I've had this discussion with a couple of people on a discord server, which admittedly went absolutely no where, but made me want to make this topic. I was suggested to FAQ this or something, but I'm not interested in doing so. Let's be real, a dev isn't going to answer this, especially over an interaction that they don't want in the first place. Just as reminder, this isn't about homebrewing rules, I'm talking straight up RAW.
Basically it all just comes down to is, what is intended to happen when you attack/shoot a starship with a creature scale attack? The obvious answer to most would be just to simply use starship bulkheads in the section covering structures. What is the problem I have with this? Well, the obvious, nobody wants to deal with 35 hardness and 2,400 hitpoints at any point in the game at any level. Surely you can use other values for different thickness, but I challenge if this were even the intention to begin with, as it seems very sloppy, even for it potentially being an afterthought in the rules.
People would obviously think, "if that isn't what they wanted you to do, wouldn't it be explicitly stated in the rules?" In a perfect world, sure, but that isn't always the case with this game. An example of this is how starship weapon attacks work against creature scale targets and such. Everybody would just say deal x10 damage. I said because they aren't allowed to target and can only function at best as a hazard, we should use rules for traps to simulate this (traps are described as environmental hazards). Nobody agreed with me, but when Orbital Weapons came around in SOM, lo and behold, they work exactly as I described. This is just an example. I'm not interested in speaking further about how starship weapons interact. We got our answer, now to move on to the opposite scenario.
The rules for attacking a starship states that you treat the starship as a massive object. Instead of using a bulkhead, I think the intention was to use objects such as a vehicle as a stand in, when treating the starship as an object. Why do I say this? I mean, aside from using something that definitely works better, imo, the book itself doesn't consider structures/terrain/environment as actual objects, as noted here on page 272 of the CRB:
Most vehicles interact with abilities and spells normally; the effects of an explosive blast on an exploration buggy can be determined using the typical rules, for example.
However, if you are on an exceptionally large vehicle, such as a sizable aircraft or a starship, the vehicle effectively becomes a type of terrain, and it interacts with the effects of abilities and spells differently. The GM is the final arbiter of what type of vehicle classifies as terrain, but examples include airships, mobile factory crawlers, ocean liners, space stations, starships, trains, or any vehicle larger than a typical creature that is size Colossal or larger.
Consult the following guidelines when using abilities or casting spells on vehicles classified as terrain. For the purposes of abilities and spells, exceptionally large vehicles are not considered objects; instead, their various component parts (bulkheads, consoles, walls, etc.) are considered objects. In general, abilities or spells with a stationary or immovable effect (such as wall of force, zone of truth, or the entrance to an Akashic mystic’s memory palace) or spells that are anchored to a vehicle (such as wall of steel) move with a vehicle and are not fixed to the physical spot where they are used or cast. In this way, effects that originate from a character on a terrain-sized vehicle and target an area on that vehicle move with the vehicle, instead of manifesting in a static spot that the vehicle quickly outpaces.
Beyond these guidelines, the exact effects of an ability or spell that originates from a character on an exceptionally large vehicle are up to the GM.
If we just simply use a bulkhead, according to the rules I listed, this would be treating the Starship as a structure/terrain. That's not what the game says, though, it explicitly states that you model it as an object. The page I listed explicitly treats objects and structures/terrain differently, and they're listed separately through the book, such as the disintegrate spell, for example.
Why use vehicles specifically, though? Well, back to the aforementioned rules, the game also considers even starships and space stations as vehicles.
Now I understand they didn't tell you how to exactly create said vehicle, but honestly they wanted the heavy lifting in this scenario to be solely on the GM. I mean, how does the HP convert when taking damage afterwards, what about repairs during mid combat? Who knows, and it's obvious stuff like that wasn't meant to interact with creature scale targets and not just "haha, ship big, creature small."
Am I making sense here? I'm not crazy, right? Lol. I really do think this is what they were going for but just kind of left it more as a grey area.
Hopefully I got my point across somewhat clear. Writing on a phone is miserable, sometimes, and if something isn't clear just mention it please, lol.
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I thought it was mentioned (nad makes some sense to me) that starships just don't realistically take any damage from the PCs 'light' weapons. They just simply bounce off or do superficial damage.
