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"Uh, it doesn't, the station wasn't built to deal with gravitational forces so it would shear apart if you tried to aim it at the planet it orbits"
"So we'll move it a little further out"
"Uh, that, um, no it would, you can't aim it anymore"
"Yeah, I'm gonna do a bit of math for a minute here, we can be patient, we'll fire it off into space. No targeting, just, from these coordinates, with this specific direction that we've moved ourself to. We ARE able to control the attitude of the station in deep space right?"
"yeah of course"
"GOOD. The relativistic slugs hit the planet in 28.116 hours."
"Wait what?"
"The planet'll be there when the trajectories intersect."
"But... but..."
Seriously; "uh, you can't because um, fiat" is nothing but a dare. If not blowing up planets is SO important, all the more reason to find ways to commit geocide before all the baddies realise they can just hide behind a planet and be safe.
Sure, a Star Destroyer can level a city easily, and wipe out an entire planetary surface given enough time, but the PCs are much more likely to have firepower on the scale of the Millennium Falcon. Which, in space opera land where physics is already told to sit in the corner and shut up, likely can't wipe out cities. I'm struggling to think of a major sci-fi universe that even has relativistic weapons - heck in most sci-fi, energy weapons fire blasts that are slower than modern bullets.
But even if they are included, I'm not sure I need rules space taken up with details of how a PC group can commit atrocities. Wiping out cities is something the bad guys do. If the PCs really want to do it, they can have the same plot handwave that the villains do, because they are now the villains of the story anyway.
ryric wrote: Sure, a Star Destroyer can level a city easily, and wipe out an entire planetary surface given enough time, but the PCs are much more likely to have firepower on the scale of the Millennium Falcon. Which, in space opera land where physics is already told to sit in the corner and shut up, likely can't wipe out cities. I'm struggling to think of a major sci-fi universe that even has relativistic weapons - heck in most sci-fi, energy weapons fire blasts that are slower than modern bullets.
But even if they are included, I'm not sure I need rules space taken up with details of how a PC group can commit atrocities. Wiping out cities is something the bad guys do. If the PCs really want to do it, they can have the same plot handwave that the villains do, because they are now the villains of the story anyway.
In the Traveller game, the Ancients used Kinetic energy to shatter planets. They would connect two teleportation portals ( think Ring gates) vertically, so that an object coming out of one portal will fall into the other. The bottom portal would send the object back to the one above it. The constant acceleration would bring the object/projectile up to relativistic velocities. They would then land another portal onto the target's surface. At the proper instant, the signal from the bottom portal would be shunted to the portal on the target's surface.
If all they have is a souped up YT-1300's firepower, they'll stop USING ships by about level 8 as anything but a horse and buggy that holds their loot. Probably in favor of longbows.
And don't forget those blasts are supposed to be backed by a character's feats, proficiencies and class abilities. That 2d6 sword ends up pulling 3d6+30+extras (or rather, being replaced by a 3d6, and thus doing 4d6 instead) by the end of it. If the laser turret can't keep up because pathfinder-tech-guide, then someone'll just stick their heads out (mid level adventurers have no trouble breathing in space) and snipe with a frickin bow for far more damage and far more attacks per round as well (thus many times the DPR), YET AGAIN.
Assuming the developers are smarter than that mistake, those ship cannons should be pulverizing adamant hulls and glassing cities with a good gunner guiding them.
Sauce987654321 wrote: I'm not sure what the fascination is with making nukes and other high tech weapons do billions of damage. I'm not sure how this adds anything to the game, especially when you can create the same effects using much lower numbers with additional effects outside of just pure damage.
Really, a nuke could be like 32d6 Fire and 32d6 Bludgeoning, max damage to unattended objects, topples structures up to a certain quality, and with a radiation effect. Can't say my method above is absolutely perfect, but certainly much better than "billions and billions of damage."
Your view has merit. Something on the scale of a grenade sized "micro-nuke" that would use a Deuterium pellet ignited by either lasers or antimatter. The damage will drop off rapidly ( remember, the inverse square law still applies ). This is the difference between tactical and strategic weapons. The question now is, where is the line between tactical and strategic weapons?
