Anybody playing Starfinder?

[Rynjin]

I played Starfinder way back in its initial release (might have been the playtest, actually, I can't remember) and thought it was kinda neat, but never touched it again. It's had some content trickled out over the years that's looking interesting, so it's on the shortlist of games I was considering for running a spacefaring campaign in the near future (my group has been floating the idea of an Outer Worlds game), but I'm not sure if they ever fixed some of the jankier bits of the game (like space combat) or not.

So I figured I'd hit you guys up and see if anyone has any positive impressions of it and can fill me in on what I've missed since release, in broad strokes. Bonus points if you've played a bunch of other sci-fi systems. Currently my short list consists of Savage Worlds (with Savage RIFTS content and I'm sure there's a space travel sourcebook out there for it somewhere), Star Wars Saga Edition, or Mutants and Masterminds (good flexible system, lets people make up their own super-tech if they like) so I'm open to ideas.

[CharonsHelper]

I've only played a single session - but I did read it.

Frankly - it's a solid d20 game, but I don't think that they adjusted the melee/ranged dichotomy enough for a sci-fi game. They removed a couple of d20's ranged disadvantages such as the feat taxes for shooting into melee, but it's way to easy to close to melee against guns. It just doesn't feel right to me, though that is of course just opinion.

For modern or sci-fi games, I think that if melee is viable at all, it should be a high risk/reward tactic, and not always viable depending upon the terrain etc. An easy way to do it with d20 bones would just be to slow down movement speed drastically and allow foes with firearms to get off a shot as a reaction when you charge them.

So - basically it's Pathfinder in space. It's solid for what it is, but it doesn't really feel like sci-fi to me.

That - and I wasn't a fan of how your starship auto-upgrades. Just breaks verisimilitude for me.

[Rynjin]

IIRC didn't what they do to balance out ranged weapons was to make it a lot easier to add stuff like level to damage with ranged weapons?

[Lemmy]

I honestly forgot this was a thing until I saw this thread... It's so rare to even hear a mention of Starfinder that I'm always semi-surprised when someone says they play it or even just have played it for more than a couple months after release.

[Telok]

Other than Starfinder nobody in my area (except myself) seems willing to run anything beyond swords and sorcery type games, so I have to take what I can get.

That said, if there were bits you didn't like at release those will still be there. All that has been added are races and equipment, although "soon" they're supposed to put out some new classes.

Personally my go-to systems for sci-fi are Classic Traveller, d6 Space, Paranoia, and recently Dungeons the Dragoning 40k 7e.

[CharonsHelper]

IIRC didn't what they do to balance out ranged weapons was to make it a lot easier to add stuff like level to damage with ranged weapons?

I wasn't weighing in on the balance of melee/ranged in Starfinder. I just don't like how easy it is to close to melee without being shot.

Frankly - unless there's a very good setting excuse (ex: Jedi) I don't think that going solely melee in a sci-fi setting should really be a viable character choice.

[Psyren]

I like it because, like D&D/Pathfinder, you can run a lot of genres of games that share elements of that aesthetic in it. Sprawling space opera, intrigue-heavy cyberpunk, planetary exploration, you could even finagle a mech combat game out of the power armor and starship rules. And like most science-fantasy it does a much better job of keeping the casters and martials on fairly even footing than regular fantasy manages to while staying believable.


I wasn't weighing in on the balance of melee/ranged in Starfinder. I just don't like how easy it is to close to melee without being shot.

Not to reopen one of our many, many "are HP meat?" argue-fests, but "getting shot" is an abstraction in a game like Starfinder. Just because your trained soldier space hero wearing a refractor suit was able to close to melee without losing any HP or Stamina, doesn't mean that someone with no defenses, training, or even decent ability scores would have fared as well. (Put another way, maybe you were shot, but it was a graze or glanced off some ablative field a couple of inches out from your physical armor.)



That said, if there were bits you didn't like at release those will still be there. All that has been added are races and equipment, although "soon" they're supposed to put out some new classes.

Indeed, and I believe you can still download the playtest versions for free if you'd like to check them out.

[AdAstra]

I wasn't weighing in on the balance of melee/ranged in Starfinder. I just don't like how easy it is to close to melee without being shot.

Frankly - unless there's a very good setting excuse (ex: Jedi) I don't think that going solely melee in a sci-fi setting should really be a viable character choice.

Starfinder always seemed to me more science fantasy. Like 40k where melee is viable mostly because it’s cool.

However, there are often some viable reasons for melee to be useful, usually due to range-compression:
-The common battlefields don’t allow for many long sightlines. This could be boarding actions on ships, or clearing dense cities room by room. After all, if you’ve got large open spaces, why couldn’t you bypass them with dropships, or blast whoever’s defending them to pieces with orbital bombardment?
-Armor is strong enough to be near-impervious to small arms fire except at close range (and melee weapons don’t have this problem or suffer less). Pretty self-explanatory, if your gun can only scratch their paint before they get within stabbing range, stabbing’s gonna be pretty effective, so long as the protection is mainly effective against ranged weapons. Perhaps people have defense fields that require 5 meter’s distance to be fully effective, or have a dampening effect proportional to projectile velocity. Both of these would disproportionally affect projectile weapons over melee weapons.
-Cloaking and/or sensor jamming is commonplace. Again, pretty self-explanatory. If you can’t see the target you’re not going to be hitting it much without explosives or hilarious volume of fire, thus allowing people to get within stabbing range before most engagements even start.

[BWR]

Setting-wise Starfinder struck me as a poor man's Dragonstar, in much the same way that Golarion struck me a poor man's Mystara. A bit unfair, perhaps, but since I already have the latter why would I want the former. I wasn't impressed by the system since what I wanted was a SF expansion for PF1 (D&D in spaaaace), not another specially made variant of d20 which would require a lot of work to convert, and many of the choices they made just annoyed me.

There were a few decent points in both setting and mechanics, but on the whole I'll just update Dragonstar to PF1 rather than run SF.

[Malphegor]

My group's been playing it, we were mainly a 3.5e group before.

First thing I've noticed is that it's much simpler than it's d20 progenitor of 3.5, which I assume is the case with Pathfinder too. Lot less stuff to worry about in combat. It feels kinda more basic?

Stamina is a fun mechanic to differentiate lethal hp and nonlethal hp you can handle- kirk can be shot a few times without needing bones to patch him up.



I feel some things are a bit obtuse for newbie DMs- the hacking skill requires DMs put some thought into what's hackeable and what computer level computers are.

Also, much as it is very simple to design a ship in this system, with just the core rulebook right now at my group it kinda feels... I dunno, a little lacking. It feels like ships weren't meant to be the focus of starfinder but it's space scifi so they're kind of a necessity. The game still feels like fantasy dungeon crawling even when it's trying it's darnest to be Star Trek.


That said, the setting is gorgeous, and the books I've seen are very clear, though it seems that they're getting thinner in content as we go.

[CharonsHelper]

Just because your trained soldier space hero wearing a refractor suit was able to close to melee without losing any HP or Stamina, doesn't mean that someone with no defenses, training, or even decent ability scores would have fared as well. (Put another way, maybe you were shot, but it was a graze or glanced off some ablative field a couple of inches out from your physical armor.)

That's exactly my issue though - that's simply not the case. It is easy for any sort of mook to close to melee without even being shot at. There's no real drawback to crossing an open room, as you can simply charge the standard 60ft, and unless someone burned their turn on a readied action they get into melee 100% unscathed.

I don't mind melee being viable at all - it's that you DON'T need any extra defenses or skills to make it viable. The basic d20 mechanics being used mean that a foe would need to be 70ft or more away before there's any real drawback to using melee at all, unless there's other major terrain issues, such as being on a balcony etc.

[Lemmy]

Well... It's been quite a long time since I played it (maybe 2 or 3 games in the first two months after it came out).

IIRC, the game didn't have any super major flaw, but it did have enough small and medium flaws to snowball into enough of an issue that I didn't have any desire or will to play it again.

...But like I mentioned before, it Starfinder might be thr most forgettable RPG I've ever played, so I might no be remembering it correctly.

The only thing that bothers me about it has nothing to do with SF itself, but with Paizo...

Who made SF as stealth paid playtest for PF2e... And ended up tainting both games with their (now typical) "everything should be mediocre" design philosophy.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

*waves hand* Ooh! Ooh! I'm playing it, and I love it, especially with the new Character Operations Manual book that just came out. I'd go so far as to say it's my current favorite TTRPG! :smallsmile:

[Psyren]

*waves hand* Ooh! Ooh! I'm playing it, and I love it, especially with the new Character Operations Manual book that just came out! :smallsmile:

It's out?

*checks*

Oh sweet, it's out, PDF next week - thanks for the heads up!


That's exactly my issue though - that's simply not the case. It is easy for any sort of mook to close to melee without even being shot at. There's no real drawback to crossing an open room, as you can simply charge the standard 60ft, and unless someone burned their turn on a readied action they get into melee 100% unscathed.

So you want some form of opportunity or reaction attack vs. someone charging right? I guess I'm a little confused why that needs to apply here when it didn't apply to bows or guns in 3.5/PF. Certainly it's a technique I wouldn't mind they add via a feat of some kind.

[Archpaladin Zousha]

It's out?

*checks*

Oh sweet, it's out, PDF next week - thanks for the heads up!
I'm subscribed, so I guess mine came early. LOVE some of the new stuff in there, especially since there's stuff that can make your character behave more like one of the old-world classes like Paladin, Barbarian or Monk!

[Anonymouswizard]

Frankly - it's a solid d20 game, but I don't think that they adjusted the melee/ranged dichotomy enough for a sci-fi game. They removed a couple of d20's ranged disadvantages such as the feat taxes for shooting into melee, but it's way to easy to close to melee against guns. It just doesn't feel right to me, though that is of course just opinion.

For modern or sci-fi games, I think that if melee is viable at all, it should be a high risk/reward tactic, and not always viable depending upon the terrain etc. An easy way to do it with d20 bones would just be to slow down movement speed drastically and allow foes with firearms to get off a shot as a reaction when you charge them.

So - basically it's Pathfinder in space. It's solid for what it is, but it doesn't really feel like sci-fi to me.

This, it's solid d20 science fantasy. That's not exactly bad, but in many ways there's not a lot about it that excites me.

To me a big problem is that the d20 structure, especially the way hp/Stamina scales in Starfinder, doesn't gel well with how I see science fiction style battles working (which is closer to rocket tag), and the way equipment scaling works turns me off. Plus if I want science fantasy with a heavy focus on melee I have 40k, and if I want most of what else Starfinder offers I probably have a system that does it closer to how I like it.

Starfinder isn't bad, there's just not a lot about it that I find exciting or worth playing over something else. Particularly GURPS Space, because the way spaceships are built with the latest system is simple and intuitive compared to Starfinder (pick size, slot in twenty systems as front/middle/rear as with two being 'core' systems, use weapon/hp stats for your size).


Personally my go-to systems for sci-fi are Classic Traveller, d6 Space, Paranoia, and recently Dungeons the Dragoning 40k 7e.

My current go-to systems for it are Mongoose Traveller 1e, GURPS Space, Cyberpunk 2020, and WH40kRP. But the first three fall into my like for 'harder' space opera and science fiction, and the latter is 40k.

[Telok]

My current go-to systems for it are Mongoose Traveller 1e, GURPS Space, Cyberpunk 2020, and WH40kRP. But the first three fall into my like for 'harder' space opera and science fiction, and the latter is 40k.

Sounds good. Although I wouldn't classify SF as anything with the word 'science' in it. It's fantasy with science words stuck on it. A sonic stun gun really should not work in vacuum and the magically replenishing nuclear missiles are...

[Anonymouswizard]

Sounds good. Although I wouldn't classify SF as anything with the word 'science' in it. It's fantasy with science words stuck on it. A sonic stun gun really should not work in vacuum and the magically replenishing nuclear missiles are...

Is this 40k? I used SF so it could be read as both Science Fiction and Science Fantasy (which 40k is). I don't play things like d6Space because once I cross the line that stands at about the PEter F. Hamilton level of hardness I either like to go classic (as in 1950s science fiction) or outright science fantasy. It's one of the reasons I prefer 40k to Star Wars.

40k isn't science fiction, but I think it's big enough in gaming to mention, especially in a thread about Starfinder (which is just as blatantly science fantasy).

[Resileaf]

I'm currently running a game myself. Players at level 5 right now. If I have any complaint, it's that most monsters are very meaty. Can take forever to kill something, especially since weapon damage remains rather low until you reach lvl 7-8.

So to make up for it, I've homebrewed minion monsters with a quarter of their normal HP but every other stat is normal. Combat is more fun, can have more enemies present without things being a complete slog. Still looking forward to when the players do real damage.
They really need to learn that they need to stock up on ammo though.

[CharonsHelper]

So you want some form of opportunity or reaction attack vs. someone charging right? I guess I'm a little confused why that needs to apply here when it didn't apply to bows or guns in 3.5/PF. Certainly it's a technique I wouldn't mind they add via a feat of some kind.

That would potentially be one fix, though it'd likely be a rather awkward patch. You could remove charging as an option, to make it difficult to cross open ground and make a melee attack the same turn. Maybe cover stops movement enough that shooting from cover will get you a round firing at close range from someone trying to melee. I'm just spit-balling, and there would probably be other options.

At it's core though, as Anonymouswizard said, I don't think that the d20 bones make for very good sci-fi. Any sort of fix would be a patch on a system meant for fantasy.

And it's not as big of an issue for bows/muskets for several reasons. First of all - those weapons are much slower, so it's not as crazy that you could cover 20 yards before they get off a shot. And even then, ranged weaponry has always been pretty secondary in D&D to melee & casting - so making it feel right wasn't as high of a system priority as making firearms feel right in a sci-fi game should be.

[Anonymouswizard]

That would potentially be one fix, though it'd likely be a rather awkward patch. You could remove charging as an option, to make it difficult to cross open ground and make a melee attack the same turn. Maybe cover stops movement enough that shooting from cover will get you a round firing at close range from someone trying to melee. I'm just spit-balling, and there would probably be other options.

At it's core though, as Anonymouswizard said, I don't think that the d20 bones make for very good sci-fi. Any sort of fix would be a patch on a system meant for fantasy.

And it's not as big of an issue for bows/muskets for several reasons. First of all - those weapons are much slower, so it's not as crazy that you could cover 20 yards before they get off a shot. And even then, ranged weaponry has always been pretty secondary in D&D to melee & casting - so making it feel right wasn't as high of a system priority as making firearms feel right in a sci-fi game should be.

Yeah, this. To get d20 to work as science fiction (let us, for the moment, pretend that science fantasy doesn't exist) you need to rework a lot of the basic assumptions. Technology really rockets up in terms of power and versatility, taking over some but not all of the functions normally associated with magic (particularly long ranged communication), and in some ways being much more reliable.

On that note, once you hit about the 1990s (I think that's when mobile phones started to become widespread) splitting the party becomes practical in every sense bar raw combat power. It can just be better for five people being in five different parts of the city following different leads and checking in with each other every hour or so. (Oh, and Google makes a lot of low level knowledge checks a case of 'do we have a computer', I had one group which made Internet Search a skill).

But anyway, we've inadvertently solved one of the problems with d20, caster/martial imbalance, but we've done it by making a lot of low level and even some mid level utility magic obsolete. Sure we have to worry about Power Cells, but they tend to be cheaper than Spell Slots.

On that note, there was a fairly decent 'd20' Science Fiction system, and it's second edition game out fairly recently. It's called Alternity, and it changed a LOT of basic assumptions about D&D, include IIRC how the basic magic system works (at least it did in 2e). It works, but it works because it's had a lot of changes.

[Psyren]

That would potentially be one fix, though it'd likely be a rather awkward patch. You could remove charging as an option, to make it difficult to cross open ground and make a melee attack the same turn. Maybe cover stops movement enough that shooting from cover will get you a round firing at close range from someone trying to melee. I'm just spit-balling, and there would probably be other options.

You already can't charge someone in cover, so problem solved.



And it's not as big of an issue for bows/muskets for several reasons. First of all - those weapons are much slower, so it's not as crazy that you could cover 20 yards before they get off a shot. And even then, ranged weaponry has always been pretty secondary in D&D to melee & casting - so making it feel right wasn't as high of a system priority as making firearms feel right in a sci-fi game should be.

Both D&D/PF have modern and even technological firearms too, it's not just "bows and muskets."

[CharonsHelper]

You already can't charge someone in cover, so problem solved.

I must of missed that rule. (can't find it with a cursory search either - not that that means it doesn't exist) However, even if that you can still make a full movement and attack - which is still pretty a pretty long range movement on most battlefields.


Both D&D/PF have modern and even technological firearms too, it's not just "bows and muskets."

But they rarely see play - so the system obviously shouldn't be based around them. In Starfinder they're a core aspect of the game.

Various TTRPG systems do different things well. Pathfinder not doing modern firearms well is fine even if they technically exist as they're extremely rare (and I don't think they exist in default Golarion). Starfinder SHOULD do them well - and it still doesn't - which is a problem.

[Telok]

Starfinder SHOULD do them well - and it still doesn't - which is a problem.

I think it may be more that they succeeded with their math goals, which don't match your expectations. The math on attacks, damage, defenses, and skills has formulas behind it that people worked out. It comes down to things like assuming a 60% base hit rate, maxxed attack stats, gear by the WBL chart, always starting at full health, etc. etc., all equals about eight attacks for a pc to take down a CR npc or twelve attacks foe the npc to take down a pc.

They succeeded on their math goals, if you follow their play style and assumptions. But if you do something like think that grenades ought to be dangerous, or that shooting someone with a machine gun on full auto at close range should do more damage than two small caliber pistol shots, or that creatures can't use wings to fly in vacuum, or that nuclear weapons are dangerous... well SF just won't align with your expectations.

[Aotrs Commander]

We're playing it at the moment - the newest player to our group is so keen, he want out and bought it to run for us (he's still a relaively new DM, and we're a big group). Gives me a break from DMing! (Heck, couldn't of done all the rules-smithing I did of late without it...)

It's fine, mechanically.

As Psyren may remember, I am not particularly impressed with some of the design decision they made, (but then I'm the sort of person who nit-picks rules design and spends literally hundreds of hours writing more or less his own edition house-rules). I prefer it to 4E, though. 4E was mechanically a a fine system that did the job it was designed to very well, it was just the job it was deigned to do and what I want out of a system are not the twain. SF is at least in the right direction. (And I'll happily play 4E, just not run it; I'll play almost anything as a break from DMing...)

Bit underwhelmed by the class choices when compared to PF at the moment, that expansion can't come soon enough. (Since with seven of us in the party, we've already used all but one of the starting character classes...)

Think it could have used a bit more proofing though.

The stealth and awareness levels are the most HORRIBLY broken part, though, compounding where PF didn't do a great job adapting invisibilty from 3.5 where spot/listen were seperate and then leaving out the bit in PF about non-visual location and thus making it functionally IMPOSSIBLE for anyone to spot an ambush ever, without a hard counter. I can sort of understand what they were trying to do, but it's mechanically ridiculous.

(I.e., Anything you aren't aware of gets a +40 bonus on stealth if it stands still, like you do in an ambush; because 3.5 had that number for creatures that were invisible, so you'd locate them with the DC 20 listen check there, and PF had the same DC listed in the invisibility rules (in and odd place) - but Starfinder... Does not. Meaning any creature that hides gets a +40 bonus for being unseen as it explictly calls it out for 3/4 states of awareness - anything other than "observed" is "unseen" and gets the bonus. And guess what? You need a Perception check to locate something via direct observation.... As I pointed out when we were trying to get our heads around the rules, my first level goblin operative should not be able to effortlessly hide from a 20th level character by hiding behind a bush before he walks around the corner, but then awareness rules suggest that is an actual probability, much less a possibility. (+14 ish Stealth, +40 +10 for Take 10 brings you to +64...)

