| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Rather than meticulously track every arms dealer, contact, guild, and license a character has access to, the game assumes that in typical settlements you can find and purchase anything with an item level no greater than your character level + 1, and at major settlements items up to your character level + 2. The GM can restrict access to some items (even those of an appropriate level) or make items of a higher level available for purchase (possibly at a greatly increased price or in return for a favor done for the seller).
|
Rather than meticulously track every arms dealer, contact, guild, and license a character has access to, the game assumes that in typical settlements you can find and purchase anything with an item level no greater than your character level + 1, and at major settlements items up to your character level + 2. The GM can restrict access to some items (even those of an appropriate level) or make items of a higher level available for purchase (possibly at a greatly increased price or in return for a favor done for the seller).
Ok that makes no sense, so if the PCs basically hang around Absalom Station higher level items appear for purchase as they level?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's more like Absalom Station has an abundance of items they're more willing to sell you despite your low level/lack of requisite license other communities would require (level+2).
|
|
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
It's an abstraction is several factors including licenses, black market connections, bribes, permits, aviailibilty, military or law enforcement rank, gang membership and so on.
Basically it's a simplified system to make gameplay easier without going into too much detail. If as a GM, you desire more detail and a more realistic and less abstract system for your arms sellers, you are free to do so.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And, as noted, it's an ASSUMPTION of the game. You don't have to make it as a GM. You can let them spend all their cash on one awesome gun. You can give them starting gear. You can push them out the airlock naked (good job picking Android as your race!). But the default assumption is that PCs have a certain amount of wealth at each level, and generally don't get access to items very far above their level.
Starfinder and Pathfinder both have quirky (being charitable) economics already, but I think the item level assumptions being spelled out right in the gear lists is pretty straightforward for GMs and players to use.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's an abstraction is several factors including licenses, black market connections, bribes, permits, aviailibilty, military or law enforcement rank, gang membership and so on.
Basically it's a simplified system to make gameplay easier without going into too much detail. If as a GM, you desire more detail and a more realistic and less abstract system for your arms sellers, you are free to do so.
Sorry, but that's just not on. If it represents your literal right to buy said item, why does it change based on where you are buying something? If it's about availability, why can two characters in the same party go into the same town and come out with different lists of items? The combination doesn't make a right out of two wrongs, it makes it even more silly: at one point you're going to walk into a store, they're going to have the item in question because they'll sell it to your mate, but while you have every right to buy it you have to go into the big city and spend your money there instead.
Call a spade a spade: it's a game balance issue to deal with the possibility of characters finagling more money than they should have at a particular level. The main protection is the exponentially rising cost of items by level, and this is a pressure release valve if circumstances get too far from the norm. It doesn't make sense, but you aren't supposed to look at it.
Or they have different Infamy levels, if you are using that SFS rule.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Sorry, but that's just not on. If it represents your literal right to buy said item, why does it change based on where you are buying something? If it's about availability, why can two characters in the same party go into the same town and come out with different lists of items?
They can? Two PCs in the same party are the same level and have access to the same gear, or thereabouts. Even assuming different levels, those different levels represent different levels of access, different permits, and so on.
I have friends with permits to carry weapons I don't have the permits for in real life, after all.
The combination doesn't make a right out of two wrongs, it makes it even more silly: at one point you're going to walk into a store, they're going to have the item in question because they'll sell it to your mate, but while you have every right to buy it you have to go into the big city and spend your money there instead.
Huh? That doesn't necessarily follow. The easiest alternative (fully supported by the rules and description) is as follows:
You have a legal right to Level + 1 Items. However, in a big city you can go to an effective black market and manage to acquire Level + 2 items.
The actual explanation may well be more complicated than that, but it's a logical way to work things and makes sense.
Call a spade a spade: it's a game balance issue to deal with the possibility of characters finagling more money than they should have at a particular level. The main protection is the exponentially rising cost of items by level, and this is a pressure release valve if circumstances get too far from the norm. It doesn't make sense, but you aren't supposed to look at it.
