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No one disputes the gap is stupid so we can stop mentioning it lol
It turns out that there are people who do dispute that the Gap is stupid.
I like the gap.
Obviously, we do need to keep mentioning it.
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And kudos to Paizo for making this grunge for lifer say "I like The Gap" in a non sarcastic way.
I can honestly say twenty years ago I wouldn't have believed future me if he told me I'd say that twenty years in the future.
Still waiting on actual hoverboards though...
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Ick, so starfinder uses the "npcs are different from players" shortcut? That's a turn off for me both as a player and a gm, though I can understand why people would be alright with it. For me, it is really immersion breaking.You gotta admit that coming to the realization that you can't be anything you want to be is probably the most immersive thing about this game. Sometimes the cards are against you. Do the players rise against the problem or do they say, "Man this ain't fair! How is that Solarian shooting a ranged energy blast at my EAC!? When do I get to unlock that? ...What??? Only he gets that? Alright man I quit. Take over the planet and keep this ship. I don't care."
Meta-Thinking is the definition of "immersion breaking".
I hope that you're not assuming that *those* are my reasons for wanting characters and NPCs to work the same, lol. I don't really care whether or not the players have access to everything that the NPCs have as long as it is plot or setting related.
For me, it is very important that everything follow the same rules just for the sake of consistency. Telling me that an NPC works differently just because he isn't a player is like telling me that the laws of physics are different for the players. For me, there are few other things that are more immersion breaking.
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The only issue I have with the Gap is that it's a mystery that by its very nature can never be solved. The Gap exists so that metagaming Starfinder players can't just have their PCs look up the "canonical" ending to every single Pathfinder AP. Since that is its narrative purpose, the mystery of it can never be solved because you can't risk getting rid of it. There is no actual answer, which makes searching for the answer innately meaningless as a goal.
The journey can still be fun though.
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I read a note from one of the developers that there actually is a canonical answer to what caused the Gap. It was one of the first things they decided storywise as a team, apparently, and they're all supposed to write anything related to the Gap as if that answer was true (or at least not invalidate it), without giving it away.
That post was what made me stop worrying about it, and learn to love the gap, because I figure by the time they release 3 or 4 more books, there's going to be a handful of obvious theories and by the time they release another dozen we'll have all figured it out anyway.
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I agree with this, most of starfinder seems similar to 4e and 5e D&D rather than pathfinder. When it first came out I was struck by the differences is because it seemed like they were going to do more of a "Pathfinder in Space". Also, there were so many issues that just felt like they didn't playtest it enough.
I enjoy Starfinder, but it makes my head hurt sometimes trying to figure out things.
from my experience most of the headache comes from people assuming things because the vast majority of rules are the same or at least function the same but things are different enough that making assumptions leads to situations not working well together.
The same thing happened to a lesser degree when people switched from 3.5 to pathfinder but it wasn't as many things and happened so long ago that it doesn't stand out in anyone's mind. I'm finding most things work smoothly and quickly when people can keep with the rules without getting mixed up on how things work because they are remembering something from pathfinder instead. Especially since they fixed the math with starship combat
The Gap does look like a mystery that is meant to be soluble and eventually solved. I have the distinct feeling that's their plan for their first few years of setting meta-story (the "Godshield" in the Society modules looks like a closely-related phenomenon, which I have a feeling is no accident).
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I think you'll find the Gap is going to play exactly the same as the cause of Arodens death in Pathfinder.
It's a major part of the setting that no one outside of Paizo ever gets to find out. If you remove that meta mystery, you then negate the very reasons for it being there in the first place. That reason is to provide a distinct divide between the two game systems and not have to worry about one development team stepping ont the toes of the other as far as creative writing goes.
Personally for me, I'd love nothing more than to find out Aroden died when he slipped in the shower and the gap just happens to be the time when all the gods went on a pub crawl,and got so drunk they just forgot what happened. Nothing more sinister than that.
But I don't think it's going to pan out that way
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I don't really care whether or not the players have access to everything that the NPCs have as long as it is plot or setting related.For me, it is very important that everything follow the same rules just for the sake of consistency. Telling me that an NPC works differently just because he isn't a player is like telling me that the laws of physics are different for the players. For me, there are few other things that are more immersion breaking.
It is mainly an inconvenience for GMs as designing an NPC requires understanding of a different creation system then creating a PC.
