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I get that it's a symptom of the much-vaunted compatability between the systems, but that homogeneity dilutes Starfinder in a way I don't like.
It's supposedly a science fantasy game, but we have ~2 skills related to science and 4 related to Magic. And "crafting" sounds way worse in this context than its progenitor: "engineering".
Ugh. I really can't get over how much I dislike "crafting" for Starfinder.
Even the Crafting specialties feel distinctly Pathfindery, with Starfinder paint.
I really wish the skills kept more akin to their old name schemes. If necessary, there could've been a blurb in the GM Core about compatability, like "If playing a Starfinder character in a Pathfinder game, consider replacing uses of the Engineering skill with Crafting."
Physical Science is the other skill that feels absent in the Pathfinder suite of skills.
I don't feel like they adequately cover "astronomy, chemistry, climatology, geography, geology, hyperspace, meteorology, oceanography, physics, and other fields of natural science".
I dunno, y'all. It feels like the Science and Engineering are taking a backseat, which I think is a real shame.
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I guess the thing is that your Starfinder character probably isn't doing graduate research in glaciology on Triaxus, or anything. We're going on space adventures and need to test things relevant to space adventures and those tend not to be very academic. Like it feels bad to have invested greatly into meteorology and just never have the weather come up in the entire adventure because you're spending the whole time indoors on space ships/stations and caves/caverns.
So it just seems like we're unlikely to design a bridge, but might need to MacGyver a new capacitor for the deflector array so crafting does mostly apply to this. If you want to represent "my character knows about oceanography" that seems like what the Lore skill is for (which could stand to have a rebrand honestly) since that's "specialized knowledge that's not guaranteed to come up."
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I guess the thing is that your Starfinder character probably isn't doing graduate research in glaciology on Triaxus, or anything. We're going on space adventures and need to test things relevant to space adventures and those tend not to be very academic. Like it feels bad to have invested greatly into meteorology and just never have the weather come up in the entire adventure because you're spending the whole time indoors on space ships/stations and caves/caverns.
So it just seems like we're unlikely to design a bridge, but might need to MacGyver a new capacitor for the deflector array so crafting does mostly apply to this. If you want to represent "my character knows about oceanography" that seems like what the Lore skill is for (which could stand to have a rebrand honestly) since that's "specialized knowledge that's not guaranteed to come up."
That's the whole point! Oceanography was less than 10% of the topics covered by Physical Science! That skill gave you broad knowledge of the non-living Physical world. But there is no equivalent skill for 2e.
To cover all the grounds of Physical Science in 2E you'd have to take an additional 7+ lore skills.
The use-case of Crafting is more or less fine. It's just the branding, to borrow your terminology, doesn't fit as well as Engineering did.
SF1 read as Science Fantasy.
SF2 reads as Future Fantasy.
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Just gonna lend voice that I prefer the compatibility as it makes cross-compatibility less of a headache.
Crafting I think is more apt as it's a universal term. You can craft a computer and you can craft a sword, and you can craft a plate of bacon and eggs, and you can craft a fine wooden statue. You cannot engineer a plate of bacon and eggs, or a fine wooden statue, though. So all of a sudden, there are a bunch of items you cannot craft anymore. If your character is a street artist that uses a chainsaw to carve statues of people from logs, is that engineering? If your character is a street artist that paints caricatures, is that an engineering check?
Though at the same time, I think there was room to have a technology skill as an additional recall knowledge skill, and potentially an alternate crafting skill (but I'm also of the school where I think Arcana, Nature, Religion, and Occultism should be usable to Craft magic items of their type, so why not Technology for tech items), but I'd also see Computers as not needing to be extra, and would probably just absorb Computers into such a skill.
Couple of responses:
1. I support the idea of compatability. I think it's gone too far, with Starfinder losing some of its identity to conform to Pathfinder's mold.2. I think you can absolutely engineer food and especially a statue. Architecture, structural engineering, and more care very much about appearances. Engineering is not the antithesis of art; they're often related.
3. Besides, cooking is a lore skill ;)
4. As an engineer, Engineering and Computers are pretty distinct skill sets; I really wouldn't want the game combining them, just like they didn't in 1E.
