Archaic Items in Starfinder (GM Core)

[VampByDay]

Looking through GM core and I'm trying to get ahold of how Archaic items are supposed to work in Starfinder.

Firstly: Archaic items accept runes and can't be normally upgraded. Fair enough. Also, they don't have upgrade slots, but can accept property runes. Also fair.

Secondly: You can spend some money to retrofit an archaic item to no longer be archaic. Great.

But let's say you find an ancient set of full plate, and an ancient longsword, and you don't have the time/workbench to retrofit them. Here are the rules.

1) Archaic Items are easier to break. Destroyed at 3/4 HP, broken at 1/4 . . . fine.
2) Armor has weakness to non-archaic weapons . . . is that . . . is that the ARMOR that has weakness? Like if I try to sunder a set of full plate sitting on a bench without anyone in it . . . it takes extra damage? Or is the person WEARING the armor is vulnerable to modern weapons. If so . . . why? Are you telling me, if someone shoots me with a laser pistol, I'm WORSE OFF with a bunch of leather in the way blocking the laser beam, than if I am bare-chested?
3)Weapons reduce a die of damage when attacking armor. Same question, is this if attacking a person IN armor, or is this to suppose if I took a longsword to some defiance armor, without anybody wearing it, that the longsword would do 1d6 damage instead of 1d8?

[moosher12]

For other people reading, I'll give a friendly reminder that those are (Thankfully) optional rules, archaic items are assumed to be at full power by default unless the GM chooses to use those optional rules.

Though this raises the question, wouldn't no armor mean you get no weakness while wearing any armor gives you weakness? So somehow the monk or the plain clothes rogue would get no weakness while a fighter in heavy armor got weakness?

I appreciate them adding an upgrade path to make make weapons into analog weapons and armor into tech armor.

What I especially love is the new option to reduce the base price of Starfinder armor by half to lose the environmental protections. I remember bringing that up during the playtest that I wanted to see the option for adventurers that never expected to enter space, or for stationed terrestrial guardsman who would never have to worry about a lack of air.

[Mangaholic13]

VampByDay wrote:

Looking through GM core and I'm trying to get ahold of how Archaic items are supposed to work in Starfinder.

Firstly: Archaic items accept runes and can't be normally upgraded. Fair enough. Also, they don't have upgrade slots but can accept property runes. Also, fair.

Secondly: You can spend some money to retrofit an archaic item to no longer be archaic. Great.

But let's say you find an ancient set of full plate, and an ancient longsword, and you don't have the time/workbench to retrofit them. Here are the rules.

1) Archaic Items are easier to break. Destroyed at 3/4 HP, broken at 1/4 . . . fine.
2) Armor has weakness to non-archaic weapons . . . is that . . . is that the ARMOR that has weakness? Like if I try to sunder a set of full plate sitting on a bench without anyone in it . . . it takes extra damage? Or is the person WEARING the armor is vulnerable to modern weapons. If so . . . why? Are you telling me, if someone shoots me with a laser pistol, I'm WORSE OFF with a bunch of leather in the way blocking the laser beam, than if I am bare-chested?
3)Weapons reduce a die of damage when attacking armor. Same question, is this if attacking a person IN armor, or is this to suppose if I took a longsword to some defiance armor, without anybody wearing it, that the longsword would do 1d6 damage instead of 1d8?

As Moosher pointed out, VampByDay (how do you not get vaporized? Lots of sunblock?), those rules are optional, just like how you don't need to include all the rules regarding combat in a vacuum/zero-gravity (and the book even recommends NOT using them unless you plan on having frequent fights in such conditions).

As to your questions, well, I had a question like that myself, and took to the forums about it:
Does anyone target armor/weapons in a fight?
And considering all the responses were pretty much, "No. One, because it is mean. Two, because Paizo barely has rules on targeting attended items . "
So I'm pretty sure the answer to your questions regarding that in 2 and 3 is "Yes to both".
As for your issue regarding armor/no-armor... I'm guessing that is because otherwise they'd have to make Archaic a character trait.
...I will agree that there is an oversight in that part... it does not take clothing into account.

moosher12 wrote:

Though this raises the question, wouldn't no armor mean you get no weakness while wearing any armor gives you weakness? So somehow the monk or the plain clothes rogue would get no weakness while a fighter in heavy armor got weakness?

