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So looking through this manual while it has some nice stuff I don't like the fact that apparently to keep threats viable rather than basing the damage/effect on the hazard and letting the DM pick greater threats as they level up instead bases them on the starship tier. That is higher tier ships will take worse damage from the space hazard than a lower one even if they're having the exact same exposure to the exact same threat.
Am I correct that this is how the rules read to others e.g. a Tier 2 ship too close to a radiation source exposes the crew to low radiation while a tier 20 exposes them to high or am I missing something in the rules?
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I mean, I see what you mean, but OTOH, you can think of it as "If your ship isn't near enough to this much radiation, its not really a hazard". Its not that radiation sources provide variable radiation depending on who is nearby, its that the same radiation source is not a hazard for all people equally. So a tier 10 "radiation hazard" has three ships near to it. The tier 10 ship treats this as a normal, level appropriate challenge to overcome. The tier 15 ship largely ignores it, suffering no particular risk and gaining no particular XP. The tier 5 ship basically just dies, and doesn't get any XP nor make any checks because its hopeless and they are all dead.
Its just, as a matter of good GM practice, you shouldn't put either a trivial or an overwhelming hazard in front of your PC's ship. Or rather, a trivial hazard is flavor used to explain why something else that defines the scenario is happening, and an overwhelming hazard is a plot justification for why you can't do _____ and need to come up with a different plan.
Hmmm that's not how I read it. If it were star tier damage I'd be ok with it but its starSHIP tier see below . . .
Radiation is most often adjudicated like a damaging zone (page 135), but instead of dealing damage to the starship, it exposes crew members to radiation as if the ship were hit by a weapon with the irradiate property that lists low (for starship tiers 3 and below), medium (tiers 4–10), high (tiers 11–17), or severe (tiers 18 and up) radiation.
I could be misreading it or it could be a typo but it seems its saying if exposed to radiation tier 1-3 starships take low radiation damage, tier 4-10 take medium and so on.
I do see what your saying i.e. tier 20 starships need tier 20 threats so they take severe radiation. It just offends my understanding of physics and how the universe works. I'd rather yellow sun is X damage at X range, blue giant is X damage at Y range.
This seems like a good time to point out that you really have to leave the majority of your knowledge of physics and real-world facts at the door for Starfinder. Things work the way they say, not the way you'd think, and for most things that works out pretty ok.
And when it doesn't, a little common sense from the GM when they're designing hazards and encounters can make the issue go away.
For the same reason you don't face CR 1/3 space goblins at 10th level, you don't face weak space hazards that don't challenge you, appropriate to your ship's tier. Gotta make it exciting.
It's just how games (and stories) work.
I think the OP's question is basically, "Why am I being told to send a CR 5 monster against my CR 5 party?"
Because that's an appropriate challenge.
"Well why do the encounter a CR 10 monster later?"
Because later they're a CR8 to CR 12 party and it's still an appropriate challenge.
Other have already pointed it out, I'm just reiterating the point.
Do I have this right by the rules? My party are in a Tier 10 ship. We are being chased by a Tier 18 dreadnought. Our best plan is to run to a radiation hazard because the dreadnought's crew will die much faster than we will?
Another reason why the answer is no:
You are in a tier 10 ship, a radiation hazard will work as a tier 10 hazard against both your ship and the tier 18 dreadnought chasing you.
Besides the fact that you should never be in combat with a tier 18 ship while you're level 10. I mean, unless your party does something stupid.
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Do I have this right by the rules? My party are in a Tier 10 ship. We are being chased by a Tier 18 dreadnought. Our best plan is to run to a radiation hazard because the dreadnought's crew will die much faster than we will?Another reason why the answer is no:
You are in a tier 10 ship, a radiation hazard will work as a tier 10 hazard against both your ship and the tier 18 dreadnought chasing you.
Besides the fact that you should never be in combat with a tier 18 ship while you're level 10. I mean, unless your party does something stupid.
Doesn't that go explicitly against the rules?
"Radiation is most often adjudicated like a damaging zone (page 135), but instead of dealing damage to the starship, it exposes crew members to radiation as if the ship were hit by a weapon with the irradiate property that lists low (for starship tiers 3 and below), medium (tiers 4–10), high (tiers 11–17), or severe (tiers 18 and up) radiation."
