really eat up "blaster" shots. In another thread i point out how Hardness 10 renders robots virtually immune to a Plasma Thrower's 4D6 since it splits the damage into fire and electricity which then both have to subtract 10 points from hardness. In the Gnome Stew interview there was a comment about a low level soldier with an assault rifle, i know this may have been a generic example and could even have meant laser or sonic assault rifle but does this mean "slug throwers" will still have a place in the far, far, far future?
I know there have been comments made in interviews already about how you are thinking about and tweaking combat rules, i suppose this falls into that category but would love to hear insights and thoughts about it if you all would care to share. Thank you!
A bit off topic, but in my Iron gods campaig I made Llama to be both Core and electricty at same time. It means the targetgets the worst of Core or electricty Resist, and hardness aply just once. Makes plasma an upgrade over láser/arc, instead of a downgrade.
A tweak like this to how Resist are applied is the kind of cchance that can keep backwards compatibility (your bestiary numbers are still usable) but cchance thibgs enough to make the new game different and the rules adaptable to the new enviroment.
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But another point I've made elsewhere that links in, almost-compatibility is bad (for me) in another way. There are still differences from 3.0 to 3.5 to Pathfinder that the elders in my group occasionally stumble on. I almost never think of non-lethal as subdual damage anymore (a 3.0-ism), but we still struggle to remember that silence is now a one-round casting.I often forget rules that exist just because someone wrote them and serve no purpose other than existing so people can forget about them here and there. Tiny sized plate Armor giving you half Armor Bonus, for example. Two handed improvised throwm weapons being full round action. Etc.
Those are the rules that *I* want to be streamlined. Rules that serve no narrative purpose other than cluttering the book, and exist just because someone in WotC twenty years ago thought it was a good idea to make an exception for tiny sized armors for realism, but not for gargantuan sized armor for the same thing.
I still think d20 is the most robust game system I've played, and that's why I'm in this forum and not in Vampire the Masquerade or FATE or Marvel RPG or whatever. However, there are a LOT of rules that could be stresmlined without losing anything.
I'm a huge fan of Unchained, for example, and I hope it becones the default action economy and unified skill system in SF
I've never heard of those 2 rules before, where are they from?
I've never heard of those 2 rules before, where are they from?
From Pathfinder
Check here the table for armor for unusual crestures, tiny size, snd the smsll asterisk leading to the rule.
You can find the rules for throwing 2 handed weapons here., The relevant quote being
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It is possible to throw a weapon that isn't designed to be thrown (that is, a melee weapon that doesn't have a numeric entry in the Range column on the following weapon tables), and a character who does so takes a –4 penalty on the attack roll. Throwing a light or one-handed weapon is a standard action, while throwing a two-handed weapon is a full-round action. Regardless of the type of weapon, such an attack scores a threat only on a natural roll of 20 and deals double damage on a critical hit. Such a weapon has a range increment of 10 feet."
And the reason why you never heard those (and hundreds of other rules like those) is becsuse you never needed such granularity to run your games or play them. Yet those (and hundreds other rules) exist in the game, just becsuse someone thought 20 years ago we wpuld need them to properly pretend to be magic elves killing princess-kidnapping dragons.
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I've never heard of those 2 rules before, where are they from?From Pathfinder
Check here the table for armor for unusual crestures, tiny size, snd the smsll asterisk leading to the rule.
You can find the rules for throwing 2 handed weapons here., The relevant quote being
"
It is possible to throw a weapon that isn't designed to be thrown (that is, a melee weapon that doesn't have a numeric entry in the Range column on the following weapon tables), and a character who does so takes a –4 penalty on the attack roll. Throwing a light or one-handed weapon is a standard action, while throwing a two-handed weapon is a full-round action. Regardless of the type of weapon, such an attack scores a threat only on a natural roll of 20 and deals double damage on a critical hit. Such a weapon has a range increment of 10 feet."And the reason why you never heard those (and hundreds of other rules like those) is becsuse you never needed such granularity to run your games or play them. Yet those (and hundreds other rules) exist in the game, just becsuse someone thought 20 years ago we wpuld need them to properly pretend to be magic elves killing princess-kidnapping dragons.
Ah.
I don't know about the tiny armor (which I guess makes sense given the size and DEX bonus to AC those things usually have) but the throwing an "improvised" weapon actually happens more often than you think so I'm glad they do have rules for that.
I've never heard of those 2 rules before, where are they from?From Pathfinder
Check here the table for armor for unusual crestures, tiny size, snd the smsll asterisk leading to the rule.
You can find the rules for throwing 2 handed weapons here., The relevant quote being
"
It is possible to throw a weapon that isn't designed to be thrown (that is, a melee weapon that doesn't have a numeric entry in the Range column on the following weapon tables), and a character who does so takes a –4 penalty on the attack roll. Throwing a light or one-handed weapon is a standard action, while throwing a two-handed weapon is a full-round action. Regardless of the type of weapon, such an attack scores a threat only on a natural roll of 20 and deals double damage on a critical hit. Such a weapon has a range increment of 10 feet."And the reason why you never heard those (and hundreds of other rules like those) is becsuse you never needed such granularity to run your games or play them. Yet those (and hundreds other rules) exist in the game, just becsuse someone thought 20 years ago we wpuld need them to properly pretend to be magic elves killing princess-kidnapping dragons.