The other issue is that the hidden character doesn't get an penalties on their Perception checks, as they really should if you doing it right, but we are then talking at a level of observation and detection that is at the geekiest end of wargaming, rather than RPG writing, so that';s perhaps an understandable omission, since even I had to have that pointed out to me...)



But yeah, my inevitable niggles aside (I mean, I tend only to make more of a deal of this stuff when I'm not in a position to just go "nope, that's dumb, I'mma change it...), it's fine.

I'm looking forward to level 5 (we've just hit 3) and being able to take Climbing Master and get as ridiculous a Climb speed as my land speed is going to be - yes, I know there's an operative exploit that gives you both swim and climb, but sod that, it explictly calls out you can't use operative speed boost on it, so I'mma take the feat(s) that don't and then they will never get that Goblin on the ground again! (I'm aiming to get to about 85'/round at about level 13 or so, which is pretty much end-game.)

Actually, that rules guff aside, the thing I'm most disappointed in SF is that the APs don't run very high. I so rarely get to play a character (Skrath was the first one I properly had chance to generate for a period of time that saw me start more new parties than characters...) that I would have liked to have got to the 15-17ish level the PF APs go to. (Like nominally, we're still only 2/3 through Rise of the Runelords and 1/3 through Shackled City...!) Some high level modules would be favourite, since no-one, not even me, has time to crank out high-level modules from scratch anymore...



It is with some sense of bemusement that I am half expecting my NEXT character (as the DM is likely going to run more APs in the fullness of time) may well be an engineer that will be very ZIM-inspired, so I might well end up with having two short green characters that talk funny in a row. (Thoguh to be fair, they are likely fairly polar opposite character-wise; Skrath is actually... Trying to be good, y'know? He just doesn't always GET stuff though, at least not until it's explained to him first, but he's a razor-sharp renaissence Goblin, it only needs an explanation of "no, the maternity ward is not like those cafes where they have lunch in boxes on the counter, Skrath" and he's fine...!)

[CharonsHelper]

I think it may be more that they succeeded with their math goals, which don't match your expectations. The math on attacks, damage, defenses, and skills has formulas behind it that people worked out. It comes down to things like assuming a 60% base hit rate, maxxed attack stats, gear by the WBL chart, always starting at full health, etc. etc., all equals about eight attacks for a pc to take down a CR npc or twelve attacks foe the npc to take down a pc.

They succeeded on their math goals, if you follow their play style and assumptions. But if you do something like think that grenades ought to be dangerous, or that shooting someone with a machine gun on full auto at close range should do more damage than two small caliber pistol shots, or that creatures can't use wings to fly in vacuum, or that nuclear weapons are dangerous... well SF just won't align with your expectations.

Sort of. Though I don't think that making melee/ranged feel right for sci-fi is purely a math thing. I just don't think you should be able to close to melee without getting shot at unless you're REALLY close to start. (I've heard the 17ft rule in real life - though that's when the gun's in the holster.)

But - as I said in my first post here "It's solid for what it is, but it doesn't really feel like sci-fi to me.".

[Mechalich]

(let us, for the moment, pretend that science fantasy doesn't exist)

With regard to Starfinder though, it's not even trying to be science fiction, it's very, very clearly a science fantasy. In fact, it's basically just Pathfinder in space with a variant mechanical system and a slight re-skinning.

And that, honestly, is the core problem. The game has no hook. You could already play Pathfinder in space. There are hardly any new locations in the Starfinder core - they all appeared earlier in various Pathfinder supplements. The religious system is just a slight modification on the standard Golarion pantheon, and other parallels go on any on.

Most tables will play any game that a GM throws at them, provided the GM buys the books. Most GMs do not evaluate which game they buy based on mechanics or do so only secondarily. When looking at Starfinder the key question is 'why should I play this space fantasy game over another one?' And as far as I can tell the game offers no good answer to that question. It's extremely generic and doesn't offer anything that you couldn't already do in existing space fantasy universes that the average gaming table it likely to be far more familiar with (like Star Wars and Warhammer 40K).

Starfinder would matter if it had come out attached to some sort of existing space fantasy IP, like StarCraft or Stellaris or Mass Effect or something. I'm sure it could be used to play in any of those universes with only a little alteration, but why would anyone bother? As it stands, the game's just an orphan.

[Psyren]

I must of missed that rule. (can't find it with a cursory search either - not that that means it doesn't exist) However, even if that you can still make a full movement and attack - which is still pretty a pretty long range movement on most battlefields.

It's the same as PF and 3.5 - if there's anything in between you and your opponent you can't charge them, and that includes cover.

And no, you can't full move and attack without a charge, only 30ft. Quite honestly, if your GM is setting all your fights in 30ft. diameter rooms, of course ranged weapons will lose effectiveness.



But they rarely see play - so the system obviously shouldn't be based around them. In Starfinder they're a core aspect of the game.

Various TTRPG systems do different things well. Pathfinder not doing modern firearms well is fine even if they technically exist as they're extremely rare (and I don't think they exist in default Golarion). Starfinder SHOULD do them well - and it still doesn't - which is a problem.

Right, so you should be fighting in larger rooms to take advantage of ranged combat. If you don' t get to, the benefit is diminished, and that's a GM problem.

[Resileaf]

Also charge in Starfinder doesn't give you any bonuses.

[Kane0]

They succeeded on their math goals, if you follow their play style and assumptions. But if you do something like think that grenades ought to be dangerous, or that shooting someone with a machine gun on full auto at close range should do more damage than two small caliber pistol shots, or that creatures can't use wings to fly in vacuum, or that nuclear weapons are dangerous... well SF just won't align with your expectations.

I don’t know why, but this made me laugh and i’m a Battletech fan.

[Anonymouswizard]

With regard to Starfinder though, it's not even trying to be science fiction, it's very, very clearly a science fantasy. In fact, it's basically just Pathfinder in space with a variant mechanical system and a slight re-skinning.

Yep, but just for that post I was looking at something slightly different.


And that, honestly, is the core problem. The game has no hook. You could already play Pathfinder in space. There are hardly any new locations in the Starfinder core - they all appeared earlier in various Pathfinder supplements. The religious system is just a slight modification on the standard Golarion pantheon, and other parallels go on any on.

Most tables will play any game that a GM throws at them, provided the GM buys the books. Most GMs do not evaluate which game they buy based on mechanics or do so only secondarily. When looking at Starfinder the key question is 'why should I play this space fantasy game over another one?' And as far as I can tell the game offers no good answer to that question. It's extremely generic and doesn't offer anything that you couldn't already do in existing space fantasy universes that the average gaming table it likely to be far more familiar with (like Star Wars and Warhammer 40K).

Starfinder would matter if it had come out attached to some sort of existing space fantasy IP, like StarCraft or Stellaris or Mass Effect or something. I'm sure it could be used to play in any of those universes with only a little alteration, but why would anyone bother? As it stands, the game's just an orphan.

To be fair it's fairly clear that Starfinder is mainly aimed at two crowds, those who aren't familiar with non-D&D based systems and those who really like d20.

But you're right, compared to the various Star Wars and 40k games, or even compared to Space 1889 and Rocket Age, there's no real hook. I could play Pathfinder in space, or I could play a game based on 1930s or 1880s science fiction. Which would I choose? Well I'm currently trying to prepare campaigns for Space 1889 and Rocket Age...

[Milo v3]

My group has played SF before with a homebrew campaign, and we enjoyed it. We're about to start an Against the Aeon Throne campaign with one of my players GMing for the first time. Going to play an undead ex-dazzle-wrestler from the sun, now priest of Sarenrae who can manifest a stand as his solar weapon.

[Aotrs Commander]

Having ragged on it a bit last night, so, for balance, let me actually say one big thing in Starfinder's favour.



It doesn't give you enough ammo.



"Wait," I hear you cry, "Bleakbane, I thought you said you were going to say something good about it?"

I am.

Because you can actually run out of ammunition in Starfinder. And have to swap to another weapon. Occasionally.

Starfinder, almost uniquely among the sci-fi games I've played, doesn't attempt to give you a realistic amount of ammunition.

Most of the others make the false equivilence that because you model every arrow, you should model every bullet.

You really shouldn't, and doubly-especially not from a purely game mechanics perspective.



Compare this to Judge Dredd D20. We play there under one of the other chaps as DM. We're playing to the book (he's a big Dredd fan.)

(Oh, aside - I might have said Starfinder could have used some proofing work, but that's only because I'm judging it to a high standard - I feell Paizo should have done better. Dredd D20, on the other hand is AWFUL, absolutely AWFUL. The Judge character sheet - for the Judge game, remember, - is FULL of errors - we've been playing it for day quest for literal years and now FINALLY did we get rid of all of them when I had a metaphorical screaming fit and we made our own on spreadsheet. And the amount of pertinent information I had to dig from two or three seperate places... I mean, for a kick off example, it gives some special ammunition and grenades and stuff an "area" but then fails to EVER tell you whether that is suppoed to be radius or diameter or space. (I mean, we ASSUMED radius, but...)

Anyway, the base judge comes with the fluff-appropriate amount of magazines. So even my character who can shoot, like six shots a round NEVER runs out of ammunition, because we have like, sixteen mags to hand, four just on our persons.



Spacemaster has this exact same problem.

We have an Aotrs party in SM. As a military oganisation, they equip their dudes with about the same ammunition as a British solider carries, so m. Except that it's, like, energy batteries, not bullets, so they ALSO are in no danger of running out of ammunition. (Indeed, the only way to slightly challenge tem in that regard is so make them use their cold-beams to freeze a lot of water!)

The SM party we just ended after about twenty-five years which was made of adventurers (so had to buy/loot their ammunition) was no different - they party were never in any danger of ever running out of ammo/charges. The one character that did? Had a massively over-charged lazer rifle that only gave him about 13 shots between weapon cells - which is enough that a continuous beam (ten shots in RM) would be enough to make him change over, and even on single shots was good for only about three combats between energy cells.

Half the time in both of those games? The PCs don't even need to reload, let alone actually run out of ammo.




Starfinder, by comparion, either by the tacit assumption it's not modelling every bullet/bolt or because they picked it on the basis of mechanics first (like X-com or something) and just gace you that amount because it sounded right, gives you only a double-handful of shots before you need to reload, which means that ammunition actually matters a little bit. I imagine it will become steadily less of an issue as the game progresses, sure, but even then, in Starfinder, one might need to at least RELOAD occasionally.



So, that's definitely, genuinely, a point in Starfinder's favour.

[Knaight]

If you really like d20 (by which I specifically mean the 3.x family of games, not later D&D), it's a reasonable space fantasy system. Personally there's a very long list of games I'd play ahead of it even if I wanted a vaguely D&Dish space fantasy game.

That said, there's some interesting stuff in it, both from a perspective of genuinely solid setting ideas (the Astral Plane as space fantasy hyperspace for FTL is just plain fun), and from baffling mathematical errors (the ship stats by size table includes weight, and everything about those numbers is hilarious).

[BWR]

That said, there's some interesting stuff in it, both from a perspective of genuinely solid setting ideas (the Astral Plane as space fantasy hyperspace for FTL is just plain fun),

I'm pretty sure the Drift is not the Astral plane.
Dragonstar made use of the Astral as hyperspace, though. There you had two stardrives - starcasters and astral drives. Starcasting is just teleporting a ship from place to place, but is expensive (requiring liquid mitrhal to recharge, iirc). Astral drives take longer but other than the inital cost of the drive are free in use.

[CharonsHelper]

Starfinder, by comparion, either by the tacit assumption it's not modelling every bullet/bolt or because they picked it on the basis of mechanics first (like X-com or something) and just gace you that amount because it sounded right, gives you only a double-handful of shots before you need to reload, which means that ammunition actually matters a little bit. I imagine it will become steadily less of an issue as the game progresses, sure, but even then, in Starfinder, one might need to at least RELOAD occasionally.



So, that's definitely, genuinely, a point in Starfinder's favour.

I'm not a big fan of tracking ammo at all. But I do agree; a game should either make it relevant or just dump ammo as a mechanic entirely. Having mechanics for ammo & reloading without them ever coming up is just annoying.

[Anonymouswizard]

That said, there's some interesting stuff in it, both from a perspective of genuinely solid setting ideas (the Astral Plane as space fantasy hyperspace for FTL is just plain fun), and from baffling mathematical errors (the ship stats by size table includes weight, and everything about those numbers is hilarious).

To be fair if you run the numbers for a lot of space games the ships are built out of either balsa wood alloyed with interstellar hydrogen or pure neutronium, with very little middle ground.


I'm pretty sure the Drift is not the Astral plane.
Dragonstar made use of the Astral as hyperspace, though. There you had two stardrives - starcasters and astral drives. Starcasting is just teleporting a ship from place to place, but is expensive (requiring liquid mitrhal to recharge, iirc). Astral drives take longer but other than the inital cost of the drive are free in use.

That's interesting, I'm still trying to remember how the science fantasy setting I was working on ages ago did it (I think it used teleport traps on a couple of custom 9th level spells, one which threw ships suitable for a group of PCs a couple of light years and one that moved huge ships a few AU every six seconds).


I'm not a big fan of tracking ammo at all. But I do agree; a game should either make it relevant or just dump ammo as a mechanic entirely. Having mechanics for ammo & reloading without them ever coming up is just annoying.

I'm in this boat normally, I'll track special ammo but I'd much rather have to switch weapon by situation than by ammo count. Another thing I've done is tracked ammunition in encounters or rounds.

The one thing I've noticed is that few players track ammo. I do, I've occasionally even tracked rounds by clip, but most people I've played with get annoyed if you suggest an assault rifle can't fire on full auto for four rounds without a reload.

[137beth]

This, it's solid d20 science fantasy. That's not exactly bad, but in many ways there's not a lot about it that excites me.

To me a big problem is that the d20 structure, especially the way hp/Stamina scales in Starfinder, doesn't gel well with how I see science fiction style battles working (which is closer to rocket tag), and the way equipment scaling works turns me off. Plus if I want science fantasy with a heavy focus on melee I have 40k, and if I want most of what else Starfinder offers I probably have a system that does it closer to how I like it.

Starfinder isn't bad, there's just not a lot about it that I find exciting or worth playing over something else. Particularly GURPS Space, because the way spaceships are built with the latest system is simple and intuitive compared to Starfinder (pick size, slot in twenty systems as front/middle/rear as with two being 'core' systems, use weapon/hp stats for your size).



My current go-to systems for it are Mongoose Traveller 1e, GURPS Space, Cyberpunk 2020, and WH40kRP. But the first three fall into my like for 'harder' space opera and science fiction, and the latter is 40k.

Bit of a derail, but: What makes you pick Mongoose Traveller 1e over 2e?

[Psyren]

Ammunition is limited because you're expected to use some of your downtime to craft more of it if you're venturing far away from shops. It has item levels and prices, so you have everything you need to be able to make it more of it on your own, and UPBs are easy to get a hold of or can even be scavenged from any of the useless gear you find, so you should be looting everything from everyone. Starships even have a suitable crafting area by default. As you gain levels you can perform accelerated crafting, getting 2x or even 4x as much ammo for the same amount of time spent crafting. The rules for all this are in the Equipment chapter.


I'm pretty sure the Drift is not the Astral plane.

This is correct. The big difference between the Drift and the Astral is that only technology lets you access the Drift plane - you can't Plane Shift there for example. Magic still works when you're inside, but Triune enforces the tech-access-only rule so that FTL is made available to the masses without any organizations, philosophies, magical laws or even other deities being able to monopolize or skew the place. Doing so made Triune a major deity in the setting nearly overnight.

[Anonymouswizard]

Bit of a derail, but: What makes you pick Mongoose Traveller 1e over 2e?

Ownership, no need to pay another £40 for ship construction rules, and a few quirks of shipbuilding in 1e (the smallest drives and generators take up proportionately more space, reaction drives don't take up more space than a gravatic drive, some of the minor details that I can't remember off the top of my head).

[Gnaeus]

We play it and enjoy it. I have complaints, but please bear in mind it is a workable system that I enjoy.

1. It could use more crunch. There aren’t nearly enough good feats. More classes. This is of course fixed if you play with PF content, but that isnt really what we are looking for. Of course Dreamscarred Press helps as usual.

2. I’m pretty lukewarm on the space combat system. I get that they wanted something that used all the player characters skills, and was mechanically fairly light. But only a couple of PCs are actually making meaningful decisions and most of the skill checks are trivial if you have someone good in that area. We avoid space combat when we can, because it’s too slow for the role players and not complex enough for the tactical gamers.

3. Going along with it, the starship creation system is very gamist. As in based pretty much entirely on APL. Who cares if the Millennium Falcon gets stolen? Any light freighter Han and Chewie get on immediately becomes the Falcon. I actually prefer SFS rules here. At least the starship boons make me feel like my ship is something other than “level 5 ship”

4. Speaking of gamist, the economy is bizarre. At 10% it isn’t worth selling anything that may ever be remotely useful. Our team of space hoarders is walking around with a boatload of used junk. The way you have to keep selling your guns at 10% and buying new ones at full price is kind of painful too.

5. Finally, when fighting monsters the math seems odd. Most everything we fight seems to hit our tanks almost automatically. I think this is to fix action economy problems when there are 4 pcs. But it really makes armor seem kind of worthless as armor. It’s just a spacesuit that you put gear upgrades on.

[Telok]

Wait, people can run out of ammo? The only times I've even seen people even reload in combat is with weapons that use multiple charges/rounds per shot. The only times any weapons ran out were looted ones that didn't use standard rounds or energy cells. Most people I've seen go to the energy weapons and buy/loot a handful of spare batteries. After looting a couple fights worth of armed enemies everyone I've seen has been hip deep in ammo.

As for the auto-hit, yeah, that's the math. Essentially the math is balanced around about one enemy to one pc at an even cr fight. A single even cr critter fight can be a critter 3 to 5 cr higher. A "hard" cr fight with a solo can be at 6 to 8 cr higher. Since attack and damage directly correlate with cr, and the game expects a 65%ish npc hit rate at even cr when the pcs have level appropriate gear and max dex for their armor, you're facing something with a 80% to 105% hit rates.

Funnily the issue repeats in a similar manner with mobs of lower cr opponents. The npcs can drop to 25% or less hit rates and the damage isn't scaled to the pcs higher level health & dr. So mobs of lower cr mooks turn out pretty pathetic and may not even do any significant damage for a even cr fight.

[Malphegor]

One oddity from flicking through the rules is that your size seems to no longer matter. Be you a diminutive sized thing or colossal, there’s no penalties or buffs to hit as I can see.

Which is simpler for new players, but means you probably could use a death star-equivalent ship laser to take out fleas on a skittermander’s back.

[Psyren]

One oddity from flicking through the rules is that your size seems to no longer matter. Be you a diminutive sized thing or colossal, there’s no penalties or buffs to hit as I can see.

Which is simpler for new players, but means you probably could use a death star-equivalent ship laser to take out fleas on a skittermander’s back.

Well for starters, ships and characters operate on two different scales that don't interact directly like that. A starship shooting at a person (or persons) wouldn't be able to target them directly, and would be represented more accurately by a Hazard than by regular attack rolls.

For two, player races tend to be Small, Medium or Large, and any bonuses or penalties they get to various things are already baked into their race. Your Skittermander's dex bonus for example is already due to their size; you don't then have to remember that they get an unstated bonus to AC or ranged attack rolls or stealth on top of it because the dex bonus already does that.

