Weapon variety seems a bit small.


General Discussion


All things considered, Starfinder seems to have a very small weapon variety for PCs until you get to Heavy Weapons. I mean, due to the way weapon scaling works there is a lot of weapons but most of them are just 'X but bigger'.

I was sorta expecting to see Machine Pistols, Hand Cannons, Submachine Guns, Shields (Especially as a successor to Pathfinder), Landmines etc. Stuff that really changes the weapon up. That and a rather lacking ability to actually modify your guns outside of magic with stuff like suppressors or larger magazines or such.

I might just have an off weapon expectation in sci-fi but due to there needing to be 4-5 versions of the same gun (With bigger damage each time), the actual variety in guns is kinda small.


Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

This is definitely the case. But it is also a case of "Give it time"

Scarab Sages

There are several new weapons in Dead Suns. I think there will be new ones as more material becomes available. In the meantime, it's really not hard to homebrew your own weapons. Want a machine pistol? Take a semi-auto pistol add a larger clip and give it full auto.


Also there's the Technology Guide for Pathfinder.

Just an idea. :-)


captain yesterday wrote:

Also there's the Technology Guide for Pathfinder.

Just an idea. :-)

That wouldn't really work at all. It uses mechanics like touch attacks, doesn't use item levels etc.


Ikiry0 wrote:
captain yesterday wrote:

Also there's the Technology Guide for Pathfinder.

Just an idea. :-)

That wouldn't really work at all. It uses mechanics like touch attacks, doesn't use item levels etc.

I would imagine the conversion guidelines might be able to help. If not completely, then it shouldn't be too hard to adapt.

Silver Crusade

Pathfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Anything that targets touch AC instead targets Energy AC.

Bam! You just got a whole new sourcebook of items for Starfinder.


DM_aka_Dudemeister wrote:

Anything that targets touch AC instead targets Energy AC.

Bam! You just got a whole new sourcebook of items for Starfinder.

That does not remotely work. Technology book items don't scale at all, do not have item levels, use an entirely different crit system and most importantly, most of them already exist in starfinder. Very little new stuff is actually added.


If Starfinder is anything like Pathfinder there will be many books to come. Until then - make your own weapon stats for your game.


Imbicatus wrote:
There are several new weapons in Dead Suns. I think there will be new ones as more material becomes available. In the meantime, it's really not hard to homebrew your own weapons. Want a machine pistol? Take a semi-auto pistol add a larger clip and give it full auto.

Machine pistols can be like the elite crossbolter. Simply have higher damage dice than equivalent pistols but use more ammo per "shot".


I mean, this is only the core rulebook. We'll see plenty of new equipment in time, they've even stated that some of the species in Alien Archive are gonna have their own gear so we'll see more stuff then for sure. I thing there's also been mention of SMG type weapons and similar smaller subsets that were played around with in development but didn't make the cut so I'm sure they'll show up at some point!


There's another type of weapon variety that's lacking, within the same weapon type. There are only 3 Basic staves and the staff weapon type jumps from level 7 to 18 with no intermediate staves other than the repeller staff, which is an Advanced weapon for some reason. There's also a sentinel staff at level 7, but that deals damage in d10 and doesn't have the knockdown crit, so it looks like it was originally a different weapon that got renamed to being a staff.


Flame pistols also exist at level 2 and no other level. Which is an odd one.


There are no shields correct?

Silver Crusade

Its only the core rulebook. From what I understand they are going to release fewer books (primarily only hardback, core books). but if they release things like "Ultimate espionage", "Ultimate magic", "Ultimate combat", "Ultimate tech", etc. then I think you will see a lot. They also stated that all of the APs will have a healthy number of new tech and options available to them.

Give it time, I'm sure there will be plenty of options before too long. I'm sure there will be plenty of options by the end of Q1 2018 even.


Ikiry0 wrote:
Flame pistols also exist at level 2 and no other level. Which is an odd one.

There's logic to that, there's only so much fuel you can pass through a small nozzle.


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Steven "Troll" O'Neal wrote:
Ikiry0 wrote:
Flame pistols also exist at level 2 and no other level. Which is an odd one.
There's logic to that, there's only so much fuel you can pass through a small nozzle.

That doesn't really stop plasma weapons scaling. Or even the heavy weapon flame weapons.


Steven "Troll" O'Neal wrote:
Ikiry0 wrote:
Flame pistols also exist at level 2 and no other level. Which is an odd one.
There's logic to that, there's only so much fuel you can pass through a small nozzle.

that's quitter talk ;)


Pathfinder Maps, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Maps, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Ikiry0 wrote:
Flame pistols also exist at level 2 and no other level. Which is an odd one.

Maybe more powerful flame pistols will be added later? Unless, of course, the concept is meant to be covered by other high level weapons that inflict fire damage.


Yeah I think this is just a case of there's being only so many options they can fit into the page and time budget for the SF CRB.

Liberty's Edge

David knott 242 wrote:
Ikiry0 wrote:
Flame pistols also exist at level 2 and no other level. Which is an odd one.

Maybe more powerful flame pistols will be added later? Unless, of course, the concept is meant to be covered by other high level weapons that inflict fire damage.

I believe the flame pistol (and rifle) are meant to be low-level flamethowers, in case your pyromaniac character isn't a soldier and can't use heavy weapons from the start.


pocsaclypse wrote:
Steven "Troll" O'Neal wrote:
Ikiry0 wrote:
Flame pistols also exist at level 2 and no other level. Which is an odd one.
There's logic to that, there's only so much fuel you can pass through a small nozzle.
that's quitter talk ;)

You sure?


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Seems like a symptom of the design choice to have each weapon at every level be a unique game object with its own properties, instead of attaching scaling to item level by type or character or something.

There would be dramatically more room for weapons that are outliers or that do special stuff, and you wouldn't have the massive gaps in weapon options that currently exist. The only major benefit of the current paradigm seems to be that you can sell more pages of weapons, at the expense of better gameplay.

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