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Just from what I've read of the Starfinder game mechanics here on the boards, I have zero interest in Starfinder and wouldn't want to see Pathfinder go that route. I enjoy the way it is. If you want something different go find it.
And here's its first glaring problem: (direct quote) "Starship combat is fairly common. PCs can typically choose between two models of starship in those adventures..."
Ugh.
-- Now, I've played me some SAGA Edition and other asst. similar, and let me tell you: starship combat blows dead dogs no matter how you do it. The campaigns nose-dive the minute the PCs get a ship, and here's why:
Let me make an analogy to videogames. You all know what an "escort mission" is, right? And you all know that escort missions suck and that all players hate them? Of course you do.
Well, your starship is your "escort", and you are stuck inside it during combat making fabulously exciting skillchecks so you can learn which damaged part you need to run to and fix next. You have to feed it and clean it and repair it, and it's just a ravenous maw that eats all of the party's money like a gargantuan animated tamagotchi.
Imagine playing Pathfinder fantasy in which half of your fights consist of the party being stuck on a wagon that they, for the most part, can't get out of during combat. Player A shoots the ballista, Player B loads the ballista, Player C makes the horses run thataway, and Player D puts out the fires. Player E makes a continuous stream of Diplomacy checks via a magical contraption through which he converses with the opponent or others nearby. When the fight's over, you limp into town on taco'd wheels and make a terribly, terribly bad deal with the local underworld crime boss to unload your contraband for enough gold to fix the stupid busted wagon. Then you do it again some more. Because you love this damned wagon for some insane reason. Until, at some point, a whole multi-session adventure's big reward is...a slightly bigger wagon with chrome rims! YOWZA! What could be more thrilling?
Starship combat is only exciting in movies where you're a disembodied camera POV watching the dumb things blow up.

Ryan Freire |
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An incredibly accurate description of every time one of my pc's has earned/been given some great vehicle, be it airship, steamship, space ship, or just being a road warrior in deadlands green game, glitterboy in rifts, or whatever that driver character type is in shadowrun/cyberpunk
Prrretttymuch this. Like i LOVE having some badass ship or vehicle around, LLLLOVE it. But gms cant just let it be part of the player, its always some part of the plot, which means its an attention and money sink. One GM did it so regularly from campaign to campaign that eventually I just booked passage on some generic no name ship that he had to come up with on the fly, refusing to go on another chase to retrieve a damaged vessel that was going to eat more party wealth to repair just so we could get from point a to point b.

Furdinand |
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No thanks, any new system is going to have to strip away so much content just to fit into one book. I like my Brawler, I like the Occult classes, I like combat styles, I like six Hardcovers worth of monsters. Pathfinder 2, even with a streamlined system, would take years to bring back all the classes and good stuff that could fit with a new system but wouldn't be able to fit in a single book.
If people want something like Unchained 2, something that adds to the game, I'd be all for that.
Otherwise, just play Core or your home game version that excludes whatever you want to exclude. If the number of options is overwhelming to you, limit the options you present to yourself.
New players are probably doing this already, if unintentionally. Who is going into their hobby shop and grabbing every hardcover, player companion, and campaign setting on Day 1? Most likely they are just grabbing the Core book, which doesn't have 3000 feats, it just has the core feats. A new player that doesn't have a vet hovering over them blasting out a litany of every possible option isn't going to be overwhelmed. They're going to be able to thumb through one book and be able to make a functional character. The other stuff comes later when they see what is out there and what other player do.

Furdinand |
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To keep it succinct, stuff like the full attack paradigm for martials, vancian spellcasting (more specifically prepared casting), all the fiddly and obtuse subsystems like grappling/mounted combat, general caster/martial disparity, and the general style of combining a legion of small, disparate bonuses (or penalties) together for character construction/combat.
I'm being slightly glib with the whole "BURN IT ALL" thing, but I'd much rather the system be overhauled (or at a minimum trim off a lot of the fat the system has) rather than just bolting on more content to an already rickety system.
There are fantasy games out there that have none of the things you don't like about Pathfinder. There's no need to destroy Pathfinder in order to make it something that already exists elsewhere.
If you don't like the option of Vancian spellcasting existing, maybe Pathfinder isn't for you? It's kind of like being mad that Monopoly has Railroads and demanding a new edition that doesn't have them.

