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I think there should be, as they seem a lot more science-fiction-y than arcane or divine casters (at least, I assume that's what the mystic and technomancer classes are.)
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I tend to find the mystic to be closer to the psychic than the cleric.
Nevermind the fact that there is no distinction in starfinder between arcane/divine/primal/occult. In the future, magic is magic.
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The thematic's already here, if mostly in themes and archetypes.
Also, keep in mind the one PF1 caster class that could actually deal with tech was the Psychic... Maybe all technomancer are psychic ? (I kid, but not really)
Also also, many of the Mystic connections lead heavily toward psy/occult theming, indeed.
Witchwarper and the incoming Precog can also fit the bill decently.
But ultimately, it doesn't really matter, what with the arcane v divine v psychic/occult (v primal) distinction just not being a big deal anymore.
Your caster PC uses whatever flavor of magic you want it too.
Can we get more options for what the classes we have ? Always. And we will, eventually.
Can we get PF ones adapted into SF ? That's not really the trend, and many don't translate that easily. But maybe.
Until then, we have a bunch of ways to do it already.
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Funny, my problem with Mystic is that it's too "psychic" already and Technomancer is too "techy" and we don't have good classical spellcasters.
I had my hopes pinned on Witchwarper, but that ended up just being a poor class all around.
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There's an Esper background already and they added Mystic psionic spells in Hive of Minds. So I wouldn't rule it out.
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A running theme of Starfinder's magic is that, like a lot of things, where it comes from matters a lot less than what it does. The distinctions in magic from Pathfinder just don't matter as much. Mystic is both the classic mage AND psychic. It does a lot of things.
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Even the Operative man be given a Occulty feel to it. Their abilities are minimally described and allows them to be interpreted in many ways
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Honestly I feel my problem with the mystic is that it's functionally a stand in for every single spell casting class that had a variable power source; clerics with domains, sorcerers with bloodlines, psychic disciplines, oracle mysteries, shaman spirits, witch patrons; all of that is mystics & connections now. And druids are just the xenodruid connection.
And I feel it makes it a bit shallow because you can't put all the builds & character concepts from all those classes into one class. It's stretched too thin for me.
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Honestly I feel my problem with the mystic is that it's functionally a stand in for every single spell casting class that had a variable power source; clerics with domains, sorcerers with bloodlines, psychic disciplines, oracle mysteries, shaman spirits, witch patrons; all of that is mystics & connections now. And druids are just the xenodruid connection.
And I feel it makes it a bit shallow because you can't put all the builds & character concepts from all those classes into one class. It's stretched too thin for me.
i don't think that's a problem at all. you can flavor your mystic however you want.
no two are going to be the same.
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The problem is (at the moment) the flavoring is weak and that this appears to be less of an issue of opportunity and more Joe Pasini's philosophy of watering everything down so that people who don't like the setting don't feel alienated. If the community wasn't constantly dogging them for the lack of a Paladin/Warpriest cleric in Starfinder I suspect we never would have gotten the Crusader connection.
If I want to be a Hellknight in Pathfinder 2e I get a lot of cool feats that interact with Hellknight armor. +1 AC, +1 intimidation while wearing HK armor, etc, and I get these without necessarily paying a steep opportunity cost.
In Starfinder the archetype feature is much more punitive and the return is pretty weak on "Star Knight". If you're Order of the Chain or Order of the Furnace you get the equivalent of a weapon fusion at level 6 - oooOOOooooOOOh!
You don't even need to wear Hellknight armor in Starfinder as a Hellknight -- what's even the point then?
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The Phrenic Adept archetype released in the Core Rulebook, so I'd say Psychic powers have always been in the system.
Honestly I feel my problem with the mystic is that it's functionally a stand in for every single spell casting class that had a variable power source; clerics with domains, sorcerers with bloodlines, psychic disciplines, oracle mysteries, shaman spirits, witch patrons; all of that is mystics & connections now. And druids are just the xenodruid connection.
And I feel it makes it a bit shallow because you can't put all the builds & character concepts from all those classes into one class. It's stretched too thin for me.
i don't think that's a problem at all. you can flavor your mystic however you want.
no two are going to be the same.
I can flavor a game played with a red lego block & a green lego block however I want, too. It won't have a lot of mechanical depth behind it, though.
I'm not saying that starfinder needs a one to one with every class in PF1e but something is going to get lost in trying to cram six or seven classes into one.
The connections just are what they are. The classes they're there to reflect usually had some degree of choice & customization to their kit right out the gate, and that was before the dozens of archetypes got involved - and for the record I'm actually not a fan of Paizo's new approach to archetypes. I preferred them being customized to the class they were for rather than things that had to be designed in a way to fit over any class, or at least almost any class.
But that's a tangent. Point being, yeah I can flavor whatever however I like but it's debatable over whether or not that much of the heavy lifting should be on my shoulders.
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The heavy lifting comes from your own choice. Mystic was built with the idea I wanted this games version of a cleric. Mystics have the healing magic and a class choice to further give more healing. Done, no heavy lifting needed.
