| 24 people marked this as a favorite. |
...and Pathfinder 2nd Edition does most things better.
If the title wasn’t clear, here is my warning that a rant is incoming.
Starfinder feels like a system that is perpetually caught in the lurch between the old school sensibilities of Pathfinder 1st edition and the streamlined innovations of Pathfinder 2nd edition. The more I play both Starfinder and PF2, the more irritated I become at some of the grating features of Starfinder.
I’d like to start by clarifying that I love Starfinder, and have had a lot of fun in both the system and setting. There are just some things that make me want to bang my head against a wall, and I’m convinced are a significant detriment to expanding the playerbase. So, here’s my rant:
Math Fixing Feats
This one really bothers me. In a system where magic users are *strongly* encouraged to pick up a gun because their spells are quite limited, in order to be at all effective with said gun they need to use up extremely limited character customization resources on feats like Longarm Proficiency and Weapon Focus, just so they don’t fall pathetically behind the system math.
I’ve been in a campaign where we had to rebuild our Envoy away from small arms mid-adventure, and re-allocate ability scores to boost dex, because they were having no fun missing most of the time and plinking for pitiful damage when they did hit.
It was sad to watch their flavorful feats going down the drain in favor of math fixers.
Casters Aren’t Fun
Related to #1, casters are far less satisfying to play than the description of the classes suggest. Resting to regain stamina has significantly cut down on the 15 minute adventuring days from PF1, but Starfinder combines that with reducing the number of spells per day for casters and extending the levels required until they get higher tiers of spells.
After the first few fights the casters can easily be spent, and fall back to ineffectively plinking away with their small arms. At higher levels they have more low level spell slots available, but they can only spend them on spells without saves because it’s incredibly difficult to increase the DCs of spells, and DCs are tied to the spell level, so monsters will be saving against low level spells on a 5. Offensive cantrips like PF2 has would be so welcome to help casters feel like casters throughout the day, especially if they resolutely refused to spend valuable feats on math fixers for their backup weapons.
Thank goodness they added Epiphanies for the mystic, since they used to get essentially zero class choices after level 1.
Resolve
It drives me up the wall that your resolve points, which are critical for pacing and actually surviving an adventure, are tied to one ability score decided by your class. I practically have to dip into Soldier for my preferred Solarian playstyle, just so I don’t die from lack of resolve. My current mystic build with low wisdom is only possible by the grace of my GM who is letting me use Strength for my resolve stat. It further reinforces min-maxing by encouraging players to pump up their main-stat, which is already encouraged by the much tighter math than PF1.
Resolve using abilities are similarly a pet peeve of mine. It drives me nuts when non-health related abilities, feats, and equipment are powered by resolve so using cool effects literally puts you closer to death. This might not be a problem for everyone, but I have *way* more fun in campaigns where battles are difficult and we need to conserve resolve for health/stabilizing over campaigns where fights are easy enough that I can use toys that drain my character’s will to live.
Skills
Few things in the game or more frustrating than when a new player rolls up, says they’re going to play a doctor and use medicine, only to encounter their first treat deadly wounds check. If you max int for +4, have medicine as a class skill for +3, you start at a +8 medicine skill at first level, succeeding on a 17 or higher to heal *1 HP*. What if you didn’t think you required a maximum int? You could easily be succeeding only on a natural 20.
Who cares if the person with a medkit can heal a couple HP without trouble?
Later on, since people with the right class that gives them the right skill bonuses can boost their skill modifiers crazy high it becomes a bit of a joke to even have skills without all the math fixes keeping you up to par. Our group decided to self-impose a skill modifier cap, so everyone with a skill can hope to contribute somehow without jumping through hoops.
Weapons
A new player joins the group and says they envision a death touched Ghoran soldier who wields the deadliest weapon their culture knows, an axe! Oh Joy, now I get to sift through the massive list of weapons to find which ones at which levels can best be reflavored into an axe. That or I have to tell them their character will abandon their favored weapon and will hardly ever even be able to buy a decent axe because their imagination was wrong.
Then there’s passing out loot.
GM: “You find a pair of grave-class void rifles”
Player: “How do you spell foid?”
GM: “Void, as in the void of space.”
Player: “Oh I thought it was a race or something. So it’s a gray glass voidrifle”
GM: “Did you say gray? It’s G-R-A-V-E class. C-L-A-S-S”
Player: /writes down grave class voidrifle “Okay what’s it do?”
GM: “It does suffocation damage against living creatures”
Player: “oh. Well we scrap it for ubp”
There are 219 Longarms on Archives of Nethys. 366 Advanced Melee weapons. 233 Small Arms. And still I’m reflavoring weapons left and right because the thing I imagine a character having doesn’t exist, or is unavailable at the right level. No one is going to remember all of these by name. All the decision making happens on the stat level, so why can’t we just modularly build our own weapons?
