Starfinder General /sfg/

inb4 campaign roller coaster with no brakes on the space train!!! or maybe I'll tone it down a bit.... either way I'm using 3d terrain I had for infinity for the space hulk

Pic correction

I think the standard formula for a 1-shot to test out starfinder is dropping the crew off at an abandoned station/ship/mine, giving a few skill check puzzles, giving one small encounter, and wrapping up with a larger encounter/boss fight. In all likelihood that's all a bit much for one session for most groups. If it's not enough you can maybe start off with some minor ship combat to test that out and have them go to the station or whatever because they need repairs.

Hoping to start a campaign on some shithole rock with barely any equipment, and crap weapons only for them to stumble on a crashed ship later on. Inside is all the gear their starting creds would usually get them. Yay or nay? The idea is they start off pretty trash

So what are some reasons two planets would fall into a "cold war" state with each othet.

I'm doing the same sort of and that sounds pretty standard. You don't want to hold out on them too long with getting their more basic gear. Maybe they find the crashed ship but need to get some mfguffin to fix it so they take the gear they find on the ship to head off and find it.

I mean, the gear characters get to start with is pretty flimsy on its own, so be careful of frustrating your players if you go down this route. It's a cool way to introduce a game, though.

These threads can't survive on their own.
Go play a better system for scifi.

New game..not much content yet. Blah blah gtfo

one route you could go is,
Both planets are undergoing a recession as a result of a hot war between them that pushed away a lot of trade from other planets and ruined their own economies. They need to rebuild and can't afford to have a real conflict, but they're still not able to come to any terms of peace and are constantly worried about the other one getting a leg up enough to attack them while they're still weak.

Thoughts on a Mystic with Cleave and Heavy Armor proficiency who uses debuffs and knives/cestus mechanics wise?

I'd be playing a sort of combat medic - providing heals as well as keeping enemies away from allies.

Cleave is hardly ever worth anything, since it requires enemies to be adjacent to each other. That happens in straight up fantasy, plenty, but this is a scifi setting with rifles and grenades. People don't bunch up.

What would you suggest instead? Coordinated shot sounds like a good replacement to me.
Or maybe multi-weapon fighting. Is there a feat chain that emphasizes getting read of full attack penalties so I can just wail on guys at early levels?

Why wouldnt they make it so you could just punch the same dude you punched.

str + wis means you will have nothing to do on a starship. you'll be useless

>new game
It's literally Pathfinder in space, there's nothing new about it.

You have no idea what you're talking about do you. What are you even doing here.

Coordinated shot is really good if there are enough friendos around.

make sure the game you're playing isn't heavy on ship combat or that the rest of the party can do fine playing multiple parts in ship combat, because like this user said you won't be doing much.

A melee medic is not going to work well for you. On top of everything as soon as you get in range to do cleave then you or your ally just got shot past your stamina but you're too deep in to help anyone with that. A healer would be better ranged.

A better combat medic would be less spell focused. You want an envoy with guns and then the right improvisations. More specifically "Inspiring Boost" which unlike most mystic stuff can actually heal stamina in combat, which is great. Throw in some less magical means of healing and a few more related improvs as you go and you're in much better shape to keep your team alive in and out of a fight while still doing a fair share of damage when healing isn't needed.

It's one of the few reliable attack bonuses now, it looks pretty good if you can make it work.

Is it just me or are blues kinda cute

blues?

Blue skinned psionic goblinoids that want to prove they're just as badass as humans and are super mad that their cousins are hyperactive morons

is that in something new I haven't gotten the change to see yet or did I somehow miss them in the alien archive or core rulebook?

Oh! Nah they're in the playtest DSP is doing giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?541987-Starfinder-Dreamscarred-Press-Announces-the-Psionics-Guide-Playtest

Beat me to the post, user, thanks for linking in.

I will say that several changes to this wave are on the way (as soon as I finish re-charting how Mind Blades scale...), but all feedback is appreciated. Elaborate on what you like or not about the Blues? Or any of the races for that matter?