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Couple of responses:
1. I support the idea of compatability. I think it's gone too far, with Starfinder losing some of its identity to conform to Pathfinder's mold.
To give a single counterexample, I've voiced the option of our next campaign being Starfinder. A MASSIVE bonus to that was my being able to say "The underlying game system is identical except Starfinder has piloting and computers and a couple of extra conditions".
The more things I'd have needed to add to that list "Well, nature is now Biological Sciences and Nature", "There is now a skill Physics" etc the less that bonus becomes. Combined with fears that there are now too many skills to cover.
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I also love that it's additive, because I was able to say to my players, "Hey guys! I'm gonna make Piloting a base skill in Pathfinder, also, all of its feats are available too. (then a mild rebalance to make Trick Driver useful for both Pathfinder and Starfinder, and voila).
While I agree with Ectar that it makes Starfinder 2e a slightly worse game I think using a very slight superset of the Pathfinder 2e ruleset was absolutely the right thing to do both from a marketing point of view but also to leverage much more of the Pathfinder 2e base.
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At this point, the best we can do is adapt to the changes. My headcanon fix are.
Lore = Profession
Crafting = DIY Crafting
Nature = Natural Sciences
It's a retcon from SF1e using lore over Profession, but I justify the change because the Lore Spire has always been one of the centers of knowledge in Starfinder.
Another reason for out-of-date sounding terms could be the Gap. Perhaps the Gap causes people to go back to using older pre-Gap terms due to all the lost records and memories.
One thing I found interesting is that there is no engineering lore in the Player Core looks like it might have been replaced with Technology Lore.
But it also looks like Paizo doesn't expect you to limit yourself to just the listed lores. In The Great Absalom Relay, there are 4 lore skills listed that you can use for skill challenges that don't appear to be published in SF2e, although one of them is in PF2e.
Since the skill names are already set, I think a better way to add more science back into the game is through background and archetypes.
I get that it's a symptom of the much-vaunted compatability between the systems, but that homogeneity dilutes Starfinder in a way I don't like.
That's fair. I can understand that.
Like many others have said, there are good reasons for having the skills match up almost exactly.
But you are right that it does cause Starfinder to be a lot less distinct as a result. It does feel like some of the skills need to be renamed or shuffled around between being a lore and being a skill.
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I 100% prefer crafting to engineering. Genuinely surprised to see something so trivial being used as evidence of the system being diluted or weakened.
So, out of curiosity, are fey and fey magic considered natural science?
Is a Xenowarden Druid in Starfinder's primal magic part of natural science teaching?
Yeah why wouldn't they be?
Yeah why wouldn't they be?Because Life Science in 2E would be doing everything Nature does. Only Mysticism could cover primal magical beings. Life Science was not capable of covering that.
But nature does, and if we're just renaming nature for the vibes I don't see why would change that.
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I 100% prefer crafting to engineering. Genuinely surprised to see something so trivial being used as evidence of the system being diluted or weakened.
Crafting vs Engineering is a flavor fail, but not a load bearing one.
The removal of Physical Science without an adequate replacement is more symptomatic of SF2E being diluted, imo.
I suppose you could rename Arcana to Physics and Nature to Biology, and those would carry pretty much same significance as now due to magic being part of the world's sciences, but I'm not sure that's going to necessarily detract from the central fact that, for better or worse, Starfinder's sci-fi universe is one heavy with magic. If your Starfinder scientist studies the stars, they will have to contend with the fact that every star is also an extraplanar portal to Creation's Forge, and if they're a psychologist, they will almost certainly have taken a course on the workings of mind-altering magic.
I'd also say that if you're looking for extremely specific knowledge of a particular topic, that's what the Lore skill is for in 2e. Pick a Lore subcategory or make one up, and you'll be covered. SF2e's Player Core even explicitly lists Physical Science as a subcategory of Lore you can take.
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I think for more specific fields of interest that is what lore skills are for. If you want to be a professional xenooceanolgist take that as a lore.
