Why is starfinder so horribly undeveloped?

[MonkeySage]

Simple thing: How much hp does my summoned creature have?

Pathfinder: look it up in the bestiary.

Starfinder: Throw your hands up in frustration because you won't find that information.

[Rynjin]

Because it was underfunded, understaffed, and unplaytested.

[GrayDeath]

Because it was underfunded, understaffed, and unplaytested.


Are you implying it isn`t any longer?

(Honest question, loved the idea, watche dit for a while but lost interest before it was released)

[Thurbane]

I suspect the folks over at Paizo had too many irons in the fire developing PF2 to devote a reasonable amount of resources to Starfinder. Paizo/PF seems to be bigger on hype and advertising than actual product development (other than the avalanche of 3rd party products that pop up every other day).

I don't play PF/SF in any form, so that's just my observation as a complete outsider. I could be way off the mark.

[Pleh]

Never played Starfinder, but couldn't you look up a similar creature in PF and tweak it to fit the creature you want?

[137beth]

I suspect the folks over at Paizo had too many irons in the fire developing PF2 to devote a reasonable amount of resources to Starfinder. Paizo/PF seems to be bigger on hype and advertising than actual product development (other than the avalanche of 3rd party products that pop up every other day).

I don't play PF/SF in any form, so that's just my observation as a complete outsider. I could be way off the mark.
For a complete outsider, your observations are pretty much on point.

Some people have also speculated that Starfinder was a paid alpha test for Pathfinder 2, although the developers have denied such claims.


Never played Starfinder, but couldn't you look up a similar creature in PF and tweak it to fit the creature you want?

That assumes that there is a similar creature in PF. Even if there is, it's a nontrivial amount of work to convert PF monsters to SF. And, if you have to create a bunch of rules yourself to use something the system supposedly gives you out of the box (like summoned monsters), then the designers of SF didn't actually finish making the game.

[Pleh]

That assumes that there is a similar creature in PF. Even if there is, it's a nontrivial amount of work to convert PF monsters to SF. And, if you have to create a bunch of rules yourself to use something the system supposedly gives you out of the box (like summoned monsters), then the designers of SF didn't actually finish making the game.

Well, sure, but the conversation so far seemed to be suggesting this was a problem and was going to take some elbow grease no matter how you crack it.

Fantasy and sci fi/fantasy monsters are pretty stinking compatible. It's not hard to make goblins and hydras into aliens, especially if you just mod the fluff.

A quadripedal reptilian alien monster with regerating limbs, a ravenous appetite, and a surly disposition can easily describe a hydra or an alien monster.

[Psyren]

...Did you try reading the spell? Because it tells you exactly what you need to do.


To generate statistics for a summoned creature, first check the Stat Block column of Table 8: Summon Creature. If a page number is listed, use the creature’s stat block on that page, though it is altered slightly depending on your alignment. Otherwise, if the entry is Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Huge, or elder, use the elemental stat block of the same name (found on page 46) and apply the appropriate graft, listed in the Applied Graft column (summoning grafts are on pages 147–149, and elemental grafts are on page 47). Non-elemental creatures lose elemental immunities and do not gain an elemental graft. For example, to get the statistics of an angel from the 1st-level list, you use the tiny elemental stat block and apply the angel summoning graft.

So to fix the opening post:


Simple thing: How much hp does my summoned creature have?

Pathfinder: look it up in the bestiary.

Starfinder: look it up in alien archive.

[Telok]

Oddly starfinder elementals lack most of the classic 3.p elemental immunities. Example: water elementals will drown if they don't regularly surface to breathe.

Yeah, there's holes.

[ericgrau]

I suspect the folks over at Paizo had too many irons in the fire developing PF2 to devote a reasonable amount of resources to Starfinder. Paizo/PF seems to be bigger on hype and advertising than actual product development (other than the avalanche of 3rd party products that pop up every other day).

