Wow. Everything you said is wrong.
Also I guess I’m imaging all those Starfinder setting hardcovers I own.
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Yet having a SciFi setting but never using it like SF does is a big disappointment. Instead its just fantasy dungeon crawls with guns.
See, I think this is the sticking point, right here. Starfinder is not SciFi. It very deliberately goes out of its way to not be SciFi. It is Science Fantasy. "What if Pathfinder, but lasers?"
The Pact Worlds is presented as a loose confederation of allied states/nations/planets that band together for mutual protection, with very limited government oversight, and basically no unified law or enforcement (Stewards notwithstanding.) Where it exists at all, local law and enforcement is a plot device, not a detailed, codified, believable, system.
I think the responses in this thread show that that's enough for most people. If that stretches your suspension of disbelief too much, then your group is either going to have to flesh out a dozen or so legal systems and brief the party every time they land on what the local laws are, or, I dunno, go play Cyberpunk ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Then go play Shadowrun.
iirc, the current politian running Absalom station is like, currently doing a big crack down on white-collar crime. Though idk if that's changed with metaplot, that was like 4 years ago or something.
It's like Star Wars. It's probably there, but it doesn't get in the way of the plot.
If that's an aspect that is lacking in the setting for your players, you might as well introduce it. I'd be curious to see if it works, if it makes the game any better or more fun.
A far future still concerned with paperwork, surveillance states, tracking and monitoring of everything and everyone... it reminds of the old Paranoia RPG more than anything.
I just don't see strong borders working in this setting.
Hundreds if not thousands of sentient species going in and out of every planet - how do you keep track of the barathu? Lesser undead, like skeletons? The Gray?
Starships capable of visiting any planet in the known space, of landing anywhere. Maybe you monitor all the atmosphere for entries, but do you have security forces to go after every clandestine landing? If it's a problem, won't the locals take care of it? If they land somewhere uninhabited, who cares? If it's a planetary threat, sure, take measures - but anything less...
I suppose you dock your ship and the local security will watch over it for you - like private parking. If someone steals it, you go after it, pay someone to go after it, demand the local management go after it. Would it be that much different than having your car stolen nowadays?
I have no idea if you can prove the ship is yours - that would demand a galactic database I suppose, or at least a pact world database of ship ownership, constantly updated. That would kinda work for ships built, sold or traded inside a pact world - anything outside of this system would need to wait for the information to travel for days or weeks. Makes the whole thing kinda pointless.
I believe the Azlanti Empire would have a much tighter grip on these matters - an AP from their point of view would be quite something.
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With very little effort on the GMs part and some reading of the source materials you do get a feel for a city / nation state. You then can come up with what YOU as the GM want in societal detail. I do not need Paizo to do it for me.
In my SoS game.
When the PCs ship came into Verces they were greeted by 2 patrol craft. They had to ID themselves and submit to a scan of their ship.
When they landed at Cuvacara they were greeted by 2 custom's officers who scanned their ID's and did a physical walk through of their ship.
*************SPOILER TIME*******************************************
At Eclipse HQ:
I put Eclipse HQ in the corporate section of the city where it is stated that the are armed corporate mercenaries running around.
Yes I modified the front door to be locked and sign posted so some random dope doesn't get fried looking for a bathroom.
My PCs rented a cargo van and then went to a hardware store and bought a slew of janitorial supplies. The pretended to be the cleaning crew
They the disabled the lock and trap and entered.
They took care of business. At the security station they turned on the fire suppression system, hit the fire alarms and called the police stating the building was on fire and there was gun shots fired please send help.
The police and fire departments responded. The PCs were long gone.
The bomb (and there is only one bombing in SoS despite what is posted by some).
It went off. Guess what? The hotel manager called the police and 2 detectives arrived within the hour and questioned the PCs.
The ambush outside the Blue Room.
It was over in 8 rounds or 48 seconds. The police were called by those in the area and they arrived in under 5 minutes. The PCs were long gone.
