In Pathfinder, there are a number of "valuable to everyone" stats, like: HP, Initiative, Skill points/lvl, Fort saves, Ref Saves, Will Saves. And in Pathfinder, str and cha don't bear on any of these, so there's a strong incentive to dump these attributes if they're not required for your particular build.
I speculate that Starfinder, with a larger list of "valuable to everyone" stats (kinetic and energy AC, Stamina, Resolve), will have at least one of them tied to each attribute.
Some more specific speculation:
--Most attributes will bear on the same values as before.
--Str will bear on either Stamina or kinetic AC (or both). (But energy AC will still be dex based.)
--Cha will bear on Resolve.
Obozaya has an odd number of HP in the pic of her stat block, which means that her Con modifier of +1 likely plays a part in determining how many HP she gets. That means if you get more HP as you level up, your Con mod probably applies per level, making a higher Con more valuable as you level up, kinda like it is in Pathfinder. So I suspect Con to be as needed as it was in that system.
I'd also bet that even though your HP at level 1 come from class, Con, and race, your HP at higher levels come from just your class + Con mod.
Hopefully, as far as guns and Str go, they have a recoil system that imposes a penalty for extra shots per round with the bigger guns that can be offset by a higher Str mod. Although, there has been no suggestion of a system like this, most likely making it wishful thinking on my part.
Obozaya has an odd number of HP in the pic of her stat block, which means that her Con modifier of +1 likely plays a part in determining how many HP she gets. That means if you get more HP as you level up, your Con mod probably applies per level, making a higher Con more valuable as you level up, kinda like it is in Pathfinder. So I suspect Con to be as needed as it was in that system.
I'd also bet that even though your HP at level 1 come from class, Con, and race, your HP at higher levels come from just your class + Con mod.
Hopefully, as far as guns and Str go, they have a recoil system that imposes a penalty for extra shots per round with the bigger guns that can be offset by a higher Str mod. Although, there has been no suggestion of a system like this, most likely making it wishful thinking on my part.
That what I thought at first, but I could see the soldier having +7 hp instead of the +6 of the operative.
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Themes: It is hard to pin down from available comments but it seems one of the main design goals was to not affect combat aptitude with them. That feels odd since there is supposed to be a pilot theme and the only times that seems like it would come into play would be in combat. Maybe the odd nebula to navigate or planetfall in the middle of a storm but that cant be every encounter and there should be some kind of pay off for the investment. The extent to which Themes are supposed to affect a character is somewhat elusive... i had thought they were the main way to customize a character but the Class previews are making me think that it is fairly common to have specializations in the classes themselves that are separate from Themes and Archetypes. I would hazard a guess that Themes augment skills and add in some utility powers and that they still scale every few levels but i am feeling they have less impact than i previously did. Instead of a 50/50 split between class and theme building a character it might be more of an 80/20 class/theme split. I am curious now if every class has a specialization to pick from and if that is the main way they intend to make characters customizable in the future, publishing new lists of specializations for each class as the books go on.
From the preview pages, we know that themes give +1 to an attribute (Ace Pilot gives +1 Dex), and a few abilities as you gain levels. Do we have a list of themes somewhere? I'm curious how specific or general they are, and how well odd characters will fit with a theme.
Themes: It is hard to pin down from available comments but it seems one of the main design goals was to not affect combat aptitude with them. That feels odd since there is supposed to be a pilot theme and the only times that seems like it would come into play would be in combat. Maybe the odd nebula to navigate or planetfall in the middle of a storm but that cant be every encounter and there should be some kind of pay off for the investment. The extent to which Themes are supposed to affect a character is somewhat elusive... i had thought they were the main way to customize a character but the Class previews are making me think that it is fairly common to have specializations in the classes themselves that are separate from Themes and Archetypes. I would hazard a guess that Themes augment skills and add in some utility powers and that they still scale every few levels but i am feeling they have less impact than i previously did. Instead of a 50/50 split between class and theme building a character it might be more of an 80/20 class/theme split. I am curious now if every class has a specialization to pick from and if that is the main way they intend to make characters customizable in the future, publishing new lists of specializations for each class as the books go on.From the preview pages, we know that themes give +1 to an attribute (Ace Pilot gives +1 Dex), and a few abilities as you gain levels. Do we have a list of themes somewhere? I'm curious how specific or general they are, and how well odd characters will fit with a theme.
All 10 themes in the core rulebook are: ace pilot, bounty hunter, icon, mercenary, outlaw, priest, scholar, spacefarer, xenoseeker, and themeless.