I don't play PF/SF in any form, so that's just my observation as a complete outsider. I could be way off the mark.

Ouch.

It is way, way overhyped and delivers on none of the hype. Not disagreeing with everyone there. But I've had a lot of fun playing it. One thing makes Pathfinder super duper wonderful: Continued support for 3.5 in the form of new books, communities and events. The new classes, spells, feats and campaign modules are super fun to use. You can jump right in to a Pathfinder society game, similar to Living Greyhawk. The game store where I used to be played it because they also sold its books (and didn't like 4e), so I could go there and play with others that I befriended there.

The system's best feature is actually how little they ended up changing from 3.5. All the failed promises to do so changed into a feature. Which is great, because when I saw Pathfinder Alpha I crunched the numbers in about 5 minutes and said "This is a horrible fix that will never work, like something thrown together in homebrew 'rebalance' forums." And I bet it did fail horribly in playtesting and they toned it back to minor changes. And there was much rejoicing.

Though even though I haven't heard of Starfinder before this thread, I don't doubt at all that Starfinder and probably multiple Paizo products are terrible. It happens to any company, and while they did something wonderful they are far from the pinnacle of shining stars. I went back to 3.5e due to a new gaming group. Personally I didn't care if I did either. Now I'm on 5e. So I'm a bit out of the loop on recent Paizo stuff.

[Dr_Dinosaur]

...Did you try reading the spell? Because it tells you exactly what you need to do

It tells you what to do if they’re an elemental. Otherwise they don’t get that graft and so we’re back to square one

[Psyren]

It tells you what to do if they’re an elemental. Otherwise they don’t get that graft and so we’re back to square one

The non-elemental ones are there too ("summoning grafts"). Follow the page numbers in the quote I posted.

*** EDIT ***

To sum up what I see as the primary source of confusion - basically, every summon that isn't a specific creature's statblock uses a generic elemental as the base for its basic statistics (hp, attacks, size, etc), then gets its shape and additional abilities from the graft you chose. So for example, if you summon an Agathion (NG Outsider), you'll start from an elemental, then graft on some Good outsider powers like the ability to heal the party, and the final result will pop out looking like one of the PF Agathions - maybe a mouse/Musteval early on, then a lion/Leonal, then a bear/Ursinal etc as you grow in power, all from one spell.

It's a bit like building an Astral Construct, or an Unchained Eidolon.

[MonkeySage]

When you go to cast a spell, having to do so much work on the spot slows down the action. At least with pathfinder and D&D, when you summon a monster, you can find that monster in the Bestiary or Monster Manual.

That's not so much work. The spell's cast and the action can continue.

Last night when I tried to run a game, the party Technomancer tried to summon an Agathion, which led to a 10 minute scramble just to find basic information like "How many hit points does this thing have?". And I still don't have an answer to that. The player himself ditched the spell and promised he'd never cast it again.

That's bad design.

[Arutema]

So he took a spell without researching the things it summons and how to build them?

I'm not sure how that qualifies as a system failing? I mean, the section on building summoned monsters is right there next to the spell in Alien Archive. Did he pick it off a SRD site without doing his homework?

[AvatarVecna]

Because real Pathfinder players barely even like antique firearms in their magic fantasy games, let alone spaceships and junk like that.

[MonkeySage]

Ok, simple question: How much HP does an Agathion summoned by Summon Creature II possess?

We spent 10 minutes talking about it when he cast the spell, and I spent another half hour after that looking for it. I did not find it. Even after obtaining a PDF of the Alien Archive, I could not find the answer to that question in the section dedicated to summoning creatures. That information is not listed on any of the grafts.

[Psyren]

When you go to cast a spell, having to do so much work on the spot slows down the action. At least with pathfinder and D&D, when you summon a monster, you can find that monster in the Bestiary or Monster Manual.