The ambush in the Shade (which is described as buildings riddled with bullet holes). NO ONE CARED
The incident at the Lizard Lounge. Went as described with the PCs winning. The same 2 detective from earlier arrived (and were none to happy). At this point they warned the PCs (and stated to them that they suspected they were involved in other incidents in the day) that one more visit from them and they would be escorted to the spaceport, the craft escorted out of atmosphere and then escorted again until the Warped out of the system (yes I use warp not drift and Verces is a system not a single planet and the Pact Worlds are more akin to a cluster sized area than a single system)
And finally when the PCs head to the spaceport the final ambush is waiting for them inside.
The battle sees the drow all killed but not the sniper. The two detectives that had visited the PCs earlier had actually been assigned to follow them at this point were waiting at the PCs ship with a warrant of expulsion in hand.
The loaded the PCs onto their ship and when the took off a wing of fighters from the Vinmal Defense Force where there to escort them to near space where a Verces Systems Defense heavy cruiser was waiting for them.
When the PCs ship was near the pass off point they cut the engines and activated cloaking. The plummeted back towards the surface before engage their engines and flying nape of the earth to Darkside.
So as we look forward to tonight's session.
The PCs are wanted criminals in the Verces System. I look forward to see what they come up with to escape the planet and the system without being blasted out of the sky or space.
*************************END SPOILERS************************************
Starfinder can be what ever you want it to be. The game is only limited by you imagination and willingness to put some effort in.
It will never be perfect. No game is.
And to those who keep mentioning a different game over and over and over and over and over and over....................................................................... ..............................................and over agian.
Go play that flipping game.
Someone posted this earlier in this thread and I wanted to second it. Starship combat is much more fun if everyone takes the time to read the rules and really familiarize themselves with the mechanics of how to play it.
I've found that usually players get frustrated with it because they don't know what is possible within the framework of the rules.
It also gets more fun as you go up in level. So if you played starship combat at level 1 and quit after that you are actually missing out on how it evolves once you get to level 6. Currently I'm participating in a starship combat right now on the Paizo boards that Is quite dynamic. Not only are the pilot and gunners playing a big role, but my PC who is the engineer is contributing big time to keep our starship flying.
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I would like to politely ask that the response to "This doesn't work for me" not be chorus after chorus of "Go play something else, then." If you are going to have a thread on "What is your experience with Starfinder?" it is quite legitimate for people to mention negatives as well as positives. Maybe those who are upset should start a thread "What are your positive experiences with Starfinder"?
If it was a case of someone saying this doesn't work for me then fine.
But it if it is a case of always bashing Starfinder without pointing out positives and then continuously mentioning another game that is the greatest game ever then no I am going to ask them to go away and play what in their mind is the far superior game.
Also it is not upset at all, more nauseated with the same drivel over and over with only dismissive comments to ideas and solutions, while never offering anything useful to make the game better.
You do understand that there is a difference between:
I think mechanic Y of Starfinder is suboptimal here is a way to make it better......
and:
Starfinder stinks in most aspects of its design, not like Computers and Cubicles, which gets it right and is superior.
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I would like to politely ask that the response to "This doesn't work for me" not be chorus after chorus of "Go play something else, then." If you are going to have a thread on "What is your experience with Starfinder?" it is quite legitimate for people to mention negatives as well as positives. Maybe those who are upset should start a thread "What are your positive experiences with Starfinder"?
The context you're missing is that it's the same poster posting the same opinion, over, and over, and over again on these boards. Other posters appear to have lost their patience.
For what it's worth I agree with you that different locations and places should respond differently to different levels of armament, or escalating destructive acts PCs are notorious for engaging in.
It's also the sort of thing that varies from group to group how much they want to engage with the way society works on various planets vs how much they just want to role play or roll dice and do things.
I feel the various adventures have done a decent job of leaving this open ended. The existence of law enforcement is stated. Some possible responses are often listed in a sidebar. GMs can then either handwave securities response to a firefight in a shady docking bay of absalom so their group can get on with the adventure, or they can engage in role play and consequences if their group enjoys that sort of thing.