That line is entirely dependent on the scale of warfare in the setting. Tactical weapons are meant to influence a battlefield situation, while a Strategic weapon is meant to alter things on a wider operational (and often wider physical area) scale. There's no defined line as to the actual output of the weapon; it's all about the role they're optimized for.
So it's mostly dependent on what the strategic scale is.
If entire wars are fought over a single castle on a plain, a single cannon is a tactical weapon, while a small nuke capable of leveling it would be a strategic one. A ship flying around with four cannons may also qualify, being a devastating fortress of doom to the poor bastards way down there.
If an orbital station is something you send a single ship to take out as part of a greater operation to attack a nearby moon, then a weapon capable of annihilating capital ships or the station is a tactical one, while a strategic weapon might core the moon itself. A ship may be able to carry single-shot or long-charge versions of the latter, while fighters are probably packing the former as their heaviest torpedoes or spinal mains. Something that merely punches a hole through a couple of feet of rock at a few hundred feet is probably a personal weapon now.
If individual squadrons take planets the way we used to have soldiers take a hill, then most likely the fighters glass continent with their main guns, frigates have planetbuster wave-motion cannons on their prows (tactical weapon), and a weapon probably has to thoroughly wipe out large star systems to qualify as strategic.
I am hoping that there with be Technomancy included with the technology. I liked it in Iron Gods and it will be interesting to see how it advanced and was perfected from Absolom Station. The blending of technology plus magic will make it interesting and hopefully effective against the Dark Veil creatures and Cthuhlu-esq creatures.
I am also hoping there will be divine blessed technology. Things that allow blessings to be amplified and would be effective against planar incursions.
What is everyone's thoughts on these?
My favorite way of weapons being effective against particular threats is when they just have so much power that reality just breaks down from being ruthlessly violated. Who cares if the universe just became a teeny bit less infinite?
I'd like to see the differences between divine, arcane, psionic and technological system selections to be more about practical design than flat "ONLY THIS WORKS AGAINST THOSE". When "only this works" you risk having a much better option than all the others, and wouldn't it be great if we didn't have the nastier levels ivory tower trap options, and instead stuff was nice and viable? Like, in PF, nonmagical weapons just plain *fail* against large swarths of creatures as you go up in level. There's no alternatives.
Perhaps it's like a second set of material bonuses and drawbacks:
Technological system: The default, but by no means the inferior option. Reliably draws power from your reactor or power-source, with only a small reserve should it lose those, and functions. Perfectly capable of doing the whole "+5 and screw your DRs" deal with higher quality design and capacitors.
Psionic system: Amplifies existing abilities. Psi systems let you use abilities, though often in a preset fashion only, without any power-point cost thanks to feeding them from the reactor. Problem is, they're just that - amplifiers.
In PF terms, just like how enchantments have a particular sorta-related spell/ability they're based off of, you need a particular power or specific class ability in order to use this; it's flatly worthless to you otherwise, not even UMD will help. Practically speaking, this means all the psionic items are is a reactor-feed and/or scale-up you can buy for individual powers/abilities you already have, and it still takes up equipment or ship slots. A missile launcher doesn't care about all that, but for the most part the psi equipment is fully blended in with regular tech gear.
Magic system: If you want to save on reactor-power, in most regions of space the easiest way to do this is arcane enchantment. Magic lasers power themselves, filling their capacitors with magic (but only magic; they'll run out fast reactor or not without ambient mana in a dead-zone) - although watch out for cheap knockoffs with X/day limitations; as much as it can save you, "I can only use this once a day" is damned pathetic for a point-defense!
Of course, any sensors remotely tuned for magic (that's most suites) will pick up the blatantly obvious flow going straight to wherever, but the big danger is you need unbroken enchanted equipment for this: Magic powered systems suffer the 'broken' penalties as soon as they're damaged, and shut down entirely at the "broken" status of below-50%. A broken magic circle holds no demons, and a broken cannon holds no charge.
Divine system: Take it all one step further: External wireless power not only keeps the item running as long as its god exists, but thanks to running off miracles and needing no power converters or engines of any sort it's also half the mass (and often one step smaller for space or handling).