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Prepared casters, high-level spells, iterative attacks and monsters/NPCs being built from the same set of Lego bricks as PCs have to go. Sorry, I want to run a high level game, but I don't want to spend 4 hours figuring out a high level monster statblock or trying to anticipate just what kind of stuff can a 9-lvl prepared caster pull out when he or she combines spell X with feat Y and magic item Z AND then waiting half an hour when a hasted TWF Ranger resolves her 7 attacks followed by 5 attacks from her animal companion AND then waiting another half an hour while prepared casters figure out their loadout for the next 15-minute adventuring day.
It's all very fun. It just takes horrible amounts of time while moving very little things forward, and making the game look less and less attractive compared to, say, a solid dungeon crawler board game. RPGs do not exist in a bubble, they sit on the shelf next to Gloomhaven, Descent, Imperial Assault or Shadows of Brimstone. That's some solid, beautifully designed, time-conscious competition.
For me, the single biggest problem is the amount of time mid- and high-level combat takes in PF, and if Starfinder fixes that and PF 2.0 goes from there, Paizo gets my money. I want to play high level stuff, but I also don't want to have high level gaming take forever due to the sheer complexity of the system.
5E did a lot of things better than previous editions did when it comes to streamlining things and making high power high level fights fun without bogging them down. There's still room for improvement, but I can totally see what was WotC aiming at with 5E and I applaud that. Our final battles in Out of Abyss were far less time consuming than final battles of RotRL while still being exactly as epic and cool.
I want to play Paizo's excellent stories and adventures using a system which retains the good old D&D feel while being approachable and fast. It's doable. 5E largely succeeded at that.
As for sales, I guess that WotC lost fewer "you're invalidating my 4E bookshelf" people than it gained "Yay, D&D is fun again!" people.
Also, Monopoly is a crap, poorly designed game :)

Handy Haversack of Hillarity |
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Prepared casters, high-level spells, iterative attacks and monsters/NPCs being built from the same set of Lego bricks as PCs have to go. Sorry, I want to run a high level game, but I don't want to spend 4 hours figuring out a high level monster statblock or trying to anticipate just what kind of stuff can a 9-lvl prepared caster pull out when he or she combines spell X with feat Y and magic item Z AND then waiting half an hour when a hasted TWF Ranger resolves her 7 attacks followed by 5 attacks from her animal companion AND ten waiting another half an hour while prepared casters figure out their loadout for the next 15-minute adventuring day.
For me, the single biggest problem is the time mid- and high-level combat takes in PF, and if Starfinder fixes that and PF 2.0 goes from there, Paizo gets my money. I want to play high level stuff, but I also don't want to have high level gaming take forever due to the sheer complexity of the system.
5E did a lot of things better than previous editions did when it comes to streamlining things and making high power high level fights fun without bogging them down. There's still room for improvement, but I can totally see what was WotC aiming at with 5E and I applaud that. Our final battles in Out of Abyss were far less time consuming than final battles of RotRL while still being exactly as epic and cool.
As for sales, I guess that WotC lost fewer "you're invalidating my 4E bookshelf" people than it gained "Yay, D&D is fun again!" people.
Also, Monopoly is a crap, poorly designed game :)
I just wanted to upvote the monopoly comment.

Ryan Freire |

As for sales, I guess that WotC lost fewer "you're invalidating my 4E bookshelf" people than it gained "Yay, D&D is fun again!" people.
No ones talking about 4th ed to 5th. The conversation revolved around what lead to pathfinders success, and how deviating too far from it was probably too risky for a non WoTC company, and the conversion from 3.5 to 4.0 was mentioned.

