Some issues with Starfinder


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Micheal Smith wrote:
d'Eon wrote:

I said all rolls you make. Not four. Do you not understand the concept of averages?

And I might just agree with you. 31 damage versus 35 might not make a difference on average, I haven't seen the NPC rules. That said, when comparing damage and nothing else, 35 is objectively better than 31. If you have a feat or other thing that only works on unarmed strikes, then punching might be better. At the moment I don't know of any feat or other option that affects unarmed and doesn't work on actual weapons, other than the vesk racial.So for the vast majority of rules, anything punching can do weapons will do better.

Again generally I don't do average. I usually track how much I do and again its not average. My 4 rounds was to prove that in one combat I don't do average. I roll high or low for everything. Its rare for me to roll average. We have a guy that plays that always rolls low, we give him crap. He rolls below average more than he rolls average and high added together.

In your example, you "did" average.


Vidmaster7 wrote:
HE can still punch you back mike just because he doesn't have Improved unarmed strike doesn't mean he can't punch you.

That is irrelevant to the whole issue at hand. The point I am making that always doing the most isn't the way to go. If I sunder your high damage weapon than my unarmed damaged with the feat was a better option than going with the weapon that deals more damage on average, compared to my inferior unarmed average damage.

So in this case the higher damage option was not the better way to go.


Steve Geddes wrote:
Micheal Smith wrote:
d'Eon wrote:

I said all rolls you make. Not four. Do you not understand the concept of averages?

And I might just agree with you. 31 damage versus 35 might not make a difference on average, I haven't seen the NPC rules. That said, when comparing damage and nothing else, 35 is objectively better than 31. If you have a feat or other thing that only works on unarmed strikes, then punching might be better. At the moment I don't know of any feat or other option that affects unarmed and doesn't work on actual weapons, other than the vesk racial.So for the vast majority of rules, anything punching can do weapons will do better.

Again generally I don't do average. I usually track how much I do and again its not average. My 4 rounds was to prove that in one combat I don't do average. I roll high or low for everything. Its rare for me to roll average. We have a guy that plays that always rolls low, we give him crap. He rolls below average more than he rolls average and high added together.
In your example, you "did" average.

If I hit for min damage at 4 4 rounds in a row than my damage is 16

If the max is 10 per attack and min is 4, my average is 7 damage per attack
7*4 = 28
16 is not average of the above example.


Or you can get a weapon with a bonus to sundering, which again unarmed strike doesn't have, which does more damage when you aren't sundering and is better at sundering too!

And again, Deadmanwalking said noting. N.O.T.I.N.G

As in, these are things that can influence your weapon choice and should be kept in mind.

On that note, let's look at your beloved unarmed strike, shall we? It does less damage than weapons. It requires a feat for maximum use, and doesn't get Weapon Specialisation for free. It has no special properties for combat maneuvers. You can't be disarmed or sundered. It's free.

Compared to a weapon, which will cost more and can be taken away, but will do more damage, have other special abilities, benefit from Specialisation, and doesn't cost a feat to use.


Micheal Smith wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
Micheal Smith wrote:
d'Eon wrote:

I said all rolls you make. Not four. Do you not understand the concept of averages?

And I might just agree with you. 31 damage versus 35 might not make a difference on average, I haven't seen the NPC rules. That said, when comparing damage and nothing else, 35 is objectively better than 31. If you have a feat or other thing that only works on unarmed strikes, then punching might be better. At the moment I don't know of any feat or other option that affects unarmed and doesn't work on actual weapons, other than the vesk racial.So for the vast majority of rules, anything punching can do weapons will do better.

Again generally I don't do average. I usually track how much I do and again its not average. My 4 rounds was to prove that in one combat I don't do average. I roll high or low for everything. Its rare for me to roll average. We have a guy that plays that always rolls low, we give him crap. He rolls below average more than he rolls average and high added together.
In your example, you "did" average.

If I hit for min damage at 4 4 rounds in a row than my damage is 16

If the max is 10 per attack and min is 4, my average is 7 damage per attack
7*4 = 28
16 is not average of the above example.

Sorry. I thought your example was the 1 1 8 8 example (we crossed to a new page, so I didn't check).


So I can still punch you back. heck its only one feat what keeps me from taking it too? Hey here is an idea what if you failed your disarm check the first round then I get to hit you for a lot more even if I roll minimum then you disarm me and I took that one feat of the 20 or so I get. Now not only have I already started off hitting you harder now we are on equal footing. and since you apparently are going to roll minimum the whole fight I think I win.


