There is definitely that trying to equalize gameplay of all ancestries as close as possible to the "what would be dangerous to human" does kinda kill off the diversity in them
I kinda just feel skeptical about notion that there is only one solution to this and any other option is something to be dismissed
The big issue is organized play because you might not know who is playing what until 5 minutes before the game starts, and you can't just homebrew to fix things in organized play like you can in a home game.
Instead of banning some species from organized play, like SROs are currently, what if some species were listed as not playable unless a scenario says otherwise? This way some scenarios could be written to work with including SROs and be labeled as such. This could be applied separately or in groups for any problematic species.
...or you just have an optional rule in the other direction. "For the purposes of organized play, all vulnerability profiles function identically. All sources of poison, disease, and so forth will apply equally to all PCs."
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I kinda just feel skeptical about notion that there is only one solution to this and any other option is something to be dismissed
Yes. For various different things, I am expecting various and different types of solutions.
For example, the Bleed immunity may be solved by allowing it as an innate feature of ancestries, creating equipment that also mitigates it and is available to 1st level characters, and treating Bleed damage as a minor buff to an NPC enemy's build since it is unlikely to have any significant impact.
Fire immunity may be handled by having two tiers - a lower tier that provides immunity to non-magical fire, alchemical fire, and standard magical fire - and then a higher tier greater fire immunity that gives immunity to the few spells, creature abilities, and items that specify that they bypass the standard fire immunity.
And the Glitching trait on attacks only affects technological ancestries and augmentations of a creature or their technological equipment. Which creates that 'vulnerability profile' type of idea that if the entire party is not using technological items or construct ancestries, then they are inherently protected from the trait.
...or you just have an optional rule in the other direction. "For the purposes of organized play, all vulnerability profiles function identically. All sources of poison, disease, and so forth will apply equally to all PCs."
Organized Play greatly prefers to blanket ban variant rules. It makes for less arguments about why this variant is allowed, but that variant is not.
From what I have seen, the Org Play team generally only creates houserules for things that are ambiguous in the game rules and actually need ruled on.
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The use of "immune to poison and disease" for creatures that lack organic chemistry in their biology seems way too broad to me. I think that silicon-based life forms would come from a world with silicon-based diseases, so they are not exactly immune to all disease. Categories might be a better way to go.
Characters and creatures would classified into three main biological categories, with some overlap and some outside the categories.
1. organic trait meaning life based on carbon-chain molecules;
2. silicic trait meaning life based on silicon-chain molecules;
3. cyber trait meaning life based on circuits and software.
Some creatures, such as elementals, do not fall into these categories. Others fall into two or more categories, such as androids are both organic and cyber. A character who gains cybernetic parts also gains the cyber trait.
Poisons and diseases affect creatures according to their life traits. An organic poison or disease affects organic creatures, but has no effect on non-organic creatures. A silicic poison or disease affects silicic creatures, but has no effect on non-silicic creatures. A cyber poison or disease affects cyber creatures, but has no effect on non-cyber creatures.
Some poisons affect more than one life category. Arsenic is an organic silicic poison that affects organic creatures and silicic creatures. Chip-eating bacteria is a silicic cyber disease that affect silicic creatures and cyber creatures. A poison or disease labeled as universal means that it affects all creatures, regardless of life category.
This is not balanced. Since organic characters vastly outnumber non-organic characters in Starfinder games, organic poisons and diseases would have a much greater game effect as a hazard. But if cyber poisons are useful against rogue nanotechnology, then such poison could be a common clean-up tool and be easily added to traps, too. But then Starfinder 2nd Edition would have to give free-standing nanites their own hit points.
Nan-Away Item 0
Alchemical, Consumable, Poison
Price 3 credits
Usage held in 1 hand; Bulk L
Activate [one-action] Interact
This fluid deals 1d6+1 cyber poison upon contact. DC 16 Fortitude save negates the poison damage. The bottle is a thrown simple weapon with range increment 5 feet that deals 1 bludgeoning damage and delivers the Nan-Away upon a hit.
