So now that plenty of us have had time to take in the latest book, what do we think of the new DC and starship system?
There have been complaints that the original system gets too difficult in higher levels, and only operatives can routinely succeed them. The new system is lower in higher levels, and I'm wondering if it'd be too easy for specialists, and if so is that a bad thing? And can a non specialized class get good enough to matter with skills?
Here's an example.
Lv 6 operative can typically have a +16 bonus with a secondary attribute skill (say Int engineering). The typical DC would be 15 + LvX1.5 = 24. On a 8 or higher they succeed. The new system has the DC at 22, so they'd only need a 6.
a lv 6 soldier who isn't as focused can get a +11, meaning they'd need a 13 in the standard system, or an 11 in the new one. The soldier can actually make an off skill at a 50/50 chance now.
At the highest level the typical DC is 45, but in the new system it's 33. That's a momentous change in favor of the players, one that stays at the higher levels even lower than max.
Any Math whizzes want to try the comparisons at multiple levels and see what it looks like?
As for the narrative starship system I'm highly intrigued. It's completely different so I have to try it on the table with my group. At first glance I really like the player side of things, getting to pick ANY skill and come up with a narrative reason. I just wished you could integrate the BP system from selling cargo in Ports of call with it.
On the GM side I like it, I just wish there was more to differentiate ships, and that it was given examples of explaining hits against the ships when using non attacks player actions, especially if they defeat the ship. I can only use a rogue asteroid so many times.
Overall I'm optimistic and am going to incorporate both to see how they do. This book is a great send off to the Starfinder system.
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Looking at the alternate DCs, there is no point on the chart where a +3 from any combination of your attribute, racial bonus, insight bonus, and circumstance bonus won't make a 'take 10' an auto-success on a skill check for a class skill with full ranks (you need +3 up thru level 13, +2 at levels 14 to 16, +1 at levels 17 to 18, and +0 at levels 19+).
Basically, anyone who wants to be good at a skill should rarely have to actually roll it (with the usual 'take 10 option is not always available' caveat): Throw in a strong attribute and a class insight bonus, and higher level characters will probably be making their checks while blindfolded just to make it more interesting...
Examples: At 1st level, a fully invested class skill is +4 base (1 rank plus 3 for being a class skill), so somehow getting just a +3 bonus brings your 'take 10' result up to the target DC of 17.
At 12th level, a fully invested class skill is +15 base (12 ranks plus 3 for being a class skill), so somehow getting just a +3 bonus brings your 'take 10' result up to the target DC of 28.
At 20th level, a fully invested class skill is +23 base (20 ranks plus 3 for being a class skill), so your 'take 10' result is already up to the target DC of 33.
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As for Narrative Starship Combat, the system seems a bit dangerous: Players typically need to score three times as many successful checks as the GM does, so even a fairly brief streak of "The GM's dice are hot, while the PC's dice are not" could be very painful...
This system also seems to favor larger-sized groups since more checks should mean more successes (in the standard system, a lot of the available positions can't really contribute strongly).
Finally, when reviewing the 'Enemy Tactics' remember that the vast majority are typically completely useless unless you significantly outnumber the PCs: Tactics that impede incoming attacks just don't seem worth using if you can attack instead.
- With one ship, 'Open Fire'* is your default.
- With two ships, probably add the 'Ram' tactic since you likely have a lot more HPs than the PC ship (alternate which ship uses the 'Ram' tactic).
- With three or more ships, you could consider 'All-Out Attack' but you are really unlikely to make the Difficult checks, so the other tactics are now worth looking at...
*If the PCs are using actions that force you to use the Hard DCs anyway, 'All-Out Attack' becomes more viable...
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Actually used the Narrative Starship Combat rules last night, and it went pretty smoothly:
- The entire fight only lasted 2 rounds (foe was only threshold 2).
- We had 4 PCs instead of our 'usual' 6: At full party strength, the fight might have been over in 1 round.
- PC target DCs seemed kinda low (don't roll a 1 on some hard DC checks), but our foe was only tier 3 vs our tier 4.
- PC's took 3 damage in those two rounds, so it probably wasn't going to go much longer one way or another (foes needed to roll a 10 for a normal DC check)...
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One question that came up in last night Narrative Starship combat is when exactly does the 'Enemy Tactic' actually happen? While our GM just decided to have the Enemy go first, but there are several crew actions that seem to assume the PCs go first and some combinations that seem like they could potentially result in an endless loop.
For example, You open your ship’s throttle to escape from the enemy forces.
