Starfinder Player's Guide Recommendation Tables Please

[moosher12]

The Guilt of the Grave World Player's Guide does not include a Recommendation table. I'd like to see an inclusion of a Recommendation Table, as Pathfinder Player's Guides have, in future Starfinder Player's Guides.

I'm already running into problems where a player unfamiliar with Starfinder has no idea where to start, and the Guilt of the Grave World Player's Guide only giving 4 ancestry suggestions is not doing a lot for me to point them in the right direction.

I can forgive this for the Guilt of the Grave World Player's Guide, as it was an impromptu posting, and for Paizo releasing it despite it not being planned, I appreciate it. I just hope that future Player's Guides will carry on with these tables, as they give a lot of useful information, especially for newer players.

[Madhippy3]

I am not sure I agree that this will be necessary in the near future. We will only have 8 classes for the forseeable future. If Paizo announced more I missed the announcement. As long as the AP sticks to scifi all eight classes have a thematic reason to be there. A whole table for eight classes could be excessive.

What I will compromise on going forward is an expanded Class Section of the guide. A short description per class where their abilities fit into an adventure's setting and their mechanical impact in game. Nothing more than what we see in PF2e APs.

[moosher12]

Firstly, these tables are useful for more than just class recommendations. They congregate the more refined advice throughout the book into a simple shorthand that makes for quick decisionmaking, and can quickly congregate potentially multiple pages of paragraph of not-always-needed text into a simple table segment no more than a couple of inches squared. I don't need recommendations of mechanical effectiveness as much as I need a measure of "Is the option recommended?: Very likely/likely/not likely"

Secondly, Starfinder will grow with time, Even if Pathfinder is not included, it'll eventually have options over the years. I don't think it's a stretch of an assumption that Paizo will not stop Starfinder at 8, or even 12. Always room for more, plus class books sell. Now whether Starfinder will be a 1 class a year or a 2 class a year game once it catches up to 1E's roster, time will tell.

Thirdly, Starfinder is compatible with Pathfinder, and includes Pathfinder content. Even Guilt of the Grave World asserts this as two of its 4 recommended ancestries are the dwarf and the orc, which will only be available in Pathfinder for quite some more months. Starfinder is proving itself willing to use Pathfinder as an expansion pack, and therefore, can make recommendations from Pathfinder when convenient, so Starfinder already is not a small game, and recommendations can be made around the mechanical effectiveness of specific Pathfinder options, as well, if a low Starfinder option list is an issue. For example, while Pathfinder classes might not need detailed paragraphs to explain their usefulness, they can still be included by placing particularly useful ones or unuseful ones under the table as a shorthand. In real play, Pathfinder stuff gets used. I already have one player who plans to be a mech pilot by way of being an Inventor, for example.

[Madhippy3]

Sorry but I still don't agree. There will be more classes in the future, but there are 8 for the forseeable future and we only need to make tables for those 8 if there is actually something to say. So far, and maybe you or someone else will point to a SF1e adventure that proves me wrong, but I don't see any adventures which these 8 classes we have will be inappropriate the way a legacy Alchemist would be in FotRP which was called out in its own Player Guide. Which class in Guilt of the Grave World needed a "this class is not recommended" or even "appropriate"? To me, they were all Recommended. So far they aren't doing anything niche enough to be inappropriate for any adventures except maybe a low combat high social intrigue adventure which probably only Envoy is Recommended, Mystic and Warper are Appropriate, and the rest are Not Recommended.

You mention dwarf and orc. Those aren't classes, I am talking about classes. I don't expect Paizo is going to jump to suddenly recommending Fighter for their new game. Yes it is cross compatible... like 100% compatible, but the point is this is a new game not a PF2e expansion. They will want to maintain the identity of the game. SF1e had dwarves and orcs. Yes its a fail on their part to already be referencing something from the other game, but at least these are things we would have seen in SF1e. Fighter and inventor are not. That feels like a small difference when the games are cross compatible, but it isn't a small distinction for maintaining the flavor of the setting. Since the options are cross compatible guidance is given to GMs to incorporate them. Thats natural, but I wouldn't expect the other game's class options to become recommended choices for this game.

[moosher12]

Repeating point 1. The table is about more than just classes.

2, Pathfinder lore and Starfinder lore are not separate things. They are interconnected. Everything that exists in Pathfinder exists in Starfinder to some capacity. It is not a fail on Starfinder's part to mention Pathfinder elements, because Pathfinder is a part of Starfinder.

Also, don't assume just because something is not specifically named in Starfinder, it is not in Starfinder. All this shows is you didn't even read a lot of Starfinder 1E. The inventor exists in SF1E, because it was inspired by an SF1E option that preceeded it. The inventor is a 2E version of SF1E's mechanic that can choose between the Character Operations Manual's Experimental Armor Prototype and Experimental Weapon Prototype alternate class features, or a range-less variant of a Drone mechanic. All three of these precede the Inventor in release order. Starfinder Core Rulebook (2017), Starfinder Character Operations Manual (2019), and Guns and Gears (2021). The inventor was built from the mechanic.

So yes, the inventor as it exists now in 2E, did in fact have a mechanical equivalent in SF1E, capabilities that not even the current playtest of the mechanic have, and given how rarely 2E classes get alternate features, is very unlikely to ever have. So yes, there are SF1E characters that can ONLY be represented by a PF2E class when converted to an SF2E game. If you are converting an Experimental Prototype mechanic from 1E to 2E, your only option is currently, and will likely only be, Inventor.

Also, when you mention Fighter, it was also represented in SF1E as various Soldier fighting styles, namely Archer and Blitz. Did you know Barbarians were also a thing? (Wrathful Warrior Soldier). What about Bards? (Magical Expertise Envoys), Monk (Ascetic Warrior Soldier and Qi Adept Soldier), Ranger (Hunter Soldier). Paladin/Champion (Crusader Connection Mystic), etc, etc. The entire Esotericist archetype's description exerts that every form of old world spellcaster still had a number of existing practitioners. So yes, Pathfinder is an expansion to Starfinder, and vice versa.

And lastly, don't forget the final proof point which is, SF2E classes are designed specifically not to step on the toes of PF2E classes. Which means there are things SF2E classes are not allowed to do, even though SF1E classes could do it, because PF2E classes already do them. If Starfinder was meant to be a separate game, these sorts of things would not be factored in class design.