Matthew Downie |

And here's its first glaring problem: (direct quote) "Starship combat is fairly common. PCs can typically choose between two models of starship in those adventures..."
Ugh.
-- Now, I've played me some SAGA Edition and other asst. similar, and let me tell you: starship combat blows dead dogs no matter how you do it. The campaigns nose-dive the minute the PCs get a ship, and here's why:
Based on my experiences of Paizo's caravan combat system in Jade Regent, my hopes weren't high. But it sounds like you haven't tried it? This guy has:
Last night I ran some starship combat with my group and out of all the new rules in Starfinder ... they completely nailed starship combat. My group has been together for more years than I remember and for the very first time they truly acting together and acted like a crew.
And, of course, they all fell right into their roles like a real starship. PCs were asking the Captain for commands, the Captain was encouraging and pushing them, the Science Officer was scanning the enemy ship, the Engineer was keeping the ship together ... it glorious to behold.
Regular combat is fun, but in the end everyone does their own thing when fighting the monster. But with starship combat everyone had to work together and with the given roles, people acted and sounded like a real starship crew.
At the end my players said that was one of the best experiences they ever had in RPGs, and I had to agree. It is a game changer!
I don't believe it eats all the party's money either; there's an artificial separation of personal wealth and ship upgrades.

Zaister |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |
a lot of stuff
I agree with most of what you're saying. The only thing that rubs me the wrong way is NPCs not following the same rules as PCs, somehow that feels inherently wrong to me. However, I'm willing to accept it might be a border worth crossing, because it may well be I can only see its worth when I see it in action. I'll see how that plays out in Starfinder. After all, similiar things have happened before. Like "Wait, what do you mean we don't roll for initiative each round any more? How does that make any sense?"

Zaister |
Well I understand the stamina/hit point one. why would your NPC's need the ability to heal up in between combats. igther A they will be dead or B you can say they did because your the DM.
That much is true, however, it also means a PC can take about twice as much damage as an NPC of comparable power.

Vidmaster7 |

Vidmaster7 wrote:Well I understand the stamina/hit point one. why would your NPC's need the ability to heal up in between combats. igther A they will be dead or B you can say they did because your the DM.That much is true, however, it also means a PC can take about twice as much damage as an NPC of comparable power.
Now I was under the impression that NPC's and monster hit points were going to be the same as the total of PC's stamina + hit points. Is that not the case?

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Given roles? Oh, boy! I can't wait to be told what to do by the collective. It'll be like I'm back in the military again eating those delicious MREs. MmmMMm.Sir Thugsalot wrote:...let me tell you: starship combat blows dead dogs no matter how you do it. The campaigns nose-dive the minute the PCs get a ship, and here's why:Based on my experiences of Paizo's caravan combat system in Jade Regent, my hopes weren't high. But it sounds like you haven't tried it? This guy has:Stonesnake wrote:Last night I ran some starship combat with my group and out of all the new rules in Starfinder ... they completely nailed starship combat. My group has been together for more years than I remember and for the very first time they truly acting together and acted like a crew.
And, of course, they all fell right into their roles like a real starship. PCs were asking the Captain for commands, the Captain was encouraging and pushing them, the Science Officer was scanning the enemy ship, the Engineer was keeping the ship together ... it glorious to behold.
Regular combat is fun, but in the end everyone does their own thing when fighting the monster. But with starship combat everyone had to work together and with the given roles, people acted and sounded like a real starship crew.
Quote:At the end my players said that was one of the best experiences they ever had in RPGs, and I had to agree. It is a game changer!
Right.
Now do it again. And again. And again. And again.
Still enjoy being that cog-in-the-wheel?
That ensign under Picard?
Didn't think so.
~ ~ ~
BTDT, got the red shirt.
No thanks.
The novelty for this kind of stuff wears off real fast.

Zaister |
Zaister wrote:Now I was under the impression that NPC's and monster hit points were going to be the same as the total of PC's stamina + hit points. Is that not the case?Vidmaster7 wrote:Well I understand the stamina/hit point one. why would your NPC's need the ability to heal up in between combats. igther A they will be dead or B you can say they did because your the DM.That much is true, however, it also means a PC can take about twice as much damage as an NPC of comparable power.
There is a CR 2 NPC in the adventure who has 23 hp.
A player character of the same race, class and CR with the same Constitution would have 22 hp and 18 sp.