I would not be shocked if there is some kind of engineering skill that comes in related to the tactical starship game play. Most stuff players would do short of working on a spaceship type situation are not going to be engineering. Most of the crafting/engineering in Starfinder is put in UPB into a maker kit and use your schematics to 3d print whatever item you are trying to craft. You generally are not actually directly making anything you are using UBP to generate it from food to guns and armor. It is basically your skill in working your maker and your access to formula/licensing to produce an item. Honestly instead of crafting or engineering it probably should be called Making but that would confuse a lot of people.
I think the general skills being mostly carry overs from pathfinder 2e winds up being more of a win than a loss just due to portability. The generic names are due to them being pretty broad based skills for specific stuff take lores.
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I'd also say that if you're looking for extremely specific knowledge of a particular topic, that's what the Lore skill is for in 2e. Pick a Lore subcategory or make one up, and you'll be covered. SF2e's Player Core even explicitly lists Physical Science as a subcategory of Lore you can take.
Ugh, if anything that only further entrenches my feelings. Dropping Physical Science from a primary skill to a lore subcategory is disheartening.
In 1E, Physical Science was a very broad category, similar to crafting. It was not a specific or niche subject matter, as people keep suggesting.| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
People continuing to undervalue Lore categories is even more disheartening.
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People continuing to undervalue Lore categories is even more disheartening.
Especially when a lot of the time, using a lore skill reduces the DC of a skill check.
All that's needed to add more science to the game is for the writers or GM to include more skill checks with Life Science Lore, Physical Science Lore, and or the players using them.
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I 100% prefer crafting to engineering. Genuinely surprised to see something so trivial being used as evidence of the system being diluted or weakened.Crafting vs Engineering is a flavor fail, but not a load bearing one.
The removal of Physical Science without an adequate replacement is more symptomatic of SF2E being diluted, imo.
I think this is backwards, tbh. Having "pretty much all the sciences" crammed into one addon skill helped contribute to SF feeling like a weird hack of Pathfinder.
Like... astronomy, geography, geology, meteorology, oceanography, all forms of physics and chemistry, and also a catch all for all forms of potion and medicine crafting mashed together was just kind of a disaster of a skill.
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People continuing to undervalue Lore categories is even more disheartening.Especially when a lot of the time, using a lore skill reduces the DC of a skill check.
All that's needed to add more science to the game is for the writers or GM to include more skill checks with Life Science Lore, Physical Science Lore, and or the players using them.
Lore skills don't get nearly the same level of feat support that the other skills do.
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In Sf1e, having Engineering, Life Science, or Physical Science didn't give you earned income; you had to take a profession for that. Having the skill is like going to college but then not getting a job; you have the knowledge, but you haven't put it to use.
In SF2e Life Science Lore, or Physical Science Lore, I'm guessing that Technology Lore is the replacement for Engineering Lore at least in the Player Core. These Lores give you both the knowledge and earned income. I see taking crafting in addition to a lore is adding hands-on experience to your more theoretical knowledge.
Physical Science Lore is a game mechanic name; there's no reason to use it character. Your character could just say I went to school for Physical Science, or even Astro Physics; either way, you still roll a Physical Science Lore skill check. You would never have a character say I joined the military to learn how to strike with guns, but you still have to use a strike action to roll shoot with a gun.
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Lore skills don't get nearly the same level of feat support that the other skills do.People continuing to undervalue Lore categories is even more disheartening.Especially when a lot of the time, using a lore skill reduces the DC of a skill check.
All that's needed to add more science to the game is for the writers or GM to include more skill checks with Life Science Lore, Physical Science Lore, and or the players using them.
Good point, but skill names are not likely to change; it's much easier to add new feats, and we are likely to get new science and tech feats in the Tech Core book. Also, likely to get tech backgrounds and archetypes in that book, too.
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I 100% prefer crafting to engineering. Genuinely surprised to see something so trivial being used as evidence of the system being diluted or weakened.Crafting vs Engineering is a flavor fail, but not a load bearing one.
The removal of Physical Science without an adequate replacement is more symptomatic of SF2E being diluted, imo.
I think this is backwards, tbh. Having "pretty much all the sciences" crammed into one addon skill helped contribute to SF feeling like a weird hack of Pathfinder.
