Making Gear More Interesting

[Golurkcanfly]

One of the more emphasized aspects of Starfinder is how much of a character's abilities come from gear and how those pieces of gear interact with the rest of the system. A lot of these different aspects can be pretty janky or unintuitive at times, but choosing gear generally has some interesting decisions even at the earliest levels.

In contrast, one of the weaker aspects of the Pathfinder Second Edition system is that low-level gearing, especially armor, isn't that interesting. Plenty of weapon traits feel inconsequential and mundane armor is largely an obvious decision determined by your other stats. While Armor Specialization does help differentiate armor within the same category, it's somewhat forgettable, low-impact, and doesn't come online until 7th level.

To help make low-level gearing more interesting in Starfinder Second Edition, I would be interested in more weapons and armor coming with traits that grant activities. For example, the Overcharge trait could grant a two-action activity that fires a single, enhanced shot like the Inventor's Megaton Strike. Another example would be a Lasso trait that grants an activity to yank a distant foe toward the wielder. The more weapons that have traits like these, the better.

Automatic/Area weapons already do a fantastic job of introducing similarly high-impact activities, and I would love to see these types of ideas applied to more weapons and armor in the future.

[Karmagator]

I'm 100% here for weapon categories and certain traits giving "innate" active abilities. Not only does that make gear actually matter more, it also gives more riders that feats/features can use. A very nice side benefit is that it gives you more variety in your actions early on, without putting pressure on your class to do so. And that it even a benefit you will enjoy far beyond the early game. I can't emphasize enough how important that is once you played the system for a while.

Unlike fundamental runes, this is what I want from the idea of "part of your character's power comes from gear".

[WatersLethe]

I can get behind this idea. It works well with the new system of tiered equipment where you aren't pressured into switching to a gun or armor you don't like just because the numbers are better. If someone gets a gear action they like they won't be forced to lose it.

[Staffan Johansson]

Generally speaking (and I recognize that this might be a PF2 compatibility issue), my preference would be for "basic" combat improvement (the equivalent of PF2's Fundamental Runes) to be part of your class progression. Upgrading your weapon and armor should be about letting it do Cool Stuff, not about just hitting better/harder.

In other words, I agree.

[Sanityfaerie]

Yeah... I've seen a PF2 discussion where someone basically said "I'm introducing a new 3rd-level character to an existing campaign, and I don't know what to do with my money. Nothing seems particularly interesting." The general consensus seemed to be "just save it all so you can improve a fundamental rune sooner".

That's... actually okay for PF2. It's not a big deal. I feel like it would be a real disappointment for SF2, though.

[OrochiFuror]

With futuristic ranged weapons there should be a wide variety of options, all with some basic actions they should be capable of that others won't be. Like two or three round burst could add agile to the weapon when taking a firing activity.
Cone weapons, burst weapons, full auto weapons, beams, chaining, lock on, bouncing, hazard creating, penetrating, etc. There's dozens of basic functions a weapon could have that its traits allow it to be used a certain way.
Between Borderlands, Unreal/Quake, Mass Effect, Gunfire reborn and similar games you can come up with a lot of weapons that either only work a certain way or have fire modes that let them have special attack options anyone can take advantage of.

The same can be done for melee and armor to really give the building blocks for a play style.

[Karmagator]

Speaking of variety, weapon property runes aka fusion seals (if that name stays around). Specifically, damage runes. Something I'd very much like to avoid is the PF2 meta, as just stacking these is likely by far the best thing you can do (outside of certain special builds). SF1 "damage" fusion seals on the other hand - according to my admittedly limited experience/knowledge - allow you to basically have a damage type selector much like the modular trait. This sounds like a much better system that should be retained.