First I want to object that immunity to a single type of damage should be a hard 'not going to happen' for an ancestry. As an example, flight is going to be allowed, because the meta has changed from where Ranged attacks were an 'Investment' and now they are a presumption. When Ranged was an investment, then you had flight becoming something akin to an invulnerability to Melee damage.
They did this, not be getting rid of Melee, or getting rid of Flight, but changing the default assumption that the players weren't really presumed to ever actually be effectively limited from having a ranged weapon. They eliminated the expectation of 'Limited to only Melee' as an expectation that had to be worked in.
So although I want to avoid saying any particular way of playing is wrong, but let me say that a module whose monsters who do significant damage only do so because of Poison damage, I don't think the problem would be with the potential of their being a character immune to their poison damage. (So I guess I'm doing what I don't like and saying that that concept is wrong.... but I think I'm saying it is as least as wrong as saying an ancestry can't be immune to something it should be immune to)
That said, I don't think that reality is such that that is actually the PROBLEM we are actually dealing with. We already know that with the Pathfinder 2 core system, what used to be implemented as outright immunities is frequently manifested instead as Resistances in the newer ruleset. But here is the thing... embrace this change... and while both PC and Monsters can be built using different rules, they don't have to be different when it doesn't benefit them in doing so. Don't give the monsters Immunity to damage types very often either and when you do, have it something they acquire at higher tiers/instances of the monsters.
This solves a lot of expectation issues, and makes playing the game much better, letting people focus on the story rather than the disconnects that occur when hit by the unnecessary/arbitrary differences that don't help the story/game.
Poison and Disease are great damage types that provide wonderful potential for flavor. The goblin dog's rash that doesn't affect goblinoids is a perfect example of something wonderfully flavorful. I'm sure this will make some out there shudder, but elves being immune to Ghoul paralysis was quite flavorful for me in the early days. Give some monsters a poison that only affects aquatic/amphibious creatures? Or one that only affects Cybernetic/Robot/Construct creatures by default. (Note in a sidebar, it can be pointed out that diseases and poisons in this fantasy world don't have to exist only among one or two types of creatures, and so you can encounter a Scorpia Magmus (giant alien space scorpion) who unlike the 'default' Scorpia Magmus only affect organic\android creatures, some could affect all creature, or add energy based, or construct creatures to their normal impact.
Another example: Some creatures whom may gain a natural poison, or venom might have an immunity to their own species venom as a trait. (but not an assumption) Again, this enables flavor with the already existing rules.
Now then, a perfect example of something that in my opinion wouldn't work like this.
Making a skeleton character whom was not by default hurt by vitality damage and healed by void healing, and otherwise ignoring/immune to normal void damage. But I feel like these damage/healing types or balanced by different mechanics and are core to the nature of the creature. (it is worth-while asking if they should fall into organic or not) However, I'm fine with undead being able to be Organic, Cybernetic, Elemental/Energy, or even Construct even if, for instance the latter are very rare, normally only occurring in cases where an construct manages to obtain a soul before or through death.
So due to the fundamental nature of undead Ancestries they should begin being immune to void damage, and susceptible to vitality damage, which is the reverse of most living creatures. The balance is built in so should not be a balance problem.
So I think the solution to the Damage/Immunities issues with ancestries, is to not only move away from immunities for ancestries, but to move away from typically having them on monsters either, instead leveraging resistances where appropriate.
Guess what, purely tech robots might be immune to both void and vitality damage. But has the disadvantage of having much more limited options for healing as well. Some constructs however might have some soul and connection to 'life' that might somehow tie it to either Vitality or Void, and make it susceptible to such energies and their opposition, but that would depend on the nature of the construct in question.
Hmm... really this only covers damage immunities, there are other aspects of the Humanoid Assumption I wanted to talk about, but I think this is enough for now, and at least covers a specific topic.
edit: Forgot one though I was going to throw out as an option to throw on the wall to see if it sticks.