Again, it's no more work than it would take to stat out an Astral or Midnight Construct, and I don't see a ton of threads complaining about those. In fact, the lack of variation and the fact that each instance of the spell only gives you 4 options at a time (which you can swap out freely whenever you level, btw) give you an easy solution - figure out your summons ahead of time and bring those statblocks ready-made to the session. You know, like the book itself advises you to do (page 147).


Ok, simple question: How much HP does an Agathion summoned by Summon Creature II possess?

Summon 2 = Small
Small elemental base = HP 20
Agathion Graft = No change to hit points
Total HP = 20

That took me all of 6 seconds, and it only took that long because I was using a PDF instead of being able to keep my fingers on those two physical pages.



That's bad design.

No amount of design can compensate for people unwilling to read.

[MonkeySage]

I did read, I just didn't know where to look. At least with pathfinder I know exactly where to look.

I'm still confused on what "stat block" is supposed to mean in this context, because all the page lists on them is "Tiny" to "Elder", and I cannot find an explanation.

[Thurbane]

For a complete outsider, your observations are pretty much on point.

Some people have also speculated that Starfinder was a paid alpha test for Pathfinder 2, although the developers have denied such claims.

Ouch.

I might have come across as a bit more snarky and critical then I meant to.

I have nothing against PF, just not something I'm particularly interested in playing.

I have it a go a few times early in it's release, and it wasn't my cup of tea.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Psyren
No amount of design can compensate for people unwilling to read.

This doesn’t really seem fair. The OP and his group were obviously reading, but as he says they didn’t know where to read. You’re clearly familiar with how all these elements fit together, but not everyone has that same understanding.

I don’t have any of the Starfinder books, but it sounds like this is an issue with information being scattered around rather than compiled in one spot. If so, this is less about game design or reading skills than the editors not thinking about how to make information most readily available to players.

[Hrugner]

I'm surprised someone played a technomancer at all honestly. The one game of this we ran, we all joked about playing the technomancer to abuse the complete lack of restrictions on whatever item you made as your spell cache. The game lasted till we got a ship around level 2 and realized that ship to ship combat assumed both sides were aware of one another, that none of your class abilities worked, and that it ignored the implications of 3d movement. The system seems better for simulating 1600s naval battles than combat between fast moving objects in 3d space. I don't think our DM ever really worked out how to use the hacking rules honestly, we eventually reverted to using computers checks like disable device and ignoring all the hacking rules for something faster.

The game hobbled along till our mechanic mentioned just hanging out in the ship and following along with his drone till we needed a ship to show up and rocket everything.

[Arutema]

I don’t have any of the Starfinder books, but it sounds like this is an issue with information being scattered around rather than compiled in one spot. If so, this is less about game design or reading skills than the editors not thinking about how to make information most readily available to players.

The summon monster spell is immediately adjacent to the building summoned creatures rules in Alien Archive.

This sounds like the player in question used a 3rd-party SRD site which separated the two rather than the original source.

[MonkeySage]

Incidentally, we used the Starjammer SRD. I have the core rulebook, I do not have the alien archive. My Players don't even have the core rulebook, they had to use the SRD to build their characters. I'm not swimming in cash and I can't afford to buy a hard copy of the book at this time. I have the PDF but I didn't even know it existed until one of my players linked it to me after last night's game, for this very reason.

And the text for building summon monsters was extremely confusing to me. This is the first Starfinder Campaign i've ever run or played, and comparing it to Pathfinder I have to ask why we must *build* a summon monster? Why couldn't the writers of the Alien archive have included every monster that could be summoned? Why make the gm and players do their work for them? All that does is discourage me, and apparently my players, from even wanting to mess with summons.

[Telok]

The game lasted till we got a ship around level 2 and realized that ship to ship combat assumed both sides were aware of one another, that none of your class abilities worked, and that it ignored the implications of 3d movement. The system seems better for simulating 1600s naval battles than combat between fast moving objects in 3d space.