Critical Effects
Consider this a continuation of the weapon rant. Critical Effects nine times out of ten mean a weapon is garbage because weapon budget went into an extremely unreliable bonus effect that occurs 5% of the time and matters less than that (because VERY often the crit outright kills the enemy before it can matter). Vast swathes of the enchantments give critical effects that I just could not care less about. There are whole class and race features that give critical effects.
Every time I get something with a crit effect as loot I’m disappointed because I already know it’s going to matter once, maybe twice, before I swap out the weapon for a new one and I’d much rather have something like an extra average point of damage.
Armor
I have a spreadsheet that adds up the total EAC and KAC of every armor depending on your character’s dex mod. Then I narrow it down by movement penalty, upgrade slots, and ACP. Then I look at the name of the armor. I sincerely doubt this is the gameplay the devs were striving for.
After picking out an armor statblock I let the players flavor how it looks because armor is the biggest factor in how a player looks and I don’t want to take that away under threat of character death.
Rant over
| 7 people marked this as a favorite. |
You forgot to explain how Pathfinder 2 fixes these issues you have with Starfinder.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I am the complete opposite of you. I love Starfinder and can't stand Pathfinder 2E. As for the rest of your post, it reads as if your issue with the game at all is math. Not sure how that can solved as math has been tied to this game in some form since D&D's boxes. Is there more now? Yes, but even other games are tied behind some type of math, even if it is how many symbols of a certain type you get (Vampire 5E).
Maybe stop paying attention to all the math aspects and just have fun?! After all, that's why we play it. :)
| 6 people marked this as a favorite. |
Thanks for the thread WatersLethe! I've been mulling over a lot of the same thoughts. Starfinder is an odd system. They managed to fix a lot of things that were holding 1st ed Pathfinder back, but the result hasn't quite matured into the smooth, eminently enjoyable gameplay of Pathfinder 2E. Starfinder feels a bit rough around the edges. Its plenty of fun, but it could be a lot better.
Some specific thoughts on your rant:
If it wasn't such a no-brainer to use longarms on your envoy or technomancer, you wouldn't feel so bad about the cost.
Removing 1Es caster level scaling of damage, reducing spell slots, and changing casters to 6-level, all these elements worked to reduce a low to mid level caster's sustained capabilities in a game where the adventuring day is incredibly long.
PF2's scaling cantrips feels like a no-brainer to me. I also think there should be many more "Heighten" spells, like Mind Thrust, on every caster's list. This would help fill out the dead spots left behind by spells not scaling with caster level.
Making resolve a fixed pool of 3 points you can use to stabilize and get back in the fight would have been fantastic. All the other resolve abilities should, as you suggest, have been powered differently so that you don't get feel-bad moments in using them.
PCs and NPCs in Starfinder have a lot of HP + SP. A martial in Starfinder can eat many hits from monsters of CR = APL + 3 before they actually fall. Far far more than either in Pathfinder 1E or 2E. And when they do fall, Starfinder feels like the most forgiving of the three systems regarding ways they can stay alive after being KO'd.
For example, against an ordinary non-optimized martial character, an enemy of CR = APL takes four, five or six rounds of full attacks against that character to actually reduce their HP and SP to 0. And that's assuming no DR or resistances. Doesn't feel right, in a world of super-high-tech weapons and deadly alien beasties.
Lots of feel bad moments for people with Engineering on their Solarian or Diplomacy on their Soldier. Pathfinder 2E's skill system and ability score system would alleviate this problem dramatically.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
You forgot to explain how Pathfinder 2 fixes these issues you have with Starfinder.
I can take a shot at that...
math fixing feats
There are a few of these in PF2. One that improves perception checks or increases a weak save to a decent save. There are also feats to open up options to use other weapons or armor without being way behind in the math. But none of them are required in order to make a character usable. You don't have to be using martial weapons in order to to sufficient damage to justify the actions spent. You don't have to spend feats to increase your saving throw bonuses in order to not get hit by everything that an enemy casts in your direction. You don't have to spend feats to boost skill bonuses in order to keep up with the DCs.
casters aren't fun
PF2 has scaling cantrips and focus spells. Cantrips can be cast all day and are effective at your character level. Focus spells are more limited, but are also renewable. So they can also be cast all day. Spell slot spells have their DC based on your character level rather than the level of spell that they are cast at. So a level 2 debuff spell is a valid choice to use against a level 16 enemy.
resolve
Stamina is an optional system. The default rules only use HP. But even if you opt to use the stamina point health pool system, your resolve points to refill it are separate from any resources that you use to do abilities.
skills
Skill bonus is completely separated from class. Most classes will give skill proficiency with one or two skills automatically. But any character can opt in to proficiency with the skill also and will not be at a disadvantage in comparison. A rogue gets trained in stealth automatically. But an Oracle can take training in stealth also and be just as good at sneaking around as the rogue is.