What's a good CR for a level 1 party? I know it should be 1 by the book's rules, but whenever I do a test or practice encounter that end up being far too easy and I end up adding a random extra creature even when I stack things in favor of the player characters. I've tested it with both premade characters I got off paizo and with my own quick test characters and with nothing bigger than a party of 3.

Maybe it's just lucky rolls all the time but the most that happened was a solarian losing no more than half his stamina to two shots from a CR 1 security robot hiding behind the CR1 assembly ooze they were originally fighting.

Is it just me or is it just because it's lower levels and will scale better later?

Usually in space settings, other races shit on humanity all the time. It's nice to see someone that looks at humans and wants a slice of the action instead

so here's my campaign setting notes for my upcoming Starfinder campaign copy pasted from the txt file that I've been working on, please let me know what you guys think;

Starfinder Campaign Setting

The Long War rages on, and you are sick of it. The only peace and independance to be found is in The Frontier.

You have travelled far, and the perils were great, but that's the price of Freedom.

Setting Terms

The Long War
The war between the 5 Great Stellar Empires, it has raged on for 3 millenia and shows no signs of slowing down

5 Great Stellar Empires
1) The Aeon Dominion (Authoritarian Militaristic Assholes)
2) The Douglas Confederacy (AD's Secessionists, Democratic)
3) The People's Eternally Resplendant Republican Union of Cassia (Space Communists)
4) The Rose Nebula Consortium (Merchant Republic with some shades of Anarcho Capitalism)
5) The Xanthus Pact (Space Switzerland)

Civilized Space
The sections of the galaxy under the control of the 5 Great Stellar Empires it spans an entire Galaxy.

The Frontier
A new galaxy with a Drift Beacon that recently (230 years) came online. Frontier Space is completely independent from the 5 and has only token presences from them. Absalom Station is the source of that beacon; a space station created by a Pre-Gap Human civilization.

The Starfinder Society
An organization of explorers, cartographers, scientists, and mercenaries dedicated to charting and defending The Frontier from both the 5 and other treats in the unknown reaches of The Frontier.

Player Prompt

You are all on a smuggling ship headed for Absalom Station. You have all come to The Frontier to find new lives in The Frontier, the reason why is up to you. Wether or not you all knew each other is up to you. You were all "Sponsored" to come to Absalom station by a Dwarf by the name of Draven Kreel and he has paid the Smuggler to bring you aboard his ship.

You are right, the Pathfinder portion is leaps and bounds better than the Pathfinder rules or even the Pathfinder rule equivalents.

The new rules are typical Paizo crap rules though. Fortunately, any incompetent can make better rules for their game.

Get a reach weapon and Lunge for further meme-ry.

neat
so the big 5 havent gotten into the new galaxy and their are basically no civilizations there? or just unaffiliated civilizations?
also
>communism
>surviving more than 100 years without collapsing

Or be the large race from the alien archive.

There are civilizations but they aren't at the level of the Big 5. Also the Space commies mostly rely on servitor races who are to retarded to realize they're being enslaved (mostly an excuse for me to dump all the species with shitty art and all look the same, like the Maraquoi) and cheap ass machines that the RNC sell them.

Make that "species with shitty art, species that make no fucking sense, and train wrecks like the Maraquoi" sorry.

>Maraquoi
idk what those are

Which? IIRC, there were 2-3

Seven-sexed monkeys. No good reason WHY seven sexes, I’ve come up with a couple of theories but they are real stretches for something that evolutionarily screwy

Any of them, honestly though I'd lean the dragon guys who can fly.

Glad to hear it. Any commentary on the others? In particular the Noral and Xeph got a ton of effort from our side, but all of them need return signal.

I feel like its mostly the official arts fault but the magical items seem so out of place in this setting.