I'm in a SF game because it's what the group wanted to play. Honestly I find it varying between boring and annoyingly restrictive. And of course the weird holes, trying to figure out how to use radiation weapons in spaceship combat basically turned into an agreement to never use them because it got pretty bad.


So first you look up the spaceship rules for radiation weapons. Then the radiation poisoning rules, and the general poisoning rules. Then the armor rules. Then back to the spaceship stuff to try to figure out how to stat a ship crew.

So say we've got a 9th level party in a tier 9 ship taking on a Hivonvx Titan Hauler (also a tier 9 ship). The PCs were foolishly ignorant about the upcoming complication and have a Graser as one of their ships weapons. They shoot and hit the hauler... What happens?

Ignoring any actual damage it inflicts 1d4 rounds of irradiation to the hauler(spaceship rules). Every person on the ship has to make a Fort save vs. DC 17 (radiation rules), and takes 7 points of damage (poison rules), unless they have level 8 or higher armor (equipment rules). Now the hauler has 35 crew, the captain, engineer, two gunners, pilot, and science officer can be assumed to be level 9 (spaceship rules) and we'll just assume that they also have level 9 armor (no rules, but reasonable). What about the other 29 crew? No rules.

If we assume they're all 9th level with appropriate armor and weapons then if the PCs win and kill everyone they could possibly get 840,000+ credits in loot. Well we can't have that so we say that the crew are half the level of the officers, so level 4. We'll also assume they're all combatant array NPCs because those have +6 Fort and 50 hp instead of +3 and 43. So half the crew fails the first save and all of them take 7 damage. Ok, no problem.

On subsequent rounds what happens if the ship is hit with the graser again? No rules. Let's just reset the duration if the d4 roll is higher, that give the best chances to the NPCs. So next time the ship is hit with a graser, or the next round if the initial d4 rolled 2+, another radiation save. The crew all take another 7 hp damage and now have 36 hp left, 1/4th have made both saves, 1/2 have failed on save, 1/4th have failed two saves. Except that the Fort poison track inflicts -2 on Fort saves for the first and second failures (poison rules) so actually more of them have failed than the numbers above, on the second failure they have to save vs radiation sickness (radiation rules and disease rules). On the third failed poison save they take a point of damage every time they take an action, on the fourth failed save they're KO, on the fifth fail they die.

Tired of rolling saves yet? Did I mention that these 29 crew are the minimum that the ship needs for the officers to be allowed to make checks?

TLDR: Either a CR 9 space fight for a level 9 party involves 35 level 9 NPCs and risks blowing WBL to heck and gone OR medium radiation weapons cripple large ships in ~3 hits.

[Thealtruistorc]

The hit points of summoned monsters are in the elemental entry. Summoned creatures have the same statistics as elementals.

So, for reference,
SM 1: 6
SM 2: 20
SM 3: 40
SM 4: 70
SM 5: 105
SM 6: 145

[Hrugner]

I'm in a SF game because it's what the group wanted to play. Honestly I find it varying between boring and annoyingly restrictive. And of course the weird holes, trying to figure out how to use radiation weapons in spaceship combat basically turned into an agreement to never use them because it got pretty bad.


So first you look up the spaceship rules for radiation weapons. Then the radiation poisoning rules, and the general poisoning rules. Then the armor rules. Then back to the spaceship stuff to try to figure out how to stat a ship crew.

So say we've got a 9th level party in a tier 9 ship taking on a Hivonvx Titan Hauler (also a tier 9 ship). The PCs were foolishly ignorant about the upcoming complication and have a Graser as one of their ships weapons. They shoot and hit the hauler... What happens?

Ignoring any actual damage it inflicts 1d4 rounds of irradiation to the hauler(spaceship rules). Every person on the ship has to make a Fort save vs. DC 17 (radiation rules), and takes 7 points of damage (poison rules), unless they have level 8 or higher armor (equipment rules). Now the hauler has 35 crew, the captain, engineer, two gunners, pilot, and science officer can be assumed to be level 9 (spaceship rules) and we'll just assume that they also have level 9 armor (no rules, but reasonable). What about the other 29 crew? No rules.