I'm guessing Paizo thought, since AC is still in play, that they assumed the tradeoff would be the Monk or Plain Clothes Rogue would be easier to hit than a Fighter in heavy armor... which I don't really agree with.

Part of me says that wearing Archaic clothes should give 8 weakness... but then I think about how squishy that would make unarmored castors...

moosher12 wrote:

What I especially love is the new option to reduce the base price of Starfinder armor by half to lose the environmental protections. I remember bringing that up during the playtest that I wanted to see the option for adventurers that never expected to enter space, or for stationed terrestrial guardsman who would never have to worry about a lack of air.

Or if you want to use Starfinder items of a campaign setting that doesn't include space or vacuums at all.

[Christopher#2411504]

The first field test had a penalty for Archaic weapons. IIRC, it was like 10 resistance on non-Archaic armor when meeting Archaic Weapons.

The problem with any such rule is:
It will cause no shortage of table arguments on "Why do those [native spears/hazard/creatures jaws] don't count as Archaic? I want my resistance!"

And that is before we consider stuff like the Unarmored Defense angle.

So, that is why they made that only a optional rule. If a GM actually wants to deal with this, let them figure out those details.

[moosher12]

Yeah, with those rules, it was "Okay, why is a wolf's claws have more cutting power than my steel dagger

These now have the, "Okay, what makes hide armor so tough that a literal cow would have no resistance, but it's hide armor would suddenly have weakness?" situation.

Lot of little knobs to sort, glad it was quickly realized its place would better be served as an optional rule.

Though for me the million dollar question is how many GMs will actually use that optional rule. I'm genuinely curious, I'd like to think it'd be very uncommon, but I suppose it would not be there if Paizo didn't think there'd be demand from a notable percent of the audience. Granted, it is only like, less than a fourth of a page, so it's a pretty small blurb.

[Christopher#2411504]

moosher12 wrote:

Yeah, with those rules, it was "Okay, why is a wolf's claws have more cutting power than my steel dagger

These now have the, "Okay, what makes hide armor so tough that a literal cow would have no resistance, but it's hide armor would suddenly have weakness?" situation.

Lot of little knobs to sort, glad it was quickly realized its place would better be served as an optional rule.

Though for me the million dollar question is how many GMs will actually use that optional rule. I'm genuinely curious, I'd like to think it'd be very uncommon, but I suppose it would not be there if Paizo didn't think there'd be demand from a notable percent of the audience. Granted, it is only like, less than a fourth of a page, so it's a pretty small blurb.

Enough people complained about the removal of the playtest rule, they decided to keep it as a optional one.

[VampByDay]

To all that say you can’t target armor, I’d like to remind you that there are monsters that specifically target armor like the Shuln so monsters that specifically target armor are not unreasonable in SF2. That’s where my mind went to.

Also, why have it as an optional rule. You can already spend a tiny amount of money to retrofit any archaic item to be a tech item.

[Xenocrat]

You can't if you're playing a PF2 level of technology/magic in an uncontacted planet who are only contacted by aliens with tech as the campaign progresses. These alternative rules then give you a disadvantage as you play out your Aztecs vs Cortez scenario and give you an incentive to switch to tech ASAP if that's the vibe the GM is going for.

One of the SF1 AP backmatter planets was a tyrannical magocracy with no tech and who suppressed the Signal and wiped out (via extreme high power magicians who are the ruling elite) the rare starships who came into contact, while fearing the day they arrive in force and the genie can't be kept in the bottle and tech spreads to the masses.

If you played a campaign set on that planet/system (I think it was multiple planets with magical gates connecting them) the rules could fit in.

[moosher12]

VampByDay wrote:

To all that say you can’t target armor, I’d like to remind you that there are monsters that specifically target armor like the Shuln so monsters that specifically target armor are not unreasonable in SF2. That’s where my mind went to.