But that mithral treatment has a price: You *need* a steady connection and good standing with the god it feeds off of. If teleportation/summoning are locked out by dimensional anchoring, your divine stuff is 'broken'. If you're too far away from the plane the god's realm occupies, the penalties start stacking up. A top quality piece of Divine-Conduit equipment might be heavily diminished but still functional if its deity's in the upper realms and you're in the deep ethereal; and a cheap one might've stopped working when you reached the prime.
I wonder if Starfinder would have an extensive set of starship / vehicle design rules like GURPS Traveller does. If it does, then I can be really creative. I would be content to do nothing but design ships and vehicles for hours. And since my two top favorite Classic Traveller ( CT ) products were High Guard ( for ships ) and Striker ( for vehicles ) most of my designs would be purely military in nature.
My best guess? The Core book will have 5-8 hulls with preset gear and a few tables of optional upgrades or downgrades to represent various power levels. Really hoping for a Starfinder equivalent to High Guard though.
Classic Traveller used a very simple ship design system for hulls up to 5,000 tons. Even this would be enough to satisfy me for a while. An advanced ship design book could come out as a supplement, just as High Guard did for Traveller. I wonder if Starfinder will have books similar to Mercenary, Scouts, and Merchant Prince.
Agree for the most part, but the numbers are pretty huge in Traveller.
A 100t ship is a 1 man (although better if you have at least one other to act as gunner in combat) craft with a single hardpoint and only 3 tons of cargo space. Even without fuel, it's still 78 tons.
A Scout ship can be operated by a crew of one, but a full crew is four if you want anything but the default for automation. And God help you if you're in combat in a Scout ship with no other crew but you.
I would like to see scrolls and spellbooks supplemented by ebooks and spellsticks.
A spellstick is a thin metal rod about 6 inches long and barely half an inch thick. Its surface is covered with indentations like grooves. They are all precisely machined. A blank spellstick can have a spell written to it like a scroll using special inks that are imprinted onto the surface into the grooves. It is a meticulous process but takes no more time than penning an archaic scroll of the same level, but the caster requires a magnifier (or very good eyesight) to scribe the spell correctly. A spellstick can contain only one spell at a time.
A spellstick can be inserted into an e-spellbook to instantly identify the spell written and its caster level without having to study it manually. Most e-spellbooks have four to six slots to keep multiple sticks loaded at once, but expansion modules can increase this. A spell can be transferred electromagically between e-spellbook and spellstick (which always erases the original copy).
You wouldn't have that problem if you just jailbroke your spellbook.
Damn wizards and their DRM.
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Draconic Rites Management is really hard to crack. Red dragon code-mages, you think they're tough, but gold ones are tougher.
I've recently watched an anime called "Modern Magic Made Simple" where magic is treated just like computer programs. Is this an adequate comparison to what you're suggesting?
Not directly. I was visualizing something like microwriting on cylinders like the old-style was cylinders with stored audio recordings that existed before vinyl records. In small quantities ink jots and tittles will not easily imprint on such a small curved surface, so the grooves and such make up for that. And it hints of writing magical spells in binary form or something similar which might be less efficient than strings of ideograms but harder to read by unauthorized eyes (and the eBook software doesn't care if it's binary or not).
I wonder how nanotechnology will be handled in Starfinder.
Being a fan of Alastair Reynold's works, i was wondering about uploading copies of the PCs minds to the ship so that the onboard computers can use the PCs skills and match their outlook. It would also allow a small party a way to control all aspects of the ship in combat when they otherwise might not have a full party. finally, it lets the players create a saved state for their minds with an accompanying DNA map so that they can clone and download their minds into new bodies after that failed away mission.
Along similar lines, i would like to see an artifact of some kind where you can not only clone yourself but alter the species or other aspects of any subject in the vat.
Also, imagine the value of mind copying a prisoner with information the party needs and then instead of CHA dependent interrogation you can use INT based hacking to pull information out of the digital copy.
Although you could already replace damn near everything with INT already in pathfinder. We need to see more use from not-int, and especially CON.