Most importantly, because of this and the lack of math fixing feats to boost skill bonuses - the skill check DCs are within reach of any character who wants to invest in a skill. No matter your class, you won't ever get to a point in a chosen skill or three where there is no point in even rolling any more.
weapons
Weapons all have different traits and attributes on them. And they are scaled up in damage by applying runes to them. You don't have to replace your ancestral family heirloom weapon just because you gained a few levels.
critical effects
Every weapon has a weapon family that they belong to. A weapon family has a critical effect that it can do. But the character has to gain a class feature or feat choice in order to get it. So the base assumption of the weapons is that critical effects don't usually happen and the weapons are balanced for that scenario. We don't have weapons that you rely on the critical effect in order to make the weapon viable.
armor
Like weapons, armor is avaliable as base items only and the defensive improvements are applied as runes. Also, a large part of your AC is based on your level and your proficiency rather than the AC bonus number that the armor itself gives. So you can pick your armor based on what you or your character would want and it will probably work fine.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Re resolve making you immortal. You can also die if someone hits you into - your hit points. So if you're resolve tanking, you're running a real risk of a crit or high damage hit putting you down and keeping you there.
I had a boss fight where the boss and the DM both explained to the character that his "possum style needed work... you have to glaze your eyes a little, drool, oh yes.. and STOP MOVING"
Next hit was a nasty sneak attack, and out came his heart.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I agree with everything you said and would like to add a couple of thoughts.
1. The game is too dependent on equipment drops. Because acquired items can be sold for only 10 or 20% of value, you are pretty much limited to what you find. Does your melee soldier want a cool two handed sword? Well forget about it, because he's stuck with the Doshko dropped by the Vesk you fought.
2. Money is poorly balanced and is used to replace class features rather than enhance them. A mystic might buy a jet pack to replace a fly spell because of their limited selection and slots, even though it might make no sense for a magic based character. Why not have a system other than money - something like karma or prestige - to allow characters to purchase advantages more in tune with their themes.
3. Armor is unrealistic and dumb. You have to wear armor everywhere, for everything. Flying through space- Armor. Visiting a planet - Armor. Dinner at Applebees - Armor. Most heroes in science fiction universes don't even use armor. In Starfinder, you sleep in it.
3. Fixes are slapped onto design failures like bandages. Half of Solarians found their class stat of charisma useless. The designers shoehorned in the Soulfire fusion to make charisma marginally more useful.
I think Starfinder really needs a 2nd edition to fix these holes and a deign philosophy more in tune with a space based science fantasy setting. There are a lot of things I do like about Starfinder, but if I could, I would choose something else for my gaming group until all the problems listed on this thread were addressed.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
A lot of these things are admittedly taste driven as much as anything else, but there are some things I really wonder about.
Like small arm math. They're just so significantly worse than long arms on their own, in the CRB they were basically just Operative only weapons because of the massive pile of bonus damage operatives got to justify using them... and everyone else just kinda pretends they don't exist (even if that means taking some extra feats to do that).
It doesn't provide any positive game balance, it's not fun, there's no real versimilitude to it. I'm sure someone will defend it but generally speaking I'm just not sure even why as a concept it exists or what purpose it serves other than to make sure spellcasters who want to shoot guns have fewer feats than other characters.
Yep. There's a huge disparity in skill bonuses between someone who casually invests and someone with the right class that actually optimizes. This is pretty similar to Pathfinder 1E (they actually toned it down alot), but the difference is that the skill DCs have been set in many instances to be appropriate for the optimizer.
Even looking at PF1 I think Starfinder is the loser here, because one big difference is that a huge chunk of your innate bonuses to skills come from your class.
A technomancer who wants to be good at Computers basically gets to do so for free because of the way internal bonuses work. A soldier who wants to be good at computers can ruin their character trying to optimize the skill and they'll still fall short in the end and that's pretty terrible, especially since "soldier who's good with computers" is inevitably going to be a much more deliberate choice.
As broken as PF1 can be, at least that brokenness often meant you could force the math into submission and make a weird character concept work.
... Probably why, in hindsight, so many of my SF characters are operatives since they can just kind of do whatever they want and still work okay.
PF2 has scaling cantrips
I remember looking at the Character Operations Manual and seeing that Witchwarper cantrip, Hazard and thinking it was really cool conceptually and then I remembered that it's a SF cantrip and not a PF2 cantrip and since all it did was damage it was basically wasted page space. I think that character ended up casting it twice over the whole campaign.
I agree with this for the most part. After playing Pathfinder 2E. Starfinder just feels like a thing of the past. The combat system is garbage. The skills are bleh.
I really feel that most of the classes are boring all around. The Solarion was a cool concept but boring and lacking. The Soldier was an attempt to make the Fighter cool but fails on so many levels. The operative just ungodly broken.
Spell casting isn’t even entertaining. The spell casting classes seem blah and boring. Spells don’t seem to be nearly as fun. Some good steps in the right direction, like magic missile.
Skills I really don’t care to much outside of treat deadly wounds being limited.
Resolve, Stamina, HP. TOO MUCH TRACKING. Way to much tracking. Then the 10 minute rest abilities, again to much tracking. Our group don’t spend much resolve in fear we will run out and die.