At least from the experiments that I have run and what I have heard from others, NPCs run effectively the same as PCs as far as mechanics go. I didn't do a lot of fiddling around with the system so I would have to ask people who I know did a lot more in-depth creation what their thoughts are currently. I know that number of skills and such are a bit diminished for NPCs but I think that the few things I did had NPCs tracking relatively close to PCs in ability and numbers with PCs obviously being more powerful (just like it was in Pathfinder using their NPC creation rules).
They fact that it is a different system doesn't mean it is a completely different set of "Laws". All the number seem to track and the number are all that really influence game play outside of flavor and interaction based on individual GM role playing style.
I always thought it was weird in Pathfinder that they would have detailed NPCs in the book with skills and feats that are literally never going to come up unless the party goes straight murder hobo on everything that moves in front of them.....Just seemed like an arbitrary thing to know that the lvl 2 expert shop keeper has a +5 to escape artist.
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All the Vesk did was act as fallible living beings. Undead are by their very existence inimical to all living beings.No, there's no need for them to be. Again, we're talking about a sci-fantasy universe. The undead now have technological means of coexisting with the living and maintaining their undead forms and it makes sense for them to do so. Your insistence on this trope would break that aspect of the setting, it would not improve it.And then on the other hand, as I said earlier, I don't think that makes any real difference. Is that actually said or implied in the source material - that undead can now coexist thanks to technological means?
Again, many undead never required preying on people to maintain their undead forms, but were still evil.
In particular, the bone sages never needed living beings, as we know since they've lived their long unlives without anything living on their world.It seems more to me like a change on the meta level.
actually the 3rd ap splintered worlds gives us the still living elbrians as a playable race, though notes that there population is small.
the pact world book will go more into undead players and i assume cover alignment in general with them
Considering one of my favorite parts of Starfinder is page 25 of the CRB where it essentially says that nixing alignment from the game entirely has no impact on how the game plays, I'm hoping neither Pact Worlds nor any other book so much as uses that word, to be honest.
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Well, it's quite possible they reveal the reason for the Gap without actually removing it, so that it still serves the purpose of separating Pathfinder and Starfinder history.I think you'll find the Gap is going to play exactly the same as the cause of Arodens death in Pathfinder.
It's a major part of the setting that no one outside of Paizo ever gets to find out. If you remove that meta mystery, you then negate the very reasons for it being there in the first place. That reason is to provide a distinct divide between the two game systems and not have to worry about one development team stepping ont the toes of the other as far as creative writing goes.
Personally for me, I'd love nothing more than to find out Aroden died when he slipped in the shower and the gap just happens to be the time when all the gods went on a pub crawl,and got so drunk they just forgot what happened. Nothing more sinister than that.
But I don't think it's going to pan out that way
Once you lock it in for the player base like that, you've now hard coded a bunch if stuff for pre Gap Golarion that seriously hamstrings the Pathfinder designers.
At the moment the pathfinder team don't have to worry about the Starfinder stuff at all.
So revealing the mystery has nothing to do with changing the fact it happens. It has everything to do with preventing creative license in another game era entirely. That's why it's there in the first place.
Stormtrooper aim? PCs seem to be decently accurate, especially soldiers.
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Literally just hand-wave everything you don't like/understand and you'll have a blasty-blast.
For example, I am not enforcing at all detailed charge tracking. I tell my players to fudge it and arbitrarily tell them when they are probably running out of ammo. They think it's a fine compromise in lieu of tracking every shot. However on a roll of a 1, the current cartridge always explodes. It works out decently well. We are easing into ship combat. We will probably never use the full rules.
I'll also state that starting Starfinder characters are more interesting, more durable, and have more customization than base PF characters, or even Level 1 characters with 5 years of fluff tacked on. It is unreasonable to expect a game that is less than a year old to stand up to a game that has been out for 5+.
It's your choice, but I feel like you're not giving it a fair shake. Which, granted, you're only primarily hurting yourself, but griping on the boards like this might turn people off the game for no good reason. And that hurts Paizo.
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It's your choice, but I feel like you're not giving it a fair shake. Which, granted, you're only primarily hurting yourself, but griping on the boards like this might turn people off the game for no good reason. And that hurts Paizo.
I agree with the rest of your post. For this, it's likely most of the people here already purchased the product and have their own read on it. So I don't think griping here specifically is all that likely to hurt Paizo. (Granted some of it is just obnoxious; the diehard Pathfinderists are literally a click away from their own forum, griping here past a certain point is kind of like going to a hockey rink to lecture people about how much you prefer lacrosse.)
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Considering one of my favorite parts of Starfinder is page 25 of the CRB where it essentially says that nixing alignment from the game entirely has no impact on how the game plays, I'm hoping neither Pact Worlds nor any other book so much as uses that word, to be honest.