Ah.
I don't know about the tiny armor (which I guess makes sense given the size and DEX bonus to AC those things usually have) but the throwing an "improvised" weapon actually happens more often than you think so I'm glad they do have rules for that.
Sure it happens. Don't know why the granularity needs to be so tiny as to have a different rule when you pretend to be a magic elf throwing a falchion than when you pretend to be a magic elf throwing a scimitar, tho. Why such rule?
Does your game improve by a lot if your character can't move in the same round he throws a falchion, once in a lifetime? Would it be unplayable without having an exception to the exception?
If the answer is yes... them jow did you have fun all these years, before today, when you didnt know there was an exception?
Thiscpulf be covered by using the generic -2/-4 circunstantial bonus and call it a day. It doesnt happen often enoughor is critical enough to warrant rule space, eother in the book, or in the pkayer's heads. Most of them don't even know these rules exist anyway. And are pretty happy with their games without them.
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Surf it happens. Don't know why the granularity needs to be so tiny as to hace a different rule when you pretend to be a magic elf throwing a falchion than when you pretend to be a magic elf throwing a scimitar?
Does your game improve by a lot if your charactsr can't move in the same round he throws a falchion? Would it be unplayable without having an exception to the exception?
If the answer is yes... them jow did you hsve gun all these years, before today, when you didnt know there was an exception?
Because there's a different amount of effort involved in throwing those two things -_-
What? It hasn't been unplayable without rules, Yes I like having rules for when niche cases show up. Having more or less rules does take away fun, they just save us time when the situations come up.
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Thiscpulf be covered by using the generic -2/-4 circunstantial bonus and call it a day. It doesnt happen often enoughor is critical enough to warrant rule space, eother in the book, or in the pkayer's heads. Most of them don't even know these rules exist anyway. And are pretty happy with their games without them.
Actually it does happen enough to warrant these kinds of rules, that's why they're there.
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Actually it does happen enough to warrant these kinds of rules, that's why they're there.Thiscpulf be covered by using the generic -2/-4 circunstantial bonus and call it a day. It doesnt happen often enoughor is critical enough to warrant rule space, eother in the book, or in the pkayer's heads. Most of them don't even know these rules exist anyway. And are pretty happy with their games without them.
No, they are there so you can play the game since you started until today, without knowing the rule exists, and not having any problem at all for not using it, even if the situation happens often enough in your games.
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No, they are there so you can play the game since you started until today, without knowing the rule exists, and not having any problem at all for not using it, even if the situation happens often enough in your games.Actually it does happen enough to warrant these kinds of rules, that's why they're there.Thiscpulf be covered by using the generic -2/-4 circunstantial bonus and call it a day. It doesnt happen often enoughor is critical enough to warrant rule space, eother in the book, or in the pkayer's heads. Most of them don't even know these rules exist anyway. And are pretty happy with their games without them.
*shrugs*
Before he rule it was whatever the GM ruled, which ranged from anything to not able at all. With the rule you have a, well, rule to go with and keep things movings. And I knew about throwing weapons. I just didn't know about that specifc 2-handed rule since I've never thrown one. Thrown plenty of "improvised" one ganders though.
And "happening all the time and having no rule for it but not having any issues with it" is unlikely to flat out impossible.
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What? It hasn't been unplayable without rules, Yes I like having rules for when niche cases show up. Having more or less rules does take away fun, they just save us time when the situations come up.
So you like having niche rules that by your own admision you didnt even know they existed, so you played without them. And you would have had continued to play without it, if you haven't read this thread, without any harm to your fun, as you have been doing until today.
Fair enough. I beg to differ. And I think yours is a great example of what I meant when I posted about the kind of rules I think can be streamlined without any harm to the game or the "Pathfinder experience".
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What? It hasn't been unplayable without rules, Yes I like having rules for when niche cases show up. Having more or less rules does take away fun, they just save us time when the situations come up.
So you like having niche rules that by your own admision you didnt even know they existed, so you played without them. And you would have had continued to play without it, if you haven't read this thread, without any harm to your fun, as you have been doing until today.
Fair enough. I beg to differ. And I think yours is a great example of what I meant when I posted about the kind of rules I think can be streamlined without any harm to the game or the "Pathfinder experience".
... Are you even reading what you're writing?
Correct I didn't use them. Because I didn't know about them. Because I didn't use them. How can you know about something if you never play it?
If it ever came to me throwing a greatsword I would have looked it up to see if they have rules for it and, as it turns out, they do.
Just ad nauseating repeating "you would have continued to play as you do without any harm to your fun" isn't helping your argument, if anything it's just annoying and preachy. If there wasn't a rule for it or we couldn't find one we would make one and POOF there is now a rule that we will refer to.
That's how the game works, by having rules. If there aren't any, you make them. Pathfinder is a game of rules, and yes, there's a lot of them, but I like having options.
Perhaps you should look into a rules-lite system if they bug you so much?
Question: Golarion is supposed to have been destroyed in the far-future of Starfinder.
What about other planets of Golarion's system, e.g. Castrovel and Akiton?