So if the weapon costs changed, do the sample starships in the CRB still make sense?
The sample starships were not changed (other than their gunnery/piloting scores in some cases), so they're often no longer valid designs.
As an example, the Kevolari Venture previously used all 55 of its BP. Now, the high explosive missile launcher in its turret costs 14 BP, so it is 10 BP over.
I see missiles still don't all have the explode property, weapon specialization is still written two different ways (p.59 vs p.163), and "consumable weapons" isn't ever formally* defined.
That's a shame :(
It's still a considerable investment. 5 ranks in Acrobatics or Perfect Maneuverability? Lack of actionless hovering was messing with hover drones, who couldn't even shoot if they wanted to remain aloft and the mechanic didn't grant them an action. And forget full attacking unless you land. I don't think drone full attacks are going to burn down the sky...
Until the relatively recent FAQ page came online, it was hard-ish to find, but they fixed this one some time ago:
A drone that takes the flight system mod twice gains perfect maneuverability. This allows hover drones to hover.
It's still a considerable investment. 5 ranks in Acrobatics or Perfect Maneuverability? Lack of actionless hovering was messing with hover drones, who couldn't even shoot if they wanted to remain aloft and the mechanic didn't grant them an action. And forget full attacking unless you land. I don't think drone full attacks are going to burn down the sky...Until the relatively recent FAQ page came online, it was hard-ish to find, but they fixed this one some time ago:
A drone that takes the flight system mod twice gains perfect maneuverability. This allows hover drones to hover.
Yes, but even with perfect maneuverability you still needed to take a move action (swift if you make a check) to maintain flight. Still can't full attack.
Yes, but even with perfect maneuverability you still needed to take a move action (swift if you make a check) to maintain flight. Still can't full attack.
I was addressing your statement that drones "couldn't even shoot if they wanted to remain aloft and the mechanic didn't grant them an action." I'm in total agreement with you on full-attacking.
That said, the new changes nullifies all that. I'm honestly not sure whether I like it or not - I GM'd a high-level SFS scenario* not too long ago where the whole party (minus one) had jet packs or force soles, and their rather dangerous enemies had no way of flying nor ranged attacks. If it wasn't for that one character being unable to fly, that very scary encounter would have been hand-waved. Full-attacking while hovering might have even precluded the need to hand-wave things because at that point the encounter could have turned into a literal shooting gallery.
Yeah, if I GM a Starfinder game I will be keeping the requirement of at least a swift action to hover. For the hover drone specifically (not a drone with flight module taken twice but the actual flight frame) I would consider making it not require an action.
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Survival rules for riding creatures were updated. I'm not familiar enough with the rules from Alien Archive 3 to say if this is a substantial change or just reflective of new wording from that book.
The biggest change I see is that you no longer need to spend a reaction to make a DC 5 Survival check to stay mounted if you take damage. No longer getting auto-dismounted when you get hit twice in a round is a very nice change.
The rest of the updates to the riding rules just seem like minor clarifications.
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Yes, but even with perfect maneuverability you still needed to take a move action (swift if you make a check) to maintain flight. Still can't full attack.I was addressing your statement that drones "couldn't even shoot if they wanted to remain aloft and the mechanic didn't grant them an action." I'm in total agreement with you on full-attacking.
That said, the new changes nullifies all that. I'm honestly not sure whether I like it or not - I GM'd a high-level SFS scenario* not too long ago where the whole party (minus one) had jet packs or force soles, and their rather dangerous enemies had no way of flying nor ranged attacks. If it wasn't for that one character being unable to fly, that very scary encounter would have been hand-waved. Full-attacking while hovering might have even precluded the need to hand-wave things because at that point the encounter could have turned into a literal shooting gallery.
** spoiler omitted **[/spoiler]
about that particular scenario...
That said, the new changes nullifies all that. I'm honestly not sure whether I like it or not - I GM'd a high-level SFS scenario* not too long ago where the whole party (minus one) had jet packs or force soles, and their rather dangerous enemies had no way of flying nor ranged attacks. If it wasn't for that one character being unable to fly, that very scary encounter would have been hand-waved. Full-attacking while hovering might have even precluded the need to hand-wave things because at that point the encounter could have turned into a literal shooting gallery.** spoiler omitted **[/spoiler]
about that particular scenario...
