Starfinder Second Edition


General Discussion

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Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Ascalaphus wrote:
WatersLethe wrote:
Ascalaphus wrote:
(...)

All true, but there's also the aspect of opportunity costs to consider. Like, you can spend a feat for the ability to spend a resolve point to do something, or you could spend a feat for a bonus that's always there, and you get to still have all your resolve available to not die.

When comparing options that you haven't done the math on, it's pretty easy to justify ignoring non-health Resolve abilities when you know for sure that using them directly correlates with your likelihood of death, and at some point you're going to be locked out of using the Resolve ability based on whatever dire straits your resolve pool is in.

Maybe it's illogical, or mathematically inferior, to ignore lots of resolve abilities, but having a nice big resolve buffer is a nice psychological boon.

For what it's worth, there are quite a few Resolve abilities that are good and useful to me, they just are primarily about not dying. If there was a big push to make more non-health related Resolve abilities, it would largely be irrelevant to me and my group. I just think Resolve is best suited for health management, and things like Focus are better utility pools.

Yeah, but try seeing it from the other side. My Soldier 1/Solarian 10 has a strength of 22 so he has 11 resolve. He also has a ton of stamina, good armor, deals fire and electricity damage to any enemies that hit him and has DR 11/- as well as resistance 5 or 10 against most elements. I generally go 2 fights before I'm halfway through my stamina and decide to play safe and spend a point of resolve to fill it up again. So to really make me nervous about resolve it would have to have about 16 encounters. That's more than a full level worth of encounters.

So I'd be pretty comfortable spending some resolve on this and that.

My experience as a Soldier 1/Solarian X has been hitting the floor and spending resolve to not die every other session, starting at my very first time playing Starfinder.

There was also that one time that I dropped, stabilized but pretended to be dead, and still got hit in the edge of a grenade blast aimed at my party.

So yeah, I think a lot of it comes down to table variation and personal traumas.


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I do not know, at least from my experience, that a new edition is needed, Updates perhaps.

Sovereign Court

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WatersLethe wrote:
My experience as a Soldier 1/Solarian X has been hitting the floor and spending resolve to not die every other session, starting at my very first time...

Are you often going up against high-CR enemies or something? I'm finding the Dead Suns AP to be comfortably easy.


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Ascalaphus wrote:
WatersLethe wrote:
My experience as a Soldier 1/Solarian X has been hitting the floor and spending resolve to not die every other session, starting at my very first time...
Are you often going up against high-CR enemies or something? I'm finding the Dead Suns AP to be comfortably easy.

Yeah, it's a homebrew campaign my friend is running. Due to the format of one game per month, we tend to pack a lot of action in a short time so it's often tougher fights with fewer opportunities to rest.

It's always the big bad melee enemies that put me down, though. I'm roleplaying a brash character that overestimates her abilities so she stays toe-to-toe and doesn't rely on cover much.

It's a lot of fun, but if I were using Resolve differently I would have been perma-dead 4 sessions back.


It sounds like that isn't a system problem, but a "My GM throws too many foes of too high a CR" problem. Remember, Starfinder does *not* use the same difficulty curve as Pathfinder. When it says a CR +4 fight is a Deadly encounter, it means it.


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber
Metaphysician wrote:
It sounds like that isn't a system problem, but a "My GM throws too many foes of too high a CR" problem. Remember, Starfinder does *not* use the same difficulty curve as Pathfinder. When it says a CR +4 fight is a Deadly encounter, it means it.

I knew someone would say that. The thing is, the way we're playing is enjoyable for all involved. If we played differently, the system as a whole would no-longer serve our needs. rather than just one half of one subsystem (non-hp management uses of Resolve).

We'd be setting ourselves up for a monthly, low stakes snooze fest.

If there were two separate pools for health management and utility, there would be no problem for either style of play.

Which takes us back to the discussion that started this exchange; that one person prefers having a single unified pool that does everything, and I prefer multiple pools or mechanics that serve different purposes to make things easier to balance.

In PF2, hero points take on some of Resolve's emergency "don't die" function, but the normal death and dying rules take on the rest of that. Focus points have a health management aspect if you're the right class, but will often just be a limiter on going nova with cool class abilities. Wounds and mundane healing take on a significant portion of Resolve's stamina recovery and adventure day length functions.

What's funny is that I campaigned during the playtest for bringing over Resolve and Stamina/HP because it works *so* well for health management in Starfinder. I just made it clear I didn't need it for anything else.


WatersLethe wrote:

If there were two separate pools for health management and utility, there would be no problem for either style of play.

Which takes us back to the discussion that started this exchange; that one person prefers having a single unified pool that does everything, and I prefer multiple pools or mechanics that serve different purposes to make things easier to balance.

In PF2, hero points take on some of Resolve's emergency "don't die" function, but the normal death and dying rules take on the rest of that. Focus points have a health management aspect if you're the right class, but will often just be a limiter on going nova with cool class abilities. Wounds and mundane healing take on a significant portion of Resolve's stamina recovery and adventure day length functions.

What's funny is that I campaigned during the playtest for bringing over Resolve and Stamina/HP because it works *so* well for health management in Starfinder. I just made it clear I didn't need it for anything else.

Yet again WatersLethe, I agree. I had such a hard time making my Solarian because I wanted to have a decent Strength score for melee attack/damage, an OK Dex for KAC/EAC(I didn't want to use heavy armor), a good Constitution for health, but I couldn't just leave my Charisma at 10. If I had put the points I really wanted to into my other ability scores, I would've played my character twice in SFS(well actually more like 1 1/2 times, since I got dropped midway through my second game during the 3rd round of combat before my turn, so haha no Zenith for me). I cringe anytime I see a feat or class ability that calls for spending a point of Resolve(my only barrier between me and the Boneyard).


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I'd like to see better rules for vehicles and starships in SF2, particularly how they can fight each other when a starship's still in a planet's atmosphere. And also, an official vehicle building guide would be a plus.


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Milo v3 wrote:
Starfinder only just came out, it would be insane to even consider a second edition so early. Why would anyone spend money on an RPG if the developers are the sort to decide on a new edition after only two years?

This is why I sold my Shadowrun 5thE. Learned that they were rebooting editions every year or two. Refuse to buy a product line that continually does this.


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Kris Myatt 47 wrote:
Milo v3 wrote:
Starfinder only just came out, it would be insane to even consider a second edition so early. Why would anyone spend money on an RPG if the developers are the sort to decide on a new edition after only two years?
This is why I sold my Shadowrun 5thE. Learned that they were rebooting editions every year or two. Refuse to buy a product line that continually does this.

This is why I don't want to see an official SF2 anytime soon.

I still want to see a technology guide for PF2 and a conversion guide though.

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