John Napier 698 wrote: I wonder how nanotechnology will be handled in Starfinder. Here is a fun topic, Androids posses some innate level of nanites and a subset with the alternate racial trait have nanites that can immediately repair them. Since Androids can now be created with the tech level in the golarion system we can assume nano tech is at least available and in use in some areas and is capable of construction and repair to some degree. The problem is nano-tech is often used in lieu of magic as a thing capable of doing anything and i hope there are some hard limits on what nanites can do.
A good point, but nanotech cannot do everything. Such as changing Lead into Gold. Nanotech cannot change one element into another. That involves Nuclear processes. But a Polymorph Any Object spell can.
Jamie Charlan wrote: Although you could already replace damn near everything with INT already in pathfinder. We need to see more use from not-int, and especially CON. True, i would say it is a start of a good trend. default abilities for skills should represent the "common" method but there is not a single way to be perceptive or diplomatic. I think most classes should have an ability or choice to change skills to their primary and secondary abilities. The Solarion already sounds like something that will be basing a lot off of Wisdom, it would be cool if they can change skills to reflect that too. Likewise the Envoy can hopefully get a lot of mileage out of their CHA in unexpected ways. The real hard to justify part to me is using a physical score in place of a mental one. But even then, there are options for STR to intimidate which works for me. I am just not sure how to expand it out from there...
John Napier 698 wrote: A good point, but nanotech cannot do everything. Such as changing Lead into Gold. Nanotech cannot change one element into another. That involves Nuclear processes. But a Polymorph Any Object spell can. Yes although magic gets to make up its limits and we buy them easily enough, "sure, to master magic enough to cast that spell requires being level 9 and providing 9,000 GP of rare ingredients, cool." with technology it gets harder to suspend belief though as technology is easier to use by design. If it is an artificial constraint than that creates a black market and when space travel is so common there are plenty of places to hide your illegal nano-forge. So how do we limit PC's access to over powering tech capabilities but still allow access to the simpler ones that are level appropriate? There are tons of way to do it, i just want to know what they are going with.
"I cast FIST" aside, Constitution was one of the prime stats for Psionicists in 2nd edition; that energy was produced by the body after all, and learning to use it more efficiently still requires having some to start with (you'll just last that much longer with a larger tank). Likewise, having extra physical boxes helps stay alive if you ever go physical with your drain in Shadowrun. Sometimes aiming and putting the magic together is something you learn by rote with enough practice, but in the end you need to be able to handle all that power running rampant through your body if you want to put it to great use.
One aspect that would help socially would be an appearance secondary statistic. Yes, having confidence and whatnot helps, but you're not going to get any words in if people are retching from your very face.
This would allow bonuses for people with better physiques (because it *DOES* help), either making something other than "put everything in CHA, nothing else matters" a good idea for bard types, or at least letting the barbarian's body make up for his tragic inability to perform a tongue-twister when he's surrounded by those noble ladies.
And at the other end of the spectrum, well, you had better be just that good with words if you look like you were beaten with the ugly stick - which makes sense. In fact you can take it a step further into the unrealistic absurdity into hackmaster-style negative appearance scores (0 was already "some folks will attack you on sight while screaming 'monster' and 'it's coming, run'"), where suddenly you start looking more and more attractive to physically-evil inhuman entities. Because at that point, the ... thing... running around with -25 appearance had the exact same effects as nymphs on evil tentacled horrors.
Psions using different physical attributes to power different schools of power was pretty cool in earlier editions. i was always fond of pyshcoportation in particular :)
Perhaps nanotech will be treated as an industrial process. Like a mining ship's ore processor. Use nanotech to rip apart the asteroid fragments, then place each retrieved element into its own holding bin. This process could also be used for trash recycling and hazardous waste disposal.
Even though you're disposing of it, it's not called waste disposal when that hazardous waste is rammed through enemy ships at relativistic velocities.
John Napier 698 wrote: Perhaps nanotech will be treated as an industrial process. Like a mining ship's ore processor. Use nanotech to rip apart the asteroid fragments, then place each retrieved element into its own holding bin. This process could also be used for trash recycling and hazardous waste disposal. I like that. Make it a very oversight intensive tech to use. nanobots are finicky and due to the sheer number used in any process, without strict and constant oversight or a very simple set of instructions, they will run amok and fail to accomplish much of anything.