If we assume they're all 9th level with appropriate armor and weapons then if the PCs win and kill everyone they could possibly get 840,000+ credits in loot. Well we can't have that so we say that the crew are half the level of the officers, so level 4. We'll also assume they're all combatant array NPCs because those have +6 Fort and 50 hp instead of +3 and 43. So half the crew fails the first save and all of them take 7 damage. Ok, no problem.

On subsequent rounds what happens if the ship is hit with the graser again? No rules. Let's just reset the duration if the d4 roll is higher, that give the best chances to the NPCs. So next time the ship is hit with a graser, or the next round if the initial d4 rolled 2+, another radiation save. The crew all take another 7 hp damage and now have 36 hp left, 1/4th have made both saves, 1/2 have failed on save, 1/4th have failed two saves. Except that the Fort poison track inflicts -2 on Fort saves for the first and second failures (poison rules) so actually more of them have failed than the numbers above, on the second failure they have to save vs radiation sickness (radiation rules and disease rules). On the third failed poison save they take a point of damage every time they take an action, on the fourth failed save they're KO, on the fifth fail they die.

Tired of rolling saves yet? Did I mention that these 29 crew are the minimum that the ship needs for the officers to be allowed to make checks?

TLDR: Either a CR 9 space fight for a level 9 party involves 35 level 9 NPCs and risks blowing WBL to heck and gone OR medium radiation weapons cripple large ships in ~3 hits.

Holy heck, I'm suddenly glad we gave up early. I felt like we didn't give it a good shake, but this is absurd. Mental note to keep some radiation weapons on board if we ever try the game again.

[Thurbane]

On a tangent: did anyone ever do a home-brew 3.5 (or 3.0) version of Spelljammer? Is there a website? If so, does it compare more favorably than Starfinder? I get that they're not going for the exact same feel, but I'd still be interested to know.

Probably should have searched first: http://www.spelljammer.org/

Has anyone tried it?

[Psyren]

This doesn’t really seem fair. The OP and his group were obviously reading, but as he says they didn’t know where to read. You’re clearly familiar with how all these elements fit together, but not everyone has that same understanding.

I have not had significantly more time with Starfinder than anyone else. Hell, I didn't get Alien Archive until Christmas last year, as a gift, not even 6 months ago. But as my quote above shows, they give you direct page references for everything you need. I'm seriously, genuinely not sure what else they were expected to do. If I'm trying to understand something and I see a page number referenced, I tend to follow it; it seems simple enough.

As for third-party sites, it sounds like OP should be complaining about how those are set up (to the folks responsible), rather than blaming the system itself. Though why that would be an issue when he mentioned having the PDF baffles me further.


I don’t have any of the Starfinder books, but it sounds like this is an issue with information being scattered around rather than compiled in one spot. If so, this is less about game design or reading skills than the editors not thinking about how to make information most readily available to players.

The information is "scattered" in exactly two places; the elemental section (pgs. 46-48) and the grafts section (146-148, next to the spell itself.)

[Telok]

Holy heck, I'm suddenly glad we gave up early. I felt like we didn't give it a good shake, but this is absurd. Mental note to keep some radiation weapons on board if we ever try the game again.

It's actually a bit worse. If you have any analytical ability at all a thorough perusal of the starship rules tells you several things.
1) If "space" is even quasi-believable then it's a long ways between anything. Grab a speed 12+ ship, some long range guns, and dictate a 37ish or 57ish hex distance for the entire encounter.
2) If "space" is being run on a 2 foot by 3 foot battle mat then massive damage output and the ability to take damage is the only thing that matters. Get the biggest guns you can and blaze away.
3) Attack bonuses are free and scale at about 1.3-ish per level. Ship-AC costs build points*size to buy and money to repair. Shields give more value per build point than AC/TL and aren't penalized by ship size.