That sounds like the bigger ship should take greater radiation damage.
What you are reading is a guideline for creating a radiation hazard for the GM. Not the rules for how radiation works in space.
This is written with the understanding that low radiation is not a threat to higher level characters. So, if you want to challenge your PCs with radiation hazards, it tells you what level of radiation is appropriate to what level of PC.
It's the same for regular damaging zones that deal 1d6 damage/tier to ships that pass through them. It's all an abbreviated way of telling you an appropriate CR of a space hazard for the party level, not a hard rule of how space damages ships.
You DEFINITELY don't want to try and force the GM to roll radiation saves for 60+ NPCs, hoping that they suffer the effect the same way a PC would.
That will not end well. The best you can hope for there is that the GM will roll once or twice and/or adjudicate the effect of your "trap" narratively.
NPCs and PCs have different rules for a reason. PCs have lifespans of levels, months, and/or years. NPCs usually have a lifespan of rounds.
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Do I have this right by the rules? My party are in a Tier 10 ship. We are being chased by a Tier 18 dreadnought. Our best plan is to run to a radiation hazard because the dreadnought's crew will die much faster than we will?Another reason why the answer is no:
You are in a tier 10 ship, a radiation hazard will work as a tier 10 hazard against both your ship and the tier 18 dreadnought chasing you.
Besides the fact that you should never be in combat with a tier 18 ship while you're level 10. I mean, unless your party does something stupid.
Doesn't that go explicitly against the rules?
"Radiation is most often adjudicated like a damaging zone (page 135), but instead of dealing damage to the starship, it exposes crew members to radiation as if the ship were hit by a weapon with the irradiate property that lists low (for starship tiers 3 and below), medium (tiers 4–10), high (tiers 11–17), or severe (tiers 18 and up) radiation."
That sounds like the bigger ship should take greater radiation damage.
What you are reading is a guideline for creating a radiation hazard for the GM. Not the rules for how radiation works in space.
This is written with the understanding that low radiation is not a threat to higher level characters. So, if you want to challenge your PCs with radiation hazards, it tells you what level of radiation is appropriate to what level of PC.
It's the same for regular damaging zones that deal 1d6 damage/tier to ships that pass through them. It's all an abbreviated way of telling you an appropriate CR of a space hazard for the party level, not a hard rule of how space damages ships.
I have to admit I read it the same way as Mellack given the way its written that's how to me its saying to handle things.
Star A: Tier 3 ship gets low radiation, Tier 20 gets severe.
Rather than Star A = Medium radiation use against X tier ships.
I get what your saying that they just combined things for ease of use but it resulted in lack of comprehension of RAW and people like me thinking you apply radiation based on ship tier not picking a radiation hazard to challenge a tier of ship.
Its a subtle distinction but an important one for the game.
Look at the chapter title in the book. 'Running starship campaigns'
This section of the book is a set of guidelines for GMs when running a starship campaign. It's full of how to make starship creatures, how to make the starship equivalent of traps, a series of plot hooks, etc.
These are not rules. That is the point I am making.
Treating these starship hazard creation guidelines as set in stone rules leads to silliness. The very same silly problems OP points out.
It's like the old pathfinder custom magic item guidelines. A lot of people took those as rules and not guidelines and tried to make their own broken magic items as players. That was not what those were, and that is not what these are.
Look at the chapter title in the book. 'Running starship campaigns'
This section of the book is a set of guidelines for GMs when running a starship campaign. It's full of how to make starship creatures, how to make the starship equivalent of traps, a series of plot hooks, etc.
These are not rules. That is the point I am making.
Treating these starship hazard creation guidelines as set in stone rules leads to silliness. The very same silly problems OP points out.
It's like the old pathfinder custom magic item guidelines. A lot of people took those as rules and not guidelines and tried to make their own broken magic items as players. That was not what those were, and that is not what these are.
I think the section is a little more firm on the rules than that, but your point remains, these are guidelines on how to setup encounters.
When they're talking about level/CR they're referring to the PCs and what you should place to challenge them.
They are not actually suggesting the same hazard affects different ships differently.