My Mechanic I chose to do some heavy lifting as you call it to flavour my choices, to add to the character and her background.
If you want to go simple, Starfinder has that, if you want to add flavour and more substance, we give you that option too.
I liked Pathfinders class variety, it works for its world. I like Starfinder classes, they work for the world. You don't need each class to be fully integrated from one system to another, if it did, we would be stuck with something like 5 classes, because that what you had in the first ones and no one wanted to change it. PF2 I would expect a good representation of the classes from PF1, with a different setting like SF, I actually prefer they didn't just copy/paste the same classes and tacked on tech.
I do agree about Archetypes. I did prefer the PF1 style, but I was never a big user of them
I liked Pathfinders class variety, it works for its world. I like Starfinder classes, they work for the world. You don't need each class to be fully integrated from one system to another
Except they did mine Pathfinder's IP to populate the world of Starfinder. Otherwise we wouldn't have Hellknight-related feats, elves, half-orcs, and dwarves. You don't get to borrow liberally from one setting to seed your new one and then say "Well you can't expect us to just borrow from Pathfinder, can you?"
Ok so no chance for evolution?
Firstly, the 'legacy' races were never a pure Pathfinder resource, Shadowrun has Elves, Ors, Dwarves.
Secondly, setting fluff is great for keeping connections in the 'Finder' series. Not everything needs to be imported however.
As a setting, they have bypassed several ages (Industrial age, Space race, that sort of thing) so it would be weird if everyone was still just people in flimsy material (Minus Adamantine) swinging sticks and throwing rocks.
Having a fresh new set of classes that better suit the theme of the game works. As I player, would I like more class choices? Yes, do I need there to be a Space Ranger/Barbarian/Monk/Paladin for me to enjoy this game? No.
Are you going to complain about P2e and its classes? No Gunslinger, No actual Paladin, No Oracle.
Games don't need to be carbon copies of its predecessor or its inspiration to work.
Your comment doesn't even really make sense the more I read it. I never once you can't do it, I said you don't need to do it. I never said anything about not basing it off Pathfinder, so comments about races and BGs aren't really connected to "You don't need every class imported from a game" which is the point I was making.
(Edit for a touch of spelling)
. . . I remain baffled. Mystic *is* the "occult/psychic" class, just like Technomancer is the "sufficiently advanced" class, and Witchwarper is the "parallel realities/quantum" class. Yes, these are different flavor variations than how spellcasting is split up in Pathfinder. Its a different setting separated from Pathfinder by millenia. Why would the primary ways of organizing magic *not* be different by that point? Pathfinder uses a high fantasy "gods vs nature vs arcane lore" split. Pathfinder uses a "psychic forces vs clarkes law vs quantum" split.
Is the sticking point that Mystics have a connection, which implicitly ties them to some higher force than themselves, and you want to play a psychic with no "strings" attached? Because "psychics are linked to higher powers" is not exactly a rare thing in science fiction, going back at *least* to Doc Smith.
I think if they introduced a straight "divine" class it would go a long way to keep people from making this complaint about the mystic. I'm not sure how it would look but I'd like to see something that can, with options be a utility fighter or a utility healer of some kind. Call them a "Herald" and they would have an association to a church or organization and gain either spells or holy weapons from that connection as long as they are furthering their gods wishes. I like that Starfinder has these highly versatile classes that aren't pigeonholed into old concepts. Really any flavor of divine would help if only because they push the churches and gods a lot in lore but they don't have much in the way of class representation.
Starfinder Psionics.
I think there should be, as they seem a lot more science-fiction-y than arcane or divine casters (at least, I assume that's what the mystic and technomancer classes are.)
Right, so, getting away from the arguing over the magic using classes built for Starfinder, I should like to point out the Legacy Conversion rules that start on page 500 of the Core Rulebook. Existing classes don't have enough of a psion feel for you? Import a psionic class from another 3.X setting. Problem solved.
That is, after all, a large part of the reason those rules were included. This will, admittedly, involve a decent amount of work by you and your GM, but at the end of the day, you'll likely find it all the more satisfying for that.
I think if they introduced a straight "divine" class it would go a long way to keep people from making this complaint about the mystic. I'm not sure how it would look but I'd like to see something that can, with options be a utility fighter or a utility healer of some kind. Call them a "Herald" and they would have an association to a church or organization and gain either spells or holy weapons from that connection as long as they are furthering their gods wishes. I like that Starfinder has these highly versatile classes that aren't pigeonholed into old concepts. Really any flavor of divine would help if only because they push the churches and gods a lot in lore but they don't have much in the way of class representation.
If you want a mystic that leans into the divine connection more, give it the priest theme. It won't make the mystic's class abilities any more "divinely inspired," but it will give the character a more direct link to a church or similar organization.
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It's not like clerics were especially thematic for their deities beyond domains to begin with.
^I guess this brings up the question of whether Starfinder will even get Specialty Priests Divine Connection Mystics?
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Any mystic can already be one, that is why there are gods listed who can provide each Connection. Having connection to a war god gives you war powers, having a connection to a star god gives you star powers, etc.