Effect: Choose an enemy starship and attempt a skill check against that ship’s DC. If you succeed, that ship must use your ship’s Hard DC for any tactics, and it takes a –1 penalty to its skill check.
Resolve: By spending 1 Resolve Point, you can increase this penalty to –3Versus:
The enemy unleashes a barrage of threats and taunts over comms. Effect: The enemy starship attempts a skill check against either the Average DC or the Hard DC of a PC ship. On a success, characters on board that ship take a –1 penalty to all skill checks until the end of the round; this penalty increases to –2 if the check succeeds against the Hard DC
- If the PCs go first, this Enemy Tactic is useless
- If the Enemy goes first, this Crew Action is useless.
- If they happen simultaneously and both rolls hit the base target DC exactly (before applying any penalties), you've just entered a nightmare zone (both checks succeeded, so each roll takes a penalty, which means both checks failed, which means there is no penalty, which means both checks suceeded...)
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If the PCs go first, this Enemy Tactic is useless
If the Enemy goes first, this Crew Action is useless.
I like that part, at least for a tactical game, it means you can outsmart your opponent by picking a static that limits their choices, assuming it's not always the same side going first. But not sure how well that plays out in a group RPG game.
If they happen simultaneously and both rolls hit the base target DC exactly (before applying any penalties), you've just entered a nightmare zone (both checks succeeded, so each roll takes a penalty, which means both checks failed, which means there is no penalty, which means both checks suceeded...)
If the result of the situation is always the same then, once you know that then you can always just jump to both checks succeeded.
Reading over the narrative starship rules, overview, and combat round section, it looks like the GM picks tactics first and the players pick second if I'm reading it right, or not missing something. I'm not seeing any mention of initiative being rolled. For now just going to assume initiative is being used, so if there is a tie then the tactics would happen simultaneously without a tiebreaker?
One rule I find odd flavor-wise is the GM can't use the same tactic for more than one ship each round. It also makes the GMs turn more complicated. I guessing that rule is there because attacks with all the ships at one time would be unbalanced against a single PC ship. But that rule makes a fleet of ships or squadron fighters being able to stay in formation almost impossible. Just an observation, I haven't had a chance to play using these rules yet.
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I like that part, at least for a tactical game, it means you can outsmart your opponent by picking a static that limits their choices, assuming it's not always the same side going first. But not sure how well that plays out in a group RPG game.If the PCs go first, this Enemy Tactic is useless
If the Enemy goes first, this Crew Action is useless.
Since there is no initiative system built into the rules, this doesn't really work very well...
If they happen simultaneously and both rolls hit the base target DC exactly (before applying any penalties), you've just entered a nightmare zone (both checks succeeded, so each roll takes a penalty, which means both checks failed, which means there is no penalty, which means both checks suceeded...)If the result of the situation is always the same then, once you know that then you can always just jump to both checks succeeded.
Reading over the narrative starship rules, overview, and combat round section, it looks like the GM picks tactics first and the players pick second if I'm reading it right, or not missing something. I'm not seeing any mention of initiative being rolled. For now just going to assume initiative is being used, so if there is a tie then the tactics would happen simultaneously without a tiebreaker?
Again, there is no initiative system mentioned, nor should there really be one: When you are dealing with a mere 5 hull points, a 'Enemy going last this round, and first the next' situation could lead to fatal damage spikes...
One rule I find odd flavor-wise is the GM can't use the same tactic for more than one ship each round. It also makes the GMs turn more complicated. I guessing that rule is there because attacks with all the ships at one time would be unbalanced against a single PC ship. But that rule makes a fleet of ships or squadron fighters being able to stay in formation almost impossible. Just an observation, I haven't had a chance to play using these rules yet.
Yeah, this rule has to exist to keep a swarm of enemies from slaughtering the PCs, but it doesn't really work very well at doing that: In our battle, our single foe did 3 dmg to us in two rounds (successful 'Open Fire' in round 1 , followed by a successful 'All-Out Attack' in round 2 ) so a second enemy should have turned the battle into a defeat even with the restrictions (again, the enemy was 1 tier below us and had a sub-par threshold of 2).
Overall, I think I and my GM both like this new system: If nothing else, it was quick to run despite no one else in our group actually being familiar with the rules beforehand. Like nearly all optional rule sets, though, it feels like it needed a couple more development cycles to make it actually work well...
...Or, maybe they did put it through several more development cycles but this was the version that actually played the best: Simple problems aren't always simple to solve, particularly in a system that is supposed to be pretty simple...