I suppose if you consider different parts to be similar to a bulkhead you mentioned, then it is effectively immune to PC fire in a realistic way.
I thought it was mentioned (nad makes some sense to me) that starships just don't realistically take any damage from the PCs 'light' weapons. They just simply bounce off or do superficial damage.
I suppose if you consider different parts to be similar to a bulkhead you mentioned, then it is effectively immune to PC fire in a realistic way.
The issue tends to be, well, then there are CR 15+ creatures who do take significant damage from a PC, even one 3-4 levels lower than the creature. Yet they also have starship stats without any appreciable transformation between the two modes.
So, can a level 12+ PC fight starships? It's something I have a personal solution to, but it isn't the RAW solution.
Also, said monsters could make their normal attacks, but also starships are supposed to damage PCs with the hazard table at an appropriate level... so probably the monster attacks, but what about an NPC in a fighter?
RAW at a minimum is 'yes if the Starship also has creature stats' and 'starships do hazard damage of an appropriate level to PCs'.
If we just simply use a bulkhead, according to the rules I listed, this would be treating the Starship as a structure/terrain. That's not what the game says, though, it explicitly states that you model it as an object.
It explicitly says you no longer model it as an object.
Most vehicles interact with abilities and spells normally; the effects of an explosive blast on an exploration buggy can be determined using the typical rules, for example. (bnw note: obviously the typical rules for an object)
However, if you are on an exceptionally large vehicle, such as a sizable aircraft or a starship, the vehicle effectively becomes a type of terrain, and it interacts with the effects of abilities and spells differently (emphasis mine)
Ie, the rules explicitly say to treat the starship as terrain and stop treating it like an object. Otherwise you wouldn't be treating it differently, or indeed, there would be any need for that entire paragraph.
If we just simply use a bulkhead, according to the rules I listed, this would be treating the Starship as a structure/terrain. That's not what the game says, though, it explicitly states that you model it as an object.It explicitly says you no longer model it as an object.
Most vehicles interact with abilities and spells normally; the effects of an explosive blast on an exploration buggy can be determined using the typical rules, for example. (bnw note: obviously the typical rules for an object)
However, if you are on an exceptionally large vehicle, such as a sizable aircraft or a starship, the vehicle effectively becomes a type of terrain, and it interacts with the effects of abilities and spells differently (emphasis mine)
Ie, the rules explicitly say to treat the starship as terrain and stop treating it like an object. Otherwise you wouldn't be treating it differently, or indeed, there would be any need for that entire paragraph.
You would treat the Starship as terrain provided you're in it, as in boarding it. I'm talking about simply attacking it in a combat situation, not just shooting the walls that are inside it.
The other rule I'm referring to is "shooting starships" in the CRB where it states that you treat the starship as massive object. I probably should have had that rule copy and pasted in the original post.
Starship weapons and regular PC-level weapons work on different scales and aren’t meant to interact with each other. If characters choose to shoot at a starships with their laser rifles (or cast a Spell on it) while it is on the ground, the GM should treat the starships as an object (a particularly massive one, at that). At the GM’s discretion, if starships weapons are ever brought to bear against buildings or people, they deal Hit Point damage equal to 10 × their listed amount of damage. However, starships weapons are never precise enough to target a single individual (or even small group) and can, if the GM decides, be simulated as deadly hazards instead of weapon attacks.
I thought it was mentioned (nad makes some sense to me) that starships just don't realistically take any damage from the PCs 'light' weapons. They just simply bounce off or do superficial damage.
I suppose if you consider different parts to be similar to a bulkhead you mentioned, then it is effectively immune to PC fire in a realistic way.
I'd understand if they implied that weapon attacks would be ineffective, whether it makes sense or not, if they wrote something like "weapon attacks from PC's generally have little effect on the hulls of starships." From where I'm standing, it looks like they tried to give GMs the option simulate it differently. Making starships practically invincible sounds like genuine bad game design, as it allows the PCs to abuse this in any situation that allows them to get away with it.
