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It may not have been something people have noticed yet as most games have not yet begun, but Table 2-4 Character Advancement in Starfinder yields an interesting change in Starfinder.
Whereas Table 3-1 in Pathfinder RPG displays a Slow, Medium, and Fast advancement track (where Medium is the PFRPG default), Starfinder has dropped the Slow and Medium tracks and has gone with the Fast track as the only XP point progression in the game.
I must confess, I am not a fan of this. I find in Pathfinder that even the Medium track is often too fast for leveling for my tastes. I never use the Fast Track and have not since I ran D&D 3.5.
We can of course use whatever tracks we like; and if the default of Fast Track is not okay with us, we can use a Medium Track anyway and use the same XP levels as exist in PFRPG.
Problem is, sadly, as the table has only one option, I would expect that Herolab will only use one as well. It would be nice if LWD adds in a Slow and Medium track as House Rules to use when setting up a character. It's not as if the code has to be added; they can port it from Pathfinder's code base.
I'd like the option to be able to specify my own track as House rule and have it work within Herolab. If anybody else might like that too, perhaps sound off? It can't hurt in persuading LWD to offer it as a House Rule override in Herolab.
My guess is this also has something to do with characters coming in at the equivalent of a 15 pt buy. What do you usually use, 25 pt buy?
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My guess is this also has something to do with characters coming in at the equivalent of a 15 pt buy. What do you usually use, 25 pt buy?
No, we vary it, depending on the campaign and its intended "feel". My current Musketeers of the Crimson Throne is a 25 pt buy where we are aiming for more over-the-top heroes. The one before that (Giantslayer) was a 15 pt buy. In others, we have gone with 20 pt buys.
We always use Medium XP Track though. That never changes.
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"Fast Track is the Only Track" sounds like it could be the subtitle of the next Fast & Furious movie.
What's so bad about 6 digits numbers?
Sure you can devalue XP by a factor of 100 but you'd better be prepared for individual PCs to have fractional XP values then, for example, a CR 2 encounter is worth 6 NuXP. Dividing by 4 Characters gives everyone 1.5 NuXP. Is that really more comfortable than carrying around a few zeros?
As Starfinder is a new game, I don't see any reference to Fast track, medium track etc.
I've found it much easier on myself to completely forget Pathfinder, and just approach Starfinder as a new game, without any connection to Pathfinder, it's just a new D20 game like Mutants and Masterminds was or such.
I'm surprised they even still have an XP track. I thought that leveling by story points was pretty much standard now.
Monsters still have XP values, so no.
There's also story awards, and not all of the are automatically achieved.
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It may not have been something people have noticed yet as most games have not yet begun, but Table 2-4 Character Advancement in Starfinder yields an interesting change in Starfinder.
Whereas Table 3-1 in Pathfinder RPG displays a Slow, Medium, and Fast advancement track (where Medium is the PFRPG default), Starfinder has dropped the Slow and Medium tracks and has gone with the Fast track as the only XP point progression in the game.
I must confess, I am not a fan of this. I find in Pathfinder that even the Medium track is often too fast for leveling for my tastes. I never use the Fast Track and have not since I ran D&D 3.5.
We can of course use whatever tracks we like; and if the default of Fast Track is not okay with us, we can use a Medium Track anyway and use the same XP levels as exist in PFRPG.
Problem is, sadly, as the table has only one option, I would expect that Herolab will only use one as well. It would be nice if LWD adds in a Slow and Medium track as House Rules to use when setting up a character. It's not as if the code has to be added; they can port it from Pathfinder's code base.
I'd like the option to be able to specify my own track as House rule and have it work within Herolab. If anybody else might like that too, perhaps sound off? It can't hurt in persuading LWD to offer it as a House Rule override in Herolab.
a lot of the rules are similar and based on the same foundation but there are enough rule differences that I don't think any of us are totally sure how things are going to play out and balance out yet. I think there is a lot of theory crafting that looks sound going around but theory crafting is never 100%.
Fast track equivalent xp system may seem like lightning quick now but it may not actually be that bad in practice. If it turns out to be too fast, you can always purpose to any home group you play with that the party only receive 1/3 xp for encounters in order to equate to what was slow track in pathfinder. That is easy enough to enter into herolab/herolab equivalent.
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Fast track equivalent xp system may seem like lightning quick now but it may not actually be that bad in practice. If it turns out to be too fast, you can always purpose to any home group you play with that the party only receive 1/3 xp for encounters in order to equate to what was slow track in pathfinder. That is...
Uhm... no.
I know EXACTLY what the XP point system and leveling requirements are. They offer the same XP leveling as we had in 3.x, based upon the same XP awarded per CR.
There are many things which will surprise, delight (and perhaps, dismay) us in Starfinder.
But how the XP system shakes down and whether I think that might be too fast for my preferences? I don't have to guess about that. I know that already.
Now, it may be that the preferred power curve in the game has been altered somewhat. So that can change; and yes, that can affect the desirability of a faster leveling rate. So there's that. But I know pretty damned well what leveling rate the Fast Track will produce without playing Starfinder even once.
The cynic in me can't help but observe that this also has the necessary effect of providing for a somewhat larger level range over a 6 volume AP installment, where the Adventure text in the AP volumes has been reduced by about 1/4 to 1/3rd than is included in a Pathfinder AP volume.
Do I think that might be a significant reason for switching back to the fast track, and removing the medium track entirely?
Only a cynic would see the utility in that. *ahem*
Last point: the Fast Track increases the importance and impact of Story XP Awards significantly. When Paizo used the Fast Track for its 3.5 AP volumes, the number (and amount) of Story Awards for XP were significantly less than under PFRPG.
The story awards in Dead Suns Vol 1 don't appear to be much less than we would see in Pathfinder though. Now, I have not sat down and done a side-by-side comparison of this (so I could well be wrong) but that was my impression at least after a few read throughs of Incident at Absalom Station.
Round up. Boom. One extra point isn't going to ruin the campaignWhat's so bad about 6 digits numbers?
Sure you can devalue XP by a factor of 100 but you'd better be prepared for individual PCs to have fractional XP values then, for example, a CR 2 encounter is worth 6 NuXP. Dividing by 4 Characters gives everyone 1.5 NuXP. Is that really more comfortable than carrying around a few zeros?
Rounding up effectively means CR2 and CR3 give out the same amount of NuXPs.
Is it only a thousand xp in starfinder? PF's fast track is 1300.
Once I get the adventure path i can always scale it up if needed, so I'm none too worried.
Starfinder uses the fast XP progression from Pathfinder. 2nd level is 1300 xp, and 20th level is 2.4 million.
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Is it possible that this is just an acceptance of the concept that many tables have more than 4 players?
Adventure modules in 3.5 and PFRPG were typically designed for "4 to 6" player characters, but the XP awards in a standard module (and as calculated in a standard encounter) were typically aimed at 4 PCs. As such, if the group has 6 players, the divided XP wouldn't be enough to get the players boosted to the appropriate levels at later points in the adventures.
Shifting to fast progression XP requirements allows a group of 6 or more players to level up at a rate closer to the old medium progression without having to change the XP value for each Challenge Rating.