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Mea Culpa: I just realized that I was reading a little too much into the 'If the stat block doesn’t specify the category of shields the vessel has, default to a threshold of 3' clause and that Thresholds are essentially tier based: 2 for low-tier ships, 3 for mid-tier ships, and 4 for high-tier ships.
Between this and the scaling rate for DCs, NSC encounters should probably get longer at higher levels.
Translating the Blackwind Annihilator (Tier 20) into NSC, I'm coming up with 6hp, Threshold 4, Skills +34, DCs 40/45.
I'm projecting my Star Shaman Mystic would probably have Perception +43, Piloting +37, and Mysticism +32 at level 20, so characters with strong applicable skill bonuses are doing well, but we now need to accumulate 24 successes instead of the 10 successes at tier 3.
For the rest of our party:
- The two operatives should hold pretty steady.
- The Mechanic should also hold steady.
- The Melee Solarian and Nanocyte PCs will likely start falling behind a bit (no +6 or +7 insight bonuses and not using their primary stat for most checks)
The enemy, on the other hand, needs the same number of successes they did at Tier 3 and their checks seem to be roughly equivalent (needing to roll a 6 vs standard DC and an 11 vs the Hard DC).
That being said, our 4 PCs scored 7 successes in our first round of NSC (if we had our missing operative and nanocyte, we might have won in round 1), so a 'long' Tier 20 fight against a single ship is likely to be around 4 rounds.
It does have initiative/turn rules:
Once every PC declares what starship role they’re performing,
the GM chooses a tactic for each enemy ship. Then, each PC
chooses and performs a starship role action in any order.
Players decide on roles > Enemies > PCs in any order.
But yeah seems to be an oversight.
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It's also worth mentioning that the sidebar on Page 183 can give the PCs a nice skill boost:A few classes grant abilities that can improve a character’s skill check, such as the envoy’s expertise and the solarian’s sidereal influence. Such abilities can be used in narrative starship combat, unless the ability states that it can’t be used in combat. If the ability takes an action to activate (such as a standard or move action), a PC can do so at the beginning of a round instead of changing roles; a spellcaster can use this opportunity to cast a spell that grants a bonus to skill checks, for instance, but they can’t target anyone on another ship (or a starship itself). If the ability has a duration, assume that a round of narrative starship combat takes about 1 minute.
For a spellcaster, Fluid Morphism (+2 enhancement bonus to all skill checks using a specific ability score) and Polymorph II (+1 enhancement bonus to Dexterity based skill checks for small size and a variety of +2 racial skill bonus options (including '+2 to any two skills' from the Lashunta's Student trait)) immediately come to mind (along with a variety of more focused spells like Command Icon or Keen Senses) as fairly low level spells that will grant a decent buff through an entire battle all the way from level 4 through level 20.
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Versus:One question that came up in last night Narrative Starship combat is when exactly does the 'Enemy Tactic' actually happen? While our GM just decided to have the Enemy go first, but there are several crew actions that seem to assume the PCs go first and some combinations that seem like they could potentially result in an endless loop.
For example,
Preferred Skills: Acrobatics, Engineering, Piloting.You open your ship’s throttle to escape from the enemy forces.
Effect: Choose an enemy starship and attempt a skill check against that ship’s DC. If you succeed, that ship must use your ship’s Hard DC for any tactics, and it takes a –1 penalty to its skill check.
Resolve: By spending 1 Resolve Point, you can increase this penalty to –3
The enemy unleashes a barrage of threats and taunts over comms. Effect: The enemy starship attempts a skill check against either the Average DC or the Hard DC of a PC ship. On a success, characters on board that ship take a –1 penalty to all skill checks until the end of the round; this penalty increases to –2 if the check succeeds against the Hard DC
- If the PCs go first, this Enemy Tactic is useless
- If the Enemy goes first, this Crew Action is useless.
- If they happen simultaneously and both rolls hit the base target DC exactly (before applying any penalties), you've just entered a nightmare zone (both checks succeeded, so each roll takes a penalty, which means both checks failed, which means there is no penalty, which means both checks suceeded...)
Just wanted to circle back on this item: Having gone over all of the crew action options, I've reached the personal conclusion that the 'Engage Full Thrusters' penalties are supposed to come into effect the following round (like every other 'modify the rolls/DCs of the foe' action) and not the current one.
As such, it seems logical that the Foe's tactics are resolved first, followed by the PCs' actions.