It is a game balance issue, but it also follows pretty well logically. It certainly makes sense enough to me.
1. Because a giant metropolis has more options available, and so you have an easier time finding merchants who will give you the time of day, bend rules, have inventory they will sell to a non-standard customer, etc?
2. Because different characters have different reputations, different affiliations, different licenses, different contacts? Though the only way that would happen in the same party is if somehow different PCs are different levels.
Alright, let's test your abstraction with a realistic scenario. I'll talk about computers, even though I'm not sure if it's official that their level is twice their tier. I assume that'll be FAQ'd later.
I'm 2nd level, my friend is 4th. We need computers for an urgent mission. In a large town, we go shopping together. She gets a tier 3, I must make do with a tier 2. Why?
Bearing that reason in mind, during the mission I find a small arm. I don't use small arms, my friend wants it. She trades for the tier 3 computer. Am I now a criminal? Am I carrying contraband? What if I found it on a corpse?
Bearing those reasons in mind, I break my tier 2, and need to buy a new one fast. I'm in a small town. I show the shopkeep my tier 2 and ask for that model. They have tier 2s in stock, because my friend is with me. Why won't they sell me a replacement? Have I just admitted to a crime? Is my legal status in a Quantum state, depending on the size of town I'm in?
Nothing of this makes any sense. It adds nothing to the game, and touches all sorts of areas of roleplay that both come up often, and should not have In Character meddling. It has to be a rule for game balance, not a real gameworld obstruction.
|
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Alright, let's test your abstraction with a realistic scenario. I'll talk about computers, even though I'm not sure if it's official that their level is twice their tier. I assume that'll be FAQ'd later.
Sure. We'll assume a Tier 2 Computer is Level 4 and a Tier 3 is Level 6 for this.
I'm 2nd level, my friend is 4th. We need computers for an urgent mission. In a large town, we go shopping together. She gets a tier 3, I must make do with a tier 2. Why?
You don't have either the contacts (whether legal or illegal) and/or legal permits to acquire what amounts to decently high end hacking rig?
Bearing that reason in mind, during the mission I find a small arm. I don't use small arms, my friend wants it. She trades for the tier 3 computer. Am I now a criminal? Am I carrying contraband? What if I found it on a corpse?
You may well have been a criminal well before that, but whether you're a criminal is a GM call. Regardless, it's the same whether your friend gave it to you or you found it.
Bearing those reasons in mind, I break my tier 2, and need to buy a new one fast. I'm in a small town. I show the shopkeep my tier 2 and ask for that model. They have tier 2s in stock, because my friend is with me. Why won't they sell me a replacement? Have I just admitted to a crime? Is my legal status in a Quantum state, depending on the size of town I'm in?
No, your legality is the same everywhere. Whether the computer is illegal or legal just determines which of several reasons the guy might not sell to you:
1. Assuming it's illegal, he doesn't know you. Even if he's got one, selling to a guy he doesn't know is a great way to get caught in a sting. A PC of sufficient level can call one of their criminal contacts to vouch for them.
2. Assuming it's legal...this guy still doesn't know you and you're asking to purchase a piece of technology often used for illegal activities (ie: hacking). Why would he sell to you and risk the police coming down on him like a ton of bricks when your dumb ass gets caught hacking the Mayor's private files?
3. Again assuming it's legal, you lack the proper permit. You got one in that big city you were in where you got your old device, but it's a harder permit to get in places where the specific person who issues it might be held responsible for what you do with it.
Any item above level 2 or 3 is a custom job, military hardware, or something equally specific and difficult to acquire. Something random people on the street do not have and cannot easily get. It's something you go to high end stores or shady black market dealers for and is quite possibly custom designed. People being unwilling to sell such things to some guy they've never heard of, and the permits to get it being tricky and location dependent both seems totally reasonable to me.
Nothing of this makes any sense. It adds nothing to the game, and touches all sorts of areas of roleplay that both come up often, and should not have In Character meddling. It has to be a rule for game balance, not a real gameworld obstruction.