Tarik Blackhands |
There are fantasy games out there that have none of the things you don't like about Pathfinder. There's no need to destroy Pathfinder in order to make it something that already exists elsewhere.If you don't like the option of Vancian spellcasting existing, maybe Pathfinder isn't for you? It's kind of like being mad that Monopoly has Railroads and demanding a new edition that doesn't have them.
Pathfinder may not be my favorite system (Not even close), but I still like it enough to want better from it than its current iteration.
The system isn't perfect to make an understatement of the century and I'd rather have a cleaner and more dynamic version of the game that also has rules handily online and similar brand recognition because some of my game groups do not know about/want to learn something like 7th Sea or Eclipse Phase.
Also, unrelated, but I don't think even Paizo likes prepared casting these days considering how that got stuff got thrown straight out the window for Starfinder.

Serisan |

Sir Thugsalot wrote:And here's its first glaring problem: (direct quote) "Starship combat is fairly common. PCs can typically choose between two models of starship in those adventures..."
Ugh.
-- Now, I've played me some SAGA Edition and other asst. similar, and let me tell you: starship combat blows dead dogs no matter how you do it. The campaigns nose-dive the minute the PCs get a ship, and here's why:
Based on my experiences of Paizo's caravan combat system in Jade Regent, my hopes weren't high. But it sounds like you haven't tried it? This guy has:
Stonesnake wrote:I don't believe it eats all the party's money either; there's an artificial separation of personal wealth and ship upgrades.Last night I ran some starship combat with my group and out of all the new rules in Starfinder ... they completely nailed starship combat. My group has been together for more years than I remember and for the very first time they truly acting together and acted like a crew.
And, of course, they all fell right into their roles like a real starship. PCs were asking the Captain for commands, the Captain was encouraging and pushing them, the Science Officer was scanning the enemy ship, the Engineer was keeping the ship together ... it glorious to behold.
Regular combat is fun, but in the end everyone does their own thing when fighting the monster. But with starship combat everyone had to work together and with the given roles, people acted and sounded like a real starship crew.
At the end my players said that was one of the best experiences they ever had in RPGs, and I had to agree. It is a game changer!
Problems: scaling of DCs, the expectation that PCs will never obtain a ship large enough to have a crew, and the general worthlessness of Solarions and Mystics on a ship. If you're playing with the pregens, they're particularly ill-suited for starship combat.
What we found worked well was to have a dedicated, focused pilot (I had +10 at level 1) and passable everything else. The science officer scans and finds out where the guns are, the engineer and captain boost the pilot to make sure you (1) have sufficient movement and (2) can beat the other ship's pilot on initiative, then you maneuver to wherever the enemy's ship lacks guns. Because your bonus to piloting is effectively your initiative (with a preference towards going last, but higher init = going last), making sure that you do everything to boost that check is paramount to early success. In our 2 combats, the enemy ship didn't even pierce our shields.
Also yes, there's zero connection between player wealth and the starship. The starship rules scale based on your APL and is abstracted to "build points" that represent resources you've gained over time in the background. In Society, it's further simplified by there being 2 ships to choose from (which one might refer to as Science and Missiles). I have some general problems with the extra bookkeeping of the ship - in home games, I can see that being the job of one person and I can also see it being remarkably tedious.

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I really hate it when non-narrative systems are all "PC's operate under a completely different set of physics to every single other form of life in the entire multiverse" just sounds so stupid whenever I read it in a system, it's one of the reasons I not sure whether or not to even buy starfinder.
Bit confused why you specify non narrative systems unless you mean "its only okay in narrative systems" but anyway, you do realize that even in pathfinder npcs do actually work under different rules?
Like, they have their own classes, they don't get exp from combat, they can lead organizations without leadership feat, they can use power of plot to bend the rules and create artifacts :D