You know, the difference between 'after questioning you and determining your group was not at fault and getting a statement security lets you leave' vs. A security guard approaches your group and asks you to holster your weapons, what is your response?'
In my opinion, there is no need to codify this in rules for the setting. There is also no need to write out these consequences in an adventure unless it advances the plot of the story. Especially if the 'consequences' are giving a statement, exchanging contact information, then agreeing to appear at a court date a few months in advance then never touching that again.
Now, setting info on how crimes might be handled? That's a different story, and a welcome part of the background that may currently be underrepresented in the lore books.
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Things that I find helpful for starship combat are (in no particular order):
1) Hiring NPCs to fill out the crew. This is super cheap to do, and lets you utilize all positions and use all the guns. I have played with a lot of people that don't do this and it makes starship combat drag on forever because you're not doing enough on your turns.
2) Creating cheat sheets for each roll. This is extremely useful. Starship combat is an entirely different combat system from what you use normally, and no one is ever familiar with it. This leads to everyone forgetting what exactly they can do, and so everyone feels like they only have one option for combat, which is not true at all. The official starship combat cards are releasing in a couple of weeks, so there will be official cheat sheets to get.
3) Using the additional rolls and abilities listed in the COM and SOM. The Magic Officer and the Chief Mate are especially useful to use since they broaden the range of useful skills, but they also have unique abilities that are a great addition. SOM offers crit effects for all combat abilities, which is VERY nice, as well as alternate types of starship combat, such as dog fights and fleet combat.
I personally find starship combat engaging and fun when you use all of the rules, but when you only limit yourselves to using one ability each in a half crewed ship, it does kind of suck.
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It wouldn't require all that much honestly.
There would be official spaceports where all visitors have to land and go through customs. All ships who try to land somewhere else get tracked and intercepted.
Its especially easy on space stations like Absolom or the Idari because there are only a few points of entry and to bypass them you would need to cut through the hull which is both hard and easily detected.
But what would customs check? If there is a pact worlds ID system (with all the anacites and somehow capable of keeping track of the barathu), they might keep track of the locals somewhat. What would they do about near space and the vast? Would the Veskarium share their population database?
Considering how Absalom Station is the pretty much the center of drift travel, I can't even fathom how would they keep a tally on everyone that drops by. It might be impossible, that's why they just give docks away to different groups to manage as they see fit.
On Idari, sure, nobody goes there. It would be easy to keep track of anyone dropping by and sending people away.
And then, there's magic, monsters and gods.
Could criminals bypass this system? Yes, but that would require knowledge and specialized tools. It wouldn't be anarchy where everyone comes and goes as they please. If that were possible you could simply land a small army on Absolom without anyone noticing and attack it from within.
That could just be the reason why weapons are so easy to obtain in Starfinder...
For a 320 years old civilization, they are doing pretty good.
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Gotta agree with Hawk here. The Pact Worlds setting is wide open for interpretation. Only thing limiting you is the boundaries of your imagination. If you want a highly detailed system of laws and police enforcement make it up. If you don't want it don't do it. This game is all about letting your imagination run wild. Absolutely anything can be explained this way.
I remember when the armory book came out and someone commented that the art for the shell knuckles weapon was wrong because the shells were pointing the wrong way. Well, Owen Casey Stephens just explained it away by saying that the shells on the knuckles were just in the carrying position and not loaded yet. It was an obvious mistake by the artist, but like anything else in this game you can use your imagination to justify or explain anything.
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Well, if that's what floats your boat go for it. However, when I play Starfinder I'm not looking for the "real world" to intrude upon my fun. I have to worry about taxes, medical insurance, rent, car insurance, retirement savings, etc... when I'm not playing. I'm glad I can focus on being a big damn hero when I"m playing Starfinder.