Jamie Charlan wrote: Even though you're disposing of it, it's not called waste disposal when that hazardous waste is rammed through enemy ships at relativistic velocities. :D There is a weapon in the game "Serious Sam" which has a description warning users of the intense radiation emitted by the munitions. There is a second warning that due to the intended nature of the weapon, that is, to kill things, the dangers of the radiation do not need to be worried about.
Torbyne wrote: I like that. Make it a very oversight intensive tech to use. nanobots are finicky and due to the sheer number used in any process, without strict and constant oversight or a very simple set of instructions, they will run amok and fail to accomplish much of anything. That, or, make the machines that do the nanoscale manipulation larger than the nanites they produce. Just as the factories that produce cars are much larger than the cars they make.
Thoughts on armor.
Their will either be a way to gain AC unarmored or a special cloth weave that functions like armor but looks like normal clothes.
That being said I can picture several armor types existing. These could include:
A tougher version of the armored cloth used in trench coats and vests that go over clothes.
A "plastic" plate mail.
A mirrored or prism armor for defense against lasers.
Powered armor.
i am hoping they avoid too many specific attack type armors such as the anti-laser prismatic stuff. I also think AC in general should be reduced to a combination of personnel shields that act as temp HP pools and armors as Hardness to protect against attacks. Mundane, 'I hit it with a rock" kinds of attacks are just soaked up by hardness rather than deflected. Touch AC is about all anyone worries about in the age of lasers so resisting is more important that deflecting.
Or to look at it from the other side AC is very lopsided when half the party are using chainswords to target regular AC and the other half use light sabers and blasters to target touch, making all armor function as Hardness makes it universally effective against attack types and reduces the need for humanoids to specialize in full BAB classes that are generally lacking in out of combat applications.
Leave in Touch AC, most classes are 3/4 BAB and either specialize in using hardness to reduce most attacks to manageable levels or use super-science/Solarion magic tricks to boost their Touch value.
FirstChAoS wrote: Thoughts on armor.
Their will either be a way to gain AC unarmored or a special cloth weave that functions like armor but looks like normal clothes.
That being said I can picture several armor types existing. These could include:
My long experience with the Traveller RPG has given me some ideas along this line.
Quote: A tougher version of the armored cloth used in trench coats and vests that go over clothes. A composite thread of silk and carbon-fiber comes to mind.
Quote: A "plastic" plate mail. Or, perhaps a lightweight laminated composite consisting of plastic, carbon-fiber fabric and aluminum.
Quote: A mirrored or prism armor for defense against lasers. Traveller Relfec Armor. Let's also not forget Ablat. It is semi-rigid armor that ablates laser fire. Meaning that part of the armor vaporizes when struck by lasers, thus carrying away the enegry of the beam.
Quote: Powered armor. Traveller Battledress.
Alternatively battlelords versions:
Defense/dodging is a mostly passive penalty to accuracy, but generally won't help all THAT much (still, turning 8 hits into 7 hits might keep you alive rather well with all that armor on).
Your armor will generally-speaking stop all damage from making its way to your own HP, and if heavy enough will also halve the incoming damage (before its own threshold applies) from lower tech weapons (basic lasers and powder weapons with calibers smaller than an HMG) as well.
Armor has Threshold (amount of damage directly prevented), absorption layers, and integrity. The second part are the actual armor plates,etc, while the latter is the framework holding it together. Replacing absorption polymers is cheap and easy, but they're literally HP on that location. Integrity is lost from more damaging attacks depending on the weapon type (plasma and the such are particularly evil there) and if integrity runs out, the armor falls apart at that location no matter how much AP was left after the hit is calculated.
Lasers ignore AP, but deal less damage to begin with and you can buy laser-specific AP layers to fill up some of the location if need be as well instead. Shield generators can help too.
There is of course tons of armor upgrades, all the way up to mechanized battlesuits which the best of are literal walking tanks (and more expensive than a less miniaturized actual tank), though at that point it's a bit closer to an exo-suit than to regular power-armor (which is also available).