[Milo v3]

3. Going along with it, the starship creation system is very gamist. As in based pretty much entirely on APL. Who cares if the Millennium Falcon gets stolen? Any light freighter Han and Chewie get on immediately becomes the Falcon. I actually prefer SFS rules here. At least the starship boons make me feel like my ship is something other than “level 5 ship”
That isn't a thing. The game suggests your starting ship should be equal in tier to your APL, that's it. They do not suggest any ship you use suddenly changes level to match your own.

[CharonsHelper]

The one thing I've noticed is that few players track ammo. I do, I've occasionally even tracked rounds by clip, but most people I've played with get annoyed if you suggest an assault rifle can't fire on full auto for four rounds without a reload.

Which is one reason that having ammo be the main balance factor to keep auto-fire from being OP is a bad idea. I know that in the space western TTRPG I'm working on, I just don't track ammo for 90-95% of weapons (have a bit of fluff about how small ammo got) and a few weapons such as rocket launchers need to be reloaded after every shot.

Autofire's extra damage is baked into the balance due to accuracy penalties & needing to not move that turn etc.

[Gnaeus]

That isn't a thing. The game suggests your starting ship should be equal in tier to your APL, that's it. They do not suggest any ship you use suddenly changes level to match your own.

Sadly, it is. PC starships are always the tier of the party. At least as soon as they find a safe world to spend their points. If your 10th Level party steals a Tier 2 ship, they would get a giant pile of points to mod it up to tier 10.

”If you are creating a PC starships, determine the characters’ APL by adding together the characters’ levels and dividing by the number of characters. That number is their ship’s tier.“

“REFITTING AND UPGRADING STARSHIPS
As the PCs go on adventures and gain experience, they need an increasingly powerful starships to face tougher challenges. When the characters’ Average Party Level increases, so does the tier of their starships (see Table 9–1: Starship Base Statistics). The PCs receive a number of Build Points equal to the Build Points listed for their starships’s new tier – those listed for its previous tier, which they can use to upgrade their starships. For example, a group whose APL increases from 2 to 3 receives 20 BP that the PCs can use to upgrade their starships. This could represent salvage gathered during their exploits, an arrangement with a spacedock, or called-in favors from a wealthy patron. Some GMs might require PCs to visit a safe, inhabited world before they can spend these Build Points, but this shouldn’t be allowed to impact the campaign too much.”

[Psyren]

Eh, sure it;s gamist but who cares? If your GM is engineering some scenario where your ship gets stolen, it's up to them to make that interesting, not the rules. The rules are assuming a degree of continuity where your Milennium Falcon/Normandy/Enterprise-D/Serenity/Rocinante is keeping pace with the game's difficulty, not where you're constantly junking it for something different.

[Milo v3]

Sadly, it is. PC starships are always the tier of the party. At least as soon as they find a safe world to spend their points. If your 10th Level party steals a Tier 2 ship, they would get a giant pile of points to mod it up to tier 10.
None of what you quoted actually supports that position. The part you quoted even talks about that increase in BP and tier occur in setting by having in-setting events rather than the assumption being that the ship will always just innately match your APL. If you went further down the page you'd even see the times given on how long it takes for you to upgrade a ship based on how many systems you're upgrading.

The ship doesn't just suddenly become higher tier because you use it. If it is a tier 2 ship, it's a tier 2 ship unless stuff happens to make it better. What is true is that it is unlikely for your group to end up stealing a ship that's tier 2 to begin with when you're 10th level, or they will be able to quickly upgrade the ship after a few days on a safe planet.

[Telok]

The rules are assuming a degree of continuity where your Milennium Falcon/Normandy/Enterprise-D/Serenity/Rocinante is keeping pace with the game's difficulty, not where you're constantly junking it for something different.

Which is kinda weird too, since the entire resy of the game works on constantly junking your gear for new upgrades.

Our group has a running joke about "the good space faeries" who go around upgrading ships when people aren't looking.

It can become an issue when you're doing the APs. You land on a civilized planet, three days later the party is 2 levels higher and ready to leave. The players get told there's a time limit, or they have to catch up to someone, or any sort of time pressure. Roll some dice and find out it's going to take three and a half weeks to upgrade ship. If the pcs don't upgrade then the scheduled space fight risks destroying the adventure as the "random genocidal space nazis" blow them away. If the pcs do upgrade then the whole "time pressure" the ap is premised on is either a lie or the bad guys get a month to advance the plot that the pcs don't get to participate in.

[Psyren]

Which is kinda weird too, since the entire resy of the game works on constantly junking your gear for new upgrades.

Not at all; all the examples I quoted earlier are sci-fi properties that revolved (at least in part) around a pretty iconic ship. Now how many of those have a single iconic gun that scales with the characters? How many phasers get named in Star Trek, or blasters in Star Wars?


It can become an issue when you're doing the APs. You land on a civilized planet, three days later the party is 2 levels higher and ready to leave. The players get told there's a time limit, or they have to catch up to someone, or any sort of time pressure. Roll some dice and find out it's going to take three and a half weeks to upgrade ship. If the pcs don't upgrade then the scheduled space fight risks destroying the adventure as the "random genocidal space nazis" blow them away. If the pcs do upgrade then the whole "time pressure" the ap is premised on is either a lie or the bad guys get a month to advance the plot that the pcs don't get to participate in.

No idea which AP this massively contrived scenario features in, but if I were going to throw scaling enemy ships at the party while they've been off doing non-ship leveling somewhere, I'd have put some kind of mechanism in place for the ship to be upgraded in parallel to the adventuring - either it serves as their base of operations for various forays across the planet surface, or they park it in a port of some kind and an NPC is tinkering with it while they're gone. End result is that even if an upgrade job is needed when they're ready to take off, most of the work would have been done while they were adventuring away from it, with at most a day or two needed to finish things up.

[Knaight]

To be fair if you run the numbers for a lot of space games the ships are built out of either balsa wood alloyed with interstellar hydrogen or pure neutronium, with very little middle ground.

Yeah, but generally they at least have the decency to a) use the term mass and b) have it roughly correlate with volume. I can't pull up the linear regression I did now, but Starfinder ship mass scales with something like Length^1.3. Which, in a math heavy game, is really weird.

Plus, they start at balsa wood alloyed with interstellar hydrogen and only lose density as they get bigger.

[Aotrs Commander]

Yeah, but generally they at least have the decency to a) use the term mass and b) have it roughly correlate with volume. I can't pull up the linear regression I did now, but Starfinder ship mass scales with something like Length^1.3. Which, in a math heavy game, is really weird.

Plus, they start at balsa wood alloyed with interstellar hydrogen and only lose density as they get bigger.

And apparently a ship the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer can only carry 120 passengers and only that if they don't have any other ancillary systems, like a medical bay or a workshop or Ten-Foward or anything. The expansion bay rules are RIDICULOUS, especially in contract to the ship sizes.

If they wanted to keep it all mechanically like that, they should have kept starship sizes to small, instead of apparently having big for the sake of big which doesn't match anything in actual mechanics that comes remotely close. Keeping starships to, well, basically fighter/freighter scale is perfectly fine (see something like Silent Death) - hell, the sort of sailing-ship size level1 is kind of ideal for a roleplaying game; trying to slap on mile-long ship if you not only clearly don't have any idea of scale to the point your numbers look silly to anyone whose ever looked at size and crew numbers for, like, any FICTIONAL starships is just silly.




No idea which AP this massively contrived scenario features in, but if I were going to throw scaling enemy ships at the party while they've been off doing non-ship leveling somewhere, I'd have put some kind of mechanism in place for the ship to be upgraded in parallel to the adventuring - either it serves as their base of operations for various forays across the planet surface, or they park it in a port of some kind and an NPC is tinkering with it while they're gone. End result is that even if an upgrade job is needed when they're ready to take off, most of the work would have been done while they were adventuring away from it, with at most a day or two needed to finish things up.

Sounds a little familiar, to be honest.

Against the Aeon Throne?

I think that's the one we're doing, though the DM hasn't emphasised a time limit as such, but that doens't mean the module hasn't suggested that there be one.




1Not actual sailing ships. NEVER actual sailing ships. Sailing ship in space is a terrible, terrible, awful idea that should be burned at the stake and no-one EVER has managed to make that look anything other than daft.

[Gnaeus]

Not at all; all the examples I quoted earlier are sci-fi properties that revolved (at least in part) around a pretty iconic ship. Now how many of those have a single iconic gun that scales with the characters? How many phasers get named in Star Trek, or blasters in Star Wars?

“Han's heavy blaster pistol was the modified heavy blaster pistol owned by Tobias Beckett before been given to future the Rebel Alliance General and then smuggler Han Solo. The heavy blaster pistol was a DL-44 model manufactured by BlasTech Industries, and, despite newer models having come and gone, Solo preferred only his own modified DL-44 as his sidearm. Solo carried the weapon with him since before the Galactic Civil War between the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire, and had it by his side at the time of his death on Starkiller Base over 30 years later.” In SWd6, Solo had a specialization in that particular blaster model.

I also can’t remember any discussion in any of those other properties of people swapping out their phasers like paranoia clones who just changed color.

There are quite a few ways to deal with ship upgrades of course. Like just buying things to upgrade your ship. Or finding parts to upgrade your ship. But clearly the goal was a ship that both leveled along with the party (unnecessary but ok) and was completely independent of character wealth (so you can’t over or under equip your ship, gotta track those scaling encounters).

All of which means you can’t buy a ship, sell a ship, loot parts from an enemy ship. I get why. It’s just clunky and gamist.

[Anonymouswizard]

Yeah, but generally they at least have the decency to a) use the term mass and b) have it roughly correlate with volume. I can't pull up the linear regression I did now, but Starfinder ship mass scales with something like Length^1.3. Which, in a math heavy game, is really weird.

Also, to be fair most games either primarily measure ships by volume or use mass to help determine your ship's acceleration (I still remember GURPS Space for 3e, which rated everything in terms of mass and volume, and might have required you to include access corridors).

And unless they specify that every ship has the same cross-sectional area that's just stupid. What's next, ships at subrelativistic speeds slowing down appreciably without constant thrust? Oh wait, that's actually in there, because I guess this ships fly through ether and not vacuum (I know they don't, despite that being something that would be acceptable in this kind of setting).


Plus, they start at balsa wood alloyed with interstellar hydrogen and only lose density as they get bigger.

And eventually have less density than interstellar hydrogen. Yeah, Starfinder really dropped the ball here.

EDIT: I remember reading Revelation Space and being shocked that the four kilometre long ship crewed by less than ten people was halfway to broken down, and having to read the sequel to realise that it expects a crew of hundreds to help keep up with breaking down systems, as well as having a capacity of tens of thousands of passages plus full materials for a colony and a terraforming project.

[Psyren]

“Han's heavy blaster pistol was the modified heavy blaster pistol owned by Tobias Beckett before been given to future the Rebel Alliance General and then smuggler Han Solo."

Point, no internet discussion that invokes Star Wars can stand up to decades worth of EU blather on a wiki somewhere :smalltongue: But nothing you stated was important to the main story, so it's just trivia/fluff.


I also can’t remember any discussion in any of those other properties of people swapping out their phasers like paranoia clones who just changed color.

If they had, would you have even noticed or would it have mattered? Again, not nearly as important to the story or even the brand as the "main ship" continuity.


There are quite a few ways to deal with ship upgrades of course. Like just buying things to upgrade your ship. Or finding parts to upgrade your ship. But clearly the goal was a ship that both leveled along with the party (unnecessary but ok) and was completely independent of character wealth (so you can’t over or under equip your ship, gotta track those scaling encounters).

All of which means you can’t buy a ship, sell a ship, loot parts from an enemy ship. I get why. It’s just clunky and gamist.

Sure, I acknowledged that it's gamist, followed once again by "who cares?" Lots of things in D&D are "clunky and gamist." A rule that guides the GM in how they should be thinking about the party's mobile home seems more valuable to me, especially since they might have been dealing with some GMs who are less familiar with these kinds of space fantasy tropes.

[Gnaeus]

Point, no internet discussion that invokes Star Wars can stand up to decades worth of EU blather on a wiki somewhere :smalltongue: But nothing you stated was important to the main story, so it's just trivia/fluff.

Sure, I acknowledged that it's gamist, followed once again by "who cares?" Lots of things in D&D are "clunky and gamist." A rule that guides the GM in how they should be thinking about the party's mobile home seems more valuable to me, especially since they might have been dealing with some GMs who are less familiar with these kinds of space fantasy tropes.

Who cares? We do! Obviously! It makes the 3.pf economy look polished and rational. It distorts player behavior in a really bizarre way when I’d rather steal your silverware than your spaceship. “Is it a fast ship?” “Of course it’s a fast ship I’m level 10!” We actually had a conversation where we discussed ship defenses and realized it was better to let our ship be stolen and get another ship than to spend ship points for better locks on ours. It begs stupid questions like “if an experienced pair of smugglers takes on a newb Farm kid and their APL goes down, does their ship get worse?” It subjects the design team to scorn and ridicule, which is of course well deserved because they also wrote PF2, but SF is a better product than that.

Most of those iconic ships don’t get replaced because they are the same through those arcs. Skywalker keeps the same fighter, it doesn’t get better. The Falcon doesn’t get better. The Enterprise does get better, as a result of actions by characters in episodes. The problem, again, is that SF decided they needed to match P.C. level with ship level. Which no other game I know feels any need to do. It’s good for AP designers (the point) and removes player agency and limits choice (a bonus for them as far as I can tell).

[Resileaf]

I'm sure a competent GM can make up for the rules hole by home ruling that if something happens to the original ship, the players don't automatically get a new one just as good as the previous one.

[Telok]

Sounds a little familiar, to be honest.

Against the Aeon Throne?

I think that's the one we're doing, though the DM hasn't emphasised a time limit as such, but that doens't mean the module hasn't suggested that there be one.


Aeon Throne and Dead Suns that I'm sure of (for Dead Suns its literally the whole adventure), I'm pretty sure one of the others does too. Basically every Pazio SF AP has one or two space combats per 'chapter'. A fair number (about 3 per AP that I've seen) involve the npc ships having some trick or equipment that the pcs aren't allowed to use or capture.

[Gnaeus]

I'm sure a competent GM can make up for the rules hole by home ruling that if something happens to the original ship, the players don't automatically get a new one just as good as the previous one.

I’m sure I’d be pretty angry at such a ruling. You mean no level of player agency or resource investment can make my ship any better than X but you can arbitrarily punish us and make it worse? That should go over well.


Eh, sure it;s gamist but who cares? If your GM is engineering some scenario where your ship gets stolen, it's up to them to make that interesting, not the rules. The rules are assuming a degree of continuity where your Milennium Falcon/Normandy/Enterprise-D/Serenity/Rocinante is keeping pace with the game's difficulty, not where you're constantly junking it for something different.

Actually the Rocinante would be unplayable. The entire point of the Rocinante is that the PCs accidentally got too much ship. A rare prototype way above their league. If you gave me the Rocinante in SF I’d trade it to the society in a heartbeat for a stock corvette. If my ship is based on my APL anyway, there is 0 investment in keeping it versus trading it.

[Psyren]

The problem, again, is that SF decided they needed to match P.C. level with ship level. Which no other game I know feels any need to do. It’s good for AP designers (the point) and removes player agency and limits choice (a bonus for them as far as I can tell).

The purpose of the rules should be to set up the base case/assumption (ship level corresponds to party level). Deviating from that may have a good reason (like your feeling of immersion), but it can also have balance implications too, so it is best left to experienced GMs. Those GMs who feel comfortable overriding the rules in the name of a higher-fidelity simulation are free to do so - Rule Zero still exists in Starfinder.



Actually the Rocinante would be unplayable. The entire point of the Rocinante is that the PCs accidentally got too much ship. A rare prototype way above their league. If you gave me the Rocinante in SF I’d trade it to the society in a heartbeat for a stock corvette. If my ship is based on my APL anyway, there is 0 investment in keeping it versus trading it.

Using the analogy above, their GM clearly gave them a Rocinante because it made for a better story, just like the GM can choose to give equipment above the party's level. There's nothing wrong with that if the group knows what they're doing, and certainly nothing the game can do to stop the GM from doing so.

[Gnaeus]

The purpose of the rules should be to set up the base case/assumption (ship level corresponds to party level). Deviating from that may have a good reason (like your feeling of immersion), but it can also have balance implications too, so it is best left to experienced GMs. Those GMs who feel comfortable overriding the rules in the name of a higher-fidelity simulation are free to do so - Rule Zero still exists in Starfinder.

As does the corollary that just because something can be fixed by rewriting the rules via DM fiat that doesn’t mean it isn’t broken in the first place.

[Psyren]

As does the corollary that just because something can be fixed by rewriting the rules via DM fiat that doesn’t mean it isn’t broken in the first place.

Your definition of "broken" clearly doesn't match mine, so we may have to leave it there.

[Telok]

Ah, problem with SF ships not being party level: the skill math.

At level 10 (decent middle value) the DC for 15 + 1.5*level is 30. Ranks 10, stat 6, class skill +3 = +19 bonus. So success on normal space skill rolls is 11+, or flipping a coin. If you sink a feat in or have a class skill bonus (they don't stack) then you're at +22, rolling 8+. Sound good? That assumes a starting 18 stat, meaning your inital stat array was something like 18-16-11-10-10-8.

Give the level 10 group a level 14 ship and they're effectively at -6 to their ship role checks for anything that isn't shooting or initative. The pcs now more closely resemble a Three Stooges skit in space with a 25% to 35% success rate.

Thr core of the spaceship system in SF is having a ship of equal level to the pcs. It's not supposed/supported to work any other way.

[Resileaf]

I’m sure I’d be pretty angry at such a ruling. You mean no level of player agency or resource investment can make my ship any better than X but you can arbitrarily punish us and make it worse? That should go over well.


If you as a player has decided to avoid taking basic safety measures (such as locking the doors) in a clearly dangerous area, and then has decided to steal a random transport shuttle expecting it to be as strong as your previous ship, it's not my fault as a GM that your expectations have been subverted. Speaking as a GM, if you were to lose your ship, I'd make getting a new powerful one (or recovering the stolen one) part of a questline so you feel invested in your new ship rather than make it any random Space Westphalia.

[Gnaeus]

Ah, problem with SF ships not being party level: the skill math.

At level 10 (decent middle value) the DC for 15 + 1.5*level is 30. Ranks 10, stat 6, class skill +3 = +19 bonus. So success on normal space skill rolls is 11+, or flipping a coin. If you sink a feat in or have a class skill bonus (they don't stack) then you're at +22, rolling 8+. Sound good? That assumes a starting 18 stat, meaning your inital stat array was something like 18-16-11-10-10-8.

Give the level 10 group a level 14 ship and they're effectively at -6 to their ship role checks for anything that isn't shooting or initative. The pcs now more closely resemble a Three Stooges skit in space with a 25% to 35% success rate.

Thr core of the spaceship system in SF is having a ship of equal level to the pcs. It's not supposed/supported to work any other way.

I agree, if the problem is “what happens under the current rules if the DM rule 0s to give the PC a better ship than they otherwise could get”.

Otherwise, it’s circular. The ship level has to equal the PC level so that the math that we designed to force the ship level to equal the PC level will work. It’s a problem you won’t see in GURPS or SW, even SWd20, or Star Frontiers etc. it isn’t even based on the system in question. You could be able to make 100% of your engineering checks at tier 4, be failing half the time at tier 10, even if the ship has the exact same engine. The engineer isn’t legendary because he can do cool things. He is legendary because as your ship improves it gets harder to run and only a legendary engineer can run it now, but with the same error rate that he had 6 levels before.