I would guess Paizo designed the game so you could have adventures like the Guardians of the Galaxy and that's why there are not many details on things like motor vehicle registration, but a lot on starship combat.
That being said if you want rules on how your PC can contribute to his or her 401K as they reach 20th level and prepare for retirement the system is flexible enough for you to do that.
Starship combat is very boring for some roles because despite a hundred options, only a few are practical or used. The engineer is diverting to shields. Computer guy is going to scan once and then give the gunners +2, and now the athletics guy can first mate away the multi attack bonus (they dropped the DC to reasonable) you only need one gunner
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My favorite AP before this month was Against the Aeon Throne. It's 1st level (so you can dive right in with new characters), it's only 3 volumes (so it's less of a commitment), it's got great bad guys and set pieces (the colony world of volume 1 and the prison break in volume 2 are especially good), and it's in print and supported on Virtual Table Top. Now Fly Free or Die has come out, and I've been working on that for a year, so of course that's my favorite. But you will have to decide for yourself! Dawn of Flame is also a long time fave, as I like the supporting cast and the effreet adversaries a lot.
I have really enjoy the system so far. I really enjoy the AP’s. I have completed dead suns 3 as a GM , Aeon Throne twice and running 2 sets of signal of screams now. I find the system fun and enjoyable. I needed a break from fantasy RPG
I rub SFS games as well but I too, a break from scenarios for a bit to push more of the AP play. Aeon Throne is my favorite so far. I made a few changes as a GM to book one to make the bad guys really bad....and it worked great for the story. My PC in each campaign were hooked to the end and wanting more.
Yes I agree starship side could use some love but no system is perfect. I house rule things as I see fit but honestly I haven’t needed to really change anything to much.
In signal of screams I have added the some elements from shadowrun , I mean why not , the players are in pursuit of an “evil corporation” and its fun.
I do think the math in SF is tighter than it was in 3.5/PF1 and that is good and bad in some ways but once you understand the math you know how to manipulate it and that is what a GM does. You massage things so the math, story, and players all come together and forgot the worries of the real world a few hours at a time.
Paizo delivered a solid product and I appreciate the efforts.
It's a decent system with a great setting, but you should be aware that there are some "traps" built into the system that your players should be aware of before starting. If you bear these in mind, you can and will have a great time playing Starfinder.
The top ones for me are:
1. Everyone should have either a decent strength for melee or a decent dexterity for ranged, even casters and support.
2. Small-arms are essentially useless for damage unless you're an operative.
3. "Weapon Focus" is almost required for reduced BAB classes.
4. If your class doesn't offer a boost to a certain skill, you're going to fall significantly behind in effectiveness in that skill no matter what you do.
5. Don't multiclass more than one or two levels unless you *really* know what you're doing.
6. Damage grenades are disappointingly weak, don't buy them.
7. Don't spread your skill points around too much or you'll find you'll be bad at everything.
You nailed it. Fantastic setting, super fun, but with a somewhat crude rule system. But don't let that bog you down, I encourage fixing stuff with house rules (i.e. more damage to grenades, among many other fixes), and adding anything you need, you will have lots of fun.
The good thing about the system is that it's modular enough for you to figure out how to add your stuff with little effort (even easier than Pathfinder 2)!
Things that I find helpful for starship combat are (in no particular order):
1) Hiring NPCs to fill out the crew. This is super cheap to do, and lets you utilize all positions and use all the guns. I have played with a lot of people that don't do this and it makes starship combat drag on forever because you're not doing enough on your turns.
2) Creating cheat sheets for each roll. This is extremely useful. Starship combat is an entirely different combat system from what you use normally, and no one is ever familiar with it. This leads to everyone forgetting what exactly they can do, and so everyone feels like they only have one option for combat, which is not true at all. The official starship combat cards are releasing in a couple of weeks, so there will be official cheat sheets to get.
3) Using the additional rolls and abilities listed in the COM and SOM. The Magic Officer and the Chief Mate are especially useful to use since they broaden the range of useful skills, but they also have unique abilities that are a great addition. SOM offers crit effects for all combat abilities, which is VERY nice, as well as alternate types of starship combat, such as dog fights and fleet combat.