Torbyne wrote: Being a fan of Alastair Reynold's works, i was wondering about uploading copies of the PCs minds to the ship so that the onboard computers can use the PCs skills and match their outlook. It would also allow a small party a way to control all aspects of the ship in combat when they otherwise might not have a full party. finally, it lets the players create a saved state for their minds with an accompanying DNA map so that they can clone and download their minds into new bodies after that failed away mission.
Along similar lines, i would like to see an artifact of some kind where you can not only clone yourself but alter the species or other aspects of any subject in the vat.
Also, imagine the value of mind copying a prisoner with information the party needs and then instead of CHA dependent interrogation you can use INT based hacking to pull information out of the digital copy.
Sounds a lot like "Dark Matter" or The Sixth Day :) Or like the Sarcophagus from "Stargate: SG-1" where a dead body can be resurrected, diseases or poisons cured, injuries healed, or acts as a powerful stimulant on an already healthy person. Aside from all the other benefits, this last one was portrayed as highly addictive and mind-altering (use it often enough and you'll turn into an incurable megalomaniac).
I like the idea of reset booths but access to them will have a major effect on playing style. This should be an item that the GM could put into play if he wants to, but is otherwise unavailable. Maybe it costs too much to build. Maybe so few have ever been made that no one who has one will willingly surrender it without some serious 'encouragement'. Or most civilized governments have ruled them illegal or immoral and tries to suppress the technology.
Matthew Shelton wrote: Torbyne wrote: Being a fan of Alastair Reynold's works, i was wondering about uploading copies of the PCs minds to the ship so that the onboard computers can use the PCs skills and match their outlook. It would also allow a small party a way to control all aspects of the ship in combat when they otherwise might not have a full party. finally, it lets the players create a saved state for their minds with an accompanying DNA map so that they can clone and download their minds into new bodies after that failed away mission.
Along similar lines, i would like to see an artifact of some kind where you can not only clone yourself but alter the species or other aspects of any subject in the vat.
Also, imagine the value of mind copying a prisoner with information the party needs and then instead of CHA dependent interrogation you can use INT based hacking to pull information out of the digital copy.
Sounds a lot like "Dark Matter" or The Sixth Day :) Or like the Sarcophagus from "Stargate: SG-1" where a dead body can be resurrected, diseases or poisons cured, injuries healed, or acts as a powerful stimulant on an already healthy person. Aside from all the other benefits, this last one was portrayed as highly addictive and mind-altering (use it often enough and you'll turn into an incurable megalomaniac).
I like the idea of reset booths but access to them will have a major effect on playing style. This should be an item that the GM could put into play if he wants to, but is otherwise unavailable. Maybe it costs too much to build. Maybe so few have ever been made that no one who has one will willingly surrender it without some serious 'encouragement'. Or most civilized governments have ruled them illegal or immoral and tries to suppress the technology.
In regulated space, such as the station, the pact worlds could impose a fee (5,000 GP maybe?) for use of such failsafes to represent the continued use of resources or some such. if the devices are large enough that they have to be kept in at least a largish ship than it could just move the drama from dying on the away mission to losing the ship resulting in your own mortality coming back to bite you in the butt.
Another notion i had, either no or severely limited transporters please!
Transporters are far too abuse-able if they are anything like Star Trek portrays. If there is something like that available i would hope it is more like the Stargate ring system where you need preset stations to arrive/depart from or you have to be close enough with clear line of effect to drop your own temporary rings. hopefully most PC ships will be fully atmospheric capable and they can just land but if we have to have matter energy transporters, heres hoping they have some hard limits.
As long as it can be done magically ('compatibility' as a drawback, one might say) then having full-fledged transporter rooms and replicators (same tech after all) is really not an issue, since at least those are already more restricted by "it's on the ship".
As long as someone can just finger themselves and wave a wand, there being a technological version is not much of a problem.
Besides, there's likely to be plenty of dimension anchor systems or terraport interdiction fields or whatever anyways!
Jamie Charlan wrote: As long as it can be done magically ('compatibility' as a drawback, one might say) then having full-fledged transporter rooms and replicators (same tech after all) is really not an issue, since at least those are already more restricted by "it's on the ship".
