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I guess our clamoring for a technology book really paid off! I can't wait to give my players their beloved rail guns and laser rifles again!
I expect that the Evolutionist will fill the Shifter niche. (Fully prepared to be wrong now that I've said it)
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I guess our clamoring for a technology book really paid off! I can't wait to give my players their beloved rail guns and laser rifles again!
Going to be a lot easier to run a Iron Gods or Distant World campaign, since you can just pull in stuff from Starfinder now.
I do wonder if this will cause balance/weirdness issues. It might clash with the aesthetics if someone wants to bring in a a character from Pathfinder into Starfinder and vice versa. It kind of feels wrong if a ranger with a bow and arrow is equally as effective as Space marine with high tech armor and rail guns.
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It might clash with the aesthetics if someone wants to bring in a a character from Pathfinder into Starfinder and vice versa. It kind of feels wrong if a ranger with a bow and arrow is equally as effective as Space marine with high tech armor and rail guns.
It might. It might not.
Hawkeye and Iron Man are both in the same movies.
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I think from a logistical perspective, this was not just inevitable, but necessary to move forward as a company. This will allow all devs, freelancers, editors, and designers to work off a similar set of mechanics and allow them to more easily pitch hit and even rotate between teams (assuming teams are even kept separate in the first place) to keep perspectives fresh.
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I think from a logistical perspective, this was not just inevitable, but necessary to move forward as a company. This will allow all devs, freelancers, editors, and designers to work off a similar set of mechanics and allow them to more easily pitch hit and even rotate between teams (assuming teams are even kept separate in the first place) to keep perspectives fresh.
Oh, I absolutely agree that it's the obvious correct choice, especially now that they're cutting the cord from D&D. I just hadn't expected it to hit quite so soon. Like, there was what looked like a major attempt to rejuvenate things within the past year. (You know - whatever book it was that had the little sun-creature ancestry, and that on top of the Drift Crisis event.) I'd be curious to know what came of that. Were the sales just not there or something?
...and the "obvious correct choice" thing kicks in for more reasons than you've suggested. Sure, they get to shuffle their staff around more easily, but they also get some cross-pollinization between their playerbases. Like, I personally would not have bothered with Starfinder books prior to this. I got into PF2 for reasons that Starfinder had no grasp on. Now, though? well... I might keep my eye out on their new and upcoming products. Like, if starfinder gets the "Your schtick is that you are host to a cluster of helpful symbiotes." class, and it's done reasonably well...? There's a good chance I'll buy that book. I'd at least be tempted.
Then, too, we've commented about how the more recent classes in PF2 have been able to reach out and do more interesting things in more interesting ways than the first few. The later classes were tuned better too. That's all about institutional skill with this particular game balance paradigm. Plugging SF2 into that same exact paradigm means that they get to have the same game balance benefits that PF2 has always enjoyed, but they also get "kineticist and later" levels of being able to safely stretch the system from day one. That's a serious competitive advantage that they get to pretty much just have on the basis of institutional knowledge that they've already paid for.
So yeah. Clearly the correct choice.
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I am still advocating for either a rulebook or a Lost Omens books for Pathfinder that establishes the status quo as far as Distant Worlds are concerned. We need a World(s) Guide, especially for new people coming into the setting from 1e, Starfinder, Spelljammer, etc. Also the revelation of the Azlanti Star Empire could have huge backward ramifications for the Lost Omens world.
I think it would be really hard to make Operative distinct from Rogue. They're the skills and sneak attack class! I could see Operative lean into intelligence gathering, but then there's Investigator on that side. It would be my first choice to leave behind (especially since we already banned it in our SF1 games for eating everyone's lunch).
I think Technomancer has a great chance of making it in! I think its important to keep a spellcaster that's tuned into technology, and I can think of half a dozen ways to make them distinct from wizards off the top of my head. While I didn't personally care for their mechanical incarnation in SF1, I would hate to see them drop off for PF2.
Biohacker doesn't feel super necessary. I could see Medicine skill support carrying the concept a long way without a full class. I don't know for sure though.
Witchwarper feels like it was an attempt to make a Sorcerer for SF1, and I don't really feel the need to carry it forward if Sorcerer is right there. I was turned off by its anemic abilities early on though.