Again, I agree with you so far as not needing to squeeze every drop of damage from a build. Where you're screwing up is saying that unarmed strike is good, when you can get better options and save a feat in the process. You want to go around punching people, go for it. Don't tell me its better than a sword.

That and all the math problems.

Liberty's Edge

Micheal Smith wrote:
So I sunder your weapon. Now you have no weapon. No average damage no superior damage I still have my unarmed strike.

A level 10 weapon has Hardness 25 and 45 HP. At 31 points of damage per hit, it will take you something like 8 hits to break the weapon. That's...not really a valid combat strategy. Even at your max damage of 36, that's four hits...and still not a valid strategy.

Micheal Smith wrote:
Thats the same thing. Worth nothing means it means nothing to you so in your eyes its useless and doesn't factor in.

Actually valid combat options absolutely mean something to me. I might easily pick a weapon with the Disarm property over a higher damage weapon if I'm focused on Disarms.

Unarmed Strikes lack the Disarm property. Or basically any others.

Micheal Smith wrote:
I will give you at that point it may look nice, but then you have to consider ammo usage and if you have enough vs the actions at that time. Taking 1 enemy out could mean you living or dying. It has been the case with me so many times. Even in real life auto fire in crap. Focus fire is the best. Auto fire is best used to alot of damage to a large area and hope you hit alot of your enemies.

It's a niche case, but not the only one. Usually, you won't use autofire, but there are certainly circumstances where it is handy.

Which was the conclusion that math led people to in the thread in question.

Micheal Smith wrote:
How many people will have returning. Disarming is a real nice thing to do. Chances are most people won't have returning. I think you all truly underestimate Combat maneuvers.

You're quite right that most enemies won't have Called. And that combat maneuvers are cool. But if you're gonna be disarming people, you're better off with a weapon that gives +2 to Disarm than you are with unarmed combat, and if you're worried about being disarmed by others, you're Called is an excellent and cheap option.

You can combine the two rather easily...


d'Eon wrote:

Again, I agree with you so far as not needing to squeeze every drop of damage from a build. Where you're screwing up is saying that unarmed strike is good, when you can get better options and save a feat in the process. You want to go around punching people, go for it. Don't tell me its better than a sword.

That and all the math problems.

Me too, for what it's worth.

I never build characters focussed on damage. It doesn't mean we shouldn't get our maths right, just because we don't care about maximising DPR. Nor should we fool ourselves that we're not bound by the laws of probability. I made a decent living as a poker player from people who swore they knew better than what the odds were saying.


d'Eon really man, now you are going off subject. The whole thing was comparing the unarmed strike vs a weapon that you could buy at the same level that did superior damage. Thats what we are comparing.

My bad, I missed the missing h. I am currently working on 3-4 projects. So all the words letters are running together.

Again we were using the improved unarmed strike as an example because the soldier had so many feats. So thus he can use a feat an make it a viable choice vs an operative. My original point was all about the Soldier being more combat focused than the other classes if you build it that way. Because of all the feats. I am not saying it because I like it or so. It was the initial example that than led down to this.

I also used the Vesk with their specialized weapon specialization. So it does a bit more that regular weapon focus. Than we brought in the average. So for a vesk soldier this is a very decent option. You are burning a feat which you gave plenty to spare and you get a cool weapon spec. Just because it does less average damage in no way shape make it inferior. In this case it is very beneficial.

Liberty's Edge

Steve Geddes wrote:
d'Eon wrote:

Again, I agree with you so far as not needing to squeeze every drop of damage from a build. Where you're screwing up is saying that unarmed strike is good, when you can get better options and save a feat in the process. You want to go around punching people, go for it. Don't tell me its better than a sword.

That and all the math problems.

Me too, for what it's worth.

I never build characters focussed on damage. It doesn't mean we shouldn't get our maths right, just because we don't care about maximising DPR. Nor should we fool ourselves that we're not bound by the laws of probability. I made a decent living as a poker player from people who swore they knew better than what the odds were saying.

Yeah, I'm not super into maxing my DPR on characters either. My first character in Starfinder is almost certainly gonna be an Operative, just to start with...

The math is still useful. As is understanding the very real differences between weapons.