[Gnaeus]

If you as a player has decided to avoid taking basic safety measures (such as locking the doors) in a clearly dangerous area, and then has decided to steal a random transport shuttle expecting it to be as strong as your previous ship, it's not my fault as a GM that your expectations have been subverted. Speaking as a GM, if you were to lose your ship, I'd make getting a new powerful one (or recovering the stolen one) part of a questline so you feel invested in your new ship rather than make it any random Space Westphalia.

If you as a DM make it so that no level of player activity can improve a ship, so that I can’t steal a better one, or buy or steal better gear, it’s not my fault as a player that your expectations have been subverted. Speaking as a player, if you were to rule 0 in such a way, I’d tell the players I drove to the game we were leaving and go looking for a better GM.

[Psyren]

I feel like there's a middle ground somewhere between these two extremes, gasping for air.

[Resileaf]

If you as a DM make it so that no level of player activity can improve a ship, so that I can’t steal a better one, or buy or steal better gear, it’s not my fault as a player that your expectations have been subverted. Speaking as a player, if you were to rule 0 in such a way, I’d tell the players I drove to the game we were leaving and go looking for a better GM.

Well, I generally tie BP rewards to the monetary rewards from quests, or from looted ships. Turns out my players aren't good at looting though, because they're behind on BP.

As far as stealing goes, I've never had to deal with that from my players, but I would assume that if they wanted to steal a high end ship, they would have to deserve it. It's not enough to go in a parking lot and get the best-looking ship. After all, the upgrades players put on their ships aren't the upgrades normal people put on theirs. Logically, the ship belongs to someone rich, powerful, or are adventurers themselves, who if they have such a good ship, are probably more powerful than the players.

As for gear, I've made a ruling from the start (a ruling I stated to them before the game began) that should the player somehow come to be in possession of a weapon or armor that is of much higher level than they are, they'd get a penalty on attack rolls from lack of training and experience with such powerful technology (-1 for every item level above three).

[Gnaeus]

Well, I generally tie BP rewards to the monetary rewards from quests, or from looted ships. Turns out my players aren't good at looting though, because they're behind on BP.

As far as stealing goes, I've never had to deal with that from my players, but I would assume that if they wanted to steal a high end ship, they would have to deserve it. It's not enough to go in a parking lot and get the best-looking ship. After all, the upgrades players put on their ships aren't the upgrades normal people put on theirs. Logically, the ship belongs to someone rich, powerful, or are adventurers themselves, who if they have such a good ship, are probably more powerful than the players.

As for gear, I've made a ruling from the start (a ruling I stated to them before the game began) that should the player somehow come to be in possession of a weapon or armor that is of much higher level than they are, they'd get a penalty on attack rolls from lack of training and experience with such powerful technology (-1 for every item level above three).

Then you are in a totally different setup from RAW. You are stating rules at beginning of play, the best time. Your ship modifications appear designed to encourage, rather than discourage, player agency. I suspect that if the players were behind on BP if they came up with some clever scheme to defraud a junk merchant in a pod race to get some key part they would be rewarded with bP. That’s pretty totally different (better than) raw. If I had fought for every BP I’d be inclined to hang on to them. I like your rules better than RAW, but they aren’t RAW.

[Resileaf]

Then you are in a totally different setup from RAW. You are stating rules at beginning of play, the best time. Your ship modifications appear designed to encourage, rather than discourage, player agency. I suspect that if the players were behind on BP if they came up with some clever scheme to defraud a junk merchant in a pod race to get some key part they would be rewarded with bP. That’s pretty totally different (better than) raw. If I had fought for every BP I’d be inclined to hang on to them. I like your rules better than RAW, but they aren’t RAW.

I suppose that's a fair assessment. I've never shied away from getting away from RAW if I felt it would make for a more fun game. But it's kind of what I meant when I said that a competent GM would make up for the holes RAW have. RAW expects that the players either never lose their ships or exchange it for a different one at some point, but it's just their default assumption, much like the setting has a default assumption for all the races and creatures in the monster manual. The book may say humans come from the disappeared Golarion and that the universe has a several centuries-long gap where nobody remembers what happened, but I'm under no obligation to follow that lore. GMs should never be afraid of manipulating systems if they feel it would make more sense.

[Telok]

I feel like there's a middle ground somewhere between these two extremes, gasping for air.

Don't use a system that's purposely built on "X + (level * 1.5) = the same % success rate for level 3 to 20"

That's SF, designed to give characters a particular and generally invariant success rate at all levels of play.

By the way. Anyone hear any official word about how to handle using radiation starship wrapons against npc ships? Most of the npc crews are just an unstatted number and the radiation weapons force [Fort save + hp damage modified by armor level] against evwryone on the target ship.

[Anonymouswizard]

Otherwise, it’s circular. The ship level has to equal the PC level so that the math that we designed to force the ship level to equal the PC level will work. It’s a problem you won’t see in GURPS or SW, even SWd20, or Star Frontiers etc. it isn’t even based on the system in question. You could be able to make 100% of your engineering checks at tier 4, be failing half the time at tier 10, even if the ship has the exact same engine. The engineer isn’t legendary because he can do cool things. He is legendary because as your ship improves it gets harder to run and only a legendary engineer can run it now, but with the same error rate that he had 6 levels before.

Yep. In GURPS Space a Lighthugger will always be impossible for five people to operate at maximum efficiency*, as is the case with most systems that tie ship power to character wealth instead of character power (although admittedly SF ties those two together).

Also, in most Space games I've played a PC frigate will never get the sheer firepower of a high end military cruiser because there's just not enough space inside that thing (also because the thing is built from metal and plastic, not aerated paper mache). But apparently the best scientists in the entire civilisation are useless compared to one guy gluing on random components they've found on planets.

* You need a crew of hundreds to do that, although it's automated enough that five people with the right skills could bodge it for maybe a decade or two.

[Psyren]

I suppose that's a fair assessment. I've never shied away from getting away from RAW if I felt it would make for a more fun game. But it's kind of what I meant when I said that a competent GM would make up for the holes RAW have. RAW expects that the players either never lose their ships or exchange it for a different one at some point, but it's just their default assumption, much like the setting has a default assumption for all the races and creatures in the monster manual. The book may say humans come from the disappeared Golarion and that the universe has a several centuries-long gap where nobody remembers what happened, but I'm under no obligation to follow that lore. GMs should never be afraid of manipulating systems if they feel it would make more sense.

I think that even calling it "RAW" is a bit hamfisted. It's "RAW" in the same sense that WBL is RAW; designed to let inexperienced GMs create the expected experience by letting the players' starship keep up with level-appropriate challenges. But you're not supposed to put blinders on if the specific scenario you're running calls for the party to be in a more or less effective ship.

Saying that "any light freighter Han and Chewie steal magically becomes the Falcon" is like saying that if the party's gear gets stolen or destroyed, the very next monster they kill whether it's a kobold, a dragon or a slime should drop a pile of treasure big enough to get them back on track instantly.

[Gnaeus]

I think that even calling it "RAW" is a bit hamfisted. It's "RAW" in the same sense that WBL is RAW; designed to let inexperienced GMs create the expected experience by letting the players' starship keep up with level-appropriate challenges. But you're not supposed to put blinders on if the specific scenario you're running calls for the party to be in a more or less effective ship.

Saying that "any light freighter Han and Chewie steal magically becomes the Falcon" is like saying that if the party's gear gets stolen or destroyed, the very next monster they kill whether it's a kobold, a dragon or a slime should drop a pile of treasure big enough to get them back on track instantly.

Unfortunately, none of that is true. WBL is a guideline. Says so right in the DMG page 135. The rule is the treasure tables in DMG 51, where it even points out that sometimes PCs are over or under WBL and how you fix it.

SF has none of that. P293. Starships are “all created using the same process”. “A starships power level is based on the PCs average party level”. Done. 305 talks about leveling up and buying new ships. It isn’t a guideline. And there are no rules about gaining BP other than leveling. No rules about having an under BP ship, other than the one that says you get to level your ship up at the next port. When team APL 20 fly the local garbage scow into an inhabited planet, they can spend their BP. If I rig my ship as a bomb, I can get a new ship, and its power is based on average party level. A 5th level party gets 135 BP, just like a 5th level character gets feats at 1, 3, 5. It’s as much a rule as saving throws or the weapon damage tables or spell progression charts. They can’t get BP from quests, any more than they can get feats from quests. They can’t lose BP by any method in the rules. Is that dumb? Yes! That’s my point! Han and Chewies ship becomes the Falcon is the rule. Everything else is Psyren’s rules. Which I’ll admit sound Better than SF rules. But the SF rules are brief and clear. And if you think that’s broken, I agree. But if you use anything other than that, you are fixing broken with rule 0. Which is great. But isn’t the SF rules anymore.

[Psyren]

When team APL 20 fly the local garbage scow into an inhabited planet, they can spend their BP.

They can if you, the GM, let them, per the same page you're quoting. The GM gets to decide what counts as "safe and inhabited," just like the GM gets to decide whether they have enough time to spend those points they just got on repairs. If there's nothing particularly important happening in your plot at that moment, that's on you.

[Gnaeus]

They can if you, the GM, let them, per the same page you're quoting. The GM gets to decide what counts as "safe and inhabited," just like the GM gets to decide whether they have enough time to spend those points they just got on repairs. If there's nothing particularly important happening in your plot at that moment, that's on you.

True. But the ONLY issues are the ones quoted. Safe and inhabited and time. And you can get a whole new ship with party APL based build points in at most 1d4 months, so if the refit takes longer it’s moot. Looks like 1d4 days per weapon or system installed or upgraded is the guideline (guideline because “usually”).

Oh and the guideline, (which I interpret as a guideline rather than a rule because “should”) is that the safe, inhabited part “shouldn’t be allowed to impact the campaign too much”. So based on pretty clear RAI/design intent that shouldn’t be a major issue.

[Psyren]

True. But the ONLY issues are the ones quoted. Safe and inhabited and time. And you can get a whole new ship with party APL based build points in at most 1d4 months, so if the refit takes longer it’s moot. Looks like 1d4 days per weapon or system installed or upgraded is the guideline (guideline because “usually”).

Oh and the guideline, (which I interpret as a guideline rather than a rule because “should”) is that the safe, inhabited part “shouldn’t be allowed to impact the campaign too much”. So based on pretty clear RAI/design intent that shouldn’t be a major issue.

Agreed, and I never said it should be :smalltongue: but your complaint wasn't a major issue, it seemed to be a suspension of disbelief thing that ultimately has no impact on gameplay. Minor issues get minor solutions.

[Gnaeus]

Agreed, and I never said it should be :smalltongue: but your complaint wasn't a major issue, it seemed to be a suspension of disbelief thing that ultimately has no impact on gameplay. Minor issues get minor solutions.

Again, it does have impact on gameplay. It distorts all reasonable analysis of value for the PCs. It makes Boba Fets silverware more valuable than Slave One. It literally makes your ship a thing of no value in any campaign where you have 4 months to kill. It makes reasonable PC actions un-simulatable by the rules. What if I wanted to play a Skull and Shackles type thing in space. All compatible, right? Space pirates sound cool. How do I make a squadron. If I get an x-wing, does my level still count on the ship? After I have established a base, how do I buy a freighter to service it? What if we transfer our flag from one ship to another? Does the old ship delevel to the minions crewing it? What is supposed to happen when you capture a ship? These don’t sound like crazy things for a space game to me. It’s barely adequate, if odd, in the default AP assumption of murderhoboes. It goes wonky really quickly when your PC declares himself Ray I of asteroid gamma 4 and starts trying to build a fleet, or run a mega Corp, or a lot of other things high level PCs could want to do.

[Psyren]

It literally makes your ship a thing of no value in any campaign where you have 4 months to kill. It makes reasonable PC actions un-simulatable by the rules.

Got it; I understand why this rule might be unappealing to you, but genuinely, this is a level of hyperbole that I simply can't buy. Sorry.

[Gnaeus]

Got it; I understand why this rule might be unappealing to you, but genuinely, this is a level of hyperbole that I simply can't buy. Sorry.

1. It isn’t hyperbole. It is the actual rules based truth. I can suicide my ship into an enemy base for less IC cost than a hand grenade. I’m sorry that you don’t like how the SF rules work, but all the changes you rule 0 in doesn’t change that. The market value of all spaceships are the same. And that value is 0 credits.

2. Even if that weren’t the actual game rules, and it is, you still skip over all the other ways it distorts PC actions. They actually included shackles pirates in a game in which pirate fleets are impossible.

[Psyren]

Ok Gnaeus, thanks.

[Gnaeus]

Ok Gnaeus, thanks.

You are welcome. I’ll be glad to help if you need any further assistance with game rules.

[Milo v3]

IMO, starships should have never been connected to level, but I can easily see why they do not interact with WBL.

[Resileaf]

It's just an unfortunate result of player mentality. During playtesting, they found out that players would either spend their money on their ship or on themselves, never on both equally. Separating credits and BP was their solution.

[Telok]

It's just an unfortunate result of player mentality. During playtesting, they found out that players would either spend their money on their ship or on themselves, never on both equally. Separating credits and BP was their solution.

Um, Traveller has worked out fine since 1977 and... Ah well. I guess we can't expect competent space rules from people who write "giant high level luxury spaceliners" with all of eight luxury passenger cabins on them and make you pay for an upgrade to the door locks in order to keep two 1/3 cr goblins from stealing as many 9th level spaceships as they want.

[Psyren]

It's just an unfortunate result of player mentality. During playtesting, they found out that players would either spend their money on their ship or on themselves, never on both equally. Separating credits and BP was their solution.

Indeed, and this makes it much easier for GMs and module writers to predict what kind of gear and ship a Starfinder crew will have when they're designing challenges. It's a convenience for the sake of a smoother game, much like WBL itself.

[Anonymouswizard]

Um, Traveller has worked out fine since 1977 and... Ah well. I guess we can't expect competent space rules from people who write "giant high level luxury spaceliners" with all of eight luxury passenger cabins on them and make you pay for an upgrade to the door locks in order to keep two 1/3 cr goblins from stealing as many 9th level spaceships as they want.

To be fair Traveller a) never had character levels, and b) assumes that the PCs are either in need of money to pay off the loan they took on their starting ship or in danger of being asked by the Scout Service to do a mission. The ship probably doesn't change much in Traveller, you might replace the werapons, mess about with cargo versus hydrogen storage, or maybe throw a larger drive or backup generator in there, but the general assumption is that the ship hasn't changed much since campaign start.

(On that note Mongoose Traveller is one of my favourite spaceship construction systems, I find it simple enough to use but complex enough to be engaging.)

[Telok]

To be fair Traveller a) never had character levels, and b) assumes that the PCs are either in need of money to pay off the loan they took on their starting ship or in danger of being asked by the Scout Service to do a mission. The ship probably doesn't change much in Traveller, you might replace the werapons, mess about with cargo versus hydrogen storage, or maybe throw a larger drive or backup generator in there, but the general assumption is that the ship hasn't changed much since campaign start.

(On that note Mongoose Traveller is one of my favourite spaceship construction systems, I find it simple enough to use but complex enough to be engaging.)

Well, yes. However my point was that we've had more than 40 years of examples where rpgs didn't have to have some weird kludge to give the pcs a ship without breaking the game. The SF space ship & space combat is just a sort of half baked board game tacked on to the main 'fantasy with laser guns' game.

[Milo v3]

And the Character Operations Manual is now out and full of options.

[Anonymouswizard]

Well, yes. However my point was that we've had more than 40 years of examples where rpgs didn't have to have some weird kludge to give the pcs a ship without breaking the game. The SF space ship & space combat is just a sort of half baked board game tacked on to the main 'fantasy with laser guns' game.

Sure, although I'll note that the 3.P WBL system kind of screws with how older games tended to balance owning a starship (maybe the Star Wars d20 games did something different).

In Mongoose Traveller 1e the cost of a basic ship outweighs that of the most expensive personal weapon by a factor of ten or so, and the next most expensive personal weapon by a factor of over a thousand, going only by the corebook (I'm sure allowing Mercenary and High Guard skews this comparison).

In d6 Space the most expensive personal weapons are listed as cost category D(ifficult), which is 'thousands of credits'. The cheapest ship in the corebook (an in-system defender) costs about 50,000 credits, the only interstellar ship in it is over 200,000 credits. Allowing the Space Ships book roughly cuts that in half.

I am not trawling through GURPS Ultra-Tech and Spaceships to find the comparison, because GURPS Ultra-Tech has a lot of weird stuff.

But yeah, most games don't have PC-equipment and ship-parts on the same scale, Traveller doesn't use the same units unless the thing is available for both purposes (e.g. computers).

[Gnaeus]

Sure, although I'll note that the 3.P WBL system kind of screws with how older games tended to balance owning a starship (maybe the Star Wars d20 games did something different).

In Mongoose Traveller 1e the cost of a basic ship outweighs that of the most expensive personal weapon by a factor of ten or so, and the next most expensive personal weapon by a factor of over a thousand, going only by the corebook (I'm sure allowing Mercenary and High Guard skews this comparison).

In d6 Space the most expensive personal weapons are listed as cost category D(ifficult), which is 'thousands of credits'. The cheapest ship in the corebook (an in-system defender) costs about 50,000 credits, the only interstellar ship in it is over 200,000 credits. Allowing the Space Ships book roughly cuts that in half.

I am not trawling through GURPS Ultra-Tech and Spaceships to find the comparison, because GURPS Ultra-Tech has a lot of weird stuff.

But yeah, most games don't have PC-equipment and ship-parts on the same scale, Traveller doesn't use the same units unless the thing is available for both purposes (e.g. computers).

Never played those, but I know in D6 Star Wars, for example, even if you can’t buy a weapon in the same price range as a ship, you can buy a slew of high end security droids and give them heavy blasters which in total is vastly more effective in tactical combat than upgrading your weapon.

[Anonymouswizard]

Never played those, but I know in D6 Star Wars, for example, even if you can’t buy a weapon in the same price range as a ship, you can buy a slew of high end security droids and give them heavy blasters which in total is vastly more effective in tactical combat than upgrading your weapon.

Sure, but arguably in most editions of D&D it's more effective in tactical combat to sell your +5 Flaming Holy Keen Longsword to buy a county and raise an army.

But anyway, Starfunder is a solid game with a few niggles and a space system that needs a bit of work. It's actually my favourite version of d20, even above P2 (gah, that skill system, shudder), but I'm not a big fan of d20. I would, however, happily play or run it, especially if I could be an android technomancer spacefarer. Because who doesn't love robot wizard astronauts?

[Alexvrahr]

Alternity 2e has a different system for ammo where you roll to see whether you're out of ammo after firing, with the chance depending on the weapon (large magazine=smaller chance, autofire=larger chance). I think it works well to reflect the chaos of combat, but there's one guy in my main gaming group who's allergic to it

The Starfinder space combat system is notably disconnected from the rest of the game - the ship BPs are just a part of that. It looks like the designers just decided that mixing the two scales was too hard. It was enough of a simplification to be a hard no for me.


Sure, but arguably in most editions of D&D it's more effective in tactical combat to sell your +5 Flaming Holy Keen Longsword to buy a county and raise an army.
In AD&D and BECMI. maybe. I'd argue the reverse in 3.x and PF.

[Milo v3]

Mixing the two scales would mean you wouldn't be allowed even a crappy spaceship until like, level 15.

[Anonymouswizard]

Alternity 2e has a different system for ammo where you roll to see whether you're out of ammo after firing, with the chance depending on the weapon (large magazine=smaller chance, autofire=larger chance). I think it works well to reflect the chaos of combat, but there's one guy in my main gaming group who's allergic to it

Alternity 2e is pretty good with keeping the bookkeeping simple.