Basically a lesser form of Immunity to damage. So poison Immunity that would grant you immunity to poison sources below your level, but for sources at or above your level, would change to a resistance. This way you could be immune to some sources, but more powerful sources might overwhelm your immunity and leave you at least partly vulnerable. Just a thought/option that might be found useful in cases. Sort of like 'dispelling' lower level effects of a particular type you should be able to resist.
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Personal preference that would be a bad idea to actually apply to a game meant for lots of people:
I'd personally be happy to see poison and disease dropped from the system entirely, as things better suited to classic fantasy than to a game where androids, semi-undead, and swarm-offshoots are all core. Sure, the medbay episode is a Star Trek classic, but there's usually going to be someone in the party that makes it a head-scratcher. If it's going to be weird and immersion-breaking anyway, better to just not have it come up.
But, that's solidly in the category of "things Paizo knows better than to agree with".
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If you really need a poison or disease that must affect everyone in the party equally or it breaks the plot or an encounter then just make a poison or disease that is biomechanical, nanocyte based, or magical that affects all types.
If the math is so tight that one or more members of a party having immunities affect the CR of an encounter then maybe make some guidelines for adjusting the DC of an encounter based on the number of PCs immune to an effect.
If you really need a poison or disease that must affect everyone in the party equally or it breaks the plot or an encounter then just make a poison or disease that is biomechanical, nanocyte based, or magical that affects all types.
If the math is so tight that one or more members of a party having immunities affect the CR of an encounter then maybe make some guidelines for adjusting the DC of an encounter based on the number of PCs immune to an effect.
Really, for poisons and such this seems like a really good consideration. And then actually have poisons/toxins and such typically fall on defaulting to only applying to some certain subset.
Someone will voice potentially that 'well if it is flavor, then why have it at all' and there might be some credit to the question. But Flavor is what makes is have Tang and not just be a numbers game, so that is why.
Radiation is a pretty generic thing that would be an example of something that might be seen as poison/toxic but could easily bee seen to impact things ranging from biological, synthetic, mechanical, and potentially even energy or magical. If you need a toxicity item that spans genomes.
It also might be interesting to have PC fighting some sort of toxin affecting all the natives of a world, which they don't have the same susceptibility, unless the PC willingly took a PC species from the world. (something slightly akin to a Slithering plot)
But it might make sense to make poison/toxicity a far more 'discrete' danger in the world. And have relatively inexpensive 'antidotes' to many 'known' toxins that would be relatively cheap.
So the poisons you have to worry about are brand new creatures that haven't been seen before. You have to get a sample and let the medical device fabricate an antidote before you can resist it.
It would definitely change some of the flavor and meta between the two games, but it is very realistic in the sense that technology and knowledge could make that change eventually expected.
Personal preference that would be a bad idea to actually apply to a game meant for lots of people:
I'd personally be happy to see poison and disease dropped from the system entirely, as things better suited to classic fantasy than to a game where androids, semi-undead, and swarm-offshoots are all core. Sure, the medbay episode is a Star Trek classic, but there's usually going to be someone in the party that makes it a head-scratcher. If it's going to be weird and immersion-breaking anyway, better to just not have it come up.
But, that's solidly in the category of "things Paizo knows better than to agree with".
For me the idea that poisons and diseases equally threaten all species, even species that evolved on different planets breaks my suspension of disbelief in a really hard way. My dog, who is more related to me than any alien from another world could ever be, can be poisoned by chocolate, grapes, or onions, but can otherwise eat most of the same things I can. IMO food, poison, and disease should be specific to AT MOST an ecospheric origin.
Does that break the game? Well kinda. It means poisons and diseases maybe shouldn't be part of the game at all. And what is super advanced tech for anyway if it can't let you shrug off most diseases and poisons with stuff that's in a standard med kit?
Yesterday, when I was reading the Paizo blog Mess With the Dragon, Get the Horns! about the poison-breathing horned dragon that will appear in the upcoming Remastered Monster Core, I recalled fantasy images about poisoned landscapes. Weird mists and twisted stunted trees warned the traveler that the land was not healthy or safe, before the spotted to bones of the creatures that died of poison.