Feats are just god awful. Most of the COM feats are boring or way to situational or just plain lacking,. The feat selection for a game that has been out for several years is absurd. I struggle to find feats that are truly meaningful.
The weapon accessories was a GREAT IDEA. But Paizo is just plain horrible with wording, clarifying and fixing rules. So this leads to arguments that detract from the game.
Weapons, half of them are like why? To many and the level system is absurd and very restricting. I like the modular concept mentioned. To many and some are like why would I ever select this. Oh wait I wouldn’t because it is straight garbage. Similar thing with armor.
Combat system is old and unintuitive. 2E got this right. End of story.
Starship, I was super excited. If you aren’t a gunner, engineer or pilot then it just isn’t fun. SOM attempted to fix this but meh. Found it lacking in options for starships and honestly the prebuilt starships are cool but just a filler and excuse not to be innovative. 39 for SOM sorely disappointed.
Overall Starfinder feels dead and NEEDS a serious revamp. Kill it off and rework it from the ground.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
Anyone else here thinks that the 3-action system would straight up fix the Envoy's core problem? Because I do.
Keeping all their improvisations as 1-action activities(except Hurry) without changing anything else would make the class work as fluid as it should've been to begin with. Imagine being able to buff, move and use conditional Improvs? They could remove the "Improved" feat taxes entirely and the base forms would still be worth using them.
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Hot Take Observation: as someone who's basically never played PF2E, but who prefers the sci-fantasy of SF over the "classical" fantasy of PF: threads like these are a dire warning to never start playing PF2E :D
If people who play PF2E and go back to SF find the mechanics of SF ruined thereby, and you're the kind who likes the flavour/setting of one over the other...then don't start playing PF2E, so that you never find out what you're missing.
Just a weird realization I had. Not trying to take away from this thread, or complain about these threads or anything. Wanted to share is all. I assume people like me are probably a small edge case.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Don't get me wrong. I absolutely love the setting of Starfinder. More than the archaic swords and sorcery setting of Pathfinder. I just also want the improved core game engine math and the better character build design.
The thing is, though. PF2e's design really solved a lot of issues that PF1e had that Starfinder kinda carried over. Of course, it's far from being a perfect system, but the hits it achieved far outweigh their misses.
The action economy, the feat progression that offers interesting options, the breakaway from martial characters having to uphold some meaningless realism while casters outright broke reality, the interesting magical items and reduction of mandatory items to keep up with the math (this hasn't actually been addressed IMO, but was definitely lessened).
All of these things that were greatly improved were things that weren't that changed from PF1e to SF, which is what makes these opinions to, understandably, pop up.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I agree that PF2 is for the most part, a much better system. However, I'm currently GM'ing starfinder and not PF2 because setting, and other than useful cantrips, I'm not really feeling like things are missing. That's probably because I'm GMing and not playing though, Starfinder has all the prototypes for PF2's GM tools, and it shows.
That said I do have a comment or two on the issues listed above.
Regarding casters: I absolutely agree that there should be some scaling cantrip like thing for casters. Even if it's just a free energy ray/telekinetic projectile/hazard that scales and that's the only option, it would be nice to see.
That said, my players haven't complained about playing casters and keep going back to them. The fact that I adjust loot to support this (spell gems and the like) is probably a factor.
Regarding resolve: I don't have this complaint, but at the same time our table's house rule as always been 'just use the PF1 death and dying system'. Which makes going into hit points a much riskier proposition. But that's not how the system actually works though, so... I guess I agree, PF2's wounded condition is just a simpler/better system.
Regarding skills: I've pretty much universally lowered skill DCs to accommodate people choosing skills they want and not sticking to class special skills. Definitely spot on with the criticism.
Regarding the loot treadmill: When passing out loot and armor, I give it's stats, cost and a basic description of what kind of gun it is. I don't bother with the long names, even if I do kind of like them personally. I'm personally on the fence on if I like pathfinder's level to AC more than starfinder's dozens of armors. Still, weapon tables are intimidating to look through, and that can be a problem.
Regarding crit effects: You're spot on here. There needs to be some way to add crit effects more often than just a nat 20.
3. Armor is unrealistic and dumb. You have to wear armor everywhere, for everything. Flying through space- Armor. Visiting a planet - Armor. Dinner at Applebees - Armor. Most heroes in science fiction universes don't even use armor. In Starfinder, you sleep in it.
Considering light armor is often just clothing with a built in force field, the average hero in starfinder is just wearing clothing.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Oh also Starfinder has Full Attacks which are one of the worst game contrivances ever. Unwieldy weapons exist, but not everyone can build around them effectively so there's still a lot of full attacking across the board.
I see these types of threads and get a major sense of dread from them.
I've invested in hard copies of all the rulebooks (none of the adventure paths), and I can't help but wonder where that investment goes if/when a SF.2E gets released.
On the one hand, seeing the criticism of the current system, and contrasting that with what I've read of the rules and what few opportunities to run a game I've had, I agree some refinements would improve the experience.