magnuskn |
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Prepared casters, high-level spells, iterative attacks and monsters/NPCs being built from the same set of Lego bricks as PCs have to go. Sorry, I want to run a high level game, but I don't want to spend 4 hours figuring out a high level monster statblock or trying to anticipate just what kind of stuff can a 9-lvl prepared caster pull out when he or she combines spell X with feat Y and magic item Z AND then waiting half an hour when a hasted TWF Ranger resolves her 7 attacks followed by 5 attacks from her animal companion AND then waiting another half an hour while prepared casters figure out their loadout for the next 15-minute adventuring day.
It's all very fun. It just takes horrible amounts of time while moving very little things forward, and making the game look less and less attractive compared to, say, a solid dungeon crawler board game. RPGs do not exist in a bubble, they sit on the shelf next to Gloomhaven, Descent, Imperial Assault or Shadows of Brimstone. That's some solid, beautifully designed, time-conscious competition.
For me, the single biggest problem is the amount of time mid- and high-level combat takes in PF, and if Starfinder fixes that and PF 2.0 goes from there, Paizo gets my money. I want to play high level stuff, but I also don't want to have high level gaming take forever due to the sheer complexity of the system.
5E did a lot of things better than previous editions did when it comes to streamlining things and making high power high level fights fun without bogging them down. There's still room for improvement, but I can totally see what was WotC aiming at with 5E and I applaud that. Our final battles in Out of Abyss were far less time consuming than final battles of RotRL while still being exactly as epic and cool.
I want to play Paizo's excellent stories and adventures using a system which retains the good old D&D feel while being approachable and fast. It's doable. 5E largely succeeded at that.
As for sales, I guess that WotC lost fewer "you're invalidating my 4E...
Ugh. What is the world coming to if I have to agree with you on something this fundamental? ^^ Although NPC's (at least BEG NPC's) should be built as players are. I don't mind if a mook is a short statblock, but Doomlord von Doom should get a bit more attention. :p

thejeff |
Gorbacz wrote:As for sales, I guess that WotC lost fewer "you're invalidating my 4E bookshelf" people than it gained "Yay, D&D is fun again!" people.No ones talking about 4th ed to 5th. The conversation revolved around what lead to pathfinders success, and how deviating too far from it was probably too risky for a non WoTC company, and the conversion from 3.5 to 4.0 was mentioned.
There's a risk of losing track of the difference between "People quit publishers when they invalidate bookshelves" and "people quit publishers when they put out games they don't like".
The success of 5E compared to 4E - both of which were radical departures from the previous edition and invalided previous editions - suggests that isn't the primary factor.Make a better game and people will follow the edition change. Make one they don't like and they won't.

Milo v3 |

Bit confused why you specify non narrative systems unless you mean "its only okay in narrative systems" but anyway,-
It is okay in narrative systems.
You do realize that even in pathfinder npcs do actually work under different rules?
No the run under the same set of physics as the rest of the game. A character's abi
Like, they have their own classes
They have HD actually, which operate under the same rules as the rest of the game.
they don't get exp from combat
I actually haven't ever seen a rule that says that now that I think of it.
they can lead organizations without leadership feat
So can players....
they can use power of plot to bend the rules and create artifacts :D
That's actually GM Fiat, nothing to do with the monster or players. There is no reason a GM couldn't use fiat to let players do things which break the rules in the same way, so it doesn't really count.

Tarik Blackhands |
Monsters are hardly built the same as PCs. You can look at the big line of universal monster rules that they get and PCs don't, or look at how an Efreet can get a Wish SLA at CL 11, or how basically every monster ever has unique abilities neatly tucked in at the tail end of its block that no PC is ever meant to get.
Then there's the fact they aren't constructed via normal point by/roll/stat arrays, don't have to concern themselves at all with WBL, or any other litany of things.
Paizo can write in a monster that uses Con for to hit/damage, casts like a L10 Sorc but uses Str as a key attribute, and whose divination spells can beat Mind Blank if they wanted and it would all be legal. Monsters don't play by PC rules outside the most basic sense.