No, it can easily be both. Availability codes for things have a long history in some sci-fi RPGs (Shadowrun has a robust system for this, for example), but have always had the issue of tending towards being pretty complex. The level thing is an easy abstraction of the combination of legal/bureaucratic loopholes and contacts, both legal and illegal, necessary to get high end military hardware.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I'm specifically referencing computers in this because of my IRL experience, but the concepts remain the same across all types of equipment, regardless.
Long story short: I was a frothy computer nerd in the era where home computers just became a thing. The stuff we had access to was sold through Sears and the like (VIC 20s, etc.) Found my first actual computer store. I started looking at the fancy computers. The dealer looked me over a couple times, grabbed me by the shoulder and pushed me over to an Apple II playing a crap version of Centipede in a corner by itself. In other words, he didn’t even entertain the notion of selling me a high level machine because I looked like a kid.
It’s just an anecdote, but “You’re not old enough to have it” has been an actual thing in our own society.
For an in-game reason, sure. You want to spend your cash on a Level 4 machine, I will up-sell your <colorful euphemism> all day long. The fact that you don’t have the relevant experience to work it (be it through professional training, OJT or “I just tinkered until it worked”) means that I won’t let it operate higher than your level +1. Might even force a penalty on you because you don’t know what you’re doing and just deleted the root directory, etc.
Just because you bought a router doesn’t mean you earned your Cisco networking certificate and have optimized your home network.
In other words, your character level represents you as the whole person, not just you the techno-wizard. So much of that is abstraction and includes your knowledge and skills beyond what’s directly portrayed in the game. Level 1 gets you the right to work on Computer 1 and 2 systems, just enough knowledge to log in and accidentally delete the file structure.
It’s not a perfect paradigm, but it’s good enough. If arguments persist then it’s not really about the system and you will have to look more at the motivation behind the argument. After all, we're demanding extreme logic and structure from "Wizards and Warp Drives". I'm not sure that can reasonably be found.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
First of all, very few groups in my experience play with characters at different levels any more - it's quite irregular to have a level difference intra-group since 2nd edition D&D.
Secondly, restricted purchases is absolutely a thing in real life, it doesn't matter that I know an army general and he likes me, I can't purchase a rocket launcher, while if he were to put in the effort he could probably "appropriate" pne.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
For an alternative handwave, AbadarCorp keeps insanely detailed dossiers of everyone. Ever. Because they're paranoid about profits. You being able to buy things at retailers is limited by AbadarCorp's willingness to release the funds or honour the credstick, and they won't do that at certain locations until you've achieved some notoriety and demonstrated a certain level of general competence. In larger cities with larger police forces, you have a little more leeway because if the corporation bets wrong, you won't be a threat for long.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ah! You're objecting to the whole idea of leveled gear, not the leveled gear/availability connection.
That's a much more defensible position, thematically, and I can only respond with noting that anything that maintains the same equipment doesn't tend to work so well mechanically with a system featuring the vast power level changes in Starfinder. Not if you want equipment to mean anything, anyway.
And they clearly want equipment to be meaningful.
I imagine they will release an upgrade system or something along those lines that will allow you to stick with your family heirloom, while also keeping it up to par with other level appropriate weapons.
It would be easy for them to make something akin to the solarion crystal mechanic, but then say something like "the sum of the levels of the upgrade and the level of the base weapon can't exceed your character level + 2."
After that, they would just need to balance the numbers for the appropriate levels.
It would even be balanced against existing systems, such as infusions, as your has weapon level would remain low, limiting the kinds of infusions you could stack with upgrades (unless the new upgrade mechanic also raises your weapon's base level).
I read the rule and figured it made sense based on old PF/DnD clerics. A cleric "knows" every spell in their spell list and prays to their gods for spells. No matter how rightous the cause, no matter how fervent the faith, a cleric must be 17th level to cast Miracle. Because in game at that level is when a god can trust their follower to wield that level of power in their name. Same thing here, no one wants to be the one who traded a first level nobody their spaceship for a rifle that does 15d6 points of damage and blew up half a ward. Helps me justify it even more when in the book gods of technology and commerce exist, who also want to see that from happening.