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Themes have an underlying structure. Themeless is the genericized version of that structure, though the flexibility to choose means that you don't get as large of a focused benefit. So imagine that the ace pilot theme might give you Piloting as a class skill at 1st level (alternate benefit to Piloting if you already have it) and some other benefits (I honestly don't remember for sure right now what ace pilot grants at 1st but that seems believable). Themeless might let you pick any skill as a class skill, so you could even take Perception or whatever the best skill is for you that you lack, but you don't get those other benefits. The idea is: if you want to play a character who *is* that theme, you'll definitely want the theme because it makes you better at that, but if you don't think any fits you, you can go themeless with no trouble as well (and maybe you didn't want any of the extra special abilities since you didn't identify with the theme). That's the overall philosophy, you'll have to wait to find out how that works in practice!
Str is still the key stat for melee - it is valuable enough as it is, and encumbrance easily sorts out anyone who wants to make it a dump stat.
As for Cha, I expect interpersonal skills to be very important in Starfinder.
Yeah, I think we're talking past each other to some extent. I'm not denying that in Pathfinder (and, I suspect, Starfinder) Str is valuable to those who engage in melee, and Cha is valuable to party faces. Rather, the point was that in Pathfinder Str and Cha do virtually nothing for a number of character types. And so you see a large number of wizards, sorcerers, witches, etc., with a Str of 7 or 8, and a large number of character of all types with a Cha of 7 or 8.
Contrast this with, say, Con. In my experience, characters with a Con of 7 or 8 are very rare. That's because Con is valuable to characters of all types -- everyone cares about HP and Fort saves. Likewise, in my experience characters with a Dex of 7 or 8 are rare, because everyone cares about Initiative, AC and (to some extent) Reflex saves. And the same goes for Wis (since everyone cares about Will saves) and to a lesser extent Int (since most people care about skill points).
So say you want to set things up in a way to make players less likely to dump stats, as some of the developer comments have seemed to suggest. A natural way to do this is to provide less of an incentive to dump by making every attribute at least somewhat valuable to every character, in the same way that Con, Dex, Wis and Int are.
And since Starfinder has introduced several new secondary stats that didn't exist in Pathfinder (e.g., Stamina and Resolve), a natural way to do this would be to (say) tie Str to Stamina and Cha to Resolve. So, given the developer desire to disincentivize dumping, my speculation is that they've done something like this -- made Str and Char more valuable by tying it to something everybody wants (like Stamina and Resolve, respectively).
Now, it's true that this is just speculation on my part. But the title of this thread is "blatantly wild speculation", so I think it's well placed!
(P.s.: Doing something like this would carry a number of other potential benefits as well. For example, one of the main problems with allowing easy Dex-to-damage options in Pathfinder is that it makes Str an effectively useless attribute even for a number of melee types. But if Stamina is dependent on Str, then Str would no longer be useless, and allowing easy Dex-to-damage options might not be as unbalancing.)
If the pregens from paizocon are accurate, then it appears that Low-light-vision works differently in SF and PF.
In Starfinder it says (for example): Obozaya can see in dim light as if it were normal light.
Whereas in pathfinder, races with low-light vision still can be hampered in dim light, all LLV does is extend the range of normal light and dim light further than normal vision.
If the pregens from paizocon are accurate, then it appears that Low-light-vision works differently in SF and PF.
In Starfinder it says (for example): Obozaya can see in dim light as if it were normal light.
Whereas in pathfinder, races with low-light vision still can be hampered in dim light, all LLV does is extend the range of normal light and dim light further than normal vision.
It also allows you to see in moonlight as if it were daylight.
I think hp is your class hp+race hp, which goes up by class level each level. At 5, Obo has 5 levels of soldier, giving her 30. +6 for being a Vesk is 36. add in FCB? and you get 41. Unless soldier just grants 7hp. Then no FCB required.
Stamina I think is where Con comes in. At level 1, it was 8. At 5, it's 45. Taking away the Con (+2) gives us 6 at level 1 for the class. At level 5, you have 35. Divide that by 5 again you get 7, which admittedly is off. Maybe this is where FCB is (as you don't burnside get that at level 1) with soldier granting 7/level for hp and 6 for stamina. Maybe.
Though as I think about it, stamina could be based on race hp too, assuming Vesk have 6 while soldiers get 7hp.
I think hp is your class hp+race hp, which goes up by class level each level. At 5, Obo has 5 levels of soldier, giving her 30. +6 for being a Vesk is 36. add in FCB? and you get 41. Unless soldier just grants 7hp. Then no FCB required.