Milo v3 |
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so "narrative" is really the only reason to play RPGs these days.
If I didn't care about the mechanics I would just be doing freeform 100% of the time.
Here's the thing, though: All RPGs are "narrativist" 99.9% of the time. As it happens, universe simulation isn't practical. ;-)
There is a big difference in the how play happens in a game like Fate compared to Pathfinder or compared to Chronicles of Darkness because of how they have tried to handle narrative-elements in the mechanics.

thejeff |
OTOH, if you want to play a Narrative RPG, what are you doing with PF or SF?
There are actual narrative based RPGs out there - games where the mechanics are based on narrative - players can spend resources to directly drive the story.
Mind you, I'm completely on the side of NPCs/monsters don't need mechanics as complete as PCs, but that's no reason to misrepresent a huge distinction between styles of RPG.

bugleyman |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |

OTOH, if you want to play a Narrative RPG, what are you doing with PF or SF?
There are actual narrative based RPGs out there - games where the mechanics are based on narrative - players can spend resources to directly drive the story.Mind you, I'm completely on the side of NPCs/monsters don't need mechanics as complete as PCs, but that's no reason to misrepresent a huge distinction between styles of RPG.
Of course they're hugely distinct, but that's not really the point. I simply find "this isn't realistic enough" to be a silly argument because no RPG is remotely realistic. Nor would we want them to be...after all, in real life, people who get stabbed/shot tend to die. :P

Patrick Newcarry |
If I remember correctly, there are as many as 6,000+ 3rd party products as of last year (roughly).
Let's be conservative and say that only 1/2 of them have feats, and let's say that the mean of the feats in those 3,000 something books is 15. 15 x 3,000= 45,000 feats produced by third parties. And Paizo has produced somewhere around 3,000 feats by themselves.
48,000 feats.
Wow.
Too many. And that was being conservative.
And that's just feats.
Think about magic items! There's more magic items in books generally than feats, so that could be upwards to 50k magic items or more.
Yikes.

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Well, I'm pretty sure Ven Vinder didn't get to level 7 commoner by killing goblins :D Lot of time in APs when NPC levels up, its "when gm says so" regardless of what they have been doing in that time. Besides, PCs don't have CR so counting exp you gain from defeating them is bit tough.
Also, I think you are somehow counting game mechanics as laws of physics of game world which is bit weird to me since Pathfinder isn't simulationist system. In setting, NPCs don't "choose" their classes in way players choose to "okay, I spontaneously become magical at second level now that I pick sorcerer class as my multiclass"
And if you are saying that GM fiats are okay to do even when npcs play by same rules, you could think of it as "NPCs have gm fiats all the time" then :D I mean, its same basis as for "the final dungeon has anti teleport plot magic", it makes GM's job easier.

Milo v3 |

Well, I'm pretty sure Ven Vinder didn't get to level 7 commoner by killing goblins :D Lot of time in APs when NPC levels up, its "when gm says so" regardless of what they have been doing in that time. Besides, PCs don't have CR so counting exp you gain from defeating them is bit tough.
I don't like Paizo's settings so cannot really comment on whether their NPC's make sense. Also, it's very easy to calculate the CR of a player character.
Also, I think you are somehow counting game mechanics as laws of physics of game world which is bit weird to me since Pathfinder isn't simulationist system. In setting, NPCs don't "choose" their classes in way players choose to "okay, I spontaneously become magical at second level now that I pick sorcerer class as my multiclass"
I do acknowledge abstraction exists. My issue is when the level of abstraction changes to make the PC's magical special snowflakes that the whole universe resolves around.
And if you are saying that GM fiats are okay to do even when npcs play by same rules, you could think of it as "NPCs have gm fiats all the time" then :D I mean, its same basis as for "the final dungeon has anti teleport plot magic", it makes GM's job easier.
I really loathe things like that. From my perspective you're just wasting time using a system if you're then going to ignore said system. If you want to play a rules-light game or a freeform game, just play a rules-light or freeform game.

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But PCs are usually the exceptional ones in most systems, after all not many rpg systems resolve around playing as commoners or farmers.
Also, I think its false equivalence to say that PC/NPC having separate rules means you are ignoring the rules or say its equivalence to rules-light game. Like, Starfinder is streamlined Pathfinder, but its nowhere close to being rules-light game. NPCs having "CR" be their equivalent of level doesn't really make them "less stronger" than PCs, all it means is that its easier to build them faster and if you want to do it "right" you don't need to spend same effort on high level mooks as you would spend on the BBEG.
(as bonus question, so if its that easy to calculate, what is CR of level 10 character with above average stat roll stats & rolled hds that had all of the party's loot dumped on them(so basically if one pc has four pc's worth of looot) because party thought having the party fighter have all the good gear was good idea? :D)