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One thing to consider when speculating on classes: even if there can now be mechanical cross-over, they are going to want major character archetypes available in the core rulebook for Starfinder. I don't see them dropping operative for that reason, as you shouldn't have to buy a completely different book just to play a rogue-like character.
For that reason, I would assume mechanic and operative to show up in the core rulebook. They can always revise the operative to make it more distinct, if there are concerns on similarity.
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I think from a logistical perspective, this was not just inevitable, but necessary to move forward as a company.
From a legal one, too. Paizo needs to shed the OGL as quickly as possible and simply does not have the time to spin up an entirely new system from scratch. Even if they had wanted to keep the game lines separate, WotC forced their hand on this too.
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I think Technomancer has a great chance of making it in! I think its important to keep a spellcaster that's tuned into technology, and I can think of half a dozen ways to make them distinct from wizards off the top of my head. While I didn't personally care for their mechanical incarnation in SF1, I would hate to see them drop off for PF2.
Conversely, "tech-focused caster" feels like it would be an excellent archetype...
The Field Test 1 document is the first thing I've seen with an ORC notice in it.
I expect that the Evolutionist will fill the Shifter niche. (Fully prepared to be wrong now that I've said it)
In 2029 when it gets published for SF2?
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One possible consequences of making the PF2 and SF2 rules very compatible, is that it will make a much more tempting for a computer game company to develop a solid core system that could be used to make games for either, running entirely alongside the ORC License with no OGL content to worry about.
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One possible consequences of making the PF2 and SF2 rules very compatible, is that it will make a much more tempting for a computer game company to develop a solid core system that could be used to make games for either, running entirely alongside the ORC License with no OGL content to worry about.
Yeah! And if they don't go for a SF game, an ambitious modder could maybe take up the task.
Witchwarper feels like it was an attempt to make a Sorcerer for SF1, and I don't really feel the need to carry it forward if Sorcerer is right there. I was turned off by its anemic abilities early on though.
I'm reserving judgement on this until we see the revised witchwarper. Because flavorwise, this was probably my second favorite starfinder class (favorite being Nanocyte), with Precog not far behind it.
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People talk about the cantina-style alien approach being a big draw, but it was actually a huge let-down for me in play. The ancestries felt hollow because the lore behind most of them was shallow, and their mechanical expressions were also weak, niche, or easily replicated by gear.
I'd *much* rather have ancestries fleshed out with the feats of PF2, which help tell the story of the ancestry throughout play instead of just at level 1. They also get access to the Pathfinder ancestries right out the gate, helping boost the numbers, and additional alien ancestries released down the line could be helpful for sales.
Worst case they could have ancestry feat pools that multiple ancestries can dip into in order to reduce page count.
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Maybe one way to make the Operative distinct from the Rogue is to lean into the name. An Operative would actually be an operative for an organization, and would choose the type of organization at first level - this would be their class option. They could be able to call on certain resources based on their organization choice - military, intelligence agency, corporation, activist group, revolutionary cell, etc.
*whispers* Inquisitor...
They could also run a sort of merging of ancestry feats and general feats (or whatever). That would mean that you wouldn't have to have a Full Set of ancestry feats for each ancestry. You could go as shallow or as deep as you wanted, and people would still have options.
What I'm curious about is how they will handle ancestries in SF2E. A big draw for Starfinder is the cantina-style number of aliens you can play as, but that sort of model isn't really feasible in PF2E, where each ancestry requires at least four pages of space.
What I suspect will end up happening is either the number of playable aliens will be drastically reduced, which would make me sad, or that the number of levels you get ancestry feats will be cut back, and those other levels given something else. Perhaps that is where benefits from your theme can go, assuming themes aren't folded wholesale into backgrounds, which would make a lot of sense.
My assumption is close to what you're guessing, that backgrounds and ancestries will flip in their complexity. Basically give backgrounds (themes) the feats at 1st level and higher levels, and ancestries get everything they're going to get at level 1. Could even pull some power from backgrounds (like the bonus feat) in order to give ancestries enough to play with to feel notable.