The Starfinder space combat system is notably disconnected from the rest of the game - the ship BPs are just a part of that. It looks like the designers just decided that mixing the two scales was too hard. It was enough of a simplification to be a hard no for me.

To be fair, I suspect that if they were more linked an android's immunity to vacuum would present balance problems.

But yeah, the ship system essentially needs a full rewrite to be worthwhile to me. It doesn't even list ship acceleration, instead giving us speed, do the designers have the faintest idea as to how spacecraft work?

Stuff like BP are fine, but tI'm surprised that starships are assumed to be so central to the game when the designers apparently didn't care enough to make them act like spaceships.


In AD&D and BECMI. maybe. I'd argue the reverse in 3.x and PF.

Sorry, I forgot that in pre-5e editions archdevils can't be defeated by a barful of commoners with longbows.


Mixing the two scales would mean you wouldn't be allowed even a crappy spaceship until like, level 15.

I'm systems terms? I'd at least like a good idea for how to deal with targeting ground targets while in orbit, and things like that. In economic terms, games have been doing it fit decades.

[Milo v3]

I'm systems terms? I'd at least like a good idea for how to deal with targeting ground targets while in orbit, and things like that.
Why would a game balanced around local-scale combat game be stupid enough to give rules on defeating the enemy from friggin orbit? The game already gives you rules for what happens if you shoot ground-targets with starship weapons, why does it need to let you do it from space.


In economic terms, games have been doing it fit decades.
I haven't seen it ever done well in a WBL-based game.

[Telok]

I haven't seen it ever done well in a WBL-based game.

I don't think I've seen anything outside of personal arms and armor well done in any wbl-based game. And I'm pretty skeptical on claims that SF has managed even that.

I actually think SF works better as a sort of comedy parody of Star Wars. Frankly any game where the words "The paisley kilted walrus space pirate double punches the radioactive tentacle elephant in the nuts with a humming frisbee" are coming out of my mouth just isn't something I can take seriously. Plus all the weird kludges in grenades, computers, all the space stuff, plus the trap feats and abilities, just... It feels and plays like just another 3.p d20 fantasy game with technology words glued on.

[Korwin]

Sure, although I'll note that the 3.P WBL system kind of screws with how older games tended to balance owning a starship (maybe the Star Wars d20 games did something different).

If I remember correctly there is no WBL in SW Saga Edition (it's too long for the older d20 SW games, no idea there).
Noble class had an credits printing talent...

[Milo v3]

I don't think I've seen anything outside of personal arms and armor well done in any wbl-based game. And I'm pretty skeptical on claims that SF has managed even that.
Yes. So why would they purposefully make it worse by putting mini-nukes on the same shopping list as laser pistols? Putting starship stuff on the same scale as WBL is taking an innate flaw and then purposefully taking it to it's worse extreme.

[Alexvrahr]

Yeah, WBL is an amazingly bad idea in science fiction and not noticeably better if you blend it with fantasy. And putting mini-nukes on anyone's shopping list isn't something that reads like a good idea either. Not that Starfinder 'nukes' are such in anything but name.

[Milo v3]

Yeah, WBL is an amazingly bad idea in science fiction and not noticeably better if you blend it with fantasy. And putting mini-nukes on anyone's shopping list isn't something that reads like a good idea either. Not that Starfinder 'nukes' are such in anything but name.
If you don't want WBL in sci-fi why the hell are you playing Starfinder? It's specifically just 3.5e/Pathfinder slightly streamlined and in space.

[Alexvrahr]

If you don't want WBL in sci-fi why the hell are you playing Starfinder? It's specifically just 3.5e/Pathfinder slightly streamlined and in space.
I read the core book, played a one-shot & decided against more of it. There are better games out there IMO. Sorry if that wasn't clear.

[Milo v3]

I read the core book, played a one-shot & decided against more of it. There are better games out there IMO. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
There are definitely better games out there, I just find the idea of complaining about a game acting exactly as advertised as it's purpose weird. Like, if someone told me that M&M shouldn't be point-buy I'd find it weird since... it's a point buy game.

A 3.5e-clone is gonna have Classes, WBL, CR, and all that jazz, so Starfinder should be designed with that as a known thing going in, rather than making decisions that would make those innate traits be more problematic. (Which is one of the things I find interesting about M&M that it's a d20 based game that has diverged so far that it isn't even a D&D-clone anymore)

[Aotrs Commander]

I actually don't have a problem with the starship side, apart from the idiocy of the expansion bays and sizes. Fundementally, starship and people level combat ARE at too disparate levels. The 20-odd year old Rolemaster party we wrapped up? They had their own ship, but that was basically provided by me to them (they paid nothing for it) and aside from one instance of having to fork out for repairs once when the main laser got damaged, and one major upgrade from some friendly -high-tech powers (which again was at DM's fiat what they got, both in terms of what was allowed and what numbers), that was essentially the maximum level of involvement that had in terms of interacting with it. There were a few short starship combat sequences, but as those were mostly just, like, a couple of the PCs involved, you can make the arguement they were mostly there for the pilot to do his thing.

Worth nothing, though, that the starship combat is, aside from character skill essentially static, because technology. The only way the PCs got it Better was literally by groveling nicely to some super-high-tech dudes that could fit better engines in (and that technology would at a price adventurers could NEVER afford, even if it was on the black market - let alone the open one - (and it isn't), since it would be being bought by the governents of major powers.

Other parties we've had were Not-Star Trek and the PCs were the command crew - but again, the PC's involvement in making or upgrading the starship was non-existant.



Really, there is an arguement that PCs who are not actually working for the military should NOT ever be able to stand toe-to-toe with fully armed military space craft out of their sizes class1) anyway.

Disconnecting it from money (as to actual BUY one or upgrade one should really be on the corporation or governmental level) is not a terrible idea, to be honest, having tacitly done it myself. So while PF's solution is a bit... Unconventional, I can see their reasoning.

If anything, they might have gone too far with it, by trying to make it level instead of just having starship combat be static and something more akin to a hazard that a combat. It was another set of rules to read, and so in the end, I did it for our party because I'd read the rules (and y'know, they all know what a starship freak I am...!) It's functional, I'll say, which is more than some, but it isn't as engaging or interesting as personal combat with that bit count (i.e. number of ships) invlved. You really need a fleet for tactics to really get into it.



1The Falcon ran form the Star Destroyers, after all. PF MIGHT put you in a position and level 20 where the Falcon could take it on directly.

[Psyren]

A common theme in sci-fi and sci-fantasy is that while military-grade hardware is high-end, it also tends to be a bit below the bleeding edge because the ultimate intent for it is mass-produceability. It's not uncommon for the protagonists/PCs to end up with stronger tech - either by getting their hands on experimental designs, sponsored by an ultra-wealthy benefactor, uncovering lost technology, or even just tinkering with existing stuff themselves if they have a genius on hand of the Tony Stark or Rocket variety. In addition, military tactics tend to be very rigid, based on assumptions about ships that may not apply to the ship that the protagonists/PCs get to use.

These two factors combined don't necessarily mean the PCs can take on entire armies alone - but punching above their weight class is entirely possible, as is winning a fight they should have lost by virtue of their vessel being able to do something the military vessel(s) couldn't have anticipated.

These same principles can be applied to the micro scale too, with the PCs' equipment and even powers.

[Milo v3]

I'd say the biggest issue with starship combat is how painfully repetitive it is + how GMs meant to go through every single phase of starship combat with three to four different ships. It's hard to find fun in just saying "I re-calibrate the shields" every single turn.

[Aotrs Commander]

I'd say the biggest issue with starship combat is how painfully repetitive it is + how GMs meant to go through every single phase of starship combat with three to four different ships. It's hard to find fun in just saying "I re-calibrate the shields" every single turn.

Yeah, I think that while it was clear they were trying to have everybody have something to do, and suceeded, to some extent, it's the same problem but not as severe, as 4E's skill challenges. At some point, you're really just rolling the dice for the sake of rolling the dice. I can see how, if done more than infrequently, or in an extended battle, it could get boring fast it' your not someone shooting the guns of flying - everyone else is just "roll a dice on your turn" pretty much.

Maybe it's a bit better at higher level when you have slightly more stuff to do?

[Alexvrahr]

There are definitely better games out there, I just find the idea of complaining about a game acting exactly as advertised as it's purpose weird. Like, if someone told me that M&M shouldn't be point-buy I'd find it weird since... it's a point buy game.

A 3.5e-clone is gonna have Classes, WBL, CR, and all that jazz, so Starfinder should be designed with that as a known thing going in, rather than making decisions that would make those innate traits be more problematic. (Which is one of the things I find interesting about M&M that it's a d20 based game that has diverged so far that it isn't even a D&D-clone anymore)
Blue Rose d20, even before it went to the slightly further off D&D 3.5 system of AGE dropped WBL. For that matter d20 Modern did too. I'd call those both closer to the D&D 3.5 system than Starfinder and I suspect I could find others. Your argument is not sustainable.

[MeeposFire]

Blue Rose d20, even before it went to the slightly further off D&D 3.5 system of AGE dropped WBL. For that matter d20 Modern did too. I'd call those both closer to the D&D 3.5 system than Starfinder and I suspect I could find others. Your argument is not sustainable.

4e D&D is another example. At start 4e uses a wealth by level system and you really need to stay close to it in order to keep the game math correct (though I find it easier to use and keep up with than 3e partly due to knowing what items are really needed and that NPCs do not need items to make their basic math work) later in the DMG2 and for the Dark Sun setting they came out with inherent bonuses which made it so that the basic math part of the magic item equation (the only part that is "needed" for the game) was made part of character progression and actual magic items did not add to them but could be used if better (this is the math oriented items such as a sword+1 items like winged boots worked like they always have).

Using that system a DM did not have to use magic items at all or only hand out the ones they wanted to for flavor and not have to worry about the characters being weaker than baseline. In many ways I liked it a whole lot better. For instance you could find that flaming sword and if that is something you always wanted you could keep it as a your signature weapon for the whole game rather than being forced to trade it in for something more level appropriate or going through hoops to upgrade it in boring math only related ways (+1 flaming sword is now +2 woo!).

That being said the biggest issue for many 3e players is expectations with the items. You could totally come up with basic level based additions that mimic basic magic items into the level progression much like VoP (I started doing that with NPCs in 3e before 4e came out to try to stop handing out so much treasure while getting to use NPC type enemies) but as we know many people will be either upset with the lack of certain types of item abilities or will falt out feel it is too weak (whether it is actually too weak for the global game is another story the player may feel it is too weak from what they could have had). So you would have to find a way to get that buy which in some ways is easier if you are in a new system all together.


As for Starfinder not a fan really though I do not hate it. I still really dislike how the game works as I still find it uses too much of 3e D&D and I still feel that system is more clunky than it needs to be though I will say while I do not like it all that much it is still better than 3e since the system does not punish you for moving quite as much as 3e did if you use weapons. I do refuse to DM 3e D&D games anymore due to being way more work than I get enjoyment out of a game (after doing level 1-20 campaigns in it I just will not go through that again after going back to older and trying newer version where it was far less work even at higher levels and my players and I had just as much fun if not more) but will play I am not sure that would be true for Spacefinder or not. Nobody around plays Spacefinder that I have really seen (though I am sure there are people that do so but I am just not seeing it or being asked to do it) so I have not had a chance to even consider DMing it yet.

Best part of Starfinder is the art which feels like Pathfinder meets Mass Effect and I also like how parts feel before I actually to play them or do much with them (though sadly after delving deeper it tends to sour for me).

[Telok]

Yeah, I think that while it was clear they were trying to have everybody have something to do, and suceeded, to some extent, it's the same problem but not as severe, as 4E's skill challenges. At some point, you're really just rolling the dice for the sake of rolling the dice. I can see how, if done more than infrequently, or in an extended battle, it could get boring fast it' your not someone shooting the guns of flying - everyone else is just "roll a dice on your turn" pretty much.

Maybe it's a bit better at higher level when you have slightly more stuff to do?

I got to suffer through it from 6 to 14 as a technomancer and it was pretty bad. The character wasn't best a piloting, shooting, or engineering, so got stuck on computers. First round scan, then try to give +2 to the gunner twice, then just spam shield balance. The only people who really do anything meaningful are pilot and gunners. The skill checks to do basic stuff have around a 50% success rate if the party and ship levels are equal. The advanced tricks are level gated, and cost resolve, and seem to usually have DCs 5 higher than normal. For some reason the captain role just seems terrible, I've only seen envoy characters try it twice and the maybe 1/3 time they made the DCs the +/-2 theat applied didn't have any effect.

[Aniikinis]

I've looked through the book a bit and it has some points I like and some that I feel are just unnecessary. For example, how the drift drives work is okay and I can kinda see it as a spiritual successor to spelljamming helms, albeit less... "realistic?" It's more of a teleportation effect through a vacuum than stupid-high rate of speed through burning "gas". Also how weapon ratings and their prices are handled is just kinda crap, but that's more of a holdover from 3.5 so...


Personally my go-to systems for sci-fi are Classic Traveller, d6 Space, Paranoia, and recently Dungeons the Dragoning 40k 7e.

I have never seen anyone talk about Dungeons the Dragoning 40k 7e on any site other than 4chan(exceedingly rarely) or their homebrew forums. I love that system, though it does have a few flaws and hurdles when explaining it.

[Milo v3]

Blue Rose d20, even before it went to the slightly further off D&D 3.5 system of AGE dropped WBL. For that matter d20 Modern did too. I'd call those both closer to the D&D 3.5 system than Starfinder and I suspect I could find others. Your argument is not sustainable.

The argument wasn't that you can't change from the formula..... I even mentioned how M&M comes from the d20 base and diverted massively. I'm saying I find it weird to complain that "feature that has a massive chance of being there is there" when the whole point of the game is to be "Pathfinder but In-Space".

[Gnaeus]

The argument wasn't that you can't change from the formula..... I even mentioned how M&M comes from the d20 base and diverted massively. I'm saying I find it weird to complain that "feature that has a massive chance of being there is there" when the whole point of the game is to be "Pathfinder but In-Space".

Maybe because Pathfinder has a history of building subsystems which do interact both with character actions and WBL? Like the downtime system, which my group quite likes, and kingmaker, which is still more interactive than your starship. Maybe because they made an adventure path which included a reputation/infamy stat and lets PCs customize, capture and sell ships? It’s like they looked at their own past efforts, decided that was too hard and gave up.

[Milo v3]

Maybe because Pathfinder has a history of building subsystems which do interact both with character actions and WBL? Like the downtime system, which my group quite likes, and kingmaker, which is still more interactive than your starship. Maybe because they made an adventure path which included a reputation/infamy stat and lets PCs customize, capture and sell ships? It’s like they looked at their own past efforts, decided that was too hard and gave up.

That is a separate topic to Starfinder having WBL at all though. They have WBL because they are using the main core shell of Pathfinder. They aren't mixing WBL and Ships because of how innately stupid it is and how it hasn't worked properly in any of those past efforts or while playtesting starfinder, which doesn't conflict with the first part because "tying WBL to random subsystem" isn't core to the shell of Pathfinder.

[Aotrs Commander]

I got to suffer through it from 6 to 14 as a technomancer and it was pretty bad. The character wasn't best a piloting, shooting, or engineering, so got stuck on computers. First round scan, then try to give +2 to the gunner twice, then just spam shield balance. The only people who really do anything meaningful are pilot and gunners. The skill checks to do basic stuff have around a 50% success rate if the party and ship levels are equal. The advanced tricks are level gated, and cost resolve, and seem to usually have DCs 5 higher than normal. For some reason the captain role just seems terrible, I've only seen envoy characters try it twice and the maybe 1/3 time they made the DCs the +/-2 theat applied didn't have any effect.

We have a party of seven, so all the roles are filled (in fact, the solarion doesn't bother to do anything, since we have the envoy as captain and none of the other roles he can really fit at - since gunner (+0 Dex) and engineer are the only ones with more than one slot.)

Were you playing before or after the completely errata'd all the DCs for Starship combat? Now they're mostly down to stuff like 15 + 1-1/2 CR, they're not unmanageable. For the people who have specialised of course. My Goblin Operative has a 70% chance of making his engineering checks, and he's got the highest engineering score.

Though Starfinder does seem to have an issue that "if you haven't specailised to the max, don't bother" with skill checks overall; DCs in general seem a bit high.

(Treat Deadly Wounds (DC 25) and Long Term Care (DC 30?!) for one, and the AP we're running has had quite a lot of DC 25 checks (at levels 2-3) which are difficult to make (mostly not made any of them even when I rolled well), even for my operative when playing to his highest skills; 25 is a lot when you're looking at maybe only +11, +12 at the outside. It means a party without someone maxed-out basically only has a 10% or less of making those checks, which seems... Harsh.)

[Gnaeus]

That is a separate topic to Starfinder having WBL at all though. They have WBL because they are using the main core shell of Pathfinder. They aren't mixing WBL and Ships because of how innately stupid it is and how it hasn't worked properly in any of those past efforts or while playtesting starfinder, which doesn't conflict with the first part because "tying WBL to random subsystem" isn't core to the shell of Pathfinder.

Is it? Looks to me like we started talking about WBL in reaction to concerns about how WBL gets broken if you try to mesh it with ships that cost more than WBL. And it’s hardly a random subsystem. It’s a full chapter of the core rules which they seem compelled to make me use several times per AP and in many SFS games. That seems worth some effort. And for my money those subsystems are some of the best products Paizo has produced.

Barring ships, the only part of WBL that’s really problematic is the routine mandatory upgrading of weapons. And that wasn’t really required. You could easily make weapon damage or AC scale by level (like SW D20) and make gear upgrades less critical. Honestly, just saying a laser does 9d4 in the hands of an 8th level character and making upgrades like +1 keen seems closer to PF WBL than what they went with.

[Anonymouswizard]

I've looked through the book a bit and it has some points I like and some that I feel are just unnecessary. For example, how the drift drives work is okay and I can kinda see it as a spiritual successor to spelljamming helms, albeit less... "realistic?" It's more of a teleportation effect through a vacuum than stupid-high rate of speed through burning "gas".

Apart from the 'there are some places where you can travel to them in 1d6 days no matter where you are' bit it's really not much different from other variable speed hyperspaces. Sure it has that 'stealing bits of other planes' thing (I bet the gods are happy about that), but in practice that's not much more than 'boy you can encounter a lot of weird stuff in hyperspace'.

To be honest Starfinder wouldn't change much if instead of the Drift ships travelled through the astral plane and had a chance of running into outsiders travelling across it to get to other planes. I suspect the Drift is mainly there to have unanswered questions, of which some but not all will be answered via subsequent books.


That is a separate topic to Starfinder having WBL at all though. They have WBL because they are using the main core shell of Pathfinder. They aren't mixing WBL and Ships because of how innately stupid it is and how it hasn't worked properly in any of those past efforts or while playtesting starfinder, which doesn't conflict with the first part because "tying WBL to random subsystem" isn't core to the shell of Pathfinder.

The question is why fdoes the starship need to upgrade? It's not a big thing in most of the media SF is inspired by, where upgrades are generally a big thing that happens rarely. I don't remember the Enterprise getting a new set of phasers, but I do remember stuff like ships being destroyed and replaced with better models.

[Milo v3]

Is it? Looks to me like we started talking about WBL in reaction to concerns about how WBL gets broken if you try to mesh it with ships that cost more than WBL.