That is mythical poison, a force of death in the air, water, and soil.
But in science fiction, we have chemical poison, which follows the rules of biochemistry rather than the tenets of mythology. A chemical is not an incarnation of death, not even if it is poisonous to all mammals. It is simply a substance that disrupts our biochemistry. An unusual yet illustrative case is urushiol the substance in poison ivy and related plants that makes us humans break out in itching, welts, and blisters. It is not a deliberate defense mechanics for it has no effect on the deer that eat the poison ivy. Instead, it is a coincidence that urushiol is chemically very similar to the warning chemical that human skin uses trigger a response to an infection. Thus, when humans develop an allergic sensitivity to urushiol, the body overreacts, treats the urushiol exposure as a serious infection, and blisters up.
Pathfinder as a fantasy game can use mythical poison that affects everything. Starfinder, in contrast, has to consider whether a poison that affects all species will break the scientific view of chemical poison, because we want a science fiction motif to the game.
All roleplaying games have simplification. Pathfinder models some poisons as poison damage, it takes away some hit points and then is gone. It models other poisons, especially named poisons, as afflictions. But it does not give categories of which species are affected except by poison immunity to its own poison or to all poisons.
Back in comment #54 I had proposed splitting characters' biochemistries and how poison and diseases affected them into three categories, in which organic characters would be affected by only organic poisons, silicic characters would be affected by only silicic poisons, and cyber characters would be affected only by cyber poisons, Yet that is still a simplification and does not mark any difference between how humans and dogs are affected by chocolate, because both have essentially the same biochemistry and came from the same environment on the same planet.
Another mechanism for more realism would be an all-or-nothing saving throw against the poison. If your initial saving throw against a poison or disease affliction is a success, you don't simply fight off that first exposure to the affliction. Instead, the affliction does not affect your individual biology and you are immune for life. The problem with that would be recording that immunity on the character sheet, so we would probably have to compromise on mere immunity for the day.
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Pathfinder as a fantasy game can use mythical poison that affects everything. Starfinder, in contrast, has to consider whether a poison that affects all species will break the scientific view of chemical poison, because we want a science fiction motif to the game.
Do we though?
I thought Starfinder was described as a Science Fantasy game setting. not Science Fiction.
Pathfinder as a fantasy game can use mythical poison that affects everything. Starfinder, in contrast, has to consider whether a poison that affects all species will break the scientific view of chemical poison, because we want a science fiction motif to the game.Do we though?
I thought Starfinder was described as a Science Fantasy game setting. not Science Fiction.
We should describe science fantasy. Wikipedia defines Science Fantasy as, "Science fantasy is a hybrid genre within speculative fiction that simultaneously draws upon or combines tropes and elements from both science fiction and fantasy." Other sources more simply say that the setting combines magic and science. The best know example of science fantasy is the Star Wars movies, where mystic Jedi Knights with uncanny reflexes and energy swords fly around in spaceships. A popular science fantasy book series is Anne McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern in which humans bonded telepathically to dragons have to fly out to burn deadly fungus as it falls from interstellar space before it can hit the ground. I heard that McCaffrey originally wrote the dragonriders as a fantasy story, but when told in 1967 that fantasy did not sell, she re-envisioned the setting as science fiction and sold the first two stories to Analog Science Fiction Magazine.
I view all novels as about the human condition, even if the protagonists are elves or intelligent robots. Changing the setting with futuristic science or with mythical creatures provides a new direction for viewing the human condition without our mundane assumptions.
A tabletop roleplaying game is not a novel. It is a cooperative game and collaborative storytelling. It is a game, so we want to play with the tropes. We want our dragons, magic spells, and independent adventuring parties, and we want our robots, spaceships and handheld communicators. We want the old, "This is ancient lore from when the Osirioni pyramds were built," and the new, "This state-of-the-art stardrive is ten times faster than the previous model."
