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I created a thread in the Pathfinder 2e forum titled
"DID YOU STOP PLAYING STARFINDER BECAUSE OF PATHFINDER 2E ?"
Orginal post.
Some in that thread suggested I post it here too, so I thought I'd ask the opposite question here.
Did you stop playing PF1e or PF2e because you like Starfinder more? Or do you still play one or both versions of Pathfinder and Starfinder?
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I just buy the Starfinder PDFs these days to give them a quick read.
I just GM one game system at a time. A few years back that was Starfinder, and then Pathfinder 2E came out and spoiled me with the 3 action economy and the way criticals work (that whole roll 10 over the target). After that, I just couldn't go back to Starfinder and it was just Pathfinder 2E. Then another system caught my attention (no, not D&D) for a couple of years, and I left both. With all the excitement concerning ORC and the Remaster, I realized I missed Pathfinder 2E and have come back and currently enjoying it once again.
I love the Starfinder setting and wish that one day Starfinder gets the 2E treatment. I'm hoping that if it does, it then becomes fully compatible with Pathfinder 2E so I can easily intermix classes, spells, equipment, etc, between the two.
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I haven't played PF1e in a good few years. But do short adventures of PF2e now and then.
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I play a 2e game and a starfinder game, gmed by the same person, alternating systems every weekend (assuming no cancellations). I also gm a 2e game though it's not very far in yet. A quick pro and con list (at least imo);
2e pros
Very easy to gm. My gm prefers gming 2e than being a player, I'm pretty sure. I totally get the math of 2e and there's not really anything in the system I don't understand.
I really like casters in the system. They have some problems of course but they're very balanced. In my 2e game I play a sorc who just hit level 18 for reference.
Being able to play all the way to 20 and the system doesn't break is wonderful.
I appreciate the lack of system mastery needed to perform adequately. A couple people in the 2e game I'm a player in don't have a lot of system mastery, don't spend time planning out their characters, don't make optimal choices in building their characters. Even so they are very good characters and players.
2e cons
Character building and math can be too limited and tight. This is a perception thing of course but half my players prefer 1e and starfinder because of how underwhelming class feats are and how few you get (and skill/general/most ancestry feats are not very strong).
Magic items are pretty lame, we usually use them once or twice and sell them. Only thing we care about buying is weapon and armor runes, apex items, and skill bonus items. I personally hate even the rune system and wish there were class options like adaptive strike or entropic strike for adventures with few resources. And no I don't like using alternate rulesets.
Could be a pro or con but some of my players for sure see it as a con - combats are too difficult. Had a pretty unavoidable player death in our second session of abomination vaults, for instance.
Action economy can be a double edged sword. Some of my players get annoyed at having to spend an action to stay airborne, use an action to recall knowledge, point things out, draw weapons (especially two items), etc.
Any system is going to have this but some classes are very underpowered. I tried hard to convince a player I gm for to not play an alchemist, but coming from 5e he really wanted to play the class. He's playing well but he's struggling. He's having a good time, but I can't help but think if he was anyone who has an actual heal spell or something the party would have a much easier time (they're struggling hard with difficulty).
Of course all of this is an opinion but I personally dislike rarity in 2e. Way too many things are uncommon or rare.
Starfinder pros
Lots of great character options. Most classes have 3 buckets of cool stuff - normal stuff leveling up (natural class features, 2e gets a lot less or are at least less exciting), feats, and whatever class specific options (disciplines, knacks, whatever). Math not being crazy tight means more flexibility for players too.
Equipment is super fun and makes players very motivated to find credits. Especially love augments. Technology in general is fun to play around with, it doesn't always have to be magic that makes your character stronger or capable of crazy feats.
While there are a lot of underwhelming options, not having rarity means basically every AP volume brings some character options to possibly look forward to. Some of my favorites come from aps (entropic one is really fun). I do think maybe looking at sfs and seeing what's not allowed is a good idea for gms as they usually ban overpowered or unclear stuff.
The setting is truly awesome. It's a great mix of freedom and detail.
The classes that are more supernatural are my jam. Solarian, vanguard, evolutionist, and certain options from other classes are very fun and unique, not just magic or not magic like 2e.