Steve Geddes wrote:
d'Eon wrote:

Again, I agree with you so far as not needing to squeeze every drop of damage from a build. Where you're screwing up is saying that unarmed strike is good, when you can get better options and save a feat in the process. You want to go around punching people, go for it. Don't tell me its better than a sword.

That and all the math problems.

Me too, for what it's worth.

I never build characters focussed on damage. It doesn't mean we shouldn't get our maths right, just because we don't care about maximising DPR. Nor should we fool ourselves that we're not bound by the laws of probability. I made a decent living as a poker player from people who swore they knew better than what the odds were saying.

I still stand by what I say. I will never use average damage it is a false front. I will base around abilities.


Micheal Smith wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
d'Eon wrote:

Again, I agree with you so far as not needing to squeeze every drop of damage from a build. Where you're screwing up is saying that unarmed strike is good, when you can get better options and save a feat in the process. You want to go around punching people, go for it. Don't tell me its better than a sword.

That and all the math problems.

Me too, for what it's worth.

I never build characters focussed on damage. It doesn't mean we shouldn't get our maths right, just because we don't care about maximising DPR. Nor should we fool ourselves that we're not bound by the laws of probability. I made a decent living as a poker player from people who swore they knew better than what the odds were saying.

I still stand by what I say. I will never use average damage it is a false front. I will base around abilities.

You should just use it properly.

You should also understand what people mean who ARE "building using average damage".

Liberty's Edge

Micheal Smith wrote:
d'Eon really man, now you are going off subject. The whole thing was comparing the unarmed strike vs a weapon that you could buy at the same level that did superior damage. Thats what we are comparing.

Well, yeah.

Micheal Smith wrote:
My bad, I missed the missing h. I am currently working on 3-4 projects. So all the words letters are running together.

I'm not upset, just clarifying.

Micheal Smith wrote:
Again we were using the improved unarmed strike as an example because the soldier had so many feats. So thus he can use a feat an make it a viable choice vs an operative. My original point was all about the Soldier being more combat focused than the other classes if you build it that way. Because of all the feats. I am not saying it because I like it or so. It was the initial example that than led down to this.

Indeed. And my response to that was that they have plenty of Feats to do that and put one or two into non-combat stuff.

The damage comparison was a side note because you specifically said that unarmed strike did 'amazing damage' and I felt like people should be aware that wasn't true.

Micheal Smith wrote:
I also used the Vesk with their specialized weapon specialization. So it does a bit more that regular weapon focus. Than we brought in the average. So for a vesk soldier this is a very decent option. You are burning a feat which you gave plenty to spare and you get a cool weapon spec. Just because it does less average damage in no way shape make it inferior. In this case it is very beneficial.

It makes it inferior as a primary combat tactic. It is worse at the basic focus of combat than a weapon specialized in whatever task you're aiming to accomplish (damage, disarms, whatever). This is simply, objectively, true.

It's an excellent backup strategy if you have a free Feat and I never said otherwise.

Grand Lodge

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Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Society Subscriber

Wow, this topic is strange.

Mathematically speaking a 2d4+4 weapon will always be inferior to a 2d6+4 weapon if you keep all other variables the same.

Once you start adding variables for one but not the other you're starting to compare apples to cookies.

Dark Archive

yummy apple cookies....

The Exchange

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Michael, it helps if you understand the use of the "average" damage is for planning what actions you might want to do.

If a fight lasts 4 rounds (your example above) and you use a weapon that deals 1d12+4 (it's what my soldier does).

Over four rounds I'm likely to do about 40 damage if I hit every round.
That takes into account rolling high sometimes and rolling low sometimes over the 4 hits.

The odds of me rolling all low or all high is 1/12 x 1/12 x 1/2 x 1/12. That's really really really low. It does happen sometimes though.

So now I get a feel for what I can expect to do assuming standard dice roll performance. There are going to be some fights I'm better, and some I'm much worse. The dice do hate me sometimes.

What I need to consider now is how much am I hitting. If I'm hitting easily, do I need to worry too much about increasing that chance or should I be doing something else like full attacking.

If I'm not hitting easily, I know that my damage output is going to drop and that's no good when the guy I'm hitting is 40 hit points or more. So now I start looking at ways to make it easier to hit him. Maybe improved Feint, of disarming so he isn't hitting me back at least and I get more time to do my thing.