Milo v3 |

But PCs are usually the exceptional ones in most systems, after all not many rpg systems resolve around playing as commoners or farmers.
There is a difference between "Players being heroes" and "Players are the only creatures in existence with a strength score". You can have players be adventure-worthy without having all other forms of life have their stats decided by fiat.
Also, I think its false equivalence to say that PC/NPC having separate rules means you are ignoring the rules or say its equivalence to rules-light game.
Good thing I didn't say that then? I was saying that to the fiating everything style comment, and saying why viewing it like what would be considerably worse from my point of view.
(as bonus question, so if its that easy to calculate, what is CR of level 10 character with above average stat roll stats & rolled hds that had all of the party's loot dumped on them(so basically if one pc has four pc's worth of looot) because party thought having the party fighter have all the good gear was good idea? :D)
Since Level 10 PC with appropriate WBL is 11, probably CR 13.

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NPC still have strength modifier though, so I don't see- Oh wait, you are moving from how starfinder npcs work on hypothetical "npcs don't have stats at all" thing? .-. I'm getting confused here
Wouldn't level 10 pc with appropriate wealth by level be cr 10? Thats how I've seen it with npcs at least, npc of level 10 with apporiate npc wealth level is cr 9.

Milo v3 |

NPC still have strength modifier though, so I don't see- Oh wait, you are moving from how starfinder npcs work on hypothetical "npcs don't have stats at all" thing? .-. I'm getting confused here.
The NPC rules of Starfinder say to go to Alien Archive so it's very likely they'll use the enemy creation rules from Alien Archive. For example, the NPC stats in CRB were made with the rules instead of the being made in a manner similar to a PC.
Wouldn't level 10 pc with appropriate wealth by level be cr 10? Thats how I've seen it with npcs at least, npc of level 10 with apporiate npc wealth level is cr 9.
The Core Rulebook says "a classed NPC that instead has gear equivalent to that of a PC (as listed on Table: Character Wealth by Level) has a CR of 1 higher than his actual CR." but I forgot to remember the -1 from a few paragraphs up.

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Well, that doesn't answer why its important that PCs have stats while NPCs have modifiers since its in the end same thing really.
Like, from what I can tell from reading through dead suns & starfinder society scenarios, npcs still have classes, skills, gear, class based abilities and so on. Difference is that CR is used as level for abilities that require levels and DCs targeting NPCs and whatever.
Umm, thats what I said. So why would level 10 PC with appropriate level gear be CR 11?

Vidmaster7 |

Well, that doesn't answer why its important that PCs have stats while NPCs have modifiers since its in the end same thing really.
Like, from what I can tell from reading through dead suns & starfinder society scenarios, npcs still have classes, skills, gear, class based abilities and so on. Difference is that CR is used as level for abilities that require levels and DCs targeting NPCs and whatever.
Umm, thats what I said. So why would level 10 PC with appropriate level gear be CR 11?
I think the thing about that is a CR is not suppose to be a 50/50 fight its suppose to be beatable without to much of a risk to your life (not counting bad die rolls etc.) so if the NPC has all the same gear the fight is gonna be a lot closer to a coin flip.
That is my thought anyways.

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CorvusMask wrote:Well, that doesn't answer why its important that PCs have stats while NPCs have modifiers since its in the end same thing really.
Like, from what I can tell from reading through dead suns & starfinder society scenarios, npcs still have classes, skills, gear, class based abilities and so on. Difference is that CR is used as level for abilities that require levels and DCs targeting NPCs and whatever.
Umm, thats what I said. So why would level 10 PC with appropriate level gear be CR 11?
I think the thing about that is a CR is not suppose to be a 50/50 fight its suppose to be beatable without to much of a risk to your life (not counting bad die rolls etc.) so if the NPC has all the same gear the fight is gonna be a lot closer to a coin flip.
That is my thought anyways.
Umm, yes? I haven't said anything that contradicts with that.
What I asked is why Milo calculated PC with appropriate gear being one cr higher than their level when npc with pc gear is same CR as their level. I'm confused where he gets the idea that PC's have one CR higher than NPCs since I thought that came from PC level gear

