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I've been thinking about this for a bit, and there was some discussion around it last night on the lodge Discord server.
When a player builds a character in SF1, they're not necessarily always building a character optimized for a Starship role. During sessions as a GM, there's normally a "well, you've got the best bonus in this skill" or "I don't have any relevant skills for any role but Chief Mate or Gunner" moment. As a result, players can sometimes feel stuck.
This is where I started thinking about the change to the rules to more closely mirror how PF2 does things. It would be helpful, though I understand it would likely be a major undertaking for the development of the system, if skill feats and combat feats worked in both personal combat and starship combat roles, with the feats describing their benefits in each situation vs. having to select different feats based on whether you're attempting to optimize for Starship vs. Personal combat situations.
That having been said, not all feats have to work in both situations, but those that make sense to benefit both calling it out would be a step in the right direction.
Almost thinking that the ship should be its own NPC, base stats then players can give it a boost. Kinda like we have it now but in a different way,
Ship rolls init as well as the players as it will have its own turn, and depending on how the players do their checks and actions efects the ship on its turn.
That may simplify things perhaps, just a thought, kinda like the Kingmaker kingdom has its own pers sheet of stuff others can effect it turn by turn
Tom
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I'd like to see "Starship Feats" silo-ed in their own category (like "Class Feats" or "Ancestry Feats"), with all PCs getting a specific number of them at specific levels.
That way players don't have to worry about "wasting" a feat choice on a starship-specific feat if their game doesn't end up involving starship combat as much.
I'd like to see "Starship Feats" silo-ed in their own category (like "Class Feats" or "Ancestry Feats"), with all PCs getting a specific number of them at specific levels.
That way players don't have to worry about "wasting" a feat choice on a starship-specific feat if their game doesn't end up involving starship combat as much.
I agree that in theory, rather than having a feat that gives your character an ability, it could be like you said silo'd as a different stack of feats, and it would instead grant the ship you are on an ability due to your being on the ship. It would thus primarily only impact the game in space combat mode, so the 'additional' feat wouldn't generate power creep.
Some backgrounds or archetypes might offer some things used in space combat as well. But to avoid there being 'must haves' I see them generally being more minor options.
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I'd suggest it as a sort of "Free archetype" thing. If your game doesn't involve starship combat, then it's not something you should be worrying about. If it *does* involve starship combat, then here are a bunch of feats you can get and here are the feat slots to buy them with.
...though I still think it would be cool to have standard progression and starship progression be fully separate tracks, here. Like, why *shouldn't* we allow for the case where a group has been in an enormous number of starship fights, and has capped out the scale on those, but is still only level 5? For that matter, if the party first winds up in starship combat at level 15, then where would they have gotten all of these awesome starship-combat-specific abilities from?
I just think that the ability to have that kind of "totally awesome in one way, fairly green in another" thing would be pretty cool, and this seems like an obvious place to do it.