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While I think the Operative is the SF class with the most obvious analogue in PF, with the Rogue, I don't think it's a good idea to axe the Operative.
If you do, I think SF will really feel the loss of their skills class. And while you always could port over a bunch of Rogues with vibroknives or what have you, that would require tables to use Pathfinder products to play Starfinder, which is pretty awkward, imo.
I know the Envoy and Mechanic were also very proficient in skills, but their flavor and mechanical niche were very distinct from the Operative. And the futuristic Operative is such an iconic design that not having it would feel wrong to me.
Do we know what SF2 is doing with spellcasting design?
The PF2 and SF went in opposite directions (in PF2 there are only 9 level casters and in SF there are no nine level casters) and I'm not entirely sure how they reconcile that design space, since having martial capabilities is a big aspect of SF spellcaster identity.
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What I'm curious about is how they will handle ancestries in SF2E. A big draw for Starfinder is the cantina-style number of aliens you can play as, but that sort of model isn't really feasible in PF2E, where each ancestry requires at least four pages of space.
What I suspect will end up happening is either the number of playable aliens will be drastically reduced, which would make me sad, or that the number of levels you get ancestry feats will be cut back, and those other levels given something else. Perhaps that is where benefits from your theme can go, assuming themes aren't folded wholesale into backgrounds, which would make a lot of sense.My assumption is close to what you're guessing, that backgrounds and ancestries will flip in their complexity. Basically give backgrounds (themes) the feats at 1st level and higher levels, and ancestries get everything they're going to get at level 1. Could even pull some power from backgrounds (like the bonus feat) in order to give ancestries enough to play with to feel notable.
I think Starfinder 2nd edition will take into account how we keep printing the same kind of ancestry feats over and over again. Every ancestry gets 3 weapon feats, and 1 skill feat for example. So you could probably make a "list of feats available to every ancestry" that refers to a list of weapons/skills/etc. that are just part of the stat-block of the ancestry. Then you only need bespoke feats for the specific things that make an ancestry unique.
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... While PF2 and SF2 are meant to be compatible, I'm not sure how much the game should lean into computability.
Like being able to take PF2 content and use it in SF2 is awesome, but having to hack a PF2 Rogue into Starfinder because the Operative got axed feels... less than great?
I'm also not sure how well that theory holds up in general since space-fighter and space-cleric are already on the list of confirmed classes.
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I think Starfinder 2nd edition will take into account how we keep printing the same kind of ancestry feats over and over again. Every ancestry gets 3 weapon feats, and 1 skill feat for example. So you could probably make a "list of feats available to every ancestry" that refers to a list of weapons/skills/etc. that are just part of the stat-block of the ancestry. Then you only need bespoke feats for the specific things that make an ancestry unique.What I'm curious about is how they will handle ancestries in SF2E. A big draw for Starfinder is the cantina-style number of aliens you can play as, but that sort of model isn't really feasible in PF2E, where each ancestry requires at least four pages of space.
What I suspect will end up happening is either the number of playable aliens will be drastically reduced, which would make me sad, or that the number of levels you get ancestry feats will be cut back, and those other levels given something else. Perhaps that is where benefits from your theme can go, assuming themes aren't folded wholesale into backgrounds, which would make a lot of sense.My assumption is close to what you're guessing, that backgrounds and ancestries will flip in their complexity. Basically give backgrounds (themes) the feats at 1st level and higher levels, and ancestries get everything they're going to get at level 1. Could even pull some power from backgrounds (like the bonus feat) in order to give ancestries enough to play with to feel notable.
Not likely if full compatibility is the plan, but I always felt like Starfinder 2 would benefit from flipping the ancestry/background script to better match how Starfinder 1 looks. Exhaustive Themes with their own Theme Feats and simple ancestries that provide a handful of physiological benefits and nothing else.
You can't really have Starfinder's billion and one playable ancestries if they're all constructed like PF2 ancestries, and in SF1 themes are a lot bigger of a deal in general.
It would fit the way SF is structured better, while also addressing some of the weird race essentialism the PF2 ancestry system creates.
