The game's combat (which, make no mistake, this is primarily a system designed around combat), is designed around a simple paradigm: ranged hits lightly from safety, melee hits hard from a dangerous position. Therefore, melee characters inherently benefit from high strength because of the sheer amount of damage they can deal. They also have room for a wider variety of big weapons, and for a soldier at least getting 1.5 Strength to damage on melee means you will always, always do more damage than your allies will. And in this system, that means a lot, because enemies tend to have really big hp.
Does it have other uses? No. Neither does Cha, with the exception of Envoy and Solarion (and there it's still kinda iffy), but no one is complaining about that. Strength does one thing and it does that one thing really, really well, and if you're building a Strength character then that's what you're signing up for.
If you don't like how the dogfight is going you can get out and push.It isn't used in ship-to-ship combat it's true...but why in the name of all that's holy would it be? How would you justify that?You push the big red button really, really hard.
Jetpacks are a thing.
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Engine systems are hit, causing the coolant to leak and flood three bays before the bulkheads seal.
In order to repair it, you have to force a bulkhead open above the flooded chambers. It's been warped from over pressure, so athletics here we come.
Getting the bulkhead open you find the chamber below you completely submerged in eerily clear coolant fluid. Space has a strange way of making liquids cling to objects, rather than flow around them. You'll need to drag yourself through this stuff, using debris and ship structures for grips. Athletics check for swimming.
Making it through the room, you finally get to damaged section where the pipe is ruptured. Coolant is still being pumped through the pipe, but you have a self sealing sleeve to fix this. You just have to force it into position around the breach. Guess you'll need that strength.
(Inspired by a scene from alien resurrection)
- your companion has been knocked out and the base is about to come apart. Better grab him and haul jets to the ship. Lucky you're strong enough to lift him and his gear.
(Inspired from every DnD game I've ever played)
- damnit, the door is dropping to seal us in this section of the ship while enemy escapes. If it closes, the locks will take a few minutes to hack. More than enough for that evil sod to reach the escape pods. Quick, hold it open while the rest of the gang slip through it and continue the chase.
(Inspired by every DnD game I've played)
- that's a 300 foot cliff right in front of us. Anyone bring enough cable and rocket boosted grapnel? Sigh, guess I'll climb it and haul the cable to secure locations so you guys can make it.
Stats are only as weak as the situations you devise. Good game design provides opportunities for multiple solutions through the application of multiple skill sets.
You only need a few situations to arise in a campaign where a stat is useful for players to wish they could have more points in it.
Sadly every stat gets replaced by gear or spells eventually (for situational use at least). But that means you're spending money where someone else doesn't need to.
In PF charisma was the stat that got dumped the most because it does the least.
In Starfinder Strength is now behind dex, but it is not a throw-away stat like Charisma has been in the past. Charisma is still a throwaway stat so Strength is still not the weakest.
Here's a thought.
If somehow strength was made the best via the system (gives health, skill points, and makes you more charismatic), then every PC would just take tons of steroids while many players would complain about how odd it is that a scifi game doesn't make int the best stat.
It actually makes sense that strength would be less important than most other ability scores as the technology advances. We don't build our own log cabins, farm our own food, or blacksmith at the forge like someone did two centuries ago. Those tasks required strength. In contemporary society, there re still construction, shipping and other jobs that require strength - yet the jobs that require people to sit in front of a computer and type all day are increasing in percentage compared with manual labor or sports entertainment jobs. In a scifi future, most people would just buy a robot to do the heavy manual labor.
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In PF charisma was the stat that got dumped the most because it does the least.
In Starfinder Strength is now behind dex, but it is not a throw-away stat like Charisma has been in the past. Charisma is still a throwaway stat so Strength is still not the weakest.
Charisma is more applicable in Starfinder though.
Bluff and diplomacy are captain skills for space combat now.Solarians use charisma for resolve.
My experience has taught me you need at least one player who has a good,Charisma score, or the party will never find all the information they need to,finish a game. Not being able to lie or talk your way into or out of certain places can end an adventure as often as not.
We've also found at least one really,strong person is,useful too. Mostly for damage output (this might change in Starfinder)
In PF charisma was the stat that got dumped the most because it does the least.
In Starfinder Strength is now behind dex, but it is not a throw-away stat like Charisma has been in the past. Charisma is still a throwaway stat so Strength is still not the weakest.Charisma is more applicable in Starfinder though.
Bluff and diplomacy are captain skills for space combat now.
Solarians use charisma for resolve.My experience has taught me you need at least one player who has a good,Charisma score, or the party will never find all the information they need to,finish a game. Not being able to lie or talk your way into or out of certain places can end an adventure as often as not.
We've also found at least one really,strong person is,useful too. Mostly for damage output (this might change in Starfinder)
It being more applicable than before doesn't mean it is not a throw away stats for most characters.
Also in Pathfinder adventures you don't need ALL of the info. It can help, but it is not a need. I am talking about for published adventures. For homebrew games YMMV.
Being able to lie or any other social skill is also not a necessity. It is just a bonus(nice thing to be able to do).
Pathfinder and Starfinder are setup so that most problems can be solved by killing things, and not making too many terrible decisions.
Yes, I understand that if you mess up that being charismatic can give you more leeway, but unless your group finds yourselves in these situations a lot then you can dump charisma and be ok as a group.