Starfinder cons
Less high level play/poorly balanced high level play. I've never played it, but I've heard a lot of the maths fall apart. Plus there's no content outside one AP. Sounds like starfinder enhanced is looking to fix skill DCs at high level, but usually alternate rules don't make it to sfs and there are other issues as well, like saves at high level are too high (I've been told, and looking at the math I think it's true). Also some builds falter at high level such as unarmed attacks.
Casters are too weak imo. The spells themselves are fine, but casting DCs and attack rolls (given 3/4 BAB) are too low.
Slow release schedule is kind of sad sometimes. I would also love more pocket editions of the more popular books, like com or others that have new classes.
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I'm still playing in a 1E War for the Crown game that began in like, 2018, took a Pandemic break, and is still churning along, but we're already talking about diving into Drift Crashers when we're done that, so - probably a most-if-not-all-Starfinder gamer in the not too distant future!
That said, I've played a handful of PF2 bounties, and I did play PFS2 3-99 Fate in the Future (since it was marketed as "play both this and SFS 3-99 to get the whole story!") and I have liked what I've seen of PF2! I'm sort of afraid of diving too deep into PF2, since one sees a lot of talk from people saying "I can't go back to PF1 or SF after PF2's rules!"* and I worry that I would be very susceptible to that. But I love the flavour and setting of Starfinder way more than Golarion, and wouldn't want to get attached to PF2's rules, while still preferring SF's flavour. Between that, and my old brain not being able to hold two similar-but-different-enough rules systems in there at the same time without getting them all muddled up, and I find it's easiest to limit my exposure to PF2. If that makes sense.
* then again I also see a decent amount of talk these days about PF2's warts - lack of playable species (which is really only a fair complaint compared to SF's incredible diversity, lol) (...but seriously are really even gaming if you can't pay a giant floating brain, a polymorphic starfish, cuttlefish psychokinetically carrying around its own fishbowl, a literal bear with an expanded ROM-pack stapled to its brainpan, or a dying star thingy? XD) and the incredibly tight balance & math means that it's just hard to get abilities and equipment that mechanically really do anything meaningful. Like, one of the criticisms I saw of Treasure Vault is that, while a lot of the magic items are really cool and flavourful, they all, mechanically, amount to "an occasional floating +1." So, I dunno, maybe I wouldn't fall in love with PF2 after all. I still feel it's probably safer to not f around, and therefore not find out ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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I have a lot of PF1E under my belt as a GM, but for the last 4+ years I've just been running a SF game. There's a lot more PF1E (and SF) I want to run, but my time and opportunities are limited.
I have no particular interest in PF2E. Mostly just because my plate is already full. As in, I've literally done the math and worked out that at the rate I run APs, and my estimated remaining lifespan (don't fret, I'm talking a few decades here), I already have enough PF1E adventure content to fill the rest of my life.
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I play PF1, SF, and PF2, but the amount of each relative to the others has changed dramatically over time.
I got into PF1 first, converting a v.3.5 campaign to PF1 after a move-induced hiatus. I've run a couple other PF1 campaigns since then, but for a few years now, most of my PF1 play has been PFS (which I started in Season 7 or so), but the amount that I played petered off after Season 10. I'm still playing in a non-PFS AP (though we're currently on a break between books), and I still play or run an occasional PFS 1E session online, but beyond that, playing PF1 has largely fallen by the wayside. I haven't started a new homebrew campaign for a couple years, because I'm still feeling a little burned out from my last attempt, which turned out to be a bit over-ambitious. I'm honestly not sure how much longer my home group will be playing PF1, whether PFS or not. But there are still a couple of modules that I would very much like to run someday, at least.
I've been running and playing a fair amount of Starfinder Society ever since very late Season 1 or so, and it's been the main thing I GM for organized play for the past year or two now. (I ran SFS at a con for the first time last month, as well as my first multi-table special in any system.) I've played through one of the shorter (3-book) SF APs, but haven't run one myself, or run any non-Society games.
I enjoy PF2, and have been playing a fair amount of it since PFS 2E started, but I still haven't made up my mind on whether I want to try running it myself. My wife, OTOH, is a V.O. who recently became a V.L., so she's VERY focused on PF2 right now (and SFS to a lesser extent, but she has me to help with GMing that).