** spoiler omitted **
I ran that one several times - the instance with the jetpacks...
Yes, but even with perfect maneuverability you still needed to take a move action (swift if you make a check) to maintain flight. Still can't full attack.
Some people considered that an intended feature in exchange for immunity to melee.
Although if you can fly and the enemy does not have ranged weapons does it really matter if you can full attack or not?In ranged combat flight is usually a double edged sword. You can often bypass the enemies cover, but you also do not have it. No idea if there needed to be another disadvantage, but it certainly wasn't out of line either, especially as it affected only characters that do full attacks.
My thing is melee combatants already have enough trouble with having to tank a lot of hits (typically) to get to the enemy since getting up in a ranged enemies face tends to draw their attacks. Putting the enemy out of reach unless they can also get reliable flight and allowing them to full attack...is just a bit unfair in my opinion. Typically your party is going to consist primarily of ranged weapon users, even if it's just the non-martial classes using small arms. So the party is likely to survive, and the melee person should have back up ranged weapons. Ultimately I just don't like flying full attacks because it forces the meta to be that everyone needs to fly, just like in PF1.
Other assorted topics (ahead of Joe adding them to the FAQ page):
Drones now explicitly have construct immunities and the unliving trait.
Solar Armor is explicitly incompatible with powered armor.
The Technomancer's Spellshot hack has been updated to say that you get to deal weapon damage in addition to the spell damage. (Way back at release there were some debates that you only got to use your weapon's range, rather than get the weapon damage too)
They fixed flight completely. Now if you have average maneuverability and 5 ranks in acrobatics, or if you have perfect maneuverability, you can hover without making a check or spending a move action.
Survival rules for riding creatures were updated. I'm not familiar enough with the rules from Alien Archive 3 to say if this is a substantial change or just reflective of new wording from that book.
Various FAQ clarifications (like the android 'constructed' clarification) made it in. There's been a clean up in wording around unarmed strikes and natural weapons too, which is nice. Nothing new though.
Enhanced Resistance was changed to apply to your choice of only one kinetic damage type (slashing, bludgeoning or piercing) or one energy type.
Improved Unarmed Strike: "Your unarmed strikes don’t count as archaic and can deal lethal damage." There's quite a few good changes in wording here and there that make things a lot clearer. Its the big FAQ haul I've always dreamed of :D
Thank god on the hover clarification. Even after the last clarification it you got really picky it still did not really fix the issue and caused a lot of random arguments. A hover drone hovers thats the entire point now it can.
Ha! Starship example weight ranges have been updated! Now a colossal starship weighs 200 to 2,000 megatons, instead of the puny 8,000+ tons of the original CRB!
Love that Paizo got that one in :)
Because I'm on a roll now:
BP costs of various Starship weapons got adjusted. Say goodbye to your Coilgun overlords. These changes are pretty massive. High explosive missiles went from 4 BP to 14 BP, for example. Heavy laser cannons cost twice as much. Not sure where that takes optimal ship design, but its certainly a big shake up.
Starship Weapons with the EMP property got a lot cheaper and the EMP property has been changed to be slightly more powerful.
Tons of the example NPC starships in the book had their piloting and gunnery stats lowered.
"Class features or items that grant bonuses to or allow rerolls of the relevant skills can be used in starship combat."
The rules for teleporting between starships (or rather, the rules that say you can't) seem to have been deleted. They've been replaced by guidance on choosing gunnery bonuses for NPC starships. As far as I can tell, force as a damage type has been removed. Spells and effects that dealt force damage now seem to just deal typeless damage? Instead, the force descriptor has been defined to allow damage to apply fully to incorporeal targets.
Mending cantrip can now target constructs of up to medium size.
Reflecting armor now triggers off any damage dealt to you, rather than just Hit Point damage.