Like... astronomy, geography, geology, meteorology, oceanography, all forms of physics and chemistry, and also a catch all for all forms of potion and medicine crafting mashed together was just kind of a disaster of a skill.
That's honestly fair. It's the same kind of weird regarding Crafting making one equally good at masonry, smithing, leatherworking, and carpentry. Having all of non-life science in a single skill was probably too much. But being merely a Lore skill concerns me that Science as an avenue of Skill expression (largely in the form of Feats)
Also, Medicine was a separate skill
I'm just feeling a de-emphasis of science and engineering in the Science Fantasy game.
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Here's the problem. I'm fine with using science lore skills, but out of the first 5 scenarios, the word science is only used in the first scenario special and it's only used twice. Each time it's used as an alternative to using Physical Science Lore in place of Nature.
The Great Absalom Relay mentions substituting a relevant Lore check 9 times.
The thing about lore skills is that they often require player skill to convince the GM to allow them as a substitute. In PF2e, I recently convinced the GM to let me use Mercantile Lore in place of both Theator and Warfair Lore, because warfair requires a lot of logistics, and a theator company needs to buy cloth to make costumes. For me this is a fun part of the game.
I think a problem that lore skills face is copy fitting. All the base skills are just one word, and all the lore skills are at least 2 words, with both Life and Physical Science Lore being 3 words. Listing all the possible Lore Skills that might also work, or including "A PC can substitute a relevant Lore check at the GM’s discretion," takes up a lot of room. I just assume that unless a skill challenge says you can only use that skill, that a Lore substitution is fine, if the PCs have a good justification for it.
I don't think listing all the lore skills is possible or even desirable. Since "basically anything you can imagine that your character is good enough at to get paid doing it" is a valid lore skill.
Like "Mathematics Lore", "Triaxian Pastry Lore", "Supernatural Romance Novel Lore", "Pseudo-Riemannian Manifold Lore", etc. are all valid choices for a lore skill.
You are not guaranteed that your lore skill is guaranteed to come up, but any time you can convince the GM it's relevant then it should be (and GMs should be fairly permissive about this). You can always earn an income with Lore, and generally the more specific your lore skill is the lower the DC for any relevant checks should be (e.g. the roll to determine if the chef is lying to you about where they trained is lower if "Triaxian Pastry Lore" applies than if you're rolling "Cooking Lore")
They could give a list of example lore skills, but mostly that's going to be specific to the campaign so something like "here are lore skills relevant to the campaign" is a good thing to put in a Adventure Path player's guide. They shouldn't prevent someone who really wants to be an expert on the history of the Veskarium Postal Service to play that character.
Medicine is still a separate skill in SF2e, and generally skills in 2e cover sweeping avenues of standard capabilities, which is why the many knowledge and crafting skills of 1e have been largely condensed into just Crafting or Lore. I will also second the notion that Lore is chronically undervalued in internet forum discussions, because at first glance it looks like the skill doesn't have much support when in practice, many APs will in fact include lower DCs for appropriate Lore skills and advise the GM to use a lower DC when a PC uses an appropriate Lore skill for a check. The playtest scenarios we received often let you make Lore checks at a significantly reduced DC, several of which include Physical Science or Life Science Lore. One scenario in particular frequently includes both science Lores in its skill checks, so I really don't think science and technology-related skills are really being sidelined in the way they're made out to be here.
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Here's the problem. I'm fine with using science lore skills, but out of the first 5 scenarios, the word science is only used in the first scenario special and it's only used twice. Each time it's used as an alternative to using Physical Science Lore in place of Nature.
Gosh that's saddening.
How many times is the word "Magic" used?Edit: better yet, don't tell me. It can only make me think worse of the game than I'm already starting to.
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Like it doesn't entirely feel correct to separate "the scientific aspects of the natural world" from "the magical stuff the Nature skill covers" in a setting in which Primal Magic exists. Scientists in Starfinder will be at least aware of Magic and have some idea about what can and can't do as part of doing science.
