Thoughts on Starfinder?

[TheHalfAasimar]

So, I've been trying to play RPG's with my family, and my sister really likes D&D 5e, however, my brother and dad do not. My brother, I don't know why he doesn't like it, but he likes Star Wars. My dad doesn't like fantasy as much because he doesn't like how often magic is used to solve everything, but he likes sci-fi in general. So I was thinking, Starfinder might work because it appeals to the Star Wars part of my brother (they're both sci-fantasy) and piloting a ship or mech would be cool, and my dad said he was willing to try. So, thoughts on Starfinder? I found the rules on Archive of Nethys, so yeah.

[Anonymouswizard]

Starfinder is my favourite version of 3.5, but has it's got its flaws. Notably the gear treadmill is built right into the system, like your laser Mk1? Well you'll have to throw it out in a few levels as it only does 1d6 damage and the game expects you to be doing 2d6. The spaceship system is also questionable and ships are monodimensional l.There's also things that'll be dependent on taste, like spell levels being condensed (but you now get free Spell Focus to keep your DCs where they should be).

But overall it's Pathfinder 1e with some of the rough bits smoothed out and some elements being trialed for P2. If the issue is magic than it's alive and well, but if you D&D in a setting somewhere between Star Wars and Night's Dawn that's what you'll get.

... actually Night's Dawn is a great series to use as the basis for a Starfinder adventure, I'm going to start making notes.

[TheHalfAasimar]

Starfinder is my favourite version of 3.5, but has it's got its flaws. Notably the gear treadmill is built right into the system, like your laser Mk1? Well you'll have to throw it out in a few levels as it only does 1d6 damage and the game expects you to be doing 2d6. The spaceship system is also questionable and ships are monodimensional l.There's also things that'll be dependent on taste, like spell levels being condensed (but you now get free Spell Focus to keep your DCs where they should be).

But overall it's Pathfinder 1e with some of the rough bits smoothed out and some elements being trialed for P2. If the issue is magic than it's alive and well, but if you D&D in a setting somewhere between Star Wars and Night's Dawn that's what you'll get.

... actually Night's Dawn is a great series to use as the basis for a Starfinder adventure, I'm going to start making notes.

Thank you! If I'm the DM/GM (my brother wants to be, as well, but he's never done either and none of us have played PF 1e or 2e) I'd probably just help a character (if they have a weapon they love) I'd let them slowly upgrade it throughout the campaign. Same with a mech or vehicle or spaceship.

[Jophiel]

My main memory of the Starfinder campaign I played was that you really need to pick a few things and throw your points into maxing those things because there's no "Kinda good" when it comes to dice checks. Either you've maxed out the relevant attribute and skill category and still have a 50% chance of success or you basically might as well not try. Having 10 out of 15 possible points in computer hacking is just a waste of 10 points because, by the time you reach the part where you could have had 15, all the checks are expecting you to have 15 for even a moderate chance of success.

I don't say this to scare you off since the player-end solution is simple: Pick a few things and specialize hard. But it might be an unwelcome change to the 5e liking sister since 5e usually allows for even moderately skilled characters to have a reasonable chance (plus ample stuff like Guidance, Bardic Inspiration, etc). Also, I suppose the GM can always adjust the DC needed, though ours played pretty close to the Adventure Path text.

My group had somewhat mixed impressions on the ship combat. I played a technomancer and spent most of my time in engineering, either moving shields around or boosting the engines. The players who were piloting or using weapons systems often grumbled about the above point as it related to ship combat (i.e. be a fully vested pilot or get out) and we could easily spend an entire session on a single combat with all the steps -- and missed shots/failed maneuvers. Still, I enjoyed the change of pace from "D&D with lasers".

Oh, and hopefully someone is excited by the idea of planning/upgrading your ship. It didn't appeal much to me as a player but two of the other guys spent a lot of words deliberating whether to add X points to the hull or Y points to the thrusters so I didn't have to worry about it. But that's the same if your game has the players building up a town or a castle or a business or whatever and you only really need one person invested in it if the rest are happy to let that one handle it.