Yeah, I kinda hate the impact of alignment systems. Not alignment itself, but the that it often causes the issue of alignment dictating a character's actions instead of the other way around, as well as removing the moral ambiguity from some situations/characters. And the most interesting thing about morality is interpreting and debating it. I flat out tell my players to play the characters they want to play and to forget about it, and that if needed for any reason, just pick the one that fits best/have me assign one for them. I would lose no sleep if alignment stayed where it was metaphorically tossed.
Also I think you might find this video by taking 20 interesting to watch.
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Stormtrooper aim? PCs seem to be decently accurate, especially soldiers.A disturbingly large percentage of the time, we can go a full round where this happens:
P1: I shoot it with my laser pistol (rolls 12 on die). I miss.
P2: I use my Get 'Em and shoot it with my glock (rolls 13 on die). I miss.
GM: The enemies try to hit you with their (melee or ranged attack, whichever is appropriate). They miss.
P3: I use my combat tracking on one and shoot it (rolls 14 on die). I miss.
That...doesn't seem possible. In fact, that seems impossible and I have numbers to back it up.
Numbers!
Here is my sheets doing damage calculations against equal level monsters (According to the actual monster manual creature creation guidelines). Even a 3/4 BAB guy who put only a secondary focus into his attack stat is hitting very reliably against equal level AC. The worst it ever gets is a level 20 guy trying to attack a level 20 monster's KAC and that's a 13+ (11+ if he's hitting against EAC, generally a good idea if you are lower base accuracy).
Yeah, those guys are exceptions rather then the rule however (And likely in error).
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Yes. However when those examples have been used, then I can imagine the PC side of the Frozen Mustelid's example.
The NPC side however still feels off. In all the scenario's I've GM'd I generally scored some hits.
The only other thing I can think off is that the GM uses enemies created by PC rules, which would have low attack, high to medium armor, in which case the scenario makes sense as the Starfinder combat math isn't made for that.
In fact, that seems impossible and I have numbers to back it up.
What cover bonus are you assuming? +4AC?
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What cover bonus are you assuming? +4AC?
No attack bonuses or defence bonuses for either side (So melee isn't assuming flanking etc) unless it's built into the class. I mean, numbers can get a lot worse if you sit down and try to reenact WWI trench warfare but that's what moving or grenades is for, trying to pick guys out of hard cover is a rather long process. It's sort what cover is notably good at.
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It is mainly an inconvenience for GMs as designing an NPC requires understanding of a different creation system then creating a PC.I'm pretty sure that if you really want there's nothing stopping you from building all your NPCs with the PC rules. The rules are there. No one's going to stop you.
I was under the impression that this won't actually work. NPCs in Starfinder are designed to have lower AC, better attacks rolls, and better skills than PCs as a "balance" thing against mind control. So if you build one as a PC he won't be able to hit PCs and will be a lot harder to hit as well. Not getting all the free NPC skill bonuses is less of an issue.
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Undead don't just destroy the living in order to eat. They destroy the living because that kind of malice is just part of what it means to be undead.
Beings powered by energy from the Positive Material Plane don't just destroy the living in order to eat.
They destroy the living because that kind of malice is just part of what it means to be powered by the evil energies of the Positive Material Plane.
Undead don't just destroy the living in order to eat. They destroy the living because that kind of malice is just part of what it means to be undead.Beings powered by energy from the Positive Material Plane don't just destroy the living in order to eat.
They destroy the living because that kind of malice is just part of what it means to be powered by the evil energies of the Positive Material Plane.
While the Jyoti will kill on sight the Drakainia will make you wish it did...
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Well in Dead Suns the only monster with an AC above 15 is the end boss which has an EAC of 17 and a KAC of 19. That's a CR5 encounter.
Now cover does make a huge difference to ranged enemies (not to charging melee enemies like the Akata or hit and runners like the end boss) but that I think is there to encourage players to engage in more dynamic tactics.
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I've run through the first module, and most of the creatures are stupid easy to hit. KAC and EAC of around 10-12
I was a little upset how easy the gang leader was to take out. I am running through it again this Saturday, and I may buff them a little.
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I'll also state that starting Starfinder characters are more interesting, more durable, and have more customization than base PF characters, or even Level 1 characters with 5 years of fluff tacked on. It is unreasonable to expect a game that is less than a year old to stand up to a game that has been out for 5+.
Hang on, which is it? Does Starfinder have more content than current-day Pathfinder? Or does it not stack up because its an unreasonable comparison? Kinda conflicting statements here.