The averages aren't there to tell what the outcome is going to be, they are there to help you plan tactics for your character as situations arise.


He is clearly forgetting one VERY important limitation to unarmed strike. It has this annoying Archaic weapon quality that never, ever goes away. Archaic weapons deal 5 less damage with every hit against anyone that is not unarmored or wearing archaic armor.

For all practical purposes, unarmed strike deals 5 less damage every single hit. Improved Unarmed Strike does not remove this quality, it merely ups the damage dice ... slowly. You need a 20 Strength just to cancel out this -5 damage penalty. Have fun with the feat taxes required to compensate.


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So the thing with stats is it requires a large number of repetitions. Four isn't enough.

For my own projects at work, I like to have a minimum of 24 (which is the Six Sigma standard), but in general over a few hundred is better. When you have only a few repetitions, your variance is way too high to come to any sort of conclusion. The more repetitions you add, the more you're going to tend towards the average. This is such a well understood phenomenon that is has its own name: Regression Towards the Mean.

So while four rolls may not equal the average, four hundred rolls will. The more dice you add, the more likely you'll approach the average.

In Starfinder this is more important than in Pathfinder. The reason is that Pathfinder tends to use a few dice with large modifiers, and your repetitions occur over many rounds and many battles. But in Starfinder, the number of rolled dice increases with level. So you're going to need fewer attacks and fewer rounds to regress to the statistical mean.

Using WotC's dice roller, rolling 4d12 gave me 30, which has an average of 7.5; above the expected average of 6.5 for a d12. Rolling 400d12 gave me 2582, which has an average of 6.5, right on target.

Additionally, confirmation bias is a thing. We tend to remember the highs and lows and not remember the in-betweens. So we're going to remember all those 1s and 12s, which alters our perception and memory of how close to the average we get over time. One of my players had this same issue where he insisted he was cursed for all the 1s he rolled on a d20. So last campaign I asked him to record every d20 roll he made. Guess what? He rolled the entire range of 1-20 on a fairly regular basis and even had an average of 10.5 over the campaign.


The Mad Comrade wrote:

He is clearly forgetting one VERY important limitation to unarmed strike. It has this annoying Archaic weapon quality that never, ever goes away. Archaic weapons deal 5 less damage with every hit against anyone that is not unarmored or wearing archaic armor.

For all practical purposes, unarmed strike deals 5 less damage every single hit. Improved Unarmed Strike does not remove this quality, it merely ups the damage dice ... slowly. You need a 20 Strength just to cancel out this -5 damage penalty. Have fun with the feat taxes required to compensate.

Unless you're a Vesk. Vesk can ignore the archaic property of unarmed strikes as a racial feature.

Not to say that they still aren't very good as a primary weapon.


Ventnor wrote:
The Mad Comrade wrote:

He is clearly forgetting one VERY important limitation to unarmed strike. It has this annoying Archaic weapon quality that never, ever goes away. Archaic weapons deal 5 less damage with every hit against anyone that is not unarmored or wearing archaic armor.

For all practical purposes, unarmed strike deals 5 less damage every single hit. Improved Unarmed Strike does not remove this quality, it merely ups the damage dice ... slowly. You need a 20 Strength just to cancel out this -5 damage penalty. Have fun with the feat taxes required to compensate.

Unless you're a Vesk. Vesk can ignore the archaic property of unarmed strikes as a racial feature.

Not to say that they still aren't very good as a primary weapon.

Fair points. I know that vesk exist, I've not worked up very many characters, let alone a vesk. :)


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Micheal Smith wrote:
I am also the guy that doesn't try to squeeze every little bit i can out of character. I hate when people do that. I honesty hate all of this math people do. Alot of it I feel is completely a waste. It truly is all based on the perfect scenario.

I'm fine with deep mathematical analysis of the game, precisely because I don't do it. It just means that much longer for the game to be fresh and viable in the face of new product. I noted once before that I don't completely understand all the math that goes into construction of a structurally sound skyscraper, but I can absolutely appreciate that it has been calculated by its architects, and that it can be verified by others. :D I don't have to understand it to appreciate a beautiful view from atop it.


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Micheal Smith wrote:
I am also the guy that doesn't try to squeeze every little bit i can out of character. I hate when people do that. I honesty hate all of this math people do. Alot of it I feel is completely a waste. It truly is all based on the perfect scenario.

The thing is - it's not based on the perfect scenario.