I personally find starship combat engaging and fun when you use all of the rules, but when you only limit yourselves to using one ability each in a half crewed ship, it does kind of suck.
I agree! As much as I like to nitpick and complain about the rules, I still LOVE starship combat because I am convinced that there is a very solid base here, that with the recent expansions (Starship Ops Manual) has gotten to a very good place. Your suggestions are great, I do those things too!
I also house-ruled that players can have both a "main" action and a "minor" action, designating one of the actions for each role (i.e. scan for the science officer) as also a minor action (you would take a penalty of -4 to the roll, if you are taking it as a minor action). That way players can occupy different roles at the same time and have a little more to do on their turn. So, for instance, a gunner could shoot as their main action and also scan, if they can make the roll, with their minor action, while the science officer would rebalance and maybe do one of the open crew actions as their minor one. My players love it.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
I don't know if later APs fixed this, but with dead suns characters were pretty much dead broke. If you weren't looting it off an enemy you were getting your stat boosts and thats about it in cash.
We level-jumped the characters to 10th and ran the first bit of Dead Suns #5. Since the characters were supposed to be 9th, I added two human foes from later in the module to what was already there (an envoy and some incorporeal undead).
I had a similar problem myself, but solved it by reworking the boss into a higher CR combatant, and adjusting other enemy tactics somewhat. Players still somewhat steamrolled it, but the frontline went into hit points, and they decided not to screw around and get what they needed to get done, done.
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This reads for me as the players and DM didn't really know the rules and had to re-read a lot of them and/or didn't use their full potential. Is this what happened?
In generel I had much better experiences with starfinder combat compared to pathfinder. Most simple reason is the Stamina-System. In PF my players always try tried to dodge as much damage taken as possible. In SF they are more open to try something out even if this mean getting a AoO, simply because stamina regenerate much faster. Also stamina is some sort of indicator if a situation gets out of control ("As long as I have some stamina left everything is fine, but when I get hp damage sh*t hits the fan!")
Also the damage the players deal scale very nicely (if they keep their weapons within 1 or 2 level of their own). Only thing which bothers me a little bit is that the enemies attack boni are so high, making every armor except on level heavy & power armor just a "armor module carrier".
It also helps if you speed up the combat by things like telling the players "know your char, know your abilities", cheat sheets or a simple turn counter sand glass. (but this is nothing special to SF but to all P&P games :D )
...This reads for me as the players and DM didn't really know the rules and had to re-read a lot of them and/or didn't use their full potential. Is this what happened?
In generel I had much better experiences with starfinder combat compared to pathfinder. Most simple reason is the Stamina-System. In PF my players always try tried to dodge as much damage taken as possible. In SF they are more open to try something out even if this mean getting a AoO, simply because stamina regenerate much faster. Also stamina is some sort of indicator if a situation gets out of control ("As long as I have some stamina left everything is fine, but when I get hp damage sh*t hits the fan!")
Also the damage the players deal scale very nicely (if they keep their weapons within 1 or 2 level of their own). Only thing which bothers me a little bit is that the enemies attack boni are so high, making every armor except on level heavy & power armor just a "armor module carrier".
It also helps if you speed up the combat by things like telling the players "know your char, know your abilities", cheat sheets or a simple turn counter sand glass. (but this is nothing special to SF but to all P&P games :D )
I will second what Peg'giz said. Sounds like new players & GM to the system.
I have no experience with higher level combats dragging out if players are properly equipped and know what they are doing.
We finished SoS last weekend. The first encounter in part 2 is a CR11 baddie with 175 hit points & KAC 26.
We have 2 melee soldiers, an operative and a mystic all properly equipped and at WBL guidelines. All were 10th level.