Also, why have it as an optional rule. You can already spend a tiny amount of money to retrofit any archaic item to be a tech item.

Well think of it like this: In Pathfinder at least, as I'm only halfway through the Starfinder Player Core, and haven't started the GM Core yet. Armor damage comes up so rarely that the 2E system doesn't even have a system for calculating armor HP. Your closest equivalent is using the generalized material damage table, but it does not account for more or less sturdy armors, like 1E did.

[Nezuyo]

Christopher#2411504 wrote:

Enough people complained about the removal of the playtest rule, they decided to keep it as a optional one.

Opposite way around, actually. People disliked the rule in the initial Field Test way back when and so they shifted it to an optional rule instead.

Source here, from 2023.

Anyways, I'll probably run with this rule, but mostly because I want to highly encourage using Starfinder options for a while. Probably not forever.

[moosher12]

Fair enough reason, I'll be curious to read how it fares.

[Perses13]

Xenocrat wrote:

You can't if you're playing a PF2 level of technology/magic in an uncontacted planet who are only contacted by aliens with tech as the campaign progresses. These alternative rules then give you a disadvantage as you play out your Aztecs vs Cortez scenario and give you an incentive to switch to tech ASAP if that's the vibe the GM is going for.

One of the SF1 AP backmatter planets was a tyrannical magocracy with no tech and who suppressed the Signal and wiped out (via extreme high power magicians who are the ruling elite) the rare starships who came into contact, while fearing the day they arrive in force and the genie can't be kept in the bottle and tech spreads to the masses.

If you played a campaign set on that planet/system (I think it was multiple planets with magical gates connecting them) the rules could fit in.

Thanks for reminding me about my idea of a PF2/SF2 XCOM campaign.

[VampByDay]

Perses13 wrote:

Xenocrat wrote:

You can't if you're playing a PF2 level of technology/magic in an uncontacted planet who are only contacted by aliens with tech as the campaign progresses. These alternative rules then give you a disadvantage as you play out your Aztecs vs Cortez scenario and give you an incentive to switch to tech ASAP if that's the vibe the GM is going for.

One of the SF1 AP backmatter planets was a tyrannical magocracy with no tech and who suppressed the Signal and wiped out (via extreme high power magicians who are the ruling elite) the rare starships who came into contact, while fearing the day they arrive in force and the genie can't be kept in the bottle and tech spreads to the masses.

If you played a campaign set on that planet/system (I think it was multiple planets with magical gates connecting them) the rules could fit in.

Thanks for reminding me about my idea of a PF2/SF2 XCOM campaign.

Psychics as the only spellcasters?

[moosher12]

moosher12 wrote:

Well think of it like this: In Pathfinder at least, as I'm only halfway through the Starfinder Player Core, and haven't started the GM Core yet. Armor damage comes up so rarely that the 2E system doesn't even have a system for calculating armor HP. Your closest equivalent is using the generalized material damage table, but it does not account for more or less sturdy armors, like 1E did.

I need to correct myself. Starfinder does in fact have armor damage tables (And so does Pathfinder, though it's such a small blurb I completely forgot about it, though it does neglect Composite armor, which is thankfully addressed in Starfinder).

Pathfinder Player Core pg. 272
Starfinder Player Core pg. 246

[VampByDay]

Another question. I seem to recall (maybe it was mentioned in the Sept. 2025 livesteam) that you can pay to upgrade a pathfinder weapon to be a modern, tech item, and get rid of all the penalties (and let it upgrade using the starfinder system, instead of pathfinder's runes system.) But I can't find that in GM core. The closest I can find is this quote, which comes close to saying that, but doesn't explicitly say it:

Starfinder GM Core, page 252 wrote:

By spending an additional week and paying half the base

Price of the equipment, you could install the technology
required to apply upgrades, integrate tech like comm units
and environmental protections into armor, and add upgrade
slots to shields and weapons.

Anyone know of a more clear ruling on this?