If we're talking about whether it makes sense or not out of game is a different matter and mostly just wanted to focus on the RAW. Let's not forget though, these hypothetical weapon attacks are not necessarily coming from people such as a foot soldier or guardsman, but possibly from a building sized military vehicle or mech. We shouldn't only picture someone shooting their laser pistol at a spaceship when determining if it's realistic or not.
And if a group of level 13 PCs can fight a CR 16 fire whale and win, they should probably also be able to take on CR 1/4 starships too.
But then you have the endbringer devil, should PCs capable of taking on a CR 19 enemy also be able to down a tier 14 huge sized cruiser with their handheld weapons?
I think there are certain tiers and sizes of starships that can be fought and downed with PCs' mechs, tanks, and laser guns, but there should be others that can, for the most part, ignore that scale of weaponry.
At that point it's less a problem of RAW and more a problem of writing starships and starship creatures consistently.
I think the rate at which starships are immune to PCs on foot/in mechs should be a combination of the Starship tier and the base frame size.
A level 16 mech should be able to tango with level 8 fighters and shuttles and light freighters.
But it probably shouldn't be able to replace a starship's main gun when you're attacking a level 12 battleship or a level 17 ultranought.
And if a group of level 13 PCs can fight a CR 16 fire whale and win, they should probably also be able to take on CR 1/4 starships too.
But then you have the endbringer devil, should PCs capable of taking on a CR 19 enemy also be able to down a tier 14 huge sized cruiser with their handheld weapons?
I think there are certain tiers and sizes of starships that can be fought and downed with PCs' mechs, tanks, and laser guns, but there should be others that can, for the most part, ignore that scale of weaponry.
At that point it's less a problem of RAW and more a problem of writing starships and starship creatures consistently.
I think the rate at which starships are immune to PCs on foot/in mechs should be a combination of the Starship tier and the base frame size.
A level 16 mech should be able to tango with level 8 fighters and shuttles and light freighters.
But it probably shouldn't be able to replace a starship's main gun when you're attacking a level 12 battleship or a level 17 ultranought.
The Fire whale was supposedly greatly weakened from a recent battle, according to the AP it's in, which is probably why it's 1/4 tier.
I do think a group that can beat an Endbringer can take down a tier 14 ship. Not in space, of course, they generally aren't space capable. If it's set up as an encounter in atmosphere for the PCs to deal with? Absolutely.
I wouldn't get too caught up in how big things are in terms of combat. Nobody thinks a tiny ship should beat an ultranought 1v1, but it's allowed by the game. Massive vehicles like the Dioxide Wingship is 1,200 ft. long but only level 11. The giant template doesn't even add to a creature's CR, despite basically doubling its size. The CR/level of something is just a measurement of effectiveness, regardless of what form it takes. The game doesn't seem to really care about size, for the most part.
There is also the interaction between fighting a starship and fighting on a starship to consider. If the weapons of the PCs can damage a starship when the PCs are trying to damage it, they could also accidentally do the same thing when the PCs are fighting on a starship but do not want to damage it. It is a lot easier for the GM to rule that neither sort of combat damages a starship.
I wouldn't get too caught up in how big things are in terms of combat.
I'll be honest, I prefer to get caught up on how big things are. It just puts my mind more at ease when 'let's just shoot it randomly with our guns' is an acceptable solution to sabotaging a fighter, but not a dreadnought.
There is also the interaction between fighting a starship and fighting on a starship to consider. If the weapons of the PCs can damage a starship when the PCs are trying to damage it, they could also accidentally do the same thing when the PCs are fighting on a starship but do not want to damage it. It is a lot easier for the GM to rule that neither sort of combat damages a starship.
The rule I quoted in my OP says that you would be treating the ship as terrain if you're on the ship. You wouldn't damage it in the same way as opposed to fighting one.
Its a bit of a kludge, but its probably an unavoidable kludge with the system as intended. The alternative would require a complete ground-up revamp of the object/terrain damage system, which would probably spiral out into a Mutants & Masterminds-scale rebuild of the fundamental system chassis. Because if you can blow a hole through starship hull armor with your personal capabilities, you should be able to do the same with a building wall, or the side of a small mountain, or etc. Which is perfectly reasonable a premise, but Paizo probably didn't want to have to account for superhero-scale terrain rearrangement/destruction in their Space D&D.