Also, at the risk of being replied to for the rest of my days, I'll say that I damn well BETTER compare the two. Paizo has spent over 15 years working with 3.5 and turning it into 3.75+++. So when they announce an entirely new game, I expect to see content that is better, richer, and more refined than 3.5 was at its peak. Because that's what they've been doing. They've been refining 3.5 for over a decade. And so for a system to come out with fewer base options, confusing mechanics, and an agonizingly tedious new combat system (starships), that tells me that they did nothing with all that experience. That's what Starfinder is to me. Sure, they listened to the community, but that's about all they did. None of the revolutions that happened in Pathfinder carried over. People keep saying that we should've expected this to be new from the ground up, but that's ludicrous. Paizo has had 15 solid years of messy trial and error that should have made this release show-stopping. Instead they seemed to have thrown out all that experience and wisdom and just started from scratch; which is why the best phrase I can think of to describe Starfinder is a beta. It is a game that is not done yet. It is a rough draft. There is so much potential and almost every iota of it is wasted in some way. And it drives me insane that I'm supposed to wait for more content to come out, because I shouldn't have to! I don't really care to pay additional money for add-ons that update the game into the product I originally expected.
Alright, there. I've said my piece and I've made my peace. I'm about to be replied to within an inch of my life. But I'll gladly go down with this (star)ship. Come at me, you jackals!
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I was under the impression that this won't actually work. NPCs in Starfinder are designed to have lower AC, better attacks rolls, and better skills than PCs as a "balance" thing against mind control. So if you build one as a PC he won't be able to hit PCs and will be a lot harder to hit as well. Not getting all the free NPC skill bonuses is less of an issue.
I'd build NPC allies as if they were PCs, NPC enemies using the usual rules. Slots them more easily into system.
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And it drives me insane that I'm supposed to wait for more content to come out, because I shouldn't have to!
They can only put so much in a core rulebook, printing costs money and raises the price of the book. The classes are better balanced with each other than the Pathfinder core rulebook classes were and each class (Save perhaps the Solarian) has a heap of different build options for it, moreso than Pathfinder did on release.
While there is less classes, I will say there is more viable characters in the corebook than was in Pathfinder.
Which 'revolutions' from Pathfinder are missing from Starfinder?
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They can only put so much in a core rulebook, printing costs money and raises the price of the book.
PDFs yo. The print books ALL have low-quality binding anyway, if 500+ amazon reviews are to be believes.
Which 'revolutions' from Pathfinder are missing from Starfinder?
Off the top of my head, the combat maneuver system was a great update to the grappling system, and I was excited to see how it would get further improved in SF. Turns out they just made grappling physically impossible for nearly all characters.
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PDFs yo.
While they are selling physical books, they are limited by the requirements for physical books. Physical books need to not be so bulky as to be impossible to quickly look through or to be impossible to transfer.
Imagine how gypped people would feel if the PDF guys got extra content the physical book people didn't? I think, overall, they used the space very well. Considering most of those classes have more options than the pathfinder core rulebook ones did.
Off the top of my head, the combat maneuver system was a great update to the grappling system, and I was excited to see how it would get further improved in SF. Turns out they just made grappling physically impossible for nearly all characters.
If I may be blunt? HAHAHAHAHAH. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH. AAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH, GODS NO COMBAT MANEUVERS WERE NOT GREAT. They were one of the weakest things in all of Pathfinder. Size bonuses and limitations and enemy stats scaling so high made grappling anything other than 'Medium humanoid' nearly impossible as you levelled (On top of the 'You literally can't try' against a massive number of foes because they were incorporeal or they were too big or they got wizard spellcasting so they could know freedom of movement).
Starfinder's Combat Maneuvers are at KAC+4 (Since the feat gives a +4 bonus). It's not easy, I'll admit and they could have gone a bit lower for some of them BUT it's a lot, lot more feasible than it was in Pathfinder.
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If I may be blunt? HAHAHAHAHAH. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH. AAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH, GODS NO COMBAT MANEUVERS WERE NOT GREAT.
After careful thought and consideration, I have decided that you may be blunt, yes.
Also SF combat maneuvers are against KAC+8. PF CMD is often within 1-3 of their normal AC unless the character is specifically built to resist maneuvers.
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Hang on, which is it? Does Starfinder have more content than current-day Pathfinder? Or does it not stack up because its an unreasonable comparison? Kinda conflicting statements here.I'll also state that starting Starfinder characters are more interesting, more durable, and have more customization than base PF characters, or even Level 1 characters with 5 years of fluff tacked on. It is unreasonable to expect a game that is less than a year old to stand up to a game that has been out for 5+.
