[Starfinder] The Starfinder SRD is here!

[Wartex1]

For those of you who've been mildly interested in the sci-fi spinoff to Pathfinder, the SRD is now up: http://www.starfindersrd.com

[Knaight]

It's nice to have, but there is some impressive sloppiness involved in the system. The starship size categories in particular are hilarious, clearly made by people who never thought to reference ocean going ships at all and who fail to understand that length and mass are probably not actually related in a roughly linear fashion but should be closer to m=kL3, where k is a range of constants. Assuming cubic starships (and thus providing a lower bound), the following densities (lb/ft3) are found:

[1.8519e-001, 4.6296e-002, 1.1111e-002, 1.6406e-003, 3.0000e-004, 4.7407e-006]

If we instead make the incredibly helpful assumption that the bulk of the mass is in the hull and that the hull doesn't get thicker with increasing size, allowing for surface area to be used instead we get these (lb/ft2):

[1.851852, 0.925926, 0.555556, 0.218750, 0.100000, 0.011852]


Obviously the shape of the ship affects both of these, making the exact numbers less the point. What is the point is that the numbers should be fairly similar in each list, instead of dropping five orders of magnitude in density and two orders of magnitude in mass per area. That's the sort of thing where if the smallest starships were completely solid the largest ones would have to be an extremely disperse gas (as in 0.01 atm or so).

[Necroticplague]

It's nice to have, but there is some impressive sloppiness involved in the system. The starship size categories in particular are hilarious, clearly made by people who never thought to reference ocean going ships at all and who fail to understand that length and mass are probably not actually related in a roughly linear fashion but should be closer to m=kL3, where k is a range of constants. Assuming cubic starships (and thus providing a lower bound), the following densities (lb/ft3) are found:

[1.8519e-001, 4.6296e-002, 1.1111e-002, 1.6406e-003, 3.0000e-004, 4.7407e-006]

If we instead make the incredibly helpful assumption that the bulk of the mass is in the hull and that the hull doesn't get thicker with increasing size, allowing for surface area to be used instead we get these (lb/ft2):

[1.851852, 0.925926, 0.555556, 0.218750, 0.100000, 0.011852]


Obviously the shape of the ship affects both of these, making the exact numbers less the point. What is the point is that the numbers should be fairly similar in each list, instead of dropping five orders of magnitude in density and two orders of magnitude in mass per area. That's the sort of thing where if the smallest starships were completely solid the largest ones would have to be an extremely disperse gas (as in 0.01 atm or so).
To be fair, their previous system had this problem with large creatures, can't say I expected much different. Heck, this stuff is common enough for it's own tvtropes page (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScifiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale). With sub-pages.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

Looking forward to alien archive, so GMs actually know how to create NPCs. And alien monsters, that too I guess.

[Wartex1]

Starship scale and scaling of DCs is definitely the biggest problem with the system, though the former is mostly just fluff.

There's also the setting which feels absolutely terrible for sci-fi (seriously, a tiny megacity? A solar system of entirely habitable planets?).

[KillianHawkeye]

A solar system of entirely habitable planets?).

To be fair, a couple of those planets are entirely inhabited by constructs and undead.

[Ninjaxenomorph]

That's because it's science-fantasy. Closer to Shadowrun than Traveler.

[Wartex1]

The mechanics seem to lean more on the science fiction side though. It's not Pathfinder in space, it's its own thing.

It has glaring problems that aren't simply handwaved and are rather frustrating from a lore standpoint (Absolom station is only 5 miles wide? Alien ruins on every decently sized astronomical object, including the sun?).

Plus the fact that the core races seem arbitrarily selected given that there are already a bajillion other races already living in the Pact Worlds like Triaxians and Aballonians.

[Ravens_cry]

I actually like the defualt fluff a lot. It's a continuation of Pathfinder, so it's a fantasy setting that didn't just stick around in the quasi-medieval/renaissance. Gods and magic are still very real.
The mechanics, well, I had a stand out moment that just had me livid. I looked up Weapon Specialization feat, and it said to go to a page, which told me all classes got it and then said to go to back to the feat page for more details. There was no more details, and no clue in those pages where to look. Since it said all classes got it, I decided to check the classes intro pages, and, sure enough it told me, but that was only my somewhat honed RPG-er instincts. If I'd been a newbie, I'd have been completely lost.

[Wartex1]

To be fair, that's the SRD's fault.

It's super clear in the official book (All classes get specialization in weapons the class grants proficiency with, and specialization allows you to add your class level to damage rolls, or half with small arms and operative melee weapons).

[ZamielVanWeber]

To be fair, their previous system had this problem with large creatures, can't say I expected much different. Heck, this stuff is common enough for it's own tvtropes page (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ScifiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale). With sub-pages.

Starfinder is listed on a sub page now. That being said I am glad the SRD is up: I love space opera type campaigns and need to learn more about Starfinder so I can consider running one again.

[Milo v3]

To be completely clear, that isn't the official Starfinder SRD. The thing that is up right now is a Starfinder version of PFSRD and will probably be overflowing with poorly labelled third-party once more third-party content is released.

[ZamielVanWeber]

Thanks for the info, I suspected as much. Also it keeps crashing my Chrome on any device I have that allows adds...

[CluFa]

Starship scale and scaling of DCs is definitely the biggest problem with the system, though the former is mostly just fluff.

There's also the setting which feels absolutely terrible for sci-fi (seriously, a tiny megacity? A solar system of entirely habitable planets?).

Why not? Worked for Firefly. :smallsmile:


CluFa

[Dr_Dinosaur]

To be completely clear, that isn't the official Starfinder SRD. The thing that is up right now is a Starfinder version of PFSRD and will probably be overflowing with poorly labelled third-party once more third-party content is released.

Maybe you're thinking of D&DWiki? The PFSRD is pretty good about separating material by publisher

[Milo v3]

Maybe you're thinking of D&DWiki? The PFSRD is pretty good about separating material by publisher

No I'm talking about PFSRD.

[legomaster00156]

d20pfsrd is really pretty good about sourcing material and separating Paizo from third-party. If you're not paying attention to the individual publisher links and the book sources at the bottom of the entries, that's not their fault.

[Zhentarim]

For those of you who've been mildly interested in the sci-fi spinoff to Pathfinder, the SRD is now up: http://www.starfindersrd.com

Finally! A SSRD!

[Milo v3]

d20pfsrd is really pretty good about sourcing material and separating Paizo from third-party. If you're not paying attention to the individual publisher links and the book sources at the bottom of the entries, that's not their fault.

Based on that, D&D wiki is really good about it too since you could always see if it's homebrew at the bottom of the page (actually they might be better now a days since they have added in a ridiculously hideous banner at the top of the page to say that something isn't official content).

[The Random NPC]

I've never noticed a problem with 3pp options on pfsrd, they're usually in a table under the publisher's name so easy to identify.

[shadowmage]

For anyone interested here is the official Startfidner SRD. http://aonsrd.com/

[zergling.exe]

For anyone interested here is the official Startfidner SRD. http://aonsrd.com/

Please do not necro year old threads.