At level 8 the party can run a explorer frame with a speed 12 engine, the biggest shields in the game, a turret with twin linked persistent particle beams, and a mk4 mononode computer. We ran one of the AP space combats with that ship and then ran it again the "stock" tier 8 ship in the main book. If the DM hadn't rolled three rounds of under5s the by-the-book ship would have been toast even with the jacked up NPC skills. By contrast the max-shield ship was never in real danger.

Maybe I'm getting jaded in my old age. If I'm going to invest money in a new game I want it to either do something new, or do something better. Starfinder just doesn't.

[unseenmage]

...



The information is "scattered" in exactly two places; the elemental section (pgs. 46-48) and the grafts section (146-148, next to the spell itself.)
Minor quibble, five pages is hardly two places.

[Acanous]

Starfinder never seems to get off the ground at my local shop. Not really sure why, just finding players seems to be nigh impossible

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Psyren
I have not had significantly more time with Starfinder than anyone else.

Well, as you’ve just demonstrated, you’ve had 100% more time with it than I have. And I’m sure there are plenty of other people hereabouts who haven’t played it either.


Originally Posted by Pysren
The information is "scattered" in exactly two places; the elemental section (pgs. 46-48) and the grafts section (146-148, next to the spell itself.)

The concept of having to build a summoned creature is new to me, and it seems like a hassle. I don’t blame the OP and his group for being a little baffled by this.

And the fact is, it remains rather ungenerous to claim the OP and his group are “unwilling” to read, when that’s very clearly not the case.


Originally Posted by Acanous
Starfinder never seems to get off the ground at my local shop. Not really sure why, just finding players seems to be nigh impossible….

I don’t know anyone who’s played Starfinder, and I haven’t seen a single game proposed on my local gaming Meetup.

What’s also interesting is that my city library system, which is very responsive to requests for gaming books, doesn’t have any of the Starfinder titles. They have a solid number of 4E books, a handful of leftover 3.5 books, a decent selection of Pathfinder books (most purchased at my request) but not a single Starfinder title.

That tells me that no one has put in a materials request for Starfinder, which means there’s very little local interest. At least in my area, it’s fair to say that Starfinder hasn’t much caught on.

.

[Psyren]

Minor quibble, five pages is hardly two places.

It is when they're consecutive. That's called a section. It's like saying "The PHB is so confusing, the info on skills is 'scattered' across 17 pages."


Well, as you’ve just demonstrated, you’ve had 100% more time with it than I have. And I’m sure there are plenty of other people hereabouts who haven’t played it either.

Again I ask, if the exact page numbers are provided and not followed, what more is expected? Is that really a barrier?



The concept of having to build a summoned creature is new to me, and it seems like a hassle.

So you never used a template before in your gaming career? Or psionics?



And the fact is, it remains rather ungenerous to claim the OP and his group are “unwilling” to read, when that’s very clearly not the case.

As mentioned, I can think of literally no other justification for this, so I'm sticking with it. If it sounds harsh or "ungenerous", well, so does the thread title. I'm only responding in kind.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by Psyren
If it sounds harsh or "ungenerous", well, so does the thread title. I'm only responding in kind.

The difference is, the OP is directing his frustration at the system, which is impersonal. You’re responding with a personal attack on the OP and his group, which is very personal.

[Pleh]

The difference is, the OP is directing his frustration at the system, which is impersonal. You’re responding with a personal attack on the OP and his group, which is very personal.

No, it's very personally against the designers who made the system. It's tit for tat, not one sided.

[Psyren]

No, it's very personally against the designers who made the system. It's tit for tat, not one sided.