What's missing from these calculations is the adjustment for probability to hit. If you have a 50% chance to hit (barring the crit) then an average 20 damage becomes an average 10 damage.

What's done here in this thread to compensate for the probability to hit is people are comparing identical hit probabilities - so they can remove the chance to hit from the equation. As they're equivalent, they become irrelevant in a comparison analysis.

A perfect scenario would be only looking at maximum damage. As people are looking only at average damage, it cannot be defined as a perfect scenario.


Rysky the Dark Solarion wrote:

Just to point out,

A) Barricade lets you get cover anywhere, not just if a table is nearby.

B) Harrassing/Covering Fire are actions anyone can do. The Suppresive Fire Feat just makes you a lot better at them.

Also barricade is pretty fast it is a move action I believe so it's not that given some time anybody could not clobber some cover together but people with this feat are really good at rapidly scrounging some cover up which is pretty handy in fire fights.


The Mad Comrade wrote:

He is clearly forgetting one VERY important limitation to unarmed strike. It has this annoying Archaic weapon quality that never, ever goes away. Archaic weapons deal 5 less damage with every hit against anyone that is not unarmored or wearing archaic armor.

For all practical purposes, unarmed strike deals 5 less damage every single hit. Improved Unarmed Strike does not remove this quality, it merely ups the damage dice ... slowly. You need a 20 Strength just to cancel out this -5 damage penalty. Have fun with the feat taxes required to compensate.

From what I can see unless you have the battle glove things or are a vresk punching stuff that is wearing modern armor or modern equipment is unlikely to be very effective.


kaid wrote:
The Mad Comrade wrote:

He is clearly forgetting one VERY important limitation to unarmed strike. It has this annoying Archaic weapon quality that never, ever goes away. Archaic weapons deal 5 less damage with every hit against anyone that is not unarmored or wearing archaic armor.

For all practical purposes, unarmed strike deals 5 less damage every single hit. Improved Unarmed Strike does not remove this quality, it merely ups the damage dice ... slowly. You need a 20 Strength just to cancel out this -5 damage penalty. Have fun with the feat taxes required to compensate.

From what I can see unless you have the battle glove things or are a vresk punching stuff that is wearing modern armor or modern equipment is unlikely to be very effective.

Yep. Vesk aside, everyone else needs some kind of a weapon - whether it be a cestus battleglove or higher - to deal full melee damage against enemies wearing armor. There are not likely to be very many unarmored enemies. I'm going to hazard a guess that most space monsters count as armored for this purpose as well, but we have about 6 weeks or so to go before we'll know for sure.


Although on thinking about it there may be one exception to that and that would be the armor storm soldiers. I think I recall seeing something that they in their armor are always considered as having one of the battleglove options on. So I think that means it does modern damage and threatens spaces. I finished my first read through and now time to go look at things a bit more nitty gritty hehe.

Silver Crusade

Steve Geddes wrote:
Micheal Smith wrote:

[

Oh i am sorry, I didn't that you knew my dice rolls better than me. Geez. I didn't know you saw my dice rolls.

Your error is that you think anecdotal reports are more accurate reflections of the results of multiple trials than statistical analysis.

Everyone is wrong when asked to estimate things like this. It's no slur on you, it's just that we are naturally poor at statistics and probability.

[Pedantic Mode]In fairness, it is conceivable that Michael is using some badly balanced dice.

Its also the case that the way many people roll dice in RPGS is NOT actually totally random. There is a reason they wouldn't let you get away with that at Vegas :-). I've seen some players who (consciously or not) roll the dice in ways that would quite likely significantly bias the results
[/Pedantic Mode]

Of course, its also likely that Michael just doesn't understand math at all. He wouldn't be the only one


kaid wrote:
Although on thinking about it there may be one exception to that and that would be the armor storm soldiers. I think I recall seeing something that they in their armor are always considered as having one of the battleglove options on. So I think that means it does modern damage and threatens spaces. I finished my first read through and now time to go look at things a bit more nitty gritty hehe.

Heavy armor isn't cheap and IIRC that's a soldier-only option, so they're getting to beat people up with knuckle sammiches as a class feature. No biggie. :)

Silver Crusade

The Mad Comrade wrote:


For all practical purposes, unarmed strike deals 5 less damage every single hit.

Not quite. If the currently available PFS scenarios are a guide one DOES get to fight unarmoured enemies some reasonable portion of the time.