As long as someone can just finger themselves and wave a wand, there being a technological version is not much of a problem.
Besides, there's likely to be plenty of dimension anchor systems or terraport interdiction fields or whatever anyways!
... ok, first off, phrasing. we are still doing that, right?
Second, Dimension Door's limited range kind of removes it from the shenanigans i am talking about. Teleport is very abuse-able in exploration and travel heavy campaigns but it thankfully locked behind high level gates. usually. making a transporter a staple of the setting brings those shenanigans online much earlier than otherwise available.
Mid-Level. Teleport is a 6th level spell. You can certainly afford a Teleport Without Error scroll or the like at least once per adventure, or at worst at level 11 the appropriate classes can hand-cast the regular 'port themselves. There's also double-planeshifting, once you've got a proper focus to start up. It's slot-heavy, but available from 9th.
You wanna lock down the shenanigans, I don't disagree; but "beam down to the planet" first needs "snap fingers, bit of garnish, done" out of the way before the problem's actually taken care of, especially if it happens to be expensive (WBL was a bigger gatekeeper than caster level often enough for such utilities)
I see nothing wrong with the use of shuttles to access a world's surface. Requiring shuttles could reduce smuggling.
Maybe there's short range stargates for planetary docking: one Stargate locked in geosync orbit above the spaceport (or at L1 or L2), and its matching pair hoisted up above the surface. If you can build a gate pair as big as you want, then a spaceport may have many such pairs of different sizes. Of course the codes to activate the bigger ones have a modest fee attached...
How about
- Modular starships for ship to ship combat.
- Scaling feats (eg; improved -> greater at set levels)
- Personal shields to reduce elemental damage from energy weapons
EDIT*
- A base 4 skill points for martial classes *coff coff
Should be more than 4 if you're spending all day training various skills and *not* studying magic for twice the starting age modifiers...
I think Modular starships has basically been confirmed at this point... i want to say there was a developer post in the Not a Moon thread? There is a thread somewhere with a compilation of all confirmed game facts so far but i dont think its been updated in a while.
I've posted my thoughts about defense a few times already, here is a basic overview again though
Pathfinder divides defense into these categories:
-Fort Saves
-Reflex Saves
-Will Saves
-Regular AC
-Flat-footed AC
-Touch AC
-CMD
-SR
-DR
-Hardness
-Energy resistance/immunity
-Temp HP (which sometimes counts as a miss and sometimes not)
-Miss Chance
For Starfinder, i would like to see a simplified version of this system:
-Mental Saves
-Physical Saves
-AC
-Hardness
-Temp HP
I would propose that reflex saves instead move to target AC and we just have two save categories. It could simplify the chassis too, 1/2 BAB get good Mental, full BAB get good Physical and 3/4 get moderate growth on both. scaling up to base save values at 15 for good, 12 for moderate and 9 for poor progressions
AC is just AC and you only have one number to remember. Attacks can have have a boost if the target is unaware or you are using energy weapons.
Hardness replaces all previous reduction types and is more common, if a PC is wearing armor they would have at least a few points of hardness already. at the higher end personnel hardness should probably top out at 10 or 15 if you have strong defense and buffs running.
Temp HP as we have seen with Force Fields and the telekineticst is a great mechanism and i would love to see it move in as a standard for of defense.
I liked CMD at first but less and less so as i became more used to Pathfinder. I dont think the CMD/CMB system scales well and is kind of lop sided across classes.
I also dont like SR as it is a sort of a reverse save or die, instead how about a quality that replaces SR and either gives a bonus to saves or acts as evasion where even a fail gets a reduced effect.
Speaking of SoD effects, can we please not have any or only have them as high level and restricted things? It goes into this feeling of mine that i hate wasted actions, i get failing an attack roll but in Pathfinder if you fail an attack you have others you can try again with but spells are very limited resources and it sucks to fire one off only to have it fizzle out due to SR or a good save, i would prefer to see more partial successes out of limited resources and then balance that against fewer outstanding effects that end the fight on a single roll.