Remove Condition now also removes paralyzed. There's a clarification in the afflictions section that removing conditions that someone picked up due to an affliction is possible, but that the victim will regain those conditions the next time they fail a save against the affliction.
Example poisons have had their save DCs raised, in some cases by quite a lot. I think that's about all the major changes I came across.
Size of space ships having to be changed for sanity is a common issue as most people are not used to working or thinking of things on that scale see the great resizing of the honorverse by david weber for the same basic reason.
They fixed flight completely. Now if you have average maneuverability and 5 ranks in acrobatics, or if you have perfect maneuverability, you can hover without making a check or spending a move action. I don't consider this a fix.
I'd like flight not being a free lunch so to speak. Having to move or spend an action to hover (even a swift action which prevents full actions) would be sufficient.
I don't like this change :(
Well, most of my melee characters are boned, I guess. Yikes.
Enhanced Resistance was changed to apply to your choice of only one kinetic damage type (slashing, bludgeoning or piercing) or one energy type. [ooc](Wow, the gravy train is finally over.) Enhanced Resistance was basically a must have for everyone, especially full BAB characters and the choice was always for kinetic damage because it was a broader category and you had other ways to get energy resistance....now the feat is worthless. It's too narrow to only get damage reduction to one of slashing, piercing, bludgeoning, fire, cold, sonic, electricty, and acid.
It's not the end of the world, but it's pretty lame. I don't see anyone taking this feat anymore.
Honestly I think a better way to have changed this feat if they wanted to make it less powerful is damage reduction equal to half your BAB or resistance (to all energy) equal to half you BAB.
It's still an incredible feat, and worth taking but has broad enough application that it's useful.
The main issue with it was things like the hover drone. When the CRB came out as written unless you were fully controlling the drone or at very high level it was pretty much not capable of actually hovering. Even the fix to it later in an FAQ had the same issue due to lack of a swift action unless fully controlling it. It made no sense and made high tech future drones work worse than a 400 buck drone I could buy at any hobby store at actually flying.
Question I see there were changes to the cost for weapons for starship did they boost the costs of shields at all. From what I remember from building our ship shields being pretty cheap and REALLY effective kinda ment that people just got as much shields as they could stick in their ship which broke a lot of encounters.
No changes to shields.
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Question I see there were changes to the cost for weapons for starship did they boost the costs of shields at all. From what I remember from building our ship shields being pretty cheap and REALLY effective kinda ment that people just got as much shields as they could stick in their ship which broke a lot of encounters.
The build guidelines in SOM help with this. At one of the GenCon panels John Compton talked about having to backwards engineer how starship weapon values were calculated for the book. I imagine that work saw its way back to the core rebalencing of starship weapons and why most of the changes are in that section.
The main issue with it was things like the hover drone. When the CRB came out as written unless you were fully controlling the drone or at very high level it was pretty much not capable of actually hovering. Even the fix to it later in an FAQ had the same issue due to lack of a swift action unless fully controlling it. It made no sense and made high tech future drones work worse than a 400 buck drone I could buy at any hobby store at actually flying.
I agree, to me the solution was to give the hover drone it's own unique special ability, than to change it for everyone.
I would have even been okay giving the drone perfect maneuverability and allowing perfect maneuverability only to have a no action hover (most things don't grant perfect maneuverability).
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There is one small change to starship shields: they explicitly don't count as force effects now.
The main issue with it was things like the hover drone. When the CRB came out as written unless you were fully controlling the drone or at very high level it was pretty much not capable of actually hovering. Even the fix to it later in an FAQ had the same issue due to lack of a swift action unless fully controlling it. It made no sense and made high tech future drones work worse than a 400 buck drone I could buy at any hobby store at actually flying.I agree, to me the solution was to give the hover drone it's own unique special ability, than to change it for everyone.
I would have even been okay giving the drone perfect maneuverability and allowing perfect maneuverability only to have a no action hover (most things don't grant perfect maneuverability).