Personally getting into that much trouble is not something I am used to, but if you are used to that happening, I can see why you place charisma as being more important than I do.
I'm not saying the best decision is always made, but catastrophic errors are not made.
edit: I just realized that you said "all the information you need to finish the game", not "all the information".
In my experience I have never seen charisma needed(as in an actual requirement) to get the info to complete the game.
1. Bulk rules and carrying capacity are pretty important.
2. 13 str required for Heavy Armor and Heavy Weapon feats
3. Melee weapons do the most damage.
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Wraithstrike, I just think we have different experiences in play, honestly.
I DM all my games (sadly). And social challenges are things I make sure happen. It's something my group expects in all honesty. They enjoy it as much as the combat.
Both of the Starfinder AP modules I have so far also have significant investigation and social interactions in them. (Paizo and Legendary Games).
We just find having a good "face" character opens up many more options for us in solving the situation at hand.
In the first AP, book 1, if you don't have dilomacy or intimidate, there are sections of the book you cannot move forward with. You cannot advance.
The book does mention that you need to adjust that section for your group as needed, but as written charisma is required.
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In the first AP, book 1, if you don't have dilomacy or intimidate, there are sections of the book you cannot move forward with. You cannot advance.
The book does mention that you need to adjust that section for your group as needed, but as written charisma is required.
Pretty sure you can use culture checks as well. Plus some info comes from using the interwebs of the station.
But yeah, every AP I've run has whole sections of places where diplomacy, intimidate, bluff are more than useful.
In my experience in Pathfinder Charisma skills are something either you are really good at, or pretty bad at. And you said it yourself, you have one person good at it. Likewise you'll probably have one person good at Strength, if only for melee. Contrast this to Dexterity or Wisdom, which it is likely everyone will be investing in, for AC, Saves, and Perception if nothing else. And probably Con too, though it's less useful than in Pathfinder since it's no longer your negative HP metric.
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In my experience in Pathfinder Charisma skills are something either you are really good at, or pretty bad at. And you said it yourself, you have one person good at it. Likewise you'll probably have one person good at Strength, if only for melee. Contrast this to Dexterity or Wisdom, which it is likely everyone will be investing in, for AC, Saves, and Perception if nothing else. And probably Con too, though it's less useful than in Pathfinder since it's no longer your negative HP metric.
This still makes Dex a secondary stat for most builds though.
Strength dude for melee
Charisma dude for face
Intelligence dude for magic/ skills
Wisdom dude for magic
Dex dude for guns. A gun build is going to be powerful, no doubt there. But in more so than the archer builds from Pathfinder. Except it's still reigned in by the gear you use rather than the stats you have. Strength adds to damage output, Dex doesn't.
I'd have to say Con is likely a stat less used in this game. It adds to saves, sure, but has less impact in survivability than previously. (Only my opinion. No game experience to back this up yet.)
You know... Weirdly enough, everytime I think "Hmm, if I wanted to rebuild the 3.5/Pathfinder system, what would I change?" I usually come to the conclusion that Strength and Constitution should be rolled together into one stat.
If one did that there'd be a certain degree of symmetry between a combined STR/CON stat and DEX. Both would have a dedicated Saving Throw (Fortitude vs Reflex), both would have a defensive stat (HP vs AC), and both would be able to be applied to attack rolls and in some cases damage rolls (melee vs Range/Operative).
For a symmetry between Body and Mind, I'd probably combine Wisdom and Charisma. In part because if we don't take class specific abilities (and spells) into account, in part because all three mental stats seem to be swapped out interchangeably; Charisma amounts for very little outside of "talking". Wisdom at least has one of the most important saving throws.
... Also keeping in mind that Intelligence is essentially the master stat for skills; given INT gives its bonus to more skills than both other mental stats combined. The one thing it gives besides that outside of class specific abilities is skill points. It may hard to tell if its balanced with a combined WIS/CHA stat since such a stat's abilities outside of the class specific ones would amount to just Will Saves.
...Skill points vs Will save bonus... Is that balanced? The designers seem to think so with existing INT vs WIS issues, so I'm going to go with "probably"... Just that they forgot to give CHA something to balance it with the other two.
As for whether the Body/Mind split is balanced... So far it seems that while the Body based Ability scores handle more generalized things regardless of class, the Mind scores all handle class specific abilities... Something the body scores rarely touch; baring maybe CON affecting Rage duration, or an Extraordinary ability's save DC.
This is probably a lot of throat clearing all just to make the case for a hypothetical 4 Ability score system: Fortitude, Reflex, Intelligence, and Willpower.
... Or essentially that anyways.
A lot of good posts here. Got too busy yesterday to keep replying, so apologies for that.
I'm not surprise to see I'm not the only one who thinks it would be an interesting idea to combine str and con, and maybe cha and wis as well. Of course, that definitely breaks compatibility with Pahtfinder and requires a lot of re-balancing from the ground up, so it's not something I ever actually expect to see from Paizo.
Still, if I ran a game of Starfinder, I'd be very tempted to try combining str and con for PCs at least. I built a few characters for a Starfinder game last night, and I noticed how little value con gave in general. You get so much hp and stam from your class every level, one extra stam per con modifier per level is almost never going to make a difference until the very high levels. Fort saves are good, but with the Greater Fortitude feat chain, it's an easy hole to shore up.