Yeah, they definitely are in favor of the dungeon crawling aspects of D&D and Pathfinder. It's not limited to PCs, either. If you read the Kyokor's description, it can destroy entire city blocks with a few swipes of their claws, and entire landscapes get wiped out when they fight another colossi. However, they can't do any of that in their statblock for the reasons you mentioned.
What is the problem I have with this? Well, the obvious, nobody wants to deal with 35 hardness and 2,400 hitpoints at any point in the game at any level.
Then I suggest finding another way to destroy a starship.
Starships are not the only thing capable of mounting starship-scale weapons, as indicated in Against the Aeon Throne Book 1, p. 7. So it shouldn't be unreasonable to mount starship weapons on a vehicle chassis. But much like a dedicated mobile SAM launcher they would probably not be able to defend against conventional attack.
What is the problem I have with this? Well, the obvious, nobody wants to deal with 35 hardness and 2,400 hitpoints at any point in the game at any level.Then I suggest finding another way to destroy a starship.
Starships are not the only thing capable of mounting starship-scale weapons, as indicated in Against the Aeon Throne Book 1, p. 7. So it shouldn't be unreasonable to mount starship weapons on a vehicle chassis. But much like a dedicated mobile SAM launcher they would probably not be able to defend against conventional attack.
I said that because I personally think it's a very sloppy rule, otherwise, and why I think it's not actually how they intended you to handle it.
The whole point of my post is to take a closer look at what they exactly mean when saying you treat a starship as an object. Attacking the starship bulkhead in a combat scenario would be treating it as a structure/terrain, but the rule says to treat it as an object. I noted the difference between an object and terrain in my quote in the OP. The only viable objects with statistics are vehicles. Starships are also considered vehicles in that same quote. I'm saying they want you to treat a starship as a vehicle, based off of this. If you are wondering why they didn't just say that, probably for the same reason they weren't clear with starship weapon attacks against people.
I could totally be wrong, but the evidence I've shown is pretty undeniable, imo.
My opinion is that interactions between starships and characters tend to be very sloppy overall. It's better to avoid such situations narratively and wing it when it does come up than have a hard coded RAW to reference.
A soldier X shooting a tier X fighter with a cannon and disabling it makes sense. A vanguard Y punching a dreadnought Y in the bow and breaking it does not.
And, a soldier 1 shooting a shuttle 12 and failing to damage it makes sense, just as a soldier 20 shooting a penetrating line rail gun through a level 9 HQ bulk freighter and disabling it does.
IMO it's the kind of thing that works better without a hard RAW answer.
EDIT: replaced fighter with soldier because starfinder
My opinion is that interactions between starships and characters tend to be very sloppy overall. It's better to avoid such situations narratively and wing it when it does come up than have a hard coded RAW to reference.
A soldier X shooting a tier X fighter with a cannon and disabling it makes sense. A vanguard Y punching a dreadnought Y in the bow and breaking it does not.
And, a soldier 1 shooting a shuttle 12 and failing to damage it makes sense, just as a soldier 20 shooting a penetrating line rail gun through a level 9 HQ bulk freighter and disabling it does.
IMO it's the kind of thing that works better without a hard RAW answer.
EDIT: replaced fighter with soldier because starfinder
I was looking more for a discussion whether my reading of the rules seem correct or not. Not so much about whether it breaks verisimilitude or not and how it necessarily affects your game.
As far as how it affects your games, I'm not seeing too much of an issue with it, honestly. It's less about "let's go crazy with spaceships" and more about presenting a simple solution when the two scales occasionally interact and nothing more.
If we're going to talk about if and why it makes sense, then I'm always going to say yes that it does. I'm not saying let a low level character destroy a capital ship with his rifle, let's not exaggerate this. However, when the game has standard vehicles competing in size with huge sized starships, and has end game encounters like a living doomsday weapon and a flying death sphere that can literally crack planets, excuse me for not considering the verisimilitude of these interactions too strongly, lol.
As far as I can tell, your rules are correct... depending on GM fiat.
Depending on the encounter, a starship will either be nearly indestructible terrain or it will be a destroyable object/creature.
It's up to the GM to decide which mode is happening when, and a player may not choose one or the other outside of choosing to be in their own starship or not.