Archaic still sucks BIG time, of course. But not all the time or even almost all of the time


pauljathome wrote:
The Mad Comrade wrote:


For all practical purposes, unarmed strike deals 5 less damage every single hit.

Not quite. If the currently available PFS scenarios are a guide one DOES get to fight unarmoured enemies some reasonable portion of the time.

Archaic still sucks BIG time, of course. But not all the time or even almost all of the time

No clue re: SFS, and I'd bet dollars to donuts that's the Starfinder equivalent of the stereotypical easy level 1 materials that are far more often than not published for Pathfinder.

Subject to change pending confirmation of higher level / tier scenarios et al.


The Mad Comrade wrote:
every character is equally good at piloting and gunnery when it comes to pure skill ranks

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. An Operative w/ specialization & edge in Pilot is going to be a better Pilot than a Soldier. The Soldier & the same Operative are equal as Gunners which is what my whole point was. With the other classes getting skill bonuses and the other roles being skill checks where all those bonuses apply, the Soldier has no niche in space combat. Soldiers should get some sort Gunnery bonus that lets them shine at the one thing they're supposed to be good at: combat.


pauljathome wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
Micheal Smith wrote:

[

Oh i am sorry, I didn't that you knew my dice rolls better than me. Geez. I didn't know you saw my dice rolls.

Your error is that you think anecdotal reports are more accurate reflections of the results of multiple trials than statistical analysis.

Everyone is wrong when asked to estimate things like this. It's no slur on you, it's just that we are naturally poor at statistics and probability.

[Pedantic Mode]In fairness, it is conceivable that Michael is using some badly balanced dice.

Its also the case that the way many people roll dice in RPGS is NOT actually totally random. There is a reason they wouldn't let you get away with that at Vegas :-). I've seen some players who (consciously or not) roll the dice in ways that would quite likely significantly bias the results
[/Pedantic Mode]

Of course, its also likely that Michael just doesn't understand math at all. He wouldn't be the only one

The bold is still true.

The fact he thinks i would need to see his dice rolls to comment on the distribution of them is telling.

It's true that the dice may not be random - statistical analysis would reveal that, not "there's a guy in our group who we tease for always rolling badly".


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Pathfinder Pathfinder Accessories, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber; Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber
Omnitricks wrote:

My biggest issue is that Starfinder made my favourite rogue technique in Pathfinder completely unusable.

No more going prone as a free action and then, popping up with stand up as yet another free action, making my shots and then going prone again for cover.

You had a PC doing burpees in combat? Your PC's core strength must have been incredible.


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Jaçinto wrote:

Yes how dare I talk about what paizo does on the paizo forums. Get over it. If I want to complain about what FFG does, I go to FFG forums. If I want to talk about Shadowrun, I go to Catalyst. Just like how I criticize Payday 2 on the Overkill discord where the devs actually hang out. If it is getting old seeing me, then stop looking. It isn't stopping. If I have an issue, I am gonna raise it and you are just gonna blanket defend just because fantasy. I get it.

You certainly criticize a lot of things. Are you happy with something? Or is everything f*!&ed up everywhere?


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Micheal Smith wrote:


I tend to roll min or max more than I do average.

I would like to suggest a book, How We Know What Isn't So, by Thomas Gilovich. It's not about math, don't worry. It's about cognitive science, and why you believe you tend to roll more extreme than the rest of human beings, instead of average.

It's an interesting book.

Dark Archive

gustavo iglesias wrote:
Jaçinto wrote:

Yes how dare I talk about what paizo does on the paizo forums. Get over it. If I want to complain about what FFG does, I go to FFG forums. If I want to talk about Shadowrun, I go to Catalyst. Just like how I criticize Payday 2 on the Overkill discord where the devs actually hang out. If it is getting old seeing me, then stop looking. It isn't stopping. If I have an issue, I am gonna raise it and you are just gonna blanket defend just because fantasy. I get it.

You certainly criticize a lot of things. Are you happy with something? Or is everything f!%&ed up everywhere?

Seems like I missed a conversation somewhere.


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It's their shtick, never say anything nice.

I personally don't understand how someone can live their lives like that, but whatever.

Liberty's Edge

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Steve Geddes wrote:
Deadtissue wrote:

...They did not make the transition to scifi but landed in fantasyfi

..