As far as iconic sci fi characters keeping iconic gear, we know Jane upgraded Vera, and that Master Luke built his own lightsaber. As a DM, I would allow players to do the same, just costs the same as buying new
All the players need to craft their own gear is ranks in the right skill and enough Universal Polymer Base to make the item in question. No feat taxes or casting levels or anything.
It is, incidentally, why I think Soldiers get engineering as a class skill. The hard-bitten mercenary who knows how to take his gun apart and put it back together would be that much harder to realize if they didn't have that skill.
Ah! You're objecting to the whole idea of leveled gear, not the leveled gear/availability connection.
That's a much more defensible position, thematically, and I can only respond with noting that anything that maintains the same equipment doesn't tend to work so well mechanically with a system featuring the vast power level changes in Starfinder. Not if you want equipment to mean anything, anyway.
And they clearly want equipment to be meaningful.
Thank you for the response and seeing my end of the argument. I think you summed up better than I did the disconnect I have with the game. Starfinder definitely pushes equipment being meaningful, just like any "Finder" game or DnD. I on the other hand want less emphasis for theme.
Going forward, instead of calling it a bad system, I think I can just clearly enunciate that the system is gear focused versus my preference.
Also to get around it in the future, perhaps the idea would be to just have them upgrade in downtime, almost like leveling, like the examples given by the other posters such as Luke building his own saber and Jayne with Veras upgrades (again, all between and in downtime). Seems like a good medium.
You can pretty much use the prices from the gear tables and just call it 'upgrades' instead of new weapons unless the player actually wants a weapon from a new category.
However, I would point out that most characters don't have a narrative connection to their weapon. A gun is a gun, and buying a better one when it's available is exactly what many characters (not players, but characters) would do without a second thought. Kirk would have always picked the best phaser in the armory, and would not hesitate to requisition newer models. Jayne would take the best weapon he could find besides Vera, by any legal or criminal means necessary.
In a game system where players level and increase drastically in power by doing so, their equipment must do the same. I don't think it's very reasonable to complain about scaling gear in a level-based RPG. It's at the very core nature of the system, and absolutely necessary for balance.
If you want to give players the option to upgrade narratively important weaponry that's fine, and very easily done. Making decisions like that is the primary role of the DM, which the developers acknowledge and is why they don't spell out every possible variant or alternative to their rules.
Eh, you *can* have a system where gear is static while levels are not. It just would take a *lot* of work to turn a D&Derivative into a system like that. By the time you succeeded, it'd probably not really resemble D&D anymore.
Can you give an actual example of a game that does this, because otherwise you're just saying it's theoretically possible. Of course it's theoretically possible, most things are. However, theoretically possible is vastly different than "doable in a way that's fun and balanced." Unless you make a level-based system where gear simply doesn't matter, the gear must scale with the characters or it becomes a broken mechanic and breaks any class that relies on gear.
Of course, if you just posted to be snarky about D&D systems without having any counter arguments or better ideas, I understand. Sarcasm is easy, after all.
Personally my favorite is a system designed where basic gear is pretty functional all the way through but there is some potential scaling, usually expressed via magical/ultra high end/experimental/unknown equipment. A little bit of a middle ground between Starfiner and no scaling whatsoever.
Eh, you *can* have a system where gear is static while levels are not. It just would take a *lot* of work to turn a D&Derivative into a system like that. By the time you succeeded, it'd probably not really resemble D&D anymore.
That seems like a bit of an overstatement.
At the bare minimum all you need to flatten the gear curve is shift the bonuses that come from gear somewhere else.
You could go farther and try to re-engineer the game's math around flatter gear, but that's not necessary and the game would still look like Starfinder at the end of it, just Starfinder with different HP calculations.