Soldier #1 does 2d10 +17 per hit with a +15 to hit, Solider #2 does 2d8 +17 with a +16, Operative does 2d4 +5 with the chance of an additional 5d8 upon a successful trick attack and the Mystic's max spell damage is 7d10.
So on any give turn the group has a max average damage of 135 points of damage per round if everybody hits, the operative has a successful trick attack and the enemy does not save verses the mystic.
So lets say the operative fails to trick attack put hits (most common result at my table) that still has a max average damage of 112 points of damage per round.
And lets say the operative misses all together (2nd most common result at my table) and the bad guy saves verses the mystic for half. That is still 88 points of damage per round.
Yes all my examples assume the soldiers with the 50% and 55% chance to hit, hit.
In most combats someone usually hits in a round, very rarely does everyone miss or hit.
Point being, 4 10th PCs properly equipped with average plyers should not have much trouble with a CR 11 creature and should dispatch it in in under 10 rounds or 1 minute and average 4 to 6 rounds.
My players did it in 5 rounds or 30 seconds.
As for playing time. A round of combat should not take much more than 5 to 10 minutes.
As the GM, I keep them moving and rule debate is not allowed at the table.
My players and I have found combat & results in SF to be not that dissimilar to PF1.
Personally, unless it's CR+3 or more, I find single targets to go down in 2-3 rounds from level 3 all the way to level 12.
Multiple enemy combats are the ones that tend to drag out, and that's with a AoE focused technomancer in that party.
Yep, can confirm most combats outside of starship combat end really quickly - specially if at least half of the party likes to optimize for battle.
The operative can also take 10 to trick attack. Starting at level 7 the trick attack is automatic against anything that won't roflstomp you.
So to trick a CR 11 you'd need to roll a 31
you can take 10 on the trick attempt. (since its by default a skill they have skill focus with. Yes they've confirmed this) So you need a +21.
6 ranks
+3 trained
+3 Skill focus
+4 for non dex skill
+5 int bonus
= +21.
Racial bonuses could take that higher.
Theme's always a good place to pick up a point.
Or if it's stealth you have +6 dex and +3 from chameleon skin (or chameleon fur)
That's against a critter 5 points above you.
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I don't know if later APs fixed this, but with dead suns characters were pretty much dead broke. If you weren't looting it off an enemy you were getting your stat boosts and thats about it in cash.
Yeah it really didn't improve. Both my AP games have 5 players and to get around gear loot issues I tend to add "mooks" vs adding levels to the big bad as it tends to get more equipment / isk in game. I also tend to add more UPB's credit sticks as well for small gains.
I also ask at the end of each AP book get PDF's of the PC"s sheets or if they have herolab they tell me what there gear / cahs values are and compare to the dreaded wealth by level chart to make sure I keep them in the ballpark.
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Wait, what?
It's just the opposite for us. The trick attack is an automatic success. But the operative doesn't have full BAB and misses a lot. How is your operative failing their trick attack roll?
The DC is 20+CR, so for the CR11 baddie would be 31.
By that level, the operative in our test party had 10 ranks in the skill, plus 3 for it being a class skill, 7 points of stat, 4 points (if I recall correctly) of operative bonus, 4 points from a class feature, and 2 points from race (ysoki). +30 to roll a 31.
Even if you dropped the race bonus and lowered the stat bonus to +6, it's still +27 to hit a 31. *Much* better than the operative's chance to hit, in our hands.
Or one could take the NPC operatives in Pact Worlds, specifically the Mercenary Commando (p. 157). A pair of these were an encounter in one of the modules we used for playtest. They have Stealth +25, or +29 when using trick attack, per their description. They succeed automatically against PCs of their level (DC30).
I will look at the numbers in the rest of the post when I have access to my player's character sheets. But this jumped out at me. We've been wondering if we're playing it wrong as the roll appears trivial, but we checked the rules carefully and can't see a mistake. Trick attack was hard at very low levels but had been automatic success for a while by 10th.
Sad but true. The operative has the detective specialization.
10 ranks sense motive, +1 Wis, +3 class skill, +3 operative's edge for a total of 17.