I'll help you out. Having more content doesn't prevent the content from being redundant, irrelevant or mediocre. Pathfinder has more content in terms of raw accretion but it is still possible that Starfinder has more interesting, durable and customisable characters out of the box.
Of course this is not readily visible to someone fixated on the number of classes, about which it already had to be pointed out to you upthread that you were making fallacious comparisons and didn't fully understand how customisation in Starfinder worked. And it's okay not to fully understand how a months-old game works. What's less comprehensible is to have become so obsessed with bashing it in this short a time that you keep coming back to the forum for this game you've supposedly washed your hands of to post screeds like... well...
Also, at the risk of being replied to for the rest of my days, I'll say that I damn well BETTER compare the two. Paizo has spent over 15 years working with 3.5 and turning it into 3.75+++. So when they announce an entirely new game, I expect to see content that is better, richer, and more refined than 3.5 was at its peak. Because that's what they've been doing. They've been refining 3.5 for over a decade. And so for a system to come out with fewer base options, confusing mechanics, and an agonizingly tedious new combat system (starships), that tells me that they did nothing with all that experience. That's what Starfinder is to me. Sure, they listened to the community, but that's about all they did. None of the revolutions that happened in Pathfinder carried over. [et cetera]
Yeah, this is that "healthy debate" you were hoping to start, huh? Really? This is it? Because this is starting to look like something else.
Guess what? Pathfinder is not nearer-my-God-to-thee for the broader RPG audience. Hate to break it to you, but it just isn't. Some of us out here like it well enough for its old-school air and despite all its warts and accretions and ridiculousness; but if you were imagining it to be this perfect pearl of great price that Starfinder had to live up to, you're simply mistaken.
What Starfinder needed to do was find a broader audience and capture their imagination. That meant taking risks and learning from a broad palette of games, and streamlining things that would turn off broader audiences about Pathfinder. That's what they did, and they did pretty much hit that mark. It's your business if you don't like the mark they hit, but it's folly to come here declaiming like this:
People keep saying that we should've expected this to be new from the ground up, but that's ludicrous.
No, it is a fact. It. Is. A. New. Game. There was no subterfuge about that. There was no lack of warning about it. There was no shortage of pieces pre-release that outlined the differences and that Starfinder was going for something new. You weren't conned. It was never going to be a glorified Pathfinder supplement. (It was never going to please everyone either and that's okay. Go play Pathfinder.) Ergo:
And it drives me insane that I'm supposed to wait for more content to come out, because I shouldn't have to!
Yeah. What happens with new games is that they don't release all the content all at once. It would be overwhelming, cost-prohibitive, unwise before you've ironed out the kinks in your new system... and there is also sort of the part where game companies need money to run.
When you're losing sight of that, it's time to step away. Don't let yourself slip into that ugly gamer-entitlement mode that turns you into a raving loon. It's not your job to convince people still playing Starfinder that they are objectively wrong to like it. It's not your job to troll this forum until Paizo remakes the game to your liking. Those things are not going to lead anywhere. Make your peace with that and move on.
I was under the impression that this won't actually work. NPCs in Starfinder are designed to have lower AC, better attacks rolls, and better skills than PCs as a "balance" thing against mind control. So if you build one as a PC he won't be able to hit PCs and will be a lot harder to hit as well. Not getting all the free NPC skill bonuses is less of an issue.It is mainly an inconvenience for GMs as designing an NPC requires understanding of a different creation system then creating a PC.I'm pretty sure that if you really want there's nothing stopping you from building all your NPCs with the PC rules. The rules are there. No one's going to stop you.
There is no reason why "this won't actually work." But, it would dramatically change how combat flows.
IMHO also this ""balance" thing against mind control" is overblown (since primary melee classes now have good Will saves).
Printing costs aside, writing more content costs more and takes more time.
Do you think they should have made the first Starfinder release a few thousand pages, all available only in pdf?And still for the same price, of course.
You know what? Sure. Why not. It would beat the heck out of hundreds of people's SF rulebooks falling apart after a month.
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Also SF combat maneuvers are against KAC+8. PF CMD is often within 1-3 of their normal AC unless the character is specifically built to resist maneuvers.
Yes, as I said, it's effectively +4 because the feat gives a hefty +4 bonus. A melee soldier trained in grappling succeeds on it on a 9+ at most levels against a guy of equal level, that's pretty damn reliable.