Everyone has their own preferences, of course and I'm not challenging yours.

However, I thought I'd point out that they weren't aiming for SciFi. It was always intended that Starfinder would be Science Fantasy.

why not just allow the player to "upgrade" his fathers pistol to keep it in line with his level if its a roleplay concern


jimthegray wrote:
Steve Geddes wrote:
Deadtissue wrote:

...They did not make the transition to scifi but landed in fantasyfi

..

Everyone has their own preferences, of course and I'm not challenging yours.

However, I thought I'd point out that they weren't aiming for SciFi. It was always intended that Starfinder would be Science Fantasy.

why not just allow the player to "upgrade" his fathers pistol to keep it in line with his level if its a roleplay concern

That's what UBP's are for, since as I understand it you can do exactly that: provide UBPs equal to the difference between what you have and what you're upgrading too then *pouf*, Dad's Pew-Pew is upgraded.


The Mad Comrade wrote:


That's what UBP's are for, since as I understand it you can do exactly that: provide UBPs equal to the difference between what you have and what you're upgrading too then *pouf*, Dad's Pew-Pew is upgraded.

Nope, the rules say that doing that would only reduce the UPB cost of making the upgraded weapon by 10% of the un-upgraded weapon's price.


Milo v3 wrote:
The Mad Comrade wrote:


That's what UBP's are for, since as I understand it you can do exactly that: provide UBPs equal to the difference between what you have and what you're upgrading too then *pouf*, Dad's Pew-Pew is upgraded.
Nope, the rules say that doing that would only reduce the UPB cost of making the upgraded weapon by 10% of the un-upgraded weapon's price.

Bah. Screw that. :)


The Mad Comrade wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
The Mad Comrade wrote:


That's what UBP's are for, since as I understand it you can do exactly that: provide UBPs equal to the difference between what you have and what you're upgrading too then *pouf*, Dad's Pew-Pew is upgraded.
Nope, the rules say that doing that would only reduce the UPB cost of making the upgraded weapon by 10% of the un-upgraded weapon's price.
Bah. Screw that. :)

But even if you doesn't save as much money as you think, you can still fluff it as tinkering Dad's Pew-Pew so it now makes more damage (I'll suggest not changing it from being an energy weapon to a kinetik, but if you find a good reason it will be interesting to read).


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Micheal Smith wrote:
Again generally I don't do average. I usually track how much I do and again its not average. My 4 rounds was to prove that in one combat I don't do average. I roll high or low for everything.

I don't always roll 10's either. I do, in fact, roll it as often as I roll 1's and 20's. So I don't do average either, it's much more spread out...


It's actually impossible to roll "average" on a die with an even number of faces (or indeed any combination with an even-number range), as the mean of 1+2+3...+20 is 10.5, so I can confidently say that I have only ever "rolled average" when using 1d3, 2d6 etc.


I've always loved how the "average" of a percentile roll in the game is between 55 and 66. :)


Rub-Eta wrote:
Micheal Smith wrote:
Again generally I don't do average. I usually track how much I do and again its not average. My 4 rounds was to prove that in one combat I don't do average. I roll high or low for everything.
I don't always roll 10's either. I do, in fact, roll it as often as I roll 1's and 20's. So I don't do average either, it's much more spread out...

I see what you did there.


Voss wrote:
Jaçinto wrote:
Are the small arms inherently worse than long arms?
And nuts to genre emulation, where most space protagonists run around with pistols. Thhbbbt.

Even farther, nuts to variability in fighting styles...I'd love a soldier, cowboy quickdraw artist, or, when I first saw the game, the idea of Slowpoke Rodriguez as a fighter, who carries a big handgun....

I feel the system doesn't really encourage multiple ways of fighting at similar levels of effectiveness. Yes, this is a problem in PF as well, with 2 weapon fighting being much weaker and not very viable, but you can limit the negatives more easily, get more attacks, etc.

I want to be able to viably build someone who relies on a big shot, with either a big, nasty melee weapon, or a big nasty ranged weapon. I also want to viably build someone who dual wields 2 shortarms and gets similar output through multiple attacks as the guy with the sniper rifle, and have them be soldier builds.

I feel like the 'differences' in many cases, especially race, are essentially superficial, with little or no mechanical impact, and I find that troubling.

I was very excited about this when I heard about it, and I like the general idea behind the classes I think, but I feel the execution is weak.

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