Not if youre running a Science Fantasy game

yea, I'm probably just not used to sci-fantasy

Seven seems like a lot unless theres some kind of circular group fertilization thing going on.
It's not very efficient though. Nature favors efficiency so that wouldn't work in reality. Giving it a fantasy excuse would be wise... genetic tampering maybe.

Reading about them, about 3-4 of their Genders arent even genders. Like they are basically tumblr tags mixed with those idiot natove tribes that thought they had more than 2 genders. They contribute absolutely NOTHING to the genetic makeup of the child. And the others are just really inefficient post birth incubators or something. It is a convoluted fucking mess of a species that in my setting are relegated to being a slave species to the Space Commies

I theorized a highly unstable genetic code, where the multiple donors were necessary for a full viable code. Hosts contain the genetic enzymes to assemble it, and the “shepherd” sex exudes pheromones which guide the process (and nudge corrections in their direction)

How small is a "small humanoid"?

How do I get the other players to start taking initiative on their own instead of always asking me what the plan is?

RIP it never happens, players are either sheep or Shepard.

In that case, how do I wring the most use from my slaves?

Did this thread get made because someone was upset at the idea of /pgg/?

2 ft tall

Talk to the GM, make NPCs who ask them for instructions

I love that we have 2-3 large races with all the benefits of being large, but people here will complain about construct races or other strong creature types (when a significant number of spells even target constructs now). Hell even Pathfinder is releasing nerfed versions of monstrous races as PC options with Ultimate Wilderness.

There's still a bad idea of what is and is not broken anymore.

request starfinder adventure path #3
and starfinder society #6
thx

2.5-4.5 feet tall i would say

What ranged weapon would be good for a melee solarian?

Doesn't Large do a lot less in Starfinder, though? Especially with the changes to AoOs?

Throwing weapons so that you don't have to split your upgrade attention between STR and DEX.

How would a species like that even survive long enough to develop tool use, let alone space travel?

To be fair, scientists haven’t figured out how a species with TWO sexes got that far.

Anyway, that unstable code would ideally also allow a very high rate of positive mutations. That compounded with a very strong tribal instinct could lead to rapid advancement and an ability to Out-adapt planetary threats.

Level 1 isn't supposed to be the same game challenge as later levels, even kept proportionate to CR. It's literally for learning the game.

they wouldn't thats why theyre retarded.

dude, most complex life forms on planet earth are sexually dimorphic species that bear two sexes. How humanity got this far has nothing to do with that on a biological level.

Looking for Ideas for Items to fill CurseCo a surplus items store like costco but for magic items, shoddy gear and low grade monster meats

Level 1 is intentionally easy because the players are probably new to the game.

However, I *did* throw a CR 6 Orocoran with slightly higher AC at a party of 4 level 3's and they survived. Had to run it over in a truck though.

Construct/Undead still are trouble because of the gigantic swathe of immunities they have in Starfinder. Large, in comparison, means a lot less in a game where they toned down it's effects heavily.

Pathfinder campaigns take years to finish if they don’t crash and burn. That’s a problem with adoption in 3.pf players.

>Glad to hear it. Any commentary on the others? In particular the Noral and Xeph got a ton of effort from our side, but all of them need return signal.
i have a general criticism.
it seems like alot if not all of the races are detatched from evolution. what i mean by that is they dont have a reason for evolving and imo are less interesting because of that. I like to see races that have a special ecology or environment that forces interesting adaptations and thus game rules. a good example of what im talking about is the berathu, creatures that evolved on a gas giant and therefore have totally divergent physiology and technology (these guys are really just copy pasted from the imsaesis from master of orion, but thats fine cuz they are cool). a negative example is the blues, who i guess are just non evil goblins and no one even knows where they came from.

IMO, a good space race has evolved from a specific environment and that environment is reflected in their abilities, technology, and culture. it makes them more interesting, more grounded, and more.. whats the word im thinking of...tactile? i can FEEL why the race is the way it is because it makes logical step by step sense. Alot of races dont have a reason for what they are. they just... popped into existence. and that seems.... hollow.