[Telok]

Its D&D "in! spaze! with! lazors!", mostly running on the 3.p chassis. As usual with any D&D-like setting you have to avoid any form of economic logic or reasoning, ignore any setting/plot holes, and don't use any actual functional military tactics for any NPCs anywhere.

The good news is that as long as you accept & understand the system assumptions, and the players lean into the class assumptions & tropes, then all the game math works out great. Plus magic has been reigned in.

The bad news is if a GM forgets about dropping enough loot & useful gear to keep up the gear treadmill, or doesn't make sure the PC's space ship/vehicles are completely upgraded, the system breaks down. Also, there's some rough spots in spaceship combat last time I looked. Like some weapons are set up to be used against the PCs and had undefined effects against NPC ships.

[TheHalfAasimar]

My main memory of the Starfinder campaign I played was that you really need to pick a few things and throw your points into maxing those things because there's no "Kinda good" when it comes to dice checks. Either you've maxed out the relevant attribute and skill category and still have a 50% chance of success or you basically might as well not try. Having 10 out of 15 possible points in computer hacking is just a waste of 10 points because, by the time you reach the part where you could have had 15, all the checks are expecting you to have 15 for even a moderate chance of success.

I don't say this to scare you off since the player-end solution is simple: Pick a few things and specialize hard. But it might be an unwelcome change to the 5e liking sister since 5e usually allows for even moderately skilled characters to have a reasonable chance (plus ample stuff like Guidance, Bardic Inspiration, etc). Also, I suppose the GM can always adjust the DC needed, though ours played pretty close to the Adventure Path text.

My group had somewhat mixed impressions on the ship combat. I played a technomancer and spent most of my time in engineering, either moving shields around or boosting the engines. The players who were piloting or using weapons systems often grumbled about the above point as it related to ship combat (i.e. be a fully vested pilot or get out) and we could easily spend an entire session on a single combat with all the steps -- and missed shots/failed maneuvers. Still, I enjoyed the change of pace from "D&D with lasers".

Oh, and hopefully someone is excited by the idea of planning/upgrading your ship. It didn't appeal much to me as a player but two of the other guys spent a lot of words deliberating whether to add X points to the hull or Y points to the thrusters so I didn't have to worry about it. But that's the same if your game has the players building up a town or a castle or a business or whatever and you only really need one person invested in it if the rest are happy to let that one handle it.

Ah, I see. Thanks! Such a shame that my GM (if my brother does it) probably won't implement stuff like that... I would, though. Such a shame that I'm the GM and can't do fun stuff like that, if running SF is as hard as D&D 5e.


Its D&D "in! spaze! with! lazors!", mostly running on the 3.p chassis. As usual with any D&D-like setting you have to avoid any form of economic logic or reasoning, ignore any setting/plot holes, and don't use any actual functional military tactics for any NPCs anywhere.

The good news is that as long as you accept & understand the system assumptions, and the players lean into the class assumptions & tropes, then all the game math works out great. Plus magic has been reigned in.

The bad news is if a GM forgets about dropping enough loot & useful gear to keep up the gear treadmill, or doesn't make sure the PC's space ship/vehicles are completely upgraded, the system breaks down. Also, there's some rough spots in spaceship combat last time I looked. Like some weapons are set up to be used against the PCs and had undefined effects against NPC ships.

Ok, I see. Thanks!

[Telok]

Just though of it...

Its not a bad game. Works great if you lean into its assumptions (your technomancer is an intelligence primary caster with some int-based skills) and not so well if you try to go against type. But its not sci-fi by any measure. Its a D&D-like with a paint job of space fantasy.

[TheHalfAasimar]

Just though of it...

Its not a bad game. Works great if you lean into its assumptions (your technomancer is an intelligence primary caster with some int-based skills) and not so well if you try to go against type. But its not sci-fi by any measure. Its a D&D-like with a paint job of space fantasy.

Ah, okay then! Thanks!

[Easy e]

If they do not like D&D for mechanical reasons than they will not like Starfinder.

If they like Star Wars, might I suggest you play Star Wars? Fantasy Flight Games has a new, modern version and the West End Games d6 Star Wars is available and really good.