And it’s hardly a random subsystem. It’s a full chapter of the core rules which they seem compelled to make me use several times per AP and in many SFS games. That seems worth some effort. And for my money those subsystems are some of the best products Paizo has produced.
I haven't heard anything about any of the subsystems of Pathfinder being improved by allowing them to completely screw with WBL. Kingdom rules are neat, but dang is it weird balance-wise when you end up needing to choose between "well I can either make myself weaker for adventuring for a flavour of improving my kingdom" or "I can get near-free money that helps me be a tonnes better adventurer because I can take money out of my kingdom"


Barring ships, the only part of WBL that’s really problematic is the routine mandatory upgrading of weapons. And that wasn’t really required. You could easily make weapon damage or AC scale by level (like SW D20) and make gear upgrades less critical. Honestly, just saying a laser does 9d4 in the hands of an 8th level character and making upgrades like +1 keen seems closer to PF WBL than what they went with.
I would have much preferred if it was an upgrade based system or something, rather than needing 5 to 10 different versions of each weapon so that you can use the same weapon-type throughout the whole campaign.


The question is why fdoes the starship need to upgrade? It's not a big thing in most of the media SF is inspired by, where upgrades are generally a big thing that happens rarely. I don't remember the Enterprise getting a new set of phasers, but I do remember stuff like ships being destroyed and replaced with better models.
Completely agree.

[Aotrs Commander]

The question is why fdoes the starship need to upgrade? It's not a big thing in most of the media SF is inspired by, where upgrades are generally a big thing that happens rarely. I don't remember the Enterprise getting a new set of phasers, but I do remember stuff like ships being destroyed and replaced with better models.

Also agree. Like I say, I don't particularly mind that the system exists, but it's not the way I would have chosen to go myself.

[MeeposFire]

Apart from the 'there are some places where you can travel to them in 1d6 days no matter where you are' bit it's really not much different from other variable speed hyperspaces. Sure it has that 'stealing bits of other planes' thing (I bet the gods are happy about that), but in practice that's not much more than 'boy you can encounter a lot of weird stuff in hyperspace'.

To be honest Starfinder wouldn't change much if instead of the Drift ships travelled through the astral plane and had a chance of running into outsiders travelling across it to get to other planes. I suspect the Drift is mainly there to have unanswered questions, of which some but not all will be answered via subsequent books.



The question is why fdoes the starship need to upgrade? It's not a big thing in most of the media SF is inspired by, where upgrades are generally a big thing that happens rarely. I don't remember the Enterprise getting a new set of phasers, but I do remember stuff like ships being destroyed and replaced with better models.

Well in the 1st Star Trek movie (Star Trek the Motion Picture) they did upgrade the Enterprise though it really did not amount to anything except as a way to explain the new look and as a plot point to show why Kirk no longer knew the ship like he used to.

[Psyren]

Been watching the Mandalorian and now I reeeeeally want to build an Operative with a sniper-rifle-taser-staff combo.



The question is why fdoes the starship need to upgrade? It's not a big thing in most of the media SF is inspired by, where upgrades are generally a big thing that happens rarely. I don't remember the Enterprise getting a new set of phasers, but I do remember stuff like ships being destroyed and replaced with better models.



Completely agree.


Also agree. Like I say, I don't particularly mind that the system exists, but it's not the way I would have chosen to go myself.

Two big reasons:

1) The other fiction/systems you're thinking of generally only have ship vs. ship battles. Starfinder has those too, but also has more traditional ship vs. monster fights that just happen to be set in space. Upgrading the ship lets the designers throw things like Novaspawn or Endbringer Devils into an AP without having to wonder if the high-level party never swapped out or upgraded their garbage scow or mid-range frigate.

2) At the risk of repeating myself, the rules are designed for less experienced DMs/playgroups first and foremost. You can run non-upgrading ships just fine if you feel that's more realistic; but that comes at the cost of needing a group with the system mastery to pursue those manual upgrades when they're supposed to. Providing the GM with an easy-to-use-but-gamist guideline is going to beat the alternative any day of the week, especially since Starfinder was likely the first space TTRPG for a large number of players, ever.

[Milo v3]

Two big reasons:

1) The other fiction/systems you're thinking of generally only have ship vs. ship battles. Starfinder has those too, but also has more traditional ship vs. monster fights that just happen to be set in space. Upgrading the ship lets the designers throw things like Novaspawn or Endbringer Devils into an AP without having to wonder if the high-level party never swapped out or upgraded their garbage scow or mid-range frigate.
Except you can just give the protagonists a ship on the tier appropriate for the stories starship conflicts from the get go. There is nothing unbalancing about a level 1 group having a tier 6 starship for the entirety of a 1-7 adventure path for example, because starship combat is completely separate to local-scale combat.


2) At the risk of repeating myself, the rules are designed for less experienced DMs/playgroups first and foremost. You can run non-upgrading ships just fine if you feel that's more realistic; but that comes at the cost of needing a group with the system mastery to pursue those manual upgrades when they're supposed to. Providing the GM with an easy-to-use-but-gamist guideline is going to beat the alternative any day of the week, especially since Starfinder was likely the first space TTRPG for a large number of players, ever.
.... so you think the "complex starship creation system + having to add things onto your ship and deal with PCU shifting as you add more things" is more helpful for people with low-system mastery than "just the complex starship creation system"?

[Knaight]

The question is why fdoes the starship need to upgrade? It's not a big thing in most of the media SF is inspired by, where upgrades are generally a big thing that happens rarely. I don't remember the Enterprise getting a new set of phasers, but I do remember stuff like ships being destroyed and replaced with better models.

In most of the media SF is inspired by the same applies to characters. There's arcs, sure, but I don't remember Jean Luc Picard changing in ways remotely analogous to leveling up.

[Psyren]

Except you can just give the protagonists a ship on the tier appropriate for the stories starship conflicts from the get go. There is nothing unbalancing about a level 1 group having a tier 6 starship for the entirety of a 1-7 adventure path for example, because starship combat is completely separate to local-scale combat.

And if they have 1-7 starship fights in that path as well?


.... so you think the "complex starship creation system + having to add things onto your ship and deal with PCU shifting as you add more things" is more helpful for people with low-system mastery than "just the complex starship creation system"?

"Adding things as you level" is literally the core of the system.

[Telok]

We have a party of seven, so all the roles are filled (in fact, the solarion doesn't bother to do anything, since we have the envoy as captain and none of the other roles he can really fit at - since gunner (+0 Dex) and engineer are the only ones with more than one slot.)

Were you playing before or after the completely errata'd all the DCs for Starship combat? Now they're mostly down to stuff like 15 + 1-1/2 CR, they're not unmanageable. For the people who have specialised of course. My Goblin Operative has a 70% chance of making his engineering checks, and he's got the highest engineering score.

Though Starfinder does seem to have an issue that "if you haven't specailised to the max, don't bother" with skill checks overall; DCs in general seem a bit high.

(Treat Deadly Wounds (DC 25) and Long Term Care (DC 30?!) for one, and the AP we're running has had quite a lot of DC 25 checks (at levels 2-3) which are difficult to make (mostly not made any of them even when I rolled well), even for my operative when playing to his highest skills; 25 is a lot when you're looking at maybe only +11, +12 at the outside. It means a party without someone maxed-out basically only has a 10% or less of making those checks, which seems... Harsh.)

Weirdly enough the old 10+(level * 2) was about 5 points easier at first level, about 5 points harder at 20th, and the same at 10th. Not actually a huge difference, although it did punish people even more for not maxxing the skill checks at higher levels.

Your 70% success rate comes from high starting int and keeping up the level bonuses, being an operative with the all-skill insight bonus, best or second best personal enhancement into int, race bonus, possibly theme bonus. That's basically putting the max possible of character resources into being good at that check.

My experience was a technomancer taking race and theme for the story & character, then discovering in play that enemies made saves 75% and switching to no-save spells, and putting the personal enhancements in dex & con because the DM used lots of single/paired over-level beat stick monsters. From several pc deaths & replacements the technomancer ended up being the only one in the party (of 4) with engineering and computers at 10th level. So the character had +19 at 10th level in computers, but +16 in engineering because technos don't get a class bonus there. The DCs at that point are all 30, 35, and 40. Space combat was really really boring, just tossing a d20 and telling the player with the ship sheet 'balance' or 'nothing'. Even with a 70% success rate it would have been boring.

I'm playing in a group with non-optimizers right now. The best pilot is a soldier, the engineering checks are done by a mystic. To me it's obvious the DM is lowering DCs for stuff by 5 and 10 points (and npc skills by that much too) just to keep the party at around a 40% to 50% success rate. In the last three starship combats our pilot has won initative on two rounds.

The devs set up a skill system that assumes a level of optimization that I don't think actually works all that well in real play.

[Milo v3]

And if they have 1-7 starship fights in that path as well?
I mean it'd only have 3 because 1-7 is only 3 parts worth and they have 1 starship fight per path, but... I don't actually know what your concern is? You're raising it as if I should just assume how that sentence acts as an objection but I don't want to assume your position, I would rather know what the actual disagreement is.


"Adding things as you level" is literally the core of the system.
And? The thing I was arguing against was the idea that things like advancing ships Helps people with lower system mastery. Which seems the opposite of true. Doing x & y is more complex than doing just x. Not that "adding things as you level" isn't a mechanic in the game. Though .... it does work differently to normal leveling because in normal levelling you have a proper progression that keeps around the sort of math the game expects with things like specialization, BAB, and saves from class levels automatically scaling rather than needing to guess what sort of stats the game will want of you at tier 11.

[Knaight]

And? The thing I was arguing against was the idea that things like advancing ships Helps people with lower system mastery. Which seems the opposite of true. Doing x & y is more complex than doing just x. Not that "adding things as you level" isn't a mechanic in the game. Though .... it does work differently to normal leveling because in normal levelling you have a proper progression that keeps around the sort of math the game expects with things like specialization, BAB, and saves from class levels automatically scaling rather than needing to guess what sort of stats the game will want of you at tier 11.

It certainly fits thematically - though I will say it would probably have worked better if they had gone the whole way and just had ship classes the same way they had character classes. There's obvious archetypes too - battleship, carrier, science vessel, cargo ship (though that has NPC class written all over it). Sure, it doesn't particularly make a lot of sense, but it doesn't make sense in a way consistent with the way the rest of the system doesn't make sense.

[Psyren]

I mean it'd only have 3 because 1-7 is only 3 parts worth and they have 1 starship fight per path, but... I don't actually know what your concern is? You're raising it as if I should just assume how that sentence acts as an objection but I don't want to assume your position, I would rather know what the actual disagreement is.

More plainly - what if they want you to experience low level starship combats as well as mid and high? Would just giving you a high-end ship regardless of party or enemy level help with delivering that experience?



And? The thing I was arguing against was the idea that things like advancing ships Helps people with lower system mastery.

It helps them relative to a DM that has to guess how strong the party's ship should be. Not relative to an already-leveled ship that needs no decision-making at all. But my point was that, if you want to play something without any leveling or decision-making, maybe an RPG isn't the best choice.

[Knaight]

It helps them relative to a DM that has to guess how strong the party's ship should be. Not relative to an already-leveled ship that needs no decision-making at all. But my point was that, if you want to play something without any leveling or decision-making, maybe an RPG isn't the best choice.

Not this specific RPG - but leveling is a comparatively rare system quirk, and while there's always decision making there isn't necessarily mechanical budgeting and numerical optimization. Starfinder being a bad choice doesn't mean that, say, Traveller is too. Let alone something like Bulldogs.

[Milo v3]

More plainly - what if they want you to experience low level starship combats as well as mid and high? Would just giving you a high-end ship regardless of party or enemy level help with delivering that experience?
If the story requires a high level ship and some points and a low-level ship at others, that doesn't contradict with the mindset of "Just have the ship of the right tier for the story". You can have advancement without having 1 to 1 be the default. Maybe one adventure path has you start with a medium tier ship, that then gets damaged or sabotaged lowering it, and then further on you end up getting a fully high tier ship for a climatic finish. And none of that requires your ship to upgrade as you level, and is actually a story the default system's assumptions wouldn't let you tell because of your ship by default being assumed to be equal in tier to your level.


It helps them relative to a DM that has to guess how strong the party's ship should be.
1) You can have different tiers of ships without having ships advance with the players level. Having ships be different tiers != all levels need to be directly linked.
2) The current system doesn't really help you guess how strong the party's ship should be. Since it gives you 0 guideance on what sort of things the system expects of a ship of x tier. It's easy to picture one group spending their BP on weapons that turn out to be not as great as they expected and tonnes on say armour past what their level assumed, which might make a starship combat in your story now immensely slow as the enemy is taking forever to win while making it very unlikely for the players to succeed because they unknowingly shot themselves in the foot.


Not relative to an already-leveled ship that needs no decision-making at all. But my point was that, if you want to play something without any leveling or decision-making, maybe an RPG isn't the best choice.
No one said no decision making, I just find the idea of "Doing X & Y" being simpler than just "doing X" flawed. The starships leveling with you does not make it more accessible. And as stated above, there are RPs where not everything is levelled.... Even starfinder has things that don't level with you like Feats. Which Could be rewritten to scale, but if they did it would make the game more complex rather than less (though I would prefer if Feats scaled in Starfinder regardless that increase in complexity).

[Gnaeus]

You can level ships without abandoning player input.

Imagine using the downtime system and infamy systems as a base. Give a ship a level based cost. Like: a tier 3 cruiser requires x labor, y goods, z tech parts and w magic resources/trip. Then you allow the characters to produce resources with relevant checks, with number of resources produced based on check results. Some gear might require a certain amount of fame to access. Upgrades also cost resources.

Disadvantages: it is more complicated

It may not exactly track every other level 8 ship for your AP.

Advantages: your ship is based on your character actions, giving you an actual stake in its success. It’s now worth more than a hand grenade, because you worked on it and can’t replace it for free.

You could salvage resources from captured or destroyed ships. Making those combats meaningful.

You could get ship rewards as quest rewards

You could go further. Spend a week and x resources and y skill check for temporary bonuses. Because you stocked the small arms locker or provided luxuries for crew or fine tuned the engines or whatever. Make the jobs more meaningful than one dice roll per combat round. Make people care that the engineer spends shoreleave upgrading the drive.

You could buy resources, but make them expensive. Or let characters sell them at 10% like any other gear. Shouldn’t destroy WBL.

It could tie the ship growth to the party. A bunch of magic guys might find it easier to do magic upgrades. Teciies might have a more high tech ship. Social types might need to role play to negotiate for needed supplies. Make P.C. choices matter.

It could differentiate ports. Port X has lots of labor but magic resources are expensive. Port y has only luxury goods. Port z doubles costs for everything but magic. Now rather than “inhabited planet” I suddenly care where my favorite port is.

[Psyren]

You can have advancement without having 1 to 1 be the default.


1) You can have different tiers of ships without having ships advance with the players level. Having ships be different tiers != all levels need to be directly linked.
2) The current system doesn't really help you guess how strong the party's ship should be. Since it gives you 0 guideance on what sort of things the system expects of a ship of x tier. It's easy to picture one group spending their BP on weapons that turn out to be not as great as they expected and tonnes on say armour past what their level assumed, which might make a starship combat in your story now immensely slow as the enemy is taking forever to win while making it very unlikely for the players to succeed because they unknowingly shot themselves in the foot.

1) Of course you can have advancement without linking to level. I never said you can't. They playtested and chose not to make that the default. You are still free to do that on your own.

2) This scenario is about as likely as a party sinking all their WBL into armor and none into their weapons or vice-versa. Could it happen, sure, but any scenario can be skewed to unreasonableness if you actively try. What's more important is the comfort that they have the right amount of BP to spend in the first place.

[Gnaeus]

I never said you can't. They playtested and chose not to make that the default. You are still free to do that on your own.

Is this not true of every decision in every game ever? Aside from purely artistic decisions I can’t think when it wouldn’t apply. It’s hardly a defense. Hopefully no professional company will release a product with 0 play testing. And they make choices. That doesn’t mean those choices were good, or justified, or made to benefit the users rather than the AP writers. Every bad rule/class/game ever discussed on this board was probably at some point a result of choices backed by some kind of play testing. You can rewrite truenamer or planar binding on your own. They play tested and chose to make those the default.

[Psyren]

Is this not true of every decision in every game ever? Aside from purely artistic decisions I can’t think when it wouldn’t apply.

It is. They can't please everyone and it's foolish to try. They made the decision they felt would benefit the greatest number of tables, and I agree with it.

Truenamer actually wasn't playtested, to your point. Nothing in ToM was except Binder.

[Gnaeus]

It is. They can't please everyone and it's foolish to try. They made the decision they felt would benefit the greatest number of tables, and I agree with it.

Your agreement with it is valid. And you should defend it on those lines.

I disagree with the first two statements. They made a decision which was lazy and would benefit their AP writers. I think benefiting the greatest number of tables was given as much value as a ship in their system: 0 credit.

[Psyren]

Your agreement with it is valid. And you should defend it on those lines.

Thanks.


I disagree with the first two statements. They made a decision which was lazy and would benefit their AP writers. I think benefiting the greatest number of tables was given as much value as a ship in their system: 0 credit.

I don't view those as mutually exclusive though. As I mentioned, space opera games haven't exactly been mainstream until now (the sales figures support this), so I would wager that this game would be the first such experience for many groups, and that APs are how the majority of those will experience this game for the first time. Making life easier for the writers of those APs therefore does benefit tables in the long run.

[Aotrs Commander]

2) At the risk of repeating myself, the rules are designed for less experienced DMs/playgroups first and foremost. You can run non-upgrading ships just fine if you feel that's more realistic; but that comes at the cost of needing a group with the system mastery to pursue those manual upgrades when they're supposed to. Providing the GM with an easy-to-use-but-gamist guideline is going to beat the alternative any day of the week, especially since Starfinder was likely the first space TTRPG for a large number of players, ever.

That would be news to me, actually.

(Why would that even be, though? What prompted them to think Starfinder would be more popular than Pathfinder (or at least attract that big of a new audience)? Starfinder really does nothing at all that dozens of other systems don't already do (that it is above much of the pack merely speaks to 99%-of-everything-is-crap rule), and the main strength that I thought it would have - be Pathfinder! In Spaaaaaaaaace! Which it's kind of adulterated. Which is why I think I'm perhaps harder on it than I might have been - it wasn't what I expected it to be; I was expecting Centurions and got Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors.

(Okay, no, sorry, Starfinder, that WAS uncalled for, I apologise.)

I mean, look, I'm harder on it than on, say 4E, because Starfinder at least is somethign that's close enough I can care to get irritated at it not being as good as I think it should have been (because Paizo have raised my expectations too high, perhaps). 4E I always do the curtesy of saying was a mechanically fine system that did everything it set out to do, for the most part *cough*skillchallenges*cough*, it just did the exact opposite of what I want out of an RPG's mechanical system. Although, in fairness, even it had merit; its solo monster idea turned into my defiant template which was a true quantum leap in having actually decent boss fights with larger parties.)

That actually explains a lot; though if that was the intention, in my estimation, they did a poor job of it, since the system is no less and no more impenetrable than the previous editions of D&D, and I hold 3.x as being one of the BETTER written sets of RPG rules I've come across. Is it better than many other sets of rules? Yes, but so was 3.0. (Compare to, for example, my personal favourite whipping system, AD&D...) Much as I love RM, it ain't exactly especially well-written.

An elegant set of rules and simple set are rules are not the same. Neither 3.x nor PF (nor Rolemaster - actually, especially not Rolemaster) are simple systems, nor elegant systems overall; though some aspects of them are elegant. They're levelled systems, they CAN'T be particularly elegant wit regard to being good learning systems, because it's level-based. A system without levels is a system where, at least in all cases I've seen, the characters don't significantly improve and thus you mostly flatten the curve. There's a strong arguement to be made that's the approach you ought to take if you wanted to make a learner system.

(I wouldn't make that arguement, but I graduated from HeroQuest to Rolemaster.)