I rolled a pretty mediocre statblock of 14/14/13/12/10/9. Which classes aren't highly dependent on their primary score?

While this isn't an invalid criticism, these are /also/ legacy races from Ultimate Psionics; that is, they were part of the fantasy version of psionics first, and have been updated for the new setting. While some have had questions of their origin solved (like Half-Giants being high-gravity worlders), most come from circumstances in which unnatural selection has influenced or even defined their identity as a race. Blues, f'rinstance, have been a psionic goblin offshoot for ages; back in the UltPsi era, they cropped up in goblin tribes and were usually bastards. Now the incredible diversity of Galactic society has evened the cultural playing field, letting them find an identity separate from goblins. Conversely, Xeph used to be able to boost their land speed, but made a conscious decision as a race to alter their native psionics over many generations after space travel made "I run fast" a bit pointless.

thats what i suspected, and i think the product suffers a little because of it. maybe your consumers already have an attachment to the races and their lore, i've seen several players talk about their previous iterations, but as a new player i dont. It might be a good idea to include a race or two that does not rely on that previous relationship.

make a race that evolved in a giant tree jungle, and has gliding flying squirrel wings
make a race that evolved in the ruins of a dead advanced civilization with dangerous technology everywhere and now they have an incredible fear of technology and deep religious convictions and thats how they were pushed toward psionics/magic
make a race that evolved on a volcanic planet with magic minerals and those minerals included in the creatures physiology. they grow as crystals on the creatures skin/bones/whatever giving them their psychic powers. (there is a skin crystal race in the book IIRC, maybe)
or look at the Veeky Forums races. a megafauna world made burrowing turtles with iron infused shells and beaks. a tidepool world made a mudskipper race.

also i spotted a typo somewhere. lemme find it.

oh, another good example is the quarians from mass effect. their planet has deeply effected their physiology, and that has major consequences for their history and culture.

Any luck with that typo, my friend?

i remember ti being the first sentence of a paragraph but i cant seem to find it now. i must have been mistaken.

Man, now I'm worrying about the races I'm working on since neither of them evolved naturally.

Tell us about them amigo. Artificial races can be cool too

>Man, now I'm worrying about the races I'm working on since neither of them evolved naturally.
im not saying that they have to evolve naturally. but they should have somewhere they come from and a method of surviving in that place that is reflected in their history culture and bodies. and you can totally have a post hoc justification for it too. like, the quarian history is obviously a posthoc justification for "I WANT CYBORG REFUGEES KICKED OFF THEIR PLANET BY ROGUE AI". but often, post hoc is the most interesting because it is the most unusual. and thus quarians are a fan favorite of scifi canon now.

imo, shallowness occurs when you make a race that, while cool, has no history as to how they came to be, and therefore all their cool abilities and culture are disconnected from a real place in the world

I've tossed them out once or twice here for feedback on the mechanics (And toned them down as a result of the rather justified 'They are OP!' calls). A basic overview idea of them:

>Talos (Named after the bronze guardian from Greek mythology)
A completely artificial race (In the non-biological sense). Large holographic bronze guardians from an old precursor race, they've been left so long untouched that they've lost any memories of what they were made to guard from or who they were made to guard. Recently reactivated by archaeologists and stuck with a strong programmed desire to serve and protect that conflicts with the lack of memories of what they are supposed to actually do.

>Yutu (Jade Rabbits, rather based on the Chinese myth)
Artificial (Or at least, people assume they didn't evolve as no race could just evolve to live like they do) in the sense that they were either magically altered or genetically engineered. A weird, lagomorphic race that can subsist on the passive flows of magic between the stars rather than air and food. They are the results of animal experimentation by a doctor attempting to discover an elixir of immortality to allow travel between the stars pre-drift. Their connection to the stars and their forces gives them uncanny sense for three dimensional movement and gravity.