Now the detective specialization gives a +4 to sense motive trick attacks.
This would be a +21.
Now the part being missing at my table, as BNW pointed out is the ability to take 10 on a trick attack with a skill that you have the Skill Focus feat with.
The player always rolls.
It looks like I need to point out to the player that they should try taking 10 with their sense motive trick attack.
Even if you started with no points in wisdom, at level 10 shouldn't the operative have upped wisdom twice to at least 14 ?
Even if you started with no points in wisdom, at level 10 shouldn't the operative have upped wisdom twice to at least 14 ?
My bad yes the operative is at +2 Wisdom. I was looking at her 9th level sheet when I posted earlier.
When I run the APs I've tended to give 10x the credit rewards. Its not like they can buy uber weapons as they are level locked, so allows them to buy cool stuff.
Yep, normally when the AP says 'give the whole party X credits' I tend to say 'give each player X credits instead'.
I also tend to rebuild bosses and minibosses so that they have weapons and armor that I know my PCs will want to use themselves so they don't have to buy the basics and can instead purchase augments and the like.
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... How is your operative failing their trick attack roll?
How does he miss?
Level 10 Operative should have aroound +12 on attack (BAB +7 / Attribute +5), with some clever placement, equipment and support (flanking, buffs etc.) she could easily get +15 on attacks and reduce it's target AC by 2 (flat fooded).
A Level 10 Brute has a AC of 23(E)/25(K).
So we have a +15 attack vs. AC 21/23 => ~ 70%/60% hit chance.
For the credits I can only recall from my AotS campaign (three players) and they had plenty of money to spent. Never it came to a point where they said "damn it, we need more money!"
If you try to exchange your complete equipment on every level then it's another issue, but do you really need this?
... How is your operative failing their trick attack roll?How does he miss?
Level 10 Operative should have aroound +12 on attack (BAB +7 / Attribute +5), with some clever placement, equipment and support (flanking, buffs etc.) she could easily get +15 on attacks and reduce it's target AC by 2 (flat fooded).
I don't think you can assume an operative is flanking. Most of them appear to be ranged.
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My group trudged through the 3rd book of Dead suns and decided the best idea, once they had the intel, was to report it to the space police (the stewards) and let them do their jobs in dealing with the cult.
Your group should've rolled "heroes" to fit in the AP theme. Someone who delegates their troubles away is definitely a bad match.
I recommend watching Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy for inspiration.
It's honestly the best example of how the fantasy trope falls apart in a sci-fi setting. Think about our world. Want to know something? Internet. Starfinder has space internet, so things like translations of text aren't a challenge... you just open up space google on your data pad and scan the text and boom, translated.
I wonder if space google will ever be able to translate ancient dead languages that have no roots in any known language. And I hope the translations are better than what we currently get!
Galactic threat? Call the space police.
What space police?
"The Stewards operate as elite warrior-diplomats tasked with maintaining the tenuous alliance binding the Pact Worlds together."
I think people really underestimate how big space is. There's no space police in this setting - barely planetary police, and the Stewards are something of a system police.
If you play the Starfinder Society specials, you'll learn that starfinders take care of galactic level threats themselves - and would not be comfortable letting other organizations put their hands on extremely dangerous alien artifacts.
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Yeah, "rather than do the adventure I'm going to go call the police/constables/city guards" isn't a sci-fi specific issue, or even a setting one, the setting is irrelevant, it's entirely a player issue.
If you don't actually want to play the adventure then why are you playing?
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Also, past a certain point, the police are going to be less effective than the average character.
As in, I'd let my players do this, but then see on the news that the police raid simply didn't work, either due to casualties or to the baddies having a contingency for legal action.
Book 3 of dead suns specifically. The stewards aren't going to be welcome on planet, and Eox's local forces are going to move at the glacial pace an undying police force is going to move at. Not to mention, the PCs should know the local forces are likely to be somewhat sympathetic to their targets in the first place.