There is no substitute for actually having to do some reading (or at least the DM having to do some reading) if you actually want a mechanically sound system.



(If you something that's incredibly easy to start with I mean... Like, you could literally play HeroQuest. This chap isn't wrong. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx8sl2uC46A) No, genuinuely seriously, if you don't play it as the board game, it functions perfectly fine as a rules-lite RPG system.)




The other fiction/systems you're thinking of generally only have ship vs. ship battles. Starfinder has those too, but also has more traditional ship vs. monster fights that just happen to be set in space. Upgrading the ship lets the designers throw things like Novaspawn or Endbringer Devils into an AP without having to wonder if the high-level party never swapped out or upgraded their garbage scow or mid-range frigate.

"Traditional?" I would HIGHLY debate that is applicable, myself.

I mean, the simplest solution would have been to just y'know, not have stuff like Novaspawn or Endbringer Devils exist in the first place and keep starship combat to starships. (Where it belongs.) And thence remove the need for a more complex scaling subsystem entirely, which is not really representative of any sci-fi I can personally think of, off the top my my head. (Mind you, I can and do say that about Vancian casting, so if anyone is going to do it, a D&D dervivative ought to be the the one...)



Right, yeah, I've been using this excuse to rant to procrastinate on work again, I had better get back to it...

[Psyren]

Starfinder really does nothing at all that dozens of other systems don't already do (that it is above much of the pack merely speaks to 99%-of-everything-is-crap rule), and the main strength that I thought it would have - be Pathfinder! In Spaaaaaaaaace! Which it's kind of adulterated.

I'm not saying there aren't other systems. maybe even dozens, that can do space opera. But those have overwhelmingly been niche products. Traveller is a classic to be sure, but I haven't seen it chart at any point in the last decade. The only other space RPG that has cracked the top 5 in the last decade was Star Wars from FFG, and everything I can find on the space combat there suggests it's featherweight at best. So Starfinder is, if not charting new territory, at the very least introducing slews of new audiences to the genre. In spring of this very year Starfinder was #2 in sales behind D&D, and only got bumped down once 2e launched.



I mean, the simplest solution would have been to just y'know, not have stuff like Novaspawn or Endbringer Devils exist in the first place and keep starship combat to starships.

Why you're correct, being as boring as possible is certainly simpler :smalltongue: I'm glad the design team chose otherwise though.

[Telok]

The way to have starship sized monsters is to stat them as starships. It's really that easy and it works in every system with starships. You may have to consider some sort of crew or subsystem equivalency, but the whole moving, attacking, and taking damage works just fine.

Honestly they could have statted the ships as really big vehicles. Actually, some of the smallest ships are smaller than some of the larger vehicles aren't they? Ah well. If they'd done that then maybe they would have managed a decent set of starship combat rules that fit into the rest of the game.

Is it weird that I think playing a npc would be easier and maybe more fun than playing a pc? Less crap to calculate, no problems from dealing with with wbl, no silly stamina/hp splits.

[Aotrs Commander]

Why you're correct, being as boring as possible is certainly simpler :smalltongue: I'm glad the design team chose otherwise though.

Well, do you want a system that's very easy for people to learn, or do you want to have a good, mechanically deep system?

Can't have both (at least not without a loooooot of time). (It's like that thing they say - there is cost, time and quality and you can only ever have two.)

I've certainly never seen it done; 3.x/PF is about as close as I've ever witnessed.

The twain are not even particularly compatible goals in an RPG - it's not even easy to do that for something far less complex in breadth like a wargame.

Trust me, I went for the latter and moderately achieved the former in my set of starships rules, which is on a VASTLY less complex scale and it took FIFTEEN YEARS to get that written, tested and published. (I'd be interested to know how many comparative lich-years went into Starfinder, actually, I have no idea.)

And Accelerate & Attack? Is a fairly weighty set of wargames rules as far as they go, running it at 170 pages (including markers and stuff).



So, yeah, they had to make the chocie between "make this easy to pick up" verses "rules mechanics that don't suck." And aimed more for the latter than the former, which is a bit at odds if their plan was to make Starfinder more the former.

(I've actually observed that Starfinder sometimes feels like it would have preferred to not be a D20 system at all, but they felt they had to, because they weren't willing to not bank on their existing market and thus ended up aiming for something that doesn't serve either end as well.)




Basically, it comes down to the fact there are basically two groups of people; people who don't really care what game they're playing and will play anything so long as they're having fun, no matter how bad the rules are... (this describes 80-90% of my gaming group.) And the sort of people do are inveterate rules-smiths and, at extremes, will do things like spend months faffing with rules and probably spend some hours reading up before making a character in CRPGs, but I can't possibly think of any examples of that, sort of person, obviously

Y'aint gonna satisfy either end by going down the middle any more than you're going to ever resolve the issue of the "I want to be forced to manage my resources like I was playing AD&D (wizards)" crowd verses the "I don't want to be forced to manage my resources like I was playing AD&D (wizards)" crowd (as any cursory glance, at say, Obsidian's forums for Pillars of Eternity (either version) will demonstrate).



Whereas, for instance, the class stuff I've just finished doing for 3.Aotrs runs to 200 pages just on the classes alone, not counting the feats, main rules changes powers, spells and power lists.



(Speaking of feats, only got as far as "A" last night down PF's list, so better back to it, the feats document and feats list document only reach a combined total of 120 pages right now...)




I'm just sayin', though, Paizo, Accerate & Attack is D20 based, guys, you want a system that'll be (much) better than what you got, have your people call my people...

[Psyren]

The way to have starship sized monsters is to stat them as starships.

Uh... that's more or less what they did. They have starship tiers and everything.


Well, do you want a system that's very easy for people to learn, or do you want to have a good, mechanically deep system?

Can't have both (at least not without a loooooot of time). (It's like that thing they say - there is cost, time and quality and you can only ever have two.) I've certainly never seen it done; 3.x/PF is about as close as I've ever witnessed.

3.x and PF weren't "close." They did that. As did 5e for that matter.

(Unless you don't consider those to be either good, mechanically deep, or both, in which case I'll save us both some time and categorically disagree with you.)

[Anonymouswizard]

Why you're correct, being as boring as possible is certainly simpler :smalltongue: I'm glad the design team chose otherwise though.

Question! Why ate monsters more interesting than starships/humanoids?

No seriously, I tend to see this assumption crop up a lot, and especially at lower levels I tend to find that this is untrue. It's a lot harder to bribe a monster not to fight you.

Question 2: how do they breathe in the vacuum of space? (I mean, I guess they might all be similar to androids, in that they're tech creatures that don't need to breathe).

[Psyren]

Oh yeah, almost forgot - I was able to find the explicit "guideline" text for starships, it just happened to be in the designing encounters section rather than the improving starships section.


DESIGNING STARSHIP ENCOUNTERS

From a simple skirmish against pirates to a massive fleet
engagement, designing a fun and challenging space combat
requires thoughtful planning and careful design on the part of the
GM. A crew of PCs can’t simply spend their hard-earned credits
to upgrade their starship between encounters as they could
with ordinary gear. In addition, often due to the circumstances
of the story, the characters might find themselves in a ship that
is significantly more or less powerful than their Average Party
Level might indicate. The GM needs to take these factors into
account when deciding what sort of enemies the PCs will face.

There, now we can all stop handwringing about autoscaling ships being unrealistic, you have explicit permission for a mismatch between APL and ship tier if your story requires it, since that was needed apparently; enjoy.


Question! Why ate monsters more interesting than starships/humanoids?

No seriously, I tend to see this assumption crop up a lot, and especially at lower levels I tend to find that this is untrue. It's a lot harder to bribe a monster not to fight you.

I don't understand the question; Starfinder has both, so you can run whichever you find more interesting, or both. I myself don't consider one to be more or less interesting than the other, they are tools in the GM's toolbelt.



Question 2: how do they breathe in the vacuum of space? (I mean, I guess they might all be similar to androids, in that they're tech creatures that don't need to breathe).

In general, creatures that count as starships don't have to worry about vacuum or gravity. There are also plenty of other monsters that are vacuum immune below that scale.

[Morty]

Starfinder seems to be a product for people who want a sci-fi/space fantasy game but, for whatever reason, refuse to engage with non-d20 mechanics. But it does seem to have some interesting ideas. The weapons list seems pretty baffling, though. It's the closest I've seen to a video game gear treadmill in a tabletop game.

[Aotrs Commander]

3.x and PF weren't "close." They did that. As did 5e for that matter.

(Unless you don't consider those to be either good, mechanically deep, or both, in which case I'll save us both some time and categorically disagree with you.)

Dude, c'mon, would I have spent all this effort on converting stuff if I thought either were that? (Especially given that you specifically have been pretty much the most helpful person on the board in providing advice and assisting me doing so...)

3.x/PF (or rather, more technically, 3.Aotrs) is my system of choice - has been, actually for nearly twenty years now, since 3.0 came out. Rolemaster, the previous choice? Only for a) the party I just retired for my 40th last month after over twenty years and b) the only current day-quest party for which it is better suited, where combat takes a back seat to exploration and The More Skills that 3.x/PF/SF doesn't really have for The-Aotrs-Does-Stargate-SG-1.

As I said, I thought they were among the best-written I've seen - but given the amount of reading material and complexity involved, I wouldn't say they were especially "easy to learn" as things go, if you were a complete beginner, and not someone who was picking up 3E at twenty (after dealing with AD&D and Rolemaster...) Sure, maybe if you're a PLAYER, but hell, at that point, provided you cdon't have a crippling fear of adding tens and units instead of just usually single digits, RM is actually even easier. (Fer frack's sake, I started in RM at 10!) As DM, that's still a lot of reading, and 3.5, at least, had the COMPLETE waste of space that was CR and EL, completely pointless metrics if you happen to have more than four friends, so ya gotta learn to balance by eye ANYWAY, same as in literally every other sysrtem that DOESN'T try to do that.

Starfinder?

Is not BETTER in that regard than them - it's basically at the same level (okay, maybe a fraction lower, since there are at first glance a few disfunctional bits that haven't been thought about enough, +40-anything-you-are-not-looking-at-directly-so-ambushes-cannot-ever-fail, lookin' at you); which is why I don't think trying to, for want of a better term "unclutter" (?) Pathfinder was a particularly good design goal. They were ALREADY pretty much at the best limit they could be, I think they'd have been better served capitalising on what they had more. Play to their strengths - PF isn't 5E (which from what I gather is sort of "AD&D-feel with all the stupid parts cut out and a modern design"), after all.

Heck, SF and PF have a major-leg up on basically every other RPG system I've ever seen apart from first edition WFRP - they have FANTASTIC modules and whole campaigns. THAT, if anything, is really what makes learning the game easist - a competantly written adventure, which in my opinion, Paizo are literally the joint best EVER at.



I mean, don't get me wrong here, Starfinder is getting the same treatment my grandfather got when he got back from his air-qualification exam with 97% and the instructor was like "dude, you couldn't be arsed to get the last 3%1?"




1He probably didn't say "dude," it was, like, the 1940s, so it was probably more like "I say old chap, jolly bad show, bit of a sticky wicket," but you get my point.

[Milo v3]

1) Of course you can have advancement without linking to level. I never said you can't. They playtested and chose not to make that the default. You are still free to do that on your own.
.... the advancement linked to level was what I was saying I don't think they should have done.... Yes I know I can do it in my home games, that doesn't change the fact that I think it Should have been the default assumption of the game.


2) This scenario is about as likely as a party sinking all their WBL into armor and none into their weapons or vice-versa. Could it happen, sure, but any scenario can be skewed to unreasonableness if you actively try. What's more important is the comfort that they have the right amount of BP to spend in the first place.
Not really, since Armour and Weapons in Starfinder give you a good idea of what levels they're associated with. If you're only using a level 6 Weapon at level 10, you know you're probably not spending enough WBL on weapons. And even if you had spent less WBL on weapons, then you still at least have your base attack bonus, ability score increases, and weapon specialization being tied to level progression to have some innate increase in the attacking department while in starships the only thing that scales is Hit Points.


Oh yeah, almost forgot - I was able to find the explicit "guideline" text for starships, it just happened to be in the designing encounters section rather than the improving starships section.



There, now we can all stop handwringing about autoscaling ships being unrealistic, you have explicit permission for a mismatch between APL and ship tier if your story requires it, since that was needed apparently; enjoy.
To be clear, the issue wasn't that the text says it's badwrongfun to it or that it was unrealistic that ships auto-levelled (I mean I was the one earlier in the thread trying to remind people that the ships didn't auto-level regardless of narrative and that it took time to even just upgrade your ship). So I should evidently be more clear with my issues to that a clearer dialogue can be had, rather than me misrepresenting myself.

My issue is that the system was made with the assumption that the characters ship will be directly tied to the level of the party, and the adventure paths following this is in my opinion negative for the game because it increases complication in a system that doesn't need it (for example, even if you wanted the ships to progress throughout the game by default, they could reduce the number of tiers to better match the 1 starship fight every 2-3 levels that the game expects in the Adventure Paths), it doesn't really match the flavour of the stories it's trying to present so it isn't something people innately will expect in the game, and it reduces the number of stories adventure paths writers are allowed to tell (when Adventure Paths are such a big part of PF/SF).

[Psyren]

*snip*

Couple of things here:

1) I still disagree that 3e wasn't easy to learn. It was definitely not just getting people in their 20s with a background in AD&D - it revitalized the hobby to a degree not seen before the Panic. And PF took it a step further with the Beginner Box, which I would describe without hyperbole as one of the greatest innovations in TTRPG history, which Starfinder then continued. You can use it to play solo even! Do I think they hit the perfect balance between smooth introduction and depth, no, but it was still more than good enough for me to say it does both.

2) Concerning CR and EL... even when you're dealing with a non-standard party, do you honestly not see the value in at least having a place to start from? It's far better than having to eyeball from scratch; "completely pointless" is a massive overstatement.


.... the advancement linked to level was what I was saying I don't think they should have done.... Yes I know I can do it in my home games, that doesn't change the fact that I think it Should have been the default assumption of the game.

Nothing for us to do here then but agree to disagree. The default is the default, you have explicit permission to change it if you see fit, I'm happy with it and you're not... there's literally nothing else to say.



Not really, since Armour and Weapons in Starfinder give you a good idea of what levels they're associated with. If you're only using a level 6 Weapon at level 10, you know you're probably not spending enough WBL on weapons. And even if you had spent less WBL on weapons, then you still at least have your base attack bonus, ability score increases, and weapon specialization being tied to level progression to have some innate increase in the attacking department while in starships the only thing that scales is Hit Points.

For starters, there are several limits that serve as guides - chief among them power consumption and expansion bays - and because you're advised to spend BP on your core and thrusters first, you end up with a natural yardstick for spending BP everything else. Heavy weapons use more PCU than light weapons and shields for example, so you're naturally discouraged from skewing too far in one direction.

Second and more important, there are over a dozen sample ships for you to use as benchmarks in core and that doubles in Pact Worlds- finding ships with decent balance to mimic (and surpass) is easy.



To be clear, the issue wasn't that the text says it's badwrongfun to it or that it was unrealistic that ships auto-levelled (I mean I was the one earlier in the thread trying to remind people that the ships didn't auto-level regardless of narrative and that it took time to even just upgrade your ship). So I should evidently be more clear with my issues to that a clearer dialogue can be had, rather than me misrepresenting myself.

My issue is that the system was made with the assumption that the characters ship will be directly tied to the level of the party, and the adventure paths following this is in my opinion negative for the game because it increases complication in a system that doesn't need it (for example, even if you wanted the ships to progress throughout the game by default, they could reduce the number of tiers to better match the 1 starship fight every 2-3 levels that the game expects in the Adventure Paths), it doesn't really match the flavour of the stories it's trying to present so it isn't something people innately will expect in the game, and it reduces the number of stories adventure paths writers are allowed to tell (when Adventure Paths are such a big part of PF/SF).

I don't buy any of these downsides. I genuinely don't see how automatic scaling could be more complicated than manual. As far as the scaling not matching source flavor, protagonists tinker with their ships all the time as the story progresses, we see it in Mass Effect, Firefly, Outlaw Star and plenty of others. And lastly, AP writers being able to count on the PCs having a certain ship minimum gives them more freedom, not less. So again, not buying it, and we'll probably have to agree to disagree here too.

[Aotrs Commander]

Couple of things here:

2) Concerning CR and EL... even when you're dealing with a non-standard party, do you honestly not see the value in at least having a place to start from? It's far better than having to eyeball from scratch; "completely pointless" is a massive overstatement.

CR has a marginal use, though to be honest, it was better as Thing That Gives You XP, which is mostly all I use it for.

EL was COMPLETELELY meaningless.

The assumptions behind CR and EL were fundementally borked anyway, because if you deviated slightly from 3.0's assumed standard of a party of four thief/mage/fighter/cleric (because the designers were still thinkign too much AD&D and no enough about what they created, which was why stupid stuff like multiclass restrictions and death from massive damage existed), they failed completely. I stopped using EL five minutes after the first time I actually tried using it in practise and realised that it was utterly, totally useless. In the running, even, for "worst idea of 3.x."

There is in the no substitute for just having to learn how to DM - balancing encounters is just one thing you have to work on, same as how to manage your players and everything else, in the end. CR in PF is slightly better handled, in that it is used as a counter-balance to HD; but even then, you still have the problems where a fighter and a wizard are classed as the same CR despite being very much a not equal threat (as ain individual creature) to a party, and that skew even inverts as the level rises.

None of the encounter design systems ever seem to take into account tactical factors (ranged attacks, lack thereof, combined arms - terrain (as a non-abstracted factor)), nor party-make-up, which are all far more determining of how easy an encounter is. In the end, you still have to balance it by eye for your specific party.



Let it be said, that DESPITE being my system of choice, 3.x still has huge flaws (PF which has retained many), but with effort, those flaws are still less huge than everyone else's. There is not, nor will there ever be, a system which does NOT have huge flaws.

[Psyren]

My point is that a solid starting position, even a flawed one, that you can build from is almost always going to be better than starting from scratch. Given the size and scope of your "3.Aotrs" project, I would have thought you'd appreciate that notion more than anyone :smalltongue:

As for EL being "utterly, totally useless" - like I said, we don't have to agree on everything.

[Gnaeus]

There, now we can all stop handwringing about autoscaling ships being unrealistic, you have explicit permission for a mismatch between APL and ship tier if your story requires it, since that was needed apparently; enjoy..

That text does nothing for your argument. It merely recognizes that PC actions could put them temporarily at the helm of a garbage scow or an over-tiered ship they can’t pilot. The garbage scow still turns into the millennium falcon for 0 cost at the first inhabited world. Stolen Slave 1 still requires skill checks you can’t make, and creates a big pile of questions about what happens with an over leveled ship. The only thing the text you cited says is that when your PCs are flying the garbage barge you shouldn’t throw equivalent tier encounters at them and blow them out of the sky. That’s good I guess, but it doesn’t fix any previously mentioned problem. A stolen ship is still worth less than its drapes. There’s still no PC involvement. It’s good that you don’t need some kind of CRPG force screen that blocks you from crossing a zone boundary until you are level 8.

[Psyren]

That text does nothing for your argument. It merely recognizes that PC actions could put them temporarily at the helm of a garbage scow or an over-tiered ship they can’t pilot. The garbage scow still turns into the millennium falcon for 0 cost at the first inhabited world.

Nope, the text gives no duration on the mismatch. It can last for as long as the "story reasons" need it to.

[Gnaeus]

Nope, the text gives no duration on the mismatch. It can last for as long as the "story reasons" need it to.