But each trope comes with its baggage. Dragons have hoards, though a wise old dragon might have only a hoard of knowledge. Ray guns enable ranged attacks. Gnomes are fey, magical, and impulsive. Spaceships are expensive vehicles that the party has to acquire by hook or by crook.
Fantasy poisons are fatal, one drop can kill a man in seconds, and no-one is immune. Or maybe the poison kills slowly but finding the antidote requires a quest. Science fiction poisons are curable, take the patient to sick bay immediately! And robots are immune. Which trope wins out? Or do we let them take turns? If sometimes poisons affect everyone and sometimes robots are immune, then how do we design Starfinder 2nd Edition rules to let the GM choose the one that fits the story?
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Fantasy poisons are fatal, one drop can kill a man in seconds, and no-one is immune. Or maybe the poison kills slowly but finding the antidote requires a quest. Science fiction poisons are curable, take the patient to sick bay immediately! And robots are immune. Which trope wins out? Or do we let them take turns?
That is all I am trying to acknowledge. That fantasy elements that aren't explained are allowed to exist in a Science Fantasy setting. It doesn't break the theme to have poisons that affect humans, dragons, androids, SROs, holograms, and selamids equally. With no actual explanation required.
As armchair designers we can voice our opinions on the matter, certainly. And the actual game design may have to go in one direction or the other in order to keep the game rules consistent - even though neither direction fully supports all tropes that the game designers might want to support.
That is all I am trying to acknowledge. That fantasy elements that aren't explained are allowed to exist in a Science Fantasy setting. It doesn't break the theme to have poisons that affect humans, dragons, androids, SROs, holograms, and selamids equally. With no actual explanation required.
As armchair designers we can voice our opinions on the matter, certainly. And the actual game design may have to go in one direction or the other in order to keep the game rules consistent - even though neither direction fully supports all tropes that the game designers might want to support.
In our armchair discussion, how about we compromise: you fantasy fans can have poisons that affect every creature, and we science fiction fans can have SROs and holograms totally immune to disease.
I have three reasons for distinguishing between poisons and diseases:
1) Diseases are more biological. They not only affect the biology of creatures, but they are living organisms themselves (Well, viruses are a little borderline on the living part).
2) Diseases are featured less often in PF2, so I suspect that they will be featured less often in Starfinder 2nd Edition.
3) In a science fiction setting, I want to see the party drag their diseased teammate to their starship's medical bay and cure the disease in an hour with advanced science. Find The Cure is a science fiction trope, so it would fit into Starfinder 2nd Edition. We could make it a Medicine skill activity. This follows the principle that Finoan stated in this thread on Feburary 7, 2024:
One option for game design that does allow for more powerful ancestry innate abilities is to have a list of abilities that are available for ancestries to have - and that can be easily compensated for using equipment for ancestries that don't have it.
In this case, the equipment would be a medical bay or an advanced medical kit with anti-plague features. Fantasy diseases progress more slowly than fantasy poisons, so the party has more time to cure a disease.
4) If we need a disease to affect an SRO character, then we simply call the affliction a pathogen rather than a disease.For my argument that diseases are less significant in PF2, the list of diseases in the current PF2 Archives of Nethys are Addictive Exhaustion, Blightburn Sickness, Blinding Sickness, Bog Rot, Bonechill, Brain Worms, Bubonic Plague, Choking Death, Crimson Ooze, Malaria, Nightmare Fever, Rust Creep, Scarlet Fever, Scarlet Leprosy, Sewer Haze, Swamp Guts, Tetanus, Tuberculosis. That is 18. Brightburn Sickness is radiation sickness rather than a disease, so it can be moved to a different affliction category.