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Options that even the fluffiest mother couldn't love.
Shows that you don't know about me. I'd really wonder if there was actually more than a handful of feats that I'd positively, never could find any use for. :D
In all honesty, you're exaggerating much. If you're playing Pathfinder in Standard mode (a.k.a. as expected by the designers), you could probably even afford to chose a feat or two that didn't give you any mechanical benefit at all and still have a playable character. Most do, though, so even if they are not optimal, they are still good enough for me.
Problem being that player optimization has led the game to become ridiculously easy, so to avoid that, GMs start optimizing as well. And suddenly, suboptimal choices start to become bad choices

Vidmaster7 |

Vidmaster7 wrote:CorvusMask wrote:Well, that doesn't answer why its important that PCs have stats while NPCs have modifiers since its in the end same thing really.
Like, from what I can tell from reading through dead suns & starfinder society scenarios, npcs still have classes, skills, gear, class based abilities and so on. Difference is that CR is used as level for abilities that require levels and DCs targeting NPCs and whatever.
Umm, thats what I said. So why would level 10 PC with appropriate level gear be CR 11?
I think the thing about that is a CR is not suppose to be a 50/50 fight its suppose to be beatable without to much of a risk to your life (not counting bad die rolls etc.) so if the NPC has all the same gear the fight is gonna be a lot closer to a coin flip.
That is my thought anyways.
Umm, yes? I haven't said anything that contradicts with that.
What I asked is why Milo calculated PC with appropriate gear being one cr higher than their level when npc with pc gear is same CR as their level. I'm confused where he gets the idea that PC's have one CR higher than NPCs since I thought that came from PC level gear
sorry i'm tired and their is so many acronyms I'm having a hard time figuring out what your saying. I think I got it now. hmmm it is weird.

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In general, I already have been known for being a supporter of Pathfinder 2.0 before and that's still the case. I'll trust Paizo to do it when it makes the most sense for them business-wise and until then, I'm content using Pathfinder/Starfinder. In the end, I came here because Paizo was an awesome company full of awesome people way before Pathfinder and as long as that doesn't change, they have my support with whatever they are doing.
But then, the system has never been the deciding factor for what games I play or run. It's the setting and the adventures, that keep me coming back, and as long as the quality is there on those fronts, you might find me here.
This said, there are systems out there I like better than Pathfinder, and in the 3pp community, there have come up some rule variants I'd love to see included in an official Pathfinder revision. There are also things that could be improved upon that weren't in first edition for backwards compatibility (and maybe other)reasons, and as the whole system (to me, 3.0, 3.5 is basically all the same) is now more than fifteen years old, it might be finally time to get rid of those things.
Oh, and I already found one or two things I might include in future Pathfinder games of mine, so to see those in a future Pathfinder 2.0 edition wouldn't hurt my feelings either.

thejeff |
What I asked is why Milo calculated PC with appropriate gear being one cr higher than their level when npc with pc gear is same CR as their level. I'm confused where he gets the idea that PC's have one CR higher than NPCs since I thought that came from PC level gear
Because he made an error as he said "but I forgot to remember the -1 from a few paragraphs up." So he saw the "PC level gear adds 1 to CR", but forgot the baseline was level - 1.

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CorvusMask wrote:Because he made an error as he said "but I forgot to remember the -1 from a few paragraphs up." So he saw the "PC level gear adds 1 to CR", but forgot the baseline was level - 1.
What I asked is why Milo calculated PC with appropriate gear being one cr higher than their level when npc with pc gear is same CR as their level. I'm confused where he gets the idea that PC's have one CR higher than NPCs since I thought that came from PC level gear
Oh ok

Anguish |
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Do want. Feat bloat alone has made Pathfinder ridiculous.
While your personal view is valued, it's missing the point.
First, you can always disallow any materials you feel are "too much".
Second, "too much material for this edition" as an excuse to make a new edition is senseless, because people clearly want more material.
All a new edition does is encourage/make you/us buy stuff again.
Please don't tell Paizo.