Our homerule was basically split flying into two things. Flying and hovering. Flying assumed aerodynamic flight so the old rules make sense if you are using aerodynamics to maintain flight. But hover flight was things like for drones and explicitly hover type things like jet packs where it is not doing any attempts at aerofoils just using brute force to keep you off the ground. For those we kinda treated them more like they were walking in 3 dimensions than flight. The only times they did any kind of rolling for it was if the weather conditions were really bad.
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The temperature of space is pretty irrelevant as there's nothing in space for you to interact with.. that one molecule of hyrdrogen you're touching can be near absolute zero it can't lower your body temperature much
I'm really curious how that meshes with the temperature of space. In the real world, the background microwaves left over from the big bang give our empty space a temperature of approximately -455F. Perhaps the Starfinder universe has a bit cozier temperature than our own but going from a few degrees above absolute zero to -20F is a colossal jump. It seems to go against the game design idea that you can freely go into space in your armor if it doesn't protect you from the cold of the vacuum. Unless the temperature of space is between -20F and 140F which seems like it would bring on even more issues.Armor temperature protections have been changed from protect only from temps between -20 and 140F, rather than the previous wording that protected against all temps.
Vacuums are such good insulators that one of the biggest issues with space travel is/would be heat dissipation. With basically no molecules to interact with out there in space, transferring heat and such through heat sinks is basically pointless. And physically expelling heated coolant is obviously wasteful.
So being in space wouldn't instantly turn you into a ball of ice, because all the energy/heat has nowhere to actually 'go' out there.
Probably going to need its own thread, but are the changes in the wording on the vesk unarmed strike supposed to change any previous rulings with how it works with shields/solarion shields ? Or were they just trying to clear up the wording and popped a gear elsewhere out of place.
So being in space wouldn't instantly turn you into a ball of ice, because all the energy/heat has nowhere to actually 'go' out there.
What about the...heat of vaporization? from all the water on your skin suddenly being in a vacuum and evaporating?
What about the...heat of vaporization? from all the water on your skin suddenly being in a vacuum and evaporating?So being in space wouldn't instantly turn you into a ball of ice, because all the energy/heat has nowhere to actually 'go' out there.
Unless you just got out of the shower that shouldn't be all that much water. Which means it won't chill you too much as it steals thermal energy from you to turn into vapor.
IIRC some guy who lost pressure in his glove at high enough altitude that it might as well be space suffered swelling and numbness. Not freezing or similar.
So was reading the changes and was looking at androids vision..
Noticed something Very strange
EXCEPTIONAL VISION
Androids have low-light vision and Darkvision.
See pages 263–264 for more information.
....now i went to the page listed ...it does not list a range there ..i'm like OK that's strange did they remove limits go to the Ysoki
DARKVISION
Ysoki can see up to 60 feet in the dark. See
page 263 for more information.
ok sure i understand that right away
But ummmm am i wrong here as written now ....are androids just better at seeing everything im pretty sure they are missing the 60 feet bit
other wise they can SEE EVERYTHING in normal darkness all the way down a 120 foot hallway
Just my 2 cents i noticed other wise yea
What about the...heat of vaporization? from all the water on your skin suddenly being in a vacuum and evaporating?So being in space wouldn't instantly turn you into a ball of ice, because all the energy/heat has nowhere to actually 'go' out there.
The real risk is that without a helmet all the oxygen is going to dissolve out of your blood, heck your blood can even start to vaporize.
Being exposed to a strong vacuum is super dangerous, but not for any of the reasons movies and sci-fi have shown us over the years.
Where are these changes collated?
Where are these changes collated?
From Joe's earlier comment on this thread, they'll eventually live on the Starfinder FAQ page but not everything has been published there yet.
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Thank you Starfinder gods; the hygiene kit no longer is 1 bulk. My puny elf can bring it with him on missions so that he always looks flawless and doesn't have to worry about it encumbering him.
Did “power cells” vanish from the magic and Technomancer sections? Does Charging Jolt restore batteries now?
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I will note however that -20F is medium-heavy wool/down coat weather (mostly dependent on the wind chill factor). Throw on a good hat, warm scarf, long underwear,cotton sweater, in addition to the coat and you can start overheating just walking around.