>imo, shallowness occurs when you make a race that, while cool, has no history as to how they came to be, and therefore all their cool abilities and culture are disconnected from a real place in the world

Yeah, that's a big issue that the Talos have as 'We have no idea where we came from' is the mystery for them. They don't even know what their original looks were, as even that was corrupted with age to the point where the Talos take on the form of whoever is about when they are activated. I think part of my issue is I generally come from a more 'Mythology' basis so I often focus on 'This is what the race believes about where they came from'.

Does telepathy work with androids?

>i
yes, they have a brain

before the end of the week normally

A bunch of them are already called out, user, though I agree that some could use elaboration. Forgeborn are prior servitors who are self-replicating now, ok. Blues are an uncommon (but dominant-phenotype?) mutation of regular goblins, ok. Norals, I assume were just on a relatively bountiful and easy-to-live-on planet... but what made the erliss come about? How did Ophiduans pick up the hobby of fleshcrafting, and what could cause the xeph to always gottagofast?

New Starfinder FAQs paizo.com/paizo/faq/v5748nruor1hi#v5748eaic9w54

Somehow I don't think the starship DCs are fixed enough

Copy-pasting from the forums since I feel lazy about doing the math myself.

>1st: DC 12, 17, or 22. Reasonable Skill Bonus minimum of +6, maximum of +9 (absent being an Envoy, Theme, Race, or Skill Focus, which could get it to +14 or +14.5 if really specialized).
Success on a 6, 11, or 16 for minimum skill, 3, 8, or 13 for maximal one.

>4th: DC 16, 21, or 26. Reasonable Skill Bonus minimum +9, maximum +14 (absent real specialty as above).
Success on a 7, 12, or 17 for minimum skill, 2, 7, or 12 for maximal (absent specialization).

>8th: DC 22, 27, or 32. Reasonable Minimal Skill Bonus +15, maximum +21 (absent specialization).
Success still on 7, 12, 17 for minimum, but down to 1, 6, 11 for maximum. And at this level, a computer is very available.

>12th: DC 28, 33, or 38. Reasonable minimum skill bonus +20, maximum +26 (without specialization).
Success goes down to 8, 13, 18 for minimal (though better computers or a Feat invested in Skill Focus, or both, fix this). Maximal goes back to 2, 7, 12 but can also benefit from computer assists.

>16th: DC 34, 39, or 44. Reasonable minimum skill +25, maximum +32 (without specialization).
Success for minimal has gone down again to 9, 14, 19. Maximal has stayed at 2, 7, 12. Computer assists remain a thing.

>20th: DC 40, 45, or 50. Minimal has gone to +30. Maximal has gone to +38 (without specialization).
Success for minimal has gone down to 10, 15, 20. Maximal has stuck at 2, 7, 12.

>For the record 'reasonable minimums' assume a starting stat of 14, raising that stat as secondary (ie: it gets upped every 5 levels, it gets your +2 Upgrade when you have a +4 and your +4 when you have a +6), maxed ranks in a class skill, and nothing else.
>The maximal ones assume Operative/Mechanic skill ups, maxed stat at all possible levels, and maxed ranks in a class skill, but (again) nothing else (above that is getting specialized).

Honestly, they look like they scale pretty decently now.

I use a homebrew that is 5/10/15 [Depending on the maneuver] + 1/2 Tier + 2*Size

Makes things more interesting for me!

Better than I was expecting. Maybe I'm just too distrustful of paizo these days.

Some of the other FAQs are ass, though. Like the change to operative weapons

>Why wouldnt they make it so you could just punch the same dude you punched.

Because then great cleave would let you go full blender mode. They could have made it nearest enemy to last target instead of adjacent at least.

How's the official AP been, writing wise?

looks pretty good. 1.5 is way better than 2. do class abilities still not apply to starship actions? i cant find it anywhere

>do class abilities still not apply to starship actions? i cant find it anywhere

Nah, that was clarified in the FAQ. If it improves skills it applies in space combat.

thank god.

What’s the best class to use for a Kasethan?