The list of poisons is Abysium Powder, Achaekek's Kiss, Addlebrain, Alcohol, Alkenstar Ice Wine, Antipode Oil, Arsenic, Astringent Venom, Azure Lily Pollen, Bane Ammunition, Belladonna, Bitter, Black Adder Venom, Black Lotus Extract, Black Smear Poison, Blackfinger Blight, Blaze, Blight Bomb, Blight Breath, Blightburn Bomb, Blightburn Resin, Blister Ammunition, Blisterwort, Blood Sap, Bloodburn Censer, Bloodeye Coffee, Blue Dragonfly Poison, Breathtaking Vapor, Brightshade, Brimstone Fumes, Careless Delight, Cayden's Brew, Cerulean Scourge, Choleric Contagion, Clown Monarch, Clubhead Poison, Curare, Cytillesh, Cytillesh Oil, Dagger of Venom, Dancing Lamentation, Daylight Vapor, Death Knell Powder, Deathcap Powder, Demon Dust, Diluted Hype, Dragon Bile, Dread Ampoule, Dreamtime Tea, Eldritch Flare, Elven Absinthe, Envenomed Snare, False Death, False Flayleaf, False Hope, Fearweed, Flayleaf, Forgetful Drops, Forgetful Ink, Frenzy Oil, Giant Centipede Venom, Giant Scorpion Venom, Giant Wasp Venom, Gorgon's Breath, Graveroot, Green Gut, Green Wyrmling Breath Potion, Grit, Grolna, Hemlock, Honeyscent, Hunger Oil, Hunting Spider Venom, Hyldarf's Fang, Hype, Isolation Draught, King's Sleep, Knockout Dram, Leadenleg, Lethargy Poison, Liar's Demise, Lich Dust, Lifeblight Residue, Looter's Lethargy, Mage Bane, Malyass Root Paste, Matsuki's Medicinal Wine, Mindfog Mist, Mustard Powder, Mycoweave Shield, Nauseating Snare, Nettleweed Residue, Nightmare Salt, Nightmare Vapor, Oblivion Essence, Pale Fade, Pernicious Spore Bomb, Pesh Paste, Plasma Hype, Poisonous Dagger, Pucker Pickle, Puff Dragon, Pummel-Growth Toxin, Purple Worm Venom, Qat, Reaper's Lancet, Refined Pesh, Repulsion Resin, Saboteur's Friend, Scarlet Mist, Scour, Shadow Essence, Shiver, Sight-Theft Grit, Skunk Bomb, Sloughing Toxin, Slumber Wine, Smother Shroud, Spear Frog Poison, Spectral Nightshade, Spell-Eating Pitch, Spider Root, Stupor Poison, Succubus Kiss, Taster's Folly, Tears of Death, Terror Spores, The Snakebite, Tin Cobra, Toad Tears, Toadskin Salve, Toxic Effluence, Trueshape Bomb, Unending Itch, Vexing Vapor, Violet Venom, Wand of Pernicious Poison, Wand of the Spider, Wand of Toxic Blades, Warpwobble Poison, Weeping Midnight, Wolfsbane, Wyvern Poison, Yellow Musk Vial, Zerk. I count 145 entries, though some, such as Cayden's Brew, are strong alcoholic beverages drunk voluntarily.
Why do I want immunity to disease on characters with purely mechanical biology? I want to mark that they are inorganic. Such a difference needs an absolute, such as immunity, rather than a bonus, such as +2 status bonus to saves against disease. Although granting immunity to disease without granting immunity to poison will cause armchair arguments, a single marker is enough.
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Pathfinder as a fantasy game can use mythical poison that affects everything. Starfinder, in contrast, has to consider whether a poison that affects all species will break the scientific view of chemical poison, because we want a science fiction motif to the game.Do we though?
I thought Starfinder was described as a Science Fantasy game setting. not Science Fiction.
It's a thin line between Science Fantasy and Science Fiction when NASA has its own TTRPG adventure with half-orcs, elves, and dragons. It also has appendices covering topics like Gravitational lensing, Energy of the vacuum, and Red shifts / blue shifts.
The Lost Universe NASA's Tabletop Role-Playing Game Adventure .
This may shock some people but NASA has not stopped using alignments yet, and I'm not talking about adjusting the angle of mirrors...