[MonochromeTiger]

If they do not like D&D for mechanical reasons than they will not like Starfinder.

If they like Star Wars, might I suggest you play Star Wars? Fantasy Flight Games has a new, modern version and the West End Games d6 Star Wars is available and really good.

Kind of have to agree with this. Starfinder is a good game but it doesn't actually feel like Science-Fiction or Science-Fantasy. What it feels like, both mechanically and in story is an altered version of Pathfinder 1e with a few more systems in some places and way less in others.

Now mechanically it's forgivable, it is the system they made when they were experimenting on changing Pathfinder, it's the midway point between PF1e and PF2e and though I feel like 2e ended up significantly worse it should be obvious that you can't go into a slight alteration of an existing system and not end up feeling like you're just playing a mod of that system.

Story wise it's far less forgivable. They have enough there to say "yeah there are gigantic galactic armies, factions with populations going into the billions of billions, everybody is walking around with laser rifles and plasma cannons, and you can cruise around in your team's personal space ship to do whatever you want. Problem is saying that is all they really do, you get to the actual official content and suddenly it feels like they're ashamed of moving too far away from classic fantasy. Those gigantic galactic armies end up being a thousand people if they're lucky with the only really impressive numbers being saved for "nope, this is too many, run away" moments. Those factions with populations in the billions are firmly offscreen aside from some minor representation leaving you with the impression you're still just a small group of adventurers defending a "major town" with a couple dozen people at most. You can have advanced guns but they do pretty much the same damage as your melee options, and you need a melee option on you anyway because the designers are so afraid of letting guns actually do what they're good at that they will start most combat encounters with some contrived way of putting the enemy right next to you in a very small room or having them burrow up behind you so you can't just shoot them before they close in; then suddenly you have to contend with your gun just baiting attacks of opportunity while your melee ends up giving cover to most enemies when you actually do kill the ones threatening you. Then your party's personal ship ends up ignored for the vast majority of official content as anything but an explanation for why you get where you need to go, I've seen more encounters that are just "you missed something and now there's enemies or problems on your ship" than I've seen actual ship combat.

[TheHalfAasimar]

If they do not like D&D for mechanical reasons than they will not like Starfinder.

If they like Star Wars, might I suggest you play Star Wars? Fantasy Flight Games has a new, modern version and the West End Games d6 Star Wars is available and really good.

Hm, thanks! I'll keep that in mind!

[stoutstien]

SWN with the psionics cut out is pretty good for space opera without any *magical* undertones.

[TheHalfAasimar]

SWN with the psionics cut out is pretty good for space opera without any *magical* undertones.

So what exactly is SWN? Is it star wars? Spelljammer? What is it?

[stoutstien]

So what exactly is SWN? Is it star wars? Spelljammer? What is it?

Stars without numbers is a space sandbox loosely based on OSR/old school DnD. Lots of world building and sim tools and is fairly balanced without any real effort from the GM. It comes with a setting but it is just one that in generated with the tools rather than the default one. It also has a substantial free edition to try it out before you go all in.

There is also other books like codex of the black sun if you do want basically start wars type content or Cities without numbers of you want something more like blade runner.

[TheHalfAasimar]

Stars without numbers is a space sandbox loosely based on OSR/old school DnD. Lots of world building and sim tools and is fairly balanced without any real effort from the GM. It comes with a setting but it is just one that in generated with the tools rather than the default one. It also has a substantial free edition to try it out before you go all in.

There is also other books like codex of the black sun if you do want basically start wars type content or Cities without numbers of you want something more like blade runner.

Hm, thank you! I'll note that.

[Telok]

SWN is Stars Without Number. Other sci-fi sci-fantasy systems you can check out are Traveller (bunch of versions with more or less crunch & more or less fantasy depending on version and your game focus), Alternity (www.alternityrpg.net out of print but well regarded), Lancer (just mech combat with freeform everything else), White Star (OSR space opera in a Star Wars meets '80s TV universe (PWYW)), Star ORE (www.arcdream.com/pdf/starore.pdf
Star Wars-compatible ORE game), Cepheus Faster Than Light. (preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/263755/cepheus-faster-than-light)... and many more if you go looking for them.