Like a dragon shouldn't be able to fly or breathe fire based on the laws of the natural world, except for the inherent magic that dragons have that let them do that. You can't really "study the laws of the natural world without regards to innate magic and the like" in a setting in which dragons exist.
It's an understandable sentiment. In playtesting, we definitely ran into the lack of a physics skill once or twice. If it's something you feel strongly about, it might be a good thing to write up as some homebrew- a solid set of skill feats for Natural Science, Physical Science, and Mysticism (mostly the shared caster stat ones), would make it a lot easier for GMs to incorporate if they like the old SF1 feel.
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Here's the problem. I'm fine with using science lore skills, but out of the first 5 scenarios, the word science is only used in the first scenario special and it's only used twice. Each time it's used as an alternative to using Physical Science Lore in place of Nature.Gosh that's saddening.
How many times is the word "Magic" used?Edit: better yet, don't tell me. It can only make me think worse of the game than I'm already starting to.
The good news the lowest use of magic in an SF2e scenario is only 3 times.
Now, to completely terrify you, magic, or more precisely "magical," is in every SF1e scenario at least once because it's in the OGL. On the other hand, the ORC notice doesn't include any variation of the word magic. So SF2e has the clear advantage in the long run.
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I'd also say that if you're looking for extremely specific knowledge of a particular topic, that's what the Lore skill is for in 2e. Pick a Lore subcategory or make one up, and you'll be covered. SF2e's Player Core even explicitly lists Physical Science as a subcategory of Lore you can take.Ugh, if anything that only further entrenches my feelings. Dropping Physical Science from a primary skill to a lore subcategory is disheartening.
In 1E, Physical Science was a very broad category, similar to crafting. It was not a specific or niche subject matter, as people keep suggesting.
The thing is, Lore is not niche subject matter. It is both academic and practical knowledge of a subject.
For instance, Lore (Sailing) would allow someone to:
a. Identify a sailing ship by type and possibly by name because of features unique to that ship;
b. Design a ship like a naval architect or ship builder could; and
c. Sail any sailing ship.
All of that for one skill.
A Lore can be very narrow, ie, The Triaxian Pastry example above, or incredibly broad, such as Lore (insert name of Ancestry)
Imagine a person in the real world having Lore (Human). That person would be an expert on every culture on the planet, no matter how small or isolated that culture was, and could easily be an expert on every human culture ever.
Lore also has a ton of feat support, as every feat, or class feature, that ties into Recall Knowledge supports every single Lore in the game.
Every Lore you can imagine isa Primary skill, and now we have an infinite number of them, with minimal page space usage, to cover any possible thing any player anywhere in the world could want their character to know about.
Imagine a person in the real world having Lore (Human). That person would be an expert on every culture on the planet, no matter how small or isolated that culture was, and could easily be an expert on every human culture ever.
Lore also has a ton of feat support, as every feat, or class feature, that ties into Recall Knowledge supports every single Lore in the game.
Every Lore you can imagine isa Primary skill, and now we have an infinite number of them, with minimal page space usage, to cover any possible thing any player anywhere in the world could want their character to know about.
Human lore is genrally considered too broad in Pathfinder, although Humans being less universal might make it reasonable in Starfinder- Generally you get a single Human Ethnicity for a lore like Varisian Lore or Tian-Min lore. Of course, Paizo isn't perfectly consistent- [Country] Lore or [Continent] Lore are called out as too broad, but they show up all the time in scenarios.
In the adventures I have played (all Paizo published) I've seen "technology" interacted with via many skills.
Computers yes of course. Crafting, of course. Thievery when dealing with disabling or bypassing (and not just traps). Piloting when dealing with vehicle tech. Medicine when dealing with drugs, toxins, and medical machines / data. Society for recognizing alien tech.
In the adventures I have played (all Paizo published) I've seen "technology" interacted with via many skills.
Computers yes of course. Crafting, of course. Thievery when dealing with disabling or bypassing (and not just traps). Piloting when dealing with vehicle tech. Medicine when dealing with drugs, toxins, and medical machines / data. Society for recognizing alien tech.
From the games I played in sf1 do not stint on society that skill winds up getting used a TON when exploring ancient alien stuff.