On the other hand, I worry about all these books I've bought suddenly becoming invalidated. I understand there's precedent for converting things, but with that comes some trepidation of how intense those conversions would have to be in practice.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
On the other hand, I worry about all these books I've bought suddenly becoming invalidated. I understand there's precedent for converting things, but with that comes some trepidation of how intense those conversions would have to be in practice.
Here's the thing for me... I'd rather avoid throwing good money after bad. The sunk cost fallacy drives people to continue down the road they're on, even if it's bad for them, because they invested resources they can't recover.
If a system overhaul would invalidate previous books, but would allow new players to get into the system and existing players to have more fun, then ultimately it would be a good move.
I'd like to imagine many of the problems I've listed could be fixed in a Starfinder Unchained type book. However, if it can't then I'm also fine with whatever it takes to provide a satisfying gameplay experience to myself and my players. Right now our games are held together by a pile of house rules and GM fiat that already invalidates quite a bit.
In any case, the setting is hecking awesome and any content relating to the setting is guaranteed to still be useful.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I wouldn't worry too much Umbra. I doubt a new version is coming any time soon, given the cost and potential market for a new version of a game that's still doing very well. In the mean time, I could easily see some of this stuff addressed with optional, replacement rules systems either developed by Paizo or by quality homebrew that gets shared around - think things like Pathfinder Unchained or the Elephant in the Room feat tax rules for PF1E (if you're familiar with those).
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
So far I've preferred starfinder over PF2 even with Starfinders flaws and finding DC's of player powers far too low and crit effects not occurring very often at all.
But I definitely prefer starfinder class abilities and feats to pf2e feats. PF2E options are nearly always immensely niche and dull to me.
I don't think this one was mentioned earlier:
Multiclassing.
Starfinder multiclassing is generally a bad idea. If you know exactly what you are doing, taking one or maybe two levels of a class with powerful low level abilities can work (or maybe even break things). But trying to build a character concept around a blend of two different classes is just going to result in disappointment. Archetypes can somewhat help here, but they are a bit restrictive and the printed ones are a bit less powerful than I would like.
PF2 multiclassing is fantastic. There are still a few character concepts that can't be realized (50/50 being the most notable). But it is quite possible to build a good, workable character as a mix of two or more class concepts.
I see these types of threads and get a major sense of dread from them.
I've invested in hard copies of all the rulebooks (none of the adventure paths), and I can't help but wonder where that investment goes if/when a SF.2E gets released.
Nah, I still don't regret getting my hardback Starfinder books.
Even with its flaws in comparison to PF2, it is still a great game system.
To clarify, I'm not opposed to the publication of a rules addendum, or new /improved edition for Starfinder. I don't regret investing in Starfinder, either. I just have some mild concern over how backwards-compatible a new system will be with old material. At this point it's more a philosophical conflict than existential one.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
A Starfinder Unchained type of book could probably address a few of the things you have personal issue with by adding optional rules.
That being said I think many of the things you brought up are indeed personal.
1]. Math Fixing Feats and Spell Casters Aren't Fun: I have played a spell caster who invested in spell gems, spell chips, potions, etc... so he never really needed to use his small arm that often or even at all.
I have also played an envoy, but he used longarms so I can't comment on your example. I can say that you can boost your envoy's weapon abilities and still enjoy the classes unique skills at the same time.
2. Resolve: My feeling is the opposite of yours. Characters get too much resolve. I've played AP's and almost all the SFS scenarios and rarely feel in danger of dying. At the higher levels you have so much resolve I find myself going out of my way to find ways to use it. It seems like the only time you are really in danger of dying and have to actually be careful is at the lower levels, especially level 1.
3. Skills: I don't have any issue with this one. It's just the dynamic of the system. Some classes are going to be better at some things than others. You can always aid another in their skill check if you have a few points in the skill. I think that is how the system is supposed to work. The PC with the highest bonus makes the check and the others aid.
4. Weapons: To me there are so many types of weapons available it's hard to choose sometimes. You can go from level 1 to level 20 with the same weapon by just upgrading it. There will be times where you aren't putting out the maximum amount of potential damage. However, since PC's are so hard to kill you can stay in the fight longer. Also, weapon specialization plus stat bonuses every level do the most damage for you anyway.
5. Critical Effects: My feeling on critical effects are that I wouldn't want them to be too overpowered since you do so much damage when you crit anyway. I don't have an issue with how they are currently. You can use the critical hit deck if you want more out of your crits.
6. Armor: I don't understand your issue with armor. You can customize the armor to "look" how you want it to by buying it from a specific company, choosing what material it is made with, and adding upgrades. The basic description is just some flavor. My elf envoy wants to buy a plasma bolter which is a bulky vesk weapon. In my head canon for him he only uses weapons that are slim, sleek, and elegant of elven design. When I describe the weapon next time I play I just describe it as being sleeker than the normal plasma bolter design because it was made by an elven weapons manufacturer.
I actually really like weapons in starfinder. There are tons of unique ones that explore design space a lot more varied than PF1 or 2 ever did. The problem, I think, is that that design philosophy doesn't really gel with the game's economy.