Stamina I think is where Con comes in. At level 1, it was 8. At 5, it's 45. Taking away the Con (+2) gives us 6 at level 1 for the class. At level 5, you have 35. Divide that by 5 again you get 7, which admittedly is off. Maybe this is where FCB is (as you don't burnside get that at level 1) with soldier granting 7/level for hp and 6 for stamina. Maybe.
Though as I think about it, stamina could be based on race hp too, assuming Vesk have 6 while soldiers get 7hp.
7*5+2*5=45, so her SP seems fine to me.
I thought I saw that somewhere, but forgot when I saw the pregen for 5. That does fix it pretty well. :D
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Who wants to bet that the Archetype we don't know about relates to being primitive?
Who wants to bet that the Archetype we don't know about relates to being primitive?
Having been able to flip through the sample print of Starfinder at the Delve tables during PaizoCon, I can tell you that you would lose that bet. However, I don't think it right for me to say what that archetype is ahead of the Paizo staff revealing it, so I won't say what it is - they might want to reveal that on their own in an article or something.
The other archetype will be Inquisitor. No one would expect that.
I was expecting the Inquisitor.
I wasn't expecting the Inquisitor to be Spanish, though. ;)
I'm expecting the Mechanic to have 4 Skill Points/Level and only good Will Saves.
Any takers?
Edit: Oh! and 4 HP.
i am not expecting anyone to be at 4HP/level. that artifact is dead and gone and good riddance.
You are forgetting that there is now HP and then there is Stamina and they work together when deducting damage with Stamina going away first before getting into HP. So, I wouldn't be so sure about the 4HP thing, though I suspect the per level part will focus on Stamina now more than HP.
Wether or not there are any 4hp classes (I doubt it myself), I don't see mechanics being frailer than envoys and mystics. (or less skilled than an envoy).
Envoys have 8 Skill Points/Level, which is an insane ammount of skills. Only the Rogue had that many in PF; even the skill monkey class (Bard) only got 6/level. The Mechanic, as a concept, seems like it would have Engineering and maybe a Knowledge Skill related to technology, and that's it for the class concept. Doesn't need Perception (better not get it if the Soldier didn't), Stealth, Diplomacy, or anything else like that, so 4/Level would be generous when it would do fine with 2/Level plus Int Mod, Favored Class, and maybe being human. I expect Intelligence to be very important to the class, so with a decent Int (+2) and the favored class bonus, 7/level would more than cover any skills the class needs as well as having plenty left over for what players want.
Wether or not there are any 4hp classes (I doubt it myself), I don't see mechanics being frailer than envoys and mystics. (or less skilled than an envoy).Envoys have 8 Skill Points/Level, which is an insane ammount of skills. Only the Rogue had that many in PF; even the skill monkey class (Bard) only got 6/level. The Mechanic, as a concept, seems like it would have Engineering and maybe a Knowledge Skill related to technology, and that's it for the class concept. Doesn't need Perception (better not get it if the Soldier didn't), Stealth, Diplomacy, or anything else like that, so 4/Level would be generous when it would do fine with 2/Level plus Int Mod, Favored Class, and maybe being human. I expect Intelligence to be very important to the class, so with a decent Int (+2) and the favored class bonus, 7/level would more than cover any skills the class needs as well as having plenty left over for what players want.
A lot of skill points per level is far from unique in Starfinder. The Mystic, one of the only two caster classes, gets 6/level.
I don't really want to talk about Perception as a Class Skill, but OK. Since the Soldier didn't get it as a Class Skill, no one should. It made me so angry that the class that should get it first was left out, I thought of house ruling that only Soldiers can pass Perception checks. Apparently situational awareness isn't something that's done in space, neither is guard duty, but oh well. Seriously, there is no argument for a Soldier not getting Perception that doesn't work for every other class. So the Mechanic definitely, no way in the Abyss, doesn't get it. I'll be very disappointed in Paizo if any other classes get Perception.
As far as Class Skills go for the Mechanic, I agree 100% with what you suggested (ignoring Perception as a suggestion for the Mechanic because that's offensive). The other classes listed so far have 1/2 the number of Skill Points/level as the total number of Class Skills they have. You listed 8 Class Skills, so 4/level.
Also, yeah the Mystic gets 6/level. I have no idea why. Medicine, a couple of knowledge skills, maybe Sense Motive, and they'd be good, but instead they're kinda bloated with skills. I think that might end up being a thing in Starfinder, Skill Bloat. Sure the Soldier needed extra Class Skills (including Perception because they use their ears and eyeballs when they're on guard duty!), but the Cleric and Bard were fine with their number of skills/level as far as I knew.