Precisely. And his attack began a dogpile of other posters far more eager to slam those designers than to take 2 minutes actually verifying his claims. Because god knows rushing to attack Paizo is much easier than doing any research, no matter what efforts they make to put the info on the page.

But if volition or ability are not the issue here, then I have to ask, what is the cause? OP says he has the PDF too, so we can't say it's just because of a SRD's lack of page numbers. (Though I'll point out that, just as a general and free piece of advice, relying solely on a third-party website of any kind is not the optimal way to learn a new system anyway. It is simply not designed to teach the game in the way that the actual book was.)

[Cosi]

It seems that the simplest and most parsimonious explanation is that Starfinder is horribly underdeveloped because the people developing it weren't very good developers.


No, it's very personally against the designers who made the system. It's tit for tat, not one sided.

Well, it would be if Psyren were one of the designers. Or so attached to the designers that he considers criticism of their work a personal insult against him.

In any case, criticism of the designers is not equal to personal insults against a random gaming group. The designers made a product, and sold it for money. They should expect criticism in a way that a random gaming group should not. What Psyren is doing is punching down in an effort to preempt any criticism of Paizo.

[Rynjin]

It seems that the simplest and most parsimonious explanation is that Starfinder is horribly underdeveloped because the people developing it weren't very good developers.

I wouldn't say that. Mcreary, Stephens, and Hillman are all pretty good at their jobs. Stephens has put out some pretty questionable 3PP content (the Godlings in particular suck ass and are one of the few 3PP classes I explicitly pre-ban), but the vast majority of his third party work has been great.

But the Starfinder dev cycle was kind of a joke, and it was made clear that it was a secondary project at best. The Alien Archive didn't come out until a month after the core rulebook (making it hard to run a game at launch, I'll tell you, and I lost interest before the bestiary ever actually launched) and it was clearly rushed in a lot of places.

[Thurbane]

The concept of having to build a summoned creature is new to me, and it seems like a hassle. I don’t blame the OP and his group for being a little baffled by this.

Agreed. From my understanding Astral Constructs (we don't use psionics) and the little I have read about Eidolons seem to follow a similar "build your own creature" method that doesn't appeal to me. Sure, with Summon Monster I may have to apply Fiendish or Celestial, but some good community folks have created a pre-made booklet that does that for me anyway.


The difference is, the OP is directing his frustration at the system, which is impersonal. You’re responding with a personal attack on the OP and his group, which is very personal.

Agreed.


No, it's very personally against the designers who made the system. It's tit for tat, not one sided.

Very much disagreed.

The Forum Rules go into some detail about attacking, insulting, belittling or abusing other posters. It doesn't extend these same rules to game devs, except by inference under general rules of putting down play style preferences or trolling.

Personally, I don't feel the OPs critique of Starfinder crossed any of those lines, but your mileage my vary.

I do think some comments directed specifically at other forum members may have been somewhat uncalled for or over the top.

I think we should be able to critique or even criticize a book or system without being unpleasant to each other in the process.

My 2 coppers anyhow. Sorry for wall of text.

[Pleh]

I think we should be able to critique or even criticize a book or system without being unpleasant to each other in the process.

I think it's fair to critique a criticism for, "your problem is user error, not system malfunction" and that saying as much isn't unpleasant or disrespectful (even if doing so requires some moderation of tone).

[Thurbane]

I think it's fair to critique a criticism for, "your problem is user error, not system malfunction" and that saying as much isn't unpleasant or disrespectful (even if doing so requires some moderation of tone).

That seems a fair point. It's all in the tone and wording, of course, but your premise is fair.

[Psyren]

Agreed, I may have crossed a line. Again, the dogpile of assent with what boiled down to nothing more than user error was typical, but that doesn't excuse my assumption that volition was the underlying cause of the OP's disconnect. I still don't know what it could have been, but speculating on my part was an unnecessary step to solving the problem.

Pleh, I'd like to hire you as my public relations representative going forward.

OP, hopefully you know where to look now.