There are a ton of unique weapons that might be really cool sometimes but are difficult to reliably build an entire character around... but the game's basic credit economy makes it kinda prohibitive to actually keep an arsenal of effective weapons on hand at the same time, especially since the more weapons you have the greater the diminishing returns on adding more is.
My experience with Starfinder as a result has generally been people sticking with the most vanilla damage options they can find and occasionally marveling at all the "cool" weapons in the various rulebooks that none of them will ever buy.
|
Near the end of D&D3.5, wotc came out with a star wars game, shortly there after, they released 4e. Fast forward a decade and Paizo comes out with Starfinder, shortly thereafter they released pathfinder 2. It's amazing how similar the decision process was with both companies. There's even a lot a parallels in the rules of D&D4 and PF2.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
So... I guess I'm in the minority in that I actually like that characters end up using weapons they came across in their adventures, instead of the thing they decided they were going to use back at character creation?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So... I guess I'm in the minority in that I actually like that characters end up using weapons they came across in their adventures, instead of the thing they decided they were going to use back at character creation?
I could see playing a character/game like that. But that could also be done with different weapon mechanics. It is a lot easier to change to that being the expectation of the game lore rather than trying to gloss over the game mechanics requiring you to replace your equipment.
2. Resolve: My feeling is the opposite of yours. Characters get too much resolve. I've played AP's and almost all the SFS scenarios and rarely feel in danger of dying. At the higher levels you have so much resolve I find myself going out of my way to find ways to use it. It seems like the only time you are really in danger of dying and have to actually be careful is at the lower levels, especially level 1.
And whether you think that you have too many resolve points or too few, the fix is to separate the pools of points between restoring stamina and powering abilities. Then you can set the number of times that you can refill stamina appropriately without affecting the number of times you can do something cool in a day.
--------
My pipe dream would be a rules 'archetype' book for PF2. An archetype that replaces game rules rather than character options. Change up some of the skills: add piloting, engineering, and computers. Maybe remove some of the others or just make the classes get another skill point to spend. Add in the futuristic classes and deprecate some of the outdated ones. Things like that. Keep the core rules, but re-theme things from the inside out.
Barring that, an 'archetype' (Unchained?) rulebook for Starfinder CRB that fixes some of these problems would be fantastic.
I like the variety of weapons even if it makes it hard to pick sometimes. It gives you the opportunity to try all kinds of crazy fighting styles because what the weapons do are so varied. That being said the simple weapons that just do good damage are probably the most efficient ones, but I like that you have so many options available.
I don't mind when the PC's just use the weapons they find during the adventure, but I can see where some would want to use specific weapons that fit what they see their PC's particular idiom being.
Not sure what can be done with resolve points. I'd lean toward a simple solution of just giving PC's less of them.
I personally don't want to have to deal with taking armor on and off for sleeping, eating, etc... What about when my PC needs to use the toilet? Is it like the Iron Man movies and I just go in my suit? That being said there is a SFS scenario where you get into a combat situation during the opening briefing and since I had described my character as being out of his armor I just played out the combat like that.
My point is these are all personal pet peeves that can either be ignored or worked around with a little imagination without changing any rules. If there was some big game breaking rule issue with Starfinder then I would definitely have issue with it.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
So... I guess I'm in the minority in that I actually like that characters end up using weapons they came across in their adventures, instead of the thing they decided they were going to use back at character creation?
I like it too.
Your have your old hunting rifle from your farmstead, then you pick up a nice laser rifle off the invading bad guys. So, you hang that old rifle up over your desk in your office you own at the end of the AP. Sure, when you go out to lead your mercenary group you grab a disintegrator cannon from the armory, but that old rifle has sentimental value.
A lot of sci-fi heroes do have an iconic weapon of some sort, but those heroes aren't level 1 either. There's likely a story of how they won it in a bet at level 8 or some such thing if you were to translate their character in game.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Just to keep things in perspective, Starfinder is not Pathfinder 2E. Nor is it Shadow Run or DnD. It is very much its own game using a d20 system and built off the lore of Pathfinder. I find it unfair to take this orange and compare it to all those apples. Both are fruit but not of the same tree.
That being said, the rule to keep in mind for any ttrpg is that the rules are suggestions for play. If you don't like something in the rules then change it to how you would like it. House rules are great for your party and then everyone can be happy. If you play society the you are stuck with the rules, but you are choosing society and those constraints.
Personally I am not a fan of starship combat but that may be because I have not done enough of it to understand the nuances.
So... I guess I'm in the minority in that I actually like that characters end up using weapons they came across in their adventures, instead of the thing they decided they were going to use back at character creation?I like it too.
Your have your old hunting rifle from your farmstead, then you pick up a nice laser rifle off the invading bad guys. So, you hang that old rifle up over your desk in your office you own at the end of the AP. Sure, when you go out to lead your mercenary group you grab a disintegrator cannon from the armory, but that old rifle has sentimental value.