Well that explains the 4th Doctor's outfit. Link
Did “power cells” vanish from the magic and Technomancer sections? Does Charging Jolt restore batteries now?
Ugh and nope. While I appreciate the rebalance and rewrite of several rules, from an error correction point of view this may not even be a medium effort effort.
Bo for enchanced resistance. ;) Oh well, time to do something else.
Well that explains the 4th Doctor's outfit. LinkI will note however that -20F is medium-heavy wool/down coat weather (mostly dependent on the wind chill factor). Throw on a good hat, warm scarf, long underwear,cotton sweater, in addition to the coat and you can start overheating just walking around.
For what its worth at -20F with no wind your time till frostbite on exposed skin is about 30 minutes. It is definitely cold enough that some protection is needed. It also is around the temp that you can feel the cold in your lungs as the inside of your nose and lungs freeze a bit when you are breathing.
Also I think the way the armor works is the protection range is the range you don't feel any effects of the temp. Below -20 you are starting to feel its chilly outside and will eventually feel cold as the armor can't keep up.
Enhanced Resistance was changed to apply to your choice of only one kinetic damage type (slashing, bludgeoning or piercing) or one energy type. (Wow, the gravy train is finally over.)
Welp, no more Vanguard for me then.
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Enhanced Resistance was changed to apply to your choice of only one kinetic damage type (slashing, bludgeoning or piercing) or one energy type. (Wow, the gravy train is finally over.)Welp, no more Vanguard for me then.
I find that to be an interesting statement, since once of the primary methods of gaining entropy points was taking damage, and since it's a con based class, Enhanced Resistance seemed counter productive on the class.
But I didn't actually play one, so I'm not sure how critical that was versus the more normal ways of gaining entropy points, or if damage was just enough that despite resistance you were still gaining entropy points form hits.
But I didn't actually play one, so I'm not sure how critical that was versus the more normal ways of gaining entropy points, or if damage was just enough that despite resistance you were still gaining entropy points form hits.
The latter. Even with ER, you generally still take enough to get EP.
So every time I download the Starfinder Core Rulebook PDF, it shows it's been "last updated" in August, but the text is identical to my original printing.
Is there something clever I need to do to see the updated version? (I don't use PDFs really, so have never tried to update one before)
You may need to hit the little link that says "Problems Downloading this file? Click here." to refresh the personalized download. Otherwise, It should be giving you the correct updated version without any further input from you.
The latter. Even with ER, you generally still take enough to get EP.
But I didn't actually play one, so I'm not sure how critical that was versus the more normal ways of gaining entropy points, or if damage was just enough that despite resistance you were still gaining entropy points form hits.
In any event, I really don't like the changed to enhanced resistance.
The narrow nature of the feat makes it only situationally useful, and getting the energy resistance stuff was always more easily done with gear.
Getting resistance to all kinetic damage was worth it.
By changing this to only be one damage type they've made the feat so that it's not worth taking as it's too narrowly focused.
I really wish they'd made the damage reduction 1/2 BAB against either all kinetic or all energy.
Feats are precious, and getting one that might only applies to 1 out of 8 damage types means if you choose poorly it might never be relevant.
Not yet.
You may need to hit the little link that says "Problems Downloading this file? Click here." to refresh the personalized download. Otherwise, It should be giving you the correct updated version without any further input from you.
Thank you very much - that appears to have done the trick. :)
Still no word on how the Mechanic abilites Coordinated Assault and Control Net work with the Experimental Prototypes.
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Suggestions:
Control net functions as it would normally, but only between prototypes, or all four archetypes if paizo deems it so.
(not that I would ever use it myself, I'd rather replace the ability entierly with something actually useful, but that's just my personal opinion)
Coordinated assault: Functions as it would normally with a drone (+1 circumstance bonus to your attack rolls), but only against targets marked by Superior Firepower or Calibrate Defense abilities.
2: Make Defense Matrix/ Target-Rich Environment (the level 20 abilites of Prototype Armor and Weapon respectively) a level 10 ability instead, and make a better ability for level 20. Most players don't get to play high level adventures, and these are pretty poor capstones in my opinion.