Indeed. The story reason could keep you from ever spending time at any safe inhabited planet. It never says the other clear rules don’t apply. It only says what happens until your ship has its chance to auto upgrade. It isn’t a ship rule. It’s an encounter difficulty setting rule. It’s basically the equivalent to the 3.pf argument that buying magic items isn’t a rule because you could spend an entire campaign without ever entering a settlement big enough to buy stuff.

[Psyren]

Indeed. The story reason could keep you from ever spending time at any safe inhabited planet.

It doesn't mention safe inhabited planets at all. You could have a story reason that applies even after you get to one.


It never says the other clear rules don’t apply.

This is a specific exception to the general (APL) rule. It even cites that general rule.

[Gnaeus]

It doesn't mention safe inhabited planets at all. You could have a story reason that applies even after you get to one.

This is a specific exception to the general (APL) rule. It even cites that general rule.

But it doesn’t overrule it in any way. It confirms it. A story reason can keep you from inhabited planets. It can keep you from having 1d4 months or even 1d4 days to spend. ALL this rule says is that if you have a non-functional ship the DM adjusts encounter level.

It’s like saying that you can’t buy items under the rules in 3.pf because campaign reasons could keep you from ever entering a settlement. That’s unquestionably true. It doesn’t change the rules about how buying items works.

[Psyren]

But it doesn’t overrule it in any way. It confirms it. A story reason can keep you from inhabited planets. It can keep you from having 1d4 months or even 1d4 days to spend. ALL this rule says is that if you have a non-functional ship the DM adjusts encounter level.

It’s like saying that you can’t buy items under the rules in 3.pf because campaign reasons could keep you from ever entering a settlement. That’s unquestionably true. It doesn’t change the rules about how buying items works.

"Stopping you from reaching a settlement/planet" is not the only story reason that could exist. The passage doesn't say that, you're inventing words that aren't there.

[Telok]

Starship & AP issues.

At apl 6, for 155 points you can take an explorer frame, give it basic sensors & drift, the max medium ship pcu (300), the max 600 shields, and upgrade the turret to twin linked... particle cannons? (Heavy long range 8d6 guns). The ship can't do much else, but you win combat against all the published AP ships of 'appropriate' level.

If your DM doesn't like that space is big and refuses to let you hang out at 37 hex range while hammering with long range weapons you can swap in heavy antimatter missiles instead. You get a few points to spend on backup guns, race in to 8 hexes or closer, and get 5 shots of 20d10 damage to slaughter enemy ships with. As a bonus the missiles magically regenerate between fights.

I'm not sure that you can effectively put the PCs in an over-level ship. A +4 level ship jacks the DCs up by 6 to 8 points. Even a totally skill & stat maxxed character only runs 70% success on even level ship checks, they'd drop to 40% or 30% success. Non-optimised characters can easily end up at 10% or 15%. That pretty much makes it so that the only dice rolls that matter will be pilot initative and gunnery checks. Anyone who isn't shooting can just read a book for a while.

You could run the party with an under-level ship. Then at least the actions that require resolve don't seem like such a waste of time. But you can't run an AP that way unless the party has a ball-of-death ship or you rewrite all the AP space combat ships from scratch. The APs are based on the party having an equal level ship, under level non-op pc ships get crushed (yes, I've played with that group).

[Gnaeus]

"Stopping you from reaching a settlement/planet" is not the only story reason that could exist. The passage doesn't say that, you're inventing words that aren't there.

On the contrary, you are trying to make vague rules text on a totally different topic overrule clear rules text. The rules give 2 circumstances which prevent you from upgrading your ship. No safe port. Not enough time. And the rule you cite actually says nothing about upgrading your ship. Only that sometimes you could be in a higher/lower tier ship. Which is obvious from the section on ship upgrades. When you acquire an existing ship it stays like it is until you use the ship upgrade rules to change that.



Starship & AP issues.

You could run the party with an under-level ship. Then at least the actions that require resolve don't seem like such a waste of time. But you can't run an AP that way unless the party has a ball-of-death ship or you rewrite all the AP space combat ships from scratch. The APs are based on the party having an equal level ship, under level non-op pc ships get crushed (yes, I've played with that group).

But in fact you can, because of that rule Psyren cited. It doesn’t alter the existing bad ship rules in any way. What it does say is that if the PCs find themselves in an over/under leveled ship (often (but not necessarily) due to the story), the DM is supposed to modify encounter difficulties to adjust for what you are flying. So drive that garbage scow like you stole it. You could, per the rules, upgrade it to your APL. But you could also drive the garbage scow and fight enemies adjusted to the power level of the garbage scow, and since space battles give no rewards anyway, you are golden. Maybe just upgrade it to tier 2, for a holodeck and better living quarters.

[Psyren]

On the contrary, you are trying to make vague rules text on a totally different topic overrule clear rules text.

Which clear rules text states that the only story circumstance is that which keeps you from an inhabited planet?

[Milo v3]

Nothing for us to do here then but agree to disagree. The default is the default, you have explicit permission to change it if you see fit, I'm happy with it and you're not... there's literally nothing else to say.
Then why even respond to the point earlier if you're view is that it is a topic not worth discussing to begin with @_@

[Psyren]

Then why even respond to the point earlier if you're view is that it is a topic not worth discussing to begin with @_@

I did discuss it. Discussions end, you know.

[Korwin]

Out of curiosity, what is the motivation behind an higher tier ship being harder to use?

[Milo v3]

Out of curiosity, what is the motivation behind an higher tier ship being harder to use?

Because they needed to somehow apply a DC to what you're doing when not all actions will have direct competition. "Redirecting power of your ship", isn't something that will incorporate external actors so you have to have the DCs coming from something internal if you want "Redirecting the power of your ship" to have a check.

[Anonymouswizard]

Out of curiosity, what is the motivation behind an higher tier ship being harder to use?

BEcause they couldn't think of anything new for you to do.


Because they needed to somehow apply a DC to what you're doing when not all actions will have direct competition. "Redirecting power of your ship", isn't something that will incorporate external actors so you have to have the DCs coming from something internal if you want "Redirecting the power of your ship" to have a check.

Honest question, why does that need a roll? Considering how automated these ships probably are (humanity in this universe has made both biological and digital AGI) redirecting power really should be a case of which bonus you want. IMO it would honestly be more interesting if my character just had to juggle PCU between systems, deciding what doesn't need to be on so important things can get a boost.

Then again, I'm also trying to rewrite the starship rules to be more realistic. I'm torn between keeping the reactionless engines currently used and switching to reaction engines and remass reserves.

[Morty]

If nothing else, I have to give Starfinder credit for having one of the D&D franchise's three attempts at having a skilled character who's not a rogue, next to Factotum and Investigator. Sadly, from what I hear it's not a very good attempt at one.

[Milo v3]

Looks like the July release for starfinder is going to be the Starship Operations Manual... Which so far sounds nearly entirely focused on starship combat, with some flavour on starship manufacturers.... Looks like we're not getting an options focused SF book all of next year outside of Alien Archives 4 having a player-option tied to each monster as usual.


Honest question, why does that need a roll?
I guess they wanted everyone to have dice to roll regardless of their roles in starship combat so that characters attributes matter in some way.


Then again, I'm also trying to rewrite the starship rules to be more realistic. I'm torn between keeping the reactionless engines currently used and switching to reaction engines and remass reserves.
Eh. I'd rather the starship rules to be rewritten into something more Fun and less painful to use rather than realism in a game that is sci-fi fantasy.

[Resileaf]

Looks like the July release for starfinder is going to be the Starship Operations Manual... Which so far sounds nearly entirely focused on starship combat, with some flavour on starship manufacturers.... Looks like we're not getting an options focused SF book all of next year outside of Alien Archives 4 having a player-option tied to each monster as usual.

I certainly wouldn't complain to a book to make space combat more fun and involved.

[Psyren]

Looks like the July release for starfinder is going to be the Starship Operations Manual... Which so far sounds nearly entirely focused on starship combat, with some flavour on starship manufacturers.... Looks like we're not getting an options focused SF book all of next year outside of Alien Archives 4 having a player-option tied to each monster as usual.

They might flesh out another subsystem too. AA1 had the rules for summoning for example, while AA2 had the rules for shapeshifting IIRC

[Telok]

I certainly wouldn't complain to a book to make space combat more fun and involved.

Just clearing up the rules surrounding npc crew, radiation weapons, ramming, boarding, etc., etc., would help a lot. Plus fixing some numbers like where the vehicles and spaceships overlap, or having a thumbprint scanner on the doors cost as much as a nuclear missile launcher and infinite missiles.

I wonder if part of the problem is that npcs are generally better as skills than pcs. The math on npc skills is what? 4+(1.5*level) for the bad skills and another +5 for the good skills? Did I remember that right? Which means the npcs good skill is equal to... about a max skill pc three levels higher?

That doesn't sound good. It means all npcs are always better at space rolls than pcs even if the npcs and their ship are two levels lower.

[Anonymouswizard]

Looks like the July release for starfinder is going to be the Starship Operations Manual... Which so far sounds nearly entirely focused on starship combat, with some flavour on starship manufacturers.... Looks like we're not getting an options focused SF book all of next year outside of Alien Archives 4 having a player-option tied to each monster as usual.

That reminds me, I need to get the Character Operations Manual.

I think part of Starfinder's problem is focusing on races other other options. The corebook along has 14 races in total, and we have three books dedicated towards more races. It's great that we have so many options there, but I think the focus should be put somewhere else for a while. (Note: I don't own any of the AA books because I'm not interested in them, maybe I should change that.)


I guess they wanted everyone to have dice to roll regardless of their roles in starship combat so that characters attributes matter in some way.

Eh, I'm not one of those people who thinks that Attributes should matter so much for space combat.


Eh. I'd rather the starship rules to be rewritten into something more Fun and less painful to use rather than realism in a game that is sci-fi fantasy.

Eh, I get that some people might not want more realistic rules. However I do, and I have friends who'd enjoy more realistic rules, and so that's why I'm doing it. I'm doing it because, for this group, accelerating in Gs and dealing with real world physics is actually fun (considering the group consists of four engineers, most of us know this stuff already).

[Milo v3]

I certainly wouldn't complain to a book to make space combat more fun and involved.
Except there is no signs it's overhauling the space combat system rather than just expanding it. So it's unlikely to make it more fun, and my group didn't want it more involved than it already was given how annoying it is to have to go through every phase as a GM for every single ship. While each player effectively has to deal with a single-action turn, the GM has to deal with 1 single-action turn per starship-role that can fit per ship.


They might flesh out another subsystem too. AA1 had the rules for summoning for example, while AA2 had the rules for shapeshifting IIRC
Yeah I'm very curious what subsystem they might touch on in the appendix. 1 was summoning, 2 was shapeshifting, 3 was monster companions. 4 could do cohort/robot-minion/undead-creation type stuff, or it could expand on one of the previous systems like making it so you can summon two creatures of the same theme without them needing to be 100% mechanically identical.


Just clearing up the rules surrounding npc crew, radiation weapons, ramming, boarding, etc., etc., would help a lot. Plus fixing some numbers like where the vehicles and spaceships overlap, or having a thumbprint scanner on the doors cost as much as a nuclear missile launcher and infinite missiles.
There has been no mention about cleaning up the rules so far, seems like they're adding content rather than revising it.


I wonder if part of the problem is that npcs are generally better as skills than pcs. The math on npc skills is what? 4+(1.5*level) for the bad skills and another +5 for the good skills? Did I remember that right? Which means the npcs good skill is equal to... about a max skill pc three levels higher?
Master is 9+1.5*ranks, and good is 4+1.5*ranks yeah.

Which means a master needs to only roll a 1 to succeed every roll, and a good NPC only needs a 6 or higher to succeed on every roll. Since the DCs of starship combat are 10+1.5*tier.


That reminds me, I need to get the Character Operations Manual.
It's a really neat book.

[
I think part of Starfinder's problem is focusing on races other other options. The corebook along has 14 races in total, and we have three books dedicated towards more races. It's great that we have so many options there, but I think the focus should be put somewhere else for a while. (Note: I don't own any of the AA books because I'm not interested in them, maybe I should change that.)
Playing without monster rules sounds weird to me.


Eh, I'm not one of those people who thinks that Attributes should matter so much for space combat.
I can see it so you feel like your character should be the pilot because you're the best in the party at your role. Which would be lost if anyone in the starship is 100% equal to the others at the starship role.

[Telok]

Ok so I've checked some math at levels 5, 10, and 15. A character that starts with an 18 in a stat, always raises the stat, puts the best enhancement on that stat asap, and invests full ranks into a class skill with an insight bonus is always 1 point behind an equal level npc's good skills. If you take a starting 14 stat, always raise it, put your second best enhancement in that stat and put full ranks into a class skill but don't get an insight bonus it runs 3 to 6 points behind the better skill. So two better than the npc bad skill at level 5 but one worse by level 15. Interestingly having a 16 in the stat is only a +/- 1 at half the levels compared to the 18 and 14. The class insight bonus and stat booster completely eclipse the starting stat difference.

So if you can get a racial and theme bonus to a class skill with the class insight bonus, and keep the stat totally maxxed, you can sometimes have a +1 bonus over an equal level npc.

Because the base spaceship DC is 15 + L*1.5 and npc skills are (9 or 4) + L*1.5 the npcs succeed at the base spaceship tasks on a 6+ or 75% for their good skills and 11+ or 50% for their bad skills. That holds true at all levels, unlike pcs who have dips and bumps because their non-skill rank boosts aren't evenly distributed.

So a pc who is totally invested in a skill & stat can get to the 6+ success rate on basic starship tasks. If the pc went melee, is a soldier, solarian, or mystic (unless a max dex pilot mystic), then you're probably at a 50% to 60% success rate for the basic tasks. But there are DC 20 + L*1.5 tasks and ones that use resource points. The maxxed out pc has a 50% chance at those while anyone else is happy to have a 35% chance to not throw away their turn.

I think the assumption is that the pcs are going to get lots of stacking bonuses from the ship computer and aid another checks before even attempting anything beyond the basic tasks, and they'll still fail them regularly. This would explain why all the spaceship fights have been so boring if you aren't the pilot or shooting the guns. With a small (less than 6 pcs) party, a focus on surviving personal combat (dex & con priorities for everyone), and nothing telling you that the ship computer bonuses are critical to not being bored, nobody in my groups has ever had high enough bonuses to make anything but the most basic checks worth while.

[Beldar]

I wanted to weigh-in on Starfinder.
I've played it since it was released, in two different gaming groups (though one gave up on it after 4 months).

I've been playing RPG's for 38 years now, have tried scores of systems, and can say without hesitation that Starfinder is the worst, due mainly to being incomplete.
They released it before it was ready - before it was even done.
For example, there are sentences in the manual that trail off to nothing, neither making a point nor finishing.

There are many instances of unfinished work, in addition to plenty that was clearly never playtested, since it works so poorly.
Every time we play, there is abundant complaining about the game system.
We keep playing from a sick sense of fascination - will they ever fix it, and because nobody else can dm the group right now except the guy that has already read the StarFinder modules.

And they seem uninterested in fixing it.

TL;DR play *any* other game system - you'll have more fun. This does not deliver on its promises.

[Milo v3]

For example, there are sentences in the manual that trail off to nothing, neither making a point nor finishing.
Huh?


There are many instances of unfinished work, in addition to plenty that was clearly never playtested, since it works so poorly.
Only things I can think of off the top of my head that weren't playtested enough was probably solarian (since it was originally designed for the game having a different ability score system which had MAD less of an issue), starship combat, and maybe the hacking subsystem.

[Telok]

SF guns don't have sights. It costs 1000 credits to add basic iron sights to a gun.

Your best option for elephant wrestling is a small six armed fuzzy with a garotte who auto-pins if he beats the elephant's KAC by 5.

Grenades do less damage the farther you throw them.

Vehicles are about as tough as people, but stop working at 1/2 hit points.

After 10th level a backpack with 30 healing potions is normal and costs pocket change.

Full auto weapons are a joke.

[Milo v3]

SF guns don't have sights. It costs 1000 credits to add basic iron sights to a gun.
Incorrect, the flavour of the Sights accessory specifically states that it's to represent sights beyond the common sights that are innately in your weapon.


Your best option for elephant wrestling is a small six armed fuzzy with a garotte who auto-pins if he beats the elephant's KAC by 5.
Oh no, you're not screwed over from playing a grappling character just because of your size which would otherwise make large races the only viable grapplers. How awful.


Grenades do less damage the farther you throw them.
No idea what you mean by this. Grenades damage is set at the value assigned to it's Explode trait.


Vehicles are about as tough as people, but stop working at 1/2 hit points.
At 1/2 hit points they take penalties and halve their speed, they work but they're broken so they don't work as effectively. All objects gain the broken condition at half hit points.


After 10th level a backpack with 30 healing potions is normal and costs pocket change.
Yes, healing is very easy to get. Not as severe as wands of cure light wounds, but still present to a degree. Slightly less of an issue since healing serums normally cannot heal stamina at all.


Full auto weapons are a joke.
Full Auto-Weapons should probably only use up two or three ammo per target rather than the ridiculous "always uses up the remaining clip". But I wouldn't say it's a joke. More Normal Attacks and Full-Attacks is meant to represent controlled firing, while full-automatic is for when you need to take out ten to twenty enemies, which is frustratingly very uncommon in pre-made encounters.

[Alexvrahr]

But there are DC 20 + L*1.5 tasks
Depends on the role. I played a technomancer with Computers +27 (10R, Int +7, Class +3, datajack +2, techlore +3, race +2) in a one-shot and was frustrated to find that on a tier 10 ship the highest DC for a science officer was 25. Enemy ship DCs might be a little higher but not enough to make a difference.

And on the other hand my +20 engineering wasn't good enough to be actually good at anything interesting. And my spells did nothing in starship combat, so...boring.

[Telok]

Depends on the role. I played a technomancer with Computers +27 (10R, Int +7, Class +3, datajack +2, techlore +3, race +2) in a one-shot and was frustrated to find that on a tier 10 ship the highest DC for a science officer was 25. Enemy ship DCs might be a little higher but not enough to make a difference.

And on the other hand my +20 engineering wasn't good enough to be actually good at anything interesting. And my spells did nothing in starship combat, so...boring.

Yeah, thats about right for going all in on a skill, you need about 7+ for the dc 35 which is about what an npc needs. When I did a technomancer it was in an AP with a 'time limit', a DM who didn't understand absolute adherence to the WBL chart, and lots of solo monster fights at cr+4 making dex & con higher priorities because saving throw spells were useless. So no jack or race bonus, and only a +4 stat. Going on a +20 vs. dc 35 gives less than 1 in 3 success and only 50/50 on the standard rolls.

Thats primary Int casters too. Melee mechanics and operatives will also be lower, but at least they aren't stuck as 'can only gunner' like soldiers or solarians are. Although I haven't seen the new book and the rules for using athletics in spaceship combat. No idea how that works.

[Gnaeus]

Depends on the role. I played a technomancer with Computers +27 (10R, Int +7, Class +3, datajack +2, techlore +3, race +2) in a one-shot and was frustrated to find that on a tier 10 ship the highest DC for a science officer was 25. Enemy ship DCs might be a little higher but not enough to make a difference.

And on the other hand my +20 engineering wasn't good enough to be actually good at anything interesting. And my spells did nothing in starship combat, so...boring.

There’s also the fact that some of those die rolls have minimal impact on combat. Like “the combat has gone for another half hour. I’ve made a sandwich and am playing Mario. The team shouts it is my turn, so I walk to the table and roll my d20 to divert power to weapons for the 4th time and depending on whether I roll above a 6 the gunner may do +2 damage on his 8d4 roll and now I’m back to my sandwich until they shout at me again.