A lot of sci-fi heroes do have an iconic weapon of some sort, but those heroes aren't level 1 either. There's likely a story of how they won it in a bet at level 8 or some such thing if you were to translate their character in game.
Keeping your weapon is a fairly easy house rule. Every time you hit the level where the weapon upgrades, you tinker with, improve, take to the shop, learn a new trick with, discover "hey what does this buton do" you get the next model. So if for example you use an ice launcher you upgrade at levels 5 8 15 20
Keeping your weapon is a fairly easy house rule. Every time you hit the level where the weapon upgrades, you tinker with, improve, take to the shop, learn a new trick with, discover "hey what does this buton do" you get the next model. So if for example you use an ice launcher you upgrade at levels 5 8 15 20So... I guess I'm in the minority in that I actually like that characters end up using weapons they came across in their adventures, instead of the thing they decided they were going to use back at character creation?I like it too.
Your have your old hunting rifle from your farmstead, then you pick up a nice laser rifle off the invading bad guys. So, you hang that old rifle up over your desk in your office you own at the end of the AP. Sure, when you go out to lead your mercenary group you grab a disintegrator cannon from the armory, but that old rifle has sentimental value.
A lot of sci-fi heroes do have an iconic weapon of some sort, but those heroes aren't level 1 either. There's likely a story of how they won it in a bet at level 8 or some such thing if you were to translate their character in game.
It isn't even a house rule anymore; the Armory said that you can upgrade your weapon to the next higher level by paying the new cost minus 10% of the previous level's value... i.e. exactly like selling your gun and buying a new one, but accounting for preference.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
I have the opposite conclusions from you.
I hate PF2.
I like PF1, but it had a lot problems with letting players run too wild and roughshod.
To me Starfinder get's it just right in terms of feel.
There are a lot of specific subsystem I could see myself easily implementing if I were to run a game, but the biggest problem I have with PF2 is the math.
The success rates in Starfinder feel fun to me.
The success rates in PF2 feel unfun to me.
Starfinder got it right, and Pathfinder 2 got it wrong. They over corrected and I won't play it anymore now that my gaming group dropped that game.
Edit: That said I will agree with you that casters aren't in a great spot, and that they could probably use scaling cantrips like they have in PF2 so that grabbing a with longarms isn't a requirement. However, I think if you know that about the game prior to playing it (that you can't cast all day and need to invest in a reliable way of achieving weapon based damage) then you're okay.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
See, I find that an interesting point of contention, because success rates are by far the easiest thing to tweak across the board. For example, you could just give PCs in PF2E +2 to all their d20-linked statistics, increase the MAP to -6, and make it that crits only happen on +12 instead of +10, and the game would basically work. Higher base success rates on demand.
What's hard to tweak or change are things like the action economy. Or the inherent assumptions around what feats and class features are and aren't allowed to do. Or the Resolve system and how it interlinks death and dying with on-demand abilities. Or how the economy in game functions.
|
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
See, I find that an interesting point of contention, because success rates are by far the easiest thing to tweak across the board. For example, you could just give PCs in PF2E +2 to all their d20-linked statistics, increase the MAP to -6, and make it that crits only happen on +12 instead of +10, and the game would basically work. Higher base success rates on demand.
What's hard to tweak or change are things like the action economy. Or the inherent assumptions around what feats and class features are and aren't allowed to do. Or the Resolve system and how it interlinks death and dying with on-demand abilities. Or how the economy in game functions.
That sounds overly complicated, you could simple use level-1 DCs and monsters, but it's very unlikely that I'd find a group doing that as a player.
It's a point of contention because most GMs don't tweak game systems away from the way they were written. So even if the system is "easy to tweak," the default mode of the system is still highly influential on how it is played.
Unless you're the one running the game, you'll probably have to settle for the way someone else wants to run it, which is most likely by the rules as written. It's hard enough finding a group of people that want to play the same rpg you do, let alone use the same house rules that you like.
|
There are a lot of specific subsystem I could see myself easily implementing if I were to run a game, but the biggest problem I have with PF2 is the math.
The success rates in Starfinder feel fun to me.
The success rates in PF2 feel unfun to me.
Starfinder got it right, and Pathfinder 2 got it wrong. They over corrected and I won't play it anymore now that my gaming group dropped that game.
I feel exactly the opposite - Starfinder got it right with to hit/AC, but spellcasters have trouble against monster saves. But most of all, skill DCs scale up so fast that skill points are basically a deception. At low level you're tempted to spread around skill points to tag class skills for the +3 bonus, but as DCs go up you can only keep up if you keep skill ranks maxed, and even then, you need some kind of scaling bonus from your class.
So the skill game feels alright from the point of view of an operative, but it's miserable for a soldier with delusions that he's allowed to have skills.
PF2 got the DC scaling right a lot more - at any level you're competent in the things you chose to be competent in, and generally (unlike Starfinder) skill challenges aren't written under the assumption that you succeed at everything, just that overall you succeed.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
See, I find that an interesting point of contention, because success rates are by far the easiest thing to tweak across the board. For example, you could just give PCs in PF2E +2 to all their d20-linked statistics, increase the MAP to -6, and make it that crits only happen on +12 instead of +10, and the game would basically work. Higher base success rates on demand.