[TheHalfAasimar]

SWN is Stars Without Number. Other sci-fi sci-fantasy systems you can check out are Traveller (bunch of versions with more or less crunch & more or less fantasy depending on version and your game focus), Alternity (www.alternityrpg.net out of print but well regarded), Lancer (just mech combat with freeform everything else), White Star (OSR space opera in a Star Wars meets '80s TV universe (PWYW)), Star ORE (www.arcdream.com/pdf/starore.pdf
Star Wars-compatible ORE game), Cepheus Faster Than Light. (preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/263755/cepheus-faster-than-light)... and many more if you go looking for them.

Thank you! I'll keep that in mind.

[Pauly]

I’ll second the old West End Games Star Wars RPG as a classic and well worth following up.
I have only read, well more flicked through, Starfinder and for me it didn’t tick the boxes in what I was looking for in a sci-fi RPG.

My go to recommendation for sci-fi, as opposed to space fantasy, is Traveller. It’s a classless system without levels (aka build a bear) so any committed D&D players in your group may rebel against it, but I have found it easier to get players with no RPG experience involved in Traveller than D&D. Seth Skorkowsky has a series of videos on youtube about how to run Traveller which are very helpful.ooo

[TheHalfAasimar]

I’ll second the old West End Games Star Wars RPG as a classic and well worth following up.
I have only read, well more flicked through, Starfinder and for me it didn’t tick the boxes in what I was looking for in a sci-fi RPG.

My go to recommendation for sci-fi, as opposed to space fantasy, is Traveller. It’s a classless system without levels (aka build a bear) so any committed D&D players in your group may rebel against it, but I have found it easier to get players with no RPG experience involved in Traveller than D&D. Seth Skorkowsky has a series of videos on youtube about how to run Traveller which are very helpful.ooo

Wow, thanks for the advice!

[Rynjin]

Starfinder is an interesting system, and I actually like it a fair bit, but throw me in the same boat of "Starfinder is a sci-fi themed fantasy RPG". All the things you would really expect a sci-fi RPG to do well like augmentations, space combat and exploration, etc. Starfinder is not very good at IMO.

[TheHalfAasimar]

Starfinder is an interesting system, and I actually like it a fair bit, but throw me in the same boat of "Starfinder is a sci-fi themed fantasy RPG". All the things you would really expect a sci-fi RPG to do well like augmentations, space combat and exploration, etc. Starfinder is not very good at IMO.


Okay then, thank you! I'll keep that in mind.

[Leon]

Really enjoyed it and would love to play it again some time. The Dual Stamina/Wounds system is pretty good because its all fun and games till you take a wound and then its serious

[TheHalfAasimar]

Really enjoyed it and would love to play it again some time. The Dual Stamina/Wounds system is pretty good because its all fun and games till you take a wound and then its serious

Hm, thanks! It sounds good!

[Telok]

Really enjoyed it and would love to play it again some time. The Dual Stamina/Wounds system is pretty good because its all fun and games till you take a wound and then its serious
Actually 'stamina' is just hit points you can't heal with things that say "heals hit points" and have to use a 'x per day regain all stamina points' ability the pcs get. Otherwise they function exactly the same. And healing hit points out if combat wasn't an issue after the very lowest levels.

Of course for simplicity npcs don't use stamina, so pcs can heal npcs way better than themselves. Which kinda broke having npc allies of any real use around. So no friendly npcs allowed. At least that's what we found when out group played.

Then there's that npc versions of races/species are often flat out better than pc versions. Npc dragon kin of all levels are immune to fire while pc dragon kin get resist fire 5. Npc robots get construct status effect immunities, pc robots don't (I think they get some minor save bonuses). And... I recall some issue with having to pay for door locks on a level 8 or 9 spaceship that were hacked by some low level (2 or 3?) goblin mooks. Its been a while and I don't recall all the details other than being surprised that having a locked door cost as much as having... I think it was nuclear missiles. Also something about spaceship sensor ranges where we needed to open a window.

