Starfinder considerations / realities

[Velkyn]

I'm preparing to run the Dead Suns adventure path. I've been reading the core rule book and listening to Roll for Combat, an Actual Play podcast. My players are very familiar with Golarion and other fantasy worlds, but haven't played in a futuristic setting.

What things have your groups discovered while playing Starfinder that weren't necessarily obvious? Here's a list of what I've thought of so far to get the conversation started. I intend to put together a list and pass it on to my players before we begin so they're as prepared as possible.

Weapon damage types
In Pathfinder, it’s a good idea to bring two of Bludgeoning/Slashing/Piercing and a Silver weapon. In Starfinder, it’s a bit different: enemies might be resistant to archaic weapons (e.g., clubs) or energy types (e.g., fire). Grenades are also available and can be very powerful, albeit expensive.

Dark or dim light situations
Similar to Pathfinder, the ability to see in dark and low-light situations is important. There are no Light spells, or at least I haven’t seen them in the core book.

Maneuvering in zero gravity
You will likely engage in combat in zero gravity situations. Think three-dimensionally: Are the walls floors or ceilings? Are you considered prone vs. that enemy?

Lack of atmosphere
The rules hand-wave a lot of these ramifications (e.g., spacesuits automatically reseal(?); weapons always(?) function), but sound doesn't occur/travel.

Communication
Nearly everyone has a comm unit. Comm units facilitate direct, private communication (passing notes is encouraged!). Comm units can broadcast messages to all within X feet/miles. Some PC races have telepathy.

Surveillance is ubiquitous
Everyone has video cameras and microphones; some of these are always on (think body cameras/dash cams). Most businesses and many public locations (e.g., parks; public transport stations; etc.) are always recording. Video/audio storage is generally a non-issue.

[pithica42]

About the lighting. Flashlights/lanterns are cheap (1 cr), and non-archaic armor comes with a built in flashlight. I believe Personal Comm Units (which are essentially Samsung Galaxy S37's) have a flashlight as well. There's also the Dancing Lights spell which creates 4 flashlights. Lighting can still be an issue (especially for ranged characters), and special vision is still 'important', but it's not as hard up as you're listing there.

For zero G, non-archaic armor comes with 'gravity boots', so you can still walk around without thinking about it. It is complicated, though.

[Ravingdork]

pithica42 wrote:

For zero G, non-archaic armor comes with 'gravity boots', so you can still walk around without thinking about it.

No, they don't. If that were true, there'd be no need for such extensive zero-g rules, or the actual magboots from Pact Worlds.

What armor ACTUALLY comes with is "functionality to anchor your feet to a solid surface." (Text shown below for convenience.) How exactly they do this is not explained, and is likely left to the player (gravity manipulation, biting clamps, magnets, whatever).

Unless otherwise specified, the boots include a functionality that can anchor your feet to a solid surface in a zero-gravity environment, allowing you to orient yourself or return to normal footing when needed.

When so anchored, you can't really move, at least not until you release your boots (at which point you're using the normal zero-g movement rules). It only lets you anchor yourself so you can get your bearings.

I made the same mistake you did, until one of my fellow players pointed this out to me, and I gotta' tell you, this makes a lot more sense than the designers idiotically printing a redundant item.

[pithica42]

I just dug through the SRD and CRB with a search, and there's nothing in the rules defining what the phrase 'anchor your feet to a solid surface' actually means. There is a line in the zero-g combat about how if someone runs into you when you're anchored (using the normal armor boost) you get a +4 bonus to the athletics check to keep from becoming off-kilter, but that's it. There's no information on how to turn them on or off (or even if you can) or what, if any, effect they have on movement or standing still or anything.

Without rules, it's totally up to the table to decide how the anchoring function works and what it does or doesn't allow you to do.

Now, I was in a rush when I posted and it's too late to go back and edit it. To be clear, what I meant was...

If your group doesn't want to deal with the insanity that is the zero-g combat rules (because they're complicated and can really slow down combat), you don't have to. You can use the anchoring functionality that are part of every non-archaic armor as an excuse to act like you're all still in gravity, and ignore them.

I'm not saying that's RAW, or how it's intended to work, or that it even makes sense, or doesn't impact other parts of the game (possibly negatively).

But I also know that my group hated the mounted combat rules. They always tripled the amount of real world time a given combat would take. We hated them so much that after a while we just decided collectively to ignore them and pretend like every fight started with everyone on the ground, even though the characters were all 'riding horses' at the time. I have a feeling that after one or two hour long, 5 round combat scenes in zero-g, we'll be similarly over it and willing to fudge reality for the sake of convenience.

If you don't like the Zero-G rules, the game has given you an easy out. That's all that I meant by that sentence.

[Pantshandshake]

Weapon damage types: As far as archaic weapons, it isn’t that things are resistant to them, it’s that they do less damage to modern armor. It’s an important distinction, because if that monster also has some kind of DR, it will stack with the -5 damage from the archaic bit. As far as damage types, keeping a couple of weapons modified with damage type fusions on hand should help negate various resistances.