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In the keynote, they said SF2e will have a full 10 spell ranks, just like PF2e. I don't recall anything indicating whether the arcane/divine/occult/primal distinction will transfer to SF2e, or if they will keep the existing "magic is magic" theme.Do we know what SF2 is doing with spellcasting design?
The PF2 and SF went in opposite directions (in PF2 there are only 9 level casters and in SF there are no nine level casters) and I'm not entirely sure how they reconcile that design space, since having martial capabilities is a big aspect of SF spellcaster identity.
The mystic is described as employing divine and primal magic in the blog, so they seem to still be there.
... While PF2 and SF2 are meant to be compatible, I'm not sure how much the game should lean into computability.
Yeah, I think the goal should be for the systems to be "mutually intelligible" but not necessarily compatible.
Like a huge muscular dude in power armor with a stormhammer should probably wipe the floor with a Barbarian in magic armor with a runic maul, to say nothing about "Starfinder has better guns." Technology catches on because it is effective, after all.
The example they gave for "being able to take one to the other" was "monsters" not "PCs" and monsters are generally supposed to lose.
Not likely if full compatibility is the plan, but I always felt like Starfinder 2 would benefit from flipping the ancestry/background script to better match how Starfinder 1 looks. Exhaustive Themes with their own Theme Feats and simple ancestries that provide a handful of physiological benefits and nothing else.
You can't really have Starfinder's billion and one playable ancestries if they're all constructed like PF2 ancestries, and in SF1 themes are a lot bigger of a deal in general.
It would fit the way SF is structured better, while also addressing some of the weird race essentialism the PF2 ancestry system creates.
Also, if they're mostly just moving around what gets given to each, like themes get all the selected feats but ancestries get the bonus feat, characters could be built differently but retain balance.
That said, that would mean that ancestries from SF couldn't be plugged into PF, and vis versa. So on second thought perhaps the big pool of ancestry feats that anyone can select does make more sense after all.
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I wouldn't mind seeing a Solarian in PF2E, to be honest. ^^
I feel like the biggest change is "Starfinder is going to go to the three action system".
The biggest question I have is whether Starfinder is going to keep things that Pathfinder 3rd edition is liable to drop (like the Constitution stat.)
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I personally don't care to have future=better, but if you do the Field Test document has future armor giving you resist 10 to all archaic weapons.
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I know Keftiu will be pleased by this development, given the possibilities it opens up for Numeria! :3
She is, it does!
I’ve had some silly, selfish hopes of eventually playing a Lashunta Solarian in PF2 for the entire length of the edition. I can’t believe it’s actually happening!
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I am still advocating for either a rulebook or a Lost Omens books for Pathfinder that establishes the status quo as far as Distant Worlds are concerned. We need a World(s) Guide, especially for new people coming into the setting from 1e, Starfinder, Spelljammer, etc. Also the revelation of the Azlanti Star Empire could have huge backward ramifications for the Lost Omens world.
While I’d love this, I will say that Akiton and Castrovel have both gotten a foothold via gazetteers in 2e Adventure Paths. The Castrovel one (in Gatewalkers #1) is excellent!
Design Manager
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... While PF2 and SF2 are meant to be compatible, I'm not sure how much the game should lean into computability.
Like being able to take PF2 content and use it in SF2 is awesome, but having to hack a PF2 Rogue into Starfinder because the Operative got axed feels... less than great?
I'm also not sure how well that theory holds up in general since space-fighter and space-cleric are already on the list of confirmed classes.
SF2 will stand on its own two feet as a complete system unto itself. Just one that happens to make that happy Lego click sound when you push it together with PF2.
I do wonder how much they're going to use compatibility to 'solve' gaps in both systems. People have been asking for a while for a defensive character that tangled up in divine baggage in PF2 ... I wonder how much Paizo considers the tankier Soldier to be a potential solution to that.
The only way I can see the ancestry system of PF2E working with SF1E's cantina approach is with solid hardcovers that are JUST alien ancestries.
Might be worth it to get to play a skittermander in PF.
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There are definitely things I think Paizo could learn by leapfrogging PF2 and iterating on the system.
But full compatibility opens up a lot of options and is probably easier to manage in general (which is why it's so common in the industry among smaller developers) that overall I think it's a huge W.