What's hard to tweak or change are things like the action economy. Or the inherent assumptions around what feats and class features are and aren't allowed to do. Or the Resolve system and how it interlinks death and dying with on-demand abilities. Or how the economy in game functions.
I will give you I don't like Starfinders economy. Although for both PF1 and Starfinder my group has always used wealth by level at level up rules.
So you always have exactly the amount of wealth as the chart says when you level up. Any gear you find between levels you can use as a bonus until level up, and then if you want to keep if you have to pay for it.
We did this in PF1 because the wealth rules are wonky and getting more than the recommended WBL lead to stupid powerful PCs. So when we started Starfinder we just kept the rule.
But I like the resolve rules, and I still prefer the old action economy rules because I feel like I get to do more with my turns, even if PF2 action economy rules give you more fluidity in your actions.
Don't get me wrong, Starfinder isn't perfect. There are plenty of things that could be done to improve it.
But turning it into PF2 set is space would be a surefire way to make me hate it.
But most of all, skill DCs scale up so fast that skill points are basically a deception. At low level you're tempted to spread around skill points to tag class skills for the +3 bonus, but as DCs go up you can only keep up if you keep skill ranks maxed, and even then, you need some kind of scaling bonus from your class.
Personally I've always viewed spreading skills around as not something you should do.
And my experience with skills in Starfinder isn't so much that you can't succeed as a Soldier or Solarion against the DCs that the game sets, but that if you have overlap on your skills with another party member you're going to be playing second fiddle.
I played through Dead Suns previously and now we're playing Dawn of Flame. I haven't really experienced a problem with DCs being impossible, generally something in the 10-15 range will succeed even with some sort of class bonus. It's just that those with class bonuses are likely to consistently outshine you.
Including the Operative who isn't trying, but has the best skills in every skill he's invested in, which is most of them.
But that's more an operative problem. IMO they should have decreased operative skill advantage and gave them something else to compensate.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I actually like using Resolve to power some abilities, because generally, those are abilities that heal characters, or deal with some conditions. Some of them are more in the "finish the fight quickly and take less damage" camp, I don't like those as much.
But they basically give you a different way to heal, rather than the 10m rest, but they don't allow you to get around the "clock" of how many combats in a day you can safely undertake.
Yeah, the problem remains in PF2 since you still can only advance 3 skills to legendary (except rogue) and increasing additional skills from untrained to trained or trained to expert, etc isn't a productive use of resources. This remain a significant problem in PF2. Which is made worse by the existence of feats like Clever Improviser and Untrained/Improviser where a feat gives you the breadth of all skills.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Personally I've always viewed spreading skills around as not something you should do.But most of all, skill DCs scale up so fast that skill points are basically a deception. At low level you're tempted to spread around skill points to tag class skills for the +3 bonus, but as DCs go up you can only keep up if you keep skill ranks maxed, and even then, you need some kind of scaling bonus from your class.
Mechanically you're right, but I've always felt that made characters far too narrowly focused for my tastes (with the possible exception of those classes with a ton of skill points per level).
Real people tend to have a few things they're really good at, a bunch of others they know something about and are completely incompetent at others. At least in my experience.My natural inclination is to try and build characters that way: "he's good at these couple of things, but he should know something about this and this and have done a bit of this as well." Pathfinder has mostly managed to drill that out of me, but it's still annoying. I'm not sure what the solution is, at least for a d20 style system.
It doesn't really work well in a skill point based system with level appropriate DCs.
If you're up against a challenge for a level 12 party, that one point in computers means you're only as good at computers as a level 1 character, so of course you're not going to stand a chance at passing. From an adventure writing point of view, if there is something that's appropriate for a level 1 character to do in a level 12 adventure, you're better off saying 'if they're trained, they autopass' instead of writing out trivial skill checks.
| 10 people marked this as a favorite. |
or how everyone is wearing armor all the time.
In starfinder armor can be just clothes with a force field. Peter quill could be/probably was wearing Freebooter armor the entire guardians of the galaxy movie, was that a problem?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
But that's more an operative problem. IMO they should have decreased operative skill advantage and gave them something else to compensate.
Only if they fixed the DCs in general. The way skills are set is terrible and I'd say it's less that the operatives are a problem and more that they're the only ones equipped to play the game Paizo created.
Reducing operative skill bonuses wouldn't make trying to play a high mysticism or computers soldier any less obnoxious.
I think the reality of it is you sholdn't expect to be very good at skills as a soldier, but the devs should probably throw in more acrobatics and athletics checks into APs to reward soldiers who invest in those skills, which will be more common than others.
I haven't done a comprehensive review of APs as written to look at the DCs of tasks vs player level but I don't have the same experience (in my mind) of being such a problem. I'm not saying it's not the case, but it didn't stand out to me as such.
And I played a melee soldier in Dead Suns.