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Is the overlapping of skills a bad thing? Considering how important computer and engineer checks are in Starfinder. If only mechanics were good at computer and engineer checks, every party would have to have a mechanic. Flavor wise an operative wants to hack a computer or pick a lock when no one is looking, whereas a mechanic might say watch me do this to show off their skills. Having more than one character with the same skill is a perfect time to use Aid Another.I think it's less the overlap as it is how broad Engineering and Computers are as skills. An operative who's studied up on how to break into offices and empty their databases is simultaneously qualified to perform massive starship repairs mid-battle and operate targeting sensors in battle. Unfortunately I can't think of how to break the two skills apart enough for each to do their thing.
I think you're right about the skill being too broad. If you lock yourself out of your car, do you call a locksmith or an engineer? Offhand I don't remember many adventures calling for a perfossion maintenance worker check, but often its more fitting than an engineering. I can think of severely times when an engineering check was called to find and fix the lights in a room or building.
It might also help if Starship skills were separate from normal skills.
Personally, I think starship skills should be a completely separate part of character creation and development.
Is the overlapping of skills a bad thing? Considering how important computer and engineer checks are in Starfinder. If only mechanics were good at computer and engineer checks, every party would have to have a mechanic. Flavor wise an operative wants to hack a computer or pick a lock when no one is looking, whereas a mechanic might say watch me do this to show off their skills. Having more than one character with the same skill is a perfect time to use Aid Another.I think it's less the overlap as it is how broad Engineering and Computers are as skills. An operative who's studied up on how to break into offices and empty their databases is simultaneously qualified to perform massive starship repairs mid-battle and operate targeting sensors in battle. Unfortunately I can't think of how to break the two skills apart enough for each to do their thing.I think you're right about the skill being too broad. If you lock yourself out of your car, do you call a locksmith or an engineer? Offhand I don't remember many adventures calling for a perfossion maintenance worker check, but often its more fitting than an engineering. I can think of severely times when an engineering check was called to find and fix the lights in a room or building.
It might also help if Starship skills were separate from normal skills.
Personally, I think starship skills should be a completely separate part of character creation and development.
This does make sense. It thematically separates driving a car from steering a starship, or martial arts from firing quad coilgun mounts. The only issue there is that you essentially now have a separate skill list with its own points to spend. Or you integrate it with the current lists and add more skill points (and hope people understand the need). Would this be a good addition for the system's complexity?
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I agree it's a hit to 'simulationist' verisimilitude, but I'm very much in favour of skills being consolidated. I would definitely take "too consolidated" over "not consolidated enough" in a heartbeat. I'm not interested in going back to the, like, dozens of skills in 3.5.
"Yes I took 20 ranks in Knowledge (Arcana) and have wrote my doctorial thesis on the comparative magical traditions of Castrovel's formian hives of the 12th Common Period, but I have no ranks in Concentration or Spellcraft so I can't help you magically in the field. Sorry!"
"OOoooh yeah I'm an Olympic-level gymnast with max ranks in Balance and have won the Kurgess Medal for Balance Beam at the Pact Worlds Solar Games - twice! - but, no ranks in Tumble, so sorry."
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Interview with Thurston Hillman.
Thurston Hillman talks about Ports of Call and Starfinder Enhanced.
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Listened to that this morning, very much worth listening to! Got me even more excited for enhanced.
Very interested in seeing how the Free Archetype rules Thirsty mentioned play out.
Whoa, the witchwarper change is big. Did I understand right that they get twice the spell slots, but their bonus spell slots can be only used on infinite worlds? That frees them up massively.
Sounds like envoys are getting a freed up on action economy somehow so they can spend more actions attacking at low levels.
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It's a minor bugbear to me that they specified that these were somehow 'spell slots' as opposed to implementing a cleaner pool of points or something similar. Feels like something that could be edited into a smoother implementation.
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Agreed. I'm a little disappointed that Thursty seemed to be playing down the similarities between this and Pathfinder Unchained. Makes me think that none of the four classes will get true overhauls, just minor tweaks compatible with their existing mechanics.
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Personally I really like it. Instead of making a basically new class that would probably not play well with old abilities, we might just get straight upgrades to classes that need them. That remains to be seen and could be wrong but the general vibe I got was that the focus is on buffing classes, not taking from old ones **operative**
Whoa, the witchwarper change is big. Did I understand right that they get twice the spell slots, but their bonus spell slots can be only used on infinite worlds? That frees them up massively.
As clarified on the Discord yesterday: You get normal spells, including your usual bonus spells.
You also get extra bonus slots, equivalent to your normal bonus slots (from attribute), that can only be spent on free use of Infinite Worlds.
So at 1st level a WW with Charisma of 12-18 would get one free use of 1st level IW.
At 10th level a WW with Charisma 24 would get two free uses of IW spell levels 1-3, and one free use of spell level 4.
You also get extra bonus slots, equivalent to your normal bonus slots (from attribute), that can only be spent on free use of Infinite Worlds.
Ah. Not nearly as many as it sounded like in the interview. Still nice, but not as freeing as I was imagining.
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Thurston Hillman also talked about Ports of Call. I'm excited to hear Outpost Zed will be included in it.
He also talked about Starfinder Enhanced being more like Character Operations Manual 2 than Pathfinder Unchained. There is a GM section, so could be room for a 3-action economy, but it doesn't sound likely. One of the other new things in the book was new uses for resolving points. One of those uses was taking another move action. That doesn't sound very useful if they also added the 3-action economy. I like the idea of using resolve for an extra move action. It gives us more action options without messing with the game balance by allowing extra attacks per turn.
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Whoa, the witchwarper change is big. Did I understand right that they get twice the spell slots, but their bonus spell slots can be only used on infinite worlds? That frees them up massively.
As clarified on the Discord yesterday: You get normal spells, including your usual bonus spells.
You also get extra bonus slots, equivalent to your normal bonus slots (from attribute), that can only be spent on free use of Infinite Worlds.
So at 1st level a WW with Charisma of 12-18 would get one free use of 1st level IW.
At 10th level a WW with Charisma 24 would get two free uses of IW spell levels 1-3, and one free use of spell level 4.
That's not as good as it originally sounded, but still helpful. It's also likely not the only change or addition to the witchwarper.
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At the very least I think Thursty had said one of two bigger changes is the extra slots for infinite worlds. So one more bigger change, and then who knows!
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It is not the only change. :)
That's not as good as it originally sounded, but still helpful. It's also likely not the only change or addition to the witchwarper.
Good to hear :) If it had been the only change, then more extra slots would have made sense. Excited to see what the other changes are. Better to have more options than just more uses of one ability.
Sounds promising for Witchwarper. Was anything mentioned about solarians/technomancers?
Not that I remember other than they will be getting tweaks and that there is a lot of new material for all classes in addition to the rebalancing.