The system i am envisioning can play freely with force fields or other Temp HP effects as players should resonably expect to recover those HP between fights but once your shields are down you need to worry a lot more about how much Hardness you have and find some cover to save your real HP which would be a relatively smaller pool and more difficult to recover mid combat than what we have seen in Pathfinder.
What other thoughts are out there? what would you like to see, how have your thoughts changes from Starfinder being announced until now?
Actually what would help is less binary status effects, and stacking rather than entirely separate ones.
Rather than a spell that paralyzes the target and thus either never works or instantly ends the entire encounter, have it be a progression with slow. Rather than instantly winning low level battles with sleep, have it run through fatigue,etc.
When you're significantly more powerful than the target, or specialize i that effect type, or they're particularly vulnerable, or maybe if you crit, you can go much faster through the stack, but it helps ensure that you don't have the 1/0 problem of "I-Win button vs completely worthless waste of time.
Even resistances/immunities can be tuned much better this way. Take Fatigue>>Exhaustion>>Sleep for example:
Someone immune to fatigue may very well simply be allowed to operate until exhaustion without the penalties.
Someone immune to exhaustion but not fatigue may have a higher 'red zone' where they've been fatigued for a while but keep going with the same penalties until they finally drop.
Resistance could give a buffer by one 'step' or the like in addition-to or instead of better saves.
This also gives a chance to things like poisons, which tend to either be instantaneous death or outright ignored as never having a point by PCs; if you can *stack* poison to shorten the frequency without shortening the total time (in other words it ticks more and more often), kinda like FFXIII did it, it could work well.
Jamie Charlan wrote: Actually what would help is less binary status effects, and stacking rather than entirely separate ones.
Rather than a spell that paralyzes the target and thus either never works or instantly ends the entire encounter, have it be a progression with slow. Rather than instantly winning low level battles with sleep, have it run through fatigue,etc.
When you're significantly more powerful than the target, or specialize i that effect type, or they're particularly vulnerable, or maybe if you crit, you can go much faster through the stack, but it helps ensure that you don't have the 1/0 problem of "I-Win button vs completely worthless waste of time.
Even resistances/immunities can be tuned much better this way. Take Fatigue>>Exhaustion>>Sleep for example:
Someone immune to fatigue may very well simply be allowed to operate until exhaustion without the penalties.
Someone immune to exhaustion but not fatigue may have a higher 'red zone' where they've been fatigued for a while but keep going with the same penalties until they finally drop.
Resistance could give a buffer by one 'step' or the like in addition-to or instead of better saves.
This also gives a chance to things like poisons, which tend to either be instantaneous death or outright ignored as never having a point by PCs; if you can *stack* poison to shorten the frequency without shortening the total time (in other words it ticks more and more often), kinda like FFXIII did it, it could work well.
I never played FFXIII but otherwise a system such as the one you suggest is exactly what i was thinking of.
There are a few ways of doing it but i would prefer to leave out the Save or Die effects, or restrict SoD to only when there is a large disparity in HD or the like... Something like when you hit level 7 your suffocate power can insta kill things with 4 HD or less but until that point, and anything with 5 or more HD instead, takes some damage and has to make a save against being slowed or held. heck, give it a scaling power level so that from levels 1-4 the power slows and deals damage, from level 5+ it can hold and deal damage and then at 7 you gain the power to insta kill things that are substantially weaker than you. On the other side i would reduce the duration on powers to better compare against say, a Witch's Hex, it lasts as long as you spent an action to concentrate on it plus one round and there is a partial effect on a save rather than a complete fizzle.
I suppose we dont see many stepping powers like this because Pathfidner uses spell slots and this would normally be split up into something like Suffocate I, Suffocate II, Suffocate III etc.
But in the end what i would prefer is rounding in the range on magic from "all or nothing" to "does something useful to does something very useful" since it is supposed to be a limited resource.
As a final note on the matter, does anyone else find it strange that "save negates" on spells can result in lots of flash to no effect at all? Imagine seeing the poison dripping off a blade and you worry about it the whole fight and then you get that cut on the shoulder and then just sort of shrug it off, never to be bothered by it again? Or the evil wizard throws their horrible mind control magic at you but you shake it off and dont even break stride from their crazy mental assualt? I bet the wizard there felt really silly.
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