Lighting: It is incredibly cheap and easy to get an armor mod that gives you darkvision.

Zero G: I think we’ve covered it.

Atmosphere: Armor doesn’t care about the interaction of atmosphere and damage. Space suits do, but much like archaic weapons, just avoid space suits unless you literally have no choice. In terms of weapons functioning, lasers and smoke/fog have an interaction you’ll want to remember. Aside from that, there’s an attempt to let us know that sonic weapons don’t work (in that the book tells you sound doesn’t travel in space, and in a different section, tells you that sonic weapons use sound.) I think most of us are fine with reading those things and deciding no sonic weapons when there’s no atmosphere, but everything else works fine.

Communication and Surveillance: These are going to be as ubiquitous as your GM wants, more or less.

[NorthernDruid]

Lighting: The old "Light" spell from Pathfinder was folded in with prestidigitation into Token.

[BigNorseWolf]

Armor comes with a com unit attached (its in the culture section in the back of the book of all places)

Your boots will stick to a surface for you if you are in zero go (under the armor section)

Stabalize is the most overpowered cantrip ever. It doesnt' matter how hard the big bad is hitting you. 15 points of damage at level 1. Drop. Stabalize. Spend a resolve to get back in the fight. Shoot him. Get hit for 15 points of damage. Stabalize. Spend a resolve to get back into the fight. Shoot him. get hit for 15 points of damage. Stabalize....okay out of resolve stay down.

All armor acts like an environmental suit but you have to put them up

Your odd stat point really doesn't matter. except under a blue moon.

The stat point you get from your theme really. REALLY doesn't matter except under a blue moon in an eclipse. Go with the theme who's abilities suit your idea of the character best.

A six pack of healing serums are the happy stick of starfinder. Xenodruids local 101 reminds you to please cut the plastic connectors.

Casters really need a back up plan for when they're not casting for a fair while into their careers.

Mystic cure has an often overlooked feature: You can share hit points. So even a level 1 mystic cure (like from a gem) can heal your downed meatshield 30 hit points (back to about ~ health) if the healer is willing to drop to 1 health and a bunch of staminia (which they should maintain by hiding in the back behind said meatshield.)

[Kishmo]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Mystic cure has an often overlooked feature: You can share hit points. So even a level 1 mystic cure (like from a gem) can heal your downed meatshield 30 hit points (back to about ~ health) if the healer is willing to drop to 1 health and a bunch of staminia (which they should maintain by hiding in the back behind said meatshield.)

Whoa, I didn't know that! Nor that any extra healing above what the target needs can flow back to the caster, if they need healing too? Thanks for pointing that out!

[BigNorseWolf]

My ysoki mystic is getting Some extra land speed and spell on the run so he can scurry out tag a downed ally and scurry back with his 1 hp :)

[DJEternalDarkness]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

My ysoki mystic is getting Some extra land speed and spell on the run so he can scurry out tag a downed ally and scurry back with his 1 hp :)

I as well did not know this, but the mystic in the game I'm running did. Clever players!

[Ravingdork]

DJEternalDarkness wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

My ysoki mystic is getting Some extra land speed and spell on the run so he can scurry out tag a downed ally and scurry back with his 1 hp :)

I as well did not know this, but the mystic in the game I'm running did. Clever players!

Same. I went running to our party's mystic and told them the good news, and they were like, "yeah, I know already."

[BigNorseWolf]

Ravingdork wrote:

DJEternalDarkness wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

My ysoki mystic is getting Some extra land speed and spell on the run so he can scurry out tag a downed ally and scurry back with his 1 hp :)

I as well did not know this, but the mystic in the game I'm running did. Clever players!

Same. I went running to our party's mystic and told them the good news, and they were like, "yeah, I know already."

...dammit and now you'll expect it all the time.

[gustavo iglesias]

My rule, even before the magboots, is that you could very slowly advance by using a standard action to anchor yourself step by step. So not really viable in combat

[Yakman]

gustavo iglesias wrote:

My rule, even before the magboots, is that you could very slowly advance by using a standard action to anchor yourself step by step. So not really viable in combat

I think that's a good idea. I have an idea for a short dungeon in zero g where I think I'll rule that - maybe max speed of 10 feet?

[EltonJ]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Ravingdork wrote:

DJEternalDarkness wrote:

BigNorseWolf wrote:

My ysoki mystic is getting Some extra land speed and spell on the run so he can scurry out tag a downed ally and scurry back with his 1 hp :)

I as well did not know this, but the mystic in the game I'm running did. Clever players!

Same. I went running to our party's mystic and told them the good news, and they were like, "yeah, I know already."

...dammit and now you'll expect it all the time.

Don't you love it when players are clever.

[BigNorseWolf]

Something I'm going to try

If you're in a campaign rather than SFS and you're a caster it doesn't seem worth it to buy weapons and armor as opposed to just looting armor and weapons off of people and using that. Sure, its a level or two behind the bleeding edge but its functionally 1/10th the price