[Leon]

Actually 'stamina' is just hit points you can't heal with things that say "heals hit points" and have to use a 'x per day regain all stamina points' ability the pcs get. Otherwise they function exactly the same. And healing hit points out if combat wasn't an issue after the very lowest levels.


Yes im aware, its still a good system particularly when compared to typical D&D HP bloat, Makes you be more conscious of what you doing and what you might have to do. I play in other systems where wounds and such are scarcer and more precious and this is a good median to that progression.

[Phhase]

I really like it! It's like a happy medium between Pathfinder 1e and 2e.

[Anonymouswizard]

SWN is Stars Without Number. Other sci-fi sci-fantasy systems you can check out are Traveller (bunch of versions with more or less crunch & more or less fantasy depending on version and your game focus), Alternity (www.alternityrpg.net out of print but well regarded), Lancer (just mech combat with freeform everything else), White Star (OSR space opera in a Star Wars meets '80s TV universe (PWYW)), Star ORE (www.arcdream.com/pdf/starore.pdf
Star Wars-compatible ORE game), Cepheus Faster Than Light. (preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/263755/cepheus-faster-than-light)... and many more if you go looking for them.

Whatever happened to Alternity 2e? I need to double check if I still have the core book, but it seemed like a decent system.

I remember being disappointed with White Star, but that's mostly because it described itself as 'classic SF' and then was based almost entirely on Star Wars rather than Doc Smith or Asimov.


There's also some free science fiction settings for Fate, off the top of my head including Psychedemia (psychic military high school drama), Red Mars (rather politically charged space opera), and Andromeda (space opera in an alien galaxy). There's also a few non free science fiction stuff for the system, including Tachyon Squadron (misfit fighter pilots defending their planet from the evil empire). But it's fate.

Oh, also Those Dark Places and it's expanded version Pressure are about playing more Alien-style games where the long term pressure of working in space is a constant difficulty. The system is really simple, but that just lets the books spend a lot of time on establishing atmosphere.

[Telok]

Yes im aware, its still a good system particularly when compared to typical D&D HP bloat,

Respectfully disagree. It is typical D&D hp bloat, only with a paint job and "generic heal spells cap at about half" tacked on. Notable in that npcs don't use it and it makes absolutely zero difference other than being a slight nerf to pc healing magic.

[Vogie]

If you're already fluent with D&D 5e, you might want to look at Star Wars 5e (https://sw5e.com/). It is a fan-made Star Wars setting based on the D&D 5th edition setup.

[TheHalfAasimar]

If you're already fluent with D&D 5e, you might want to look at Star Wars 5e (https://sw5e.com/). It is a fan-made Star Wars setting based on the D&D 5th edition setup.

Hm, I'll look at it! Thanks!

[Beelzebub1111]

If you are looking at star wars stuff, I have to recommend d6 Star Wars. (REUP version is the most recent). It's, overall, a very basic system with depth of customizability. It really is the best for running games in the star wars universe.

If they want something more on a personal scale, I recommend Traveller. If I were to describe the vibes It's kind of like Firefly, traveling from world to world doing general heroics while trying to turn a profit and being the big damn heroes.

[DrMartin]

if they like star wars, and don´t like dnd, you could give Scum and Villainy a try. It does, in my opinion, Star Wars kind of shenanigans/storylines better than any of the licensed star wars rpgs. There´s plenty of people reviewing the game on youtuve to give you an idea, and the discord community of blades in the dark has a Scum and Villainy dedicated section.

Is a game built as a hack of blades in the dark, a far cry from dnd style games. Quicker conflict resolution, no separate system for combat, more player agency. As a GM you are expected to react more and prepare less.

And about Starfinder: if you enjoy Pathfinder-style game, is fine. It does require overspecializing, as some other mentioned already upthread. Worse offender of this in our games: the KAC+8 as the baseline for combat maneuvers. Means no trying fun stuff in combat except trading blows to deplete hp, unless you have invested every single character resource in a specific maneuver.